5U0 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOUR'ffAl 



Replies by Prominent Apiarists. 



[It is useless to ask for answers to 

 Queries in this Department in less time 

 than one month. They have to wait their 

 •turn, be put in tjpe, and sent in about a 

 dozen at a time to each of those who answer 

 them ; get them returned, and then find 

 space for them in the Journax. It you are 

 In a "hurry" for replies, do not ask for 

 them to be inserted here.— Ed. 1 



Swarms Returning. 



Query, No. 289.— What causes a swarm 

 of bees to return to the old hive after being 

 hived ?— J. L. P. 



Probably the old queen did not go 

 out with them.— A. J. Cook. 



■' Dissatisfaction " in many cases. 

 Sometimes tliey do not get the queen 

 with them.— H. D. Cutting. 



Perhaps the queen did not go with 

 them.— C. C. Millek. 



If the queen was not with them they 

 would return.— W. Z. Hutchinson. 



Usually it is the queen that is miss- 

 ing.— I) adant & .^ON. 



Usually failure of the queen to go 

 with the swarm, or to stay with it, if 

 she did go.— James Heddon. 



They have no queen with them, or 

 else she is balled by a few strange 

 bees, so the bees fail to realize that 

 their queen is there.— G. M. Doolit- 

 tle. 



The queen either failed to go with 

 the swarm, or was lost. Tliere may 

 be a few exceptions to this rule, but 

 it is correct in ninety-nine cases in a 

 hundred.— J. P. 11. Brown. 



The only cause 1 know, is that the 

 queen did not accompany the swarm, 

 or else was lost in hiving it.— .J. E. 

 Pond, Jk. 



The queen may be killed in the 

 operation of hiving ; she may be un- 

 able to fly, as is often the case, and be 

 lost ; or she may not come out of the 

 hive at all. In either of which cases 

 the swarm will return to the old hive. 

 — G. L. Tinker. 



The most common cause is that 

 they miss their queen and return 

 home because that is the best they 

 can do. I have known a queen to be 

 unable to go with the swarm on two 

 or three occasions, and then succeed 

 at last. A neighbor of mine hived a 

 swarm three -or four times this season 

 before the queen succeeded in going 

 with the swarm. If swarming is de- 

 layed until the young queens begin to 

 hatch, one or more of them may go 

 witli the first swarm, and a swarm 

 with more than one queen may do 

 almost anything. — G. W . Demaree. 



Destroying Drones and Drone-Brool 



Query, No. 290.— I have a strong colony 

 of Italian bees at work in the surplus boxes 

 that, a few days ago, killed off all the drones 

 in the hive and carried thera out, and are 

 now caiTying out the drone-brood. The 

 white clover season has just commenced, 

 and is growing better every day. What was 

 the probable cause ?— Manchester, N. H. 



The cause was undoubtedly lack of 

 nectar in the flowers.— H. R. Board- 

 man. 



They propose to run for honey. 

 Such are just the bees to breed from. 

 —A. J. Cook. 



I do not know, unless there was a 

 dearth of honey-yielding. — James 

 Heddon. 



They may have given up the idea of 

 swarming.— W. Z. Hutchinson. 



Probably just at that time the 

 clover yielded little or no honey, al- 

 though you thought that it was.— G. 



M. DOOLITTLE. 



The cause was a honey-dearth at 

 the time it was done. — Dadant & 



SON.D 



It was caused either by a dearth of 

 honey or the bees abandoned for the 

 present the idea of swarming.— J . P. 

 H.5BROWN. 



Very little honey coming in was the 

 cause. I have seen in this locality 

 the ground covered with white clover 

 and not a drop of honey from it. I 

 then commenced feeding and they 

 stopped killing drones. — H. D. Cut- 

 ting.'. 1' 



. A few days of unfavorable weather 

 or temporary failure of nectar secre- 

 tion will often cause bees to fear the 

 worst and destroy the drones and 

 drag or drive out those just hatched. 

 Rarely they carry out the immature 

 larvfB upon a complete failure of the 

 flowers.— G. L. Tinker. 



" Bees do nothing invariably." The 

 honey season might have commenced 

 just after they killed the drones, but 

 the carrying out of drone-brood while 

 gathering honey freely, is one of 

 those unaccountable things that no 

 one can tell anything about.— J. E. 

 Pond, Jr. 



The probable cause is that there 

 was a dearth of nectar just before 

 white clover bloomed, and the bees 

 were discouraged and commenced to 

 banish their drones ; and having com- 

 menced the persecution they did not 

 know when to quit. If you remove 

 the queen when a colony is persecut- 

 ing their drones the bees will keep it 

 up for several days before they seem 

 to realize their condition. — G. W. 

 Demaree. 



Sometimes bees kill off all drones 

 as soon as a newly-reared queen gets 

 to laying. It would be nothing strange 

 if your bees had superseded their old 

 queen just before clover bloom. — C. C. 

 Miller. 



Fastening Conilis to Senarators, 



Query, No. 291 — Why do my l.ees 

 fasten combs to tin separators, more so this 

 year than usual ? What must I do to pre- 

 vent them from so doing? I use iiiich 

 sections and comb foundation.— F.,Mioli. 



Use clean tin. If the tin is old, rub 

 over the surface lard or butter.— H. 

 D. Cutting. 



A few of my colonies used to do 

 this, but a change of queens has 

 apparently stopped it.— G. M. Doo- 



LITTLE. 



Our bees do so very little this year. 

 Is it not because you gave them so 

 little room that they were much 

 crowded.— A. J. Cook.» 



Use sections not more than ]^ 

 inches wide. I get nice sections of 

 honey without separators, but I use 

 a section-case only one tier deep, and 

 sections not wider than ^}i inches. 

 Improved section-case.s will banish 

 separators.— G. W. Demaree. 



In my experience I find bees more 

 prone to stick the combs when 2-inch 

 sections are used than when sections 

 approach nearer the natural distance 

 of 



in width.— J. P. H. Brown. 



A weak colony or one working 

 slowly will fill one side faster than 

 the other, thus pushing the bottom of 

 the foundation to one side. Level 

 your hives from side to side, have 

 strong colonies, and then hope for a 

 rapid flow.— C. C. Miller. 



In a good honey-flow, if bees have 

 insufficient room to store surplus, or 

 the cases of wide sections are not 

 tiered up soon enough, the bees are 

 apt to build brace-combs to separa- 

 tors. If honey is coming in rapidly 

 the cases of sections should be tiered 

 up as soon as a good start is made in 

 them. This course will not only pre- 

 vent largely the building of brace- 

 combs between the cases, but the evil 

 complained of.— G. L. Tinker. 



Home Market for Honey. 



^ff~ To create HoneJ- Markets in every 

 village, town and city, wide-awake honey 

 producers should get the Leaflets " Why Eat 

 Honey " (only ."lO cents per 100), or else the 

 pamphlets on "Honey as Food and Medicine," 

 and scatter them plentifully, and the result 

 will be a demand for all of their crops at 

 remunerative prices. " Honey as Food and 

 Medicine '* are sold at the following prices : 



Single copy, 5 cts. ; per doz., 40 cts. ; per 

 hundred, $2.50. Five hundred will be sent 

 postpaid for $10.00; or 1,000 for $15,00. 

 On orders of 100 or more, we will print, if 

 desired, on the cover-page, " Presented by," 

 etc. (giving the name and address of the bee- 

 keeper who scatters them). 



To give away a copy of " Honey as Food 

 and Medicine" to every one who buys a 

 package of honey, will sell almost any quan- 

 tity of it. 



