628 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Beplies 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 type, 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 Jocrnal. If you are 

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

 them to be inserted here.— Ed.1 



Gettii Bees into tlie Sections. 



Query, No. 317.— All our surplus this 

 year is from white clover. When it first 

 began to bloom, bees worked very actively. 

 The weather became a little dry, and in- 

 stead of putting the honey into the supers, 

 which were filled with the best of founda- 

 tion, they stored it below. As fast as a 

 young- bee hatched, they filled up the cell 

 with honey, instead of letting the queen lay 

 in it, until in the whole 8 frames there was 

 not a space 6 inches square that was not 

 filled with nectar. I exhausted my ingenuity 

 in trying to force them into the sections; 

 but go they would not, and go they did not 

 until the season was about half over, then 

 they went up slowly, and averaged only 

 about 'io pounds to the colony. They did 

 not swarm, and when they should have 

 been booming at the end of the clover 

 bloom, they were quite weak. How can I 

 prevent an occurrence of this another sea- 

 son ? It is the first lime I ever had queens 

 crowded out, and 1 want it to be the last. 

 Other colonies within 100 yards of mine 

 gathered 50 or 60 pounds each.— W. P. K. 



If they would not put it in the sec- 

 tions then 1 would put it in the ex- 

 tractor.— H. D. Cutting. 



It is difficult to answer without 

 knowing more of the management. 

 Could there have been any fault with 

 the queens or the strain of bees ?— W. 

 Z. Hutchinson. 



Contract the brood-chamber, or re- 

 move the comb in the brood-chamber 

 and fill above in sections with foun- 

 dation. Reversing the brood- frames 

 also helps, as does uncapping honey 

 in the broad-frames.— A. J. Cook. 



You do not mention what it took to 

 to exhaust your ingenuity, so we are 

 in the dark as to what further to sug- 

 guest. They might have done better 

 with less room in the brood-chamber. 

 Possibly uncapping their frames of 

 honey and pulling them in the middle 

 of the brood-nest might have been 

 effective.— C. C. Miller. 



The trouble is in the strain of bees. 

 A litlle Syrian blood will ettectually 

 remedy the difficulty. Syrio-Albino 

 or Syrio-Italian bees never choke up 

 the brood-combs with honey, it mat- 

 ters not how much may come in or 

 how little the room may be. They 

 are greatly superior to Italians, in my 

 estimation, for comb honey.— G. L. 

 Tinker. 



I never, in any year, had any bees 

 act so badly. I can conceive that 

 bright, golden Italians in a deep hive, 

 with bad communication to Ihe sur- 

 plus department, would do this years 

 ago. I had these bees act similarly 



in less favorable times of the year. — 

 James Heddon. 



The above question is a long one, 

 and the only explanation I can give 

 is, that the queens were failing in 

 proliflcness. The size of frames not 

 being given, perhaps the queen was 

 crowded out by having too small a 

 brood-chamber.— J. E. Pond, Jr. 



Contract the brood-chamber so that 

 at the beginning of the honey-flow 

 only brood is in this apartment. 

 Empty comb in the brood-chamber at 

 the beginning of the honey-flow gen- 

 erally leads to the crowding of the 

 queen, and little honey in the sec- 

 tions.— G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Without knowing the exact condi- 

 tion of the bees at the time of the 

 commencement of the bloom, it is 

 difficult to give a correct answer. 

 Sometimes we find colonies that hesi- 

 tate about working in sections, and 

 have to be coaxed there. But in all 

 probability your bees had not work- 

 ing force enough, at the time of the 

 harvest, to gather any more honey 

 than what they found room for below. 

 There may have been bees enough to 

 run the lower story, but not the sec- 

 tions. Have your colonies strong at 

 the proper time.— J. P. H. Brown. 



I think it most probable that while 

 your colonies may have been strong 

 in bees, you had comparatively few 

 field workers at the beginning of the 

 honey harvest. I have often lost 

 heavily on this account. If you put 

 some sections in the section-case, 

 I which contained drawn comb and 

 some honey, and the bees did not 

 commence work there, you may know 

 that that was the trouble.— G. W. 

 Demaree. 



Feeding Back Extracteii Honey. 



Query, Noi. 318.— Has the experiment 

 ever been tried of feeding bees good ex- 

 tracted honey to be stored in the sections ? 

 I can buy all the extracted honey I want at 

 5 cents per pound, and can sell comb honey 

 for 15 cents per pound; but I cannot sell 

 extracted at any price. — W. M. 



Yes, but as a rule it does not pay.— 



G. M. DOOLITTLB. 



The experiment has been tried 

 time and again, and nearly, if not 

 quite every one who has tried it has 

 abandoned it.— W. Z. Hutchinson. 



Unless you can succeed better than 

 I have done, you will never get rich 

 feeding .5-cent extracted honey to 

 produce 15-cent comb honey. — C. C. 

 Miller. 



The experiment has been tried, but 

 has often failed even with experts.- 

 A. J. Cook. 



Yes, but I do not think it has been 

 a pecuniary success. You might try 

 a few hundred pounds on some of 

 your very strongest and richest colo- 

 nies.— J. P. H. Brown. 



I have tried it, but for some cause 

 the honey soon candies in the combs, 

 and becomes almost as hard as maple 

 sugar. Perhaps it would not if I had 

 diluted the honey with water in feed- 

 ing.— G. L. Tinker. 



It has, but the experiment as yet 

 has never been found to pay, so far as 

 I have any knowledge of the matter. 

 I have tried it several times myself, 

 but the results have been far from 

 satisfactory.— J. E. Pond, Jr. 



If all of the needful conditions were 

 known and supplied, I do not know 

 but it might be made to pay, but no 

 such difference between the price of 

 comb and extracted honey can long 

 exist anywhere. It can hardly pay to 

 gather a crop twice and feed it once 

 in order to have it ready for market. — 

 James Heddon. 



It has often been tried, and gen- 

 erally without success. I could not 

 give my plan here, to convert ex- 

 tracted honey into comb, for want of 

 space. But if you will distribute 

 some nice extracted honey among 

 your neighbors— poor and rich — as a 

 friendly gift, tell them you want them 

 to try your pure liquid honey — if you 

 do not get some orders for it after 

 that, please let me hear from you.— 

 G. W. Demaree. 



It has been tried, but from many 

 reports it did not pay unless there were 

 a lot of unfinished "sections to fill out. 

 — H. D. Cutting. 



Honey-Dew— Bee-Poison, 



Query, No. 319.— 1. Is the honey gath- 

 ered from honey-dew a wholesome article 

 of diet, both for man and the bees ? 2. Does 

 often being stung by the bees, so poison the 

 system as frequently to bring on malarial 

 and rheumatic fevers ? — Iowa. 



1. It may be unwholesome, but I 

 prefer to be a little sick before I 

 should want to eat it. 2. I do not 

 know.— H. D. Cutting. 



1. It depends upon the nature of 

 the honey-dew. \V e have seen some 

 that we liked better than ordinary 

 molasses, although it was as dark as 

 the latter.— Da DANT & Son. 



1. It may be in some instances. 2. 

 Some bee-keeepers feel certain that 

 they have been so afflicted.— W. Z. 

 Hutchinson.; 



1. It is from some species of honey- 

 dew. 2. I do not thimk so. I have 

 been stung as high as fifty times a 

 day, with no ill effects.— J. P. H. 

 Brown. 



1. I have never seen any honey-dew, 

 so I could not say. 2. I could not say, 

 but I think not. I have had both 

 fever and ague and the rheumatism 

 since I have been keeping bees.— G. 

 M. Doolittle. 



1. It may be, but very frequently it 

 is not. I do not think so. Before 

 keeping bees I was much troubled 

 with malarial fever. Since then 

 hardly at all. and I have had my share 

 of stings. The pain and irritation at 

 first was considerable ; now it is very 

 slight.— A. J. Cook. 



1. The common expression, " honey- 

 dew," is very indefinite. Some stuff 

 I have seen gathered from the bark- 

 lice is filthy and unwholesome be- 

 yond question. But some samples I 

 have seen that was gathered from 

 the leaves of trees looked nice, and 1 



