22 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Jan. 13, 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. O. O. MJJ^LER, OiA-RENGa, ILL. 



[Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal, or to Dr. Miller direct.! 



Uiinar Unflni§lit Sections. 



I have a lot of unfiuisht section that I want to use in the 

 spring, in the white clover harvest. I let the bees take the 

 honey out of them. Will it be necessary to use queeu-excluder 

 honey-boards to keep the queen from depositing eggs in them? 

 and which is best, wood or tin ? MissouKi. 



Answer. —If I understand you correctly, you expect the 

 bees to empty the sections next spring so as to get them filled 

 up afterward from the white clover harvest. I don't believe 

 you better try it. Almost surely the honey in the sections will 

 be more or less candied, and In that condition the bees will 

 not make a perfect job of cleaning them out. If they leave 

 the least bit of granulated honey in the cells, that will affect 

 the character of the fresh honey. The only way to use safely 

 uufinlsht sections, is to have them cleaned out thoroughly by" 

 the bees as soon as they are taken off, and before any granula- 

 tion has taken place. Of course this can only be done in the 

 fall, and not too late, at that. 



Usually it is not necessary to use a queen-excluder to pre- 

 vent the queen from going into the sections. A zinc excluder 

 is the kind generally in use. Wood can hardly be made exact 

 enough. 



Makiiis Graflins-Wax— Water-Wheels. 



1. How is grafting-wax made ? 



2. Please give the proportions to build an over-shot water- 

 wheel, three horse-power ? I have 1000 inches of water and 

 20 or more feet fall. I want to putin a saw, etc., to get out 

 my bee-supplies, etc. California. 



Answers. — 1. Make grafting-wax of equal parts of bees- 

 wax, tallow and rosin. Possibly in California these propor- 

 tions ought to be changed on account of the hot sun, but any 

 local nurseryman ought to be able to tell you about it. 



2. If you want to know the kind of woman to select for a 

 bee-keeper's wife, I have some good advice on tap, but the 

 matter of over-shot water-wheels is beyond me. Perhaps you 

 will most readily get the information from some one near you 

 who has had some experience in such things. 



Honey vs. §ugar for Sliniulative Feeding. 



Dr. Tinker asserts, in his "Bee-Keeping for Profit," that 

 honey is preferable to sugar syrup for stimulative feeding. 

 Have you perhaps observed in this direction '? If so, with what 

 result ? Does your experience bear out that of Dr. Tinker ? 



Anyhow, if syrup is of necessity used, what should be the 

 proportion of water to sugar ? Would one of sugar to two of 

 water — by weight — make ths feed too thin ? And what quan- 

 tity, and at what intervals, would you advise feeding aver- 

 age colonies '? 



i fed three or four bags of white sugar last year, with no 

 apparent benefit. It was cheap ; and I should not wonder if 

 it were made of glucose. The bees used it up all right, but it 

 certainly had no stimulative effect. Or issugarof any kind in- 

 effective for the desired purpose ? South Africa. 



Answer. — I can only work around the edges of your ques- 

 tion, having never made any direct experiments. Tradition or 

 something else gives the general reply that honey is better to 

 stimulate the queen to lay than sugar. Perhaps a good reason 

 for that lies in the small amount of floating pollen found in 

 honey. Pure sugar is little more than fuel, keeping up the 

 heat and tending to fat and laziness. In my early days of 

 bee-keeping, I had a colony onespring which had nelDher eggs 

 nor brood at a time when brood was present in other colonies. 

 I don't now remember whether I lookt for a queen without 

 finding one, or whether I took it for granted that no queen 

 was present because there were no eggs. At any rate I de- 

 cided it was queenless, and took steps to unite it with another 

 colony. (My present recollection is that both colonies were so 

 weak that it would have been a good thing in any case to unite 



them, but at that time I had not yet reacht the point where I 

 cared more for numbers of bees than numbers of colonies, and 

 every hive with bees is counted.) I simply put the combs with 

 adhering bees in the hive with the other colony, each colony 

 on its own side of the hive. After perhaps a day or so, the 

 thought came to me that it was possible that no eggs were laid 

 because the bees had no pollen. I hurried to the hive, and 

 was glad to find that as yet the bees had not mixt (the weather 

 was pretty cool) so I lost no time in getting the bees back in 

 their old place. Not a particle of pollen could I find in the 

 cells, so I gave them from another hive a combcontaining pol- 

 len, and on my next visit I found eggs. All my observations 

 and reading from that time confirm the opinion that bees will 

 rear no brood without pollen. Now if there is not enough pol- 

 len floating in honey to start the queen laying in the spring, 

 the case would be still worse with pure sugar with no sign of 

 pollen, so it seems pretty clear that honey is at least a little 

 better than sugar for stimulating. 



But here comes in something else. Suppose there is plenty 

 of pollen in the combs. Now feed pure sugar. That will ex- 

 cite the bees, using up their strength and calling for the con- 

 sumption of pollen to repair the waste of tissue. The question 

 arises whether that may not make them consume all the pollen 

 needed. 



As to the interval of feeding, perhaps they should be fed 

 every day, and every day would be at least as well. Perhaps 

 half a pound at a time as a minimum, and noharm could result 

 from any larger amount unless it should result in clogging the 

 combs. 



No, I don't believe one pound of sugar to two of water 

 would be too thin, and yet it might not be any better than 

 equal parts. 



Some of the German authorities speak in the highest terms 

 of what they call "speculative feeding," that is, feeding in the 

 spring to fill up the combs more or less. Geo. de Layens, one 

 of the highest French authorities, who lately died much la- 

 mented, says that no amount or kind of feeding makes much 

 difference about a queen laying outside the proper season for 

 her to do so. 



In England I think pea-flour is mixt with candy for feed- 

 ing to stimulate laying. 



Personally, I doubt whether I shall ever again do much to 

 hurry up laying by feeding of any kind, other than to see that 

 a bountiful supply of stores is always present in the hive, and 

 every year I attach more and more importance to this. 



HoAV to Distinsuisli Olucoscd Honey. 



How can I tell glucose or adulterated honey from the pure ? 

 I have tried several tests, but they do not seem to have the 

 desired effects. New York. 



Answer. — As yet there is probably no way readily to de- 

 tect adulteration of honey with glucose by means of ordinary 

 appliances at hand, but if there's much glucose present you 

 can tell pretty well by the taste. It might not be the safest 

 thing however, for a novice to attempt to decide by the 

 taste, for some kinds of honey might taste badly to him, altho 

 perfectly pure. 



Some Interesting Questions and Replies. 



1. My bees are in S-frame dovetailed hives. Would my 

 honey crop for next summer be increast or diminisht if they 

 were changed to 10-frame hives, with two frames filled with 

 foundation placed in or near the centre by spreading the brood 

 say about May 15, the main honey-flow In July? or would it 

 be better to put two S-frame hives together and alternate the 

 frames of brood with full sheets of foundation, and when the 

 flow comes remove the top hive and put on the sections ? 



2. What is the Inside width of the 10-frame dovetailed 

 hive ? 



o. If you were to start anew in the bee-business, would 

 you use the tall section instead of the 4'4X-1^4 ? 



■4. Are cleated separators preferable with the narrow sec- 

 tion, to ordinary ones with the slotted sections? 



5. Is a frame 11 inches deep as well adapted to comb- 

 honey production as the standard 9's inch frame ? 



According to scripture, I haven't askt " a few" yet, but 

 will quit and give some one else a chance. Michigan. 



Answers. — 1. You've struck one of the hardest questions 

 with which bee-keepers have to grapple, that is, What is best 

 to do with regard to swarming so as to get a big crop ? I must 

 confess I don't know, but I'll answer as far as lean your ques- 



