38 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Jan. 20. 



have tried a little extracting. I would like to know whether 

 it is practicable with any one else. I don't see many objec- 

 tions to it. I take the sections that are partly filled, and cut 

 them out and put them into my wax-extractor, and extract 

 both honey and wax at the same time. You get them both in 

 the same vessel, and the wax is on top, and easily separated 

 from the honey, and you have an article of honey that I don't 

 think has deteriorated at all. I can't see any difference be- 

 tween that and what is extracted with the honey-extractor. 

 As far as the comb foundation is concerned, Mr. Dadant puts 

 little slips of paper between his sheets of wax, saying, "This 

 foundation will not deteriorate in years, or will keep for years, 

 if kept from the sun and dust," or " from the heat and dust." 

 I think that is not a question that needs to be settled. 



Dr. Besse — I would say that I never have had any torn 

 sections, and I have had hundreds of them. I save them all 

 and store them, and put them all out that I have, some after- 

 noon — when they have been all extracted that I can extract — 

 and 1 put that into the bee-cellar — a place where my honey is 

 never sour, but it doesn't dry out. Set them out two or three 

 hours before sundown, and the bees will clean them out as 

 nice as a pin, and never tear a section. 



Pres. Miller — Will you tell us how many supers or sections 

 you put out ? 



Dr. Besse— Perhaps a hundred or two hundred supers. 



Pres. Miller — How many colonies of bees ? 



Dr. Besse — For a hundred colonies. 



Pres. Miller— Then you are all right. You have B. Tay- 

 lor's plan, and that works all right. But if you put out one 

 super that will be a different thing. They will tear it all to 

 pieces. 



(To be continued.) 



CONDUCTED BY 



OH. O. O. SHILLER, AIAREISGO, ILL. 



[Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal, or to Dr. Miller direot.l 



Hive for Comb Honey and Wintering. 



1. I have my bees all in box-hives. Wishing to transfer 

 them into new hives, what is the best hive for comb honey ? 



2. I winter my bees on the summer stands. Is a 10-frame 

 Danzenbaker hive big enough to winter bees successfully 7 



New York. 



Answers. — 1. It Isn't so much the hive as it is the man- 

 agement and the man. The plain, simple Langstroth hive is 

 perhaps as good as any, and I would have it in its latest form, 

 the dovetailed. 



2. That depends somewhat on the size of the colony. Pos- 

 sibly it may be large enough for any colony, but I should be 

 full as well satisfied with two stories. The trouble is that with 

 only one story, if there's a big lot of brood late in the season, 

 there may not be room in the hive for all the honey a very 

 strong colony ought to have. But if you make sure that honey 

 enough is present there ought to be no trouble with one story. 



managing Double Brood-Cliamber Hives. 



See on page 794 (1807) in answering Washington's ques- 

 tions, and also Penn's, you advise using iwo S-frame brood- 

 chambers for one hive. I wish you would tell us how you man- 

 age your bees. As I understand it, you removed one hive when 

 you put on the supers. How many supers did you put on at 

 the ti-ae you removed the hive ? anjl what do you do with the 

 frames in the hive you removed ? 



You said if you wintered your bees on the summer stands, 

 you would use two stories. Would you put most of the honey 

 In the upper story ? 



I suppose I ought to tell you how the seasons are here. In 

 the spring the bees get honey from fruit-bloom, vine maple 

 and willow. From the last they get more pollen than honey. 

 We have a good deal of wet weather, sometimes in fruit-bloom, 

 so they don't get very much honey from that. Then about 

 the middle of June or first of July white clover commences, 

 and lasts from four to six weeks. Last summer there was no 

 honey in the white clover to speak of, so the bees did not store 

 any more than enough to winter on. In this part of the coun- 



try we do not have any fall flow, not enough to keep np breed- 

 ing, which is the worst feature in keeping bees here. Last 

 winter I lost halt of my bees on that account. The white clo- 

 ver stopt all of a sudden and the bees stopt breeding. Those 

 that I lost had plenty of honey, and the others I had to feed 

 came out all right in the spring. That goes to show that we 

 must have plenty of young bees as well as honey to winter 

 well. Washington. 



Answer- — Only one super is put on a hive at first, and the 

 second one is put under it when the first is a third, half or 

 two-thirds filled, depending upon circumstances. 



When it comes time to put on supers, there usually isn't a 

 great deal but empty combs in the lower hive, and a pile of 

 empty combs can be left at one end of the apiary till needed, 

 keeping watch that worms don't monopolize them. If a col- 

 ony has more brood than will go in one story, it is given to a 

 less fortunate neighbor, and if there's an overplus after put- 

 ting eight frames of brood in each hive, it's piled up on one of 

 the weaker colonies to be drawn from when needed. 



Yes, if I wintered two stories outdoors I'd leave the honey 

 mostly in the upper story, just where the bees themselves will 

 probably have left it. 



Wintering Bees in a Damp Root-House. 



1. Will bees winter safely in a root-house where drops of 

 water hang overhead, altho the hives are perfectly dry ? 



2. Would it be all right to have a slow fire to dry the 

 water out ? Wisconsin. 



An.swers. — Reports have been given of success in such a> 

 place, and yours may also be successful. Still, I think I'd 

 just as soon do without having any drops overhead. 



2. Yes, providing it does not run the temperature above 

 45^ or 503, and no light shines from i\^g gre, of course no 

 smoke must be allowed to get to the bees. 



Sound of Bees in tlic Cellar. 



Are the bees all right if I can hear them buzzing every 

 time I go into the cellar ? Minnesota. 



It you hear the bees you may be sure they're alive, but if 

 they make much noise it's not so good as to have them very 

 quiet. A colony that is wintering in the best condition will be 

 so still that you will have to put your ear close to the hive to 

 hear any noise. By spells, however, it will rouse up for a lit- 

 tle time and be more noisy, as if the bees were turning over in 

 bed. When a cellar is full of bees, some say they should 

 be perfectly quiet, but I have never found mine so. 

 If I hear a soft, low murmur on entering the cellar, I feel 

 satisfied. If the thermometer gets down below about 45^, 

 they become more noisy, and they become more noisy if it goes 

 above that. Perhaps in your cellar and with your thermome- 

 ter, 45J may not be the point of greatest quiet, but if you 

 watch closely you will find some point not far from that at 

 which they are most quiet, and you should try to keep the 

 temperature at that point. 



A Winter Bee-Repository. 



I have not a very good cellar, in my judgment, for bees, 

 so I have put up a building from rough boards, the outside 

 space of 15 inches filled with sawdust, then another wall of 

 4inch boards and paper on both sides, leaving an air space of 

 2 inches all around, except the floor, which I packt with saw- 

 dust 6 or S inches next to the ground, then boards and paper, 

 and boards again. The ceiling is made the same as the four 

 walls, except a ventilator 5x6 inches, which is covered by the 

 roof. Tnere are two doors on the south side. Eight inches 

 from the Uoor I have placed two planks, 2x6, and 4 inches 

 apart, all around the room, where I put the first hives on, 

 about 4 or 5 inches apart, with the bottom-boards off, and 

 then tier up three hives high. Do you think they are all right ? 



Wisconsin. 



Answeb. — I don't know. I'm afraid not. The walls are 

 constructed to act as non-conductors, and a very cold spell 

 would have little immediate effect on the bees, for the temper- 

 ature inside would change very slowly. But you must remem- 

 ber that the temperature will change just as slowly if the out- 

 side weather becomes warmer. If the average temperature 

 should keep above 35^ or 40-, continuing thus for two or 

 three months, the bees would not feel the occasional spurts of 

 low temperature sending the mercury down below zero. But 



