1898. 



THE AMEKICAN BEE JOURNA*.. 



615 



Since tben ants don't bother at all, for they have no chance to 

 find a hiding-place from the bees. 



'J.. The white dust is the work of wax-worms that are very 

 small and young. Give them time enough and they'll grow 

 Into big, fat worms. Better fumigate the sections with 

 sulphur. 



3. Your colony has probably been queenless for a long 

 time, and by this time laying workers may be at work. It is 

 so late in the season that your wise course will be to break up 

 the colony. Indeed, that is the best way at any season, after 

 they have been queenless a long time. If you have a weak 

 colony that has a good queen, you can give it to the queenless 

 colony to strengthen it. If you have co very weak colony, di- 

 vide the combs and bees around among several colonies that 

 are among your weakest. 



How Bees Get Home Again. 



I would like to know what Dr. Miller thinks of the follow- 

 ing paragraph, taken from a newspaper : 



" Bees are said to see an enormous distance. When 

 absent from their hive they go up in the air till they see their 

 home, and then fly toward it in a straight line." 



Michigan. 



Answer. — I don't know anything about it, but I don't be- 

 lieve it. I have a dim suspicion that a bee, bird or animal 

 may have some sense that a man doesn't have. Take a cat 

 and put it in a bag, carry it by a circuitous route farther from 

 home than it has ever been, liberate it, and when you get 

 home you may find it smilingly waiting to greet you at the 

 door. With any sense that you have, you couldn't do a thing 

 of that kind. Hasn't the cat some special sense that you 

 haven't? A carrier-pigeon will find its way home a hundred 

 miles, in a place where it couldn't see half way home. I have 

 some doubt whether a bee is as good as a cat or a pigeon at 

 finding its way ho-ne, and it's possible that it finds its way 

 home only as you do. At any rate, if you take a bee five miles 

 from home, in a direction it has never before gone more than 

 a mile, I doubt whether it would find its way home, even if its 

 home is so plainly seen at that distance that you can see it 

 with the naked eye. So I don't have so very great faith in the 

 extra sense belonging to a bee, after all ; and when you come 

 right down to it I don't know anything about it. 



Cellar- Wintering — Ventilation— Exlracting- 

 Franies — Quilt or Board Covers. 



1. Can I winter my bees in a storm-cellar ? It is Sxl2 

 feet, depth feet, and 1)4 feet of earth on top. 



2. What is the best way to fix ventilation ? 



3. Which is the better frame for extracting, O^s or a 

 half-depth? 



4. Which is the better, a quilt or a board over the frames ? 

 I use boards, but the bees glue it. Minnesota. 



Answers. — 1. Very likely it will be a good place to win- 

 ter, but you can hardly be sure about it till you try. The lay 

 of the land makes a difference about its being damp, etc. 



2. For only a few colonies it may need no attention as to 

 ventilation. You can secure ventilation by having a pipe run 

 from near the bottom up through the top, covering so no rain 

 can get in, but still leaving free passage at the top for air. 

 You can make the pipe by nailing together four fence boards, 

 altho very likely a smaller pipe, say three inches square, will 

 be probaljly as large as is needed. If there is a pipe running 

 up high enough to act like a chimney, there will probably be 

 no need of any special provision for letting in air. Enough 

 will work In through the cracks and the soil. 



3. In a late number that question was pretty fully an- 

 swered. The shallower frames are considered better for ex- 

 tracting, but the deeper frames have the advantage that you 

 can afterward use them for brood-frames if you wish. 



4. The tendency nowadays seems to be in favor of board 

 covers without quilts. The bees glue the covers down, but by 

 using a sharp screw-driver or some other hive-tool you can 

 easily pry them up. 



Will they Winter 2— Refuse to Work in Supers. 



1. In June 1 hived a small swarm in a frame hive, giving 

 them four frames. They went to work all right but did not 

 breed up fast. In August I put in auother swarm, and the 

 four additional frames, and now these frames are full of honey 

 and very little brood — virtually none. Still they have never 



stored any honey In the super. Will they winter all right 

 without any young bees ? or ought I to take away the frames 

 filled with honey and give them empties ? 



2. I have four or five colonies that have refused to work 

 in supers. Do you know a remedy ? Texas. 



Answers. — 1. Very likely it will be just as well to leave 

 them as they are. Of course, if the frames are so full of honey 

 that the queen has no room to lay, then it might be well to 

 exchange one of them for an empty one. But if you find any 

 empty cells in the hive, or if you find brood in two or three 

 frames, better let them alone. Queens do not generally lay a 

 great deal after this time of year. 



2. It may be that the harvest is poor. In that case it is 

 hard to apply a remedy. If, however, other colonies are work- 

 ing well in supers, and these colonies have their brood-nests 

 entirely filled, you may get them to working in supers by using 

 bait combs. Put in the center of the super a section that has 

 been partly drawn out. One good way is to take from a super 

 in which bees are working well a section 3i, 3'2, or % filled, 

 bees and all, and put it in the super in which you want the 

 bies to work. 



Unfortunate Jumble— Drones and Egs- 

 Fcrlilizalion. 



Referring to page 438, Hon. R L. Taylor says this in the 

 Bee-Keepers' Review : 



"There is apparently an unfortunate jumble either of the ques- 

 tions or of the answers, but that is not entirely clear, as one ot the 

 questions is evaded. Will the doctor please straighcen out these 

 things ?" 



I read over the questions and answers on page 438, until 

 I came to the last one, "Drones and Egg-Fertilization." 

 When I came to that I didn't wonder Mr. Taylor wanted it 

 straightened out. But after trying it for some time I conclu- 

 ded I must be excused from the task. I will now, however, 

 give the information called for in the questions, thanking Mr. 

 Taylor for calling attention to the jumble: 



Dzierzon taught that the eggs that produce drones are un- 

 fertilized. This teaching, bitterly assailed at first, has come 

 to be generally accepted the world over. Lately, however, a 

 small school across the water holds that all eggs are fertilized. 



A difference of opinion prevails as to whether the fertili- 

 zation of the egg is voluntary or involuntary on the part of 

 the queen, the prevailing belief, perhaps, being that it is vol- 

 untary. C. C. Miller. 



Honey as Food is a neat little 24-page pamphlet 

 especially gotten up with a view to creating a demand for 

 honey among should-be consumers. The forepart of the 

 pamphlet was written by Dr. C. C. Miller, and is devoted to 

 general information concerning honey. The latter part con- 

 sists of recipes for use in cooking and as a medicine. It 

 will be found to be a very effective helper in working up a 

 home market for honey. We furnish them, postpaid, at these 

 prices: A sample for a stamp ; 25 copies for 30 cents; 50 

 for 50 cents; 100 for 90 cents; 250 for $2.00; 500 for 

 $3.50. For 25 cents extra we will print your name and ad- 

 dress on the front page, when ordering 100 or more copies at 



these prices. 



-*-•-♦ 



Bee-Keeping: for Beginners is the title of a 

 110-page book just out, from the pen of that expert bee- 

 keeper of the South, Dr. J. P. 11. Brown, of Georgia. It 

 claims to be " a practical and condenst treatise on the honey- 

 bee, giving the best modes of management in order to secure 

 the most profit." Price o! the book, postpaid, 50 cents. Or, 

 we will club it with the Bee Journal for one year — both to- 

 gether for $1.40; or, we will mall it as a premium to any of 

 our present subscribers for sendiug us one new subscriber to 

 the Bee Journal for a ytar (at $1.00), and 10 cents extra. 



Langstrotli on the Honey-Bee, revised by 

 The Dadants, is a standard, reliable and thoroughly complete 

 work on bee-culture. It contains 520 pages, and is bound 

 elegantly. Every reader of the American Bee Journal should 

 have a copy of this book, as it answers hundreds of questions 

 that arise about bees. We mail it for $1.25, or club it with 

 the Bee Journal for a year— both together for only $2.00. 



See " Bee-Keeper's Guide" offer on page 621. 



