1898. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAl. 



759 



My impression is that In the majority of cases a queen 

 that has just commenced to lay is in good condition for ship- 

 ping, and it will take some care to have an older queen in ihe 

 same condition. Tailing any queen at random, I'd give a good 

 deal more for her when a weeli old than when a year old. If 

 for no other reason, because I would have a year more of her 

 life in one case than in the other. But that doesn't cover the 

 case at all. I wouldn't object to paying five times as much for 

 a queen a year, or even two years, old, in some cases, as I 

 would for the same queen at a week old, even if I knew that 

 at the greater, age she would not live three months after 

 I got her. 



Let me explain : When a week old, there is little in a 

 queen's record except that it is known she is of such and such 

 a mother. But when she is a year old you can tell what has 

 been the year's work of her worker progeny. Suppose the 

 colony of which she is the mother has stored three times as 

 much honey as the average, and you know of no way to ac- 

 count for it except the difference in blood. Don't you see that 

 I'd be willing to give five times as much for her as I would 

 have given for her a year earlier when no one knew yet what 

 she would accomplish. And when she is two years old, and 

 has made the same record as in the first year, I'd give more 

 for her than when only a year old, because I would feel more 

 sure that blood had made the difiference. So the extra price 

 paid for a tested queen is not because she will stand shipping 

 better, but because she is known to be good by her perform- 

 ance. Of course, in most cases that testing goes no farther 

 than to know that her worker progeny show her to have been 

 purely mated. 



Planting for Honey and to Revive Land — 

 Hives and Supers. 



1. As I have two acres of land near my residence in this 

 city, where I keep bees, I would like to sow some honey-plant, 

 which would at the same time tend to revive the land, which 

 is run down by cropping. What would you recommend ? 



2. What kind of a hive and super arrangement do you use 

 and recommend ? 



3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of T 

 supers and the section-holder super 1 and which of the two 

 supers do you recommend ? Wisconsin. 



Answers. — 1. I doubt if anything will serve your purpose 

 better than sweet clover. It will make a good growth on poor 

 land, even if nothing but yellow clay, and its deep roots dying 

 the second year will leave the soil well opened up. By train- 

 ing them to It, you can have your stock eat sweet clover, allho 

 it seems easier to have them learn to eat the dry hay. I thiuk 

 no one has ever reported a failure to yield honey when sweet 

 clover bloomed, while white clover and most other honey- 

 plants sometimes fail to yield, altho blooming well. 



2. 1 use the 8-frame dovetail to the extent of about 80 

 hives, and hope to get nearly all my bees Into that kind of 

 hive if I live another year. I use the T super. If I had no 

 supers on hand, I might study whether to adopt the T or 

 Ideal super, 



3. A T super will take sections of any width. A section- 

 holder made to take a 1% section will take no other size. A 

 few prefer to have open-side sections. For these the T super 

 will not answer and the section-holder will. A section-holder 

 allows the sections to fit close together, thus holding them 

 square. The T tin holds the sections apart, making it neces- 

 sary to have little separators at the top to hold the sections 

 square and to avoid having a lot of propolis put between them. 

 Some practice and advise shifting the outside rows of sections 

 to the center when the center ones are sufficiently advanced. 

 This can be done mare easily with section-holders than with 

 T supers. I don't think I should thus shift them if I bad sec- 

 tion-holders. The T tins are perfectly rigid and cannot sag. 

 The bottom-bars of the section-holders may sag. I cau fill 

 and also empty T supers with less time and trouble than sec- 

 tion-holders. Taken all In all, I decidedly prefer the T super. 

 Whether the Ideal super may be still better Is a question not 

 yet decided. 



Ctueenles§ Colonies. 



In June I requeened several colonies, and Just about this 

 time the spring llow ended. All were accepted. These were 

 untested queens that came through the malls. In August the 

 fall flow began, and the bees stored the brood-chambers full, 

 but no surplus— in fact, we rarely ever get any surplus from 

 the fall flow in this State, and never get any swarms from this 

 flow. Two of the colonies that had these young queens began 



to rear great numbers of drones, queens being very prolific, 

 and the hives were overflowing with bees. I began to think 

 they were going to do the very uncommon thing for this sec- 

 tion (swarm) in the fall. Late in September — I don't know 

 the exact date — I saw in front of one of these hives a queen 

 which had been dragged out. I now feared this colony was 

 queenless, so I lookt in and saw no queen, but plenty of eggs 

 and brood In all stages, so lifted only a few frames, and know 

 they were all right, queen or no queen, having plenty of drones 

 on hand. 



All went well until this morning (Nov. 7), when looking 

 around in my bee-yard, on the alighting-board I found another 

 queen, with six or eight bees gathered around her ; she was 

 dead. This was the same hive referred to above. It would be 

 an awful job to And a queen in this hive now, for but few eggs 

 are being laid, the frames being the Quinby size, and last 

 season several were so heavy and large, and bulged badly, 

 that I would be obliged to cut out in order to handle them. 



1. Now, do you suppose these bees are queenless ? If so, 

 will they survive the winter and be any good if requeened in 

 the spring ? Fruit-bloom begins about March 10 to 15. 



2. In fact, don't you believe I have been humbugged, and 

 instead of getting young queens I got some that were two or 

 three years old ? Every one of the lot proved to be purely 

 mated. Georgia. 



Answers. — 1. Quite likely the colony is all right and has 

 a young queen. (If your queens were dipt you could tell 

 whether the old one was there or not.) 



There were plenty of eggs late in September, so the colony 

 will likely be strong in spring with bees not too old, and if it 

 is queenless it might have a queen given to it with advantage. 



2. The chances are that the queens were not old. For 

 some reason, or perhaps whim, it is not such a very unusual 

 thing for bees to supersede a queen when only a few weeks 

 old, and a queen that has gone through the mail is more likely 

 to be superseded on that account. 



Colony Deserting — Peculiar Smelling Honey. 



1. I had strong colony of black bees to abscond, leaving 

 both sealed and hatching brood. On opening the hive I found 

 uncapt cells of honey to be fermenting. The young had 

 gnawed through the capping, but were held in by the web at 

 the bottom of the cells where there was a small white worm. 

 The hive was well shaded, and the bees bringing In some nec- 

 tar. Between the quilt and cover was a large ant's nest. What 

 caused the bees to leave ? and what is the cause and how can 

 I prevent the white worms at the base of the cells ? 



2. If a queen is caged and left on top of the brood-frames, 

 will the bees act as if they were queenless ? 



3. During the honey-flow at this season of the year, my 

 hives of bees emit a peculiar odor or a sour smell, something 

 like old granulated basswood honey. Bees are working on 

 heath-like aster. I can smell them when quite a distance 

 away. What is the cause ? Tennessee. 



Answers. — 1. If there was no swarming In the case, and 

 the bees simply deserted the hive, I cau't tell you why. Honey 

 fermenting in the cells would hardly cause it, neither would 

 the annoyance of the ants nor of the worms. Possibly, how- 

 ever, the combination of the three may have been so bad that 

 the bees became desperate. Black bees will not defend them- 

 selves against worms as will Italians. Get Italian blood and 

 worms will hardly trouble strong colonies. 



2. No, and yes. They will not show the distress that Is 

 shown by a queenless colony by running all over in search of 

 the queen, but they will in many cases show a feeling of queen- 

 lessness by rearing young queens the same as when a queen is 

 killed. 



3. There are times when the bees are working on certain 

 flowers (and I can't tell what they are), when an extremely 

 offensive odor Is present. I don't know why It smells so, but 

 I suppose it's the odor that belongs to that particular kind of 

 honey, just as buckwheat and other honies have their 

 peculiar odor. 



Langfstrotli 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 

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

 that arise about bees. We mail it for .SI. 25, or club it with 

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