1898. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



807 



dearth of pasture, as it did the past season here, I would have 

 a lot of bees to feed for weeks, as I did the past season. 



2. Would it be best to clip all of the queens as soon as 

 they are fertilized? Or try to use drone-traps to catch the 

 queens ? But that makes quite a bill of expense for the traps. 



My bees are packt in winter-cases mostly, with granu- 

 lated-sugar stores. Michigan. 



Answers. — 1. I suppose what you want is some plan by 

 which you may increase, and yet not be caught with a lot of 

 colonies that need building up. Try the nucleus plan. Start 

 a few nuclei in which you have young queens laying. Draw 

 from each of your strong colonies two or three frames of 

 brood with adhering bees, and use these as far as they will go 

 in making full colonies of some of your nuclei. That will not 

 seriously deplete your strong colonies, but will be enough to 

 keep them from swarming. In giving this brood to the nuclei, 

 fill up one, then another, and so on as long as your brood lasts. 

 If now the season is brought up with a sharp turn, you will 

 have no weak colonies on hand, and you need not increase any 

 more. If, however, the season continues good, you may make 

 a second draught on all strong colonies, building up as many 

 into full colonies as you can, and this may be repeated as long 

 as the season and the strength of the colonies warrant, leav- 

 ing you always ready for a close of the season. Neither will 

 this hinder a fair share of surplus. 



2. Whether you use queen-traps or not, you will probably 

 find It advisable to have all queens dipt if you are not on hand 

 during swarming hours. 



Separators . 



Extractiiis-Combs — 3 or 5-Banders 

 — Oak for Hives. 



1. I use 3,'2-inch separators, and the bees bulge the 

 comb out at the bottom of the sections. Is it because the sep- 

 arators don't rest on the tins in the super ? Should they rest 

 on the tins, or be level with the sections at the top ? 



2. How can I keep extracting-combs over winter? 



3. For working quality, which do you consider the best, 

 3 or 5-banded Italians ? 



4. Will oak lumber make good bee-hives, such as is used 

 for making furniture ? C. H. M. 



Answers. — 1. Yes, it is because the separators don't rest 

 on the T tins, for I suppose you mean T tins, but come clear 

 to the tops of the sections. That makes a space of half an 

 inch at the bottom without any separator, and you may ex- 

 pect bad work. Let the separator down on the T tin, thus 

 making a space at the bottom of only '4 inch, and the same 

 space at the top, and you'll have no trouble. 



2. Outdoors. Cover so no rain can get in, and shut tight 

 so no mice can get in. If any worms are present (and they 

 are likely to be present) the freezing will kill them. 



3. It's not a matter of bands, only as bands may be more 

 or less a sign of other qualities. You may get .5-banders that 

 don't come up to the average 3-banders, and you may get 

 them better than the average. There are good and bad in 

 both kinds. 



4. No, oak wouldn't be used for furniture if the furniture 

 was to stand outdoors, and it won't do for bee-hives. 



White Clover Yields — A Queen Experience- 

 Parlnersiiip Bee-Keeping. 



1. How often in the course of 10 years would you expect 

 wnlte clover to fail to secrete nectar so as to be useless to the 

 bee-keeper ? 



2. As bees are required to fertilize flowers, and as they 

 rather avoided white clover this year in this section, can we 

 look forward to as good a stand of clover in 1899 as this year, 

 providing it does not winter-kill ? 



3. Colony No. 11 in September had a queen which de- 

 posited eggs on top of bee-bread and in empty cells, to the 

 number of four or five. I suspected laying workers, but to 

 make sure I lookt up the queen. She was reared last sum- 

 mer. To what could be assigned the cause ? 



4. If A bought an old apiary of 30 colonies and fur- 

 nishes new hives, fixtures, etc., in flat, B to do all the labor 

 and care for the bees, what would be a fair division of the in- 

 crease, and we will say 1,500 pounds of honey ? The only 

 thing I find in bee-books says bee-keeping partnership is usu- 

 ally unsatisfactory. A. HoxsruR. 



Answers. — 1. Perhaps five times or more, judging by late 

 years. Sometimes the failure comes from the lack of bloom, 



and sometimes, as the past season, there is plenty of bloom 

 but no honey. 



2. In spite of the fact that no crop of clover honey was 

 obtained, probably the bees did enough work on the blossoms 

 to make sure of a goodly quantity of seed. But the crop of 

 next year hardly depends upon the seed matured this ' year, 

 but rather upon the plants that have been growing this year 

 and live overwinter. In your part of the country (Northern 

 Illinois) you will probably find there was a good stand of white 

 clover in the fall, and unless it is killed out through the win- 

 ter, there will probably be a good crop of white clover next 

 year. But a good crop of white clover doesn't necessarily 

 mean a good crop of white clover honey. 



3. I don't know. 1 had a similar case last summer. I 

 found, I think, 11 cells containing pollen with an egg laid 

 therein. The queen was all right. 



4. The books are rather wise not to give very specific In- 

 struction as to what division should be made. Each case is 

 more or less a case by itself. A very skillful man should have 

 a larger return than one who knows nothing about the care 

 of bees. One way to approximate an answer is to make an es- 

 timate of the amount of time occupied by the apiarist, and 

 allow him enough to pay him for his time, figuring on a per 

 diem all the way from the price of common day labor up to 

 twice that, according to the skill and ability of the apiarist. 



Paralysis — Queens Lost — Giant Bees. 



1. I have two colonies of bees that act very strangely. 

 They run out of the hive, hop off the alighting-board, tremble 

 a little, and die. What ails them? 



2. If a colony of bees dies of paralysis, and I use the hive 

 and combs, is there any danger of the next swarm taking it ? 



3. I introduced two Italian queens in two black colonies 

 of bees, and they killed them. I then gave them brood and 

 they reared five queens during the summer, and all disap- 

 peared. My hives are in a straight row, a foot space be- 

 tween them. 



4. If Mr. Wilson introduces in the United States the giant 

 bees of India, that build " wired " combs six feet long and 

 four feet wide, won't such a comb with the lumber it will take 

 to build the frame be a little heavy for a small man to handle ? 

 Or, will he also introduce a machine that will take the frames 

 out of the hive and extract the sweetness, and replace them 

 while the apiarist " sits in the old apple-tree shade ?" 



California. 

 Answers. — ^1. Very likely paralysis. 



2. Probably not. 



3. They may have been killed by birds when on their 

 wedding-flight, or they may have returned to the wrong hives. 

 If 10 or more colonies stand in a straight row, with a space of 

 four feet between each (wo hives, there may be great danger 

 of young queens entering the wrong hives, or there may be no 

 danger at all. If the place is level and open, with not a tree, 

 shrub, or building near the hives, the bees have trouble loca- 

 ting their hives, and may easily go wrong. It will help mat- 

 ters very much if every alternate hive is moved close to its 

 neighbor, thus making the hives in pairs, but occupying no 

 more ground. If there are bushes, trees, or other objects in 

 plenty about the hives, the bees will use these to mark the 

 location, so as to find their own hives. Even in this case, 

 moving the hives together In pairs will be a gpod thing. 



4. I don't know. 



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 

 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 f 1.25, or club it with 

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



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