Mar. 9, 1899. 



ameeicain bee journal 



151 



is given, just as you might take a colony of Italian bees and 

 give them a particular name. 



2. That depends. If ynu look into almost any hive con- 

 taining a colony, you will find a number of queen-cell cups 

 that will remain unfinisht until the bees think of swarming, 

 when they will be occupied and finisht. They will not be 

 occupied and tinisht unless a fertile queen is present, for if 

 the queen is taken away, instead of rearing a queen in one 

 of these cups, a larva in a worker-cell will be chosen. 



3. If the least bit of honey has candied, it is doubtful 

 that you can get them cleaned out so they will be good to 

 use again. 



4. I never before heard of " tin " supers, and I doubt 

 whether such are in use. It is probable you have reference 

 to T tin supers, or, as they are generally called, T supers. 

 The only tin about them is the bottom supports on which 

 the sections rest, and these are called T tins because a cross- 

 section looks like the letter T inverted — x- 



5. The common practice is to set the old hive to one 

 side, let the swarm return to a new hive placed on the old 

 stand, and let the queen go in the new hive. 



6. Yes, a sealed queen-cell will hatch out a queen if kept 

 anywhere warm enough. 



7. That's the best thing to do with them, only you 

 mustn't give one colony so many at a time as to discourage 

 it. You may give to a colon)- as many as two or three at a 

 time outside of its brood-nest. 



8. She lays one at a time. When she first begins to lay 

 she will lay very few in a day. but when she gets fairly 

 warmed up to the work — say when the white honey harvest 

 is about at hand — she will not think it a very big thing to 

 lay 2,000 or 3,000 every 24 hours. 



9. You might have done better. That left the light 

 shining in and the warmed air coming in, urging the bees 

 in the strongest way to come out for a play-spell, and the 

 fact that they are fastened in seems to make them all the 

 more fierce to g-et out, so that it is quite possible more bees 

 die in the hive than would die on the snow. The better way 

 would have been to put boards or something of the kind in 

 front of the hive so not a ray of light could enter. 



10. A queen has four wings, two on each side. Cut the 

 two on one side as short as vou convenientlv can. 



Number of Colonies to a Load. 



How many colonies do you commonly put on a wagon 

 at a time ? " Illinois. 



Answer. — Generally I put on all the wagon holds — 31 

 colonies. Nine of these go in the body of the wagon under 

 the rack, the other 22 on the rack. 



Bees Flying Early Robbing Clover Best Size of 

 Hives, Etc. 



1. Is it early to have young- bees in the hive ? I had 

 some that took a flight Jan. 15. 



2. I have a strong colony that is q^eenless. Will they 

 rear a queen now if I give them some brood, before natural 

 pollen comes in ? 



3. I have some bees that want to rob. It seemed that 

 they got a start at a queenless hive, and I put them into the 

 cellar, yet there seemed to be quite a number working 

 around all the hives. What shall I do ? Do all bees rob to 

 .some extent during warm days in winter? 



4. What kind of clover would you recommend for this 

 State (Tennessee), sweet or Alsike ? We have red clover, 

 but it doesn't yield nectar as well. 



5. What kind or size of hive is best for comb honey — 

 10-frame or 8-frame ? I use the standard Langstroth in- 

 frame. 



6. Will bees store honey enough in an 8-frame hive to 

 winter on ? Tennessee. 



Answers. — 1. Generally no brood will be found as early 

 as Jan. 15, altho it is quite common to find breeding- com- 

 mence in February when bees are wintered out-doors. If 

 the bees that flew Jan. 15 had just emerged from their cells, 

 that was remarkably early. It is possible they had emerged 

 so late in the fall that they still appeared young. 



2. They might, but it would not be very successful, and 

 the wisest thing you can do is to unite them with a weak 

 colony that has a good queen. 



3. You can't get bees so honest that they'll never rob if 

 the temptation is g-reat enough, and you can't do anything 

 with the robbers to stop them. The only thing is to keep 



everything as safe from them as you can, not exposing 

 honey and not keeping weak and queenless colonies. 



4'. Sweet and Alsike ought bcith to do well with you. 

 Unless your stock has learned to eat sweet clover, you may 

 find Alsike the more profitable for forage. Likely an acre 

 of sweet clover will yield more honey than Alsike, but you 

 must consider its other value as well as its value for honey. 



5. It depends much on the management. Unless a good 

 deal of attention is paid to them. 10-frames are better. 



6. Sometimes, and sometimes not. If the combs are 

 kept filled with brood until pretty late, there is hardly room 

 enough for honey. If left to "themselves there is more 

 danger of suffering for want of stores in 8-frame than 10- 

 frame hives. 



-^ • *■ 



Getting Bees to Empty Partially-Filled Sections. 



On page 98, near the beginning of the page, I .see a way 

 given to get honev emptied out of sections. Now what I 

 want to know is this : If I put on a hive a super of .sections 

 .partly finisht. and then put over that another super having 

 sections with a little honey in them, will the bees carry 

 down the honey out of the upper super ? Subscriber. 



Answer. — So far as I have tried anything of the kind^ 

 and I have tried it extensively— it has been an utter failure. 



Using a Bee-Escape How Much Comb Foundation- 

 Transferring from a Tree. 



1. Can I use a bee-escape on an improved Langstroth- 

 Simplicity hive without a super ? or will I have to use su- 

 pers ? If so, would it be well in this part of the State to use 

 double supers ? 



2. How much comb foundation do I require through the 

 summer for two hives ? and which is the better, the extra 

 thin surplus or the thin surplus, if I use a one or two inch 

 starter in an 8-frame hive for comb honey ? 



3. How can I transfer a swarm of bees from a tree in 

 the woods ? Will I have to cut the tree ofi" so short that I 

 can carrv the trunk home, or can I take a hive along to the 

 tree and" transfer them there ? What is the best way to do 

 this, and what time of the year? 



4. Which bee-book do you consider the better for a be- 

 ginner, the " A B C of Bee-Culture " or Prof. Cook's " Man- 

 ual of the Apiary." . Minnesota. 



Answers. — 1. I'm not entirely sure whether I under- 

 stand your question. There's hardly any need of a bee- 

 escape unless you have something in the line of a super, un- 

 derstanding, of course, that by a super is meant anything 

 that is put ore;- the hive in which to have .surplus honey 

 stored. It may be a super to contain sections, or it may be 

 a super to contain extracting-combs. In either case an es- 

 cape can be used. If by " double super" you mean two su- • 

 pers on a hive at a-time. it is generally advisable to have 

 more than one super on at a time if there is a good honey- 

 yield and the first super is pretty well advanced. If I 

 haven't struck the right idea, ask further and I'll try again. 



2. I don't know which is better, altho I have generally 

 used the thin. When not storing-, the bees are likely to 

 gnaw the extra-thin more than is desirable. To be sure, 

 supers should not generally be left on the hive when bees 

 are not storing, but one wants them on a little before stor- 

 ing' begins, and sometimes there is a temporary lull when 

 the bees stop storing for a very short time and then begin 

 again. One pound of foundation will probably do for what 

 you require. 



3. Either way will answer ; whichever is most conven- 

 ient for you, taking all things into consideration. 



4. Probably no bee-book in the world is fuller of practi- 

 cal information than the " ABC of Bee-Culture." " Cook's 

 Manual " contains information that is lacking in the "ABC 

 of Bee-Culture " as to the natural history of the bee from 

 the stand-point of an entomologist, as well as giving prac- 

 tical information. I wouldn't like to spare either of them, 

 nor would I like to be without Dadant's Langstroth. 



Langstroth on the Honey=Bee, revised by the Dadants, 

 is a standard, reliable and thoroughly complete work on 

 bee-culture. It contains 520 pag-es, 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 for only S2.00. 



