422 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



July 6, 1899. 



fairly well. Pag-e 349. To sift out the actual facts from the 

 bee-feverish enthusiasm with which they have got mixt. is 

 quite desirable in this matter of putting- up fruit with honey. 



DR. MINER'S FOUNDATION-SPLINTS. 



Thanks to Dr. Miller for the full information about 

 foundation-splints, on pag-e 342. Wood separators piled and 

 sliced again — and well cookt in wax — and prest in place 

 just hot enough. We see. 



TH.\T PINK COMB IN MARYLAND. 



That pink comb Maryland tells of is so rare in the 

 United States as to provoke doubt about it ; but as the com- 

 mercial beeswax of the island of Jamaica is a deep pink, 

 pink comb must be plenty down there, one would say. Or 

 does a very red propolis bestow the pink ? 



KEEPING ENTRANCES CLEAR OF SNOW. 



For deep snows (if you think snow in front any dam- 

 age) Mrs. Griffith's way, page 350, is tip-top. Wide board 

 set up in front, touching at top, and not quite touching- at 

 bottom. 



SOME RECOVERED FROM THE BEE-FEVER. 



End of the bee-fever ! Not one of the 28 heavy fellows 

 who answer the questions has tried the Golden method. But 

 possiblv the " boys " have not so universally recovered yet. 



COGITATOR.' 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. C. C. MILLER. Marengo, III. 



[The Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal office, or to Dr. Miller 



direct, when he will answer them here. Please do not ask the 



Doctor to send answers by mail.— Editor.] 



Perhaps a ftueenless Colony. 



We had two colonies of bees, but one died last winter, 

 and at the other we found a great many dead bees under the 

 hive. This summer, what are left, do not work at all. We 

 think the queen is dead. Do you keep queen-bees for sale ? 



Ne-w York. 



Answer. — No, I don't keep queens to sell, but you can 

 get them from those who advertise in this journal. It is 

 just a little doubtful, from what you say, whether it would 

 be advisable to give a queen to your bees. If they have had 

 no queen this spring at all, there will be none but very old 

 bees present, and it will be hard to get them to accept a 

 queen. Moreover, these old bees will now be dying off verj- 

 rapidly, and at their age will not make good nurse-bees, so 

 even if you should introduce a queen successfully the colony 

 would hardlj' be worth much. Your better way would be to 

 let these go and start with a new colony. Of course, if it 

 should turn out that they are not queenless, that's another 

 thing. 



.*-•-♦ 



Preventing Swarming and Caging the Queen. 



Our main flow here comes from clover, in May and the 

 former part of June. My plan is to control swarming thru 

 May and work for increase in June, and by so doing take 

 advantage of the flow. 



1. Do you approve the plan ? 



2. In caging the Cjueen above the brood to prevent 

 swarming, is it necessary to put a retinue of workers in the 

 cage with her, or will the bees feed her from the outside, 

 using the Miller cage ? WiLLl.'iM. 



Answers. — 1. Yes, if you can keep your forces together 

 till toward the close of the harvest it will be better for the 

 honey crop. But look out that you don't adopt some plan 

 that will hinder the bees more than to let them swarm. If 

 you have some plan in mind that )-ou have not yet thoroly 

 tried, better try it on a small scale and not with your whole 

 apiary. If you allow only one swarm to each colony, get- 

 ting all the working force into the swarm by setting the old 



colony beside the swarm for a week and then moving it to a 

 new place, your force will be kept together pretty well for 

 storing, and it will be time for you to adopt in general some 

 other plan after you have tried it on a small scale and know 

 it will work well for you. 



2. No need to put any workers in the cage with the 

 queen. They may die there, and dead bees are poor com- 

 pany. The bees will feed the queen all right thru the wire- 

 cloth of the cage. You speak of caging the queen " to pre- 

 vent swarming." Now, I'm just a little afraid you're going 

 to get into mischief. Simply caging the queen will not pre- 

 vent swarming — indeed, if you cage the queen and leave her 

 caged long enough, you'll be pretty sure to make a colony 

 swarm that would have had no thought of swarming if you 

 had not caged the queen. For the bees will rear young 

 queens, and the first one out will be likely to issue with a 

 swarm. But you say you mean to cut out queen-cells. Well, 

 some report good success with that sort of management, 

 and some have not succeeded with it. Don't you go into it 

 wholesale till you know how it will work with one or two 

 colonies. The chances are that you'll not like the plan. I 

 tried it on a pretty large scale, aud was not one of the suc- 

 cessful ones. 



*-•-• 



ftueen-Bees Wanted— Feeding Bees in June. 



1. If you have queen-bees for sale, please quote prices. 

 I mean pure Italian queens. 



2. In this locality bees are gathering very little honey ; 

 would it be advisable to feed at this time of the year ? 



Illinois. 



Answers. — 1. I have no queens for sale. 



2. If the bees are not gathering enough for their daily 

 needs, and if the combs are empty of stores, it maj- be ab- 

 solutely necessary to feed. Sometimes it happens, even in 

 June, with plenty of white clover bloom, that bees don't get 

 enough for their daily living. At such times the queen will 

 stop laying, and no honej' being in the hive the bees will 

 suck the juices out of the unsealed brood and throw the 

 skins out of the hive. If no stores are in the hive it isn't a 

 bad plan to feed anyhow, for the feed will not be wasted, 

 and it isn't best to wait for actual starvation. 



J/kAJkAAAh, 



■ ***** ^ 



The Barber Plan of Forcing Bees into Sections. — Mrs. 

 A. J. Barber says in Gleanings in Bee-Culture that one 

 reason she puts on a shallow extracting-stiper before put- 

 ting on sections is because the queen will lay in these es- 

 tracting-supers, and then the bees will fill the sections be- 

 tween the two lots of brood, but will not go up thru the sec- 

 tions to lay again in the extracting-combs. The extract- 

 ing-super being above does not in the least affect the white- 

 ness of the sections. 



The Big"Little=Hive Question seems to be one that will 

 not down. Chas. Dadant, replying to G. M. Doolittle in 

 Gleanings in Bee-Culture, urges the difference in swarming 

 as making the large hive superior, saying that in his large 

 hives the home apiary of 80 colonies did not give 10 swarms 

 in three j-ears, while Mr. Doolittle last year alone had 548 

 swarms from 49 colonies. As a parting shot he quotes Mr. 

 Doolittle as reporting that in 1877 he had a colony in a 

 specially constructed hive with 32 frames which had about 

 99,500 bees. 



One Hive=Story or Two. — For some time Editor Root, 

 of Gleanings in Bee-Culture, has been advocating large col- 

 onies, such as could not be contained in an 8-frame hive, 

 but has maintained that if additional room was given by a 

 second story it was just as well as to have more room in a 

 single story. Mr. Dadant does not agree. Challenged by 

 A. N. Draper, Mr. Root has had built a number of hives 

 just like thelO-frame Langstroth in all respects except that 

 the frames are two inches deeper. These are to be given a 

 fair trial in order to help settle the question. Dr. Miller 

 does not want to believe that large frames and hives are 

 better, because the smaller hives are so much nicer to haul 



