470 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



July : 



1899. 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. C. C. AIILLBR. Mareng-o, 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.] 



Blacks and Italians in the Same Hive. 



I Italianized a colony of black bees in October, 1898, 

 and I thought thej- were all right, but when I esatniiied 

 them the past spring I found about - , of them were pure 

 Italians, and '5 pure blacks. There is not a h^-brid in the 

 hive. I have been keeping bees for IS years, and I have 

 never seen anything like it before. Virginia. 



Answer. — The first cross between blacks and Italians 

 are by no means a uniform lot, but part of them are in ap- 

 pearance Italians and part are black. So what you have 

 observed is the rule and not the exception for the y^'/'i/ cross. 

 With later crosses the appearance of the workers becomes 

 more uniform, showing one or two bands on each bee. 



Transferring Bees from Box-Hives. 



How can I transfer bees from box-hives into new frame 

 hives ? The combs in the old box-hives seem to be in every 

 shape and form. Wisconsin. 



Answer. — How to transfer has been askt for several 

 times in the past few months, and in each case it was re- 

 plied that the text-book should be consulted, for this de- 

 partment is merely intended to supplement the text-book 

 without going over all the ground contained therein. It 

 may be said, however, that you may do better not to trans- 

 fer now but to leave the bees where they are till time of 

 fruit-bloom next year. With combs " in every shape and 

 form ■' in the box-hive, it may not be very satisfactory to 

 try to fasten them in the frames of the new hive. Perhaps 

 the better way will be to leave the bees in the box-hive till 

 they swarm, hive the swarm in the new hive, then 21 days 

 later all the worker-brood will have emerged, and the old 

 hive can be knockt to pieces. 



Mating and Laying of ttueens Ants in the Hive. 



How long should it be after a queen emerges before she 

 begins laying ? Prof. Cook says six or seven days. In my 

 experience it is much longer. On May 5 I had two queens 

 out in a queenless hive, and I put one of them into another 

 hive, also queenless. I lookt several times but it was not 

 till June 16 that I found any brood in either colony, and 

 then only a small portion was sealed. 



Again, two queens emerged in two nuclei, one a two- 

 frame observation hive, on June 16, and to-day (July 2) 

 there is no brood nor eggs. On June 30 I saw the queen Hy 

 out from the observation hive three times in the course of 

 an hour, twice returning in about 5 minutes, the third time 

 in about 30 minutes, without any sign of having met the 

 drone. On July 1 she again went out three times, remain- 

 ing out as before : the last time I think she met a drone as 

 the vulva was open, but no appendages were attacht. 



Were the above periods longer than usual ? If so, what 

 do you suppose was the cause ? There were plenty of drones 

 flying ; during May and early June the weather was mostly 

 cool and wet. I was much troubled b^' some very small ants 

 getting into the hives. I got rid of them by putting some 

 poison fly-paper into a small tin box. wetting it with honey, 

 or sugar and water, and covering with fly-wire to keep the 

 bees from getting at it. The ants were soon crowding into 

 it, but the nest day there was not one to be seen. 



British Columbia. 



Answer. — Prof. Cook says in his Manual, " Five or six 

 days after issuing from the cell — Neighbour says the third 

 day — if the day is pleasant the queen goes forth on her 



'marriage flight;' otherwise she will improve the first 

 pleasant daj' thereafter for this purpose." Again he says, 

 "About two days after she is impregnated, the queen, under 

 normal circumstances, commences to lay." That, you see, 

 would make the queen seven or eight days old at time of be- 

 ginning to lay. But he also says, '■ If the queen fails to 

 find an admirer the first day, she will go forth again and 

 again till she succeeds. Huber states that after 21 days the 

 case is hopeless." That's as much as to say that she may 

 not be fertilized till nearly three weeks old. 



You notice that Prof. Cook says, "under normal circum- 

 stances." Queens reared under normal circumstances are 

 in full colonies and the harvest and other circumstances are 

 favorable. The case may be very difterent if a queen is 

 reared in a nucleus, or if the weather is unfavorable, or if 

 there is a dearth of pasturage. If a queen is reared in a 

 nucleus, even if the cell from which she issued was sealed 

 in a full colony, you will probably find it much oftenerthat 

 she will begin laying at 12 than at 8 days of age. If her 

 whole larval life was spent in the nucleus, the case is still 

 more unfavorable, and more and more in proportion to the 

 weakness of the nucleus. With bad weather such as j'ou 

 had, you will probably always get about the same results 

 as j'ou had with nuclei. The queen that emerged May 5 

 and had sealed brood June 16 could not have been more than 

 34 days old, and she ma^' have been considerablj- younger. 

 For at first she probably laid very few eggs in a day, and 

 part of the few sealed cells may have been sealed several 

 days. There may have been delay in fertilization, and de- 

 lay in laying. In the queen hatcht in the observatioti hive 

 you have a plain case of fertilization after two weeks old, 

 and you need not be surprised if that queen commences lay- 

 ing much later than two days after fertilization. 



The ants probably' did no harm to the bees, but they 

 are annoying to the bee-keeper, and you took a good way to 

 settle them. 



•-•-• 



Bees "Wrong End Up" in the Cells Drone-Laying Queen. 



1. I have one colony that is dwindlitig. They have lots 

 of brood and it looks healthy. I uncapt a lot of brood and 

 about half of it was turned the wrong end up. The larvje 

 lookt nice and healthy and were alive, but of course they 

 could not gnaw out of their cells. What is the matter, and 

 what shall I do about it ? 



2. I put hive-bodies full of combs under strong colonies 

 last spring, and the queen went down and laid drone-eggs 

 in worker-cells, filling two to three frames of drone-brood. 

 The workers lengthened the cells and they (the capt cells) 

 look like big warts. Is that regular when j'ou give room 

 below, or is it a freak ? Wisconsin. 



Answers. — 1. I don't know. It is a very unusual thing 

 to find bees " wrong end up " in the cells, and some have 

 ventured the suggestion that it resulted from weakness. 

 You say the "larva" was wrong endup. If you mean 

 realh' "larva," it would be an easy thing to be mistaken as 

 to its position, for each end looks like a tail. But if you 

 mean pupa, that is after the form of the head can be plainly 

 seen, then the case is a very unusual one. and I know of no 

 remedy except to give the bees all the chance you can to be 

 strong in numbers, and possibly that maj' make no 

 difference. 



2. The combs being in the under story had nothing to 

 do with the case. It was a case of a drone-laying queen, 

 and you will find that when the queen went up-stairs she 

 did the same work there. 



Sand-Vetch— Web Attacht to Bees. 



1. Is sand-vetch a honey-plant ? My bees work on it 

 all the time. 



2. Why do some of the young bees come out with a 

 white web attacht to them so that it is difficult for them to 

 fly ? What is the remedy ? Alstad. 



Answer. — 1. It must be a pretty good honey-plant (I've 

 had no experience with it) or else the bees wouldn't work on 

 it all the time. At least it must be one of the best yielding 

 at the time. For a plant that yields rather poorly will be 

 well visited by the bees when nothing better is to be had, 

 but will be deserted as soon as something better offers. 



2. Possibly it is part of the web of the wax-worm. The 

 remedy is to keep strong colonies, and especially Italians. 

 A very weak colony of Italians will keep out the moths. 



