Oct. S, 1899. 



AMERICAiN BEE JOURNAL 



631 



the zinc, on the other side not ; so whichever side I place 

 uppermost, the bees, between nianj' frames, are partially or 

 wholly prevented either from g^etting' out of the brood- 

 chamber or into the super. 



1. What should be done with the combs of pollen ? I 

 have other colonies in much the same condition — or they 

 were when queenless, and now that they have queens the 

 pollen remains. There is little room left for the queen to 

 deposit eggs, and if honey is stored over the pollen I fear 

 the combs will not hold enough for winter. Can the bees 

 be made to clean out this pollen ? and how ? 



2. Is there any supply manufacturer who makes a wood- 

 bound honey-board with two rows of holes between the 

 slats, like the Tinker zinc, and raises the frame on both 

 sides ? If so, who ? It is a disappointment and a nuisance 

 to buy supplies and have them practically valueless. 



Novice. 



Answers. — 1. If I understand the matter rig-htly, yon 

 have a two-story hive, the "full-depth extracting-super " 

 on top having- frames the same size as those below. The 

 •queen having gone into the upper story, the bees made that 

 the brood-chamber, only they dumpt the main portion of 

 the pollen in the lower story. Either story might be used 

 as the brood-chamber, only if you use the lower one there is 

 more pollen than is needed, and if you use the upper one 

 there is perhaps a scarcity of that article. You can even 

 up matters by taking part of the combs of honey from the 

 upper story and putting them in the lower story, where the 

 queen now is, and putting some of the pollen-laden combs 

 from below in the upper story. Possibly there is no more 

 pollen in the hive than the bees will want to use before an- 

 other honey harvest, and next spring it may be a good thing 

 to put back in the brood-chamber the pollen that you now 

 remove. Indeed, if you put it in the upper story next spring, 

 you will find it gradually disappear from there, altho it may 

 be better for you to put it in the brood-nest. Bees use a 

 very lar;re quantity of pollen for brood-rearing in spring. 

 The use of a queen-excluder will prevent the same thing 

 from happening again to some extent, but there will still 

 be an accumulation of pollen if the colony is queenless, the 

 plain remedy being to keep the colony supplied with a queen. 



2. It is hardly likely that any manufacturer keeps in 

 stock queen-excluders with a bee-space on both sides, but 

 any of them would probably make them to order. I cannot 

 understand what kind of an arrangement you have that 

 makes it desirable to have a bee-space on both sides of the 

 excluder. The onlv thing I can think of is that either there 

 is no space between j'our upper and lower stories, or that 

 there is a half-space at the top of the lower .story and a half- 

 space at the bottom of the upper story. In most cases there 

 is a full bee-space at the upper part of the lower story, and 

 none at the bottom of the upper story. Then when the ex- 

 cluder is put on with the bee-space uppermost, there is a 

 bee-space between the excluder and either story. You can 

 nail little strips on the top of the brood-chamber, so as to 

 make the proper bee-space there. 



Oiuestions on Sweet Clover in Georgia. 



I am thinking of sowing some sweet clover seed for bee- 

 pasturage, and want some information along that line. 

 When would be the best time to sow in our latitude, this 

 being about the 33° ? 



How much seed per acre on common land that has been 

 resting a year or two ? and would it be better sown in drills 

 or broadcast ? Is it best sown in the fall, or spring ? Do 

 you think it will do well in middle Georgia ? How tall do you 

 think it will grow here ? How much honey do you think 

 it will produce to the acre in our latitude? How much hay 

 to the acre do you think it would make ? When would be 

 the best time to cut it ? Geokgi.\. 



Answer. — I cannot answer your questions with anj- de- 

 gree of positiveness, and shall be glad to be corrected by 

 any Southern bee-keeper of experience with sweet clover. 

 In some parts of the South it has been reported that sweet 

 clover does not flourish, but in most places I think it does, 

 especially in soils where lime is present. Thirty to hO 

 pounds of seed may be sown to the acre any time from the 

 ripening of the seed this fall to the time when other clovers 

 are sown in spring, success being better assured in the 

 North, and perhaps as well in the South, if the ground is 

 packt hard, as by tramping with stock. In your climate it 

 is likely that there is little or no choice between drill and 

 broadcast sowing. It will grow all the way from four to 

 seven feet high, making from a half more to double as much 

 hay as red clover. Just how much honey an acre of sweet 



clover will yield has never been ascertained, and not even 

 a guess has been offered. Please remember now that I don't 

 know anything positively about sweet clover in Georgia, 

 and I trust some good Georgian will set right anything in 

 which I mav be wrong. 



Honey from Colonies that Died. 



1. I had a very fine looking queen in a colony that win- 

 tered, and a little over half the brood would be workers in 

 the spring, and the remainder were drones in worker-cells; 

 then nearly half would die, some before others, after being 

 capt, and after remaining a while a small hole would come 

 in the capping. But there was no odor from dead brood, 

 nor was it ropy. I killed the queen and introduced another, 

 leaving all their comb except one sheet that was quite full 

 of dead brood, and they have built up to a nice colony, no 

 more disease showing till this fall. A full colony that 

 stored two supers of honey got in the same fix, and as there 

 was but little coming in I preferred it to die rather than 

 have robbing commenced. There was plenty of honey in 

 each hive, so I conclude it was not not pickled brood. 



2. Will the combs convey the disease to the next colo- 

 nies that I give them, as there is considerable honey left in 

 the last one ? Virgini.\. 



Answer. — While there might no harm come from 

 feeding- that honey to other bees, it may be wise to take no 

 risk whatever. If the honey is nice, the safer plan will be 

 to use it on tlie table, melting it up if that is preferred. 



How Queens are Superseded. 



When bees supersede their queen do they kill her, do 

 they drive her out. or do the young queens kill her ? I 

 found an old queen and SO or 100 bees in the grass four or 

 five rods from any hive ; the queen was an old yellow Ital- 

 ian that I got last year. I put them into a hive till morn- 

 ing. It was in the evening, about five o'clock, and they 

 were all gone the next morning. That colony sent out a 

 second swaim with a young queen. She had led out a first 

 swarm six or eight weeks before. Iow.\. 



Answer. — In some cases, at least, it seems that neither 

 the bees nor the young queen kill the old one. Sometimes 

 an old queen will continue to lay for some time after a 

 royal daughter begins to lay, and in such case I've tried 

 putting the old queen in a separate hive, but generally she 

 disappears in a short time, and in at least one case this 

 summer the old queen seemed bent on getting away from 

 the bees and leaving the hive. I don't know, but I have 

 just a little doubt whether the young queen or the workers 

 ever kill the queen that is superseded. 



The queen that you found in the grass with a cluster of 

 bees had probably left the hive with a full swarm : the 

 queen for some reason being unable to fly, had crawled 

 some distance from the hive, and a few of the bees had 

 found her, the rest returning to the hive. 



Preparing a Winter-Case for Bees. 



I have no cellar to winter my bees in, and would like to 

 winter more successfully than last winter. I have a num- 

 ber of old 10-frame Langstroth hives which I will discard, 

 and use the 8-frame dovetailed hive instead. I also have a 

 lot of cheap box-lumber. Now, I am thinking of taking the 

 upper stories of the Langstroth hives and make them 

 enough higher with this cheap lumber to take in a dove- 

 tailed hive with super on. I will also put a bottom to this 

 outside case, on the inside of which I will nail 1-inch strips 

 for the dovetailed hive to stand on, the same as it stands on 

 the strips on its own bottom-board ; then set the hive in the 

 case, pack with a chaff' cushion on the frames, then pack 

 the emptj' space around the hive with chaff and over all 

 place the old Langstroth cover. Of course, providing a 

 place of entrance below. In your opinion, how will such a 

 " trap" work for a winter-case ? HoosiER. 



Answer. — If the upper story of your old hive is long 

 enough to take in the length of a dovetail hive, the plan 

 may answer very well. You are not likely, however, to 

 have another so severe a winter during an ordinary life- 

 time, and it might be well to try side by side at least one or 

 two in the old way, and then compare results. It may be 

 well to remark, in passing, that your chances for successful 

 out-door wintering- will not be increast by changing from 

 10 to 8-frame hives. 



