662 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Oct. 19, 1899. 



Mr. Root — Why do they put Medina on it ? 



Mr. Abbott — I suppose they take the view that Medina 

 is a honey center. Like all ignorant persons, they copy 

 some one that they think is worth copying-. 



Mr. Root — I suspect that they were borrowing- the comb- 

 honey idea from comb foundation being- made at Medina. 

 But if there is any law in the countr3' by which that firm 

 can be prosecuted, and the stigma taken from the Root Co., 

 we will follow it up. 



Mr. Abbott — I owe a little explanation. The Pure-Food 

 Bill was initiated by Senator Paddock. Mr. Brosius then 

 talkt it up, and that is why it takes his name, and this Bill 

 was drafted and prepared and turned over to the Senate. 

 The House committee was ready to report favorablj' on the 

 Bill. If you urge any other Bill you are not standing by 

 the original Bill. If we ask for too much we will not get 

 anything. We are going to pass this Bill without amend- 

 ments. I have no objection to Senator Mason passing a 

 Bill, but Senator Mason's Bill will not be a Pure-Food Bill. 

 We say, pass the Brosius Bill. I will answer any ques- 

 tion that anybody wants to ask. Go home and talk to your 

 congressmen. I interviewed Mr. Cockrell about the Pure- 

 Food Bill. He had never read it. I said, "These people 

 are in favor of this Bill, and if you are not in favor of it off 

 comes your head." I heard from him the next day, and he 

 was in favor of it. 



Dr. Mason— I %vould like to emphasize what Mr. Abbott 

 says about waking up our congressmen. I went to our con- 

 gressman and told him what we wanted, and he proraist to 

 support the Brosius Bill. 



An Attendant — Probably he was a small man and was 

 afraid. 



Dr. Mason — He was a small man, but not afraid. He 

 understands that his constituents are the " power behind 

 the throne." He was already in favor of the Bill, but what 

 I said encouraged him in its support. 



Mr. Sglser — I want to say that we have a pure-food law 

 in this State (Pa.), and a good one. I don't know just the 

 year in which it was past, but four or five years ago. 

 [Continued next week.l 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. O. O. MILLER. Marengo, III. 



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



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



Doctor to send answers by mail. — Editor.] 



Losing Young Queens in a House-Apiary. 



In reply to J. N. Alexander, page 622, I may suggest 

 that his trouble in losing young queens in his house-apiarj- 

 may arise from having a dozen entrances on one side of the 

 building: many of them looking just alike. If he paints the 

 side of the building in different colors, some white and some 

 very dark, it will help. If, instead of having the entrances 

 regularly two feet apart, he should put the entrances in 

 pairs, say two entrances only six inches apart, then a dis- 

 tance of 3 feet 6 inches, then 6 inches, and so on, that would 

 help. No danger that there would be confusion with two 

 entrances only 6 inches apart, if there are only two entran- 

 ces, for bees know right from left. It will be very helpful 

 to plant a tree not far from the building midway of its length ; 

 even a post or a board would help. C. C. Miller. 



Arranging Hives in the Cellar. 



I read of tiering hives in cellar-wintering. Does that 

 mean placing one hive directly on top of another, or are 

 they on shelves one above another ? In other words, is it 

 necessary to have them so as to remove the covers, giving 

 access to the top of the brood- frames for examination ? 



Pennsylvania. 



Answer. — No, probably no one tiers up his hives in the 

 cellar and still has a chance to remove the cover from each 



hive in the pile. Probably very few use anything like 

 shelves. It would take a good deal of room with no corre- 

 sponding advantage. One disadvantage would be that any 

 jar to affect a single hive would jar every hive on the shelf. 

 I suspect that even the uneasy buzzing of a colony might 

 be communicated to the other colonies on the shelf, not at 

 all to their advantage. Some tier up their hives in the cel- 

 lar without any bottom-boards. The hives next the ground 

 are raised so there is a large open space under them, and 

 they are sufficiently wide apart so the next tier can be prop- 

 erly piled on them. Each hive of the second tier rests on 

 two hives of the first tier, one side of the hive resting on 

 one hive and the other side on another. The space between 

 the hives is so large that nearly all the underpart of the 

 hive is entirely open, giving unlimiled lower ventilation. 

 Another way is to have deep bottom-boards which leave a 

 space of two inches under the bottom-bars. A hive is raised 

 a short distance from the bottom of the cellar, on this is 

 placed another directly over it, and so on till four or five 

 hives are in the pile. Each pile is entirely separate from 

 the other piles, so that if one hive is jarred it can only jar 

 three or four others. After trying this last plan for a num- 

 ber of years I like it much. The hives are pickt up from 

 their summer stands and carried in, bottoms and all, and 

 the same thing when t^ey are carried out. 



Supers on First Swarms-Fall Management, Etc. 



1. Is it advisable to place supers on swarms the first 

 summer? If so, at what time should it be done ? 



2. When the queen has moved into the extracting-super 

 and turned it into a brood-chamber, what should be done in 

 the fall about extracting ? 



3. I have noticed on some leaning hives that an oily or 

 greasy substance exuded from the lower corner. What does 

 that indicate ? Utah. 



Answers. — 1. Most surely it is desirable to put supers 

 on swarms the first summer. If your bees swarm as much 

 as some bees do, the main part of your surplus will be from 

 the swarms of the current season. Indeed, a great many 

 depend almost entirely upon these, counting that the 

 mother colony will do well enough if it builds up strong for 

 winter. The swarm is placed on the old stand, the mother 

 colony close beside it, the latter being removed to a new 

 stand six or seven days later. That throws a/l the storing- 

 bees into the swarm, leaving the mother colony weak. 



2. It isn't so much what is to done as what is not to be 

 done. And the chief thing in such a case is no/ to leave the 

 colony without abundant stores for winter. The thing to 

 be done is to get into one chamber all the frames with 

 brood, atid the temptation in that case is to take too many 

 of the combs for extracting. That's on the supposition 

 that the frames in the extracting-super are of the same size 

 as those in the brood-chamber. If the frames in the super 

 differ in size from those in the brood-cliamber, see that the 

 queen is in the brood-chamber, and then put a queen-exclu- 

 der between the two, thus making sure that within three 

 weeks, at least, there will be no brood in the extracting- 

 story. The better plan is to have the excluder there all 

 thru the summer, then there will be no danger that the 

 queen will get out of her proper realm. 



3. I don't know, unless it might be pitch from the pine 



wood of the hives, or perhaps more likely the bees of the 



colony are great on bee-glue, and the overplus runs out on 



hot days. 



^-^-f 



Preparing Bees for Cellaring—ttueen Questions— 

 Queenless Colony. 



1. Heretofore, in putting my bees into the cellar, I have 

 stopt them up carefully so that thej' could not get out while 

 being removed, then when they were all in and became 

 quiet, I pulled the stopping out and quietly raised the front 

 of the hive about an inch. Now comes A. I. Root and rec- 

 ommends lifting- off the bottoms and putting them on scant- 

 ling. I have never tried the plan, but would they not in 

 lifting them ott" the bottom-boards and then putting them 

 back in the spring in each case, arouse the bees up and 

 cause them to flv out, and get scattered and many of them 

 lost ? 



2. I have in the past kept empty supers on my hives in 

 winter, partly filled with old cloths. Would they do as well 

 to put the cover right on the body of the hive without the 

 super ? Would they not be likely to accumulate moisture 



