THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



187 



l^hat and Ho\in 



ANSWERS BY 



James Heddon, Dowagiac^ Mich. 



"Why did they Die? 



I bought 15 colonies of bees in De- 

 cember, which are in a cellar where 

 water will freeze, in cold weather ; 14 

 ■colonies are apparently in sjood con- 

 dition ; the 15th having died from 

 some cause unknown to me. I send 

 some dead bees and honey, also a 

 piece of the frame and emptv comb. 

 Please give me your opinion of tliem, 

 and what to do with the rest, throng 

 the Weekly Bee Journal. 



CH-^KLES GrARVEV 



Hammondville, 2^. Y. 



Answer. — Your colony of bees is 

 afBicted with what is kiiown as bee 

 diarrlioea, dysentery or cholera. We 

 think it is caused by eating improper 

 food. It is not contagious, and re- 

 garding 5'our other colonies, I know 

 of no advice to give,better than to say 

 set them out for a llight as soon as 

 the weather is suitable. The worst 

 time for realizing the havoc of this 

 disease is yet before you. 



Entrance to Sections over the Frames 



1. Will Mr. Heddon please tell us 

 in " What and How " whether the 

 strips in his honey-board come di- 

 rectly over the top-har of the frames, 

 laelow or over the spaces between the 

 frames ? 



2. Does the entrance to the honey 

 boxes match the entrance in honey- 

 hoard, or do they come directly over 

 the strips of honey-board '? 



.3. Would the queen he more liable 

 to find her way to the surplus boxes if 

 the entrance to them matched the 

 spaces between the honey-board and 

 frames below, than she would if other- 

 wise V 



4. Are the bees more liable to build 

 hits of comb between the frames and 

 honey-board, if the spaces match, 

 than they would if otherwise '? 



5. Will the bees find their way to 

 the honey boxes as soon if the en- 

 trances to them did not match the 

 spaces below V A. J. Fisher. 



East Liverpool. O., March 8, 1884. 



Answers.— r. The slats in the 

 honey board which are lx% inches, 

 are so placed that their centers come 

 directly over the spaces between the 

 top bars of the brood frames below, 

 while the center of the top bars of the 

 brood frames come directly under the 

 spaces between the slats of the honey 

 board . 



2. There is no regularity regarding- 

 the matching or mismatching between 

 ttie spaces in the honey board, and be- 

 tween the bottoms of the sections. 

 This cannot well be, when using dif- 

 ferent widths of sections, nor with 

 any width, unless as narrow as the 

 room occupied by each brood frame. 

 I find, however, that with our \% and 

 1?^ sections, the honey board breaks 



the joints between the sections, al- 

 most completely. This, however, is 

 not of so uiui-h moment, as nearly all 

 the brace combs are built between the 

 honey board ami brood frames, and 

 not between the honey board and sec- 

 tions. 



3. Yes. 



4. Last year we had some liives so 

 arranged that the spaces between the 

 brood frame and honey board 

 matched, and we were seriously troub- 

 led with bits of comb between the 

 bottoms of the sections and honey 

 board. 



5. You will notice that with our 

 style of honey board, if we put the 

 cases on the hive without any honey 

 board, proper bee spaces are still pre- 

 served. For the past 2 years we failed 

 to make enougli boards, and so worked 

 about half of our colonies without 

 them. We experienced much more 

 trouble with brace comb, and daub- 

 ing, but no more surplus honey, or 

 greater tendency to enter the sections 

 where the honey board is not used. 



A ftuery. 



AVhy does not honey run out of the 

 cells when placed there by the bees, 

 being at the same time thin and not 

 capped V Subscriber. 



Answer. — Because it is held in 

 place by the law of capilary attraction. 

 Perhaps thin honey would not be as 

 likely to run out as thick. It would 

 shake out more readily, or obey any 

 immediate command, but you know 

 how a drop of water will hang to the 

 underside of a board, and how a drop 

 of honey would slowly but surely 

 drizzle down. 



«J^Mg^^aP«^ 



Bees All Right Yet. 



My bees are all right, as far as I 

 know. They have been shut in by 

 the cold for the last 3 weeks. I lost 

 one from starvation. I presume it was 

 robbed last fall. My brick hives seem 

 to do well this winter, and it was a 

 hard one — last week 6'^ below zero ; 

 today the snow is 4inchesdeep — hard 

 bee weather. My bees were very heavy 

 last fall. I have 24 colonies in the 

 yard now. Abe Hoke. 



Union City, Ind., March 10, 1884. 



Alsike Clover. 



In answer to G. W. Morris' question 

 in regard to Alsike clover, I would 

 say that I have cultivated it for many 

 years, and would advise Mr. Morris to 

 sow it and furnish seed for his neigh- 

 bors, if the.y will sow it. I have 

 never knownit to fail in honey, when 

 the white furnished but little. I have 

 known my bees to get honey from 

 Alsike when they never visited the 

 white. Alsike makes the best of 

 hay, is good for jiasturage, sweeter 

 and better than any of the clovers. 



and is an excellent fertilizer. Has 

 any one ever seen a case of dysentery 

 in the far Southern Slates ? As to the 

 prolilicness of queens, what Mr. Uoo- 

 little would cherish in his section, Mr. 

 Benton would discard in his. Tliere 

 is nothing strange in this. Mr. Doo- 

 littlesays: •• Ilere we have but six 

 weeks during the whole season in 

 which the liees make any gain in 

 honey ;" and, of course, he wants 

 plenty of workers to gather honey 

 during that time. Here we have 

 from May 10 (if the season is favor- 

 able) till" Aug. 1, and from the last of 

 August till frost. What kind of 

 queen would Mr. Doolittle want for 

 such a locality V We have an occa- 

 sional failure in the fall, but Alsike 

 has never missed yet. This season 

 my bees will have 4(3 acres of Alsike, 

 and by early pasturing with cattle and 

 hogs, it will bloom till the last of Au- 

 gust. My observation is, that what is 

 good in one locality will be so only in 

 sections where season, honey flow, 

 pasturage and climate are the same. 

 Let all give facts as existing in their 

 localities ; this will benefit many 

 readers. 



C. W. Sappestfield. 

 Crawfordsviile, Ind. 



Wintered Successfully for 11 Years. 



My bees have wintered safely. This 

 now makes 1 1 successive years with- 

 out a loss of a single colony, except a 

 few from queenlessuess. 



H. H. Flick. 



Lavansville, Pa., March 7, 1884. 



Bees in Georgia. 



Our winter has been nnnsually cold, 

 though bees have wintered well ; and 

 are now busy working on pluui and 

 peach bloom, and building up radidly. 

 It is to be hoped that bee-keepers will 

 reap a bountiful honey crop this year. 

 J. P. H. Brown. 



Augusta, Ga., March 11, 1884. 



Bees Still Confined to the Hives, 



Bees are still confined to the hives. 

 There has not been a day since last 

 November that has lieen warm enough 

 for them to fiy. I tliink they are win- 

 tering very well, thougli this I only 

 guess at. Henky Alley. ' 



Wenham. .Mass., March 13, 1884. 



Building up a Home Trade. 



Bees, so far, are wintering pretty 

 well considering the fact that we have 

 had a very steady cold winter. Mine 

 have only had two flights since Dec. 

 1.5, 1883. I have, up to this date, lost 

 3 out of 44 on the summer stands. I 

 have had a good honey trade this win- 

 ter, and I am doing all I can to build 

 up a home trade in extracted honey. 

 I have succeeded in getting our Fair 

 managers to enlarge their premium 

 list f(n- next Fair. W. H Graves. 



Duncan, 111., March 7, 1884. 



[Building up a home trade is the 

 most desirable thing to do. It not 

 only consumes more honey, but gives 

 the producer belter prices.— Ed.] 



