620 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



improvement, and is sure to be im- 

 proved. It occurred to me years ago 

 that if queenless bees could be em- 

 ployed to produce honey, the problem 

 would be solved ; and, now, after ex- 

 perimenting considerably in that 

 direction, I am prepared to say that I 

 can control increase by employing 

 queenless bees to gather my surplus 

 crop of honey ; and in order that 

 others may aid me in perfecting the 

 new system, I will here give you a 

 description of the practical working 

 of the plan : 



In the early part of the honey sea- 

 son, the surplus cases are adjusted on 

 the hives in the usual way, and 

 "turther proceedings continued " till 

 the colonies show signs of swarming. 

 I then move the old hive from its 

 stand and put a new (or empty) hive 

 in its place, and fill up the new hive 

 with empty combs, one of which must 

 contain some larvse just hatched from 

 the eggs. The case or cases for sur- 

 plus honey are now lifted off of the 

 old hive and set, with all the bees in 

 them, on tlie new hives. You now 

 look up the queen and put the combs 

 in which she is found, in your comb- 

 box, and tlien proceed to shake the 

 bees from the combs into the old hive 

 right in front of the new one, having 

 first provided a slanting board to lead 

 the bees to the entrance. Place the 

 combs back in the old hive, to which 

 add the comb with the queen, and set 

 the old hive at right angles with the 

 new one. It is best to spread a cloth 

 over the old hive to disguise it for a 

 day or so. 



It will be seen that the new hive 

 contains nearly all of the field work- 

 ers, and a large portion of the young 

 bees for comb-builders, while the old 

 hive has all the brood with the queen, 

 and enough workers and nurses to 

 push forward brood-rearing. 



The bees in the new hive will start 

 queen-cells and gather honey with 

 the greatest rapidity. In five or six 

 days we begin to turn the old hive, a 

 little at a time, so as to stand close 

 by the side of the new one, bringing 

 the entrances of both hives, practi- 

 cally, together. At the expiration of 

 ten days — if the honey season con- 

 tinued good— the old colony will be 

 strong enough to spare additional 

 working force to the honey-producing 

 colony m the new hive ; and to accom- 

 plish this, all we have to do is to turn 

 the old hive back to its former posi- 

 tion,at right angles with the new hive, 

 at a time when the bees are in the 

 fields in full force, and as they come 

 home loaded, they will enter the new 

 hive and recruit its failing strength. 



Of course the queen-cells must be 

 removed, and freshly-hatched larvse 

 given in their place. When all danger 

 of swarming is over, the old hive is 

 brought in line with the new one, and i 

 the bees are united by " tiering up " I 

 the new hive on the old one, and thus I 

 the honey-harvest is finished up by 

 the united colony. 



It will be noticed that I speak of 

 employing two hives for each colony, 

 which 1 distinguish by the terms 

 " new " and " old." Well, now I pro- 

 pose to dispense with the extra cost 

 of the " new hive," and in its place 



use the supers or surplus cases ad- 

 justed on a recess bottom-board. 

 When running a colony for comb 

 honey, I will work a case of shallow 

 extracting-combs on the recess board, 

 and underneath the section-cases, to 

 catch the pollen, if any is brought in. 



My recess bottom-boards are made 

 just the width of the hive 1 use, and 

 two inches longer. A strip of wood 

 %xJ8 of an inch is nailed to three 

 sides of the board to give " bee space" 

 under the cases which rest on the 

 elevated rim formed by the strips of 

 wood. The extra two inches in the 

 length of the board is for an alight- 

 ing-board. 



I have now given my new system of 

 controlling increase — suppressing 

 swarming, if you prefer the terms, 

 and producing honey with queenless 

 bees. Of course there will be much 

 criticism. A large minority of bee- 

 culturists have always refused to 

 accept anything " new " until they 

 have' added some " improvement," 

 worthless though it may be, to the 

 new improvement or device. I do not 

 object to this. Many flue inventions 

 have been born of absurdity. 



Christiansburg, Ky. 



Mllxat and gloiu. 



ANSWERS BY 



James Heddon, Dowagiac, Mich. 



Rulef^ tor tliis Department. 



1. Give your name and post-offlce address. 



2. Be brief, and to the point. 



3. Send no simi>le questions, such as are 

 answered in the bee-books. 



4. Ask only such questions as are of 

 general interest. 



o. This department is not intended for 

 advertising- any ' one's wares — therefore 

 questions concerning the manufacture of 

 goods for sale are not appropriate. 

 6. Direct all questions to the editor— 

 THOS. G. NEWniAN, 

 925 West Madison St., CHICAGO, ILL. 



Strange Noise in a Bee-Hive. 



Every afternoon for the last two 

 weeks I have heard a noise in one of 

 my strong Italian colonies, which 

 sounds exactly like a boy blowing in 

 an empty vial or bottle. When I first 

 heard it, I thought that was what it 

 was, but my wife said it was in one of 

 the bee-hives, and upon examination 

 I found tliat she was correct. It can 

 be heard 80 feet from the hive. What 

 isitV J. N. Smoot, M. D. 



Fulton, Ky., Sept. 9, 1884. 



Answer. — I will give up this puz- 

 zle before I attempt an answer. I 

 have had no experience in any such 

 case, and you IJeing on the ground, 

 are best able to get under the cause of 

 the strange phenomenon. 



The Purity of Drones. 



In the Texas Bee-Keepers' Conven- 

 tion, the report of which was pub- 

 lished in the Bee J(jruRNAL, I find 

 this as one of the questions discussed : 

 " Are drones from an Italian queen 



that has mated with a black drone, 

 pure Italians V" The committee hav- 

 ing the question under advisement, 

 reported "yes ;" the convention dis- 

 sented. As it is a matter of vital 

 interest to all beginners in bee-keep- 

 ing, I had hoped that some of the 

 " lights " would have noticed the 

 theory. If the queen, unmated, can 

 produce the drone, the Italian queen 

 the Italian drone, why may she not 

 have the power to do the same when 

 impurely mated ? With me this is no 

 idle question. I am trying to Ital- 

 ianize my apiary, and I have but 4 

 pure queens, and 20 pure ones but 

 unpurely mated. After a protracted 

 drouth of some 4 months, my bees are 

 now on a " boom " on the second 

 bloom of the Brazil or red-wood. I 

 extracted about 400 pounds of honey 

 last week, making in all, thus far, 

 some 2.000 pounds. If the Brazil 

 holds out another week, I will have a 

 full extracting from my 70 colonies. 

 Heretofore I have only extracted from 

 30 colonies. I will report when the 

 season is over. Jno. A. Emison. 

 Missouri Valley, Tex., Sept. 5, 1884. 



Answer. — The best I can do in an- 

 swering the above, is to say that 

 Dzierzon and many other students of 

 entomology have declared the same as 

 the " committee " to which you refer. 

 Several of our leading apiarists have 

 observed what induced them to be- 

 lieve that the drones of a pure queen 

 which was impurely fertilized, were 

 not pure. I do not consider myself 

 yet decided upon that subject. As 

 yet I have never seen any thing to 

 warrant me in believing that the great 

 naturalist, Dzierzon, is mistaken in 

 his theory, though such men do some- 

 times err. 



Killing Bees. 



Your answer to my questions about 

 the killing of the little black bees, is 

 wide of the mark. It is now 26 days 

 since I first noticed the killing of 

 them, and they are still at it. Nearly 

 all the oldest and most experienced 

 bee-keepers in this vicinity have seen 

 them, and all agree that they have 

 never seen anything like them. The 

 black bees do not work, and that, I 

 think, is the reason they kill them. 

 Sometimes the workers get so much 

 excited about it that they kill each 

 other. I opened the hive yesterday 

 and found plenty of brood. This was 

 my strongest colony, and I have taken 

 18.5 pounds of comb honey from it 

 Ihis season. Can you not give another 

 guess, as I am still in the dark 'i 



H. J. NORTHKUP. 



Lansingburg, X. Y., Sept. 5, 1884. 



Answer.— I shall have to give up 

 your peculiar conundrum, for I, too, 

 have never seen any thing like it. 



Preparation of Honey for the Mar- 

 ket, including the production and care 

 of both comb and extracted honey, 

 instructions on the exhibition pf bees 

 and honey at Fairs, etc. This is a 

 new 10 cent pamphlet, of 32 pages. 



