362 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



l^hat wntl gl^oxir. 



ANSWERS BT 



James Heddon, Dowagiac, Mich 



Comb Production. 



Will Mr. Jas. Heddon please tell us 

 if it will pay to feed extracted honey, 

 costing 10 or 11 cents per pound to 

 get comb, to sell at 20 cents? Our 

 honey season is over till fall : if this 

 plan will pay, I can keep my bees at 

 work during honey dearth. 



D. W. Bbllemet. 



Vienna, 111., July 8, 1883. 



Answer.— A few say that it will. 

 Very many say they have found that 

 it will not, and have paid for the les- 

 son. If you will try it this season, I 

 will venture to say you will be found 

 among those who fail to make it prac- 

 tical. I have not believed it practical, 

 hence, have not tried the experiment. 



Triiusferriug. 



In answer to Silas R., on Transferr- 

 ing, on page 315, Mr. Heddon savs : 

 "We practice transferring either' on 

 the old system or the new." Please 

 give us both systems in the next num- 

 ber of the Journal, and oblige several 

 suliscribers who wish to know for our 

 own beneht. Give us light on this 

 subject. D. F. Marrs. 



South Bosque, Tex., June 27, 1883. 



Answer.— I will have an article on 

 Transferring next week, in which I 

 will give and compare both systems. 



What is the Cause of It J 



Please answer these questions in 

 " What and How " department : 



1. When a virgin queen leads a 

 swarm, does she mate with the drone 

 while swarming ? 



2. What is the cause of bees, where 

 they are on the outside front of hive, 

 having a back-and-forth motion, 

 heads downward, mandibles against 

 the hive, like as if they were rubbing 

 them against the hive V 



3. When I open a hive and am lift- 

 ing out frames, on some frames sev- 

 eral bees will besin to shake them- 

 selves like as if they were trying to 

 shake loose from their legs— what is 

 the cause 'i J. A. P. Fancher- 34. 



Fancliers' Mills, Tenn., July 9, 1883. 



Answers.— 1. Xo ; such is not the 

 rule, though I do not know that such 

 might not happen under some condi- 

 tions. As a rule, the age of the queen 

 forbids. 



2. I once found out the cause of this 

 see-saw movement, but have forgotten 

 it, and who told me, as it is not radi- 

 cally connected with our success or 

 failure. 



3. I have been told that this shaking 

 motion is to remove particles of pollen 

 that still adhere to the legs, but I 



have always been too busy with the 

 dollar and cent points of the business, 

 to stop and carefully look into these 

 unimportant matters. They are of 

 most importance to the apicultural 

 entomologist, and I presume Prof. 

 Cook can answer these questions 

 easily and satisfactorally. 



Horsemint a Failure. 



Our main honey plant, the horse- 

 mint, failed to yield honey this year, 

 on the account of droutli. Last year 

 it beat anything I ever saw ; my bees 

 filled their liives in 3 weeks; it 

 bloomed about 8 weeks, yielding all 

 the time. I have to feed some of my 

 bees now, to keep up breeding. For 

 the fall plant, we have the smart 

 weed ; I notice thousands of it spring- 

 ing up all around the lakes, and it 

 never fails to yield honey. I will now 

 name some of tlie Texas honey plants: 

 First, fruit bloom, tlien willow, you- 

 pon, rattan, persimmon, hoarhound, 

 horsemint, wild ivy, elder, dog fennel, 

 wild sage, smart weed, native cotton, 

 and a hundred other different varieties 

 which yield more or less. Please tell 

 me how to make winter feed, and how 

 much it will take to winter a colony. 

 W. S. Douglass. 



Lexington, Tex., June 28, 1883. 



[For feeding in fall for winter stores, 

 3 pounds of coffee A sugar and one 

 pint of boiling water, simmer five 

 minutes. Feed this inside the hive 

 with a division board feeder, or in a 

 tin can with a coarse cloth tied over 

 it, and inverted on the frames. For 

 fall feeding, estimate the amount re- 

 quired, and give it as fast as the bees 

 can store it in the combs. For winter 

 feeding, use four parts coffee A sugar 

 and one part water ; simmer till it be- 

 comes quite hard on being cooled, 

 mould into frames of one inch thick- 

 ness, and lay it on top of the frames, 

 using sticks underneath one-half inch 

 square ; or mould it in brood frames, 

 tie hemp twine around to hold it in 

 place, and put it in the center of the 

 brood chamber. Each colony should' 

 have 30 pounds of good honey for win- 

 ter stores, in the North, but in Texas, 

 it needs much less. — Ed.] 



Lots of Houey. 



I have just arrived home from 

 San Antonio, Texas. Bees are doing 

 nothing there at present ; the weather 

 is so very dry. Will return there 

 again in the fall. Bees are doing 

 finely here, swarming right along, 

 laying up lots of honey. 



A. C. Bailey. 



Brooklyn, Iowa, July 9, 1883. 



Bees Doing First Rate. 



I am building a new bee house 16x20 

 and 16 feet high. I am going more 

 extensive in the bee business. Bees 

 are doing first rate. The linden has 

 not commenced to bloom yet, in my 

 locality. 1 had a small swarm queen- 

 less, on the first of June. I gave it 

 two queen-cells; one of the queens 

 hatched, got fertilized and laid eggs 

 in worker comb in three days ; all 

 this time the other queen was not 

 allowed to hatch, and the eighth day 

 after the first queen hatched, they 

 swarmed. Reese Powell. 



Mineral Point, Wis., July 10, 1883. 



Sourwood Honey. 



This season I have been trying Prof . 

 A. J. Cook's plan for the prevention 

 of increase, by putting swarms into 

 colonies that had swarmed a few days 

 previously, giving supers filled with 

 foundation, after destroying all queen 

 cells, and they invari;ibly swarmed 

 again in from 10 to 13 days, but now 

 they have stopped since July 5. Sour- 

 wood began to bloom on June 26, and 

 is now booming ; the iioney is very 

 thin— clear as crystal, and. when fully 

 ripened and thick (which takes till 

 about Sept. 1), it is, to my taste, the 

 finest honey of any. It has the most 

 delicate tlavor, never cloying the ap- 

 petite like some honey does. After 

 ripening in the hive, it turns to a pale 

 yellow and is very thick. The sour- 

 wood will continue in blossom till the 

 last of J nly . Bees do not gather houey 

 as rapidly from it as they do from 

 poplar, biit the sourwood holds its own 

 longer, and we get more surplus from 

 sourwood, when the season is favora- 

 ble, the bees being always strong when 

 it is in blossom. Our ridges here are 

 covered with it, not exclusively, but 

 mixed among the oaks and other 

 trees. J. A. P. Fancher. 



Fancher's Mills, Tenn., July 9, 1883. 



Mistaken Economy. 



With all respect to ilr. Doolittle, I 

 would say that he gave, sometime 

 ago, what looked well on paper, and 

 I thought I had '• struck ile" when I 

 read it, which was to save foundation 

 by hiving bees on empty frames for a 

 few davs. then to add foundation. I 

 have tried it, and found it mistaken 

 economy, if foundation can be had. 

 I have proved that bees often swarm 

 without being able to produce much 

 wax for 48 hours. Some of my bees 

 did good work at once on foundation, 

 by raising the cell walls without being 

 idle or producing wax at the ex- 

 pense of honey. If bees hang out a 

 few days and prepare for swarming, 

 they will give much better results on 

 empty frames. Next, when I saw my 

 stock' of foundation costing §50, I be- 

 gan to wonder if it would pay. I used 

 half sheets, to see if I could not sell 

 some foundation. I guess not, for 

 about 12 in the dozen were filled out 

 with drone comb below the half 

 sheets, especially if put in before 

 swarming. No more half sheets on 

 these premises. To get strong, well 

 puffed out combs, keep the extractor 

 away until all are well drawn. I let 

 my bees swarm naturally, and put 



