234 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Apr. 11, 



going away with the first one. Now I would like to know 

 what they did with those eggs, and what was the cause of the 

 queen laying her eggs simply on the outside of the comb and 

 the workers disposing of them in such a mysterious way. 



2. I would like to know how many bees I could keep in 

 this locality. There are no basswood trees around here, only 

 a few poplar, some white clover, raspberry, blackberry, and 

 plenty of cherry trees. G. E. U. 



Halifax, Pa. 



Answers. — 1. I'd give a good deal to have seen what you 

 did. It was a very unusual sight, and some would even be in- 

 clined to say that you must have been mistaken about it. 

 There has been quite a little discussion as to whether workers 

 ever carried eggs. Some say they do and some say they don't. 

 As to why the queen laid eggs there without depositing them 

 in cells, and what the workers did with the eggs, I can only 

 say I don't know. Possibly the queen had filled all available 

 room, and was exploring on the outside of the combs for more 

 room, and failing to find proper places simply extruded the 

 eggs for her own comfort ; and then if I wanted to theorize 

 further, I might say that the workers lugged off the eggs and 

 put them in queen-cells. But the real truth is that I don't 

 know a thing about it. 



2. I'm sorry to say that you're second question is about as 

 hard to answer as the first. That "some white clover" is the 

 thing I'd like most to know about. It may mean enough to 

 keep 100 colonies busy, and there may not be enough to keep 

 10 out of mischief. Again, much depends upon the number 

 of bees about you. If there are only a dozen colonies within 

 two miles, you may have a fine location, and if there are 

 many within the same distance it might be troublesome for a 

 good-sized apiary at your home to store a pound of surplus. 

 Making a guess at what is the usual thing, I should say that 

 you might try increasing till you reached 50 or 75, and then 

 if you saw no diminution for two or three years, you might be 

 safe to increase a little more. But you'll find it an extremely 

 hard thing to settle just how many colonies can be most profit- 

 ably supported in your field. 



What Disease is It ? 



Suppose a swarm shows foul brood through early summer, 

 and the latter part of the season the brood is all right, in same 

 comb, what is such a disease called ? C. V. B. 



Answer. — I don't know. I think I should call it a mis- 

 take. For if it showed foul brood in early summer, I hardly 

 think it would be gone later if nothing was done to it. Chilled 

 brood in early summer might be present, and to a certain ex- 

 tent look like foul brood, but there's a difference of miles be- 

 tween the two. 



CONDUCTED BY 



A/RS. JEXXIE ATCIILBY, BEEVILLE, TEX. 



Queen Carried Out by the Bees. 



Jennie Atchley : — I received a queen from a Massachu' 

 setts breeder, and introduced her, and afterwards I found her 

 out on the alighting-boprd, nearly dead. I took her into the 

 house and she came to life, and I returned her to the hive. 1. 

 What caused her to leave the cluster, and expose herself to 

 the cold, the colony being strong and healthy? 2. Will she 

 be worth keeping, providing the accident does not occur again? 



North Yakima, Wash. Isaac Hays. 



Friend Hays, so much depends that I am at a loss to know 

 how to answer. Now, if you had made your colony queenless 

 some days before you introduced the new queen, the bees may 

 have reared a queen, and she hatched at about the time the young 

 queen was carried out by the bees; you returned her, and she 

 got killed, etc., and you likely did not discover it. Or it may 

 have been the other way — the queen you introduced was taken 

 out and the young one saved, etc. It may be that the only 

 queen your bees had was dragged out from some unknown 

 cause. But I am of the opinion that it was one of the first 

 ways mentioned. I would watch this queen and her colony, 

 and if everything works off properly, I think the queen will be 

 all right for this season. 



Questions on Bee-Keeping in the South. 



Jennie Atchley : — At what price can land suitable for 

 bee-keeping be bought in your part of Texas? At what price 

 can bees be bought in the spring ? What price do you get for 

 comb and extracted honey ? Do you winter your bees without 

 any protection whatever ? What are your main sources for 

 honey — what plants or trees ? 



I intend to sell my bees next fall, and go to some place 

 and make a speciality of bee-keeping. The coming season 

 will be my twelfth summer in bee-keeping. I intend to locate 

 somewhere where bees will need no winter protection. Here 

 in Wisconsin we have them in the cellar nearly five months, 

 and if the weather is unfavorable in the spring we seldom get 

 them strong enough for our white honey crop, which starts 

 the latter part of June. A. L. 



Calumet Harbor, Wis. 



Friend L., I will answer your questions as accurately as 

 I can : Land suitable for a good bee-ranch can be bought for 

 $5.00 per acre. Bees in the spring, in box-hives, are S2.50 

 per colony ; in latest improved hives, .S5.00 per colony is 

 about the price where a person will take them at the bee- 

 yards. We get about 6 cents per pound for extracted honey, 

 and 8 cents for bulk comb honey. Nice section honey brings 

 123^ cents per pound. Yes, we winter our bees without any 

 protection, more than a common single-walled hive. Our main 

 sources for honey are cat's-claw, horsemint, mesquite and 

 chaparal. 



^ I ■ 



Bees Stored Bitter Honey. 



My bees are wintering very well. They have plenty of 

 stores to carry them through until spring. They filled the 

 brood-chamber with nice linden honey, and about the close of 

 the flow I put the supers on. In the fall they filled them with 

 bitterweed honey, nearly as bitter as quinine. What is such 

 honey fit for ? How can I keep them from " playing off " on 

 me again ? S. P. Brewer. 



Edom. Tex., Feb. 14. 



Friend Brewer, I think your bitter honey will be excel- 

 lent to winter bees on. I used to get, some seasons, in north 

 and middle Texas, quite a lot of bitterweed honey, and I found 

 this bitter honey as wholesome as any for bees, but not good 

 to eat. I would keep the bees from fooling me next time by 

 giving them room in the brood-nest to store it, and keep the 

 supers off, unless they have full-sized frames ; in that case, 

 you can use the honey in feeding or stimulating in the spring. 

 It would tickle me if I had about 40,000 pounds of that bitter 

 honey this spring to make bees out off. If you get this honey 

 every year, prepare to have it stored for your bees in winter, 

 and take oft the good honey. 



Exchanging Larvee in Queen-Bearing — Dipping Cell-Cups. 



Jennie Atchley speaks, in her lessons on profitable bee- 

 keeping, about exchanging the egg or larva in the queen-cells 

 when the bees are preparing to swarm. Now I wish she 

 would answer these questions : Could any one exchange the 

 larva after the swarm has issued, as they almost always 

 leave a number of cells uncapped ? Could the capped cells be 

 opened and the larva exchanged ? I think Mrs. Atchley for- 

 got to tell us how to dip queen-cells. 



Did any one ever have the nameless bee-disease start in a 

 colony of black or native bees, or is it confined to the Italians? 



Clayton, Mich. C. A. Huff. 



Friend Hufl', in ray lessons on queen-rearing, I am sorry 

 I left out how to dip cells, and also that I did not make it 

 more plain about grafting into natural cells. Well, to dip 

 cell-cups I use a little stick about 4 inches long, one end made 

 to fit inside a natural queen-cell, leaving a small part on the 

 bottom of the stick just right to make a place in a cell-cup 

 large enough to take in the cocoon of a cell, or the bottom of 

 the cocoon, and move the cocoon, little larva and all.right into 

 the bottom of the cell-cup. 



To dip the cell cups I have a cup of melted wax, and at 

 first make a short dip, and dip five or six times, going a little 

 deeper every time until the cell-cup is about % of an inch 

 long. The best way to get all cell-cups of right length is to 

 have a mark on the cell-stick where you wish the cap to come 

 to, and dipping five or six times, first shallow,then deeper, etc. 

 This gives the cell-cup a strong base, and the top a thin edge. 

 Wet the stick in water before you dip the cups, each time, 

 and when done, take hold of the cell-cup with one hand and 



