1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



251 



CONDUCTED BY 

 UR. C. C. AIILLER, JVXAltEA'GO, ILL. 



[Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal, or to Dr. Miller direct.] 



Spreading the Brood — Out-Door Wintering. 



A little let-up in the flood of questions gives me room to 

 get in here an answer to Frank Coverdale's question on page 

 199 — " Why not say when the queen fills as much comb with 

 eggs as the bees can fully cover, then I would spread the 

 brood '?" Well, Friend Coverdale, if I were very hard up for 

 a reason, I might say that on looking at the answers on page 

 210 I find only one out-and-out advocate for brood-spreading. 

 You want outside comb of larva? and eggs to be changed for 

 inside sealed brood, because the former may be chilled out- 

 side. In spring the cluster is constantly becoming larger, and 

 wherever it is warm enough at the outer part of the cluster 

 for the queen to lay, is it likely to be too cool for the brood ? 

 Admitting that such might be the case, do you find central 

 combs containing all sealed brood, and outside frames of the 

 other kind? Are they not usually pretty thoroughly mixed ? 



Edwin Bevins asks on page 200 what I would think of 

 his plan of wintering at Marengo. If I could be assured of 

 my bees having a good flight once a month, such as he says he 

 has, I should call the plan a good one. But with the possi- 

 bility of no flight from early in November till late in March, I 

 am getting somewhat hopeless about out-door wintering here. 

 Still, I don't know what may be. C. C. M. 



Oilmeal and Other Substitutes for Pollen. 



I have been grinding some corn and oats for the bees to 

 work on, but this week I got some oilmeal and left a bag out- 

 side for a few hours. You ought to have seen the bees work 

 on it ! Is it a good thing to supply them with pollen so early 

 in the spring ? If they take oilmeal, or more common, linseed 

 msal, in preference to corn and oat meal, is it a good idea to 

 supply them with it? A. R. 



Answer. — I don't believe you'll do any harm by giving 

 the bees any substitute for pollen on which they will work. 

 I've tried a good many different things, but I'm not sure that 

 I've tried oilmeal. When they can get natural pollen you'll 

 find they'll neglect the substitute. 



Finding the Black Queen in Italianizing. 



I find it very hard to find the queen in a full colony of 

 black bees. I want to Italianize my bees, and must find the 

 black queen before introducing the Italian. What is the best 

 way to go at it ? W. E. 



Answek. — Generally there isn't much trouble about find- 

 ing a queen, but the thing can be managed so as to be a very 

 hard job. If I wanted to get a colony in shape so I couldn't 

 find the queen, I should give them a lot of smoke, and then I 

 should handle them quite roughly and jar the combs. On the 

 other hand, if I wanted to find her, I should handle them very 

 gently, giving only a little smoke, so as to avoid getting them 

 to running. If they get to running like a flock of sheep, you 

 may about as well give it up for a bad job, and try it some 

 time again when all is quiet. Indeed, if you don't find a 

 queen, even when they're quiet, after looking them over the 

 second time, you may save time by letting them alone for half 

 an hour or more. 



Here's a little trick that may help : Put an empty hive 

 beside you. Take out carefully the first frame on the side 

 next you, look on one side and then the other for the queen, 

 although if there's no brood on this outside frame there is not 

 much chance that the queen will be on it. You'll more likely 

 find her on one of the combs that contain brood. Put the 

 frame in the empty hive at the side nearest you, but don't put 

 it so close to the side that the bees will touch the wood, leav- 

 ing an inch or two between the comb and the side of the hive. 

 When you have looked over the second frame, put it close up 

 to the first one in the empty hive. Put the third frame an 

 inch and a half or more from the second, then the fourth close 

 to the third. Thus you see you have the combs in pairs. 

 When about half the frames are in the empty hive, you can 



leave the others in the old hive, but put them in pairs, just as 

 you did in the empty hive. 



Now your combs all being in pairs, you are pretty sure, 

 on whatever pair the queen may be found, that she will be in 

 the middle of the two combs, and not ou the outside. Com- 

 mence again with the first frame, lift it up, and as you do so, 

 look at the side of the second comb still in the hive, and you 

 may happen to see the queen there. If not, examine carefully 

 the comb in your hand on the side that was next to the second 

 comb,then examine the second comb, and proceed thus with all 

 the pairs. 



Sometimes this is done : Put the combs in two or more 

 different hives, and let them stand for a time — those which 

 have no queen will begin to show signs of uneasiness, while 

 those with the queen will remain quiet. Then you can ex- 

 amine the quiet ones, and perhaps re-divide them. 



Here's a way you may like still better : Oblige the bees 

 in some way to pass through a queen-trap or queen-excluder. 

 The workers will get through, but the queen will not, and can 

 then be caught. One way to manage this is to shake or brush 

 all the bees off the combs into an empty hive or box. Then 

 put the combs without bees in the hive, and close the hive up 

 so that no bee can get into it without passing through ex- 

 cluder zinc. This may be a queen-trap at the entrance, or a 

 queen-excluding honey-board may be put on top of the hive, a 

 bottomless empty hive placed over this, and the bees shaken 

 in. If a queen-trap is used at the entrance, of course the bees 

 must be shaken down in front. 



Wants to Prevent Swarming this Year. 



I have five colonies of bees now (March 27) in good con- 

 dition, hives full of brood-comb, and I do not want them to 

 swarm until next year. Can I prevent it by buying bee-en- 

 trance guards, and leaving them on the hives until danger of 

 swarming is over? C. S. W. 



Answer. — No, a queen-trap or a guard at the entrance 

 that will let workers pass, but not a queen, will prevent a 

 queen going off, but it will not prevent the bees from swarm- 

 ing, and they'll continue to swarm more or less till the old 

 queen is killed and a young one present, and then if the 

 young one is kept penned in she will be a drone-layer. But 

 with a queen-trap at the entrance you can catch the queen 

 when they swarm, then you may try some of the ways given 

 for the management of such swarming colonies. 



Questions on Spacing of Frames. 



1. What spacing between frames would you recommend ? 



2. Would you make any change upon the spacing when 

 preparing for winter, say in the fall, for the storing of winter 

 supplies ? 



S. What should be the inside width of a single-story 

 brood-chamber in which colonies spend both summer and win- 

 ter—for 10 frames and for 9 ? Canada. 



Answers. — 1. The majority now have frames spaced 1% 

 inches from center to center. Some space IJ^, and a very few 

 still less than 1^8. If I should go either side of the 1%, it 

 would be toward the larger spacing, but I'm not sure there's 

 any advantage in anything wider than l^s- 



2. Taking all things into consideration, I should use the 

 same spacing all the year round. 



3. For 9 frames, taking 1?B as the distance for spacing 

 frames, it is easy to figure eight times that as 11 inches, but 

 that's allowing a space only on one side of each frame, and 

 another space must be added, making 119e inches. But in 

 actual practice it is found much better to have additional 

 space in which to hang a dummy for the sake of getting out 

 the first frame more easily. The inside width of the dovetail 

 hive is 12^^ inches, and I should certainly not like anything 

 smaller, although it might do no harm to make it a trifle 

 wider. For 10 frames, add 1% inches for each additional 

 frame, which would make the inside width of a 10-frame hive 

 about 14:]4 inches. 



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