1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



329 



moved the outside packing and at noon removed the cushion 

 and burlap. Every space between the frames seemed to be 

 solidly full of bees, and they had started to build comb be- 

 tween the burlap and the frames where the Hill's device had 

 left a little open space. Fruit-bloom was never more abun- 

 dant than it has been here for several days, and the weather 

 has been everything that could be desired. 



Not knowing what else to do, I put on the surplus cases 

 having many sections with drawn or partly-drawn comb. I 

 _feared that if the bloom should continue abundant for a few 

 'days more the bees might get the swarming-fever, and I do 

 not want any swarms now. If the bloom continues, and the 

 weather does not turn wet and cold, I may get some honey in 

 the sections. If not, I think the bees will be better for having 

 more room. Have I done the best thing that could be done 

 under the circumstances ? The unexpected is always hap- 

 pening in apiculture. E. B. 



Leon, Iowa, May 2. 



Answer. — What you have done was a good deal better 

 than to leave the bees as they were, and since you have done 

 it I think I will say it was good, but even for the sake of 

 being good-natured I can hardly say it was the best thing. 

 Those sections are not likely to be filled and finished up in 

 good shape during fruit-bloom, and when they are finally 

 finished they will not be so fresh and nice as if they had been 

 put on later. They however served a good purpose by allow- 

 ing the bees to have a place to store some surplus instead of 

 crowding the queen with it, but the question arises whether 

 you might not have done still better by giving the queen 

 additional room, or in other words, might it not have been 

 better to have enlarged the brood-nest instead of the surplus 

 room? Did the queen have all the room she could use in 

 those eight frames ? Why not put another story under, and 

 let the brood-nest extend down into it, even if you should 

 afterward take away the extra story ? 



Granulated. Honey in Combs — Introducing, Etc. 



1. In looking over my bees this spring I noticed that some 

 syrup made out of granulated sugar, which I fed to them last 

 fall, had granulated in the cells. Will the bees clean out the 

 cells, or will I have to give them clean combs ? 



2. I also noticed that there were some dead bees in some 

 of the cells — they were old bees, and seem to have gone into 

 the cells to get the honey and died there. Please give the 

 cause of their dying in the cells. 



o. What is the best way to keep combs partly filled with 

 honey (off of the hive) away from the bee-moth ? 



4. What is the best way of getting moths out of the combs 

 if they get into them ? 



5. When is the best time to introduce a queen ? 



J. R. S. 



Answers. — 1. The bees will throw out the grains of sugar. 



2. I suppose they went into the cells to keep warm rather 

 than to find honey there. They were probably old, and that 

 was as comfortable a place as any in which to die. 



3. In previous numbers you will find answers to this 

 question and the next. There is no better place to keep 

 combs so the moth will not trouble them than under a strong 

 colony of bees, letting the bees have open communication with 

 them from above. 



4. If there are any big ones, pick them out with a wire 

 nail ; little ones you can brimstone. But if you put them 

 under a strong colony the bees will take care of both big and 

 little. 



5. That depends somewhat upon circumstances. As a 

 general rule, there will be least trouble and loss during the 

 honey harvest. 



A French Naturalist and "He" Bees. 



The enclosed on "Bees and their Honey," *as clipped 

 from the New Haven (Conn.) Register. Please give the 

 readers of the American Bee Journal your opinion of such 

 " scientists " or '• naturalists." G. H. Y. 



Wallingford, Conn. 



The item referred to by Mr. Y. reads as follows: 



" Bees AND Their Honey. — A French naturalist with a 

 mathematical turn of mind has been calculating the work 

 done by a hive of bees. When the weatlier is favorable, a 

 ' worker,' according to his estimate, makes usually six to ten 

 trips, visiting 40 to 80 flowers and collecting about one grain 

 of nectar. Even when under extraordinary good iconditions 



he visits 200 or 400 flowers, the amount collected would not 

 exceed five or six grains, and the collection of a pound would 

 occupy several years. A hive contains 20,000 to 50,000 

 bees, of which only half are occupied in preparing honey, the 

 rest caring for the young and their quarters. In a good day 

 16,000 to 20,000 bees can, in six to ten trips, visit 300,000 

 to 1,000,000 flowers. For this it would be necessary that 

 the locality should be favorable for honey-making, and that 

 the nectar-secreting plants should grow near the hive. A 

 hive of 80,0011 bees can then, under good conditions, make 

 about two pounds of honey a year." 



I would hardly advise any one to try to straighten out 

 this clipping and reconcile its statements unless he has some 

 desire to be a gibbering maniac. It may be a little new to 

 bee-keepers to learn that " under extraordinary good condi- 

 tions" bees may visit five times as many flowers as usual. 

 That is, if a large amount of nectar is yielded by each flower, 

 then the bees can visit a big lot of such flowers, and the more 

 they get from each flower the more visits they make. I sup- 

 pose they get discouraged when the yield is small. *\V'hen 

 everything is favorable a hive can gather two pounds of honey 

 in a year, and this may seem rather large when it is noticed 

 that it is the he-workers that are mentioned, as "/le visits 

 200 or 400 flowers." 



Cut-Off Board and Bee-Escape. 



Who is the author of the " cut-off board " and the present 

 principle of operating bee-escapes ? E. J. C. 



Answer. — J. S. Reese, Winchester, Ky., I think is entitled 

 to the honor of starting the whole escape business. He used 

 the wire-cloth cone-escape, but he seems to be large-hearted 

 enough to be glad of any improvements that are made. What 

 do you mean by " cut-off board ?" Probably the board that is 

 used with the escape. If so, that belongs to Reese. 



Doubtless a Case of Laying Worker. 



I have one colony of bees in which, when examined this 

 spring, I could find no queen or any brood. I waited a week 

 or ten days and looked again, and found no sign of a queen, 

 but plenty of stores. By this time my weakest colonies had 

 plenty of brood, so I thought it must be queenless, and gave 

 them a comb of brood in all stages. I then waited on them 

 13 or 14 days and looked again, and to my surprise they had 

 brood in two other frames besides the one I gave them. Now 

 they had three queen-cells, one of which was capped nicely — 

 there was a batch of drone-brood near by the queen-cells : 

 these queen-cells and drone-comb were not on the comb of 

 brood I gave them (I am sure), mind you, so I concluded they 

 must have a queen already. I took out the queen-cells and 

 waited about a week and looked again, and found another 

 queen-cell capped. This colony seemed to have plenty of 

 bees, but did not seem to be working like the others. Were 

 they preparing to swarm, or to supersede the old queen ? or 

 what is the matter with them ? D. B. 



Grand Prairie, Tex. 



Answer. — By the time this reaches you I think you will 

 find this colony has more than its share of drones, and all of 

 the sealed brood will be not fiat but round, like little marbles. 

 That means laying workers, and I don't believe you can do 

 anything better than to break it up at once, giving the combs 

 to other colonies, with bees adhering. Don't mourn if some of 

 the workers are killed. They are old and not worth much. 



How to Distinguish Honey-Dew. 



Last year the surplus honey was a perfect failure, but the 

 bees went into winter quarters with plenty of stores, but at 

 this date (April 13) full 75 per cent, are dead, with plenty of 

 honey in the frames. The hives are badly spotted. The 

 article on page 2B1, by C. Davenport, suggests to me the 

 probability that honey-dew may be the cause of the disaster. 

 I would like to be informed by what unerring feature this 

 honey-dew may be distinguished from good honey: and would 

 it be advisable to extract all uncapped honey at the beginning 

 of winter, and supply the deficiency with granulated sugar ? 

 Would the capped honey be broken while extracting the soft 

 or uncapped part ? H. F. R. 



Wadsworth, Ohio, 



Answer. — I doubt if I can put in words a description of 



