1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



411 



case the bees observed the orthodox eight days. For I sus- 

 pect that the swarm you hived on the 8th had a young queen 

 and not an old one. The old queen was likely defective in 

 some way, and could not go with the swarm. The queen-cells 

 were sealed perhaps about May 31, and that was the regular 

 time for the issue of the prime swarm. Either the swarm did 

 not issue at that time, owing to the inability of the queen, or 

 may have issued unobserved and returned. Then June 8, the 

 old queen having been put out of the way, the swarm issued 

 with a young queen. 



2. You can do so ; or if you don't care to pay so much, 

 you can get one queen now and rear queens from her. 



3. You will find instructions for transferring in any of 

 the text-books, for which there is hardly room in this depart- 

 ment. But I doubt the wisdom of being in too much of a 

 hurry about transferring. Your bees have now a start in 

 box-hives, and you might perhaps do well to leave them there 

 till swarming next year, then put your swarms in frame hives. 

 If the old hive is a box-hive, you may do well to transfer it 

 about June 21, as by that time there will be very little brood 

 in the way. On the other hand, there may be a good deal of 

 honey in the way. 



m 



Rent for an Apiary — Other Questions. 



1. What rent should I have for my apiary ? I run it for 

 extracted honey, have the Langstroth-Simplicity hive, frames 

 wired, and combs built. I have a large sized extractor, and 

 everything complete. 



2. I expect to add a second super and frames filled with 

 foundation. What do you think about a narrow super, say 6 

 inches to start the bees off in the spring? I want swarms re- 

 turned to the mother colony, except a few very early ones. 



Miramar, Calif., June 1. Amateuk. 



Answers. — 1. That's a- very hard question to answer. I 

 don't know that there's any precedent for it, and the rent 

 might be really worth ten times as much one year as another. 

 In a year with a big honey crop a man might be able to afford 

 $100 rent for an apiary of a certain size, while in a year of 

 dead failure it would be a losing business for him if he paid a 

 rent of 100 cents. So you see it's just as you can agree upon 

 it. Possibly it might be a good way for you to have so many 

 cents a pound for all honey harvested, or to have so many 

 pounds of honey out of every hundred. 



2. I don't believe bees would commence work any sooner 

 in a super only 6 inches wide than they would in one large 

 enough to cover the whole top of the hive. Possibly you mean 

 the depth rather than the width of the hive, and 6 inches 

 deep would perhaps be better than something deeper. 



Returning swarms will be all right if you keep it up, but 

 remember that it may be necessary to return a number of 

 times before all swarming will be given up. 



Several E^gs in a Cell — Swarming — Folding Sections. 



1. On May 21, I introduced a young queen from the 

 South, and on looking over the brood-frames June 7 I saw a 

 cell with six eggs in it. Is it a common thing for queens to 

 lay more than one egg in a cell '? 



2. On May 24 I had a prime swarm from one of my colo- 

 nies; on June 2 another swarm, and on June 3 another — all 

 from the same hive. The last two were hived together. Was 

 it likely that there was a queen with the last swarm, which 

 swarmed one day after the second swarm came out ? 



3. How can I fold one-piece sections by hand without 

 ha»ing them break at the corners when dry ? S. A. R. 



Answers. — 1. No, it is not a common thing to find as 

 many as six eggs in a cell when a laying queen is present. A 

 good queen will not be likely to lay more than one egg in a 

 cell unless badly crowded for room, or in case too few bees are 

 present to cover much brood. Laying workers often lay a 

 number of eggs in a cell, and in that case they usually use 

 drone-cells or queen-cells. 



2. You may be about certain there was a queen with that 

 third swarm, and there would be nothing strange in the case 

 if several queens were with the swarm. 



3. If they're very dry I don't know of any way by hand 

 or otherwise that you can fold them without breaking, but you 

 are not obliged to keep them dry. You can wet the parts 

 that are to be bent so they will work as well as new. The 

 sections are packed in a package so that the V-grooves all 

 correspond. The whole package of 500 sections can all be 

 treated together, and made ready in five minutes. Take a 

 teakettle not more.than one-third full of boiling water, pour 



as fine a stream as you can and have a steady stream. Let it 

 go into the grooved places, following regularly along. Of 

 course the sections must lie so that the water will run down 

 through the whole pile. I've never had any trouble with sec- 

 tions so treated. Some say they will be all right if kept in a 

 damp cellar for a few days. I've never had any success in 

 that way, but I have no very damp cellar. 



Wants His B^es to Swarm. 



Bees are not doing well at this date (June 3). It is very 

 wet here. I have been using box-hives for 20 years. I have 

 now bought a lot of frame hives, and I wish to get the bees 

 into them this season. They are lying out very much in the 

 old hives, and don't swarm. Would it be advisable to "drive," 

 or wait for natural swarming ? N. P. W. 



Banister, Wis. 



Answer. — If bees are doing so little that they don't care 

 to swarm, it may not be the best time to do any driving. I'll 

 tell you what you can do to make swarms come faster when 

 only part of them are willing to swarm. Suppose No. 1 is the 

 first one to swarm. Hive its swarm on the old stand, and put 

 No. 1 in place of another colony, perhaps No. 2, putting No. 

 2 on a new stand. Of course No. 2 was a strong colony, and 

 a heavy part of its force will join No. 1. In a week or ten 

 days more No. 1 will swarm again, the swarm being put on 

 the stand No. 1 now occupies; No. 1 being this time put in 

 place of No. 3, the latter being put in a new place. A day or 

 so later No. 1 may swarm again, and as often as it does it 

 must be put in the place of a colony that has not swarmed. 

 Each colony that swarms may be treated in the same way as 

 No. 1, and you probably will have swarms enough. 



Fears Foul Brood from Chilled Brood. 



Whilst examining one of my colonies of bees yesterday 

 (after a rainy spell of about two weeks), I found that not only 

 were the bees on the verge of starvation, but a very large per- 

 centage of brood, in all stages, had actually become chilled 

 beyond recovery. I immediately fed the bees some honey, re- 

 moved the dead bees, which had accumulated on the bottom- 

 board, removed the empty combs, and inserted a division- 

 board so as to make everything snug and clean. 



Now I know that this colony will not do me very much 

 good in the way of surplus honey, but I wish to see how good 

 a colony I can make of it by fall for the sake of experiment — 

 if for nothing else. But I am in doubt as to one thing. Is 

 there any danger of this chilled brood finally causing "foul 

 brood?" or will the bees remove it all themselves, now that 

 the weather is favorable and honey coming in ? 1 am dread- 

 fully afraid of " foul brood," and wish to stamp it out before 

 it actually exists. 



Please excuse lead-pencil, for I see that you do not find 

 carelessly written questions easier to answer than those pen- 

 ned with care ; but perhaps you'll overlook it for once. 



Maher, Colo. F. A. D. 



Answer. — I think it's a good thing to feel "dreadfully 

 afraid of foul brood," and I wouldn't like to say anything to 

 make you less vigilant, so I will say that there are those who 

 think that foul brood may originate with dead brood. 1 am 

 bound, however, to add that 1 have never known anything of 

 the kind in my own experience of 34 years, and during that 

 time 1 have often had dead brood in hives and out of them. 

 So if your bees do as mine have done, they'll clean out that 

 dead brood all right. If the colony is weak, however, it may 

 be somewhat discouraging for them to have too much house- 

 cleaning to do, and you might give some of the combs to 

 stronger colonies. 



Don't worry about the lead-pencil. If all writing were as 

 neat and plain as yours, I shouldn't care if it was written 

 with the end of a burnt stick. 



Houeyras Food aiid Medioine. — A new and revised 

 edition of this 32-page pamphlet is now issued. It has 5 blank 

 pages on which to write or paste recipes taken from other sources. 

 It is just what its name indicates, and should be liberally dis- 

 tributed among the people everywhere to create a demand for 

 honey. It contains a number of recipes on the use of honey as 

 food and as medicine, besides much other interesting and valuable 

 information. Prices, postpaid, are: Single copy, 5 cts. ; 10 copies 

 35cts. ; 50 for .*1..50; lOU for .*'3.50. Better give them a trial. Send 

 all orders to^the Bee Journal office. 



