1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



523 



of mine says that "he has found dead queens in front of his 

 hives with several stings sticking in them, as if the bees stung 

 them to death ;" but I have never found any stings in them ; 

 when the bees ball a queen, they seem to do more biting than 

 stinging. In the above case, if the bees killed the surplus 

 queens, what was the other piping for ? 



2. I had a colony last spring that did not work with the 

 same energy as the rest, and dwindled when the others were 

 gaining. One day I took out the frames and found here and 

 there a drone sealed among the worker-brood in the worker- 

 comb, so I concluded the queen was failing, so one day when 

 T expected a second swarm I destroyed the old queen, intend- 

 ing to unite the swarm with the young queen with the old 

 colony, but my second swarm came out and clustered with a 

 prime swarm, so I concluded to give them a sealed queen-cell. 

 On June 22 I had a colony swarm, and June 23 I looked into 

 the old colony, and they had six sealed queen-cells. On June 

 24 I took a frame with two of the cells on it, changed it for a 

 frame out of the colony that I had previously destroyed the 

 queen — this was four days after — and they had several cells 

 started, but when I gave them the two sealed queen-cells they 

 stopped work on their own. On the morning of June 28 I 

 found a dead queen in front of the hive, fully grown except 

 the wings, and just beginning to turn brown, thinking one 

 queen had emerged and destroyed the other, as it was six days 

 after the old colony had swarmed that I took the cells from ; 

 but on taking out the frame I found the other cell all right — 

 not open. On July 2 — nine days after I first saw the cell 

 sealed — I looked again, and it was still sealed. On July i — 

 11 days after it was sealed — audit was the same. I closed 

 the hive again, and just then a prime swarm issued from 

 another hive. Thinking the above cell had a dead queen in 

 it, I went back to take it out, intending to unite the swarm 

 with them, and the queen had emerged ; that was about 10 

 minutes after I looked before. I thought the orthodox rule 

 was, for a queen to emerge in 8 or 9 days after the cell is 

 sealed. What was the reason it took this queen 11 days? 

 Did the bees keep her in beyond her time to emerge, and by 

 looking at the frame I disturbed them so that she got out? 



3. I thought when a colony was queenless, they wanted to 

 get a queen as soon as they could ; what made them keep the 

 other cell four days before they destroyed it ? 



4. Or was the old colony that I took the cells from; anx- 

 ious to swarm, but the " old lady " would not leave until they 

 had (|ueen-cells sealed, and they sealed them sooner than 

 usual ? 



. Jn June 17 No. 4 swarmed the second time, and be- 

 fore they clustered No. 8 — a colony that stood next to No. 4 — 

 sent out a prime swarm. After I had them hived, I examined 

 No. 8, and they had a number of queen-cells started; but the 

 larvre in them did not seem more than one or two days old. 

 Did the noise made by No. 4 swarming cause No. 8 to swarm 

 before they had any cells sealed ? or do you think it is a habit 

 of theirs? They did about the same last year. This year 

 they began piping 12 days after the first issued, and swarmed 

 two days later ; and last year they began piping 14 days after 

 the first swarm issued, and swarmed three days later, or 17 

 days after the first swarm issued. 



6. What do you think Henry Alley would say to the 

 above, as he says the second swarm invariably issues nine days 

 after the first, unless the weather prevents? 



7. Most specialists say that " the surplus cases should be 

 put on when the bees begin to whiten the combs along the 

 top-bars." When should they be put on when the bees do not 

 whiten the combs at all, and keep on swarming, as mine did 

 this year ? 



Fruit-bloom and dandelions were very plentiful this 

 spring, and the bees bred very fast until May 12, when we 

 had a freeze and a week of cold weather. Some hives had a 

 great deal less honey when they swarmed than they had in 

 the spring when first taken out of the cellar. J. M. S. 



Chanhassen, Minn., July 15. 



Answers. — 1. There is nothing so very unusual in the 

 case. More than one queen was present, and there was more 

 than one swarm, and it is often the case that a number of 

 virgin queens issue with one swarm. All but one of the queens 

 would be destroyed, the queens fighting it out themselves, but 

 there are cases in which the workers do the killing. I don't 

 know for certain what queens always pipe for, but I think 

 your piping queen " had blood in her eye," and if at the time 

 she was piping she had met another queen, there would have 

 been a fight to the death. I've known an old queen to pipe 

 with no other queen near, and it seemed a little as if she were 

 piping from alarm. 



2. I don't know. There have been many cases of 

 ■delay, from whatever cause, and I think the bees sometimes 



seal a cell earlier than usual. At least I've torn open queen- 

 cells which had in them quite small larvte. In that case the 

 queen might be sealed longer than usual, and still not be 

 longer from the egg than usual. 



3. Bees have fixed rules about everything, but they seem 

 to take lots of comfort in breaking rules. A queenless colony 

 is sometimes very anxious for a queen, and sometimes it seems 

 anxious to kill every queen offered to it. Indeed, the latter 

 seems rather the rule, else why should there be so much 

 trouble about introducing queens? It is quite common for 

 bees with a virgin queen to allow cells to remain undisturbed 

 until quite mature. 



-4. As I have already intimated, the sealing might possibly 

 have been done before the usual time. 



Let me suggest another possibility. Sometimes a queen 

 issues from a cell, and the cap falls back to its place, making 

 it look as if the queen were still in the cell, when she may 

 have been out several days. So it is just possible that on June 

 28, when you found that dead queen thrown out, that there 

 was a young queen at large in the hive. 



5. I think it possible that the noise and excitement of 

 their neighbor swarming may have caused them to swarm 

 sooner than they otherwise would have done. 



6. I don't know. He might say the weather prevented. 



7. If the little fools will swarm before the surplus harvest 

 begins, I don't know that putting on supers would make much 

 difference. 



Now load up your cannon again. 



Getting: Bees into the Sections. 



I have one colony of bees that seems determined not to go 

 up into the super. They have the outside brood-frames full 

 of honey, and all capped over, and all the rest the same ex- 

 cepting the lower half of each frame for about half the length ; 

 the upper half and down each end is honey all capped, and it 

 seems to me that it is not giving the queen room enough to 

 rear what brood they ought to be rearing. What shall I do ? 



Amateur. 



Answer. — Put in the super a section containing comb, 

 either empty, or, perhaps better still, with brood in it. Better 

 put it near the center of the super. Uncap some of the honey 

 in the brood-frames, where you think the queen ought to lay. 



Possibly the Bees 'Were Poisoned. 



Referring to my account of a pecular bee-disease (?) en- 

 titled, " What Ails the Bees?" (page 394), I will say further, 

 that in three days from the time they first commenced dying 

 off, there were but a very few left, not enough to cover two 

 frames. Then I thought I would put the bees into a clean 

 hive, and give them a frame of old honey from last year, tak- 

 ing out most of the honey they then had. I did so, and by the 

 next morning there were no bees to be seen crawling out of 

 the hive, and dying as before. 



A friend who lives but a few miles from me, says he lost 

 several colonies in about the same way. His strongest colo- 

 nies were affected the worst, and some nuclei which he had 

 were not affected at all. Bethinks the bees gathered some 

 honey that is poisonous. Does not this seem like a very rea- 

 sonable solution of the problem, considering the facts in the 

 case ? But what can it be they have gathered ? Is it possible 

 that it is any secretion such as honey-dew ? Wasn't this the 

 wrong time of year for any kind of honey-dew? But suppos- 

 ing it was honey-dew, has it ever been known to affect bees in 

 this way before ? 



For several days prior to this, the bees had been gather- 

 ing a little honey, but from what source, I know not, and 

 nothing before that but a little from fruit-bloom. 



Omaha, Nebr. J. W. P. 



Answer. — I hardly think it would be honey-dew, although 

 honey-dew has pretty much all seasons for its own, I believe. 

 Your neighbor's bees dying at the same time, and in the same 

 way, points to something like poison. Possibly some one 

 sprayed poison. 



Xlie mcEToy Foul Brood Xreatment is 



given in Dr. Howard's pamphlet on " Foul Brood ; Its Natural 

 History and Rational Treatment." It is the latest publication 

 on the subject, and should be in the hands of every bee-keeper. 

 Price, 25 cents ; or clubbed with the Bee Journal for one year 

 —both for $1.10. 



