132 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



TVitb Keplies thereto. 



rit is quite useless to ask for answers to 

 Queries in tliis Department in less time 

 than one month. They have to wait their 

 turn, be put in type, and sent m about a 

 dozen at a time to each of those jho answer 

 them • (tet them returned, and then find 

 8pl"efortheminthe Journai. H you are 

 In a "hurry" for replies, do not ask for 

 them to be inserted here— Ed.1 



quires less food afterward to keep 

 brood-rearing going. Feeding for 

 brood is a pretty dear business.— tr. 

 W. Demaree. 



No satisfactory answer can be given 

 to the question as stated. Any one 

 may speculate.— The Editor. 



Honey ConsnieUnRearini Brood. 



ouery. No. 381.-What amount of honey 



is ripresented in a brood-frame 12x12 inches, or a 

 Langatroth sized frame ? Or. in other words wlmt 

 amount of stores have been (consumed by the bees 

 in providing for the larvaj until the cells are 

 sealed ?-8. 



Twenty cubic inches of honey rep- 

 resent one pound in ordinary combs, 



— G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



The amount of stores consumed in 

 providing for the larva; depends alto- 

 gether upon the amount of brood. A 

 frame 12x12x1^ would hold from 5 to 

 8 pounds of honey, depending upon 

 the condition of the honey.— J. if. i±. 

 Brown. 



A Langstroth brood-frame, regular 

 size, full of honey in the comb, weighs 

 nearly 9 pounds. I do not think it 

 would be possible to ascertain accu- 

 rately how much stores, pollen and 

 honey a frame full of larvse would 

 consume before being sealed. 1 might 

 guess 1 ounce of pollen and 4 pounds 

 of honey .-G. L. Tinker. 



A Langstroth frame fully filled, and 

 with comb Ji of an inch thick, as I 

 use mine in the brood-chamber, will 

 weigh not far from 5 pounds of 

 honey.— J. E. Pond. 



In favorable weather for brood- 

 rearing I should judge that a frame 

 of brood was equivalent to a frame ot 

 honey. In colder weather it takes 

 more honey .-C. W. Dayton. 



Too much depends to warrant an 

 answer in pounds. Larval food , and 

 much of the food of the workers dur- 

 ing the active season, consists of pol- 

 len or bee-bread.- James Heddon. 



It is hard to say. Bees in the height 

 of the season, when conBned all day 

 by a rain, will often lose from 1 to 3 

 pounds, as shown by scales. Yet so 

 many things are to be considered that 

 even this is no criterion. Bees often 

 use 15 or 20 pounds of honey in the 

 spring while ailing their hives with 

 brood. Yet we do not know how 

 much they gathered in the same time. 

 —A. J. Cook. 



It depends somewhat upon the con- 

 dition of the weather. In feeding 

 colonies in the spring that have no 

 reserve stores, about 3 pounds ot 

 honey for the first square foot of 

 sealed brood ; 2 pounds for the second 

 square foot, and something less tor 

 the third square foot. I have never 

 tested the matter accurately, but 

 after the bees get up the proper heat 

 by high feeding at the start, it re- 



LayinEWortoBees, 



Querr, No. 382.-H0W can I distinguish 

 a laying worker-bee from other workers, or from 

 a queen ?-Kan8. 



A laying worker bee looks like any 

 other worker bee.— C. C. Miller 



tinguished from the other bees by the 

 hairs being all worn off from the 

 abdomen, so that they appear black 

 and shiny. Where there are laying- 

 workers there will generally be seen 

 many such bees, but only a few of 

 them may be developed into laying- 

 workers.— G. L. Tinker. 



You can readily distinguish any 

 worker from a queen by the difference 

 in size, as has been shown in engrav- 

 ings ; but I will let some one else tell 

 how to distinguish laying-workers 

 frem any other worker bees, unless 

 you can catch them in the act of lay- 

 ing.— J asies Heddon. 



The bees sometimes treat her in a 

 manner somewhat similar to the way 

 a queen is treated. Occasionally she 

 may be seen laying.-W. Z. Hutch- 

 inson. 



By the size, as compared with a 

 queen I know of no means of telling 

 them from the other workers unless 

 you catch them laying.— G. M. Doo- 

 little. 



They appear exactly like the other 

 bees, unless when depositing eggs. I 

 have imagined other movements to 

 betray them. They cannot be dis- 

 tinguished satisfactorily. — 0. W . 

 Dayton. 



They are distinguishable only by 

 dissection. If we are right. Count 

 Barbo, of Milan, was the first to show 

 the condition of their ovaries by 

 microscopic descriptions.— Dadant 



&SON. 



You cannot unless you see them 

 laving. They look like other workers, 

 and so are easily distinguished from 

 a queen. — A. J. Cook. 



You cannot distinguish a laying 

 worker from other workers ; though I 

 have observed that the underside of 

 the abdomen of a laying-worker was 

 fuller than that of an ordinary one. 

 You have only positive knowledge 

 when you catch them in the act of 

 depositing the egg. They are dis- 

 tinguished from a queen in the same 

 way you distinguish a pig from a 

 goat.— J. P. H. Brown. 



There is no way to distinguish a 

 laying-worker from other worker 

 bees, unless you can detect them in 

 the act of laying eggs. You could 

 distinguish a laying-worker from a 

 queen if it was possible to first iden- 

 tify the laying-worker. — G. vV. 

 Demaree. 



The only way I can do this myself, 

 is by seeing her in the act of deposit- 

 ing eggs, and I have never found any 

 appreciable difference in size or form 

 between a laying worker and any 

 other worker-bee. It is easy enough 

 to distinguish a laying-worker from a 

 queen, as the queen always shows the 

 mark of royalty, while the worker, 

 laying or otherwise, never does.— J. 

 E. Pond. 



It is not possible always to distin- 

 guish laying-workers from the other 

 workers, though it is easy to knovv 

 one (if you can get your eye on it) 

 from a queen by the length of the 

 latler's body, and the size. Some- 

 times the laying-worker can be dis- 



Laying- workers are not distinguish- 

 able from other bees; if you have 

 seen a worker lay. you can easily de- 

 termine by its size that it is not the 

 queen.— The Editor. 



Bees Mmi to Accent tlie Hive. 



Query, No. 383.— I let my bees swarm 

 naturally, often several swarms clustering to- 

 gether. They would not accept the hive, but 

 crawl all over it, both inside and outside. Is It 

 because they have no queen, or top many 7 1 

 have tried doubling up the colonies, dividing the- 

 bees and putting them into several hives, and 

 raising the hives 10 give them air, but all to nj 

 avail They would Anally die out. I have had 

 single swarms act the same way.— Teias. 



It is because they have no queen.— 

 J. P. H. Brown. 



The lack of a queen causes such 

 actions.— W. Z. Hutchinson. 



The loss of the queen, I judge, by 

 the bees balling her or otherwise, is 

 the cause.— G. M. Doolittle. 



Such actions on the part of bees 

 always indicates the loss of the 

 queen.— G. L. Tinker. 



I hardly know what the trouble was, 

 unless the queen was lacking.— C. C. 

 Miller. 



I should say that they had no queen. 

 — H. D. Cutting. 



It is usually because the queen does 

 not enter the hive. By practical ex- 

 perience in the apiary is the way to 

 learn to overcome this class of difltt- 

 culties.- James Heddon. 



The fact that they "die out" sug- 

 gests queenlessness. The queens 

 were balled and killed in the cluster, 

 or after hiving. You should find and 

 cage a queen for them for two days. 

 " Single swarms " might do so when 

 honey was not very plentiful.— C. W . 

 Dayton. 



When bees swarm, and two or more 

 swarms cluster together, they often 

 become demoralized by reason of the 

 presence of more than one queen, and 

 refuse to do any good. It pays me to 

 remove all but one queen at the time 

 of hiving them, if it is desirable to 

 unite all together. Such swarms 

 should be hived on the old stand and 

 given one or two frames of brood, so 

 that if the queen is killed by the mix- 

 ture of strange bees, they will have 

 the presence ot brood to rear a queen. 

 — G. W. Demaree. 



Queenlessness, without doubt, must 

 account for such actions. — The 

 Editor. 



