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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Urith Replies thereto. 



[It i8 quite useless to ask for answers to 

 Queries in this Department in less time 

 than one month. They have to wait their 

 turn, he put in type, and sent in about a 

 dozen at a time to each of those who answer 

 them ; get them returned, and then find 

 ■pace for them in the JotTRNAi. If you are 

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

 them to be inserted here.— Ed.] 



BnililiDg a Stone Bee-Cellar. 



^nery 477.— I am building a stone bee- 

 cellar all under the ground, llxlii feet, by 6V^ 

 hiph.wittia work 8bop above. 1. Ib a Bub-earlh 

 ventilator necet-sary ? 2. For Buch a cellar, wbat 

 Bize and how far under ground ought it to extend ? 

 3. iB it necessary lor the dead-air pipe to connect 

 with a »tove-pipe to give it vent? If so, vphat 

 8ixe7 4. Havingonly lOcoloniesto put in, would 

 it be adviBable to get more to put in, in order to 

 keep up the temperature ?— C. C, Out. 



It is not necessary with your num- 

 ber of colonies.— J. P. H. Brown. 



1. No. 3. No. 4. No, it is not 

 necessary.— Dad ANT & Son. 



I have no experience with cellar 

 wintering ; and my opinion would be 

 worth but little on the subject.— G. 

 W. Demakee. 



I answer no, to all of them. A 

 cellar, to be right, should maintain an 

 even temperature at the right point 

 without bees.— G. M. Doolittle. 



1. Not for 10 colonies. Ventilation 

 through a stove-pipe appears to be all 

 that is necessary where many colonies 

 are wintered in a cellar.— G. L. 

 Tinker. 



It will not be necessary to use a 

 sub-earth ventilator in your case ; but 

 it is a good thing. To get the benetit 

 of such a pipe, it should be at least 

 150 feet long, and 6 feet underground. 

 3. It is not necessary to connect with 

 a stovepipe, yet it will work better 

 with such a connection. 4. It will be 

 all right with your 10 colonies.— H. D. 

 Cutting. 



Having never wintered bees in 

 special depositories, I can only give 

 theoretical answers to the above, and 

 such will be of no more value than 

 my particular ideas based on the ex- 

 periments of others are worth.— J. E. 

 Pond. 



1. Hardly for 10 colonies, but for 40 

 colonies 1 think a sub-ventilator would 

 pay well, and perhaps 10 colonies 

 would be the better for it. 2. The 

 more of it is under ground the better. 



3. I think not. All that is neces- 

 sary is to have a pipe for outlet a 

 little smaller than the sub-ventilator. 



4. I do not believe that a larger num- 

 ber would keep belter.- C.C.Miller. 



Ventilatioh is probably necessary 

 if a large number of colonies are in 

 one cellar; but 1 do not know that it 

 is. Sub- earth ventilation will assist 

 in keeping up the temperature, if the 

 cellar must be ventilated. I cannot 

 say as to tlie size and length of the 

 pipe. If the air in the cellar is warmer 

 than the outside air, as it certainly 

 will be, there will be no necessity for 



connecting the escape pipe with a 

 stove, i. e., if your pipe is large 

 enough. How large it ought to be I 

 do not know. If the cellar is entirely 

 under ground, it will be warm enough 

 for even one colony.— W. Z. Hutch- 

 inson. 



I should have the sub-earth venti- 

 lator. I am now building one all 

 under ground, and my ventilator is 6 

 inches in diameter, and 200 yards 

 long. It is better to have heat to 

 effect a change of air, but a tall 

 chimney from the base of the cellar 

 to 3 or 4 feet above the roof will do 

 very well. With 10 colonies you need 

 no ventilator ; only keep the tempera- 

 ture right.— A. J. Cook. 



1. No, but it may be good in some 

 cases, but I must know more to that 

 effect before I go to the expense of 

 making one. 2. I do not know. 3, It 

 is better ; that is the way I have 

 mine. I use 6 inch stove-pipe. 4 No, 

 I would keep up the temperature in 

 some other way. With that number 

 of colonies, you do not need any ven- 

 tilators at all.— James Heddon. 



Treatment of Partially-Fillecl Sections. 



Query 478.— What shall I do with sec- 

 tions that are only partially filled at the end of 

 the honey season ?— T. J., Pa. 



See pages 15, 16 and 32 of "The 

 Production of Comb Honey."r- W. Z. 

 Hutchinson. 



Extract the honey and keep the 

 sections till next year.— C.C.Miller. 



You can extract the honey and keep 

 the sections until next season.- H. D. 

 Cutting. 



Keep them over until the next 

 honey season, and then use them.— G. 

 M. Doolittlb. 



Extract what honey there is in the 

 combg, and put them away for next 

 year's use.— James Heddon. 



Extract them, let the bees clean 

 them out nice and dry, and then pack 

 them away to use another season. — 

 J. E. Pond. 



I would either place them on colo- 

 nies that needed stores, for the bees 

 to clean out the honey, or I would ex- 

 tract it, and then place them away for 

 next season.— J. P. H. Brown. 



Extract the honey and put them on 

 the hives for 2 or 3 days, more or less, 

 to be cleaned up. Or else keep them 

 for next season's use. They make 

 good baits for the supers.- Dadant 

 & Son. 



If your bees need feeding, and your 

 hives have loose bottom-boards, you 

 can feed the honey out of the parUy- 

 tilled sections by tiering the section- 

 cases underneath the brood-chambers. 

 To induce the bees to carry the honey 

 up into the brood-combs, I scratch 

 the caps of the honey by means of a 

 paddle with some tacks driven 

 through near its end. If you have no 

 need of feeding it out in this way, you 

 can extract the honey and save the 

 combs for next year.— G. W.Demaree. 



I keep my partly-filled sections care- 

 fully protected from dust and mice. 



usually in the cases, for use another 

 year. No matter if they contain 

 honey when put away ; if placed on 

 the hives a short time before the 

 honey-How begins, it will be taken 

 out and used in brood-rearing. Sec- 

 tions that contain honey should be 

 placed in the house in a warm upper 

 room to prevent candying. There is 

 no need to extract the honey from 

 them.— G. L. Tinker. 



After extracting the honey, let the 

 bees "clean them up" by putting 

 them back on the hives for 2 or 3 

 days, then pack them away carefully 

 for next season's early use.— The 



EDnOR. 



Too Mncli Brone-Comli. 



Query 479.— 1. My bees have carried a 

 swarm of drones all summer. I have bad a good 

 increase of bees but very little surplus. There 

 seems to be an unusual amount of drone comb. 

 Wbat is the remedy ?— A. C, Minn. 



Take out the drone-comb and re- 

 place it with worker comb or comb 

 foundation of the worker size. — G. 



M. DOOLITTLE. 



Cut out the drone-comb and melt it 

 into wax, and fill the frames with 

 worker foundation.— W. Z. Hutch- 

 inson. 



Cut out the drone-comb and put in 

 foundation. Also see that there are 

 no old and feeble queens.— J. P. H. 

 Brown. 



Cut out and melt up the drone- 

 comb, replacing it with foundation. 

 If your queen is an old one, replace it 

 with a young queen.— H.D. Cutting. 



Cut out the drone-comb early next 

 spring, and replace it with worker- 

 comb as much as possible. It pays ! 

 — Badant & Son. 



Use foundation, and prune out the 

 drone-comb. We permit very few 

 drones in our apiary.- A. J. Cook. 



My remedy is to remove the drone- 

 combs early in the spring, and give 

 worker-combs or frames filled with 

 foundation in their places. The 

 drone-combs can be used for taking 

 honey with the honey extractor, if 

 queen-excluders are used to confine 

 the queens to the brood-chamber.— G. 



W. L)EMAREE. 



Remove the drone-comb and re- 

 place it with worker ; if you do not 

 desire to keep the queen for some 

 particular purpose or fancy, remove 

 and replace her also.— J. E. Pond. 



Remove the drone-combs, and re- 

 place them with worker-combs, or 

 full sheets of worker foundation. I 

 rarely ever see a drone in my hives, 

 except in such as I am rearing them 

 intentionally.— JAJIES Heddon. 



No doubt there is too much drone- 

 comb in the hives. This would not 

 matter wiih a strain of bees bred up 

 from the Syrian or Cyprian stock, as 

 they do not usually rear many drones 

 unless they have old queens, though 

 there is much drone comb in the 

 hives. But black bees, and all bred 

 from them, will generally rear hosts 

 of drones, if there is much drone- 



