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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



WItb Replies tliereto. 



tit is quite uBelees to ask for answere to 

 Queries In this Department In less time 

 than one month. They have to wait their 

 turn, be put in typet and sent In about -a 

 dozen at a time to each of those who answer 

 them ; get them returned, and then find 

 space for them In the Journal. If you are 

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

 them to be Inserted here.— Ed.] 



Quieting Uneasy Bees. 



itoery 495.— It bees are uneasy in cel- 

 lars, how can thev be best quieted ?— M. C. G., Ills. 



By bringing the temperature up or 

 down to 42° or 45°.— Dadant & Son. 



It would depend upon what made 

 them uneasy.— H. D. Cutting. 



That ail depends upon what is the 

 cause of that uneasiness.— James 

 Heddon. 



First endeavor to find out the cause. 

 If too warm, reduce the temperature. 

 —J. P. H. Brown. 



Keep the cellar at such a tempera- 

 ture that they do not get uneasy. A 

 little experience will teach you how 

 to do this.— G. M. Uoolittle. 



If bees become restless in their 

 hives, the temperature or ventilation, 

 one or both, is wrong. To make the 

 bees quiet, you must remove the 

 cause.— G. \V. Demaree. 



It depends upon what causes the 

 unseasiuess, and of this we are not 

 always positive; and when we do 

 know, we do not always know what to 

 do about it.— W. Z. Hutchinson. 



By regulating the temperature. If 

 the food and temperature are kept 

 right, they will not become uneasy.— 

 A. J. Cook. 



It depends upon the cause of their 

 uneasiness. It may be that they need 

 to be warmer, or possibly cooler. 

 Sometimes giving fresh air quiets 

 them.— C. C. Miller. 



Ordinarily I should judge by cooling 

 them off. I cannot speak from ex- 

 perience, however, as I have never 

 wintered my bees in special deposi- 

 tories of any kind.— J. E. Pond. 



Take them out and give them a 

 flight the first suitable day. If the 

 cellar is too cool, raise the tempera- 

 ture. If large numbers of bees are 

 leaving the hives and falling on the 

 bottom of the cellar, nothing will 

 give so much relief as a flight.— G. L. 

 Tinker. 



In order to quiet bees when quar- 

 tered in the cellar for winter rest, and 

 they become uneasy, it is necessary 

 first to determine the cause of un- 

 easiness. If they are too warm, cool 

 the cellar. If they are too cool, and 

 are trying to raise the temperature, 

 raise that for them. If many are 

 dying, give them a flight on some 



warm day. Fresh air and a chance 

 to void their feces will do them much 

 good.— The Editor. 



Winter-Passages for Bees. 



Query 496.— Are winter-passages neces- 

 sary when bees are wintered in tiie cellar ?— Ohio. 



No.— G.L. Tinker. 



No.— Dadant & Son. 



No; not if the cellar is warm 

 enough.— W. Z. Hutchinson. 



I never use them either in the cellar 

 or out-doors.— G. M. Doolittle. 



No, they are not necessary ; but I 

 prefer a passage made over the frames 

 under the quilt.— H. D. Cutting. 



They are not necessary if you place 

 3^-inch sticks across the frames under 

 the quilt.— J. P. H. Brown. 



I think not, though as cellars and 

 winters go, they are doubtless well. 

 —A. J. Cook. 



I do not think that they are neces- 

 sary in any case. Give an inch of 

 space over the tops of the frames, and 

 the same result will be gained with- 

 out mutilating the combs.— J. E. 

 Pond. 



As I said in my answer to Query, 

 No. 493, I could never see that the 

 winter passages either over the frames 

 or through the combs were of any 

 practical use whatever.— James Hed- 

 don. 



The bees should be allowed in some 

 way to go from one frame to another. 

 If frames are shallow they may go 

 under, but a good plan is to allow a 

 passage over the frames. My bees 

 always prepare their own passage- 

 ways by building bits of comb above 

 the frames.— C. C. Miller. 



I do not think that they are ab- 

 solutely necessary, but I prefer to 

 have some strips of wood or some 

 pieces of corn-stalks between the 

 quilts and the tops of the frames, so 

 that the bees can pass over the tops 

 of the frames from one space between 

 the combs to another, without having 

 to pass around or under the frames. — 

 G. W. Demaree. 



Winter passages are sometimes 

 very useful, but they should be pro- 

 vided over the frames by using Hill's 

 device, bent sticks or anything else to 

 keep the quilt up from the tops of 

 the frames, so that the bees may pass 

 from one frame to another, to obtain 

 food when it becomes necessary.- 

 The Editor. 



System and Success, 



^ovxtspoufitnct. 



1^~ All who Intend to be systematfo In 

 their work in the apiary, should get a copy of 

 the Apiary Register and commence to use it. 

 the prices are reduced, as follows : 



For 50 colonies (120 pages) $1 00 



" 100 colonies (220 pages) 125 



" 200 colonies (420 pages) 160 



The larger ones can be used for 8 few col- 

 onies, give room for an increase of numbers, 

 and still keep the record all together in one 

 book, and are therefore the most desirable. 



This mark indicates that the apiarist is 

 located near the center of the estate named ; 

 5 north of the center; 9 south; O east: 

 •O west; and this i< northeast ; "O northwest: 

 ^southeast; and P southwest of the center 

 of the State mentioned. 



roT tne American Bee Journal. 



Rearing and Introicing Qneens, etc, 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



I see that it is still claimed by some, 

 that as good if not better queens can 

 be reared by taking the queen and 

 brood away from a populous colony, 

 and giving them eggs and young 

 larvae from which to rear a queen, as 

 can be obtained by natural swarming. 

 The advocates of this plan lay much 

 stress upon the preparation of the 

 colony, such as having removed the 

 queen at a certain number of hours 

 previous to the time of giving eggs or 

 brood, cutting the comb containing 

 these eggs in just such a form, etc. ; 

 but after years of trial, I have never 

 yet succeeded in getting as good, pro- 

 lific, long-lived queens reared in a 

 queenless colony, as I get where the 

 colony rearing queens has the old 

 queen or mother with them, as is the 

 case with cells built during natural 

 swarming. 



There seems to be a certain haste 

 or rushing through of the larvse for a 

 queen in a queeuless colony, which is 

 the means of shortening the life of 

 the queen which is to come from such 

 larvije. 



This great rushing of things never 

 happens where a laying queen is in 

 the hive during the rearing of a 

 queen. I have noticed for years, that 

 in case of supersedure, a queen that 

 was fed royal jelly, and hatched from 

 the cell while the old queen was still 

 living, would prove 23 per cent, better 

 than would a queen reared at the 

 time of the death of the old queen. 



Queens reared when the old queen 

 is present, often leaves a lump of 

 royal jelly as large as a pea in the 

 bottom of the cell after emerging, 

 while it is a rare thing to find one- 

 fourth of that amount in any cell 

 where a queen is reared by the re- 

 moval of the queen by any means. It 

 seems to me that if the friends of any 

 other theory would carefully look into 

 the matter, they would talk less about 

 " artificial " queens being as good or 

 better than those reared during nat- 

 ural swarming. 



GIVING O.UEEN-CELLS TO NUCLEI. 



Again, it is recommended to form 

 nuclei the evening before the bee- 

 keeper wishes to give the queen-cells 

 to them. This advice I cannot un- 

 derstand, for with me queen-cells 

 §iven in that way will be nearly all 

 estroyed if unprotected. If I recol- 

 lect aright, Mrs. Harrison once wrote 

 that she could not successfully intro- 

 duce queen-cells unless the nucleus- 



