204 



TWrn MMBKIC-Mff MUM J©T3fKlfMI«.. 



to the severity of the winter, as winters 

 vary in the same places ? We must study 

 conditions of cold and lieat, and see tlieir 

 effect on the bees, as regards their comfort 

 and liealth. Bees in a state of nature are 

 healthy. Are they ever afflicted with foul 

 brood, or such other diseases ? I say no. 

 Man's manipulation has given these dis- 

 eases to the faithful little workers. 



1 agree with Mr. Buchanan in most of his 

 conclusions in the usual way of packing, 

 but let us vary that packing just a little, and 

 see what a difference it makes. Have the 

 front or entrance side of a hive with a single 

 wall, and it allows the hive to warm up, 

 and the bees take flight whenever they 

 would be benefited by a flight. 



I agree with all that Mr. B. says of the 

 ten-frame hive, and its condition. I would 

 have the outside case as tight and dry as the 

 hive inside, with the bare hive in front, and 

 the hive 2 feet from the ground. This 

 method keeps the bees from flying at every 

 little warm spell that would take bees in 

 single wallea hives of K of an inch, out to 

 perish. 



I believe, as does Mr. Buchanan, about 

 ventilation. Any top ventilation is always 

 attended with injury to the bees ; while 

 lower ventilation is natural, beneficial and 

 healthful. 



Fig-Utiiig tlieir O^m Interests.— 



J. A. Rickenbacher, Gahanna, O., on March 

 20, 1888, writes : 



Bees have wintered pretty well around 

 here. They had an occasional flight during 

 the winter, which was to their advantage. 

 I think the councilmen and Mayor of that 

 place where Z. A. Clark lives, are fighting 

 against their own welfare. 



]>isease<l Colonies.— J. H. Blanch- 

 ard, Boise City, Idaho, on March 9, says : 



Bees in this locality are not doing very 

 well. I have lost 3 colonies since March 1, 

 from what I think must be diarrhea. My 

 bees were put into winter quarters in a very 

 strong condition, with plenty of bees, houey 

 and pollen ; and through all the cold 

 weather, tlie mercury ranging 28° below 

 zero, they were still strong. I cannot un- 

 derstand why they should die as soon as 

 warm weather comes. When they took 

 their first spring flight, they daubed their 

 hives with a dirty excrement, which I 

 washed off, and thought nothing of it ; but 

 they have done the same thing repeatedly 

 ever since. Can any one explain this, and 

 give me a remedy for it ? It seems a little 

 strange to me, that they should continue in 

 this way in warm weather. 



Fertilization of Qnecns.- John 

 Andrews, Patten's Mills, N. Y., on March 

 12, 1888, writes : 



I will answer questions 5 and 6 published 

 on page 120 as follows : In rearing queens 

 from an imported Carniolan queen, I had a 

 young queen with a deformed wing, and 

 could not fly ; but I wished to save her, as I 

 was short of queens. I put her with a small 

 colony ot bees about the middle of October, 

 and kept drones with her until she was put 

 into the bee-cellar about Nov. 20. Being 

 anxious about lier on account of the ques- 

 tion of fertilization in confinement, I 

 watched her very closely. She did not lay an 

 egg before she was put into winter quarters ; 

 her wing had begun to spread out a little, 

 but she had never flown an inch. 



The next day after I took her from the 

 cellar (about April 20), I examined her, and 

 she had two good wings, and two frames of 

 brood, larviB and eggs, with hatching bees. 

 She met an Italian drone, and her bees 

 through June and July were the most evenly 



marked (two-banded) that I ever noticed. 

 She did not bring her colony up so as to 

 produce any surplus. 



The colony being very gentle and hand- 

 some, I exhibited them to visitors every few 

 days. In August I discovered that her bees 

 were changing, and I could see no other 

 cause for it, except that she had been out 

 and met another drone ; her bees turned 

 nearly back to Carniolans, and what were 

 once my beautiful bees, passed off like the 

 morning dew, and were exhibited no more. 



Did that queen pieet the drone in the 

 hive ? Did she meet the drone the second 

 time in July or August ? My answer is, 

 that she did these two things. 



Another Carniolan queen, hatched about 

 the same time and in the same lot, had as 

 industrious a colony as I ever had ; but she 

 became fertile, and her bees hatched before 

 being put into winter quarters. 



Orannlated Honey in Combs. — 



Mary A. Goodale, Clear Creek, Ind., on 

 March 15, 1888, asks : 



How shall J proceed to empty brood- 

 combs of granulated honey ? I winter the 

 bees on the summer stands, packed inside 

 and outside. The stores are natural, gath- 

 ered from aster and golden-rod. On exami- 

 nation I found that most of the unsealed 

 honey is granulated ; the bees are taking 

 out some of it, but there is so much that I 

 fear they will not remove all of it. Bees 

 are in good condition, and are breeding. . 



[If the bees do not remove it all, and you 

 do not need these frames of candied honey 

 for spring feeding, you might melt them up, 

 the wax would congeal at the top of the 

 liquid honey, and both would thus become 

 marketable.— Ed.) 



Storing Surplus Honey. — F. 



Schmitt, Tazoo City, Miss., on March 19, 



1888, writes : 



Last fall I had 240 colonies of bees, and I 

 lost 40 of them during the winter. They 

 commenced storing honey in the surplus de- 

 partment on March 17, from fruit-bloom, 

 red-bud and maple. 



tVintering- Bees in Sectional 



Hives.— Lighty & Zeigler, Mulberry, Pa., 

 on March 16, 1888, write : 



We find none of the faults with the Hed- 

 don hive that Dr. Tinker mentions in his 

 essay on page 86. Our bees wintered just 

 as well in the one section of that hive as in 

 the extensive chaff hives. We winter our 

 bees on the summer stands. In 1887 we ob- 

 tained no comb honey from the colonies in 

 chaff hives, while from the sectional hives 

 we got a few hundred pounds. The season 

 was very poor here. Our bees are equal 

 now in building up. 



Itloving Bees trom the Cellar, 



etc.— A. Pinkerton, Marshalltown, Iowa, 



on March 13, 1888, writes : 



The place where I have always kept my 

 bees when on the summer stands is near 

 the street, the first row of hives being with- 

 in a few feet of it, and the last row 180 feet. 

 I wisli to move the front ones bark when I 

 put them out of the cellar. 1. Will it do to 

 put those that have been in front, in the 

 rear, or had I better move them all hack, 

 and keep the same in front that were there 

 last fall ? 2. Will Alsike clover do well on 

 black, sandy soil, on a hillside, if sowed 

 with oats ? 



Perhaps some would like to know how to 

 keep bees from coming out of the hive 



when carrying them in and out of the cellar. 

 I take 3 or 4 linen towels, wet them In cold 

 water, and place them in the entrance of 

 the hives, so as to close the entrance ; then 

 alter carrying the hive where I want it, I 

 take the towel away, and not a bee will 

 stick to the cloth. I learned this of Mrs. 

 Dr. Lewis a few years ago, and I find it a 

 great advantage if the bees are a little cross. 



[1. Some pay no attention as to how the 

 hives were placed in the previous season, 

 when putting the bees out of the cellar in 

 the spring, allowing them then to re-mark 

 their locations. If it was thought more de- 

 sirable to have the hives stand in the same 

 relative position, we should advise moving 

 them all back to the required distance. 



2. Yes ; but it would be better to mix 

 "Alsike" with timothy or red clover, or 

 with both.— Ed.] 



Reversible Bottom-Boards. — 



James M. Goodrich, South Frankfort.Mich., 

 on March 10, 18S8, writes : 



On page 170 of the Bee Joitenal for last 

 year, I described my reversible bottom- 

 board for the Simplicity hive thus : The 

 board is 3 inches longer than the hive ; 

 there is a rim on three sides of it, ^of an 

 inch wider than the bottom-boards are 

 thick, and the same thickness as the body 

 of the hive. The boards reach across the 

 hive, and are the same length as the hive is 

 wide on the inside, and are halved or 

 matched, the rim being nailed to the board, 

 so that it projects ?8 of an inch on each side 

 of the board nailed to the hive, which rests 

 on {he rim, and this leaves a flj'-hole 9i of 

 an inch in front, the width !of the hive, and 

 the entrance-blocks are held as firmly as in 

 the portico hive, and the bottom-board is 

 the same either side up. 



I have now changed the bottom-board by 

 having the rim wide enough to make the fly- 

 hole ?! of an inch on one side, and % on the 

 other. This is a great improvement, as 

 one can change to the larger fly-hole by 

 simply reversing, in hot weather or when 

 hiving swarms, and can change back to ?4 

 by simply turning it back. 



I»i*oper Xemperatnre of a Bee- 

 Cellar.— Geo. H; Potter, Ionia, Iowa, on 



Feb. 27, 1888, writes : 



I have for a long time had a question that 

 I wished answered, and it is this : 



I usually have in a bee-cellar from 80 to 

 100 colonies of bees, in single-wall hives, 

 with honey-boards down tiglit, and the only 

 ventilation is the entrance, which is ?nxl4 

 inches- They are tiered five high. What 

 should the general temperature be for bees 

 put in such a cellar? 1 use a frame S^.< 

 inches deep by 18 inches long, and have 

 been quite successful in wintering ; but I 

 find that when the cellar is kept up to 45°, 

 the bees get uneasy. I regulate the tem- 

 perature by a large-sized oil-stove in the 

 vegetable part of the cellar. Ihave come to 

 the conclusion that perhaps those bee-keep- 

 ers who recommend 45° to 50°, remove the 

 honey-boards and spread over quilts, and 

 raise up or remove the bottom-boards. 



I have kept bees more or less for the past 

 thirty years, and I just begin to find that I 

 know but very little about the business. 

 The American Bee Journal is the first 

 paper read upon the arrival of the mail, 

 and, allowing me to judge, is the best bee- 

 paper published. 



[That temperature at which the bees are 

 the most quiet is best. In your case, we 

 would try it at a lower degree, and regulate 

 accordingly.— Ed.] 



