1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



101 



.Mr., 



If you do not find the queen after look- 

 over the combs once or twice, close the 

 and look again an hour or more later. 

 Yes; ten or more workers are in the 

 with the queen, and you pay no atten- 

 to them, allowing them to stay in the 

 and come Out when the queen does. 

 Some say leave the cover on. but the 

 part would say it is better to leave it off. 

 Better not till bees are flying every day, 

 :ven until late in May, unless you are 

 id the bees arc running short of stores. 



Requeening 



I have thirty colonies of black bees in my 

 home yard, and I want to Italianize them. Do 

 you think I can do so by buying a pure 

 breeder and rec|ueening them in early May. 

 then requeening again in September with the 

 same breeder in the same yard? Would all 

 the black drones be gone by that time? 



In my localitv I can rear good oueene in 

 May and September. ALABAMA. 



Answer. — Yes, if in May you replace your 

 black queens with daughters of a pure queen, 

 there would most likely be nothing but pure 

 drones left in your apiary in September. But 

 would it be necessary to requeen in Septem- 

 ber? Would not the chances for pure stock be 

 just as good if you should wait till the next 

 year to requeen? You seem to take it tor 

 granted that there will be no trouble from 

 drones in surrounding apiaries, but that's a 

 matter to be reckoned with unless nothing 

 hut pure stock is to be found within some- 

 thing like two miles of you. 



Moving Bees 



I bought 12 colonies of bees and am going 

 to move them about twenty miles. Is it ad- 

 visable to remove the packing and cover them 

 over with screen cloth? Of course it will he 

 in the spring when I move them. 



LONG ISLAND. 



ANSWER. — On a very hot day it would be 

 desirable, and perhaps absolutely necessary to 

 replace the <pver with a screen, but on an or- 

 dinary spring day it would not be necessary. 



Damaga in Moving — Age of Queen — 

 Feeding 



1. I bought a few swarms of bees on frames 

 not wired, but joined together. In moving 

 them I broke the combs and some of the honey 

 is running out How would you treat the bees, 

 now or in the spring' They are in furnace cel- 

 lar now. 



2. How do you tell the age of a aueen? 



3. How much and at what time do you begin 

 stimulative feeding in spring? 



4. How much should an S-frame hive weigh 

 when it is taken out in spring? 



5. Would it be better to feed the required 

 amount of honey or syrup at one time? 



5. How much sugar does it take to equal a 

 pound of honey fed to bees^ 



6. How much water do you feed to bees to a 

 pound of sugar. IOWA. 



Answers. — 1. Let them entirely alone while 

 the} art- in the cellar, and even till fruit-bloom. 

 Then lift out some or all of the frames that 

 are freely movable, and cut apart the combs 

 that are joined together, where possible crowd- 

 ing each comb into place in its own frame. If 

 the combs are too badly broken down for this, 



then you will treat the case the same as in 

 box-hives. 



~». By looking in my hook to see when she 

 was born or clipped. There is no way by which 

 you can be sure of the age of a queen by her 

 looks, although as you gain experience you can 

 make a pretty good guess by the more or less 

 shiny look of an old queen, and by her slower 



nts 



the 



3. I don't begin stimulative feeding in the 

 spring or any other time. I see that abund- 

 ance of food is present, and that's all the 

 stimulation the bees need. There are places 

 where there is a dearth of pasturage in the 

 spring for so long a time that stimulative 

 feeding is necessary to make the queen lay; 

 but that doesn't happen here, and I don't be- 

 lieve it does in Iowa. 



4. That varies. A hive may weigh 40 pounds 

 and contain plenty of honey, while another of 



te weight allows the bees to starve. The 

 first has new combs that are light, with little 



polle 



vhile the 



ond ha 



old 



loaded with pollen. 



5. Generally it is better. 



6, Any time early in the season you can 

 feed sugar and water, half and half, but in 

 feeding late for winter use % x /i parts sugar 

 (either by weight or measure.) to one of water. 



Now, look here; seeing it's you. I'm willing 

 to give you a little friendly advice: Don't go 

 to fooling with sugar for bee-feed. Use honey 

 and save sugar for the allies. Every time you 

 do that you're hitting the Kaiser a whack on 

 the "snoot," and goodness knows he needs all 



Crop Report and Market Conditions 



Honey- 

 Stocks of honey are dwindling to such an extent as to 

 be considered almost negligible. One large bottling firm 

 is now paying 17 cents for good white honey where it 

 can find it, and with but few offerings. 



Still a few beekeepers are holding small quantities. 

 "just to see what the market will do." One advises that 

 he has about fifty cases of fancy extracted for which he 

 is willing '"at present" to take 20 cents per pound. 



A letter from a British subscriber states that the Brit- 

 ish Beekeepers' Association has recommended a price 

 of 60 cents per section for comb honey at retail and 40 

 cents per pound for extracted at retail. This, of course, 

 is caused by the extreme demand for honey there owing 

 to shortage of sugar. 



Unless our food committees regulate the prices to be 

 received for honey, or unless the war ends in the mean- 

 time, we cannot see where the price of honey in this 

 country can drop very low, during 1918. 



WINTER LOSSES 



Reports from Texas are not very encouraging. Fol- 

 lowing two seasons of drought and short crop, many 

 colonies have died, probably a larger proportion than in 

 any recent years, and the outlook is anything but rosy. 

 Many beekeepers are abandoning beekeeping altogether 

 and melting up combs rather than pay the prices asked 

 for sugar, which is also hard to obtain. 



Only a few reports are coming in from the central sec- 

 tions and from the north. These differ widely. Where 

 bees went into the winter in good shape with plenty of 

 stores and ample protection, the losses seem to be about 

 average. 



There is some loss from starvation already and sev- 

 eral reports of losses from poor food, combined with 

 long confinement. 



MARCH REPORT IN FULL 



For our April number we expect to make a detailed 

 report of conditions as reported to us by reporters over 

 the country. 



VVill tin©!*© DC a. freight embargo on your Honey crop? 

 The Honey flow does not wait for a delayed shipment of Supplies. 



ORDER NOW 



SIOUX CITY 

 IOWA 



WESTERN HONEY PRODUCERS 



Lewis's Beeware the two best lines Dadant's Foundation 



We buy Honey and Beeswax 



Wax Rendering a. Specialty 



