1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



135 



Making Hives 



Would it be unlawful for me to build bee- 

 hives for my own u<-e the same size as the 10- 

 frame Tri-State hive, and of the same > pattern 

 as the Dadant hive? MISSOURI. 



Answer.— I don't think there is any patent 

 to prevent it. 



Doesn't Want Increase 



1 I have ten swarms of bees, and as my 

 time is limited, I would like to know how 

 best to manage them to save time, make no 

 increase, and secure a good crop of extracted 

 honev. I have an extractor, three bee-escape 

 boards, sufficient queen-excluders and neces- 

 sary tools. My bees are in eight double- 

 walled Hilton 'hives, some containing 8 and 

 some 9 Langstroth frames, and one home- 

 made hive similar to the Hilton hive and one 

 Protection hive. My greatest trouble so long 

 as I have had bees is that they increase too 

 fast For instance, last spring I had four 

 colonies to start with and before the end ot 

 Tuly I had nine (the tenth one I found in the 

 woods), and about 600 pounds of honey. 



2. I have two shallow extracting supers and 

 have been thinking of getting enough more to 

 have one for each hive to give to the queen 

 for more brood-rearing room. What do you 



., How many supers should I have for these 

 ten hives? I use the deep, or rather, regular 

 Langstroth frames in the supers for extracting. 



P S It might be well to remark that my 

 hives face the east, and all morning they seem 

 to work good till afternoon, when the entrance 

 is shaded, then thev begin to hang out, every 

 day a little more, till in about two weeks 

 or' maybe three, then they will swarm. It 

 seems to me they have enough room. I hey 

 stand under a large basswood tree^^ 



Answers.— 1. It seems you had at least one 

 afterswarm. You can prevent afterswarming 

 in the way so often given in this department. 

 When a prime swarm issues, set it in place of 

 the old colony, placing the old colony close 

 beside it, facing the same way. A week later 

 move the old colony to a new stand 6 feet or 

 more away. That's all; there should be no 

 afterswarm. To prevent the first swarm is 

 not so easy a matter, although I've done some- 

 thing at it, particulars of which are given very 

 fully in my book, "Fifty Years Among Bees." 

 But it may suit you better to keep down in- 

 crease by doubling up. In the fall unite so 

 that there shall be no weak colony left over 

 winter. Then at the beginning of the next 

 season unite until there are no more colonies 

 than you desire, making sure to unite first any 

 colonies that may be weak. 



2. It may work well. Try it with part of 

 your colonies, so as to compare. It might not 

 be bad at the same time to try one or two 

 colonies with two stories containing 8 full 

 frames each. 



3, Two extracting-supers for each colony 

 will do if you extract often enough; if you 

 don't extract till the close of the season you 

 will need three or more, even up to six if you 

 have a big yield. 



4. It is very profitable in some places. But 

 the idea of having it do its fullest for bees and 

 at the same time doing its best for hay cannot 

 be carried too far. If you sow it this year, 

 and it does well, you can cut it for hay with- 

 out interfering with the bees, for it does not 

 bloom the first year anyway. The next year, 

 if you leave it until the bees have had the 

 full benefit of the bloom, it will not make 

 good hay, being mostly sticks; but you may 

 cut it before it is in bloom and then let the 

 bees have the blossoms of the second growth. 



5 Yes. 



Bee Outfit From Diseased Colony 



1. Would you advise using queen-excluders 

 again that have been on hives that had Ameri- 

 can foulbrood? 



2. Will it be necessary to destroy supers and 

 drawn comb that have been used on diseased 

 colonies? 



3. Do bees stay, as a rule, in hives that 

 have been burned out with a blow-torch? 



MICHIGAN. 

 Answers. — 1. If my bees were entirely- 

 free from the disease I should hardly want to 

 use an excluder that had ever been used by 

 a foulbrood colony, even though the risk might 

 be small. If I had used an excluder over a 

 diseased colony in my own yard last year I 

 should not hesitate to use the same excluder 

 again next year. 



2. Yes; combs, but not supers. 



3. Yes. 



the honey out of chunk comb. Can you put 

 me right in the American Etc Journal columns 

 or refer me to some book that deals with 

 proper method' MISSISSIPPI. 



Answer. — It isn't the easiest thing to find a 

 way that you will think entirely satisfactory. 

 One way is to set out the combs in question, 

 giving the bees free play to rob out the honey. 

 A good way, if neighboring bees don't get too 

 big a share. You can melt the combs and use 

 the honey for cooking, or make it into vinegar. 

 Indeed, if carefully melted so as not to burn 

 the honey, it may be fed back to the bees at 

 any time when it would not be taken into the 

 surplus supers. Sorry not to give you some- 

 thing more convenient. 



Sweet Clover 



1. Will sweet clover grow in Texas? The 

 soil is poor and sandy. 



2. Will it grow if sown on waste land among 

 weeds, without covering the seed with soil? 



3. When should it be sown and how much 

 seed per acre? 



4. Will sweet clover pay if sown for pastur- 

 age and then cut for hay? 



5. Will sweet clover die the second year of 

 its growth and leave seed again? 



TEXAS. 

 Answers. — 1. There are very few places in 

 which sweet clover will not grow, and it will 

 probably grow in your locality, only there may 

 be such a thing as having the soil too sandy. 



2. Yes; but it will do a good deal better 

 if the seed be tramped in by stock than if it 

 merely lies loose upon the surface 



3. It may be sown in the spring, or, indeed, 

 almost any old time, sowing about 15 pounds 

 to the acre. 



Swarming 



One day last summer I had a swarm and 

 before I had it hived another swarm came out 

 from another hive and joined this one. This 

 happened three times. Such butchering of 

 bees and queens I never saw before. By night 

 T had four swarms in hives, but half of the 

 bees returned to their original hives. What is 

 the meaning of this? Do Italians act like that, 

 and would sprinkling them have helped any? 

 MINNESOTA. 



Answer. — Bees sometimes seem to have a 

 crazy spell of uniting when they swarm, and 

 one is at a loss to account for it or prevent 

 it, no matter whether the bees be Italian or 

 black. Showering with water might have 

 helped, and possibly it might have done little 



Drones 



I have 27 swarms of bees, one of which has 

 a hybrid queen which produces a pure Italian 

 drone. There are other hybrids in the apiary 

 which throw pure drones, but are inferior in 

 every way to this one. While the season was 

 a poor one here, this one swarm produced 

 nearly 100 pounds of comb honey and filled 

 ten frames from the late fall flow, while the 

 next best in the apiary produced about one- 

 half as much. They are also wintering better 

 than any of the others. Could I not use this 

 queen to rear drones from next summer, when 

 I plan to Italianize at the beginning of the 

 honey flow, caging the drones from all other 

 hives? KANSAS. 



Answer. — Yes, you can encourage drones in 

 this best colony and cage those of the other 

 colonies, but instead of allowing drones to be 

 reared and then caging them it may be better 

 to shave the heads off all drones before they 

 have time to emerge from their cells, and it 

 may not be a bad plan to cut out the drone- 

 comb and replace it with worker-comb or foun- 

 dation. 



Requeening — Distance to Place Hives 



1. When a hive is made queenless. how long 

 would you wait before introducing another 

 queen? 



2 Someone estimated that a single bee 

 would only gather about a teaspoonful of 

 honey in a season, providing it lived six or 

 seven months and was able to work all the 

 time. What is your guess? 



3. How many miles would that bee fiy in 

 all its rounds in that season to gather that 

 honey ? 



4. My hives are in rows 10 ft. apart and the 

 rows are 12 ft. apart. Is that far enough 

 apart? ILLINOIS. 



Answers. — 1. Not more than a day or so. 

 Indeed, it may be better to put in the new 

 queen at the same time the old one is removed, 

 planning, however, that she will not be re- 

 leased from the cage until a day or two later. 



2. Hard to make any guess. If we assume 

 25,000 field bees in a colony, and that it gath- 

 ers 100 pounds surplus and 200 pounds for its 

 own stores, making 300 pounds in all; then di- 

 viding that 300 pounds among 25,000 bees, 

 roughly figuring would make about a fifth of 

 an ounce for each bee. But that's counting 

 that each bee spends several months gathering, 

 whereas it spends less than a month. 



3. I don't know enough to make an intelli- 

 gent guess, but I know it might vary very 

 greatly in different places and different years. 

 Even from the same hive on the same day one 

 bee might travel three times as much as an- 

 other in getting a load. 



i. There ought to be no danger to young 

 queens from having hives all facing one way 

 when they are placed so far apart, especially if 

 there are trees or other objects to help mark 

 location. And you can just as well have 

 double the number on the same ground, with 

 no more danger, by putting the hives in pairs, 

 the two hives of each pair almost touching 

 each other. 



Disposing of Honey in Broken 

 Combs 



I have about fifty 2-story, 10-frame size colo- 

 nies of bees that are old and have been badly 

 handled for several years, and last year noth- 

 ing was done to them I intend to transfer 

 into new cases and frames with full sheet foun- 

 dation in the spring On account of bad 

 handling it will be impossible to extract the 

 honev from the frames, as they are more or 

 less broken, and in what I call a bad mess. I 

 find nothing in any of three or four bee books 

 that I have that deals with a method to get 



Enlarging Broodchambers — Trans- 

 ferring 



1. I would like to try a super on hive-body 

 to enlarge brood-chambers. In your answer 

 to "Pennsylvania." April, 1916, you say "It is 

 best to put empty super on bottom." Why? 

 Will it do any good this season for me to en- 

 large brood-chamber when I unpack, say April. 

 I use 10-frame hives. And is it necessary to 

 exchange them, first one on top and then the 

 other? , . , 



2 Have a colony that was hived on only 

 seven full sheets of foundation, the other 

 frames being empty. Want to put them into 

 another hive, as there are so many drones. 

 What shall I do to save the brood in the 

 frames that had no foundation? M. E.. is. 



Answers.— 1. The matter referred to is giv- 

 ing a second story early in the season for the 

 sake of allowing more room for brood-rearing. 

 For years I have practiced this, giving the 

 second story as soon as the first story was 

 filled with brood, and then reducing to one 

 story when it came time to give surplus-supers. 

 My general practice is to put the second story 

 under the first, and this for two reasons. It 

 is at a time of year when it is desirable to 

 conserve the heat as much as possible, and if 

 the additional story be given above the whole 



