1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



243 



rived. Buyers paying 40c per pound. 



Minneapolis — Receipts very light. 

 Suplies very light. Demand and 

 movement good, market firm. All 

 sales in small lots. Comb honey: 

 Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. 

 white, 24-section cases, $6.50; special 

 brands, $7.00-7.20. Extracted: Min- 

 nesota white, fancy, 60-lb. pails, 21-22c 

 per pound. Beeswax: no sales re- 

 ported. 



St. Paul — Receipts light. Supplies 

 light. Demand good, market firm, all 

 sales in small lots. Comb honey: 

 Minnesota and Iowa white, fancy, 24- 

 section cases, $6.50. Extracted : Min- 

 nesota, supplies exhausted. Bees- 

 wax: no sales reported. 



Denver — No fresh arrivals. No 

 comb honey on market ; extracted 

 honey supplies practically exhausted. 

 Demand good, movement slow, mar- 

 ket very strong. Sales direct to re- 

 tailers: white to amber, 19-20c per 

 pound. Beeswax: receipts very 

 light. Supplies very light. Demand 

 good, movement slow. Price to pro- 

 ducers, 37 r <2-40c per pound. 



Chicago — Supplies negligible. No 

 sales reported. 



Philadelphia — 6 kegs and 1 barrel 

 Florida arrived. Supplies extremely 

 light. Demand far exceeds supply, 

 market strong. Extracted : domestic 

 and southern in barrels, 24c per 



pound. Comb honey, no supplies, no 

 sales. 



Cincinnati — 3 Cuba, 150 lbs. Tennes- 

 see, 4,293 lbs. Alabama, 945 lbs. Ken- 

 tucky, 2,724 lbs. Florida arrived; im- 

 ports via New York City, 695 lbs. ex- 

 tracted. Comb honey, no arrivals 

 reported. Extracted: supplies very 

 light, demand good, market firm, few 

 sales, account of high prices ; Cuban, 

 last sales about 10 days ago; dark 

 amber, 22c per pound. No later sales 

 reported. 



St. Louis — Practically no supplies; 

 no sales. 



New York — Arrivals, 265 barrels 

 Porto Rivo, 8 cases Mexico, incom- 

 plete. Receipts light. Movement 

 slow, demand moderate. Since April 

 15 no reports arrived from Cuba, 

 Santo Domingo or Haiti, only ar- 

 rivals now from Porto Rico, Texas. 

 Florida and Mexico. Extracted 

 honey: Porto Rican, also some Cu- 

 ban that arrived previous to above 

 mentioned ruling, $2.07-2.52 per gal- 

 lon ; Florida, few sales : light amber, 

 $2.60-2.65; white, $2.80-2.90 per gallon. 

 Beeswax: arrivals, 160 bags West In- 

 dies, 10 cases India, 30 bags Haiti, 164 

 bags Cuba, 80 bags Porto Rico, 46 

 bags and 15 cases South America, 38 

 packages Portugal. Market steady, 

 demand and movement good. Yellow, 

 41 -43c; dark, 38-41c per pound. 



Dr. Millers ^Answers- 



Send Questions either to the office of the American Bee Journal or direct to 



Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, II:. 



He does not answer bee-keening Questions by mall. 



Swarm Prevention 



I was reading the experience of one Fred W. 

 Hall, of Iowa, on non-swarming. He says on 

 or about the first of June he de-queens all of 

 his colonies except where he wants an in- 

 crease, then he takes the queen from the most 

 populous colony and places her in a new hive, 

 together with two or three frames of honey, 

 and sets the new hive on the old stand, then 

 in nine days he goes over all colonies and de- 

 stroys all queen-cells except one good one. 

 Then by the time they get straightened around 

 it is too late to swarm. What do you think of 

 the idea, and whai. effect, if any, would it have 

 on the honey crop? INDIANA. 



Answer. — Mr. Hall is a good beekeeper, and 

 with him the plan results in good crops. In 

 the hands of a careless man, there is danger 

 that more than one queen-cell would be left, 

 making swarming practically certain. 



2. Yes, with occasional exceptions. 



3. In a big flow two would be very unsat- 

 isfactory. Five would generally be all right, 

 and occasionally a colony would need 7 or 8. 



4. As a rule the larger hive is probably bet- 

 ter. 



Comb Honey 



1. When running for comb honey, what is 

 the best plan to use to hive on, full sheets of 

 foundation or old combs? 



2. Is honey ripe as soon as sealed? 



3. How many supers do you use on each 

 hive for comb honey? If you take it off as 

 soon as the most of it is sealed, as you say in 

 your book of "A Thousand Answers to Bee- 

 keeping Questions" two supers would be 

 enough. The most beekeepers say tier up as 

 long as the honey is coming in, and that is 

 the way I have always done, but my honey is 

 not as nice and white as I would like to have 

 it. I have had as many as seven comb-honey 

 supers on at one time. 



4. I use the 8-frame hive. Which do you 

 think is the best for comb honey, 8 or 10- 

 frame? INDIANA. 



Answers. — 1. Old combs, if you have them; 

 if you haven't, then full sheets, but never 

 starters unless you want to raise drones. 



Pound Packages — Hives — Extracted 

 Honey 



1. Will the bees from the south that are sold 

 in pound and larger packages go through the 

 winter all right here? 



2. What hive would you advise me to buy, 

 the Dadant hive or the Lewis hive? 



3. What is the Dadant method for produc- 

 ing extracted honey? ILLINOIS. 



Answers. — 1. Yes. 



2. I don't know enough to answer. 



3. Oh, my! It would take a book to answer 

 that. Fortunately, there is such a book as Da- 

 dant's Langstroth. Yet in the main I suppose 

 the methods of the Dadants are not very dif- 

 ferent from those of other good beekeepers. 



Wintering 



1. Will you be so kind as to criticize from 

 your standpoint bee-entrance for winter as af- 

 forded by blocks which fill up a space 14 J4 by 

 % in.? The openings at each end are 2% by 

 7-16 in,, making a total opening of 2 square 

 inches. 



2. What is or would be, your ideal of an 

 opening to hive during winter, when the total 

 space available is 14J^ by % inches? 



3. About March 20 there was unusually mild 

 weather, after a winter during which I think 

 the bees did not fly out at all. I took advan- 

 tage of it to examine every one of my 62 colo- 

 nies. Conditions then were about exactly the 

 same as appeared May 7 last year, as to stores. 

 I equalized stores, fixed up things generally, 



expecting to feed candy soon. What was un- 

 usual with me was the frequent occurrence of 

 pretty well soaked chaff above the brood- 

 chamber. There was one colony that exteriorly 

 showed no sign of life, so I let it go almost 

 to the last. Upon lemoval of chaff tray I saw 

 the bees quite lively, stores almost gone. By 

 giving them frames of honey I saved them. 

 When the bottom-board became revealed there 

 came in sight a thick layer of dead bees, 

 enough to block up the entrances (7-16 inchl. 

 so, of course, they could not get out. There 

 was some wetness about the frames. What 

 was the cause of all this? Next to this colony 

 was another in exactly the same kind of hive, 

 and all was O. K. 



4,. What is your way of fixing up prepara- 

 tory to outside wintering? Please state ex- 

 actly what to place over brood -chamber, style 

 of board over same, etc. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



.Answers. — 1. I'm not sure there's anything 

 to criticise, unless it be that with so shallow 

 an entrance close down on the floor there 

 might he danger of clogging with dead bees. 



2. I don't know what is best. Good results 

 should be obtained with a strong colony having 

 an entrance 2V 2 Tt.%. or an entrance at each 

 end made by turning your entrance-block up- 

 side down. 



3. I don't know why this should have been 

 so. It's an old saying that bees never do any- 

 thing invariably, and it often happens that un- 

 der what appear to be exactly the same condi- 

 tions there are quite different results, which no 

 one can account for. With fuller knowledge 

 of all particulars I might be able to tell why, 

 but most likely not. 



4. I have had no experience for many years 

 in outdoor wintering, and so can only refer to 

 the experience of others as found in the books 

 and bee journals. 



Her 



Drumming 



little experience I had dr 



ming bees to prevent swarmin^. 



The swarm came off and clustered in the us- 

 ual way. I shook them in a swarming box 

 and left it in the grass until about 5 o'clock 

 p. m.. then put them back in the same hive 

 they come out of. The next day about 10 a. 

 m., I took one super off and nut three empty 

 supers on next to the brood-chamber, put the 

 partly filled one on top and stopped the en- 

 trance of the hive, drumming the bees up in 

 the supers to give them to understand thev 

 had lots of room. I let them out, and in less 

 than two hours they were working and made 

 no further attempt to swarm. They made 92 

 full combs and seven partly filled" combs of 

 honey. 



Was it the drumming that did the good' 

 NEW YORK. 



Answer. — It is hard to say positively, but 

 it seems certain your treatment was instrumen- 

 tal in preventing further swarming. But one 

 cannot be sure just how or why. It is pos- 

 sible that the bees had been delayed in swarm- 

 ing, perhaps by bad weather, and at the time 

 the swarm issued one or more virgins were 

 ready to emerge, which they did as soon as the 

 old queen went out with the swarm, and then 

 while the old queen was out all that had not 

 emerged were massacred in their cradles, so 

 that no cells were left for further swarming. 

 There are other possibilities in the case, but I 

 doubt that you would find it a reliable line of 

 treatment in general. At least I would expect 

 more failures than successes. 



Sting 



Having never read or heard of anyone being 

 stung by a queen bee. I would like to know 

 the effects of same; is it worse than the sting 

 of a common bee? ILLINOIS. 



Answer. — I don't know what the effect of 

 a queen's sting would be, but would not ex- 

 pect it to be different from that of a worker. 

 I've been handling queens for more than half 

 a century, and I've never been stung by one, 

 and should not expect one to sting me if I 

 should handle them a century longer. 



