1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



279 



that can be lifted by one hand. I 

 take a square box three or four 

 inches deep, without top or bottom, 

 or a fish kit without top or bottom, 

 and fill with cement, same as is used 

 for sidewalks. Before filling, place 

 the receptacle on a loose board. For 



handles use any old piece of iron 

 that is long enough to bend in shape. 

 Imbed handle in cement as soon as 

 mould is filled. These are very handy 

 and beat a brick or flat rock a mile. 

 DR. E. W. PARKER, 



Sutherland, Iowa. 



Dr. Millers 



Answers- 



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



Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, Il\. 



He does not answer bee-keeoine Questions by mail. 



Breeding 



I. Why is it that I can't get an Italian queen 

 to staj with me ? I have ordered about a 

 dozen queens and have not had any of them 

 to stay; they would stay from a month to six 

 weeks and disappear. I do not know where 

 they go: do you? I guess they are hurt in 



1. Let them have some drone-comb near 

 center of the hrood-nest. 



5. No, it blooms but once. The first \ 

 it grows without blooming, the next year 

 blooms, and then dies, root and branch. 



the 



and address of 



2. Can you tell me the 

 a reliable queen-hreeder in or close to my 

 State? 



: Does ai, Italian queen raise pure Italian 

 <lr<utes when her bees are crossed? 



1. How do you get the queen to lay in drone 

 cells that you want to rear drones from? 



5. Does sweet clover bloom every year after 



n. Don't you think it would pay to order 

 untested queens and select a breeder. 



ARKANSAS. 



Answers. — 1. I don't know, and have little 

 data to base a guess upon. A queen might be 

 injured in the mail, but in that case she would 

 hardly continue oil duty a month or more. If 

 it were in swarming time I should say she 

 might abscond with a swarm. Bees sometimes 

 have queer streaks, and it i possible that it 

 just happened that a number of o_ueens went 

 wrong with you. and that the very next will 

 go all right. 



2. Those who advertise in this journal are 

 considered reliable, and among them you 

 ought to be able to find one not very far away. 

 For that matter, distance does not make much 

 difference, and queens from any pare of the 

 country ought to reach you safely 



3. Yes, if a queen of pure stock meets a 

 black drone, her drones will be pure Italian, 

 and her worker* hybrid. 



Queen Introduction 



I wonder how you cage your queens when 

 treating for foulbrood or otherwise. 



This spring I brought in a couple of my best 

 colonies to feed up and treat early for foul- 

 brood by caging the queen 10 days or more so 

 as to have something "free to work with in rear- 

 ing cells that I might need. I caged them in 

 an ordinary mailing cage with no attendants 

 or candy, and placed them under the quilt and 

 put on a slow feeder. In S days I pulled out 

 all the cells and in a few more davs I killed 

 everything that looked like a cell, and then I 

 made sure of releasing them safe. 



The oueens were well taken care of during 

 confinement. I waited until after dark, when 

 all was quiet, and to make matters doubly safe 

 I poured them on in thick honey. Results: In 

 one case the queen was rolled out the next 

 morning, in the other it was a few days, and 

 she. too, came out at the front dead. 



I have since caged some with excluder zinc 

 over the cage and released with better luck, in 

 fact found them laying the next day. 



I find a good per cent of queens caged 21 

 day in the way I mention are let starve by 

 the bees. I notice some if caged with zinc do 

 not start cells. KANSAS. 



Answer. — I am puzzled to know why you 

 should have had such misfortune, and the only 

 clue I can see toward even a guess lies in your 

 statement, "I find a good per cent of queens 

 caged 21 days in the way I mention are let 

 starve by the bees." That "good per cent" 



makes it seem possible that you are in the 

 habit of caging queens something like 21 days, 

 and that that was the trouble in the cases you 

 mention. I don't know just how long bees 

 will endure a queen that is a slacker, but if 

 she fails to supply the cells with eggs at a 

 proper season I am pretty certain they will 

 cease to have patience with her after a certain 

 time. That time may have claused, and then 

 as soon as you let the queen out of the rage 

 they attacked her. 



As to the way I have caged, I have had no 

 particular way, and have taken no special pre- 

 caution. In a few cases I have caged them in 

 the way you describe, in a mailing cage, but 

 generally in the simplest kind of a cage made 

 of wire-cloth, putting the cage between the 

 combs or thrusting it into the entrance of the 

 hive. I have thus caged them hundreds of 

 times, and do not recall a single failure. But 

 if I should allow a queen to be caged much 

 more than ten days (and I'm not sure that 

 even ten days' time is needed in treating Eu- 

 ropean foulbrood), I should hardly look for 

 such constant success. 



That's the only guess I can make, and if 

 that guess is right, of course the remedy lies 

 in shorter caging. 



Adel and Caucasian Bees 



Where does the Caucasian bee come from? 

 Where does the Adel bee come from? I 

 asked another bee journal and thev said from 

 Caucasia. In Dr. Miller's "Thousand An- 

 swers it says they were a strain of Italians 

 and the queen breeder from whom I pur^ 

 cnased some said they were a strain of Car- 

 dans. The bees are different in color from 

 the Italians; they vary from black to 5-banded. 

 Ihe queens are either black or golden. Some 

 colonies are good and others are very poor. 



Answek.— The word "Adel" is a German 

 word meaning nobility, and was used by an 

 American beekeeper as a sort of fancy name 

 for his strain of bees, just as you might en- 

 title your bees "bestof-all" bees. 



No doubt Caucasian bees come from Cau- 

 casus, as indicated by the name. Please say 

 where in Dr. Miller's "Thousand Answers" 

 you find it said that Caucasians are a strain 

 of Italians. I find nothing of the kind at 

 page 39, where Caucasians are considered. 



Reports vary as to the character of Cau- 

 casians, but I don't remember that anyone 

 heretofore has reported such a variation in 

 color. Are you sure yours are pure? 



Cell Protectors 



1. I am having this season quite a number 

 of colonies that look prosperous, but get just 

 one or two queen-cells, especially one I ex- 

 amined yesterday was in appearance equal to 

 the best; has brood and eggs, not a single 

 egg in cup did I notice; but there was one 

 well-developed capped queen-cell. How would 

 you have treated that colony? 



2. I noticed in one of the bee journals 

 lately that someone gave queen-cells in pro- 

 tectors. I have a few of them, but have been 

 unable to see that they amounted to anything, 

 at least in this way. I practice considerably 

 to give queen-cells, but rarely otherwise than 

 giving the colony apparently needing one the 

 whole frame as it is, with the oueen-cell on 

 it If it has over one. leave the best only. 

 What, then, is the use of a protector? Or. do 

 you think that colonies do not take well to 

 queen-cells as just stated, if they come from 

 other colonies — do such need protection? 



3. One of my very best colonies I found 

 yesterday with a big lot of eggs in cups in 

 two frames of the upper body, but none at 

 all in the lower body. I hope to keep this col- 

 iiny from swarming until queens ordered ar- 

 rive, whereupon I expect to divide. What do 

 you do under that circumstance — that is, when 

 there are a number of cups with eggs, but 

 nothing further, and you would like to have 

 swarming deferred with the purpose of thwart- 

 ing it later on? What is the significance to 

 you of eggs in cups? 



Answers. — 1. Likely I would have left it to 

 its own devices, in the belief that the hees 

 were superseding their- queen. Even when a 



