26 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



January 



St. Paul — Home-grown receipts 

 light. Supplies moderate. Demand 

 and movement good ; no change in 

 prices. Sales direct to retailers, 

 Colorados and Minnesotas, few sales. 

 Extracted per lb., mostly 30c. Col- 

 orados, quality and condition gen- 

 erally good ; comb, white fancy, 24- 

 section cases, $7-7.25. 



Spokane — No arrivals; supplies 

 light. Demand and movement slow; 

 very few sales, on account of high 

 prices. Quality and condition good. 

 Sales direct to retailers, Idahos, ex- 

 tracted, per lb., S and 10-gallon cans, 

 white alfalfa, 27-28c ; comb, white 

 alfalfa, 24-section cases, No. 1, $7-7.25; 

 No. 2, $7. 



Philadelphia— 5 barrels southern, 4 

 kegs and 75 cases containing 10 gal- 

 lons each from New York of extracted 

 and approximately 900 cases of comb 

 from New York arrived. No demand, 

 very few sales. Sales to manufactur- 

 er, extracted, southern, $2.55-2.60 per 

 gallon. 



New York^lOO barrels and 50 

 tierces from Porto Rico arrived. De- 

 mand moderate; little change in 

 prices. Porto Rico, extracted per 



gallon, $2.35-2.60; mostly $2.45; Cali- 

 fornia extracted, per lb., wdiite, 27- 

 29c; light amber, 24-27c ; New York 

 Comb, 24-section cases, 30-35c per lb. 

 Beeswax: 320 bags from Porto Rico 

 arrived, demand moderate; imported, 

 dark, 40-42c per lb.; domestic, light, 

 42-44c per lb. 



Cleveland — 24,600 lbs from Nevada 

 arrived. Demand slow; no change in 

 prices. Sales to bakers and whole- 

 sale confectioners ; western, extract- 

 ed, per lb., white orange blossom, 60- 

 11). tins, 33c; light amber and sage, 

 31c; white clover, 28-30c. 



St. Louis — Supplies light. Demand 

 moderate. Sales to jobbers, southern 

 extracted, per lb., amber, barrels 24- 

 25c. California and southern, ex- 

 tracted, per lb., amber, cans, 26-28c ; 

 Comb, practically no supplies on 

 market. Beeswax: prime, 41 J^c per 

 pound. 



Portland — Demand and movement 

 slow. Quality and condition ordi- 

 nary, mostly amber. Sales direct to 

 retailers, extracted per lb., 24-27c ; 

 comb, 24-section cases, $6.75-7.75, ac- 

 cording to weight and grade. 



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-keeoing Questions by mall. 



Wintering in Cellar 



I have been r — ding your answers to bee- 

 keepers for the last ten years and have found 

 almost every question pertaining to bees 

 answered. Would it not be better to winter 

 bees in a house cellar than out of doors, even 

 though the temperature gets near the freezing 

 point. I had one colony which I neglected to 

 pack last fall. About the 15th of December I 

 put it in the cellar without packing of any 

 kind. The entrance was nearly closed with 

 dead bees and ice, but it came through all right 

 and gave me over 100 boxes of surplus, or as 

 good as any of my colonies. NEW YORK. 



Answer. — Occasional cold in a cellar is not 

 so bad as steady cold. I would rather risk a 

 cellar with the temperature occasionally below 

 the freezing point and at other times at 45 

 degrees or higher, than one with a steady tem- 

 perature of 38 or 40 degrees. Again, much 

 depends on purity of the air. I would rather 

 risk 40 degrees with the air constantly chang- 

 ing than 50 degrees with stagnant air. The 

 fact that you did well with the cellar last win- 

 ter is a pretty good indication that you ought 

 to do as well other winters. 



Using Old Combs 



1. I have six empty hives; the bees, I be- 

 lieve, died from European foulbrood. The 

 hives have not contained bees for two years. 

 Do you think I could put bees into these 

 hives next summer and leave the old comb in 

 them without danger to the bees? If this is 

 not possible, please let me know how 1 could 

 "cure" the hives. 



2. If I would send you a piece of comb 

 could you tell me what kind of disease the 

 bees died of, or what kind of foulbrood it is? 



3. Does it make any difference whether 

 comb is black or white when it is sent to a 

 manufacture to be made into foundation? 



WISCONSIN. 

 Answers. — 1. If the disease is of the Euro- 

 pean sort, and not American the hive and 

 all its parts may be used without "curing," 

 except the combs. In an apiary entirely free 

 from European foulbrood I should hesitate 



about using them. As to "curing" them, that 

 is, getting rid of all the germs in them, that 

 possibly might be done by using them for one 

 season as extracting combs; although some 

 might be over-anxious enough to think there 

 would be danger in that. 



2. No; it would likely do no good to send 

 samples to me; send them to Dr. E. F. Phil- 

 lips, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Wash- 

 ington, D. C. If you write to him in ad- 

 vance he will send you a box in which to 

 mail the sample, and after receiving sample 

 will advise you fully what to do, all without 

 charge. 



3. No. 



Sugar Feeding in Cellar 



I have about 170 colonies of bees and they 

 are very light and I am afraid that I am go- 

 ing to lose the biggest part of them. I have 

 put them in the cellar just the last few days. 

 and it really makes my heart ache to see them 

 in such a condition and that I am unable to do 

 anything for them. The honey crop here was 

 almost a total failure. Hardly any of the bee- 

 keepers got any honey. 1 got a little, and 

 when I filled out my application for sugar I 

 told them just what I had, but before I knew 

 that I could not get sugar I had sold a part 

 of my honey. I fed 900 pounds of it and still 

 the bees need more, and I have almost begged 

 for sugar, out to no avail; they wrote me that 

 I would have to take my medicine, which was, 

 I think, rather a hard way to talk to a fellow. 

 They claim that I was profiteering, but such 

 was not my intention. I had honey enough 

 to have carried my bees through if I had fed 

 it all, but at the time that I fed I thought I 

 had given them enough. I got, all told, 2,800 

 Now 1 have some hopes that things 

 will shape around before long so that sugar 

 will be available and what I would like to 

 have you tell me is how can I feed my bees 

 in the cellar. I h-ve never had to feed much, 

 and don't know anything about cellar feeding 

 and have no receipt for making candy for that 

 purpose. I have put the light colonics on top 

 as near as possible, but of course there are so 

 many they could not be all on top. What 



would be the consequences if sugar syrup was 

 fed in the cellar? 



I would be very thankful for information as 

 to how to proceed in case that I get sugar and 

 would gladly pay you for the information if 

 you would take anything. 



Is there any way I can feed the lower colo- 

 nies in the tiers. ILLINOIS. 



Answek. — If you feed syrup in the cellar it 

 is likely to stir up the bees to such an extent 

 as to make serious trouble. Candy is far 

 safer. To make the candy is not so very dif- 

 ficult. Into hot or boiling water stir as many 

 quarts of granulated sugar as there are quarts 

 of water. Let the sugar be stirred in slowly, 

 stirring all the while. Pouring in the sugar 

 will, of course, cool down the mixture, and 

 that is all right, for you should make sure 

 that all sugar is thoroughly dissolved before 

 it begins to boil, lest some of the undissolved 

 sugar be scorched, which would be fatal to the 

 bees. From time to time drop a little of the 

 syrup into cold water. It will be ready to 

 pour out when it is brittle upon being dropped 

 in the cold water, and yet appears a bit soft 

 and tough when put in the mouth. Have the 

 top of a table perfectly level, and lay on it 

 sheet of waxed or paraffined paper, with 

 wooden strips one-fourth inch thick under the 

 edges of the paper. As soon as you (find your 

 hot material is at the right stage, pour it onto 

 the sheets of paper, and of course when it is 

 cool you will have sheets of candy one-fourth 

 inch thick. When it begins to harden, take a 

 knife and score the places where you want to 

 break the candy, so as to make it the right 

 size. All you have to do now is to lay these 

 thin cakes of candy on top of the top-bars and 

 cover up warm. 



The cakes of candy being so thin, it may 

 be you can succeed in shoving them into the 

 entrances of hives hot on the tops of the piles. 

 If there is considerable space between the floor 

 and the bottom-bars it will be advisable to 

 thrust thin strips of wood under the candy, so 

 it will be raised up against the bottom-bars, 

 thus making sure that the bees will get at. the 

 candy. Even then a weak colony might not 

 get down to the candy. It might help to warm 

 up the cellar, and possibly to blow into the 

 hive entrance. 



Color of Crossed Bees 



1. What is the color of worker bees from a 

 tested leather color Italian queen? 



2. How can the difference between the hy- 

 brid and 3-banded be detected if the hybrid is 

 a cross between blacks and goldens? 



NORTH CAROLINA. 



Answers. — 1. When color enters into the 

 naming of any kind of bees, it is the worker - 

 and not the queen that is considered; so when 

 a leather-colored queen is mentioned it means 

 that her workers are of that color. 



2. The workers of a hybrid colony will be 

 mixed in appearance; some of them may be 

 like one side and some like the other, or the 

 same bee may be midway in appearance be- 

 tween the two. 



Requeening 



Next year I intend to buy untested queens 

 for each colony, then just as clover opens up 

 I will go to each colony and take the old 

 queen with one frame of brood and bees and 

 start a new colony. Could I give the old 

 swarms the new queen right away? Would 

 they he safe from swarming the first summer? 

 Would you approve of this method'' 



MINNESOTA. 



Answer. — Yes, you can give the new queen 

 right away, of course with the usual precau- 

 tions upon introducing and the likelihood is 

 that there would be no swarming until the fol- 

 lowing year, it being taken for granted that 

 the new queen will be one that has been lay- 

 ing but a short time. But I think you will be 

 wise to make a change in the program, pro- 

 ceeding in this way: Instead of taking away 



