132 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



April 



What do ydu mean by that? What are the 

 of spring feeding? 



ILLINOIS 

 i rs. -l. Tn your locality you will prob- 

 i a larger crop by holding them a< 

 eight colonies. If your mam yield were in the 

 fall it might lie otherv 



2. If yon feed on a raw day it i 

 the bees to flying out, and so many of them 

 may he chilled and lost that more harm than 



1 1 will Follov Jusl i xa< tly when it will 



■ harm than good is a thing I haven i 

 the wisdom always to tell. If the bees haven't 

 a fair store of honey in the hive, then it is 

 imperative to feed. But the idea that feeding 

 will always increase brood-rearing is a delu- 

 sion. In my locality — and also in yours — I 

 very much doubt if there is ever a time in 

 the spring when feeding will increase brood- 

 rearing if the bees have already abundant 

 stores in the hive. There are localities where 

 early in the season there is an niter lack of 

 stores continued for so long a time that the 

 queen stops laying. In such case feeding is 

 OUS. But in your lo- 

 cality there is nevei any very long time when 

 a little cannot lie had from the fields. 

 If your bees are worth keeping you will find 

 that in spring they have all the brood they can 

 cover; then how can feeding help- Unless, 

 indeed, they are short of stores, and then you 

 must feed. 



To Prevent Swarming 



1. After using the "putup" plan, i- it neces- 

 sary to make any further effort to destroy 

 queen-cells? About what time in the season 

 do you cease destroying the queen-cells to 

 prevent swarming? 



2. If you were using 10-frame hives would 

 you double the brood-chambers as with the 8- 

 frame and then reduce before [.utting on_ the 



at the beginning of the clover flow? 



A. In using 10-frame hives what objection 

 would then be to omitting one frame to make 

 the manipulation more easy? 



INDIANA. 



Answers. — 1. If the old queen is returned 

 to the hive, there is always a possibility that 

 cells may be started later on. Incidentally I 

 may say that it is not a very uncommon thing 

 for cells to be started immediately on the re- 

 turn of the queen, only to be destroyed by the 

 bees before maturity. There is no fixed date 

 when nut- can say there is no further need 

 to look for cells. But when the flow begins to 

 when but few cells are found in 

 any one hive, one i- pretty safe in saying 

 that the cells are started for superseding 

 rather than for swarming. In any case, if a 

 young queen of the current season's rearing is 

 place of the old queen, no further 

 search is made for cells in that colony. 



2. Yes, it needed; liilt lew 



would be needed with the larger hives, I or, 

 after alt . ■ equalized, not so man) 



of them would be strong enough to need a 

 second story. 



3. The objection would be that there would 

 lie fewer cells fi USC To offsel 

 this would lie the advantage that the U 

 dummy would make it easier to take out 

 frames. Also, that it would give opportunity 

 to space the frames \ y 2 inches from 



which some good authorities think would les- 

 sen swarming. 



Foulbrood 



. 

 after melting American foulbrood out oi them 

 •*• If so, what kind of treatment shall 1 give 



them? 



i treat the hive- 



I. Wo 



being in a hive that had American I 

 in, but iwn them out I 



answer in the March number if you can 



INDIANA. 

 Answers. — 1 and 2. If, in melting out the 



combs, the frames were kept at the boiling 

 point lor half an hour, it might be safe to 

 um- them again without further treatment; 

 although it might be safer still if the frames 

 were baked in an oven afterward, beinf 

 as high as they would stand withoul charring 

 the wood. 



:'.. Many good authorities think it 



4. It would likely be safe. 



Let me add a word, ll" 1 had the disease in 

 ■nv own apiary I wouldn't hesitate to i a ; ■ 

 the things mentioned, only it would be a 

 question wdiether it might net be cheaper to 

 use new frames than to clean up the old ones. 

 But if the disease were not in my apiary, and 

 never had been, I would promptly dee line the 

 frames as a gift, and would hesitate about ac- 

 cepting the other things. 



What Kind of Queens? 



1. Do you think it would pay to buy an 

 Italian oueen lor one .warm oi 



2, Would a queen costing $1 to $1.25 be all 

 right? 



.; \\ ould you buy a tested or unt< -i. d 

 queen ? 



4. What kind would you buy. three-banded 

 golden, or leather colored? 



5 I- Madison county counted a good local- 

 ity for bees? 



6. When would be the best time for the 

 queen to come? IOWA. 



Answers. — 1. Most likely. In many cases 

 the difference in one crop of honey would 

 more than pay for the queen, and you would 

 have the advantage continued in future crops. 

 But a queen you buy this year will make 

 more difference in the crop next year than this. 



2. Yes; thousands of good queens are sold 

 at those prices. 



3. Hard to say. Like enough the untested 

 will turn out as good as the tested; but the 

 tested ought to be a little surer to be good. 



4. You'll be pretty safe on a three banded. 

 leather-colored. 



5. I don't know, but I suppose it i- (Some 

 parts very good. — F. C. P.) 



6. June is a good time. 



Ants — Roaches 



Do roaches do any particular damage to a 

 colony oi bees? What is a good method of pre- 

 venting damage by roaches in a hive of bees? 



What is the best method of preventing ants 

 from annoying bees? ALA 1'. AM \ 



Answer. — In the North neither ants nor 

 cockroaches do any harm, probably, beyond 

 annoying the bees by their presence, and their 

 presence in the hive can be prevented simply 

 by having no place in the hive that an anl can 

 enter and a bee cannot. Quilts or sheets that 

 allow ants to make their nests where tl 

 cannot get at them are, consequently, not so 

 g I is having covers with a bee-space be- 

 tween top-bars and covers; for if the bees can 

 get into every place where the ants can, the 

 bei can hold their own against the anis. In 

 the South, however, there are ants that may 

 destroy whole colonies of bees. Tin , 

 be traced to their nests and destroyed by 

 kerosene or carbon disulfide, and the hives 

 may be set on posts with cups containing coal- 

 tar, creosote or petroleum. 



Cross Bees 



l have 5 colonies of Italian bees. I bought 

 one hive three years ago and got the rest 

 from swarms. I d an v 



fei in the house ; had 



to put them there, as I used to have them LOO 

 i . 1 1 from thi house, just to get acquainted 

 with us, but had to movi thei 

 so oftt n; and now, while working in 



hey are ver} bothei 



ind while working on the hives they get 



very bad. I used to have bees for years on a 



a hich never made an\ 



\ \ ■ ■ I 



vise me C colonies with a good 



strain of Italians this spring, or is th< 

 ison these bees are so cross? 



M-.W J] RSI 5 



Answer. — There is nothing better than to 

 requeen with a better-natured strain. But are 

 you SUM thai ail five colonies are equally 

 guilty? It sometimes happens that a single 

 colony is very cms-,, ami unless very close ob- 

 servation is made it will seem that all the bees 

 in ilo apiary .ire on the war-path. One way 

 to do is to walk quietly in front of the hives 

 in. I .. whether tin bees from a sitiKle colony 

 dart out at you, or whether all do it. It is 

 possible, however, that by introducing a good 

 Italian queen into each colony you would 

 gain enough in the harvest to pay more than 

 the cost of making the change. 



Smoker — Disease 



1. Which is the proper place to put the grate 

 in a smoker? Some say in the bottom and 

 some on top of the fuel. 



'■I. Is the Tri-State hive as good as tin dove 

 tailed ? 



3. Will you please give the pronunciation of 

 the name "Dadant?" Every beekeeper around 

 here has his own way to pronounce it. 



4. Last year there was a disease in the brood 

 of three of my hives. As near as I could tell 

 it was European foulbrood. I wrote Mr. Kil- 

 dow about it and he said he would send me his 

 Bulletin. I never received it. By that time 

 I noticed it was clearing up a little. They 

 were all right when winter set in. Now what 

 I want to know is will the disease appear in 

 the spring? 



."-. Was there any nectar in Spanish needle 

 last fall? I never got a drop of honey from 

 it nor white clover either. The honey I got 

 came from catnip and horehound. 



tLLINOIS 



Answers. — 1. Most smokers are made so 

 that the grate is put in the bottom and the 

 fuel on top of it. 



2. It is much the same. 



3. The Dadants came from France, and if 

 you heard the name pronounced as it is in 

 French I don't suppose you could repeat it to 

 save your neck. But the whole bunch of Da- 

 dants are very much American — 100 per cent — 

 and so the name has been Americanized and is 

 prunounced Day-dant, accent on both syllables. 



4. It may. If it does, send to Dr. K. F. 

 Phillips, U- S. Department of Agriculture, 

 Washington, D. C, and he will send you a 

 box in which you can send him a sample, ami 

 then he will tell you what the trouble is with 

 printed information about it. This will cost 

 you nothing. 



."> I cannot tell you. 



Bees on Shares 



I am working 300 stands of bees, one-half 

 started in 1918, for two years, each to get half 

 of the proceeds ami each to pay halt of the 

 expenses. 1 am to do all the work. When I 

 took the bees we were running for comb 

 honey. This year he has decided to run half 

 for extracting. There is nothing said in the 

 contract about changing. Now is it up to un- 

 to do all this work and stand half of the 

 foundation, or is it the owner's place to do 

 that? Hoping this won't be asking too much 

 of you. I \l M ORNIA 



Answer. — Working on shares is a more or 

 less complicated thing, about which I know 

 none too much, so I hardly dare hazard an 

 opinion. Of course, if the change is such as 

 to make it less profitable to you, then there 

 should be some change in the agreement to 

 correspond. But "in this locality" it is con- 

 sidered that it takes less work to produce ex- 

 tracted than section honey. And if you use 

 lull sheets "f foundation in sections it OUghl 

 to take lis-' foundation for extracted hone) 

 But there may be something in the case I 

 don't understand. 



Spinning Honey 



Is there any method by which honey can .ie 

 spun, and ii so, aftei tli- process, what color 

 does it .. i his peculiai color due 



to adulteration or simply to the process it 



lias undergone. 1 have just been told lli.it 

 a ..I oi spinning honey in the 

 south and that after the process the honey be- 

 comes white and takes on a pliableness equal 



