1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAi 



239 



have plenty of honey and young hrood. But I 

 want to put them in a 10-frame hive with full 

 sheets of foundation. Would you advise put- 

 ting them on top of a 10-frame and driving all 

 bees below and placing on a queen-excluder, 

 between the two hives? If I do this, could I 

 save the young brood, and how long would it 

 be before I could remove the old hive free 

 from brood? Would you advise some other 

 methods? MISSOURI 



Answers. — 1. I don't discover any evidence 

 of disease in the samples sent. If at any time 

 you think you have diseased brood, send a 

 sample to Dr. E. F. Phillips, Department of 

 Agriculture, Washington, D. C, and in case 

 there is disease he can tell you about it better 

 than I can. If the queen fails to keep the 

 combs properly filled with brood, it will be 

 well for you to supersede her as soon as con- 

 venient, unless the bees beat you to it buy su- 

 perseding her themselves 



2. It will be better to give with the brood 

 the adhering bees, unless the weak colony is 

 so weak that the added bees should outnum- 

 ber the bees of the weak colony. In that case 

 exchange one of the combs of the weak colony 

 for one containing as much sealed brood as 

 possible, brushing off all bees. 



3. Your plan will work all right if you can 

 drive the bees down; but it is easier to drive 

 bees up than down. You might drive the 

 bees up into the desired hive, then place this 

 on the stand and put over it the excluder and 

 old hive. In three weeks all worker-brood 

 should have matured. 



tongues, and some effort has been made to 

 breed longer tongues. Not much, however, has 

 come of it. To me it appears that the more 

 hopeful ifield lies in the direction of breeding 

 red clover with shorter tubes, so that the 

 common bee can reach the nectar. 



robbers would try day after day to enter a 

 strong colony. It looks rather suspiciously 

 like a case of paralysis. 



Partnership, Etc. 



1. A and B go into beekeeping as partners. 

 A does all the work. B furnishes $300 of the 

 $400 capital invested. The stock this spring 

 was 30 colonies of bees 20 empty hives and 

 supplies for this summer's crop. What would 

 you consider a fair part for each? 



2. Since A does the work, what part should 

 he have of the coming crop? 



3. Do drone laying queens and fertile 

 workers lay only in drone-cells, or may drones 

 be reared from worker-cells? 



4. Why do bees sometimes construct hard 

 cups resembling a started queen-cell? I have 

 often seen them when there could have been 

 no impulse of swarming. 



5. Are you familiar with a honey plant 

 known as spider plant — or spider weed? What 

 is its value? 



6. Is there an association of beekeepers in 

 Virginia- If not, give me the name of some one 

 who could give me information about the form- 

 ing of such an association. 



VIRGINIA. 



Answers. — 1 and 2. One fair way would be 

 for B to have a certain rate of interest on 

 the capital invested, that rate being high enough 

 to cover any risk there might be in the case. 



3. Drone-laying queens lay in the same kind 

 of cells as other queens, and the drones they 

 produce in worker-cells are small in size. 

 Laying workers prefer drone-cells, but also lay 

 in worker-cells. 



4.1 don't know. Maybe " they think it a 

 good plan to have a start in case it should be 

 needed. 



5. Some years ago it had quite a boom and 

 I planted a patch of it. It is a good honey- 

 plant, but not worth -keeping on cultivated 

 ground. 



G. I know of none. Perhaps Chas. A. ^.eese, 

 State Apiarist, Charleston, West Va., can help 



Stingless Bees 



I want to ask you a question. Is it true they 

 are trying to raise or breed bees without 

 stings and with longer proboscis or suckers, so 

 as tu be able to take honey from red clover, 

 etc? NORTH DAKOTA. 



An: web. — There are stingless bees, but they 

 will probably never be commercially useful, 

 and I do not believe any serious effort will 

 ever be made to have honeybees without 

 stings. 



There is a difference in the length of bees* 



Queen Leaving Hive 



The other day I found the queen from one 

 of my colonies out on the grass in front of 

 the hive and another queen I found up under 

 the cover of the winter box. Both colonies 

 seem to be in good condition and quite strong. 

 Could you tell me what would make them 

 come out at this time of the year? 



MICHIGAN". 



Answeb. — Hard to tell. It is possible that 

 the old queen was superseded and was cast out. 

 There is another possibility. The old queen 

 might have been superseded and more than one 

 queen reared to take her place, and the 

 queens you found were extra young queens; 

 but I do not guarantee either of these guesses. 



Uniting — Laying- Workers — Honey 

 Plants 



1. Can you unite two weak colonies without 

 fighting? 



2. I had a nice, strong colony of bees at the 

 end of March this year, and now they are very 

 weak. I looked into them and there were a 

 lot of eggs in the cells and some cells had two 

 eggs. They have no queen. I don't know 

 whether they swarmed or not. They had no 

 sealed brood. Do you think that they are lay- 

 ing-workers? 



3. Have the bees got a special worker-bee 

 that lays the eggs? 



4. Do they have to be mated, or how does it 

 come that they only rear drones? 



5. I gave them two frames of brood, 

 sealed, and one with eggs. Will they build 

 some queen-cells out of the brood if they 

 have no queen? 



6. I also gave them a lot of bees out of the 

 hive from which I had taken the brood. Do 

 you think they will stay and help build up the 

 colony, or do you think that it would be ad- 

 visable to unite them with some other weak 

 colony? 



7. I have only 35 colonies of bees and there 

 are only two weak colonies in it; all the rest 

 are very strong. I got 25 18-frame hives and 

 got some supers on some of them; robbed them 

 the first of May, Don't you think that is 

 pretty early for this year? 



8. How does it come that they don't class 

 the saw palmetto as a honey-plant? Is not that 

 the main flower down South for producing nec- 

 tar? They did not mention it in the last Jour- 

 nal on Southern honey-plants. 



9. I have a strong colony that is always 

 fighting. I think that there are robber bees 

 that try to get in, but they are killed. ' This 

 goes on day after day. How can a fellow stop 

 them? I did not expose any honey or any- 

 thing sweet about. The colonv is just loaded 

 with brood. They mave a fine queen and 

 quite a lot of stores,, but not enough to take 

 any out. Some colonies averaged 50 pounds 

 surplus so far this season; mostly palmetto 

 honey. FLORIDA. 



Answers, — 1. Yes, by taking proper precau- 

 tions. One way is to put a sheet of common 

 newspaper over the top-bars of one hive and 

 set the other hive on it. The bees will gnaw 

 away the paper and gradually unite wit hint 

 fighting. 



2. It looks very much like a case of laying 

 workers. 



3. No. A lot of workers are engaged in 

 the miserable business. 



4. No, there is no mating. All drones are 

 reared from unfertilized eggs, whether the 

 eggs be laid by a queen or a worker. 



5. They may and they may nut. 



C. The older bees that you gave them will 

 return to their old place; the younger bees 

 will stay. The probability is that it should be 

 better to unite them with another colony 

 having a good queen. 



7. Likely; but I do not know much about it. 



8. The palmettos were described at length 

 in the December number of this journal. They 

 are good honey-plants. 



9. I do not know. It hardly looks as if 



Queen Breeding, Frames, Etc. 



1. When running for extracted honey and 

 using a story and a half brood-chamber, would 

 it not be a good idea to have the top story of 

 the 10-frame size and the bottoms half-story 

 and the bottom-board of the 8-frame size ? 

 Would the side ventilation be too great? 



2. Would you advise commercial oueen- 

 raising to one who has a great desire for it? 



3. Which do you use in sections, thin or ex- 

 tra thin super foundation, and which is the 

 best for brood-frames? 



4. What is royal jelly composed of? Is 

 there any substitute for it? 



5. Do you think a 13-frame Jumbo hive too 

 large a brood-chamber for a Dixie beekeeper? 



6. Do you keep any bees now, and could 

 you supply one with a breeding queen now? 



7. Do you know of a breeder who breeds 

 your stock for sale? VIRGINIA. 



Answers. — 1. The ventilation will be none 

 too great in hot weather, bui would be too 

 great early in the season. You can, however, 

 remedy this by tacking on strips under the 10- 

 frame body. 



2. A little hard to tell; but the "great de- 

 sire" would certainly be a helpful factor. 



3. Thin super and medium urood. 



4. The bees prepare royal jelly the same as 

 the jelly first fed to all young larvs, from 

 honey and pollen. There is no substitute for 

 it. 



5. Probably not. 



6 and 7. I keep bees now, but sell no queens. 

 You can get Miller queens from the Penn Co., 

 Penn, Miss. 



Clipping, Swarm Prevention, Etc. 



1. Does clipping the queen's wing prevent 

 swarming? 



2. If I have two hives containing Italian 

 queens, how can I Italianize my apiary from 

 them next spring? 



3. On hot days, is it advisable to raise the 

 top for ventilation? 



4. How do you prevent swarming? 



5. Suppose I have 8-frame hives. I will 

 take two frames of brood and bees out of each 

 of the first four, then move No. 5 to another 

 stand and put my newly-made swarm in its 

 place. Will my new swarm be strong enough 

 and will it weaken the others enough to pre- 

 vent swarming? TEXAS. 



Answers. — 1. No. It prevents the queen 

 going off with a swarm, but does not in the 

 least prevent swarming. 



2. One way is to rear queens from them and 

 with these to suptrsede objectionable queens. 

 Another way may suit you; when the colony 

 with the Italian queen swarms, put the swarm 

 on the old stand and put the Italian colony in 

 place of one of the dark colonies. In a week 

 or so the Italian colony will swarm again, 

 when you will put the swarm in its place and 

 put the Italian colony in place of another dark 

 colony. Do this as often as it swarms, each 

 time putting the Italian colony in place of a 

 dark colony and setting the dark colony in a 

 new place. In this way each swarm will have 

 an Italian queen. 



3. It will do good, but it is rather too much 

 work to change the ventilation at each change 

 of weather. Better provide abundant ven- 

 tilation permanently. 



4. It would be a long story to give all the 

 ways which you will find given in my book. 

 "Fifty Years Aniong the Bees." Perhaps I 

 might say that most frequently it consists in 

 leaving the colony ten days without any egg- 

 laying. 



5 Your new swarm should be good, hut un- 

 less you take auay nearly all the brood from 

 them it will not prevent them from swarming. 



Scorched Honey 



1. A lot of my bees died this winter and 

 last winter, two years. 1 have fed some honey 

 from a sun capping melter; it is dark and not 



