1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



311 



pounds of honey, the one from which 

 the brood was taken would be count- 

 ed the better of the two. 



The cow is judged by her perform- 

 ance at the milk-pail; the queen by 

 her performance in the supers. 



— C. C. M. 



(In a foot-note. Dr. Miller asks the 

 management of the Journal to "fight 

 back" if either one of us disagrees 

 with him. We do not see how we 

 can improve on Dr. Miller's sugges- 

 tions unless it be in recommending 

 to keep out of the score any queen 

 of impure stock, for the reason that, 

 in a hybrid queen, the qualities are 

 probably not fixed so as to insure 

 the reproduction of similar qualities 

 in her daughters. So we would pre- 

 fer to rear our queens from a pure 

 queen, purely mated, even if there 

 was in the apiary a queen of impure 

 stock whose progeny produced the 

 largest crop. 



We would consider as of import- 

 ance, as well, the gentleness of the 

 bees which the queen produced and 

 their ability to withstand disease. It 

 seems pretty well established that 

 pure Italians resist European foul- 

 brood better than either hybrids or 

 blacks. 



But in selecting between queens of 

 the same race or the same degree of 

 purity, we do not see how any one 

 can find a better test than previous 

 results, in honey. — C. P. D.) 



Bees Clustered Outside 



Dear Miss Wilson : 



Madame : Am writing you to see 

 if you can tell me why the bees clus- 

 ter on the outside of the hives. Am 

 a beginner and this is my second 

 season, but only my first year to no- 

 tice every move the bees make. I 

 find that the bees have clustered 

 only on my 3-story colonies and I 

 made 4 nuclei this spring and they 

 do not do this. We have had so 

 much rain this past winter, and then 

 it rained again for a couple of weeks 

 last month. Do you think that the 

 reason for clustering so is because 

 there is very little pollen or honey 

 coming in? My nuclei are doing fine, 

 and upon my last inspection I found 

 they had almost no brood ; now 

 why? Do you think our excessive 

 rain has anything to do with this. 

 Am very interested in my bees and 

 am afraid I go in my hives too often. 

 Can you tell me how often I ought 

 to enter my hives in order to pre- 

 vent them from raising queen-cells. 

 Last year I had such a fight with the 

 bee-moth that I keep a close eye on 

 them, but my colonies are very 

 strong, so am sure there is no dan- 

 ger. 



Fairhope, Ala. 



Bees probably cluster outside be- 

 cause it is more comfortable there, 

 that is, it is cooler. The more bees 

 there are in a hive the more likely 

 to cluster out, other things being 

 equal. At the close of a hot day 

 you are likely to see a strong colony 

 cluster out after working hard all 

 day. Likely it is a good thing for 

 them; there are more bees there 

 than in the day when many were in 

 the field, and it is too hot in the hive 



if all stay inside. As it cools off 

 through the night the bees in the 

 cluster will gradually enter the hive, 

 especially if there comes a cold 

 wave, and by morning all will be in- 

 side. 



From what has been said you will 

 easily see that ventilation has some- 

 thing to do in the case. The less the 

 ventilation the more hanging out. 

 During the hot weather you can 

 hardly have too much ventilation. It 

 is well to have the entrance open the 

 full width of the hive, and anywhere 

 up to 2 inches in depth. Also let tin- 

 super be shoved forward or back- 

 ward so as to make a ventilating 

 space of a quarter to half an inch. 



If the flow of nectar stops and the 

 weather continues hot, a strong 

 colony may hang out all day, and 

 you can hardly blame them. It 

 would be foolish for them to wear 

 out their wings going to the fields 

 when there is nothing for them, and 

 it would be foolish to stay in the 

 crowded hive when it is cooler out- 

 side. 



The rain may have had a little to 

 do with it, for during the rain the 

 field bees would be kept home, mak- 

 ing it more crowded and hotter. 



If you want to keep queen-cells 

 cut out, you don't need to go into 

 the hives oftener than once in 8 or 

 10 days. But in too many cases the 

 effect of cutting out cells is only 

 temporary, and after a time a swarm 

 may issue only a day or so after you 

 have cut out all cells. It would be a 

 long story to tell how to manage in 

 such cases, but you will find it fully 

 given in Dr. Miller's "Fifty Years 

 Among the Bees." 



Selling Comb Honey 



Would you kindly tell me what you 

 would think the best plan for selling 

 comb honey? 



Until last year I sold about all pro- 

 duced right at home by the pound, 

 most of it in lots of from 10 pounds 

 up to two cases to a customer, not 

 graded as to weight. But last fall, 

 having more than I could readily dis- 

 pose of at home, and some nearby 

 grocers wishing to buy it at the same 

 price, sold several cases the same as 

 taking 25c as a selling price per 

 pound. In turn they sold it at an ad- 



vance of 2 and 3 cents per section ; 

 one selling at 2c, the other at 3c. 

 With cases of honey weighing all the 

 way from 18 to 23 pounds per case, 

 taking 25c as a selling price per 

 pound an 18-pound case would re- 

 tail, sold b}' the section, at the 3c 

 advance, at $7.72, the same as a 23- 

 pound case that brought $5.75. It does 

 not seem a fair plan to either pro- 

 ducer or consumer. If cases are 

 graded as to weight in this State, 

 does each section in a case have to 

 be weighed and marked with the net 

 weight ? 



ILLINOIS. 



The federal law obliging you to 

 mark on each section a minimum 

 weight does not apply in your case, 

 as your honey is not shipped out of 

 the State. 



Since there is a good deal of dif- 

 ference in the weight of different 

 sections of honey, the fairest way is 

 to weigh each section and sell it by 

 its weight. You may not want to go 

 to that much trouble, but still you 

 need not sell all sections at the 

 same price. It is a comparatively 

 easy thing to divide your sections 

 into two classes by weight. You 

 might, for instance, adopt 12 ounces 

 as your standard. Set your scales at 



12 ounces, and you can rapidly set 

 one section after another on the 

 scales. If the section pulls the scales 

 down it belongs in the heavy-weight 

 class; if it stays up it is a light- 

 weight. You might divide still fur- 

 ther by weighing again all your 

 heavy-weights with the scales set at 



13 or \3yi ounces. Then you could 

 sell by the section, having the same 

 price per section for all sections in 

 the same class. 



From what you say it sounds as 

 if you sold to the grocer at the 

 same price as you sold to the private 

 customer. That is hardly fair to the 

 grocer. He is entitled to his margin 

 of profit to pay him for the trouble 

 of handling the goods, and whatever 

 the price at which he sells, you 

 should not undersell him. If you 

 cannot sell all your honey directly 

 to the consumer, and find it advis- 

 able to sell part or all through gro- 

 cers, then let them distinctly under- 

 stand that in no case will you un- 

 dersell them. 



Dr. Millers 



Answers- 



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



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



He does not answer bee-keeoing Questions by mall. 



Queenless Robbers 



Did you ever know of a stand of bees to 

 rob, who were queenless? J. found one of my 

 stands overflowing with bees in March and 

 went to them in April to get a frame of 

 brood, and they had no brood at all, but were 

 robbing another stand. I gave them fresh 

 brood, but they simply hatched the brood and 

 filled the cells with honey. They had a hive 

 full of honey, mostly all unsealed; no queen, 

 and no signs that they had had any since last 

 fall; but lots of bees oi all ages, but no 

 drones, and not a cell of brood of any kind 

 appeared. I gave the second frame of brood 

 the last of April and on May 1 the hive had 



bees of all ages, inside the hive and out. They 

 refused to start a queen-cell, although they 

 were constantly running over the front of 

 the hive, looking for their queen. I failed to 

 find any signs of queen, and about the mid- 

 dle of May I divided them. They were in a 

 hive three stories high. S frames to each 

 story, making 24 frames in all. the whole year 

 around, summer and winter. My bees are 

 always heavy with fully 90 to 100 pounds for 

 winter. I gave them each 4 frames of brood 

 and now have 2 good, strong stands full of 

 brood. It is my first experience with a 

 queenless robber stand, and they were surely 

 holding their own. They got two of my 

 stands and I saw one of the stands move over 



