422 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



December 



been taken down, as I needed the lumber for 

 other purposes. 



The whole thing originated in spite work, 

 because a man thought I killed his dog. He 

 made a close guess. BONNE Y. 



Kind of Queens 



What qualities are required for standard 3- 

 band bees? If a queen is producing workers 

 yellow to tip on under side, only 3 yellow 

 bands across the back of abdomen, how should 

 such bees be classified 3-bands, or goldens? 

 Is there any such race of bees known as gol- 

 dens? Where do our so-called golden bees 

 spring from? I have several queens producing 

 5-band bees, but one I ordered from a golden 

 breeder is producing about 90 per cent 3-band 

 and not more than 10 per cent goldens. while 

 the drones have four and five yellow bands. 

 How should these be classified? I am inclined 

 to believe our so-called golden bees are only 

 sports from 3-band bees bred for their color. 

 Am I right or wrong? ARKANSAS. 



Answer. — You are right. Goldens are only 

 Italian bees bred for color. So there is abso- 

 lutely no positive standard, so far as I know. 

 In some cases the lighter color is brought 

 about through a cross with Cyprians and it is 

 probably the cause of some of these golden 

 bees being very cross. As a rule, golden Ital- 

 ian bees are as gentle as the average pure 

 Italian. 



Pure Italian bees are active, peaceable, 

 show three yellow bands, including the narrow 

 one next to the thorax. They hang quietly 'o 

 the combs, when properly handled, and never 

 crowd to the corners and drop off, as common 

 blacks do. 



Clipped Quee.is 



In the case of queens with clipped wings, is 

 there not the danger that the bees may still 

 decide to swarm, and may ill-treat the queen 

 on finding her unable to go with them. This 

 happened in my case this season, and the 

 queen was thrown out. 



Will you advise: 



1. What precautionary steps ought to l e 

 taken generally in the case of clipped queens? 



2. What should be done if queen-cells are 

 found in a hive with a clipped queen? 



I adopted the Demaree system and shall be 

 obliged if you will make your replies applica- 

 ble to same. 



Answers. — 1. I'm not sure that any precau- 

 tionary measure should be used other than is 

 used with queens undipped. 



2. Nor is there anything different to be done 

 when queen-cells are found. 



Yet in either case it makes a big difference 

 whether queens are clipped or not. If a colony 

 decides to swarm, and actually does swarm, if 

 the queen's wings are whole, off goes the 

 swarm, queen and all, if you are not on hand 

 to hiv.e it, and sometimes when you are on 

 hand. If the queen is clipped, you can pick 

 her up, and the swarm is at your mercy. The 

 worst that can happen is that you may not 

 find the queen, and she may be lost, lint it 

 is better to lose the queen than to lose both 

 queen and bees. If a queen cannot fly, the 

 the bees will swarm just the same, but the 

 bees will return, and generally so will the 

 queen. Then they may continue to swarm till 

 a young queen emerges, when the old queen 

 will be done for. But it's up to you to pro- 

 vide against that 



Bees Get No Honey 



I have 10 colonics to look after, and they 

 have not made any comb honey this year. 

 What is your idea as to their not making any 

 honey?. , 



When is the best time to feed for winter? 

 INDIANA. 



Answer. — Bees can store surplus honey only 

 as they can gather nectar from the flowers, 

 and they cannot always get enough nectar, it 

 may be too wet, it may be too dry, and some- 

 times when it seems neither too wet nor too 

 dry, and when there are plenty of flowers, 



there is no nectar, and no one seems to know 

 why. We just say it was a poor season md 

 let it go at that. 



The sooner you feed for winter the better, 

 after you know the b^es will need feeding, al- 

 though in your locality you may feed even as 

 late as October. November is a bit risky 



Foulbrood 



1. If a swarm of bees is affected slightly 

 with European foulbrood and has stored fl 

 hundred or more pounds of honey, would it le 

 safe to use the combs after extracting Ihe 

 honey? 



2. Is it possible for a strong swarm of bees 

 to get rid of a slight case of foulbrood after 

 infection? IOWA. 



Answers. — 1. Such combs are probably safe, 

 and yet I should hesitate about using them 

 in an apiary entirely free from the disease. 



2. I think that has happened with European, 

 but perhaps not with American. 



Wintering 



Last winter I wintered my 20 colonii with 

 out losing one, Dy putting a super on each 

 filled with a chaff cushion and giving sufficient 

 insulation, beside good winter stores. But this 

 fall I intend to care still better for riy 

 friends, and thought it advisable also to Jut 

 a super, empty or filled with inside fixtures, 

 that is, without sections beneath the brood- 

 hive. Would you advise me to do so? Would 

 you leave that super empty or filled with the 

 inside fixtures, or would you advise even to 

 let sections partly or entirely finished within 

 the super? By putting such a super under the 

 nive I thought cold winds might be kept from 

 the cluster. ILLINOIS. 



Answer. — There should be advantage in 

 having a story under the brood-chamber, but 

 don't have sections in it, as it would spoil ibe 

 sections for future use. 



Decoy Hives — Lost Queens 



1. Where a swarm leaves with a virgin 

 queen and afterwards she is lost on her mating 

 trip, what becomes of the swarm? 



2. When using decoy hives, should I leave 

 the comb in them? If I do, the moths will 

 destroy them; i' I don't, they would not it- 

 tract the bees. PENNSYLVANIA. 



Answers. — 1. If a virgin issues with a 

 swarm and is lost on her mating trip, the bees 

 are likely to return to their old home. Yet, 

 for anything I know, there may be exceptions. 



2. An empty hive without combs may serve, 

 but it is better to have the combs. If moths 

 attack them you can exchange them for fresh 

 combs, giving the wormy combs to the bees io 

 clean up. 



(By using only one comb the moths are not 

 as likely to trouble. More can be added as 

 soon as a swarm is secured. New combs in 

 which no brood has been reared are not so 

 likely to be destroyed by moths as old combs. 

 — F. C. P.) 



Square Hives — Decoys, Etc. 



1. Do you know of anyone using square 

 hives who turns the frames crosswise of the 

 entrance during the winter? If so, do they 

 claim better wintering? 



2 When frames are reversed (inverted), 

 bees will fill the space between the con 

 bottom bar, but will they not fill it with 

 drone-comb? 



PENNSYLVANIA 



Answers. — 1. No, wc know of no one using 

 a different entrance in winter. This is a much 

 debated question in Europe, but we have never 

 known it to be settled either way. 



2. Yes, very probably. 



Honey Fermenting 



I have been interested in beekeeping for the 

 past five years. I have a crop of honey that 

 has me puzzled. I noticed the combs as I took 

 them off of the hives. The cappings (not the 

 entire comb, but about one-third or less) were 

 puffed up high. I broke some of tbj 

 open with a small piece of wood and I found 

 the honey bubbled, or in a state of I 

 tion. I extracted this honey and bottled it, 



and three days after it showed signs of fer- 

 menting. 



Will you please give me some information 

 about this? What caused it to ferment in 

 the comb? Is there anything 1 can do to save 

 this honey, and still sell it as pure honey? 



ILLINOIS. 



Answer. — It is very difficult to reply to this 

 enquiry in a satisfactory manner. There is 

 so much in the honey-producing business that 

 we do not know. The best thing we can do 

 is to give an instance of something similar, 

 taken from the pages of the American Bee 

 Journal for April, 1917. The editor, having 

 called upon some leading eastern apiarists, 

 was told by Mr. Irving Kenyon that for two 

 years his honey had been fermenting in the 

 cells and bursting the cappings. He thought 

 it due to a microbe and thought of changing 

 his combs, which probably carried the fer- 

 ment over from one year to another. In June, 

 1918, page 205, he stated that he had made 

 the change by shaking the bees from the 

 combs and rendering the combs, and had less 

 than one-fourth of one per cent of the trou- 

 ble. 



In your case it is probably only accidental. 

 It is perhaps due to unripe honey, sealed too 

 soon by the bees. We would advise heating 

 the honey in a double boiler, "au bain-marie," 

 as confectioners call it, taking care not to 

 overheat it. Heating will remove the ex- 

 cess moisture and will also evaporate the 

 gases formed in it. This will probably stop 

 further fermentation. The honey can be sold 

 as pure honey, but must not be offered as 

 a good grade. It will very likely retain a 

 little of the acidity of fermentation. — Editor. 



Swarm Control for Comb Honey 



I have given a trial to the plan as set forth 

 in the August number of the Journal on page 

 266. The drones in the hive body at the side 

 clogged the entrance into the other hive body 

 completely, as I found when I opened it to ex- 

 change the empty brood combs with others 

 from the mother hive. I had given some ven- 

 tilation at the top of the hive at the side. But 

 I found a lot of bees suffocated on the bottom- 

 board, mostly drones, but also some dead 

 worker bees. I therefore took the hive away 

 from the side and placed it on top of the 

 mother hive with an escape board between. 

 Next day the upper hive body was still filled 

 with bees. I left it on another day and night. 

 But the workers had not left. So I proceeded 

 to make an examination, and I found a virgin 

 queen, a black queen, which took wing before 

 I could catch her. The workers I shook from 

 the combs in front of the mother hive and they 

 entered at once. What became of the black 

 queen? NEW YORK. 



Answer. — The experience which you relate 

 might have been expected in a colony having 

 drones, since the only opening from the side 

 hive was through a queen-and-drone excluder 

 into the main hive. Mr. Smythe evidently did 

 not have drones when he experimented in this 

 way. So we can see that things do not always 

 turn out as anticipated. 



What became of the queen? It is not very 

 easy to answer. Since she had never before 

 taken a flight, it is quite probable that she 

 yut lost or went to another colony. In either 

 ease she would not survive. 



Name of Apiary 



In reading the last number of American 

 Bee Journal I ran across your article "Bees 

 in flie Hush and Trout in the Brook," and I 

 think that is the ideal name for the location 

 1 am in. 



Your description of the trout streams is just 

 like the ones we have here, and. Oh, Hoy! the 

 is certainly unsurpassable. 



Mr. Bartlett is surely not in as good a lo- 

 cation as mine, for here wc bad a very heavy 

 fall flow from goldenrod, buckwheat and bone- 

 set. 



Wc are packing our bees for winter now, 

 i to bring them through in good shape. 



If you contemplate coming to northern 

 Michigan again, come and see us in Oscoda 

 County. We are in an ideal location for bees. 

 Our heavy honey yielders are willow, dande- 

 lion, alsike and white clover, apple. June- 



