BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
A. Your wax is only following the general rule. A large part of the impurities, while heavier than wax, are lighter than water, so they settle between the water and the wax. In other words, you will find a layer of sediment on the under surface of the cake of wax when it cools. There is not much difference between the weight of the wax and the sediment, so that it takes it a long time to settle. So if the wax cools very rapidly, much of the sediment will be mixed up with it. Your effort must be to keep the wax in the liquid state a long time; or, as it is often expressed, you must let the wax cool slowly. One way to do this is to cover up warm with blankets or something of the kind. If the amount of wax is small it will be longer cooling if you have a good deal of water under it. Another way, with a small amount, is to put it in the oven of the cook-stove, leaving the oven door open until the fire begins to die down in the evening, then shut the door and leave it until morning. Put the stove handle in the oven, and then in the morning you will not forget to take out the wax before building the fire.
Then you scrape the dirt from the bottom of the cake, which you can do more easily while the cake is a little warm. With a large amount of such scrapings it may be worth while to melt the whole to get out the little wax in it, but with a small amount it is not worth the trouble.
Q. Is bees wax injured by coming to a boil? If so, can it be detected that the wax has been boiled?
A. Bringing to a boil will hardly hurt it if not repeated too much, nor continued too long, and I don't believe the short boiling could be detected.
Q. Will a brass or copper vessel injure the quality of the wax?
A. I think not. Iron will darken it.
Q. How many pounds of honey does it take to make one pound of wax?
A. For a long time it was counted 20 pounds. Then some figured it out 7 pounds or less. Possibly I0 or I2 pounds may not be far out of the way.
**Beeswax, Rendering (See Combs, Rendering.)**
**Bee Supplies, Ordering.-Q.** I have 12 colonies of bees in good movable-frame hives. I am a beginner. What shall I order in the way of supplies? I wish to run for comb honey and increase by natural swarming. I have nothing in the way of tools, and my time is limited, as I am a rural mail carrier.
A. It is not an easy thing to tell what anyone needs without pretty full particulars as to harvest and conditions. In general terms I should say that you should have on hand enough sections all ready in supers in advance, so that you can give to the bees as many as they would fill in the best season you have ever known, and then an extra one for each colony besides. Possibly you have had so little experience that you don't know what the bees would do in the very best kind of a season. Well, then, we might guess that in the very best kind of a year you would get an average of I25 sections per colony, although that may be putting it pretty low if you are in a good location. If your supers hold 24 sections each, as a good many supers do, it would take about five supers to hold the 124 sections, as we don't need to be so exact about it. But some colonies will fill more than the five, and some less; you can't hold them to the exact number, and at the last there will necessarily be more or less unfinished sections on the hives when the season closes; so you ought to count on an extra super for each colony; altogether six supers per colony, or 72 supers of sections for the 12 colonies. Understand only once in a while you will have a season when you will need so many, but you never know but what the next season will be a bouncer, and you must be prepared for it. What are not needed will be all right for the next year. Even if the season proves an entire failure your supers will be all right for the first good season that comes.
As to hives, you will probably want to double your number, preventing all afterswarms, so you will need to have in readiness a hive for each colony, or 12 in all.
**Bee Veils.-Q**. What is your idea of a good bee veil?
A. Our favored veil is made after this fashion: One end of the veil is sewed to the outer brim of the hat (of course, an elastic may be used to slip over the hat if preferred); this keeps the veil smooth, avoiding wrinkles in front of the face. An elastic cord is run in the lower hem. A safety pin is caught through the hem in the front, taking in the elastic cord. This is always left hanging in the veil, then when hat and veil are on, all that is needed is to pull the elastic down until taut--not only taut, but stretched very tight--and then to fasten the safety pin to keep it so. If a rigid cord were used instead of an elastic, when the body was bent it would become slack and allow bees to pass under, but if the elastic is drawn down tight enough no bee can get under, no matter what change is made in the position of the body. Nothing can be simpler as a fastening, and it is perfectly safe.
**Beginning in Beekeeping.-Q**. I would like to know the best possible way to commence bekeeping the coming season.
A. Take my advice and don't wait for the coming season, but begin now, getting a good book on bekeeping and studying it thoroughly. That's the way to begin, and by the time you have done that you will know plenty well the next step. Begin with two or three colonies, so that you may learn as you go.
Q. I am in Northern Minnesota. Does it make any difference whether I get my bees from the Southern States, or would it be better to get them as near home as possible?
A. Better get them as near home as possible. Transportation from any distance south would be more than the cost of the bees. If you can't do any better, get black bees in box-hives, and then you can transfer and Italianize.
**Bisulphide of Carbon (See Carbon Disulfide.)**
**Black Bees.--Q.** I bought some bees last year for pure Italians, but now there are black ones in the hive. Could they have been pure Italians? This is my first year with bees. (July.)
A. You do not say whether there were any black bees in the hive last year. If the workers were all properly marked last year, it is possible that the queen was superseded last fall or this spring, and that the new queen is mismated. If there are only a few black bees in the hive, they may be from other colonies; for bees do more in the way of shifting from one hive to another than is generally supposed. Look in the hive and see whether there are any black bees among the downy little fellows that have just hatched. If there are, then either the queen has been changed or the queen you bought was not pure.
Q. Does the black bee enter the supers more readily than the Italian?
A. I think so; but I have no trouble with Italians.
**Blackberry.--Q.** Does blackberry yield much honey?
A. Blackberry is not generally in sufficient number to count much. I don't know for certain, but I think it might be important where there are large fields of it. In any case, whatever it does yield is of importance because it comes early enough to fill in the gap between fruit tree bloom and clover.
**Bottom-Boards.--Q.** As I expect to make my bottom-boards. I would like to know how deep an entrance can be before the bees will build comb from the bottom-bars to the bottom-board. I have been using seven-eighth inch deep, but I notice the bees alight outside and crawl in, the same as a three-eighth inch entrance; but if one and one-quarter inch they don't alight on the bottom-board, but on the combs. It seems to me that this must save quite a little of the bees' time. Would two inches be too deep?
A. I don't know just how deep a space would do, but I'm sure 2 inches would be too deep. I have had bees build comb in a one and one-quarter inch space, although from what you say your bees may not yet have built in such a space. I should feel safe with a three-quarter inch space, and likely there would be little building with a space of one inch. My bottom-boards however, are all 2 inches deep; then during the busy season I fill half or more of the space with a sort of rack, which prevents the bees building down, yet gives them the chance for much ventilation. In winter the bees have the whole 2-inch space which is an important advantage.
\(Q\). Which is better, to have the bottoms loose on the hives, or have them nailed on?
A. The best way is to have the bottom fastened to the hive by means of staples, so that you can remove it at any time you like. I wouldn't have a bottom that could not be fastened on, and a bottom that couldn't be taken off readily would be worse still.
Q. How would it work to use the same depth of bottom-board under the frames, seven-eighths in winter, and close the entrance down to three-eighths inch by a strip of wood for outdoor wintering? What size of entrance would you use here?
A. It would be all right. Deeper than seven-eighths would be still better for the bottom-board, but I would not care to have the entrance more than three-eighths, and perhaps not more than four inches wide.
**Bottom-Boards, Dust on.-Q.** I have noticed on the alighting-boards of two or three of my colonies a substance resembling sawdust. What is this? I winter my bees outside in small sheds packed with straw. The sheds face the south.
A. That brings vividly to mind the first year I wintered bees, when I was alarmed to find under the bees and at the entrance something that looked like a mixture of coffee grounds and sawdust, and I didn't know but what it was "all up" with my bees. An old bekeeper quieted my fears by telling me it was nothing worse than the bits of the cappings that the bees dropped when unsealing the honey. Your bees have the same "disease."
**Box Hives.-Q.** In June I found a large swarm of bees and put them in a shoe-box, not having any beehive. I have left them in the shoe-box, and I think there must be about 100 pounds of honey in it, as it is all that I can do to lift it. What is the best way to get a portion of this honey without damaging the bees or their winter supply? What is the best way to keep bees over winter? My cellar is rather cold, and slightly damp. Would it do to keep them there? (Illinois.)
A. It is very doubtful whether you can take any honey away without badly damaging the chances of the bees for safe wintering. Better leave it until spring, or until next summer, after the bees have swarmed. They will not waste it, and you can get later what honey they can spare. If they were in a movable-comb hive you could safely take the honey now.
You are in latitude 41 north, or a little more, and in Illinois that's nearly the dividing line between outdoor and cellar wintering, with mostly cellaring. But if your cellar is damp and cold, and there is no way to warm it, you may do better outdoors.
**Brace-Comb.-Q**. What is a burr-comb? What is a trace-comb?
A. The terms "burr" and "brace" are used somewhat indiscriminately, "burr" more properly referring to bits of comb built over the top-bar or elsewhere, perhaps without connecting two parts together; and "brace" being used to designate bits built between frames or combs, thus serving to brace them.
**Broad Carried Out.-Q**. I have 13 colonies and there are five of them that are carrying out brood almost ready to hatch. What is the trouble, and how can I prevent or remedy it?
A. Late in the season drone-brood will be thrown out at a time when bees kill off drones. A very few specimens of such brood thrown out at any time may have no special significance. There are other causes. In the spring of the year the bees are likely to use large quantities of stores in rearing brood, and it generally takes several years for a beginner to learn that unless they have a big lot of honey on hand there is danger of starvation. You have on hand, perhaps, a plain case of starvation, and of course there is just one way to prevent or cure, and that is to feed. Occasionally a very fertile queen will lay faster than her small colony can care for the brood. Cold, raw days may chill brood not properly covered. This brood will die and be carried out. These instances are rather rare, and the amount of chilled brood is usually small.
**Broad-Chamber Clogged With Honey.-Q**. "Why don't bees go into supers?" Brood-chambers are clogged with brood and honey, and "nothing doing" in the supers. Advice given is to uncap the honey in the brood-chamber. Most of the sections have bait-comb in then. I have no uncapper, so I have run a hook over the capped honey and considerably disturbed it. Now, how about being as sure as possible that in these hives with clogged-up brood-frames (with honey) there will be enough bees growing in September or August so as to have the colonies winter all right? Is there such trouble in producing extracted honey? What had I better do?
A. Running a hook over the sealed surface ought to have somewhat the same effect as uncapping, but is probably not as good. If you have no regular uncapping-knife, a common butcher-knife will do fairly well. When the surface has merely been scratched I have known the bees to repair the capping, not taking up any of the honey. But if the knife cuts down to the honey, they are bound to take up some of the honey before they can doanything at repairing the capping, and if everything is full below they are to a certain extent compelled to deposit the honey above.
If a good fall flow comes, that may start an increase of brood rearing, and the bees may empty some of the honey from the brood-chamber into the super. If no fall flow comes, there is danger, as you suggest, that brood-rearing will be so limited that the colony will not be so strong for winter. Yet there is this crumb of comfort in the case, that if there is nothing for the bees to do in the field they will not grow old so rapidly, and will not die off so fast, so that, after all, they may not be so very weak for winter.
With extracting-combs there is less inclination to cram the brood-chamber, yet if the bait-sections be as fully drawn out as the extracting-combs the difference should be very little, unless it be that extracting-combs that have been used as brood-combs have greater attraction for the bees than comb that has never had anything but honey in it.
Are you sure that your colony has enough ventilation so that the bees may be comfortable in the upper story?
**Bood-Chambers, Two-Story.-Q.** Would you approve of the plan of using two brood-chambers, one on top of the other, to enlarge the brood-nest of 8-frame dovetailed hives? I do not wish to keep more than 6 or 8 colonies, but I would like to keep them strong.
**A. Decidedly.** It often happens that before the clover harvest is over, a good queen will be hampered in a single 8-frame hive, and then it's a good thing to add the second story. But if you are working for comb honey you should reduce to one story at the time of putting on supers. That can hardly be said to be reducing the room of the colony--merely giving the room in the super in place of the brood-chamber.
Q. At about what date do you contract from two-hive bodies to one, and do you do it by shaking? I assume that most of the workers must be left in the single chamber, so that the gathering force there may be as strong as possible.
**A. You will find in "Fifty Years Among the Bees," that about as soon as clover-bloom begins, or at least within ten days after seeing the very first blossom, I give section-supers, and at that time I reduce to one story, leaving in that one story all the brood I can, and all the bees, shaking or brushing all the bees from the combs I remove.**
**Bood Dead.-Q.** This fall we doubled up on a few colonies by putting the weaker colony on top and a sheet of newspaper be tween. When I took the frames out of this top hive to hang them in the basement for the winter, I found dead brood in them. I thought perhaps this brood was not properly taken care of by the bees. There was no smell, the brood was not ropy, and the unscaled brood was coffee colored, while the sealed was white and thin.
A. Like enough the few bees deserted the brood and went below, leaving the brood above to starve.
Q. I have one colony that is carrying out brood in all stages of development, some alive with wings almost developed. Can you tell me what is wrong?
A. One guess is that the larvae of the bee-moth, or waxworms, have mutilated the young bees with their galleries and the bees carry them out. Another is that the bees are driving out the drones and destroying the drone larvae, or they are starving.
**Brood-Frames.-Q. Should the honey of the brood-frames be extracted, and can it be done without injuring the brood?**
A. Unless you are very careful you are likely to throw out brood if any is in the comb; and it is not considered best to extract honey from such combs.
**Brood-Rearing.-Q. If there is plenty of honey, at about what time do bees quit rearing brood?**
A. Somewhere about October I, some earlier and some later, depending upon age of queen, condition of colony, and part of country. In the south, brood is reared practically the entire year.
Q. I notice that late brood-rearing is recommended. How would you encourage it?
A. With a fall flow of even moderate extent there is no need to do anything to keep up late brood-rearing. Young queens, however, are more reliable than old ones. If the flow stops early, breeding can be kept up by light feeding every other night.
Q. Why do bees rear brood in December and January? They have very little honey. (W'est Virginia.)
A. It is nothing unusual for bees wintered outdoors to begin rearing brood in.February, especially as far south as Virginia, and not very unusual in January. I think December is unusual, and I don't know why any of yours should begin so early. Possibly there is something in their condition causing it.
Q. Will a colony rear brood in February or March if it has been given frames of sealed honey in the fall? I gave it outside frames, which, I don't think, had any pollen in them, or bebread.
This swarm I caught late in August, so it did not have time to procure stores for the winter.
A. A good colony wintered outdoors will be likely to rear brood before February is over, if it has pollen. If no pollen is present, you need not expect brood till pollen can be gathered.
Q. Will bees rear brood sooner in spring when wintered in the cellar or on the summer stands?
A. They begin rearing brood, as a rule, sooner outdoors than in cellar. Even in the north, brood-rearing outdoors begins often, if not generally, in February, and in the cellar generally not till March.
Q. What is the most satisfactory way of stimulating brood-rearing in the spring?
A. The most satisfactory way for me is to see that the bees have plenty, yes, more than plenty--abundance--of stores; keep them well closed up, and then let them entirely alone. If your queens are not so good at laying as to do their best without the lash, or if your locality is such that you have good flying weather without any pasturage, then it may pay you to feed half a pound of diluted honey every other evening, or to change end for end the outside comb on each side.
**Brod Scattered,--Q.** When you find little patches of brood deposited here and there in the combs, what does it indicate?
A. Probably a failing queen.
**Brod, Spreading,--Q.** What are the indications when it is safe and profitable to spread the brood, i. e., place an empty comb in the center?
A. For some years I have been of the opinion that for me there is no time when it is profitable to spread brood. Early in the season, at the time when we want bees to build up as fast as possible, the bees of their own accord have all the brood they can cover. In that case, if brood is spread it can result only in chilled brood, thus hindering instead of helping the building up. I don't know whether the bees of others are different or not. If at any time your bees are covering combs that have no brood or eggs at the outer part of the cluster, it ought then to be safe and profitable to spread. But be sure you're right before you go ahead.
**Brod Uneven,--Q.** I have one colony of bees whose cells are uneven on top--some tall and some low. What is this? Some of the brood looks pink, but does not smell. I have a virgin queen in the hive. Could she be a drone-layer only, or not purely mated?A. That is not the work of a virgin or unfertilized queen, but rather of an old queen. It is nothing very unusual when a queen becomes quite old for the store of spermatozoa to become to a certain extent exhausted, and then some of the eggs laid in worker-cells will not be fertilized and will produce drones, and the cappings of these will be raised. It is not the work of laying workers, for in that case none of the brood would be sealed level.
**Buckeye.-\(Q\)**. Is buckeye honey bad for bees?
A. I never heard it was.
**Buckwheat.-\(Q\)**. (a) Does luckwheat bloom at the same time that white clover does?
(b) How much should be sown to the acre?
(c) Does it make the bees want to swarm in the fall?
(d) Is the grain good for chickens?
(e) Is buckwheat honey better than clover?
A. (a) No; buckwheat is much later, usually being sown after clover is in bloom, say about the last of June.
(b) Some sow two pecks to the acre some twice as much.
(c) It is not likely to make the bees swarm.
(d) The grain is good for chickens.
(e) No; it is dark, strong, and generally sells for considerably less than clover, yet some prefer it.
Q. Can I sow buckwheat in the spring, and continue at stated times through the summer, so as to have it bloom at certain periods, and make it profitable?
Figure 6: Drone and worker-brood, irregular; showing the work of an old or inferior queen.
A. It is not advisable. Buckwheat seems to fit better as a late growth. Even if it should succeed when grown early, it would not be desirable where the earlier harvest gives honey of a lighter color, and better quality.
Q. I have a patch of buckwheat now in full bloom, but my bees do not pay any attention to it. What do you think is the cause of this?.
A. I think buckwheat sowed about the first of July yields nectar better than that sowed earlier, and yours may have been sown too early. However, buckwheat is like white clover and other plants, it sometimes fails to yield nectar, no matter whether early or late, and I don't know why. Bees rarely work on buckwheat bloom in the afternoon.
Buildings, Bees in,Q. There are a few swarms of bees in a house, and one in the bank building, which are troublesome. The openings are very small. How can they be killed?
A. Try putting in four or five tablespoonfuls of carbon disulfide (called also bisulphide of carbon.) It must be done at a time when all the bees are in, some sort of a crooked funnel being arranged to make the liquid enter the hole, and the hole promptly closed. Have no light near, for fear of an explosion.
Q. I have an old frame building and between the walls honeybees have made a home. There are three or four colonies in this building, and I would like to know if it would be possible to get them out from between the walls and put them in standard hives?
A. Cut away the walls so that you can get at the combs, and put them in the hive; leave the hive as near as possible to the old place of entrance; close up the wall so no bee can get into it, keeping the bees smoked out until this is done; then gradually move the hive each day to where you want it. That's the general principle, which may be varied according to circumstances.
Buildings for Bees,Q. Is it possible to keep several colonies of bees in a building, using a window as a common entrance for all? --
A. Yes, with proper precautions. The room must be light enough so bees can easily find their own hives after they are in the room, or else a tube for each hive to the outside, and there must be no chance for a bee to get out of the tube into the room. In the first case (the light room) precaution must be taken against bees flying against the glass where they cannot get out. The window, or windows, must have an opening at bottom and top of each window, or no sash at all.
**Bulk-Comb Honey.-Q.** Please explain the Texas method of having comb honey in jars. What is your idea of it?
A. I suppose you refer to the bulk-comb honey produced in Texas. Get honey filled in frames, cut out the comb, pack it in jars or cans, and fill up the interstices with extracted honey.