BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
A. All things considered, perhaps alsike.
Q. Does crimson clover bloom the first season after sowing?
A. Yes, if sowed early enough it may bloom the same year; usually not till the following year. That's in the region of 42 degrees north latitude; far enough south it might more readily bloom the same year after early sowing.
**Clover, Red.-Q.** What do you think of the long-tongued or red clover quecns? I have seen them advertised so much.
A. I think there is an advantage, and there may be a very great advantage in long tongues. In actual practice, however, I have come to doubt whether it is still worth while to pay any attention to the length of the tongues. Breed from the stock that gives best results. Very likely that may in most cases give long tongues, but whether tongues are long or short, we want bees that will get the most honey. Unfortunately, the quality of tongue length does not seem always to be handed down to succeeding generations.
**Clover, Sweet.-Q.** When is the proper time to sow white sweet clover seed?
A. When farmers in your vicinity sow red clover, alsike or alfalfa.
Q. Which is the better honey producer, white or yellow sweet clover?
A. Probably not much difference in yield, but the yellow is reputed to be about two weeks earlier than the white. That makes the yellow more valuable in some places, and the white in others. Where white clover abounds, the two weeks earlier would be of no advantage, as it would come at the time of white clover, and if the yellow also closes two weeks earlier than the white, the white sweet clover would be of more value. In localities where there is lack of forage during the first two weeks of the yellow sweet clover, the yellow clover has the advantage.
Q. In reading American papers, I observe frequent references to sweet clover as a plant for bee-pasturage. Is it the same as white clover (trifolium repens), which is the staple bee-pasturage here during the summer months? (New Zealand.)
A. Oh, no; it's an entirely different thing, growing sometimes to the height of 8 or 9 feet, although 3 or 4 feet is a more common growth. The most common sweet clover is melilotus alba. It is a biennial, coming from the seed one year, blossoming the next, and then dying, root and branch. Even if hces have all they can do on white clover, sweet clover is valuable, because while it begins to bloom later than white clover, it continues much later, even till frost.
There is a yellow sweet clover (melilotus officinalis) which blooms two weeks earlier than the white. Sweet clover will grow where scarcely anything else will, as in a clay bank. It seems to flourish best, or at least to start from the seed best, on hard ground trodden by farm stock.
Q. Last year white sweet clover was everywhere; this year there is scarcely any. Why did it not grow again this year, instead of the yellow? The bees worked on the white all the time, and seemed to be crazy over it, but they paid no attention to the yellow.
A. Sweet clover is a biennial, growing the first year without blooming. Then after blooming and producing seed the second year it dies root and branch. So, if you sow seed one year and leave it to itself thereafter, the tendency would be to have bloom every other year. One yellow sweet clover (melilotus indica) blooms the first year. It is an annual.
Q. How far north and south will sweet clover thrive and do well?
A. I suppose if sweet clover may be considered as having any native place it is Bokhara, in Asia, about 40 degrees north of the equator. At any rate, it is called "Bokhara clover," and years ago that was the chief name for it. According to that, one would suppose that it would be at its best on the parallel of 40, which runs centrally through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Utah and Nevada. But it does not seem to be very limited as to its habitat. I think it succeeds about as far north as bees are generally kept.
Q. Is sweet clover tender, or hardy? Will it freeze as easily as does corn?
A. Hardy--very hardy. Sweet clover would only langh at a freeze that would kill corn. I think I've known it to be killed only in two ways. One year I prepared a piece of ground in fine shape, sowed sweet clover with oats, and it made a fine stand. Next spring there wasn't a spear left. The ground was so nice and soft that it heaved and pulled up all the sweet clover by the roots. In the solid ground of the road-side I never knew it to winter-kill. Another year I had a piece moved close to the ground when it had started from the seed and was nearly a foot high, and that finished it.
**Clover, White.-Q.** What kind of clover is the best for bees? (Iowa.)
A. In Iowa, probably, all things considered, no clover is more valuable than the common white clover. Very likely you have that without any sowing. If you want to sow any besides, try sweet clover, both the white and yellow variety. It blooms later than white clover.
Q. What time of the year does white clover bloom in this state? (Illinois.)
A. In the northern tier of counties it opens its first blossoms in the last of May or first of June, and earlier as you go south.
**Clustering Out (See Hanging Out.)**
**Cockroaches.-Q.** What can I do for roaches? They bother the bees by getting in the brood-chambers, on sections, and all over the inside of the hive.
A. I didn't suppose cockroaches would do any particular harm in a hive where there are bees. You can poison them with some of the special poisons sold for that purpose, or with any other poison, only you musn't poison the bees. Put the poison between little boards only one-eighth of an inch apart, or in some vessel with a one-eighth inch entrance.
**Colony.-Q.** How many bees are estimated to be in a medium populous colony?
A. At a rough estimate, perhaps 30,000.
Q. What would you call a good colony?
A. A colony that, in early spring, has brood in five frames, Langstroth size (17%x9%), each frame being three-quarters or more filled with brood, would be a fairly good colony; with six or seven frames of brood it would be a very good colony.
**Color of Bees.-Q.** What causes such a great diversity in color among the individual bees and also among the colonies in general whose quecens are a mother and her daughters?
A. If you have a pure Italian queen, her worker progeny all having the same markings, and from her rear a young queen, and this young queen mates with a pure Italian drone, you may expect to find the same markings in the worker progeny of the young queen as are found in the worker progeny of her mother. But if this young queen mates with a black drone, then you will find the worker progeny different, some of it looking like black workers and some like Italian, and perhaps intermediate markings.
**Color Sense of Bees.--Q**. What is there about the color of clothes to make the bees quiet when handling them?
A. I don't know why it is; I only know the fact, that cross bees are not so likely to sting one with light as with dark clothing. I have worn a good many different pairs of mason's or painter's white overalls for the sake of avoiding stings. I don't think white clothing particularly appropriate to my style of beauty, and in going through town to the out-apiary, I'm not fond of appearing on the streets arrayed in white, but I'd rather do that than to take the increased number of stings with dark clothing. But, mind you, I get all the stings I care for, even with white clothing. If bees are cross, they'll sting through the whitest clothing.
**Comb.--Q**. From what do bees make comb?
A. From what they eat--honey and polien-- much as a cow makes milk from what sheeats.
Q. Is the comb in comb honey injurious to a person's health? Most people when eating comb honey swallow the comb.
A. Beeswax is utterly indigestible. It is sometimes used to make corks for bottles containing acids so powerful that they burn up ordinary cork, and of course the weak acids of the stom-ach can have no effect upon it. I have seen something about its being melted in the stomach; but the heat in the stomach is many degrees too low to melt beeswax. Even if melted, it would still be as indigestible as ever. But lots of indigestible things are taken into the stomach that do no harm; and may do good. When comb honey is chewed with other food and taken into the stomach some claim that the finely divided portions of wax are a benefit. Certainly they are not likely to do any harm.
**Comb Foundation.--Q**. How many pounds of comb foundation would it take to fill one brood-chamber of 10 frames with full sheets? Also, to fill one super with 28 sections?
A. For ten Langstroth frames it takes about 1% pounds of medium brood foundation, and one pound of light brood. For twenty-eight sections it will take about one-quarter pound of thin super foundation.
Q. What kind of foundation is best to use in the extracting frames?
A. If you use shallow extracting-frames, you can use light 30 DR. MILLER's
brood foundation, only you must be careful about turning the extractor too fast while the combs are new. Indeed you can use light brood with full-depth frames.
Q. Do you consider light brood foundation sufficiently heavy to be used with your splints in regular Langstroth frames?
A. Yes, only in place of five splints, as with medium, seven splints must be used with the light brood foundation. At least I did not feel safe to do with less than seven, and had good results.
Q. Is there any special width of foundation to use in a brood chamber?
A. It is well to have the foundation come down to within one-half inch of the bottom-bar.
Q. I am going to buy foundation for 1,500 Hoffman frames for the next season and do not know whether to buy medium or light brood. I have used both and can see but little if any difference in results. I have had no trouble with light brood sagging. I wire my frames, but do not use splints. Which do you think is the better to use?
A. It's merely a question of which will succeed better, and as you have no trouble with the lighter foundation sagging, it will be economy to use that.
Q. What kind of foundation would your recommend for honey in one-pound sections?
A. Some prefer "extra thin," but, all things considered, my own preference is "thin."
Q. Which is the better to use in the frames, full sheets or starters?
A. Full sheets. If you use only starters you will have entirely too much drone-comb.
Q. Have bottom-starters of foundation in brood-frames ever been used?
A. I am no. sure whether anyone else has ever tried them, but I have. But I had no use for anything of the kind after I found I could use full sheets of foundation clear down to the bottom-bar by the aid of foundation splints.
Q. I have about 40 pounds of light foundation, two years old, and it seems dry. Should I use it, or have it worked over?
A. It is all right to use as it is.
Q. In one place you say "Have the sections filled with workerfoundation," and in another place I read: "Dr. Miller has for years described his method of using bottom starters (as well as top ones) in sections of comb honey." Kindly explain this method, as I have never seen it in the papers. I have the Daisy foundation-fastener, and would like to try bottom and top starters. Would you make them meet in the center? Or how much space between the starters? When they are fastened only at the top, they twist and do not hang true.
A. The matter is very simple, and your Daisy fastener is just
the thing to fasten a bottom as well as a top starter. It wouldn't do at all to let the two starters meet in the center, for in that case the bottom-starter would be certain to fall down and make a mess. When you buy foundation for sections, you are likely to get it in sheets 15%x3% inches. This is just right to make font starters of each kind. The top-starters are 3% inches deep, and the bottom ones %. For a section that is four inches deep inside, you will see that would leave a space of % inch between the starters. In reality the space will generally be more than that, for the hot plate melts a little of the edges of the starters. First fasten the bottom-starter, turn the section over immediately, and put in the other starter. If your bees are like mine, the first thing they will do on being given the sections will be to fasten the upper and lower starters together.
Even for the home market, I should prefer the bottom-starter. It makes a nicer looking section. Unless a single starter comes down so far that it is likely to sag, some of the sections, especially when honey is coming in slowly, will not be built down to the bottom. Although the bottom-starter is original with me, I don't believe I'm sufficiently prejudiced in its favor to stand the extra trouble unless there were a sufficient gain to pay for it.
Figure 11: A frame containing mostly drone-brood, the result of a narrow starter of foundation.
Q. How many sections 4%4x4% will one pound of thin super foundation fill; full sheets?
A. About 100, or a few more.
Q. Don't you think it would be a good plan for the manufacturers of foundation to furnish the section foundation with drone-size base? It would save the bees considerable work in comb-building where full sheets are used.
A. You would probably not like it. Generally there is less drone-comb in the brood-chamber than the bees would have if left to their own devices, and with little or no drone-comb below and abundance above, the queen would be likely to make trouble.
To be sure, you might keep her down with an excluder, but that would be trouble and expense, and you would find that some sections would not be finished up as promptly as they should be, for the bees would hold the cells open for the queen. I think, however, that if you care to try it you can get drone-foundation.
(). If I order more foundation than I use, how can I keep it from spoiling?
A. I hardly know what you can do with it that it will not keep, unless you put it in an oven where it will melt, or spread it -- out in the sun and rain for a year. Just keep it covered up wherever it is convenient. Even if you have it filled into sections, keep them where they will be dry and nice, and they will be all right. Although bees take hold of fresh foundation a little more readily than that which has been kept over, there isn't much difference. But if you leave it on the hives in the fall, when no
Figure 12: Full sheets of foundation assure combs with a minimum of drone-brood.
## 5 Dr. Miller's
kerf, and then push in the wedge deep. Then one of the ways of fastening the wires in the foundation is with the spur wheel, doing the work in a very warm room, so the foundation will be soft. If you have no kerf in top-bar, then run melted wax along the joint between the foundation and the top-bar.
I don't want to tell how to put in 5-inch starters, because I don't want you to use them. No economy in it. You will have entirely too much drone-comb. "You're going to use them anyhow?" Oh, all right, then. Put them in exactly the same as full sheets.
Q. Should comb foundation come close to the end-bar of the frame and be fastened there with wax? I wire my frames.
A. Either will do, but it is well to have the foundation come close to the end-bar. It is not necessary to wax it there.
Q. How far from the bottom-bar ought foundation to be?
A. About one-quarter of an inch.
Q. Can a sheet of finely woven wire be rolled between two sheets of wax in making the foundation for brood-combs, to take the place of splints or wiring frames, as now practiced? The sheets could be made the size desired, or the wire screen could be woven 1-inch mesh and could readily be cut out with the scissors.
A. Yes; such a thing has been advertised and in use for years, the Van Deusen flat-bottom, wired foundation, upon which there was a patent. Cloth and other materials, such as screen wire, have also been tried as a base for foundation, but in no instance were they successful.
Q. How do you fasten foundation sheets to the top-bars of shallow frames with no grooves and wedges?
A. With melted wax. Some use two parts wax to one of rosin. Make a board large enough to fit loosely inside the frame, nail stops on the ends so as to let the frame go down half way, put frame over, then the foundation in place, and pour the melted wax from a spoon with its point bent together, or else with a special dropper. The wax is likely to stick unpleasantly to the board unless you wet the board or else put newspaper over it. A brush may also be used to put on the wax.
Q. Is it necessary to wire full sheets in shallow extracting frames?.
A. You can get along without wiring if you are careful.
**Comb Foundation Drawn Out.--Q.** Where foundation in sections has been partly drawn by the bees last year, will it do to use * [55] those sections and foundation this year, or had I better cut it out and put in new foundation?
* [56] A. If it is clean, with no remains of candided honey, use it again.
* [57] Q. How and when is it best to have brood-combs drawn out, or made from full sheets of comb foundation?
* [58] A. Give such frames of foundation any time when bees are gathering more than enough honey for their daily needs, if you think they will not stop gathering before they have time to finish the combs. Of course, that's as much as to say that the very best time is at the beginning of a harvest that you have good reason to expect will last two weeks or more. A strong colony, of course, will need less time than a weak one.
* [59] Q. Can I put frames with full sheets of foundation between two combs and get good worker-combs that are not stretched too much at the top? I mean without wiring.
* [59] A. You may, by using foundation splints or very heavy foundation. Even then you will not always get the best results between two drawn-out combs, for too often these combs will be bulged into the comb between them.
* [59] Q. Will bees draw out foundation as soon when it has been in the frame three months as they would if only in the frame three weeks? I like to put my foundation in the frames in the winter time, when I have plenty of time. This is to be the new foundation just made.
* [60] A. Speaking very strictly, I suppose the fresher the foundation is, the better. But I have used foundation that had been fastened in four or five years, and I've some question whether the bees made any great difference between that and that which had been put in only four or five days. At any rate, I believe it good policy to get it ready in advance, as you propose.
* [59] Q. A successful honey producer says full sheets of foundation are drawn down to the bottom-bar very much better when placed in a super than in the brood-nest. Is this so?
* [61] A. Sure.
**Comb Foundation Gnawed by Bees.-Q.** What is the reason that the bees gnawthe foundation starters in the brood-chamber? I have found two or three starters lying at the bottom of the frames. A few days later I found a strip that they had carried out in front of the hive.
* [62] A. The starter may have been insufficiently fastened; there may have been something objectionable about the foundation; it may have been that the bees were not gathering, and at such a time they will gnaw foundation as if in pure mischied. They may gnaw it to use the wax elsewhere about the combs.
**Comb Foundation Splints (See Splints.)**
**Comb Foundation Making.**Q. I keep a few colonies of bees for my pleasure and have saved some wax. Now, I don't like to sell wax for 20 cents a pound and buy foundation for 65 or 75 cents. Can you recommend the Rietsche press? If not, say "no" to my second question; but if you can, please give a few hints as to how to make foundation. Are you making your own foundation? Could I make foundation? I have never seen it done.
A. My time has always been so fully occupied with other things that I never tried making comb foundation. Besides, I think I can buy it cheaper than I can make it. I use foundation mostly for sections, and it would take a great deal of practice to enable me to make anything like as nice foundation as those do who make a business of it.
There are thousands of Rietsche presses in use in Europe, and in the foreign bee-papers one sees nothing but praise for them. With the instructions that you would receive with the press you could probably succeed, even without ever having seen foundation made.
Q. What is used as a lubricant on the rollers of a foundation mill? The one I have sticks. I cannot set it close enough to make any cell-walls at that. This is the first time I am using it, as I had a lot of foundation bought shortly before buying the mill, so did not try it before.. I am using just clear water now. I dipped the sheets last winter.
A. Starch is used as a lubricant, also honey or soap. If your sheet of wax is too cold, the wax will not be pressed up into a side-wall. Try having the wax warmer.
**Comb Honey, or Extracted.**Q. I have a few hives of bees and wish to increase, but am undecided as to which to do, buy fixtures for section, or extracted honey, and, if section, whether plain or beeway. It may save me quite an expense later on.
A. Whether it is better to produce comb or extracted honey depends upon the honey and the market. The darker honey do not sell so well in sections, and in some places consumers prefer sections so strongly that even dark honey pays better in sections. From what I know of your location, I think you have light honey, but your market for extracted honey is unusually good, so that my guess would be that you would do well to extract.
**Comb Honey,--Q.** How much honey can one expect from a colony during a good season, provided no increase is made?
A. The amount varies greatly; from nothing to 300 pounds or more. Dr. E. F. Phillips estimates the average at 25 to 30 sections per colony. That, of course, takes good seasons with bad. If you take good seasons alone, it might be twice as much.
Q. What is the best way to handle bees in regard to room between the white honey-flow in June and July, and the buckwheat flow in August? My bees are then too strong to occupy an ordinary hive-body, and if given new sections they destroy the foundation and spoil the sections.
A. I don't like to get into a quarrel with you, but I am hardly ready to accept your statement that your bees are too strong to occupy an ordinary hive-body, and at the same time destroy foundation sections. Not but what that is true, too, but I don't agree with your evident belief that the bees need more super-room. If they tear down the foundation in sections, they are not gathering anything more than they need for their daily use, and so need no super-room.
"Can't stay in the brood-chamber?" "Let 'em stay out, then. Won't hurt 'em a bit to cluster outside the hive till it is time to put on sections for the buckwheat; this on the supposition that you want the buckwheat stored in sections. Another way is to give them a second story. If you haven't any extra combs to put in second stories, one or two combs in each story will be enough, so long as they are storing nothing, and you need not be troubled with the thought of the empty space in the upper story.
Q. How can I bleach comb-honey? I got about 2,400 sections last year, and it was hard to sell it on account of its darkness. I see a process for bleaching it in "A, B, C of Bee Culture," but do you know of any better way? All the honey that is coming into the market is whiter than mine, and I cannot account for it. If you know of a way to whiten honey, please let me know.