MillerThousand AnswersBeekeepingQuestions.pdf - BioBees

DR. MILLER Sbiting. Yet it may be well to add that there are ants and ants.Go far enough South and you may find ants that a\ ill destroy acolony sometimes in short order. Even in the North there iskind to be dreaded. You say yours are "large black ants." 3Iostlikely that means ants that are a quarter of an inch or so mlength, which are large in comparison with little red ants. Butif you have the big wood ants that are three-quarters of an inchlong, then that's another story. I've had no little trouble withthem and they are hard to combat. They get between the bottomboardand board on which it rests, and honey-comb the bottomboard.Sometimes there will be merely a shell left, so that you willhardly notice anything wrong, yet a little touch when haulingbees might break through a hole to let the bees out. Carbolicacid may do something toward driving them away. You may alsopoison them. Take two pieces of section, or, perhaps, betterstill, two thin boards 4 inches square, or larger, fasten upon eachend of one of them a cleat one-eighth inch thick, and lay or fastenthe other on it, thus leaving a space of one-eighth inch betweenthe two boards. IMi.x arsenic in honey and put between theboards. The bees cannot get into so small a space, but the antscan. Or, put poison in a box covered with wire-cloth that v/illlet the ants in but keep the bees out.Q How can I rid my apiary of red ants? They build theirhills near and sometimes directly under the hives and crawl intothe hives and kill the bees.A. Have four feet to the hive, each foot standing in a vesselof oil or water. Find the nest of the ants, with crowbar make ahole in the nest and pour in carbon disulfide. Have no fire near,as the disulfide is explosive. Gasoline will also answer prettywell.Apiary.—Q. How many colonies of bees can be kept in oneapiary?A. That depends upon the pasturage within a mile or two. Inmost places not more than 75 or 100.Q. My bees have at least 300 acres of clover and alfalfawithin two miles. How many colonies can I pasture to be safe?A. That's one of the very hard things to say. You don't saywhether red or white clover. If you mean red, it probablydoesn't count for much, while white clover counts heavily ingood years, although some j'ears it blooms a plenty and yet yields