September 11, ls6t>. 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



213 



CHEAP SUPERS. 



Some time ago, being rather at a loss for a super for a com- 

 mon straw hive containing a Liguriau swarm, I placed upon 

 the top of the hive an ordinary ttower-pot, having previously 

 tilled up the hole at the top with a cork, to which I affixed a 

 small piece of comb. I then placed over all an empty hive, 

 which fitted over the under hive, and rested upon it, protecting 

 the super from wind and weather. The bees immediately 

 began to work in the flower-pot, and I removed it a few days 

 ago rilled with honeycomb. The difficulty which is often ex- 

 perienced in driving bees from supers, when taken off, is 

 entirely obviated by this arrangement, for after the flower-pot 

 is removed you have only to place it on a tray and give it one 

 or two sharp blows with a hammer in the line of the combs so 

 as to break the pot, when the sides will fall away, carrying the 

 bees with them, and leaving the combs standing with scarcely 

 any bees upon them. Lift the combs on to a dish, and leave 

 the bees on the tray to find their way back to the hive. — F., 

 Westmoreland. 



BEES AS REGICIDES. 



In my last communication which appeared in page 55, I 

 mentioned two instances in which young queen3 at the heads 

 of swarms which had issued naturally, were found imprisoned 

 in the evening of the day on which they were hived. Obser- 

 vation has led me to believe that the majority of regicides are 

 occasioned by the presence of strange bees, and this seems to 

 offer a solution to the cases referred to. 



A prime swarm under an old queen had issued from one of 

 my hives on the preceding day (Sunday), and had remained in 

 the skep in which it was hived until the following morning. I 

 then captured the queen, and sent her off to a distant apiary, 

 allowing the bees to return to their native domicile. As is 

 usual in such cases, many of the bees continued for some 

 hours to hunt after their queen, and some of these in all pro- 

 liability entered the skep in which the swarm under the young 

 queen had been temporarily located, and fiuding a strange 

 queen had made an attack upon her. I think that a similar 

 state of things would also account for the attack upon the 

 second queen, which I rescued and placed at the head of a 

 queenless nucleus, where she has proved herself the best queen 

 I have yet reared and tested ; her progeny being fully equal to 

 that of the old queen. 



At times, however, bees do destroy their own queens in a 

 most inexplicable way. A hive sent out a swarm early in July, 

 under an old queen. I caught the queen, and presented her 

 to a neighbouring apiarian, and after removing all the royal 

 cells from the stock, gave them some nearly ripe royal cells 

 reared from the brood of my original queen. In two or three 

 days 1 found a fine queen at liberty, and all the superfluous 

 royal cells destroyed. In three weeks I again inspected the 

 interior of the hive to see what progress the queen had made in 

 laying, and found brood in two of the central combs, but to my 

 surprise one of them contained six or more royal cells, formed 

 upon the face of the comb, as artificial cells usually are. These 

 I removed, thinking it probable that the queen was still in the 

 hive, and that the removal of these cells would prevent any 

 further attempt at swarming, as the end of July was fast ap- 

 proaching. In two or three days I found a second batch of 

 royal cradles had been almost completed, and a careful ex- 

 amination confirmed my suspicions that the queen herself had 

 disappeared from the hive. These cells were also destroyed, 

 and after a time some more royal cells, raised from the old 

 queen, were presented to the bees, from which I expect a queen 

 will emerge either to-day (August 22nd), or to-morrow. 



Two other hives are also now raising queens from the brood 

 of the old queen. A queen which came forth in my unicomb 

 hive upon the 2Slth of July was not impregnated till Sunday 

 last (August l'.lth), when twenty-one days old. She has not 

 vet commenced egg-laying. 



How very little has been effected by "B. &• W.," with the 

 queen presented to him by Mr. Woodbury last autumn ; her 

 hive might have been strengthened in the spring by brood from 

 other hives, and young queens might then with very little 

 trouble have been raised from her brood to place at the head 

 of all his other stocks. The season has been practically lost, 

 and he will be in a much worse position next year, as the pure 

 queen will then have a poorer chance of proving prolific in 

 IrtfiS, and our friend will not be able to raise any great Lumber 

 of Italian drones before that time. 



Although all my hives this spring (eight in number), were 

 headed by motheis bred from the pure queen in the preceding 

 year, and have reared a prodigious number of drones, I find 

 that a majority of my queens this summer have mated with 

 black drones. The old queen is, I am glad to say, all right, 

 and will, I hope, enable me to raise a fresh lot of queens next 

 summer. 



I find that all her progeny, whether mated with black drones 

 or not, produce very well marked workers ; but if their descen- 

 dants again mate with black drones, the workers then approach 

 very nearly to the colour of their paternal ancestors. 



This has been by far the best honey season I have ever ex- 

 perienced. Of four storified hives only one abstained from 

 swarming. In one of them the queen got into the super and 

 laid there a vast quantity of brood. The swarm from this hive 

 was accordingly not returned, as I did not prize the adulte- 

 rated super.' In another instance the queen was captured and 

 presented to a neighbour. The native royal cells were excised, 

 and some from brood of the old queen substituted. In the 

 other case I returned the swarm, queen and all, but in about 

 eight days the old queen was ejected— killed no doubt by a young 

 rival, and I was then compelled to remove all the royal cells to 

 prevent the issue of another swarm. 



Three of the supers weigh fully 40 lbs. each of pure honey. 

 The fourth, not yet taken, ought to contain from 50 lbs. to 

 60 lbs. At the same time the stocks themselves are quite 

 overdone with honey, every comb being full of sealed honey or 

 pollen, so that breeding at present is entirely confined to'the 

 nadirs. — J. E. B. 



THE HONEY SEASON IN HADDINGTONSHIRE 



FERTILE WORKERS. 



In May last "A Devonshire Bee-keeper" recorded the ex- 

 istence of that curious phenomenon — fertile workers. In the 

 early part of the year I had a case of the same kind, and would 

 have noticed it had not other avocations occupied all my time ; 

 but as it affords such clear proof of the existence of fertile 

 workers, it may be of interest even now. The case to which 

 I refer occurred in the hive containing the Ligurian queen 

 which I received from Mr. Woodbury. I had examined the 

 hive in December, and found that the queen was laying eggs. 

 Seeing this I did all I could in the way of keeping it well 

 covered up. Early in February I found one day on the board 

 what appeared to me a queen, but much shrivelled up ; but I 

 could not be certain at the time that it was the remains of the 

 queen. It was not long, however, until I noticed, by the way 

 the bees ran about the mouth of the hive on fine days, that the 

 queen was wanting ; but as I could not do anything to assist 

 the hive at the time, I allowed it to go on as it was. One day 

 in the middle of March I examined every comb, and found all 

 the brood hatched with the exception of a queen's cell still 

 sealed. Here then was clear proof that the old queen was 

 dead, and the bees were endeavouring to rear a new queen. In 

 a cell close beside the queen cell I saw what I thought was an 

 egg ; but there being only one, and seeing at the same time 

 the queen's cell, I was puzzled at its being there at all, as I had 

 looked carefully among the bees for a queen but could not see 

 one. I then put back all the combs into the hive and allowed 

 the hive to remain for other two weeks, when, on examining 

 the combs again, I found a number of eggs laid in workers' 

 cells ; but the eggs first laid were giving evidence of their 

 being drones, as the cells were elongated, and so, in fact, every 

 egg turned out to be a drone egg. At the same time I broke 

 open the queen's cell, and found that it only contained some 

 dark brown matter. I looked carefully over the combs for a 

 queen, but none could I see. I examined the hive again along 

 with a friend, and still found new-laid eggs, but no queen, or 

 any bee which could be distinguished from another, and it was 

 impossible she could escape us, as there was no great number 

 of bee? in the hive. I showed the hive also to others who had 

 never seen anything of the kind, but still no queen. I allowed 

 it to remain to see what it would turn to ; drones of course 

 were hatched, though small, and in fine days came out, but 

 not many, and a few bees carried pollen at times. 



In the May number of the "Scottish Gardener" the writer 

 on bees, after some very depreciatory remarks on Huber's 

 " enthusiasm " and " seeming honesty," and his maintaining 



* The brood-comb wag subsequently excised, and a swarm added to tt* 

 colony to enable the bees to complete the super. 



