1882 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



351 



QUEEN-REAHINO, ETC. 



II' we are always carclul to rear our queens from 

 pure queens, I do not see why we cm not keep our 

 stock pure without an imported queen; but there 

 seems to be a vim about imported stock that is ob- 

 tainable in no other way, unless it is by crossing 

 with the black drones. 1 l)ought a swarm of bees in 

 18T!>, and the first season I divided into five swarms, 

 and lost all but two; and Iho next season I divide<l 

 the two into four; and when spring came, my bees 

 were all right. I have lo .swarms now, and I am 

 rearing queens for sale from my imported (lueen. I 

 tell you, my friends, I believe some of us are pa5'- 

 ing too much attention to the looks of a queen. I 

 believe we should pay more attention to the bees 

 that she produces, and to what these bees do during 

 the season. I think that chaff packing is the best 

 for wintering, by puttiny- them on S frames covered 

 with woolen cloth. Fill the hive with chaff, and 

 have a chaff cushion on top of the bees. 



L. S. Beam. 



Middlebury, Elkhart Co., Ind., June 6, 1882. 



WIDE FRAMES FOR THE EXTRACTOR. 



Please lot us know in Gleanings if it would not 

 be a good plan for extracting, to use broad frames 

 in the upper stoty, as it would be no more work to 

 uncap deep combs than thin. C. E. Hagaman. 



Rochester, Minn., Feb. 23, 18S3. 



This matter lias been several times sug- 

 gested, and we have sold wide frames to be 

 rilled with drone fdn. for the purpose, but 

 very few have reported. If I am not mis- 

 taken, some one has said it takes the bees a 

 great deal longer to ripen the honey in deep 

 cells, than in the ordinary worker brood- 

 combs ; but if this is true, it is also an ar- 

 gument in favor of section boxes less than 

 two inches in width. Who has tried it for 

 the extractor V 



EGGS that won't HATCH. 



I had taken four queen-cells that were built under 

 the impulse of natural swarming, to queenless colo- 

 nies. They hatched in a few days, and commenced 

 laying within ten days. The largest and handsom- 

 est in the lot was the biggest layer. She com- 

 menced on a sheet of foundation which was built 

 out very rapidly, and filled it with eggs; the rest of 

 the hive she filled with eggs in a short time, and one 

 egg on the new foundation was hatched out a per- 

 fect worker in shape and size, but so weak that she 

 could scarcely walk on the combs. The bees killed 

 her, and never another egg was hatched. I gave 

 some of the eggs to other bees, but " no hatch." I 

 kept her laying about six weeks, when the eggs be- 

 gan to disappear; then I pinched her head off and 

 gave another laying queen, and brood-rearing went 

 right along. It is something new to me. AVhat was 

 wrong is what 1 should like to know. 



Philip Morningstab. 



Wakarusa, Ind., Dec. 10, 1881. 



AVe have several records of such queens, 

 friend M., but yours seems to have been one 

 of the most marked. Those I have seen 

 were not very good layers, as you say this 

 one was. We migiit notice, in the outset, 

 that this queen was a natural one, and there- 

 fore the defect can not be ascribed to arti- 

 ficial processes. As to what internal de- 

 formity causes such results, I am unable to 

 give a guess. Perhaps the friends who are 



at work on the problem as to whether the 

 queen or worker determines the sex, might 

 tind a fact here. 



FROM one of our FRENCH BEE-KEEPERS. 



I Translated by our proof-ro.ador, W. P. Rootl 



I am in my twelfth year of apieultural practice. 

 I have had many grievous deceptions, but I am 

 never discouraged. I even continue to take care of 

 my hives, and have been in military service for four 

 years. I travel at night and work by day. AVe are 

 having at this time in France a splendid winter. 

 We have had no snowstorms, and the cold is mod- 

 erate. Our bees are doing well, and there is but ii 

 slight mortality. A. Fournier. 



Ormoy, Oisc, France, Jan. 2(!, 1883. 



honey in chili, ETC. 



Please send me a full line of what you have. In 

 regard to information about bees and their culture, 

 and hives, etc., honey is produced in large quanti- 

 ties in Chili. One of the houses I represent in Val- 

 paraiso, I saw ship 1000 barrels a short time before I 

 left there. Richard Hughes. 



New York, Feb. SO, 188,3. 



One thousand barrels is a little more than 

 even our great California bee-keepers have 

 ever had at one time, is it notV If Chili 

 produces honey in such enormous quanti- 

 ties in the old crude way of bee culture, 

 what might be the result with modern 

 means? We have at present just one sub- 

 scriber in South America, whom you have 

 doubtless all heard from through our pages. 

 I hardly think it probable we need the sting- 

 less bee, but I do think somebody ought to 

 do something about opening up and devel- 

 oping the region that produced this 1000 

 barrels. 



NITRATE OF SILVER FOR MARKING QUEENS' WINGS, 

 ETC. 



That selected imported Italian queen you ex- 

 pressed to me on the 33d I received on the 26th in 

 tiptop order— only three bees dead; one-third of 

 the candy was eaten, and three-fourths of the wa- 

 ter was drunk. I had quiti^ a troublesome time in- 

 troducing; her bees balled her twice; I then caged 

 her 48 hours, and then they were too saucy. Said I 

 to the bees, " You shall not have this queen to reign 

 over you." So I took her away and placed her in 

 the lamp nursery, and then picked young bees 

 from the hives, taking many hours to do it, till she 

 had a sulHcient retinue, and now she feels happy, 

 looks pretty, and lays eggs by the thousand. I use a 

 little solution of nitrate of silver on the imported 

 queen's wings, so you can tell her from the others. 

 It has been a very bad spring for the bees, on ac- 

 count of so much cold wet weather — bees flying out 

 and getting chilled by the thousand; but now the 

 past two days have been warm. Henrv Smith. 



New Hamburg, Ont., June 9, 1883. 



I confess the above looks quite feasible, as 

 nitrate of silver is the base of indelible ink. 

 It would probably stain the thin membrane 

 indelibly ; and so long as the wing remain- 

 ed, the queen could readily be identified. 

 By staining one wing when she first began 

 to lay, and the other at one year old, a fair 

 record of her age could be kept. If, how- 

 ever, she should lose her wing, we should be 

 about as badly off as with clipped wings. 



