1882 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CtlLtUlit:. 



43!» 



HOW TO BE SURE OF CHOICE DRONES. 



AND SOMETHING ABOUT INTRODUCING AND UNITING. 



SHOULD like to toll the readers of Gleanings 

 my plan for having- pure drones in all of my 

 colonies, and produced from the egg-s of a se- 

 lected queen only. I prepare me, during the win- 

 ter, one brood - comb for each colony I have, by 

 inserting in the center, and next to bottom-bar, a 

 nice piece of drone comb 4 in. square ; in early spring 

 I take one of these prepared combs, insert it in cen- 

 ter of brood-nest of one of mj' choice colonies, and I 

 then commence to feed this colony a small quantity 

 of sugar syrup daily, until 1 discover drone-eggs laid 

 in my prepared comb. I then remove the comb, 

 shaking off all bees, and insei'ting another prepared 

 comb. I then give this comb to some colony, and 

 let them nurse these drones. I proceed thus till I 

 have a comb with drone-eggs inserted in each colony 

 I have, and by the time these drones are hatched out 

 and flying we are then ready for artificial swarming, 

 raising queens, etc. 



When I introduce a queen to a colony having a 

 laying queen, I always insert a tight-titting division- 

 board 34 hours before introducing the queen; after 

 the queen has been successfully received, and is la3'- 

 ing, I then at my pleasure remove old queen and 

 division-board, and by this means I have a queen 

 laying all the time in the colony, and should my new 

 queen be killed, the colony still retain their old 

 queen. Sometimes I keep both queens laying till 

 the colony becomes too populous ; I can then remove 

 division and the old queen. The above is a good 

 plan where you wish to test a queen as to purity be- 

 fore making way with the old queen, by having the 

 brood -chamber covered with one of Jones's perforat- 

 ed division -boards; both colonies can store their 

 surplus in one department; the bees being all of 

 one scent, thej' will agree. "When I wish to unite 

 any two colonies for any cause, I prepare them in 

 the following manner: If any choice in qiieens, I re- 

 move the poorest; I then take a good-sized onion, 

 cut it in half, go to the two colonies about dusk, 

 slice each half on top of their brood-combs, cover 

 hives over, and next morning I select from both 

 brood-chambers a set of brood-frames, put in one 

 hive, bees and all. I then shake off the rest of the 

 bees from their combs in front of the hive, and the 

 bees will unite, and not a bee be killed. I use no 

 smoke. I believe I could thoroughly scent a colony 

 this way, and pick their old queen from her comb, 

 and turn a new queen loose, having scented previ- 

 ously the new queen, and the queen would be rec- 

 ognized as their own every time. W. T. Clary. 

 Claryville, Campbell Co., Ky., July 17, 1883. 



Your plan of supplying choice drones, 

 friend Clary, is all right; but keeping two 

 queens in a hive is very risky business, if a 

 single bee by any means passes the division- 

 board, or gets into the wrong side. I know 

 many colonies will go for quite a time in 

 this way ; but as a rule there is soon troti- 

 ble. It is an old idea, and has been many 

 times tried. So long as you make two dis- 

 tinct colonies, and have the entrances far 

 enough apart, the plan is all right ; but so 

 much trotible has come from it I believe it 

 is mostly abandoned, and a hive and loca- 

 tion of its own is given to each nucleus. As 

 two colonies will almost always unite in the 



manner you mention, I should not feel sure 

 that the onion had any agency in the mat- 

 ter. The same may be said about taking 

 a queen out and putting another in her 

 place. If honey is coining in , it can be done 

 in nearly half tlie time, without using any 

 kind of scent. 1 beg your pardon, friend (-., 

 for so much that may seem like objections 

 to your experiments, but I only wish to give 

 you a little caution. 



CYPRIAN BEES. 



THE FURTHER HISTORY OF THAT HAYIIURST CYPRI- 

 AN QUEEN. 



^y[%Y request of friend Hayhurst, I write in July 

 Wm for August Gleanings. My expei-ience, how- 



ever, may surprise him. I have handled 



black bees nearly all my life, and for several years 

 bred Italians; but the " Hayhurst Imported Cyprian 

 Queen" and her posterity have given me greater 

 pleasure than any other race of bees. I have raised 

 about 40 queens from her this season, and now have 

 36 hives, each of which contains one of her daugh- 

 ters. A few were fertilized by black drones, and 

 have progeny that defies every thing but a dense 

 cloud of smoke. Veils and soft " leather breeches" 

 afford but little protection from these half-breed 

 Cyprians. If Apis dorsata stings deeper, or causes 

 more pain, we ha\e no use whatever for that strain 

 in America. 



As regards pure Cypnans, even from the Hay 

 hurst queen, it is but just to breathe another senti- 

 ment. My hives sit upon the ground, about ten feet 

 apart, with entrances in every direction. Some of 

 them are in the sun all day, while others are in con- 

 tinuous shade; and, no matter whether the air is 

 full of them during a free honey-flow, or when but 

 little forage is to be obtained, they take no excep- 

 tions to anybody's presence, whether hot or cool. 

 You may sit upon a hive with safety while you posi- 

 tively avoid jarring it. In this latter event you will 

 be attacked by a number which can be estimated on- 

 ly by the size of the entrance and the hives from 

 which they issue. With these, the pure Cyprians, I 

 use neither veil nor gloves, and would almost as 

 soon scratch the kicking part of a mule as blow 

 smoke upon them; it exasperates them. Before 

 opening a hive, I am careful to take a position that 

 will not let the wind blow from me on to the bees. 

 The cover is then slowly removed, and after the 

 lapse of a little time the enameled cloth is very slow- 

 ly pulled off. I then wait until the bees on top of 

 frames begin to seek shelter between the combs, 

 and the time has now come when I take one or all 

 of the frames out of the hive, and find the bees 

 evenly spread over the combs. They do not hang 

 from the lower part of frames, and fall upon the 

 ground, as other bees. They are good honey-gath- 

 erers, the brightest colored, the quickest motioned, 

 the sti'ongest winged, and the gentlest of all bees, 

 with the most prolific queens. And more than this, 

 both strong and weak colonies have thus far es- 

 caped the ravages of the moth here in a countiy 

 where black bees are now being driven from their 

 combs and brood. I buy the straightest of these 

 wormy combs, and give them to my Cyprians, and 

 they have not yet failed to clean and fill them with 

 brood and honey. W. McKay Douoan. 



Lenica, Newton Co., Mo., July 20, 1883. 



