1882 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



611 



DOOLITTLE'S SUCCESS, AND HOW IT COHEg. 



The secret is out at last; the great mystery is solv- 

 ed. No longer shall we have to lie awake nights, and 

 wonder why our friend Doolittle always makes his 

 honey harvest a success each year. That last report 

 of his makes it all plain. I once lived in the same 

 county he does; but since I have been keeping bees 

 it has never occurred to me how I used to help chop 

 down and saw into logs for the pail-factory those big 

 basswood-trees, from 3 to 4 feet through. Ah, those 

 basswoods do it. It is not so much friend D.'s su- 

 perior skill in management as it is in his being lo- 

 cated in the midst of basswoods. You have always 

 pressed the idea, when any of us wrote of poor 

 seasons, that it was perhaps not so much the season 

 as it was the management, and then referred to 

 friend D. as always managing to get a good yield 

 every year. Now review him a little. Nothing 

 from fruit-bloom; white clover a failure; half of the 

 season gone, and starvation staring him in the face. 

 Then comes a little wild mustard, just enough to get 

 his bees in a thriving condition; then opens the 

 never-failing basswood. Although it lasts but 5 or 

 1 days, it is inexhaustible in its How, and helps him 

 out. Had every basswood-tree within 5 miles of him 

 been chopped down last spring, we should have had 

 friend D. in Blasted Hopes, sure. But this furnishes 

 us a fact that bee-keepers should keep in their 

 heads, that a profuse and unlimited flow of honey, 

 even if it lasts but 5 or 7 days in the whole s^ear, will 

 makebee-keeping profitable. A. A. Fkadenburg. 



Port Washington, O., Nov. 13, 188,3. 



I don't quite agree that it isn't the man, 

 friend F. ; for why do not his neighbors 

 make a success of it too V 



PERSISTENT FERTILE WORKERS. 



I had a small colony of these pests last summer. 

 I gave them a queen-csll; they tore it down, and 

 went on with business. I then took away their 

 brood, and gave them another; they destroyed this 

 also; I then divided a swarm setting next to this; 

 took away the brood again from the fertile workers; 

 put in a good lot of bees with frames of brood from 

 the other hive, also gave them a queen. After 

 about ten days 1 found the fertile workers had mo- 

 nopolized three of the combs on one side, and the 

 queen had also filled three combs with nice brood on 

 the other side. After I made this discovery I closed 

 up the hive, and the partnership business is still ex- 

 isting there for aught I know. 



Since my article was published in regard to using 

 the hiver, some have asked of me a description of it 

 —how made, etc. Friend Root, will you describe it 

 again in Gleanings, or give the back number where 

 such description is given already? 



N. N. Sqepard. 



Cochranton, Pa., Nov. 13, 1882. 



I think I should have mixed the combs all 

 up, friend S., until I had stopped that fer- 

 tile-worker business.— Shepard's swarming- 

 box is illustrated and described fully in the 

 A B C book. 



INTRODUCING »Y GIVING QUEEN-CELLS. 



On page 568, friend D. H. Perry gives his method 

 of introducing virgin queens, which is a very good 

 one, no doubt. I will just give you my waj'. I have 

 some large cells when cutting out cells to throw 

 away, and wheti I have occasion to introduce a vir- 

 gin queen I take one of these cells and split it open 

 from the back end, open it, run the queen in, and 



close it up, wax over strong, and go and put it into 

 the comb, as I would any cell. I have used this plan 

 two year.s, and never lost a queen by this method. 



BALLING a queen, AFTER A SWARM HAS ISSUED. 



One more thing that has come under my n<ftice 

 quite often for the past two years, which I see noth- 

 ing said about in the journals, is this: Full stocks, 

 after a swarm has issued, will, about once out of 

 three times, ball their queen and kill her when she 

 comes back from meeting the drone. 1 think it is 

 caused by meeting drones from some other swarm, 

 and getting scented with them. I have watched this 

 thing very closely, and have caught them at it, both 

 this season and last. You may say the hives were 

 too nearly alike, or too close. My hives were mark- 

 ed the best they could be this year; and of the 

 queens I left to mate in full stocks, I lost a half — 20 

 nuclei. I lost none that hatched this season. 



No. of stocks in spring, 35; fall, 6-t; took 800 lbs. of 

 honey in 1 and 3 lb. boxes. B. Chase. 



Earlville, N. Y., Nov. 10, 1883. 



Introducing by means of a queen-cell is an 

 old idea, friend Chase ; but 1 believe it was 

 mostly decided that it made but very little 

 difference. — Vour point in regard to queens 

 being balled Avould be rather against natural 

 swarming ; but I believe that, as a rule, it is 

 considered to be a rather safe way of in- 

 crease, and I muststill think there was some 

 other reason for the balling. 



WILL A QUEEN HATCH IN LESS THAN 16 DAYS? 



I have just read in Gleanings where you ask, 

 " Will a queen hatch in less than 16 days from the 

 egg?" Now, I do not know; but from my first batch 

 of queens that I raised the past season, one hatched 

 the 10th day after the colony was made queenless; 

 some on the 14tb,15th, and 16th day after, and one in 

 particular hatched on the 18th day. The ten-day 

 queen commenced laying the same day the last one 

 hatched, and I sold her to a neighbor; but my 18- 

 day queen was as large and good looking every way 

 as any of them, and proved herself as good a layer. 

 I am going to keep a strict account with her, and 

 see how she behaves another season, if I succeed in 

 wintering her over. Some large cells of the same 

 batch would not hatch at all; they were extraordi- 

 narily large, but on opening them I found they con- 

 tained a large amount of food, with a dead undevel- 

 oped queen in each. Now, why this difference in 

 hatching of cells all built in one colony at the same 

 time? 



MY ItEPORT. 



My report for the past season is as follows: Went 

 into winter quarters with 11 colonies, packed on their 

 summer stands; lost one in winter, one in May, and 

 one in June, b.v spring dwindling. Increased to 18 

 by the nucleus plan; all good colonies. I got be- 

 tween 200 and 300 lbs. of honey, mostly in 1-lb. sec- 

 tions, which sells readily at 20 cts. per lb. I sold all 

 my extracted at 16 cts. per lb. at home. 



WHY DO THEY KEEP QUEEN-CELLS, WHEN THEY HAVE 

 A LAYING QUEEN? 



Last season I experimented with one colony by not 

 disturbing the brood-nest from the last of Aug. all 

 through the winter, up to May 29, when I found six 

 dead queens in front of them. I immediately ex- 

 amined them, and found a virgin queen and perhaps 

 50 drones (none of my other colonies had drones). I 

 then gave them a comb of eggs and larvse from an 

 Italian colony, and destroyed the virgin queen. This 



