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THE AMERICAN BEE JOLRINAL. 



Dec. 1, 1904. 



thing the queen does (that is, a black or hybrid queen) is to 

 leave the combs and hide somewhere in the hive, or, I 

 think, very often under it, or keep running in and out with 

 the bees. In such a case, it is almost impossible to find 

 her, and I prefer to give up the job for a few days. What I 

 intended to do was to destroy the queen-cells and hunt up 

 the queens three or four days later, after the excitement 

 was abated. But on finding that some colonies had not re- 

 built their queen-cells, I decided to carry out the experi- 

 ment as described. 



PLENTY OF DRONES. 



Before going to Texas, Mr. Daniel Wurth, one of the 

 leading queen-breeders, stopped a few days in Knoxville. 

 Among other things, he told me that in order to have 

 queens surely and promptly mated, there must be a plenty 

 of drones in the apiary. But it must be " a plenty " — 

 thousands ©f them. He has 75 drone-combs that he dis- 

 tributes in the best colonies of his different apiaries, keeps 

 the colonies having these combs fed, if necessary, and thus 

 secures plenty of drones sure enough. In this way the num- 

 ber of queens lost or mismated is insignificant, and, what is 

 also very important to a queen-breeder, they are mated 

 promptly. 



It looks, at first, as if a few hundreds, or a couple of 

 thousand, drones in an apiary ought to be enough to take 

 proper care of all the queens that might be reared. But it 

 does not seem to be so, according to Mr. Wurth. And my 

 own experience more or less confirms his assertion. Like 

 all the apiarists, I keep down the production of drones to a 

 considerable extent, at least ; yet I am satisfied that during 

 the summer there are never less than 2000, or at least 1500, 

 drones in each of my apiaries. 



Yet I lose a certain percent of my queens, not very 

 many, after all, but more than I like, if I could help it. It 

 is usually admitted that the queens occasionally go into the 

 wrong hive, and are killed, and that to avoid such events 

 the hives should be as unlike as possible, so the returning 

 queen can not make a mistake in identifying her home. 



That theory does not apply in my case. I have hives of 

 different shapes and forms ; they are irregularly placed ; 

 there are plenty of trees, bushes, and clumps of weeds to 

 add to the identification of the respective hives, so that any 

 queen is able to return to the right place, unless she be as 

 stupid as a goose, or worse. 



I hardly think that the queens go in as recklessly as 

 that. I know that they sometimes do go into other hives 

 than their own. During the swarming season I keep queen- 

 traps before all the hive-entrances, opening only those that 

 have a virgin queen ready to mate. On a few occasions I 

 have found a queen in a cluster of bees in front of a trap. 

 Not a ball, but a cluster of bees taking care of the queen. 

 In every case the colony in front of which was the queen 

 was found queenless, and further examination has always 

 shown that some colony which had a virgin queen ready to 

 mate was minus its queen. 



Nevertheless, I think such a case is rather a voluntary 

 mistake. The two hives were usually far apart, and could 

 not have been mistaken one for the other. 



But another instance that I met with, some three or 

 four years ago, leads me to think that the queens are not 

 liable to enter recklessly the wrong hive. I saw a queen 

 come and stop some 12 or 14 inches from the entrance of the 

 hive. She hovered there only a few seconds. At the first 

 hostile move of the guards, she was off. 



So, like Mr. Wurth, I have come to the conclusion that 

 the missing queens are lost chiefly outside, while going day 

 after day in quest of a drone. But the puzzle still remains. 

 Why such a large number of drones ? 



I think the only explanation that can be given is this : 

 When the queens and drones come out of the hives they do 

 not remain in the immediate vicinity, but fly at a distance 

 at once. So if we want to insure a certain and prompt mat- 

 ing, we must have enough drones to fill up, so to speak, not 

 only in the immediate vicinity of the apiary, but the whole 

 neighborhood. And the proof of it is easily conceived, if 

 we remember how few drones we notice around the hives, 

 even where we know that there must be thousands reared 

 in the apiary. 



I might add also that during 1903 I lost an unusually 

 large number of queens. 



ROBBING ARTIFICIAL SWARMS. 



When dividing for increase, the new colonies contain, 

 usually, a eertain number of combs put in with the adhering 

 bees. During the following days a large portion of these 



bees return to their old place, and leave the new colony en- 

 tirely too weak, especially when there is danger of robbing. 

 To obviate this, it is a good plan to close the hive for a few 

 days. By that time the bees get so attached to their new 

 place, that few of them, if any, go back to the old home. 

 A portion of the sealed brood has also hatched out during 

 that time, and the new colony is then in shape to repel 

 whatever robber-bees might come, that is, under ordinary 

 circumstances. 



A BAD CASK OP ROBBING. 



Notwithstanding that precaution, one of my new colo- 

 nies was robbed this summer. But this was exceptional. 

 The robbing colony was, and is, yet very strong, and is. 

 " desperately wicked ", and has given me trouble time and 

 again the past summer. When I found that the robbing 

 process was going on royally, I closed the new colony, rob- 

 bers and home bees, all together. I put some wet grass be- 

 fore the robbers' hive to prevent them from doing damage 

 elsewhere, and waited till the fourth day to re-open the new 

 colony. Two days later robbing was going on worse than 

 before. I followed the same method again, but this time I 

 left the new colony closed for seven days, and the night I 

 opened it I also shut the robbers in for three days, putting 

 also a pieceof camphor in one of the hives and some essence 

 of some kind in the other, so as to give them entirely differ- 

 ent scents. That settled it for good, as no further robbing 

 has occurred since. 



REARING QDEENS. 



I use a queenless colony so as to be sure that the cells 

 will be well cared for. I give them from time to time a. 

 comb of selected brood, cutting holes under the larvae or 

 eggs to make room for the cells. When the cells are ma- 

 tured I cage them, placing them in the center of the cluster 

 so the young queens will be fed if they emerge before being- 

 taken out. I do not make any nucleus. I put the caged 

 cells or virgin queens directly in the hives that they are to- 

 occupy. 



This year I discovered that it was not necessary to cut 

 the comb throughout, the only thing needed being to rake 

 out a strip of cells down to the midrib, right under the 

 larvae or eggs of proper age. The base of the queen-cells 

 thus constructed is, however, much weaker than when the 

 comb is cut throughout. 



PICKLED BROOD. 



I had one case the past summer. When I discovered it 

 there was but little brood affected yet. As I did not want 

 to lose the sound brood entirely, I caged the queen, expect- 

 ing to let all the sound brood hatch, and then disinfect the 

 combs. Some way or other it was nearly four weeks when 

 I visited the colony again. Then I found that the bees had 

 cleaned the combs themselves so well that nothing more 

 was needed. So I gave them a young queen and some 

 brood. The disease has not reappeared. 



SWARMS SETTLING ON A TREE FOR GOOD. 



This year a few of my colonies swarmed sooner than I 

 expected ; in fact, much sooner than usual. One of the 

 swarms settled on a tree during my obsence. The school- 

 boys passing by dislodged it, and it went to the top of 

 another tree in an almost inaccessible position. There it 

 remained several days. Finally, somebody undertook to 

 steal it, or disturbed it in some way or other during my ab- 

 sence, so it left that place and clustered on the end of a 

 high, long, and thin limb of a cedar-tree. The space being- 

 clear under the limb, I hoisted a bucket with some honey 

 close to it. 



The bees settled in and around the bucket. The honey 

 bucket is away ahead of any shaking or raking arrange- 

 ment, as it does not anger the bees, and always gets them,, 

 while shaking or raking a swarm very often results in 

 making it take wing and leave for good. 



This is the third time I have had a swarm, wilh a queen, 

 remain hanging on some tree in the neighborhood. It 

 seems that when a swarm fails to go away during the first, 

 and perhaps the second day, the bees decide to remain in 

 the neighborhood. The only explanation I can see is that 

 when by some cause or other the cluster has moved some- 

 where else, the scouts sent out fail to find it when they re- 

 turn ; and that the swarm, after waiting a certain length of 

 time for the scouts to lead them away, concludes to make 

 the best of the situation as it is. Knox Co., Tenn. 



See Langstroth Book Offer on another page of this 

 copy of the American Bee Journal. 



