184 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Mafch 21, 1901. 



A Fair Italian-After " Blacli Beauty." 



BY HENRV BIIlWEI,!.. 



I am a yellow honey-bee of the feminine gender. My 

 occupation is to secrete was and build it into combs ; to 



g-ather honey and pollen from the groves and fields with 

 which to feed the maturing brood or to partly digest and 

 give to the motlier-bee for the rapid formation of eggs. 

 The rule that governs the actions of my life is that what- 

 ever I find to do I delay not in doing. My mother is called 

 a queen, but from her numerous progeny would more 

 appropriately be styled a" mother-bee.'' My father is called 

 a drone, but since he has no sac to gather honey in, no bas- 

 ket to carry bread in. and no stinger with which to defend 

 the hive, he should be called the " gentleman-bee." 



Mother and I. and 15 of mj' sister workers, came from 

 Genoa, Italy, in a small box by mail. We had a quiet trip 

 across the water, but were badly shaken up in transfer at 

 New York City, then rolled across the country to our pres- 

 ent home where we revel in the immense fields of alfalfa 

 bloom, which we prefer to the fragrant groves and sweet- 

 scented vineyards of our native land. This is the home of 

 the industrious bee: here we enjoy the right to swarm 

 when we wish to, as Nature intended we should. To swarm 

 naturally is the greatest happiness that comes to us — God's 

 way is better than man's way, at least, for our increase. 

 In Italy we no sooner thought of swarming than our 

 mother was removed and we were compelled to replace her 

 from worker-larva; which are confined in small cells and fed 

 coarse food ; thus our step-mother came to us with her size 

 reduced, her color darkened, the number of her ova dimin- 

 isht, and her vitality largely destroyed. Again, the Ger- 

 man bee was imported and mixt with our race ; this deteri- 

 orated our stock, left the brown stripes on our abdomens 

 and inferior blood in our veins. But in America it was 

 discovered that our race was variable, and by careful selec- 

 tion the brown stripes are being bred away. 



It was a beautiful March day when we arrived at our 

 present home. The bees, whose apiary we were to share, 

 were returning laden with pollen from the maples. The 

 box in which we were imported was placed in a strong col- 

 ony of brown bees from which the mother-bee had been 

 removed. Immediately our box was surrounded by the queen- 

 less bees that vainly tried to liberate us, and which in a 

 measure consoled us by extending their tongues laden with 

 liquid sweets thru the meshes of our prison doors. We 

 gladly accepted the food offered us, but were even more 

 glad the following day when releast. Mother found many 

 empty berths, recently vacated by baby bees, and at once 

 began to deposit an egg in each cell, including a number of 

 the drone-cells. In three weeks her brood began to hatch, 

 and in four more she began to lay eggs in the queen-cells 

 we had prepared for her. 



We swarmed on the last day of May, just as the work- 

 men were going in to dinner after having mowed the alfalfa. 

 We made the air quiver and hum as we flew in circles that 

 grew larger until we were nearly all out, the yellow and 

 brown bees mingling joyously ; then the queen settled on 

 a maple limb where we all clustered, bending the limb 

 almost to the ground. We waited patiently for some one to 

 hive us, but getting tired, sent out scouts in search of a 

 suitable place to live. Soon one returned saying she had 

 found an empty barrel ; another saying she had found an 

 open space between the siding and plastering of a house ; 

 another reported having found a hollow tree, and still 

 another a small stone house which had never been occu- 

 pied, for the padlock was sealed with rust. This seemed 

 the most suitable, for our number was tens of thousands 

 and we all wanted room to work. So away we flew, led by 

 the scout, to the little stone building on a vacant lot near 

 the center of town. We entered thru a crack over the 

 door and immediately went to work. A few mud-wasps and 

 spiders had been in possession of the house (which, by the 

 way, was the calaboose) each year since it was built, but on 

 account of there being no saloon in town it had remained 

 vacant and we were left undisturbed. 



In the course of a month we had built ten combs the 

 size and shape of a bushel basket, suspended from the ceil- 

 ing down into the center of the room. But on the night of 

 July 4th the door was opened with difficulty, and a tramp was 

 thrust in. He lay in a heap on the floor until towards 

 morning when he got up and began to swagger and swear ; 

 striking out in the dark with clencht fist he knockt down 

 our combs, scattering us all over the floor. Amid the yells 

 of murder and fire we ran in every direction until we reacht 

 the sides of the room ; then we climbed to the ceiling again 



where we clustered. As soon as the light was sufficient we 

 flew back and lit on a limb near our old home, which we 

 found had been divided into ten parts — just the number of 

 combs we had left in the hive. Each part had been placed 

 in a separate hive and g^iven one of the sealed queens which 

 now were mother-bees. Looking about, we found an empty 

 hive which we took possession of ; and before winter we 

 had it full of combs, honey, bee-bread and maturing brood. 



Sedgwick Co., Kan. 



\ Questions and Answers. | 



HR. C. C. AIILLER. Marengo, ni. 



[The Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal oflBce, or to Dr. Millsr 



direct, when he will answer them here. Please do not ask the 



Doctor to send answers by mail. — Editor.1 



Transferring Crooked Brood-Combs. 



I have six colonies of bees in the cellar. They are in 

 frame hives without the frames, except three, but the comb 

 is so crooked that I can not get them out or do anything 

 with them. Will it pay to transfer them on frames of 

 foundation ? Iowa. 



Answer. — Wait till they swarm ; hive the swarm on 

 the old stand, setting the mother colony beside it. A week 

 later move the old hive to a new place, and 21 days after 

 the time of swarming drum out all the bees and add them 

 to the swarm. Then you will have the old hive /ree from 

 all brood unless it be some drone-brood, and you can do 

 what you like with the combs. The swarm having an 

 extra force of bees ought to give you a lot of surplus 

 honey, if there is any to be had. 



Methods of Securing Increase. 



1. I wish to get my increase the next season. My plan 

 is this : In early swarming-time I think of taking the col- 

 ony I wish to breed from, and take two frames with bees 

 brood and queen, fill both up with empty frames with start- 

 ers. Put the hive with the queen on the old stand ; when 

 the other has reared queen-cells within a couple of days of 

 hatching, I divide as many more as I have spare queen-cells 

 in the same way, placing the queens on the old stand and 

 removing the queenless ones to a new place and give them 

 a queen-cell. Will that plan work well ? Will the bees 

 destroy the queen-cells? Would I better give them the cell 

 at once or wait a couple of days? If you think this plan 

 will not work well, will you please give me a better one ? 



2. I have some extracted honey which fermented and 

 then candied. Will it do to feed to bees in the spring if I 

 liquefy it ? 



3. Since writing the above I have been reading an 

 article by Mr. Doolittle in the American Bee Journal ; he is 

 good authority, and he advises against giving a queen after 

 dividing, giving as a reason that it will bring on a crop of 

 workers too late for the basswood and prepare the way for 

 another swarm. His reasons seem good. 



Please give me what you consider the best system of 

 dividing. I wish as little increase as possible. 



Iowa. 



Answers. — 1. Instead of putting the queen with two 

 combs on the old stand, and the queenless colony on a new 

 stand, why not leave the queenless bees on the old stand 

 and put the queen with her two combs on a new stand ? 

 The queenless bees will then be in a more flourishing con- 

 dition to rear good queens, because strong in bees and get- 

 ting a good harvest, whereas by the way you propose they 

 would be weak in bees and gathering no honey. Then 

 when it came time to use the queen-cells you could return 

 the queen to the old stand. The bees will be likely to de- 

 stroy the queen-cells unless conscious of theirqueenlessness. 

 It would be a good plan for you to take the queen from the 

 colonies you intend to use for nuclei two days before, then 

 when you put them in a new place as nuclei thej' will stay 

 better where they are put, and the queen-cells can be given 

 to them at the same time. But remember that when you 

 make a colony queenless not all the cells will be good. 



