198 



AMERICAN BEE PUFNAL 



March 28, 1901. 



Large Brood-Chambers For Queen-Rearing. 



HV ('.. M. DOOLITTLK. 



A CORRESPONDENT writes thus : " Will you please tell us some- 

 thing about rearitif^ queens in large brood-chambers, in the Ameri- 

 can liee Journal? I use a large one-story hive holding 18 frames, 

 running parallel with the entrance, so I can not very well use the 

 plan requiring an upper story, as given in your book. How would you 

 proceed to rear queens in such a hive as the one spoken of above?" 



The hive spoken of by the correspondent is very simi- 

 lar to the one which I used when the plan of rearing queens 

 in a hive having^ a laying- queen iti the same, first came to 

 my vision. Some years before I had made four hives on the 

 " long-ideal " plan, which was brought to public notice a 

 score or more of years ago by D. L. Adair, of Kentucky. 

 These hives were used a few years for extracted honey, but 

 laid aside, as I found it paid better to work my apiary more 

 wholly for comb honey. 



Soon after this, D. A. Jones, of Canada, came out with 

 a new plan for working for comb honey, in which he placed 

 the queen and six to eight combs of brood in the center of 

 a long hive and filled out the ends with sections, claiming 

 that in this way large quantities of section honey could be 

 produced without much swarming ; and as these long- 

 ideal hives would be just the thing to try the experiment 

 with, it would cost me very little to see what there was in 

 the plan. So I changed the combs and bees from my regu- 

 lar hives back into these hives again, put in two queen- 

 excluding division-boards, so as to shut the queen on five or 

 six combs in the middle of the hive, according to his plan, 

 when the first thing which came to my notice in opening 

 the hives a week later was sealed queen-cells wherever there 

 was any unsealed brood left which the queen did not now 

 have access to. These I carefully removed, till there came 

 a time when work crowded so that the removing of these 

 cells was neglected till they hatcht, went out of the hive, 

 were fertilized and commenced to lay, so that I had two lay- 

 ing queens in some of these hives. Had it not been for 

 this experiment in producing honey on the Jones plan, in 

 all probability " Scientific Queen-Rearing " would never 

 have been written, for right here was where I got my first 

 ideas on the subject which finally developt into the matter 

 found in the book. 



In carrying out the Jones plan wide frames of sections 

 were put next the apartment containing the queen, and, 

 every ten days or so, some of the combs that had been with 

 the queen, and were now full of eggs and brood, were taken 

 out and placed beyond the wide frames of sections toward 

 the ends of the hive, and empty combs placed with the 

 queea to take the place of those removed. In this way the 

 queen was given all the room she required for laying, the 

 bees kept from swarming, and the bees coaxt to work in 

 the sections to the greatest advantage. And it was on 

 these frames of brood, placed beyond these wide frames of 

 sections, where these queens were reared as spoken of 

 above. 



It will be noticed that there were wide frames of sec- 

 tion between the combs where these cells were reared and 

 the queen-excluding division-board which kept the young 

 queen in her place, and these wide frames had separators 

 on them which tended to keep the young queens from going 

 to the perforated zinc and quarreling thru it with the old 

 queen. As the plan of securing honey in this way was a 

 failure in my hands, these hives were cast aside again, and 

 the upper-story plan was adopted as given in my book. 

 But I have found from long experience, that, where ever 

 there is unsealed brood on which the bees cluster, but from 

 which the queen is excluded by means of perforated zinc, 

 enameled cloth with a hole or two in it, or a' division-board 

 with a crack in the same, the bees will generally build 

 queen-cells on these combs, and if it is so that the young 

 queen hatching from these cells can not " touch noses " 

 with the old queen, and if there is a place of exit from the 

 part of the hive in which this queen hatches, she will gen- 

 erally, in due time, become fertile, when a honey-flow is on, 

 and go to laying, the same as she would if there were no 

 other queen in the hive. 



Hence, to rear queens in such a hive as our correspon- 

 dent uses, all we have to do is to fix the same so that two or 

 three combs of brood can be put in one end of the hive, and 

 between these combs of brood and the apartment having 

 the laying queen, put two queen-excluding division-boards, 

 these latter being half an inch apart, so that the queens 

 can not touch each other. From past experience, my way 

 of fixing such hives would be to keep the laying queen in 

 the rear end, on as many combs as I desired her to occupy, 

 placing next to her apartment a queen-excluding division- 

 board. I would now place two empty combs next to this 



division-board, and immediately in front of these but in 

 another queen-excluder. I would now fill out the remain- 

 ing space between the last excluder and the front end of 

 the hive, or entrance, with combs of brood and honey, and 

 rear queen-cells there, and have them fertilized from the 

 same, as I gave in my book. 



Now, while I have told what I would do when using 

 such a hive as the correspondent says he is using, yet I do 

 not feel like closing this article without saying that, in a 

 locality like central New York, such a hive is not the one 

 for the practical bee-keeper to use if he wishes to produce 

 the most honey with the least capital and labor. 



Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



No. 1.— Practical Lessons for Beginners in Bee- 

 Culture. 



BY RBV. J. D. GEHRING. 



I WAS working in my apiary one beautiful May morning 

 transferring brood-frames from one hive to another. It 

 was what bee-keepers would call a typical bee-day. I had 

 hived four swarms that morning, and the bees were fairly 

 crazy in their eager rush and hum, gathering in the rich 

 nectar which the blooming white clover was yielding in 

 great abundance that season. I was stooping over an open 

 hive, in the act of taking up a frame of brood, when I heard 

 my name spoken, and some one saying, "I would just like 

 to know what you are doing with that hive of bees ?" 



Straightening myself up hastilj', I saw directly in front 

 of the hive at which I was working, and standing within a 

 few feet of the entrance of the same, a ruddy-faced, cheery- 

 looking man, whom I knew as Reuben Bond, a farmer liv- 

 ing about four miles out of town. At the same moment I 

 also saw that Mr. Bond had hitcht his team of beautiful 

 young horses to a post of my yard-fence, not more than 25 

 ifeet from the first row of the bee-hives. Taking in the sig- 

 nificance of the situation at the first quick glance, I for the 

 moment ignored his friendly salutation, and said : 



"You are in danger there, Mr. Bond — better come away 

 at once. Your horses are in danger, too, where they are. 

 Suppose you take them around into my back yard, while I 

 close these open hives and get ready to talk to you where it 

 is more quiet and safe than it is here at present." 



But, tho I had lost no time in being decently polite, my 

 admonition came too late for Mr. Bond. My last words 

 were scarcely uttered when I saw him slap his right hand 

 to his face, and, uttering some incoherent exclainatiou, 

 start on a stooping run toward the house, and before I could 

 do or say anything, darted down the open stairway of the 

 cellar, and was out of sight in a twinkling. 



I closed my two open hives and followed him, directing 

 my son, who just then came around the corner of the house, 

 to take care of Mr. Bond's team. I found the runaway just 

 inside the door of the cellar, puffing and blowing, and rub- 

 bing the end of his nose. Noticing his action, I knew 

 where to look for the instrument of torture. Drawing him 

 toward the open door, where I could see, I gently lifted the 

 sting out by placing my thumb-nail under the poison-sac, 

 instead of grabbing hold of it with thumb and finger, as 

 bee-sting doctors usually do, and thus squeezing into the 

 wound all the formic acid contained in the little sac 

 attacht to the sting. 



"Never rub a bee-sting," I said to Mr. Bond, " until 

 after you, or some one else, has performed the operation I 

 have just shown you how to do properly. It's a lucky thing 

 the little fury didn't hit you in the eye. We can apply 

 almost any kind of a remedy to the nose, but not to the 

 eye." 



" Aint it queer, tho, how quick those pesky bees left me 

 when I got in here," remarkt Mr. Bond, as he gently rubbed 

 the end of his nose. " What do you do for bee-stings ?" he 

 askt, as we ascended the cellar-stairs. 



" Usually I pay no attention to them," I replied ; " be- 

 cause usually I am stung when I am too busy to run away 

 from my work and doctor bee-stings. I seldom get stings 

 in the face, however, because I wear a bee-veil whenever I 

 do work among the bees that is liable to put them on the 

 defensive. They always fight in defense of their home and 

 property, Mr. Bond, and seldom for any other reason. And 

 there is no telling when bees will not sting when they are 

 being disturbed, and they suspect that the disturber intends 

 some sort of mischief to them. The principal reason, how- 

 ever, why I wear a bee-veil is, because they always aim for 

 the eyes when they have a chance and the disposition to 

 sting. And, as I always need my eyes, even more than my 



