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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



April 18, 1901. 



number of colonies this would mean a good deal of work 

 at a time when other important work connected with ray 

 regular business of producing comb honey needed to be 

 done; and, besides, after extracting this dark honey there 

 would enough remain in the combs " to shade the first 

 extracting of white honey so it would not be first-class. 

 Then when the queens are confined to eight or ten frames I 

 found that these colonies would almost always be too light 

 in stores for winter, so that a good deal of feeding was 

 necessary ; but with the shallow frames I am able also 

 largely to overcome the work of this, for my practice is to 

 set these supers at the time they are removed, on colonies 

 that are to be run for comb honey, then as soon as they get 

 well started to storing in them, thev are raised up and a 

 super containing sections is put on next to the brood-cham- 

 ber ; by the time a second super is required the one contain- 

 ing the extracting frames is stored in the honey-house 

 until after the white flow, when they are again, if not 

 already full, placed on the colonies being run for extracted 

 honey, in order to have them all filled solid during the fall 

 flow. Then all the work about feeding these light colonies 

 is to set on a super containing as many of these filled 

 combs as seems necessary, and from experiments with feed- 

 ing in this and a similar way with unfinisht sections, I 

 believe a colony will winter in a cellar kept at a tempera- 

 ture of 45 or SO degrees just as well with their stores in a 

 super as they will if they are in the combs of the brood- 

 chamber. 



Last spring I set some of these supers containing 

 honey in the honey-house as soon as they were removed 

 from the extracting colonies, the fore part of the season — 

 but little of this was sealed, but it kept without granu- 

 lating or souring until the comme^icement of the fall flow. 



The only trouble I have about this plan is that moths 

 are liable to damage these shallow combs greatly during 

 the time they are stored. In some manner the moth-eggs 

 get in the combs while they are on the hives. Bi-sulphide 

 of carbon will overcome this with but little work or 

 expense, provided trace enough of its deadly fumes does 

 not remain in the honey to make it unfit for winter stores. 

 I expect to know something definite in regard to this soon, 

 for last fall I subjected all the winter stores of five colonies 

 to its fumes for four hours, which is longer than is neces- 

 sary to kill moth-worms and destroy the vitality of the 

 eggs that may be in the combs at the time they are treated. 

 Southern Minnesota. 



No. 2.— Drone-Bees and Their Itility. 



Can We, and Shall We, Control their Production ? 



BY C. P. DAD.^NT. 



WE have seen in a former article, why Nature has 

 decreed the rearing of so many drones in each hive. 

 It is in order that each young queen may readily find 

 a mate at her first bridal flight. We now will consider why 

 some colonies build more drone-comb than others. 



When a queen is young and healthy she lays plenty of 

 worker-eggs and seems to prefer it, so if there is any un- 

 derstanding between the queen and her bees, the bees will, 

 to please her, build mostly worker-comb. Thus a new 

 swarm, with a strong and healthy young queen, will usu- 

 ally begin by building all worker-combs. But if there is a 

 lull in the crop and some of the brood hatches out of the 

 comb already built, the queen will have plenty of room 

 ahead, and the few remaining combs will be drone-comb 

 whenever they are built. For tho the queen prefers the 

 worker-comb, we must take notice that the workers prefer 

 to build drone-comb, for it is more quickly built and is just 

 as good as the other to contain honey. It is evidently for 

 this reason as well as because they feel the need of drones, 

 that a queenless colony will build almost nothing but 

 drone-comb. If we supply a new swarm with a large 

 quantity of worker-comb already built, saved from diseased 

 colonies of the previous winter, and give this swarm only 

 one or or two empty frames, the result will almost invari- 

 ably be drone-comb in those frames, for the queen has 

 plenty of room to lay and the bees do not see the need of 

 worker-cells. 



In the same manner, if the crop is already well on, and 

 the queen is getting tired of incessant laying of worker- 

 eggs, and seeks for drone-cells as a rest, all or most of the 

 comb built will be drone-comb. In such instances a much 

 greater proportion of drone-comb will be built. In early 



spring, before the bees have begun the busy season, and 

 the hive is only partly full of brood, if at that time we 

 remove a central comb, and replace it with an empty frame 

 in the middle of the brood-nest, in nine cases out of ten 

 the comb will be of worker-cells, because the queen needs 

 worker-cells in this warm spot, even tho there may be 

 plenty of worker-cells unoccupied at the outer edges of the 

 brood-nest but too cold for her to reach. But if the same 

 thing is done in the warmth of the honey crop, the result 

 will be the reverse. In the statement of the foregoing con- 

 ditions I do not wish to be understood as laying an iron 

 rule. The actions of the bees are subject to many varying 

 influences, and results are not always what may be 

 expected, but the propositions above will prove correct in 

 most instances. So if we wish to have the greatest pos- 

 sible amount of worker-comb built by the bees, without 

 using comb foundation as a guide, we must, as uniformly 

 as practicable, have the combs built by natural swarms 

 with j'oung queens, and these swarms must not be supplied 

 with a portion of their combs already built. In short, we 

 must either supply the swarm with all combs built or with 

 none. 



Since the number of drone-cells in a hive depends very 

 much upon the conditions of the swarm at the time that 

 the combs were built, it is still more difficult to give an 

 approximate idea of the number of drones that will be 

 reared in an average season by an average colony. By 

 looking thru a number of works on apiculture, I find that 

 the proportion of drones to worker-bees, in the swarming 

 season, has been variously estimated from one-tenth to one- 

 thirtieth. There is no doubt that it varies a great deal. 

 There is no doubt also that the difference in results is in 

 favor of the colony containing few drones, and yet Chesh- 

 ire calls our attention to the fact that it is the colonies 

 that rear the most drones which have the best chances of 

 self-reproduction, since not only their queen stands a better 

 chance of mating, but the queens of other colonies are also 

 more likelj' to mate with drones of the most prolific colony, 

 as they are most numerous. Is it advisable for us to con- 

 trol the production of drones in a hive ? 



Is the drone in the hive of use for other purposes than 

 for the fertilization of young queens? Are the drones of one 

 colony as good for breeding purposes as those of any other 

 colony ? If we decide upon the necessitj- of controlling 

 the drones, is it best to destroy them after they are hatcht, 

 or while they are hatching, or is it best to prevent their 

 production ? 



The first two of these questions would better be consid- 

 ered together, for it is the greater or less usefulness of the 

 drones which will cause us to decide whether it is desirable 

 to control their numbers. It has been asserted over and 

 over again, that the drone is needed in numbers not only to 

 supply mates, readily found, for the young queen, but also 

 to keep the brood warm in spring. Dzierzon and his Eng- 

 lish translator, Abbott, disagree on this subject. Dzierzon 

 says: "The sole purpose of the drones is to fertilize the 

 young queens. As in the vegetable kingdom, pollen, on 

 the male part of the flower, is produced in abundance, so 

 does Nature produce an abundance of males in a colony of 

 bees, in order that the queen, upon which the well-being of 

 the colony depends, may be fertilized the sooner. It is 

 obvious that drones were not also intended to produce heat 

 in the hive, as has often been attributed to them, for when 

 the j'oung queen has been successfully fertilized and begun 

 to laj- eggs, which perhaps at the same time cool weather 

 sets in, at this very time, when the temperature in the hive 

 would require to be raised, the drones are driven out as 

 being no longer useful." 



His translator, Abbott, says in regard to this : "We 

 can not accede to the author's assertion that the fertiliza- 

 tion of queens is the sole purpose of drones' existence. It 

 is well known that when a swarm has left the hive there is 

 often but a handful of worker-bees left at home to care for 

 the huge mass of brood in all stages, that the hive contains, 

 and should a cold night follow a swarming day, as is often 

 the case, this handful of workers would find it impossible 

 to maintain the necessary heat in the hive, and there would 

 be great loss of brood and bee-life." 



Evident!)' neither of these writers lays any value upon 

 the drone as a warmth-producer at the beginning or the end 

 of a season, and with good cause, for, in order that the 

 drone should produce heat, it is necessary that he himself 

 should be reared with expenditure of both labor and heat 

 on the part of the worker-bees at a time when they are not 

 numerous. And if in the place of, say 2,000 drones, we 

 should secure the same space of worker-brood, say 3,000 

 worker-bees, it is clear that they will not require any more 



