424 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



July 4, 1901. 



work in the super. Jake, you run up into the extracting 

 room, and g^et us nine empty frames for the next hive. 

 Well, this is the last hive, and we have taken about four 

 thousand pounds in ten and a half days. Now, I want to 

 arrange cells for a few hundred queens. We will not need 

 our smoker, as I do not breed from cross bees." 



"Wat's them little yaller things vou're g'ittin,' Kun- 

 nel?" 



" Queen-cells, Tom." 



" They are mity purty, Kunuel. Does the queen stick 

 them on the little stick that way ?" 



•' No, Tom, the queens do nothing- except deposit eggs. 

 My little daughter, Annie Dane, makes these for me, it is 

 just fun for her, and saves me a great deal of time, as I 

 use hundreds of them." 



" Well, I declar, thet child is only eight years old, an 

 makes such nice little things ? Looks to me like it would 

 take a regler jueler to do sich work, how on airth does she 

 make them so thin and smooth at the mouth and so round 

 and nice?" 



" I will lend you a book, written by Doolittle, that 

 explains this fully, and let me say right here, Tom, I would 

 not go back to the old method of queen-rearing for one 

 thousand dollars cash. That book is worth its weight in 

 fine gold." 



" Well, Kunnel, I will put it under my piller every nite 

 and bring it back soon as Sara Jane and me and Jake reads 

 it ; an we will be mity proud to read it. Wat's thet quill 

 spoon for, Kunnel?" 



" This is to transfer the larva; from the worker-cells to 

 the queen-cells. I will show you the modus operandi. 

 Here are eighteen cells in this hive nearly ready to cap 

 over. See, twelve are large and rough, four are smaller 

 and rather smoother. I alwaj's destroy such cells, so I will 

 take these four, and use their royal jelly to put in these 

 new cells — hand me the stick, Jake." 



" Why, Kunnel, here's a worm in this one, is it a 

 moth?" 



"No, Tom, it is a young queen, see I can throw them 

 out this way, and dip up a small quantity of the royal jelly 

 with my quill spoon, and place it in the bottom of the new 

 queen-cells, thus ; now, I have fixed thirty-two cells. I will 

 get the larva; from the ' Berberini ' imported queen. See, 

 I remove this dummy first, and find the queen." 



"There she is, Kunnel, on thet frame." 



"Thanks, Tom, your eyes are keen. You see I can not 

 afford to risk dropping so fine a queen in the grass or to 

 injure her, therefore I never take any chances. I will just 

 take this frame and leave her in the hive. See, here is 

 plenty larvK just the right size, about twelve to twenty- 

 four hours old. I slip my quill spoon under them this way, 

 raise them out and slowly lower them into my queen-cells, 

 until the point of the quill just touches the royal jelly at 

 the bottom, and by drawing it back, the little larvae sticks 

 to the royal jelly, which is in its nature glutinous. Now 

 all the cells on this stick have larv» in them. I will place 

 it between these two combs of brood in super of number 

 SO. See the stick fits tightly in this frame half filled with 

 comb, and the brood on both sides will help keep the little 

 queens warm, as the bees cover these combs all the time." 



" Why, Kunnel, won't the little queens fall out, with 

 the mouths of the cells down thet way ? And how on airth 

 do you take little worker-bees an make queens outen 

 them ?" 



" No, Tom, they won't fall out, the jelly holds them, 

 and its their nature to grow with their heads down. Never 

 horizontally, like a worker-bee. The peculiar food given 

 them in great abundance, and developing in large perpen- 

 dicular cells, transforms them into queens. 



Now, that I have my one hundred queen-cells stocked 

 with larva:-, I will take out some ripe cells." 



"Wat do you mean by ripe cells, Kunnel ?" 



" A ripe queen-cell is as easily distinguished as a ripe 

 apple. See this stick of queen-cells. The points are all 

 light-colored and pointed, these will be not be ripe for sev- 

 eral days. Now here is a stick of cells that will hatch 

 to-morrow. See they have blunt flat ends that are brown, 

 and rough. The bees knowing that the young queens will 

 want to come out to-morrow, are helping them by trimming 

 off the points of the cells. I take them off the day before 

 they are due, and carefully place them in the half-inch 

 holes you see in this block, with the points resting on the 

 little wool cushions so as not to jar, or injure the young 

 queen. I have only twelve ripe cells this time. Tom, here 

 is what we call a queen-nursery, which is merely a very 

 small swarm of bees — enough to cover well, two or three 

 Langstroth combs. 



See this patch of brood? I place the cells thus, jus 

 above the brood and press it into the comb. See, no dange 

 in pressing a Doolittle cell into a comb that way, but a very 

 light pressure would destroy a natural cell. This nursery 

 has been queenless two days, and will gladly accept the 

 cell. Now here is a nursery containing a queen that I wish 

 to mail to-night. Here she is ; see I remove the cOrk in the 

 end of this cage, and pick her up by both wings poke her 

 head in the hole from which I took the cork. thus. See, she 

 went in nicely, and to keep her there, I place the end of my 

 thumb over the hole until I can put in ten or a dozen work- 

 &rs' not too young. Now all are in, I replace the cork, tack 

 on the cover, thus. Now I will put on a one-cent stamp and 

 send them to the post-office. I will have to protect the cell, 

 or the bees will destroy it before they miss their queen. 

 This wire-cell protector prevents this, and by the time the 

 young queen emerges from the cell, they will have discov- 

 ered the loss and will gladly receive her. In two days she 

 will be laying and I will ship her, give them another cell, 

 and continue to do this until the season is over." 



" Well, Jake, here is the new hive with foundation, 

 all ready to hive your swarm on. You shall have a nice 

 queen, a descendant of the Berberini stock. 'as soon as your 

 colony is ready for her, and I predict that a progressive 

 young bee-keeper will make his start with this colony." — 

 Progressive Bee-Keeper. 



\ Questions and Answers. | 



CONDUCTED BY 



DTi. O. O. ailLLER, afareng-o, HI. 



CThe Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal office, or to Dr. Miller 



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



Doctor to send answers by mail. — Editor.1 



Swarming— Long-Tongued Bees. 



I take some encouragement from the letters of C. H. 

 Harlan and F. M. Creighton, page 396, in knowing that 

 sharp eyes are upon me with kindly hearts behind them. 

 Mr. Harlan's statement is exceedingly interesting, and I am 

 wondering whether he has exceptional bees or an excep- 

 tional locality. I wish he would give a little fuller light 

 upon it When he hives the first swarm in a new hive, if I 

 understand him, he cuts out all queen-cells but one in the 

 old hive, and then a little after this a swarm issues with the 

 young queen from the cell that was left. Now, how long 

 after the cutting out of the cells does this swarming occur ? 

 Then does he mean that from this same old colony a third 

 swarm will issue six or eight weeks after the issuing of the 

 second f 



Mr. Creighton thinks that long tongues would be of no 

 advantage in his locality. He is no doubt in a very large 

 company who think only of red clover as the one honey- 

 plant to give value to long tongues. A correspondent in 

 the Southland Queen speaks of a honey-plant with tubes 

 so deep that the bees only get part of the nectar, and he 

 thinks long tongues are needed to get it. Mr. Doolittle 

 says, page 293, " long-tongued bees would be an advantage 

 to those residing where red clover and other long-tubed 

 floivers abound." (Italics mine.) Is it not possible that 

 these long-tubed flowers are generally distributed every- 

 where? Does Mr. Creighton l:now that within the range of 

 his bees there are no flower-tubes so deep that his bees can 

 not reach all the nectar in them ? If he does not kriow this, 

 then he does not know that long-tongued bees " would store 

 no more honey " for him. If he does know it, will he kindly 

 tell us /;oi£' he knows it? But I'll throw up my hat with 

 him, and hurrah for the bees that don't swarm, in prefer- 

 ence to the ones that get the red clover honey. 



C. C. Miller. 



Swarm Left After Being Hived. 



At noon to-day I hived a large swarm of bees, then set 

 the hive beside the old one that the bees came from, intend- 

 ing, when I came home from the shop at n o'clock, to change 

 places with them, putting the new one where the old one 

 was ; but at 6 o'clock there were no bees in the new hive. 

 Do you think they went back into the old hive, or left for 



