486 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Aug-. 1, 1901. 



well started at comb-building- below — say in three or four 

 days after the swarm is hived, unless a queen-excluder is 

 used between the frames and the surplus arrangement. 

 But where frames of comb or frames filled with comb 

 foundation are used below, then the sections can be put on 

 at the time of hiving the swarm, if desired. 



But as to the cause of drone-comb and brood in the sec- 

 tions : If. as is usually the case with most of the bee-keep- 

 ers of the present time, the questioner has restricted the 

 drone-comb below, the natural consequence would be drone- 

 brood in the sections, if the bees were allowed to build 

 combs in the sections without the use of foundation, and 

 especially so with a light flow of honey and plenty of pol- 

 len ; for at such times the bees rear large quantities of 

 brood, and prepare for swarming by starting as much 

 drone-brood as possible, the same being limited only by the 

 amount of drone-comb the queen has access to, and if she 

 had little below there would be all the more incentive for 

 her to occupy that being built in the sections. 



Having spoken of the cause we will now proceed to the 

 remedy. There are two ways to remedy this matter; and 

 the one which I use most is the filling of the sections with 

 very thin section foundation. This keeps all drone-comb 

 out of the sections, and where there is no drone-comb there 

 will be no drone-brood, providing we have a good, prolific 

 queen ; consequently this trouble with brood in the sec- 

 tions is remedied by thus using sections full of foundation 

 having the worker-size of cells. Then, by thus using sec- 

 tions filled with worker foundation, we have very much 

 nicer section honey as to appearance, after the sections are 

 finished by the bees, for the capped combs having the 

 worker size of cells are much mcwe beautiful to look at 

 than those of the drone size, as all who have compared the 

 two side by side are willing to admit. 



The other plan of keeping the queen from the sections 

 is by the use of the queen-excluding honey-board between 

 the sections and the brood-chamber. This will effectually 

 prevent brood in the sections at any and all times, but such 

 honey-boards are quite expensive, both in time of putting 

 on and taking from the hive; room for storage when not 

 on the hive, as well as in the money used in the purchase, 

 or of the material from which to make ; for they do not do 

 away with the undesirable looks of the finished product, 

 unless the sections are filled with foundation ; besides, 

 many claim that they should not be used in any event, on 

 account of the believed lessened amount of our honey 

 crop on account of the bees being loth to pass freely 

 through the perforated metal. Regarding this latter claim 

 I have my doubts as to its correctness, but consider all of 

 the others as important. 



Having given the remedy, what shall be done where we 

 find brood in the sections before we knew of, or have 

 applied, the remedy or preventive ? This all depends upon 

 what stage the brood is in when we find it. If it is found 

 before any of the brood is sealed over, we have little waste 

 except our time in taking the sections from and putting 

 them back on the hive again, for it is well known, that, if 

 this unsealed brood is taken from the bees and kept in a 

 cold place for a week, the same is dead, and such dead 

 brood will be removed bj' the bees as soon as they have 

 access to it. My plan used to be, before I learned of the 

 prevention as given above, to take sections, found with 

 eggs and unsealed larva; in them, to the cellar, and there 

 leave them four or five days, when the3' were returned to 

 the hives again, and if the queen did not deposit more eggs 

 in them, they were filled with honey, and when finished 

 vrere as good as if no brood had been in them. 



If the brood in the sections has been sealed long 

 enough so that the larva? have begun to spin their cocoons, 

 then the best thing to do is to cut the comb, or that portion 

 having brood in it, from the sections, for honey stored in 

 combs having cocoons in the cells is not just the thing for 

 table use, nor to put on the market, unless this honey is 

 separated from the combs by the use of the extractor, even 

 though the same be sold as a second or third grade of comb 

 honey, which it would have to be if sold at all, on account 

 of the dark color the cocoons would give to the combs. It 

 is never best, under any circumstances, to put upon the 

 market that which will tend to injure the same, as is 

 always the case by putting on honey of very inferior 

 quality. Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



Queenie Jeanette is the title of a pretty song in sheet 

 music size, written by J. C. Wallenmeyer, a musical bee- 

 keeper. The regular price is 40 cents, but to close out the 

 copies we have left, we will mail them at 20 cents each, as 

 long as they last. 



(Continued from pape 45,>.) 



No. 4. Some Reminiscences of an Old Bee-Keeper. 



BV THADDKUS SMITH. 



HAVING Italianized my little Island apiary, I now found 

 myself in a favorable position for rearing pure Italian 

 queens for sale, without a possibility of having them 

 mate with black drones, for, as far as I could ascertain, I 

 had the only bees on the Island, and it was an occupa- 

 tion that I knew I would greatly enjoy, and there ought to 

 be money in it at less than half the price that I paid for 

 my queens. Then why not do as they were doing on Kel- 

 ley's Island ? I concluded that I would, and accordingly 

 began preparation to become an Italian queen-bee breeder. 



I spent the nest winter in Kentucky at my old home, 

 and in order to advertise my queen-rearing establishment a 

 little, I talked bees, and wrote articles for the State agri- 

 cultural paper on the " New Era in Bee-Keeping," '' The 

 Movable-Comb Hive." "The Introduction of the Italian 

 Bee," etc., and I advertised queens reared (or to be reared) 

 in my Island apiary, where there was no possibility of 

 their getting mixed with black bees. I am afraid that the 

 spirit of humbuggery that was so prevalent then among 

 hive-patentees and queen-breeders was contagious, and that 

 I had caught it in a mild form. 



As I anticipated, I greatly enjoyed the work of queen- 

 rearing, and as I was an enthusiast on the subject, I had 

 fair success on the comparatively slow process then in 

 vogue ; and I had orders for them, too. 



But my career as a queen-breeder was soon to meet 

 with difficulties that finally brought it to an untimely end. 

 My Island home was an admirable place for rearing queens, 

 but I had not given full consideration to the facilities for 

 shipping them, and I found that an Island without steam- 

 boat communication with the rest of the world was a poor 

 place to ship queens from promptly. It so happened, last 

 season, that we had no steamboat connection with the 

 States I tried making a few shipments by sailboat to the 

 nearest United States postoffice, but this was not satisfac- 

 tory. And on this account, and other personal matters, I 

 announced my inability to fill all orders, and returned what 

 money I had received. 



Though I did not make enough, above expenses, to pay 

 for the two queens I had bought, I still felt well repaid for 

 all my trouble and expense in the matter for the pleasure it 

 gave me and the practical information gained in the nat- 

 ural history of the bee ; I did not lose interest in the sub- 

 ject, and it afforded me a delightful recreation for every 

 hour of leisure that I had, as well as honey enough for all 

 to eat, and some to spare. 



I increased my apiary until at one time I had between 

 SO and 60 colonies, but as I never again offered queens for 

 sale, I have made no change in the stock in the last 30 

 years by introducing new Italian queens. I did, many 

 years ago, buj' a Holy Land or Syrian queen, but as I 

 could see but little difference between them and the Italians, 

 I did not try to keep them from mixing. I think I can now, 

 sometimes, see in some colonies some indications of the 

 Syrian cross, in the light-colored segments adjoining the 

 yellow bands. 



I sometimes had swarms to leave me, and they found 

 ao trouble in finding homes in the hollow trees of the 

 heavy timbered portions of the Island, and in clearing up 

 the land many colonies have been found, from some of 

 which small apiaries have been started by a number of my 

 neighbors, and they all show the three-ring test for Italians. 



As I have heretofore noticed, the great contention 

 between queen-breeders as to test of purity was the color of 

 the queen and the markings of her progeny. These mark- 

 ings were found to varj* even in the direct produce of the 

 imported queens from Italy, and, in fact, were found to vary 

 in that country. Breeders in America were therefore led to 

 try to improve on the imported stock in regard to color, by 

 careful selection in breeding ; and they did succeed remark- 

 ably in getting brighter yellow queens than the imported 

 ones, and, like Prof. Flanders, not only " went one better 

 on the orthodox standard of three rings," but claimed also 

 to have queens that would produce //z'f-banded workers. 

 Not only that, but that these beautifully colored bees were 

 more gentle and less liable to sting, etc. The importers, 

 who had only " leather-colored " queens, with their three- 

 banded workers, now claimed that the "improvers" had 

 gained in beauty and color, and perhaps in gentleness, at a 

 sacrifice of industry and other qualities that made the 

 darker stock the better honey-gatherers. Of course this is 



