Oct. 24, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



681 



ants immediatel}' began to move to places of supposed 

 safety. The terror of the ants did not soften my hard 

 heart. Calling- the chickens, I soon had the satisfaction of 

 seeing a Brown Leghorn pullet begin the work of destroying 

 the prospects of the colony of ants that had been making 

 their home under my bee-hive. How she did seem to relish 

 every fat pupal And how quickly the other chickens 

 learned to like ants' brood! 



Now, this is not a verj' valuable contribution to bee-lit- 

 erature. Perhaps the black ants which fought my bees are 

 not the "small ants" which " neither molest the bees nor 

 are molested by them. " At any rate, it seems worth while 

 to report the fact. Perhaps the wise men will explain it. 

 Perhaps they will tell me that I ought to have killed the ants 

 long ago. At the risk of needlessly exposing an ignorance 

 which is frankly confessed to be great, I venture to add that 

 this particular hive became queenless during the summer, 

 and that the colony failed to rear a queen, although sup- 

 plied with two frames containing brood in all stages from 

 the egg to the hatching bee, and that at one time there were 

 two or three well-developed queen-cells in the hive. Is it 

 possible that the ants might have robbed the queen-cells? 

 Arapahoe Co., Colo. 



Horking for Italian Bees— Pure Mating of Queens. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



QUESTION— I have spent much time duridtf the past summer to Ital- 

 iaaize my be»-s, and think they are now all pure Italian. But my 

 neighbors all about me have black and hybrid bees, many being 

 kept in box-hives, so that hosts of drones are reared in these dur- 

 ing the summer season. What I wish to know is, how I, rearing queens 

 for my own use, can secure them purely fecundated. 



Answer. — There are several plans for the pure mating 

 of queens, but, up to this time, all are more or less faulty. 

 The best of these plans are the following : 



In the earl}- spring, as soon as you can find colonies 

 which can spare it, give capped brood to your drone-rearing 

 colonies, and this, together with a little warm feed, given 

 each day, will cause the desired queens to lay in the drone- 

 comb early, through the stimulation given, thus giving you 

 strong colonies with plenty of drones, before your neigh- 

 bors' colonies rear any drones. 



To secure the best results, one or more drone-combs 

 should be placed in the center of the brood-nest at the time 

 you give the sealed brood. As soon as any drone-brood has 

 been capped from 3 days to a week, start to rear queens, 

 and in this way you will have your queens ready for the 

 first drones which appear. The main objection to this plan 

 is, that such rearing of queens comes at a time when it is 

 likely to interfere with your crop of honey ; for in all queen- 

 rearing the colony is thrown out of its normal condition ; 

 and whether the old queens are taken away from their colo- 

 nies to give place for the desired qtieen-cells, or nuclei 

 formed to take care of these cells, this interference comes 

 at a time when all should be booming as much as possible 

 along the line of rearing the bees in time for the honey 

 harvest, which, as a rule, will be from 30 to 50 days ahead. 



If I may be pardoned, I will say that I should consider 

 impure stock, with a good yield of honey, very much more 

 preferable than absolutely pure stock and little or no sur- 

 plus honey. 



Another plan is, to wait till fall about rearing queens, 

 if you can preserve the desired drones, till all of your neigh- 

 bors' drones are killed ofif, when, if there are no other drones 

 except those you have, you will have every queen to mate 

 with those you have. 



To preserve drones, gather all the drone-brood you can 

 find from the queens yoit have decided shall be drone- 

 mothers, and mass this brood in one hive, tiering it up, if 

 necessary, to accommodate this brood and an abundance of 

 honey ; for, the larger the hive and the more honey it con- 

 tains, the better your chance of having the drones preserved 

 in large numbers. When this drone-brood is massed, the 

 queen should be taken away from the colony ; and as often 

 as a new queen commetices to lay she should be taken away 

 also, and this colony kept supplied with sufficient worker- 

 brood to keep it in a prosperous condition, for on its pros- 

 perous condition depends the freeness of the flight of the 

 drones on every suitable day. If you wish all of the drones 

 which your queens are to mate with to be strong, robust 

 fellows, on some cloudy day when the bees are not flying 

 so as to endanger robbing, look this hive over and hand- 

 pick the drones, killing all which you think are not such as 

 you would desire. To do this best, take out the first comb 

 and pick out as above, when it is to be put into an empty 



hive, set on the stand originally occupied ; and thus when 

 you have gone over every comb, and such drones as may 

 cling to the sides and bottom-board to the hive, your colony 

 is just where you want it, without any extra handling of 

 frames. 



You are now, in a measure, quite sure that the queens 

 reared will come as near perfection as is possible along the 

 line of right mating, and were it not that this plan requires 

 much extra work, and care in feeding the queen-rearing 

 colonies, so that fairly good queens may be reared out of 

 season ; and, also, that this late manipulation of colonies 

 forfeits our chances of successful wintering, this would be 

 the plan above all others to use. And with this plan I have 

 reared queens which have proved of great value to me. 



Another plan is to take a hive containing only the best 

 hand-picked drones to some locality isolated S miles or more 

 from all other bees, and as often as may be, take a load of 

 nuclei, supplied with virgin queens from the best mother, 

 these being from 3 to S days old, to this isolated place, leav- 

 ing them there from 8 to 10 days, when they can be brought 

 home with laving queens, which will, as a rule, be all mated 

 with the desired drones. With a proper rack fixed on any 

 light spring wagon, from 12 to 25 nuclei can be carried to 

 and fro at one time, so that this is not so very laborious as 

 it at first appears, and it has this advantage : The queens 

 can be reared at a time when nearly every queen will be 

 perfectioti itself, as in this way all can be reared in the 

 height of the honey season, when the best queens can be 

 reared with the least work. 



Still another plan is to rear the queens and drones in 

 the best part of the honey season, and, when ready, take 

 the drone colony and as many of the nuclei as have queens 

 of mating age, to the cellar, or some darkened, cool room, 

 cairrying them in before they begin to fly in the morning, 

 and leaving them there till 4 o'clock in the afternoon, or 

 till after all other drones have ceased flying for the day. If 

 each nucleus and the drone colony are fed a little warm di- 

 luted sweet just before setting out, and the hives face the 

 western sun, queens and drones will fly something as they 

 usually do in the early afternoon, and the results will prove 

 quite satisfactory. Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



Ttie Afterthought. 



The "Old Reliable" seen through New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. HASTY, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, O. 



"unreading" one's self. 



Yes, Mr. Weaver, it is sometimes a good plan for the be- 

 ginner to " unread himself " and go in on his own hook. Bees 

 differ very greatly as to their amenability to "drumming." 

 There are some {and very provoking ones they are) that will 

 all get in army formation and march out of the hive wherever 

 they can get out, if you but manipulate their frames a little. 

 Others are like yours. Howsomever. a beginner should take 

 a watch along for such a .job, and give them a reasonable 

 number of actual minutes before unreading everything — other- 

 wise his 10 minutes might be about 'l minutes. " All's well 

 that ends well," but the main danger of your method is that 

 the queen may keep your strips of old comb full of brood all 

 the while. Even if zinc is used there is some danger of get- 

 ting some new honey in very undesirable shape. 



glucose can be fed, but don't. 



It is somewhat in the line of news to be told that one can 

 feed a ton of glucose to his bees. Editorial, page 579. 



MIELIONAIRE BEE-KEEPERS. 



Want the names of millionaire bee-keepers, eh? Well, 

 I'm one— own a million dollars' worth of Independence and 

 good hopes — and none of . I. IMorpont Morgan's paper brings 

 In larger returns. Few vocations have so hirge a proportion 

 of real millionaires as onrs, I take it. Page 574. 



THE VIKOIN VUEEN SURVIVES. 



It is an interesting bit of experience from C.Davenport, 

 that when two colonies are hived together, one with a laying 

 queen and one with a virgin, it is usually tlie virgin which 

 survives. That would naturally ho the case where the bees 

 do not ball either of them, but just let them fight It out them- 

 selves — virgin too spry for heavy old dowager. Page 582. 



