THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



251 



lately on thissiri)jci.t; hut none too much, 

 however. We know it does not pay to 

 kee]) poor queens anywhere. We want 

 queens to he of 1,'onil stock, large and 

 prolific. The qualities I think hees 

 should possess are as follows: l-'irst, 

 honey gathering; second, prolificness of 

 the queens, and their ability to bring a 

 large force of bees on the field of action 

 at the right time; third, gentleness; 

 fourth, the least swarming; fifth, good 

 wintering finalities, and sixth, well, I will 

 say it is beauty, if beauty is a good 

 quality. 



The second statement above calls for 

 plenty of room. What I mean b}' 

 this is that queens should never 

 (except in the fall) lack for room; 

 give them all the combs they will 

 occupy. I never saw a colony too strong 

 to suit me. It takes bees to gather 

 honey, and the more in a hive the larger 

 the yield. I believe a colony of 100,000 

 workers will store three times as much 

 honey as a colony of 50,000. Then, when 

 the harvest comes, give the bees all the 

 room they can possibly use; don't let 

 them be crowded. If there is no crowd- 

 ing, one of the great causes of swarming 

 is done away with; and the less swarm- 

 ing at an out-apiary the better. The 

 third statement was plenty of honey. 

 What I mean by this is that the bees 

 should be left in the fall with plenty of 

 honey to winter them and to rear a large 

 force of bees to gather the harvest an- 

 other year. We have found that it is far 

 better to have old honey in the hives 

 when new honey conies, than to have 

 just enough, or not enough, which re- 

 sults in a few dead colonies. 



Now, to fulfill all the above require- 

 ments, a large hive, will, of cour.se, have 

 to be used. I want nothing smaller than 

 a lo-franie hive. We still use some three 

 hundred S-frame hives, but we have just 

 that many jnore than we want. In my 

 next I will give the management we use 

 during the honey-fiow. 



HUTTO, Texas, I'cbruary 26, 1900. 



X T K I ) U C I N G QUEENS 15 ^■ 

 rSING TOBACCO SMOKE. 15 V 

 E. A. JOHNSON. 

 Vou ask how I introduce queens 

 with tobacco smoke; I give it with pleas- 

 ure; only let me say that I am indebted 

 to Ilenr^' .A.lley for my systetn. 



Make a swarm queenless three days be- 

 fore )'Ou expect the queen to arrive, at the 

 same time destroying any cells that you 

 find. When the queen arrives, after the 

 sun goes down, take a small Bingham 

 smoker, put in a small bunch of excelsior, 

 light from the top, then put in a good 

 pipeful! of Virginia natural leaf tobacco. 

 When I don't have the above, I use Bull 

 Durham, a granulated tobacco, costing 

 65 cents a pound. After putting the 

 tobacco on the e.xcelsior, put on the top 

 of the smoker, and, as soon as I get a 

 faint odor of tobacco, I blow in at the en- 

 trance one good puff, or two small ones. 

 I wait for all bees to run in; in from one 

 to three minutes some will return, then, 

 with a small puff, I send them back, open 

 the hive quite roughly, remove the honey- 

 board, and, with a small puflf of smoke 

 send them down. I then take the queen 

 cage remove the tacks from wire, raise the 

 wire, and let the queen run in on top of 

 the center frames. Should she go down 

 at once, I follow her with a slight puff of 

 tobicco. Should she take wing, I renmin 

 where I can watch the alighting-board 

 and frames. She will return inside of five 

 minutes. Should she start to run in at 

 the entrance, I pick her up and put her 

 on the frames. I find it a good plan to 

 just blow a whilT from the smoker over 

 the cage before relea.sing the queen. I 

 then cover the hive, and the only atten- 

 tion I give for three days is to feed a ])int 

 of svrup each night froin the inside of 

 hive. This is trty esse'itial. 



In half to three-quarters of an hour 

 from the time I releaseil the queen I re- 

 light the smoker, putting in tobacco as 

 b^'fore. and blow in at the entrance two 

 or three good puffs. 



I hope this method is clear to you, for 

 it is safe to gamble on 99 safe introduc- 



