144 



American ^ae Journal 



May, igo8. 



»^^^ I 



] am now persuaded that inasmuch as I 

 don't want so much increase, a lo-frame 

 hive will suit my present ideas and loca- 

 tion better. Formerly T was led to be- 

 lieve that the 8-frame hive was the ideal 

 hive for section honey ; that it afforded 

 sufficient room for the queen, and the 

 workers began business in the super 

 sooner, and by the ticring-up system the 

 colony was kept busy throughout the 

 season, and with a fair flow a good har- 

 vest was the result. 



Reversible Bottom-Board. 



I have also observed that the reversi- 

 ble bottom-board used as its inventor in- 

 tended is fraught with too much back- 

 ache in lifting a heavy colony off so as 

 to turn it upside down. Instead of that 

 I use it with the wide entrance down 

 to a of an inch by taking a strip of 

 board 2 inches wide and as long as the 

 hive is wide (inside measurement) and 

 drive a small nail in the edge at each 

 end, leaving y^ of an inch of the nail 

 projecting, and adjust this to the en- 

 trance. This has the advantage of con- 

 tracting the entrance for the winter 

 without the labor of lifting the hive off 

 and then on. It also adds more room 

 below the frames for the accumulated 

 cuttings and dead bees. 



Queen's xJrones Affected by Mating? 



Pertaining to the question, "Are the 

 queen's drones aifected by her mat- 

 ing?" Turning back to my notes, I find 

 that in July, 1904, I received from a re- 

 liable dealer a tested Italian queen of the 

 red clover strain, and her workers for 

 that season were well marked, and in 

 every way were fine bees, but no drones 

 that season. But the following season I 

 had occasion frequently to open her 

 hive, looking for queen-cells (as I was 

 using her for my breeder), and I ob- 

 served that while most of her drones 

 were light colored and well marked, yet 

 quite a few of them were dark leather 

 colored, and some almost black, yet 

 showing the Italian blood, and quite a 

 few had red heads. The latter mark- 

 ing I had never before obesrevd. At 

 first I was inclined to doubt her purity, 

 but her workers remained as at first — 

 3 full-banded and bright. I carefully 

 examined the rest of the colonies (all 

 Italian) but found in none of them any 

 such variety of markings, and there is 

 not another yard within 10 miles of me, 

 although there are some bees in the 

 woods near. So I just let the incident 

 pass for future thought if occasion 

 called it up. 



Worker-Bee in a Queen-Cell. 



But in conclusion I wish to make note 

 of one observation that has puzzled me 

 quite a little. During the past season, 

 in my rounds among the bees, when- 

 ever I found in my best colonies a ripe 

 queen-cell, I cut it out and put it in the 

 nursery, and wlien hatched I put the vir- 

 gin elsewhere. On one occasion I had 

 one that had remained 2 or 3 days over 

 what I thought was its time, so I cut 

 it open to see what the trouble was. 

 Instead of a queen, I found a dead 

 worker-bee fully matured, and in the 

 same position that it would be had it 

 crawled in to feed the larva — head to- 

 wards the base of tlic cell. In every 

 other respect the cell was empty. Now 



the question that I would like to ask 

 Dr. Miller, or any of the "old boys" is, 

 How did that worker-bee come to be 

 sealed up in that queen-cell? Do bees 

 play pranks on each other as some of us 

 old fellows did when we were boys the 

 first time? Was that bee a mischievous 

 rascal ? and when caught in that cell by 

 its comrades, did they hasten to seal it 

 up? Is it a common occurrence that I 

 have just stumbled upon? 

 Trout Lake, Wash. 



Two Queens in One Hive 



BY J. E. HAND. 



It is evident from the nature of the 

 argument that has been advanced in op- 

 position to the plural queen system, that 

 this system is not well understood by 

 those who consider themselves suffi- 

 ciently qualified to criticise it. There- 

 fore it is the purpose of this article to 

 explain a few of the conditions under 

 which this system is not only possible, 

 but profitable, as well as highly desirable. 



In discussing matters pertaining to 

 apiculture sufficient allowance should be 

 made for the location and environments 

 of the writer of an article. Viewing 

 the two-queen system from the stand- 

 point of the deep-frame hive, with its 

 slow and tedious methods of frame- 

 handling, it is doubtful if it could be 

 made a complete success. However, it 

 should require little argument to prove 

 to the bee-keeper of average intelligence 

 the many advantages ofifered by this sys- 

 tem when used in connection with the 

 improved sectional hive, with its rapid 

 system of hive manipulation. 



Bee-keeping as a pursuit is progress- 

 ing, and bee-keepers are beginning to 

 realize the necessity of employing short- 

 cut, labor-saving methods. Twenty-five 

 years ago rural electric lines, rural tele- 

 phones and rural mail delivery, were 

 unknown ; today the face of the coun- 

 try is a network of electric and telephone 

 lines, and every rural district has free 

 mail delivery. 



The bee-keeper of today, who advo- 

 cates the slow-going methods of a quar- 

 ter of a century ago is fast becoming a 

 'back number. As the horse-car has 

 given way to electricity, so the old 

 methods of handling, brushing, and in- 

 terchanging of frames singly, must soon 

 give place to the more modern methods 

 of rapid manipulation by hives. 



W. Z. Hutchinson, the veteran bee- 

 keeper of Michigan, sounds the key-note 

 to successful bee-keeping in three words, 

 "Keep more bees." 



Louis Scholl, the eminent Texas spe- 

 cialist, goes farther, and tells us that we 

 can keep twice as many bees with a 

 given amount of labor by employing 

 rapid methods of liive-manipulation. 



The exhortation to keep more bees is 

 but a hollow mockery unless coupled 

 with the advocacy of those methods that 

 will enable us to do it. 



To whom is the exhortation to keep 

 more bees given if not to those bee- 

 keepers who arc wasting time in the use- 

 less handling, brushing and interchang- 

 ing of frames singly? It makes no dif- 

 ference how many colonies you are now 

 keeping, if you are handling frames sing- 

 ly you are wasting time that could he 

 put to better use in keeping more bees. 



The chief obstacle in the way of suc- 

 cessful comb-honey production in the 

 North has been the difficulty of get- 

 ting all our colonies up to the desired 

 strength in time for the harvest; this 

 obstacle is entirely over^come by the use 

 of the two-queen system, and every col- 

 ony in the apiary is ready to begin work 

 in the sections at the beginning of the 

 honey-flow, which means a uniform yield 

 per colony for the entire apiary, with no 

 weak and unproductive colonies. Mr. 

 Dadant's statement tliat the queen is of 

 more value than anything else connected 

 with the colony is literally true. Does 

 not this prove that a plurality of queens 

 increases the value of a colony? A 

 queen may easily be worth ten dollars, 

 and is not the bee-keeper making money 

 who can rear such a queen at practically 

 no expense save for a little time and a 

 little talent ? 



It is evident that the opponents of the 

 two-queen system are not up to modern 

 methods of queen-rearing, or they would 

 not attempt to magnify the difficulties 

 and cost of rearing an extra queen for 

 each hive. That there is no excellence 

 without labor is as true of bee-keeping 

 as it is of everything else. 



Mr. Dadant discourses at considerable 

 length upon the difficulties of rearing 

 queens early enough in the season to 

 produce workers in time for the harvest, 

 and the echo is resounded in an editorial 

 in the Review. It should be remembered 

 that such queens are reared at the close 

 of the harvest, and carried over winter 

 in a single division of the sectional hive. 



It has been found more profitable to 

 run our bees upon the two-queen system 

 of swarm control, and at the close of 

 the harvest make our increase at a time 

 when there is nothing for the bees to do, 

 and every colony in the apiary can well 

 spare one division of their hive with 

 brood and bees for this purpose. The 

 young queen is reared in the top division 

 and begins to lay before it is removed. 

 The old queen is not disturbed in the 

 least, and there are still two divisions 

 of the brood-chamber left. 



In the spring the little colonies are 

 again placed upon the others, with a 

 queen-excluder and a wire-screen be- 

 tween ; a flight-hole is provided for the 

 little colony, and after the brood-nests 

 are well established the wire-screen is re- 

 moved, giving tile bees free access to 

 both queens. When we consider that 

 these young queens are reared from our 

 choicest breeders, it is easy to see the 

 value of this system by way of improv- 

 ing our stock. 



The claim that one queen will lay 

 more eggs than a colony can care for 

 amounts to but little in the face of the 

 fact that if a weak colony is placed upon 

 a strong one the combined heat of the 

 two, with the additional force of nurses, 

 will enable the weak colony to rear as 

 much brood as the strong one. 



Again, the t\yo queen system is a safe 

 guarantee against the loss of a crop 

 of honey, by having the colony thrown 

 into an abnormal condition at the be- 

 ginning of harvest by the failure of the 

 queen, which would be fatal to comb- 

 honey production. 



The difficulties of introducing another 

 queen at the risk of losing one of them 

 are purely imaginary, since no introduc- 

 tion is necessary, and therefore no such 



