1910 



ULEAXINCiS IN B1:K C"L LTURE 



■ir, 



Conversations with 

 Doolittle 



At Borodino 



CERTAINTY IN QUEEN INTRODUCTION. 



'■ I sent $10.00 for a special breeding queen. 

 Now, have you any certain way of safely in- 

 troducing a queen which has come on a 

 long journey by mail?" 



"The formula for introduction which comes 

 with the cage and queen will answer very 

 well where a man is buying from 10 to 100 

 untested queens, as the loss which occurs in 

 using it is generally not large enough to pay 

 for the extra work made by the absolutely 

 safe introduction phins; but I had rather 

 spend half a day on a very valuable queen 

 than to run the risk with the ordinary in- 

 structions coming with the queen. 



If you are willing to have the breeder in a 

 nucleus, which many feel is best, then make 

 a cage out of very thin wood and wire cloth, 

 or of tin and wire cloth, large enough to 

 take two of your regular-sized frames, and 

 at the same time small enough so it will go 

 into the hive and take the place of two 

 frames. This is quite easily done where 

 bright tinned wire cloth is soldered on tin 

 ends and bottom. To this cage should be 

 fitted a bee-tight cover. With the cage, go 

 to any colony which can spare them, and 

 get two frames of rijie brood — so ripe that 

 you can see many young bees gnawing their 

 way out from the cells. Shake and brush 

 e\ ery bee off these combs and hang them 

 in your cage. Now, before a window in a 

 tight room, so if the queen should fly you 

 can not lose her, open the mailing-cage and 

 l)ut her and the retinue of bees which came 

 with her in the cage with the combs of 

 emerging brood. Put on the cage cover, all 

 secure, and hang this cage in any strong 

 colony, letting it take the place of two 

 frames, which, if they have brood in them, 

 can be put where you took the two from 

 which are in the cage. Now leave the cage 

 for from three to five days, when, an hour 

 or so before sunset, brush every bee off the 

 outside and carry it to the hive where you 

 wish the nucleus to stand, and hang it in 

 this hive. Now carefully remove the cover 

 and take out the frames of brood, placing 

 them next one side of the hive, adjusting a 

 dummy so it will make a little hive the size 

 of the two combs. Fix the entrance at the 

 opposite side of the hive from where the nu- 

 cleus is, and put on the hive cover, allowing 

 the few bees adhering to the cage to crawl 

 out and go on the combs with the others at 

 their leisure. In a week or so give this little 

 colony another frame of ripe brood, and you 

 • will have a nice prosperous little colony 

 from which you can secure larvae for queen- 

 rearing as often as you wish, unless you 

 raise queens by the thousand." 



"Why do you have the entrance on the 

 opiK)site side of the hive from the nucleus? " 



"So as to prevent robbing. In all my 



years of experience with nuclei, I never 

 knew of a single nucleus being robbed out 

 when established in this way. And very 

 often, where rolibing has started on a nu- 

 cleus having its entrance right in front of 

 the combs it contains, I have stopped it by 

 changing the entrance, so to speak, by shov- 

 ing the combs over to the oi)posite side and 

 putting the dummy next to thejn. In this 

 way the bees from the nucleus go and come 

 from the same place they have always done, 

 and easily learn to travel across the bottom 

 of the hive to their combs, so they are not 

 bewildered as they would be by changing 

 the entrance instead of the combs. A rob- 

 ber bee does not Uke to travel over a long 

 si)ace where there is danger of being grabbed 

 by sentinels strung all the way." 



"The combs of ripe brood should have 

 honey enough in them to keep the little 

 colony in good heart while in the cage; and 

 when put in the hive, if there is not enough 

 to make them i)rosperous a frame of honey 

 should be set in next to the side of the hive, 

 not next to the dummy. By thus setting, 

 we put the honey this much further away 

 from robbers, for they must pass clear 

 through the little colony to get it. 



"If you wish to introduce a valuable 

 queen to a full colony of bees, take their 

 queen away early in the forenoon, or long 

 enough before so the bees will miss her pres- 

 ence a little before sunset, at which time 

 take all the frames of brood and honey from 

 the hive, and put in a division-board feeder 

 full of feed. This feed is jireferable made of 

 granulated sugar, but extracted honey will 

 answer. Set this feeder away from one of 

 the side walls of the hive about the space of 

 two frames, and with a bent wire hang the 

 shipping-cage containing the queen and her 

 escorts so the cage will come two or three 

 inches from the back side of the hive and 

 midway between the feeder and the side op- 

 posite it. Or it is just as well to put two 

 empty frames in this sjjace between the 

 feeder and the side of the hive, allowing the 

 caged queen to hang between them, down 

 two or three inches from the top-bars. Be- 

 fore putting in the caged queen, uncover the 

 candy, as per the directions accompanying 

 the cage; and when all is ready, cover the 

 hive. Now shake and brush all the bees off 

 their combs down in front of the entrance 

 to their old home, into which they will at 

 once run; and, if done near sunset, few will 

 take wing during the commotion which will 

 soon commence when they find out the 

 changed condition. They will run over the 

 hive for two or three hours; but before morn- 

 ing settle down to the conclusion that they 

 can not find their old queen or combs, clus- 

 tering about the cage and new queen. The 

 combs of beeless brood may be given in an 

 upper story to another colony to care for 

 during the next two days, or until the queen 

 is out, and has commenced to lay in the 

 comb which will be built from the food in 

 the feeder when their old combs should be 

 given back to them after the feeder and two 

 frames are removed. 



