1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CL LTUKE 



357 



These boxes stood on end and had legs nail- 

 ed on the corners, and stood on these legs 

 seven inches from the ground. I have often 

 seen the bees pouring in and out of those 

 hives during the working season. I do not 

 remember having heard any complaint 

 about their not wintering well; but I do 

 know that, in my many professional visits 

 to this house I often observed the bees as 

 stated above. ( )f course these hives, being 

 something like ten inches square, and more 

 than twice that height inside, the bees had 

 an opportunity to retreat high up away from 

 the open end to winter. These were the 

 common old black bee, so it does not seem 

 necessary for bees under all conditions to be 

 closely boxed in. 

 White Hall, Illinois. 



[In times past we have had a number of 

 reports showing good wintering in box hives 

 with the bottom entirely open, or the sides 

 shaky and full of holes; but black bees in 

 box hives do die, so that we have not attach- 

 ed a great deal of importance to these excep- 

 tional cases. — Ed.] 



TWO TWO-YEAR-OLD QUEENS WINTERED 

 TOGETHER IN THE SAME HIVE. 



BY WM. A. STEWART. 



I usually buy a few queens in the fall to 

 supersede those that are more than two 

 years old, and any that have not done well. 

 Last fall 1 removed a very poor young queen 

 from a colony that had supersetled, and at 

 different times introduced two old rejected 

 queens that I had taken out of other colo- 

 nies. The experiment was rather an acci- 

 dent, for the first one was so hard to find we 

 thought she had been killed. 



On March 24 (a very warm day) we open- 

 ed this hive to look for brood to give to a 

 queenless colony, and on two adjacent frames 

 jf brood we found these two old clipped 

 queens. One of them was introduced in a 

 queenless hive, and in nine days she had 

 brood and eggs in three frames, while the 

 other queen was left to do business at the 

 old stand. So far as I have been able to 

 learn, this incident of two old queens win- 

 tering together is unique. 



Mr. Alexander, I believe, was not success- 

 ful in wintering a plurality of queens; and 

 Mr. Beuhne. of Australia '(i)age 1203, 190S), 

 separated old queens with excluders when 

 he put two in one hive. lie says, "You 

 musthaxe considerable difference in their 

 ages before they will work together." The 

 incident, however, suggests possibilities 

 worth following up. 



While I believe in superseding old queens, 

 as a usual thing I do not find that they have 

 any certain specified age for dying. For ex- 

 ample, this spring all of our fifty hives had 

 live bees in them, and only two were very 

 weak; but five were queenless. Of the miss- 

 ing queens, one had presided over her colo- 

 ny since September, 1906; two since June, 

 1908; one since .lune, 1909, and the other 



was a young queen supposed to have been 

 successfully introduced last fall. The only 

 queens we have that will be three years old 

 this summer are the two that wintered to- 

 gether. This is not a very good showing 

 for the age theory. Now, if we can find a 

 way to winter the two-year-old queens with- 

 out risking too many colonies, so that they 

 can be given to queenless colonies in the 

 spring, they will be about as valuable as 

 young ones, for they are likely to be super- 

 seded in the coming summer. 



If anyone has wintered old ones in plural- 

 ity, to give them another chance in the 

 spring, I should like to hear from him. The 

 nearest thing to it I find is from Elias Fox, 

 p. 42, 1908, who found two young queens of 

 the same age in a hive in the spring. 



Our bees were wintered on their summer 

 stands in Danzenbaker hives with a packed 

 super. They had been flying, and visiting 

 flowers (chickweed) for three days about 

 Thanksgiving. A month after, the two 

 queens were introduced, and flying again 

 four or five days the first week of March; al- 

 so, just before they were found, the bees had 

 been flying for about a week. They were 

 carrying pollen, and had about four frames 

 of brood, so that both queens and workers 

 had abundant opportunity to know all that 

 was going on in the hive. 



Elkin, Pa., April 8. 



BEE-KEEPING IN SOUTHERN MEXICO, 



CENTRAL AMERICA, AND SOUTH 



AMERICA. 



BY W. K. MORRISON. 



About how much would it cost to ship 

 honey from any one point in these countries 

 to the States, per cwt ? Are the common 

 black bees native to those countries? If 

 not, can these (Germans and Italians stand 

 the heat of the equator? Does foul brooti 

 exist in those countries? Most of the hard- 

 wood trees of the trojiics are good honey- 

 yielders, are they not? Are the swamp 

 lands of the tropics good honey countries? 

 In general the countries having the most 

 rainfall would yield the most honey, would 

 they not? How are the local markets in the 

 above countries? Do the natives of the 

 more uncivilized countries keep bees to 

 amount to any thing? Do you have a sup- 

 ply depot in any of those countries? Where 

 can I get more information along these 

 lines? Any information you can give me 

 will certainly be highly appreciated. 



Ida (irove, Iowa. Frank Damerow. 



In reply to the above I would say that 

 bee-keeping is profitable in certain i)arts 

 of Mexico and Central and South America, 

 but it varies very much, even in the course 

 of a few miles. Rainfall makes the differ- 

 ence. For example, in the small island of 

 I'orto Rico the rainfall in one locality is 

 about 150 inches per year, whereas it is not 

 more than oO in another locality not more 

 than 40 miles away. It is about the same 



