1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



the other board, they will spring out a little. 

 When you nail up the wrong way, the drawing 

 power is the wrong way; or, at least, it does not 

 restore the tenons to the tight contact that ex- 

 isted under the blows of the hammer while the 

 dovetails were being pounded together. 



Perhaps I can not explain to you tlieoretically 

 •why there is a difference; but there is a differ- 

 ence in practice, for we have tried both ways in 

 our shop. While I do not wish at all to criticise 

 your nailing, I observed that, where the nails 

 were put through as they should be at the 

 center of the boards, they drew the board up 

 tight at that point; but near the outside edges 

 there was a slight gap on nearly all that I ex- 

 amined, and now and then a split tenon. 



I see now that I did not make myself entirely 

 clear, and did not emphasize the most important 

 feature; namely, the drawing power when the 

 nails are put in the " right way.'"— Ed.] 



r~— 'ANSWERS TO 0-— ^ 



BY G.M.DOOLITT LE.BOROOINO.N .Y. 



'■"'""" '■"' ■■I'lMiiimiyiiiiiMii i.mni 



RAISING QUEENS. 



Question. — I attempted twice to raise queens 

 over zinc excluders, according to your book, 

 tiering up until queen -cells were started to get 

 royal jelly, which was put into cell-cups, and 

 larvae transferred into these; but the bees re- 

 fused to accept them. In looking a day or two 

 afterward I found in both cases that the bees 

 had removed the larvw and royal .jelly, and had 

 slightly rounded the edges of the cell-cups. 

 Every thing was done according to directions 

 to the best of my ability. Where does the fault 

 lie— with me or the bees? 



Answer. — It is a singular fact that about one 

 out of every fifty who try the plan of rearing 

 queens as given in my book make an entire 

 failure of it. Of the other 49 who try, forty re- 

 port a perfect success, while the other nine are 

 puzzled and perplexed over their not being able 

 to do better than to secure from one to three 

 perfect queens out of every lot of cell -cups 

 tried. But while this is so, there is one thing 

 worth mentioning, which is, that the longer 

 those who have poor success try the plan the 

 better they succeed. If I am correct, the editor 

 of Gleanings had poor success when he first 

 tried to raise queens this way, but afterward 

 made a success of it. From the above I am 

 compelled to say that the fault, when a failure 

 occurs, must be in the operator, for, so far as I 

 am aware, bees behave very much the same, 

 whether it be in York State, Pennsylvania, 

 Florida, Texas, California, Canada, Europe, or 

 Australia, as I have reports of perfect success 

 and also of failures from all the places men- 

 tioned, and from many others also. If any man 

 or woman makes a perfect success of the plan 

 in Pennsylvania (where the asker of the ques- 

 tion resides), should not another make the same 

 success providing he did exactly the same 

 thing? As forty out of fifty do make a perfect 



success with the plan, it would look as if those 

 who make a partial or entire failure in the 

 matter failed in some respect to work in all the 

 minuti;e of the matter in the same way the suc- 

 cessful ones do. As I mistrust tliat more fail in 

 the matter of the transferring of the larvie than 

 anywhere else, I am constrained to give the 

 fullest possible directions in this matter. To 

 those who have not succeeded I would say, 

 wait about trying again till swarming-time, 

 then take some of the queen-cells which the 

 bees have prepared, from the hive, taking such 

 as have plenty of royal jelly in them; and, after 

 having removed the larv;B occupying these 

 cells from the royal jelly, transfer larvie from 

 your select breeding queen to the royal jelly 

 left just as you removed the original larvas 

 from it. Three days previous to this prepare a 

 colony by removing its queen, and at the time 

 you transfer the larva? take all of the brood 

 from it, giving it or allowing it to have three or 

 four frames of honey or combs two-thirds or 

 more filled with honey, as given in one of the 

 earlier chapters of my book. Now place these 

 cells on a stick by dipping the bases in melted 

 wax, or stick them on the sides of the combs al- 

 ready in the hive, a la Willie Atchley, when 

 you will place them in thisqueenless and brood- 

 less colony for perfecting. If this is a success 

 you may know that there is no trouble on your 

 part in the transferring process; but should it 

 not prove successful you may rest assured that 

 you killed the larvie in some way in manipulat- 

 ing them; for a queenless and broodless colony, 

 fixed as above described, will raise a queen from 

 any eggs or larv* which have any vitality in 

 them. If you succeed here, try the same natu- 

 ral cells in the upper story of a liered-up colony; 

 and, if I am not greatly mistaken, you will suc- 

 ceed here also, unless you try in early spring or 

 late at fall, which you can not well do if you 

 take cells from swarming colonies. If you suc- 

 ceed with these swarming-cells, and can not 

 with the cell-cups, then you may know that 

 there is some mistake in your manipulation of 

 the royal jelly, or else the wax used in forming 

 the cell-cups is offensive to the bees, or not 

 fashioned as it should be in some way. To find 

 out which of these is the cause of failure, in- 

 stead of using royal jelly, transfer the larvte to 

 the cell -cups by the Willie Atchley plan of re- 

 moving cocoon, larva}, and all, to the cell-cups. 

 If you now succeed you may know that the 

 trouble was in manipulating the jelly. If you 

 donotthen,thecell-cupsare atfault. If you have 

 made no success with any of your trials till you 

 transferred the larvaj by means of the cocoons, 

 then you may know that you handled the larvaj 

 in transferring in such a way that you killed 

 the same, and here is where you are to look for 

 the trouble. If you think that you failed in 

 handling the larva3, allow me a few sugges- 

 tions. 

 Make the point of the quill used in transfer- 



