1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



561 



combs, and I am filling each super with 12 sec- 

 tions of comb and 13 with full sheets of foun- 

 dation, the combs having been all leveled up 

 evenly and smoothly on the handy comb- 

 leveler. 



Honey is now coming in here at a great rate, 

 as there 'are 100 acres of alsike within two 

 miles; and I have found cases in which the 13 

 sections of drawn combs were nearly filled with 

 honey in three days, without those with foun- 

 dation being touched at all. Clover is just 

 fairly opened. The basswoods are fairly bend- 

 ing with blossoms; and you need not laugh 

 when I tell you that it was my great modesty 

 that made me name 50 per cent as the measure 

 of my increased crop by having sections of 

 drawn and leveled combs in which the bees 

 could deposit their loads of nectar without 

 having to wait to build store combs, for I ex- 

 pect to increase ray crop fully 100 per cent ihis 

 year. When the basswood flow is over I will 

 takeoff all the supers; take out the finished 

 sections; extract the unfinished ones as I did 

 last year; but the empty combs will be imme- 

 diately leveled up and returned to the supers, 

 half comb and half foundation as before: and 

 the cases will then be returned to the hives, to 

 be filled with dark fall honey. This honey will. 

 at the end of the season, be extracted, and 

 either sold or reserved to feed the bees and 

 raise millions of workers for the next year's 

 white-honey flow. The empty combs will be 

 given to the bees after they are extracted, to 

 be cleaned of all honey. This will be done by 

 returning the combs to the supers; and then 

 some fine evening, when the bees are flying, set 

 the supers all out in the yard, without any 

 covers, so that the bees can get at them without 

 hindrance, and they will clean them all up by 

 night. In the evening, after all the bees have 

 gone home, the supers will all be removed 

 to the iron honey -house, where no bee can 

 enter, and no robbing will be excited. The 

 combs will then all be leveled up immediately, 

 as they work much nicer when fresh; they will 

 then be returned to the supers, and piled up as 

 high as I can reach, with a sheet of paper be- 

 tween each super, to be used next year in the 

 same way. to secure another big crop of that 

 orthodox luxury— white-comb honey. 



Forestville, Minn., June 3(5. B. Taylor. 



PULLED ftUEENS. 



DR. MILLER EXPLAINS WHAT THEY ARE. AND 



WHY HE PREFERS THEM TO QUEEN-CELLS, 



ETC.; A VALUABLE ARTICLE. 



On page .53ti. friend Root, you ask C. C. M., of 

 Illinois, to tell " C. C. M.. of Ohio," what a 

 "pulled" queen is. A pulled queen may be 

 made to play so important a part that I am 

 glad not only to tell what it is but to tell some 

 of the things about it that may bo of use to 

 others. When a colony prepares for swarming. 

 It is well known that a number of queen-cells 

 are starred; and about the time the first one is 

 sealed the swarm issues. I may say, by the 

 way, that I am saying this on genera) authority, 

 for my own experience is that bees oftener 

 swarm before any queen-cell is sealed. In any 

 case, after the swarm has issued, a second 

 swarm is likely to issue; and before this swaim 

 issues, piping and quahking may be heard. 



At the time of this piping and quahking. there 

 is a young queen at large in the hive, the one 

 that does the piping; and the queen or queens 

 thatqnahkin response are mature youngqueens 

 that have not yet left the cell, hut, would do so 

 at once if the coast wen- clear. They are. 

 perhaps, deterred from issuing from their cells 



by the fear of the piper, or, more likely, because 

 the workers that constantly surround the cell 

 drive them back whenever they attempt to 

 come out. You can take out a frame, pull off 

 these queen-cells, or pull the end off them, 

 releasing the queen, and such a queen is called 

 a " pulled " queen. 



It is well known that a young queen just 

 hatched may be put into any hive, and the 

 workers seem to pay very little attention to it. 

 I doubt, however, whether this is so unexcep- 

 tionally true as some seem to think A queen 

 just hatched may be put into a colony having a 

 laying queen, and may supersede her; but I am 

 sure -such will not be the case under all circum- 

 stances. Acting on the theory that young 

 queens would be kindly received, and assume 

 control anywhere, I tried one summer to 

 replace a large number of my old queens by 

 putting into the hives young queens just hatch- 

 ed, trusting that they would kill the old ones. 

 In at least some of the cases I found the young 

 queens all right for a day or two. but sooner or 

 later they all disappeared, and, if I remember 

 correctly, the thing was a failure in every 

 instance. 



If there had been no laying queen in the hive, 

 or one that for any reason the workers desired 

 to supersede, the result might have been differ- 

 ent. It is possible that the young queen gets 

 along on good terms with the workers till she 

 takes it into her head to make an attack on the 

 old queen, when the workers put her out of the 

 way. Still, I have known bees to attack a 

 young queen with no laying queen in the hive, 

 the laying queen having just been removed: 

 but generally, after annoying her somewhat, I 

 think they let her go. While a very young queen 

 will be accepted, at least for a time, almost any- 

 where, it is well known that a virgin queen 

 several days old is difficult to introduce. It 

 may be, then, that the difficulty of introducing 

 increases with age, and that a queen that has 

 been held in her cell by the workers for a day 

 or two is not so readily received by the bees as 

 one that has not yet attained sufficient age to 

 try to leave its cell. I am inclined to think 

 such is the case. 



At swarming time, when it is a common 

 thing to find ten or more queen -cells in every 

 hive from which a swarm has issued, the sup- 

 ply of pulled queens is likely to be greater than 

 the demand, so I have generally paid little atten- 

 tion to the appearance of the cells, but pulled 

 all indiscriminately; and if the queens were not 

 ripe enough it was an easy thing to throw 

 them away. To be serviceable, it is not nec- 

 essary to wait uniil a young queen is gnawing 

 its way out, nor till it is wi-ll colored. No mat- 

 ter how green-looking a queen is. if it is mature 

 enough to hold on to the comb and travel over 

 it, it will be all right. Younger than this, the 

 bees will drag it out, just as they would a dead 

 bee. 



In forming nuclei I think it much better to 

 give a pulled queen than to give a queen-cell. 

 It is less trouble. There is less risk; for there 

 are a good many cases, whatever may be the 

 reason, where a good-looking cell contains a 

 dead larva, and sometimes a dead queen that 

 looks fully matured. It saves time, for the cell 

 may be several days hatching. Besides, if 

 there be any advantage in having a young 

 queen raised in a full colony, and I think there 

 is, a pulled queen has thatadvantage to the full. 



A pulled queen is the quickest and easiest 

 cure for laying workers. vSo'far as I have tried 

 it, it is a sure thing. Just drop a pulled queen 

 on the comb among the brood, and that's all. 

 I believe that, if you try pulling queens, you 

 will not be sorry. C. C. Miller. 



Marengo, ill. 



