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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. L 



M. Geremie, in Lc Frogres Apicole, gives 

 an account of experiments which he thinks 

 proves that the industry of a colony depends on 

 the queen. He had an industrious and a lazy 

 colony. He changed queens, and within a week 

 the two colonies changed character. So the 

 mere presence of the queen changed the be- 

 havior of the bees. 



Your guesswork, as you call it, on page .57.5, 

 friend Root, may overestimate, possibly. You 

 take the output of sections for 1892, and then 

 say the average should be larger, as 1892 was a 

 poor year. To be sure, it was a poor year ; but 

 the output of sections did not measure the crop, 

 for sections were made and ordered, in the 

 main, before any one knew any thing as to the 

 crop. Were not millions of those sections left 

 over till this year? 



I don't know for certain, but I think that a 

 pulled queen that is so young that it hasn't yet 

 got its full color is received more readily than 

 one that has become more mature. I suppose 

 they are sometimes imprisoned in the cell by 

 the bees two or three days, so that a pulled 

 queen may not be so very young. If your 

 queen has some age, then the bees to receive 

 her must be longer queenless, while a very 

 green queen will be accepted, for a time at 

 least, in a colony having a laying queen. 



CUTTING QUEEN-CELLS. 



CELL-CUTTING, IF THOROUGHLY DONE, A SURE 

 PREVENTIVE OF AFTER-SWARMING, AC- 

 CORDING TO DOOLITTLE. 



In "Stray Straws" for July 1 I find these 

 words: "Cutting queen-cells, it is certain, can 

 not be relied on as a preventive of swarming; 

 but it is equally certain that the practice has a 

 tendency to delay and in some cases entirely 

 prevent it." I should like to ask the doctor 

 what is meant by " swarming," as used by him 

 in this straw. If he means the kind of swarm- 

 ing that we sometimes have in early spring, 

 then I would say that it "can not be relied 

 upon," for in such swarming the bees never 

 prepare or leave any queen-cells, hence there 

 are none to cut. Of all the swarming that ever 

 comes to any apiary, this swarming of discon- 

 tent, often carried on to the extent of one-fourth 

 to one-half of the whole apiary, is the most 

 disastrous and hardest to overcome of any 

 swarming the bees ever do. With no queen- 

 cells to cut, and no way of successfully stopping 

 such swarming that I know of, the bee-keeper 

 is nearly or quite helpless in the matter. Next, 

 if Dr. M. meant after-swarms, of which nature 

 gives more in number than of all other swarms 

 put together, then I should like to ask him 

 when he found out that the cutting of queen- 

 cells could "not be relied on" to prevent it. 

 I am well aware that the way queen-cells are 

 generally cut " has a tendency to delay" after- 

 swarms, and it ^Iso has a tendency not only to 

 delay but to increase the number which will 

 issue. The usual plan is to wait six days after 

 the first or prime swarm issues, when the hive 

 is to be opened, and all of the queen-cells ex- 

 cepting one cutoff, when it is claimed no more 

 swarms will issue. After trying this plan for 

 several years I found it worked just exactly as 

 a bee-keeper told me a few days ago it did with 

 him this year. He said he had usually hived 

 these after-swarms in boxes about the parent 

 colony till the old colony had stopped swarm- 

 ing, when he dumped all together in the old 

 hive, letting the young queens fight it out, 

 when they would go on and work well; and if 

 at a suitable time in the honey harvest when 

 this was done, such colonies would do good 



business, giving a surplus of honey. While he 

 was thus doing, another bee-keeper came along 

 and told him that, if he would cut all the 

 queen-cells but one on the sixth day he would 

 have no more trouble hiving after-swarms in 

 boxes about the parent colony. Ofl'ering to 

 show him how, they opened a hive which had 

 swarmed six days before, and bee-keeper No. 3 

 cut all the cells but one. At the usual time no 

 swarm issued, and bee-keeper No. 1 thought he 

 had learned something of value; but when the 

 16th, 17th, and 18th days arrived after the issue 

 of the prime swarm, he found he had more 

 swarms from hives thus treated than from 

 those not touched at all. He said that the bees 

 built queen-cells over tne larvtt still left in the 

 hive, that was of an age at which it could be 

 converted into a queen; destroyed the cell or 

 the queen from it after she had hatched, which 

 was left in cutting cells; and as the bees had 

 become strong in numbers before the queens 

 matured from the newly built cells, the bees 

 would swarm till the old hive was so depopu- 

 lated that it would not build up for winter 

 unless helped by the apiarist. 



I have put before the readers of Gleanings 

 what he said, as it so nearly described what I 

 used to find to be a fact that I could not do bet- 

 ter if I tried. I have often wondered how long 

 it would take to teach bee-keepers throughout 

 the world that such cutting of cells was a fail- 

 ure and worse than a failure. But there is a 

 way of cutting queen-cells so as to entirely pre- 

 vent after-swarms, which has stood the test of 

 years with me. It is this : Wait eight days 

 after the prime swarm issues, then cut all the 

 cells but one, and you have a sure thing of it, 

 as, in this case, all of the larvte are past the 

 age of being converted into queens. But the 

 way I prefer, and the one I practice, is this: 



On the evening of the eighth day, just before 

 going to bed, all outside noise being hushed at 

 this time, I listen a moment with my ear at the 

 side of the hive which cast a swarm that long 

 ago; and if the young queen has hatched, and 

 the bees have concluded to send out an after- 

 swarm, I hear the piping of the young queen, 

 which always precedes the issue of an after- 

 swarm. If I hear this piping, I open the hive 

 early the next morning and cut off every queen- 

 cell which is found, shaking off the bees from 

 each frame in front of the entrance, so that no 

 cells will be missed. There is now no guess- 

 work or hope so about it. but a sure thing, as 

 one queen has hev liberty and you take away 

 all the rest. In all other ways there is a possi- 

 bility that the cell left may not hatch, in which 

 case the colony will be queenless; but in this 

 case we know that there is a young queen 

 present, for we heard her say so the night pre- 

 vious. If no piping is heard when we listen, 

 then listen again the next night, and so on to 

 the night of the sixteenth day; and if no piping 

 is heard then, we may know the bees have con- 

 cluded not to send out any after-swarm. 



This seems like quite an undertaking; but. 

 let me say to the reader, that, in practice, it is 

 not half the work required by the old plans, 

 considering the certainty there is in it. But I 

 think I hear Dr. Miller saying, " You ought to 

 know that I meant neither of these kinds of 

 swarming. I meant the prime swarm." Well, 

 this being so I accept the statement as true, 

 but wish to add that I believe much honey is 

 lost which might have been secured had the 

 bees been allowed to swarm when they got 

 ready, instead of throwing them out of a nor- 

 mal condition by cutting cells, and then having 

 them swarm at last under conditions not so 

 favorable for a crop of surplus honey as would 

 have been had they been let alone. 



Borodino, N. Y. G. M. Doolittle. 



