1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



599 



jelly; but I don't think any larva? will make as 

 good queens as the ones a day old. I think I 

 shall experiment a little by transferring larvie 

 of about the same age as the one imbedded In 

 the cup, say after it has been fed two days. 

 With the wax-cup plan I often take the head 

 of a wire nail and insert it into cups of royal 

 ielly. and smear the bottom of new cups that 

 nave not hung in a hive, for the bees to glaze, 

 and place the larva in it. and the bees generally 

 accept about the same percentage. 



Now, friend Root, all of our plans will work 

 well when honey is coming in freely; but when 

 the season is over, and we have to rear queens 

 out of season, as I do the year round, we had 

 better have a true and tried plan. I buy black 

 and hybrid colonies every year when I can get 

 them; but I supplant the queens as soon as pos- 

 sible, or make nuclei of them. If I have any 

 drones in them I transfer them and place an 

 empty hive at the bottom, with a queen-exclud- 

 er on it. and above that another empty hive to 

 receive the combs. I then cage the queen and 

 shake all the bees ott' in front of the hive, and 

 put the frame into the top hive, and then 

 place the queen on top of the frames, cover them 

 up, and the next morning remove the bottom 

 hive, after stopping it up so that no drones can 

 get out, and then we can have a drone-killing 

 or drone-perishing, as suits the fancy. 



This is the poorest season we have ever passed 

 through here. I am glad to see encouraging 

 reports, even if I am noi in it. To tell the rea- 

 son would make this article too long; so I will 

 write some other time and tell how I manage 

 my bees and qveen-rearing department during 

 a poor season. 



VIRGIN vs. LAYING QUEENS FOR GOING 

 THROUGH PERFORATED ZINC. 



I will answer Dr. Miller with regard to virgin 

 queens going through excluders, that laying 

 queens, even if they can go through, are not 

 disposed to do so. My experience is, that a 

 virgin queen that hatches in an upper story 

 without brood, and, better, unsealed brood, will, 

 as a rule, find her way through the excluder, 

 and in a few days a tine laying queen will be 

 supplanted. I lost two or three very fine queens 

 this year that way. It nearly always happens 

 that, when a young queen happens to hatch 

 among the bees, she kills the old one; which 

 proves to me that queens do not always depend 

 on the bees to do the killing. I am surprised at 

 the two queens being alive when they arrived 

 at your place. They would always fight when 

 they got together, for me. I am always careful 

 not to expose them to each other. Last year I 

 had an imported queen which you ordered for 

 me. She was introduced safely into a colony 

 that I had had at cell -building. She had begun 

 to lay, and in a day or two I opened the hive to 

 take a peep at her. The first thing I saw was a 

 nice little virgin queen. I was satisfied, with- 

 out looking any further, that my imported queen 

 was killed, and. sure enough, I found her on the 

 bottom-board, apparently very recently killed. 

 If a virgin queen gets into a colony of bees with 

 a laying queen, the bees will do the work; but 

 when the queen is hatched in the hive, and has 

 been crawling about among them for two or 

 three days, she will nearly always kill the old 

 queen. 1 think that, perhaps, the old queen 

 can squeeze through as small an opening as a 

 young one; but they will not make such persis- 

 tent efforts. .1. 1). FOOSHE. 



Coronaca, S. C, July s. 



[We will explain to our readers, that Mr. 

 Fooshe is our Southern queen-breeder; and 

 while his name does not appear in the adver- 

 tising columns, nevertheless he is one who I'ears 

 the larger portion of the queens we sell early 



in the season, and a considerable number later 

 on. When it comes to the rearing of untested 

 queens we find that our Southern breeders can 

 rear them cheaper than we can here in the 

 North.] 



^ — I ^ 



WILLIE ATCHLEY. 



THE MOST EXTENSIVE QUEEN-BREEDING BOY 

 APIARIST IN THE WORLD. 



The subject of this sketch was born in Sparta, 

 White Co., Tenn., Nov. ;.'2, 1876. and came with 

 his parents to Texas in the fall of 1877. He 

 walked across the house at the age of eight 

 months. At the age of five years he drove a 

 delivery-wagon to any part of the city of 

 Dallas. He has been brought up in the bee- 

 yards, and does not know when he learned to 

 manage bees, but has grown into the business. 

 He is to-day, so far as we know, the best queen- 

 raiser of his age in the world, and the best 



WII.LIE ATCHLEY. 



posted in bee culture of any boy of his age. It 

 is a knotty question indeed that he can not 

 properly answi^r about bees. He has raised 

 thousands and thousands of queens, and by all 

 the methods known to most bee-keei)ers. He 

 says he liked the Doolittle plan better than 

 any thing else up to this present season, but he 

 has discovered a new plan that he likes better 

 than any yet tried. He says that the Alley 

 plan is no surer way to get cells than the Doo- 

 little way. as neither is a fast and sure way; 

 but at certain seasons he can get the bees to 

 accept and finish up nearly all the cells by the 



