600 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1. 



Doolittle method. He says that the bees will 

 destroy just about as many of the eggs and lit- 

 tle larva? of the Alley plan as they will fail to 

 accept of the Doolittle plan; and having so 

 many cells to start, and at times when they 

 were most needed, the bees would not save as 

 many as he wished. So he has been all this 

 year working to get a better way, and has 

 found it. His own description is as follows: 

 Mks. Jennie Atchley. 

 Dip the cells the same as by the Doolittle 

 way, but leave the lower end of the cell-dipping 

 stick the same size as the bottom of a worker- 

 cell, an eighth of an inch; then let the stick be 

 the size of the inside of a natural queen-cell up, 

 say, about half an inch, like the cut. Now dip 



WILLIE ATCHLEY'S CELL- CUP STICK. 



the cells and it will leave a little hole in the 

 bottom of the cell-cup an eighth of an inch 

 deep. Now have your breeder lay in a comb 

 that bees have hatched in; two or three limes 

 is best; and when the eggs begin to hatch" into 

 larviB, say when about 10 to 24 hours old. then 

 cut out a piece containing as many larv» as 

 you think you will need. Take a knife as 

 sharp as a razor (I use a razor); pare down the 

 cells just as low as you can and not disturb the 

 larva. Now, just about as fast as you can 

 move your hands, lift out the cocoons and place 

 them in the bottom of the cell-cups in the little 

 pit made for them; and if your stick is made 

 just right, the cocoons will fit snugly enough to 

 stay firmly. 



When properly put in, the lining will just 

 come up even with the bottom of the cell-cup 

 proper. You see, the larva is not moved nor 

 touched, and will live several hours without 

 attention from the bees should they fail to see 

 to them at once; while by the Doolittle plan of 

 moving larva? and putting in royal jelly the 

 little larvie sometimes dry up befoi'e the bees 

 feed them, or they come so near starving that 

 they gel a setback which they never recover 

 from. I am getting as fine queens as I ever 

 saw by any process, and the bees always take 

 care of them better than by the Doolittle plan. 



Of course, I do not claim that the bees save 

 them all, as I have seen bees destroy part of 

 the cells that they had started naturally, so 

 they are going to have their own way about it; 

 but they save as many as two-thirds, and often 

 all, for me, by this method. You see. the food 

 the workers and queens eat is practically the 

 same for a while, and possibly all the time, for 

 aught I know; but the 'queen gets more of it, 

 and thicker, when she is old enough to use it. 

 So it makes no difference about the jelly; but I 

 try to get larv« that are well fed, as the bees 

 seem to like them better. I tried cutting out 

 the base or bottom of new comb, and placing in 

 cell-cups, but was not very successful; and, in 

 fact, I was puzzled to get tools sufficient to han- 

 dle my cocoons, till Mr. Root sent us some long 

 sharp-pointed tweezei'S to pull bee-stings with; 

 and you ought to have seen me jump and grab 

 them as soon as I espied what they were for. 

 We were not looking for the tweezers, as Mr. 

 Root had not told us he was sending them. 

 We now have four pairs of these tweezers, as we 

 ordered more from Mr. Root at once. 



I have combined the Alley plan, the Doolit- 

 tle plan, and my plan; and together I have the 

 best, fastest, and most scien'ific plan I ever 

 saw. Why I say I have combined all three is, 

 I take a colony of bees that have lots of young 

 bees, and take their brood all away, and keep 



them shut up on frames of honey, and no brood 

 or queen from 12 to 24 hours; then give them a 

 lot of my cell -cups placed on the combs by 

 sinking the cells into the comb enough to stay 

 firmly; and you ought to see them work them 

 out. I get better cells, need no royal jelly nor 

 cutting of strips of comb; and if you want to 

 try the best plan to raise queens, and lots of 

 them, send to A. I. Root at once and get you a 

 pair of tweezers that is already just right, as he 

 has every thing anyhow— at least, every thing 

 bee-keepers need; then go to work and raise 

 all the cells you want, and on a large scale, if 

 you wish, as, with bees enough, you can raise 

 any amount. Willie Atchley. 



Greenville. Texas, July 7. 



[Friend Willie has made a most important 

 and valuable improvement on the Doolittle 

 method. The actual improvement, however, 

 consists in the method of transferring the larva 

 and milky food without disturbing either; and 

 the idea of cutting down the cocoons to ^fi inch 

 deep, so as to pick up. by means of tweezers, 

 the little cups, as it were, containing larv;e and 

 milky food, and pushing them into the artificial 

 cup, is quite ingenious. Such an invention 

 (and it is practically such) would do honor to a 

 boy of very much older grov,tli. We have no 

 doubt that our friend Willie has had very much 

 more to do with queen-rearing than any other 

 boy of his age in the United States or any other 

 country. We are very glad indeed to make 

 his acquaintance, and hope he will let us hear 

 from him again, regarding any further devel- 

 opments respecting queen-rearing. 



The cell-cup stick, the one which Willie had 

 found by actual test to be just right, was for- 

 warded to us, and we instructed our engravers 

 to make a cut showing it full size, and as exact 

 a representation as it is possible to make. If 

 you wish to make cell-cup sticks like Willie 

 Atchley's, follow the engraving and you will 

 not get fax amiss. 



In regard to the tweezers, perhaps we should 

 say that we employed the Atchleys to extract 

 10,000 bf^e-stings. As we were short of bees 

 when the order came, we thought our friends 

 in the South could do it cheaper than we; and 

 it seems that Willie was given the task. On 

 one or two occasions we have done the work 

 here at the Home of the Honey-bees. Our 

 method, and the one that Willie followed, was 

 to take two pairs of tweezers — one with fine 

 points and the other with coarse. The opera- 

 tion of extracting the sting is as follows: The 

 bee is grasped by the thorax, with the coarse 

 tweezers. Just before the fine-pointed tweez- 

 ers pull the sting, the other pair crush the bee, 

 killing it instantly, and so on the operation is 

 continued. These 10,000 stings are made into a 

 medicine called apis yneUifica, and it is regard- 

 ed by the new school (homeopathic) as a very 

 useful and important medicine. It can be 

 obtained only by the means above described, by 

 an expert bee-keeper.] 



^ I ^ 



TREGO'S METHOD INDORSED. 



CAN THE NATUKE OF THE BEES THAT RAISE THE 



CELLS BE IMPAETED TO THE INMATES OF 



THEM? 



The plan of starting cells as Mr. Ti-ego de- 

 scribes, page 528, is old, but it's the best, ac- 

 cording to my judgment, there is. It goes far 

 ahead of the Doolittle plan of wax cups. I have 

 used this way ever since it was given out that 

 queens could be raised in the upper story over a 

 full colony, and with a laying queen present. 

 My way differs only in this respect from Mr. 

 T.'s: I do not take the trouble to transfer the 



