1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



257 



nursery when confined long that they ought to 

 have and do get in a nucleus. Nine-tenths of 

 my queens have been laatched in a nursery for 

 the past three years; but they do not remain 

 long in the nursery, but are introduced to 

 nuclei as fast as they emerge from the cells. 

 Many object to the use of the nursery on ac- 

 count of not being able to control the tempera- 

 ture or the amount of fire required to maintain 

 the proper heat. The nursery which I use 

 does not require more than five minutes of time 

 a week. The nursery is simply a live incuba- 

 tor I had built to order for hatching chickens; 

 but it was built with the view of hatching 

 queens also. The inside dimensions are 48x36x 

 13 inches. It has an automatic heat-regulator 

 attached by which the temperature can be ad- 

 justed to any desired degree; and, when once 

 adjusted, it needs no further attention whatever 

 for the entire season. Of course, the nursery 

 Is not an absolute necessity, but is such a con- 

 venience and saving of queens that, when you 

 have once availed yourself of its use, and have 

 learned to operate it thoroughly, you will never 

 do without it. 



Now, I know that there are queen-breeders 

 who once used the queen-nursery, but who do 

 not now use it. If I am not mistaken, some of 

 these parties complain about controlling the 

 temperature, and perhaps the most of them 

 have given up its use OQ this account; but this 

 is very easily overcome by means of a pair of 

 thermostatic bars to control the heat, which 

 can be purchased of almost any incubator man- 

 ufacturer. The pair I use, and which are very 

 simple, are sold by J. L. Campbell, of West 

 Elizabeth, Pa., ana cost $5.00. 



The advantages of a nursery are many. As 

 fast as queen-cells are sealed they can be plac- 

 ed therein, and be perfectly safe — no danger of 

 the bees tearing them down, as they will some- 

 times do when you have fifty or more cells in a 

 colony; or if a virgin queen gets into the hive 

 you will lose all your cells. Just imagine 

 losing all of your sealed cells, with dozens of 

 orders coming in daily! Then, too, you are 

 obliged at times to take care of cells when the 

 weather is too cool or otherwise unpleasant to 

 disturb the bees taking care of the eel s. 



POULTRY AND BEES. 



I see in an article by Mr. Ashley that he com - 

 bines poultry with bees. That is just what I 

 have been doing. In fact, I think that, with- 

 out the poultry, I should give up bees. That 

 large nursery I have told you about, with it I 

 hatch chickens in the winter and queen? n the 

 summer; so you see it is no dead property. The 

 chickens (or chicks, rather), when taken from 

 the incubator, are transferred to a brooder- 

 house 20xC)0, which is heated by hot-water pipes 

 under the brooder, where the little chicks go to 

 get warm. The temperature is kept at from 9.5 

 to 100 degrees; and, in fact, these chicks do not 



get outside of the building until ready for mar- 

 ket, which is when they weigh about IK to 2 

 lbs. each, when they are shipped to Chicago, 

 where they command a ready sale until the 

 middle of June, when they are shipped east in- 

 stead of west. 

 Bellevue, O., Jan. 27. 



PROOF OF A QUEEN'S PRESENCE. 



TIMES WHEN WE MUST SEE HER. 



By Emma Wilson. 



Mr. Wood, in his article on page 891, asks why 

 I wish to see the queen, and adds, " Proof of her 

 presence is all that I want ; " and the editor, in 

 a footnote, says, " I never think of looking for a 

 queen (and I don't suppose Miss Wilson or the 

 doctor does either) when I have seen one good 

 comb with brood and eggs properly distributed." 



I beg pardon, but T still plead guilty that I 

 very often wish to see the queen, even when I 

 have positive proof that there is a good one in 

 the hive. In the spring, before there is any pos- 

 sibility of swarming, we wautto see every queen 

 we have in our apiaries, for the reason that we 

 want them all clipped; and although our rec- 

 ord-book may give the record " q. cl." (queen 

 clipped) we often find an undipped queen in a 

 colony the first time it is overhauled in the 

 spring, showing quite conclusively that the 

 bees do very often supersede their queens after 

 the honey-harvest. 



Another reason that I wish to see the queen 

 is, that it very often happens that we wish to 

 take a frame of brood and the adhering bees 

 from one colony and give to another. In that 

 case the first thing that I would do would be to 

 find their queen and set her to one side until I 

 could select the brood and bees that I wish to 

 take. After removing what I wish to take from 

 the colony I would return their queen. I never 

 want to run any risk of taking her away, and in 

 no way can I feel perfectly sure that I am not 

 taking her away unless I see her. 



Another reason for seeing queens is, that you 

 may wish to requeen a colony, even when the 

 queen is doing excellent work. I have in mind 

 a case of that kind just now. In the Hastings 

 apiary we had a colony of very strong and good 

 workers; but they were very black, and, oh! but 

 they were cross — the very crossest bees I ever 

 had any thing to do with. We decided that 

 that queen would have to die. But it was one 

 thing to say she must die, and quite another to 

 find her. Every time I opened the hive to look 

 for the queen those miserable bees just fairly 

 boiled over the sides of the hive, skedaddled off 

 the frames like a flock of sheep jumping over a 

 fence, hung in great clusters at the bottom of 

 the frames, or dropped off. I'd close up the 

 hive, and after they had quieted down I would 

 try again. No matter if I didn't use a particle 



