October, 1918 



GliRANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



615 



HEADS OF GRAIN I PPOM^H TDlFFERENT FIELDS 





These are fair times — and here's an attractive honey 

 exhibit. 



Do Bees Recognize 

 a Failing Queen? 



Super sedure is com- 

 mon enough a m o n g 

 bees, but now and then 

 a peculiar case presents itself. While visit- 

 ing E. E. Mott of Glenwood, Mich., I had 

 the rare privilege of seeing two queens 

 peaceably occupying the same hive, and, in- 

 deed, the same comb. As we approached a 

 certain hive Mr. Mott remarked that the 

 bees were superseding their queen. Upon 

 removing a frame of brood in quest of 

 young larvae with which to graft cells (for 

 the queen was a valued breeder), we fomid 

 her laying scatteringly, often dropping eggs 

 without backing into a cell, while some cells 

 contained three or four eggs or larva?. Upon 

 the same side of this comb was also a young 

 queen apparently about ready to lay. 

 Neither queen seemed to pay any attention 

 to the other. 



The mother was one year old, and Mr. 

 Mott gave her to me, suggesting that I 

 might raise a few queens from her to use 

 in requeening my yard. As she is a beauti- 

 ful golden and of exceptional breeding 

 stock, I was much pleased to give her a 

 trial. So on July lo I removed the queen 

 from a good colony and introduced her by 

 the cage method. On July 23, nine days 

 later, I found her accepted and laying scat- 

 teringly as before. Imagine my surprise to 



find 15 finished queen-cells indicating the 

 bees' intention to supersede her. There 

 were no cells started previous to her intro- 

 duction, and I never had cells started before 

 with queen caged. Now, how could the bees 

 have recognized her as a failing queen with- 

 out giving her a trial? C. V. Rice. 

 Lawrence, Mich. 



[I do not think the fact that the queen 

 was failing had anything to do with the 

 starting of those cells. I have been taking 

 tested queens from our strong colonies and 

 introducing untested queens the same day 

 or the following day, and several times I 

 have found on checking up these colonies 

 5 or 6 days later, that they had queen-cells 

 under way and the queen safely introduced 

 and laying. T do not think these cells were 

 started under a queenless impulse, because 

 the colonies are without a queen only a few 

 hours, and also because the bees complete 

 the cells. They are usually destroyed about 

 the time they are ready to hatch. This I 

 think is done by the laying queen. Twice 

 during this season I have found where the 

 virgin hatched and killed the queen. I in- 

 troduce in Miller cages with a strip of card- 

 board over the candy. It takes about two 

 days for the queen to be released. It seems 

 probable that to have a queen in the hive 

 and no eggs layed for this length of time 

 would be a condition similar to that of a 

 failing queen, and might start a supersedure 

 impulse,' which would account for the start- 

 ing of these cells. M. T. Pritchard. 



Medina, O. 



Results of Burying I wrote you a descrip- 

 67 Colonies. tion in Gleanings for 



February, 1918, page 

 102, telling you how I buried my bees. I 

 am now going to tell you how they came 

 out. I weighed them all (67 colonies) on 

 Nov. 21 and 22 last. They averaged 62 

 pounds. It started snowing the night I 

 buried them, Nov. 23, and the ground was 

 covered with snow till the first of April. 

 Where my stands were, the snow in some 

 places was seven feet deep. I had to 

 shovel the snow away to get it melted, so 

 as to get my bees out onto the stands. The 

 snow was not all away till Ajir. 1.5, when I 

 put them out. 



These bees had not seen daylight for 4 

 months and 23 days. We took them out 

 after dark, and during the next two days 

 they were carrying pollen. We weighed 

 them on the second day they were out. 

 There were 65 alive and in good condition. 

 They averaged 48 pounds. Of the two lost 

 one had lost its queen; there were no bees 

 in the hive, and all the honey was left. In 

 the other hive the cluster was on one side 

 of the hive and had 18 pounds of sealed 

 honey. It took about 14 pounds of honey 



