404 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 



meaDS low prices, and each one should try to devel- 

 op his own home market as much as possible. Try 

 to trade it for every thing you buy, also exchange 

 it for labor done. Try to trade it to every mer- 

 chant in town nearest by; as often some one mer- 

 chant will sell more than all the rest. 



We had a large lot of cut-out honey, much more 

 last fall than we ever had before, which we cut out 

 and put into pans, which has sold more readily 

 than in boxes. One groceryman wanted a panful 

 every few days. He did not want more than two 

 pans at a time, as it looked mussy from standing. 

 I think the reason it went faster than in sections 

 was, it was kept standing open, where a crate of 

 sections has a lid on. Mrs. L. C. Axtell. 



Roseville, III., Apr. ;'4. 



Mrs. A., I am very glad of your brief tes- 

 timonial in favor of bee-stings. If it is real- 

 ly true that getting stung does good, in- 

 stead of harm, it is a strong argument in 

 favor of bee-keeping.— I have fed poor mo- 

 lasses in just the way you mention, and I 

 am well satisfied that you can feed with 

 safety any thing the bees will take or can, 

 be induced to take, if it is done when they 

 fly freely, and the weather is warm ; and I 

 am sure that great quantities of brood can 

 in this way, be secured from very cheap 

 feed, when it is desirable.— Your suggestion 

 in regard to getting rid of the honey around 

 home, instead of crowding the commission 

 houses, is an excellent one.— I am very glad 

 to know that you have succeeded as we 

 have, in disposing of cut-out honey in pans. 



NON-SWAHMING QUEENS. 



DOOLITTLE FEELS HOPEFUL IN REGARD TO THE 

 MATTER. 



On page 316 of the current volume of Gleanings 

 I find an article from Mr. S. A. Shuck, in which he 

 enters a protest against the teachings of Messrs. 

 Alley, Dooliltle, and others, who are giving advice 

 to those who wish to increase their bees on the 

 swarming plan, or by means which allow of in- 

 crease being made without confining the beekeep- 

 er to the apiary from 9 a. m. to 4 p. m. each day dur- 

 ing the swarming season, he claiming that "the 

 whole arrangement was unsatisfactory, and entire- 

 ly too expensive." He then goes on to state that 

 hundreds of bee-keepers don't want swarms, which 

 I have not the least doubt is the case, yet it is 

 equally certain that lumdreds of bee-keepers do 

 want swarms ; and It was to these I was writing, 

 and not to those who, like Mr. Shuck, do nut want 

 them. What Mr. Alley's object was in writing, I do 

 not know; he can answer for himself. The point I 

 wish to make right here is, that, in thinking of 

 what should be written or what should not be writ- 

 ten, we must take in the great multitude of bee- 

 keepers as a whole, and not narrow ourselves down 

 to just what we want, but go out in our thoughts, 

 asking the question, " What will be the greatest 

 good to the greatest number?" Failing to do this, 

 we are not complying with the golden rule, nor 

 using that broad charity for others which it is our 

 privilege to use at all times, would wc be making 

 the world better for our having lived in it. I think 

 that, in the past, I have given more matter on 

 " how to prevent increase," and save to others the 

 providing to themselves with those " hundreds of 



dollars' worth of empty hives," than I have on the 

 different modes of increase, for, on the whole, I am 

 in favor of running an apiary on the plan of as lit- 

 tle increase as pofsible; yet while I now so feel, I 

 have not forgotten the time when I was so anxious 

 for natural increase that I lay awake nights plan- 

 ning how it mightbe obtained. 



Mr. Shuck next strikes some hard blows at queen- 

 breeders for "diffusing the swarming mania" 

 throughout the country. While I very much doubt 

 there being any ground, only a mistaken one, for 

 his wholesale slaughter of queen-breeders, yet this 

 brings me to the main point I wish to make in this 

 article; which is. Is it possible to breed out of our 

 bees the disposition to swarm? I have always said 

 that it is not, nor do I now believe it entirely pos- 

 sible; yet somethings have come under my obser- 

 vation of late, that have modified my opinion to a 

 considerable extent. I had thought not to say any 

 thing in the matter till I knew more about it; but I 

 have concluded that it will be better to speak of it 

 now, so that others may try with me to see if per- 

 fection can not be reached sooner; for, " In a multi- 

 tude of counselors there is safety." All who have 

 read my book on queen-rearing will remember that, 

 in 1884, I adopted a different plan of rearing queens 

 than that usually adopted by those sending queens 

 out for market. All who have had experience in 

 the matter, also know that the best of queens are 

 reared in case of two queens In a hive, or, in other 

 words, where a young queen is reared and fertiliz- 

 ed from the same hive which has an old and laying 

 queen in it at the time when this young one is rear- 

 ed. This is a fact which none will dispute; but the 

 point to be arrived at is. Arc queens thus reared 

 less likely to swarm than are those reared under 

 the swarming impulse? The method I adopted for 

 rearing queens in 1884 was nearly the same as that 

 used by the bees where two laying queens are tol- 

 erated in a hive at the same time, as the queens are 

 reared above a queen-excluding honey-board when 

 the old queen is doing full duty below, the colony 

 not having the least disposition to swarm while the 

 queens are being reared; yet the most of my queens 

 are reared during the last half of July and the 

 month of August, at which time very few If any 

 swarms issue with me. 



With the year 1887 I began to notice that I was 

 not having nearly as many swarms as usual; while 

 during 1888, only about half of my old colonies 

 showed any desire to swarm. During 1889, less 

 than half of the old colonies swarmed, while only 

 one showed a desire to cast an afterswarm, the 

 queen-cells in all others being cut as soon as the 

 first young queen hatched, without any attention 

 to them on my par£. All the older readers of 

 Gleanings will remember how that, during the 

 seventies, I had excessive swarming, one season 

 having above 350 swarms from less than 70 colonies 

 in the spring. Swarm they would in spite of all I 

 could do, so that it was nothing unusual for me to 

 have from five to ten swarms in the air at once, 

 while in one case I had fourteen all clustered to- 

 gether in a hedge fence. As 1 go back to those 

 days in memory, it certainly does seem that I have 

 made progress along the non-swarming line, and it 

 certainly does look as if the mode of rearing the 

 queens may have had something to do with it. To 

 be sure, the seasons of 1888-'9 were not good ones 

 for honey, which may have had something to do 

 with the matter; yet the season when the greatest 



