1890 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



519 



will get hold of things when one it trying 

 hard to make tliem plain. Notwithstand- 

 ing, let us not discourage people from ask- 

 ing questions— let them come. Hives made 

 double walled, with tarred paper between, 

 have been a long while in use. Our expe- 

 rience is, that they do not dry out as well 

 as the chaff hive; that is. they are more 

 likely to be damp and moldy inside during 

 a spell of damp weather. 



TAKING QUEEN-CELLS AWAY FROM 

 THE BEES, ETC. 



DOES SHAKING COMBS INJURE THE EMBRYO 

 QUEEN ? 



A correspondent wishes to know "if it will an- 

 swer to sbake the bees oflf the frame of brood hav- 

 ing queen-cells upon it. if it is wished to save the 

 cells for use." No— not by any means. Very many 

 have been the number of queens killed or injured 

 for all time by this plan of getting the bees off the 

 ce:i.s. If the cells are only just capped over, suL-h 

 shaking dislodges the royal larva from the royal 

 jelly, throwing the larva to the bottom with such 

 force that it is either killed outright, or, in failing 

 to get back, dies where it Is. If further advanced, 

 such shaking deforms the queen by her having 

 crippled wings or legs, or, what is more often the 

 case, the queen has a dent in the abdomen, certain 

 segments of which are dented Inward or the whole 

 flattened or curved. While this last is not as bad 

 as to have the wings deformed, yet it Is a very rare 

 case where a queen with a deformed abdomen 

 proves to be a really good queen. Such queens 

 generally become fertile and lay quite well for a 

 time, so are of some value; but those whose wings 

 are crippled are worse than no queen at all, for 

 they can never become fertile, while they stand in 

 the way of our successfully introducing a laying 

 queen. In case such crippled-wing queens are of 

 the German or hybrid race, they are very hard to 

 find, and the parties who have ordered queens for 

 supposed queenless colonies having such crippled 

 queens, and lost them in trying to introduce them. 

 can be numbered by the score, If not by the hun- 

 dreds. No one should attempt to introduce a queen 

 to any colony, unless he takes away the reigning 

 queen at the time he puts in the new one, without 

 first trying the colony with unsealed brood to see 

 if they are really queenless. If they build queen- 

 cells on this brood he can know that they have no 

 queen; if not, then he may know that, if he tried 

 to introduce a queen to that hive without first find- 

 ing and taking out that which the bees are rever- 

 encing as a queen, he will be certain of losing the 

 one he would have preside over the hive. But, to 

 return: How shall we get the bees off the queen- 

 cells if we can not shake them? The way I man- 

 age is as follows: Upon removing the frame of 

 cells from the hive it is carefully set down at the 

 entrance of the hive, the same side up that it oc- 

 cupied while in the hive, and the bees on it thor- 

 oughly smoked so as to cause them to fill them- 

 selves with honey while the hive is being closed, 

 when smoke is again poured upon them to such an 

 extent that the most of the bees will run into the 

 hive, when the remainder are brushed off with one 

 of the bee-brushes which can be had of A. I. Root. 

 If they are loth to run off the comb into the hive, 

 the whole can be brushed off; but be sure that 



they have filled themselves with honey before you 

 undertake to brush off so many bees, unless you 

 are willing to stand many stings, for the bees 

 around queen-cells will fight with a vengeance for 

 them, unless the precaution is taken to coax them 

 to fill themselves with honey. If the weather Is 

 cool and the cells are to be placed at once in the 

 hives, it is a good plan to take the bees along with 

 the cells so as to keep the cells warm, when, with a 

 little smoke, drive the bees off the cell you wish, 

 so that they will be out of the way while you take 

 it oft' the comb. After the cells are all off, then the 

 bees can be shaken off the comb at the entrance of 

 the hive, the same as from any other fmme. This 

 latter way of not trying to get the bees off till after 

 the cells are, is good at any time where the cells 

 are to be placed in different hives about the apiary. 



STORES FOR WINTER. 



As the basswood will be yielding honey in most 

 localities by the time this reaches the readers of 

 Gleanings, I think it will not be amiss to tell of a 

 good plan of securing good stores for the bees to 

 winter on. I know many will say, feed suear syr- 

 up, but it is quite a job to feed a whole apiary with 

 liquid feed at a time when rubbers are always 

 plentiful; besides, at the present high prices of 

 sugar there is little if any profit in it. Good bass- 

 wood honey is good enough for winter stores, and 

 the advocates of the pollen theory can not object, 

 fer there is no pollen ever gathered from the bass- 

 wood bloom. The plan is this: When honey com- 

 mences to come in from basswood, four or five nice 

 worker combs are placed in the upper story of the 

 hive which we are running for extracted honey, 

 and on the top-bars of each of these are placed the 

 letters W. S., which signifies winter stores. These 

 combs are to be placed about 1 '-s inches apart from 

 center to center, and are not to be extracted from 

 at all. As soon as the honey in these combs is 

 sealed about two-thirds of the way down, they are 

 to be spread apart, and other combs or frames filled 

 with foundation placed between them in each al- 

 ternate space, or enough to fill out the hive. These 

 last are to be extracted from; but the former are 

 to be let alone to the end of the season, when we 

 have all the stores the colony needs, well ripened 

 and of the finest quality. In preparing the colony 

 for winter, place three or four of the frames of 

 honey next one side of the hive, then place in one 

 of the frames with the bees on it which has very 

 little honey in it; next, the last comb of honey, and 

 finally two more combs with the bees on them, 

 when the hive is to be closed and the bees from the 

 remaining frames that were formerly in the hive 

 shaken off at the entrance. This is done so that 

 the bees shall cluster at one side of the hive early 

 in the winter, rather than in the center; for when 

 in the center they frequently eat all of the honey 

 toward one side of the hive; and if this happens in 

 very cold weather they starve there, not being able 

 to cross over to the other side. With the above 

 plan they are all right as long as there is any hon- 

 ey in the hive. G. M. DOOLIttle. 



Rorodino, N. Y., July 7. 



Friend D., I fear you are a little too em- 

 phatic in regard to what you say about 

 shaking combs. It was suggested, years 

 ago, to purposely save cells from combs that 

 had been put into the extractor, and we did 

 not find an imperfect queen as the result. 

 They may, however, have been at such a 



