"novice's' 1 gleanings in bee CULTURE. 



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iFRINTEO AT MEDINA COUNTY GAZETTE OFFICE! 



Medina, Sept. 1, 1873. 



ITALIAN <{!»*>* FOR ONE l»of 

 IiAR. 



'jT||ERHAPS some apology should be 

 i-ij made before submitting our plans of 

 queen rearing to many who have had so 

 much more experience in that branch of 

 bee culture, yet hoping we may have 

 struck on some few ideas of value some- 

 where, we as usual try to help whether we 

 do or not. 



In the first place, kind reader, we found 

 our hives about the middle of July run- 

 ning over with bees, almost, and a very 

 poor prospect of any honey to be gather- 

 ed during the balance of the season. In 

 some of these the bees actually hung all 

 day on the outside of the hives and we, 

 Yankee like, kept reflecting whether these 

 bees could not just as well earn some- 

 thing, for, without a doubt, should we re- 

 move their hive and give them a new one 

 with a small piece of choice brood, they 

 would rear queens at once. As this would 

 necessitate making a new colony and the 

 attendant expense of extra stores, we dis- 

 liked the plan, for, if we preferred winter- 

 ing only our present number, we should 

 have before us the tedious process of 

 uniting when through. We finally 

 thought of using the surplus bees to rear 

 queens in the upper story and have suc- 

 ceeded so well in getting queen cells 

 started thus, that we have been wonder- 

 ing if the loafing bees are really not 

 superior for this purpose. 



One colony produced forty-six line 

 queen cells in the upper story immediate- 

 ly, on having all communication cut off 

 from below; and we have, as a general 

 thing, had more and finer cells built above 

 than in the main brood appartment. A.-* 

 our quilts did not make a 'sure thing be- 

 tween the two stories, we also interposed 

 a thick sheet of Manilla paper, making 

 the entrance immediately over the main 

 one, on the roof of our old style Langs- 

 troth hives, and we put on an extra door 

 step on the upper story of the simplicity 

 hives. When the two colonies are again 

 united the scent being the same we have 

 nothing to do but to close the upper en- 

 rance and shake the bees below. As we 



have quite a number of hives that have 

 not worked above, we have divided these 

 by a sheet of tin, boards being two thick 

 and clumsy in our opinion : we give the 

 old queen all the hive except three frames, 

 these being sufficient for queen rearing, 

 and in some cases we have given the 

 nucleus the old entrance, obliging the 

 main colony to use a new entrance in the 

 back end, for we wish to afford the young 

 queen every facility for returning without 

 any mistake from her excursion. As 

 sheets of tin are somewhat expensive we 

 have employed old tin ware to good ad- 

 vantage; for instance an old wash boiler 

 flattened out and cut up in pieces of the 

 proper size, with the wire left on the top 

 edge for the quilt to rest on, answers 

 ever}' purpose. Wire cloth will not an- 

 swer or at least not with certainty, for no 

 queen cells will be built so long as com- 

 munication can be kept up between the 

 two colonies. The crevices at the en- 

 trance and on the rabbit where the frames 

 rest may be closed with wool or small 

 rolls of woolen cloth. If we have one 

 choice queen to rear from, we should give 

 them, after they are fairly started, only 

 brood from this queen, and by cutting the 

 the comb in small strips this brood may 

 be made to go a great ways, thus having 

 all queen cells started, valuable ones, and 

 much progress will be made on queen 

 cells while waiting for an inserted 

 cell to hatch. If the cell should be des- 

 troyed they, of course, are rearing good 

 ones in its place. Now comes an im- 

 portant item. Although we may insert a 

 dozen cells and have them all hatch 

 properly, the next dozen may be nearly 

 all torn down, and to prevent this we 

 have been using the queen cages ad- 

 vertised last month, which are made as 

 follows: In blocks two and three-fourth 

 inches square, cut from boards dressed 

 to I inch in thickness, bore holes two and 

 | inches across ; these, we bore with an 

 expansion center bit made very sharp: if 

 the blocks split badly bore the holes first 

 and saw them out afterward. On one 

 side with four tacks fasten a piece of tin- 

 ned wire cloth about sixteen meshes to 

 the inch; on the other, make a door by 

 bending a square of wire cloth over a 

 square frJtme of rather stout wire; hinge 

 the door by driving staples made of com- 

 mon brass pins over the wire on one side 

 of the door. A third pin driven in th<- 

 worxl at an opposite corner and bent at 

 right angles makes a sort ol button to 

 fasten the door securely. 



Now then, with a populous colony, in 

 warm weather, we have only to put our 

 queen cell in this cage and lay the whole 

 on top of the frames, for the heat from 

 the bees passes through the light, wire 

 cloth, and when covered by the quilt it i- 

 kept abundantly warm. Willi weaker 

 colonies we cut out a place in the comb, 

 and this comb, containing a queen cage, 

 can always be carried to any hive in 

 which it may be needed. As the cage 



