118 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct- 



A. I. ROOT & Co. Sirs— I sent for a $3.00 Queen and 

 rec'd her about three weeks ago. I introduced her as 

 you introduced your imported Queen, but she got out 

 although I secured the front with wiie cloth, as I 

 thought perfectly. I sent for another Queen and in 

 the meantime placed the hive with hatching brood 

 on the stand of an old stock. I rec'd the latter Queen 

 on Monday last and placed her in a wire cage between 

 the frames immediately; 48 hours later I released her 

 and watched her with the other bees, when one bee 

 pulled her by the wings I took her away and caged 

 her again. This morning about 10 o'clock I opened 

 the hive, smoked the bees and sprinkled with sweet- 

 ened peppermint water. I released her and watched 

 the bees on the combs for some minutes. They per- 

 sist in building Queen cells but I have repeatedly cut 

 them out; now, 1 o'clock, 1 have just been out to look 

 at them. I left the sheet spread out In front to see if 

 they killed the Queen. "When watching the bees with 

 the Queen this morning I perceived no hostility and 

 left them. I looked at them repeatedly but now at 

 1 o'clock, on examining the bees carried out I find 

 her dead. 



MES. Mougan, Elyria, O. Sept. 4th, 1874. 



We get altogether too many reports like the 

 above. Although it seems our friend did all 

 that could be done with the latter Queen, she 

 certainly deserves some censure for letting the 

 former get away. Until bees enough have 

 hatched to gather around the Queen and make 

 her contented to remain with them, say 24 

 hours or less, they should be carefully fastened 

 in. No need of wire cloth for this, as they 

 need no provision for ventilation, but the hive 

 may be made tight by crowding cloth or paper 

 into the entrance. Any decent hive can be 

 made perfectly secure in this way with but 

 little trouble, and if the young bees have never 

 seen any other Queen they will always accept 

 the one furnished. It seems to us this method 

 is always a perfectly safe one. We have al- 

 ways had much trouble in introducing Queens 

 late in the fall by the caging process ; they 

 will sometimes destroy them after they have 

 l>een laying a week or more, therefore, keep all 

 old bees away from a valuable Queen if she is 

 rec'd late in the season. 



On the 10th of July my two last natural swarms 

 enme out and lit on an apple tree within three feet of 

 each other in a difficult position to hive. 1 finally got 

 them hived all right and separated, but must have got 

 the two Queens in one hive, for in four or five minutes 

 after hiving, bees left one hive and went all together. 

 I opened them the last day of Aug. and found them 

 full of beautiful combs and full of honey, and knowing 

 It would be to their interest I extracted two gallons of 

 nice thick honey from them. This may not seem very 

 large to you but it is so much better than I ever ex- 

 perienced in the swarming line I had to tell it. I have 

 had black swarms come the middle of Julv and not 

 half till their hive. 



Wm. Payne, Spencer, Medina Co. O. 



This report is encouraging for the Italians, 

 as the month of August" here, is almost with- 

 out exception, not a honey month. 



Will a Queen reared from a pure bred purely fertil- 

 ized Italian Queen mother produce any entirelv'black 

 bees ? I have reared Queens for ten years and never 

 had a Queen that was reared from a pure mother of 

 my selection, to produce any black bees whether ma- 

 ted with an Italian or common drone. 



J. A. Buchanan, "Wintersville, O. 



Our experience is about the same. Our first 

 Queen from Mr. Laugstroth stocked our Api- 

 ary with Queens that produced two or three 

 baiided bees, but no black ones. In selecting 

 one of these daughters to breed from the next 

 season, we had colonies producing some bees 

 all black, and the whole of them so cross that 

 they they positively were enough to "make a 

 preacher—— -"ahem, get out of patience. Since 

 then Ave have had more or less of the cross 



black bees every season until we reared from 

 our Argo Queen ; her daughters produced no 

 black bees so far as we know, and our present 

 Imported Queen's have produced none. Hence 

 the position we have taken for years, that so 

 far as honey was concerned, if we could only 

 be sure of having all Queens reared from one 

 of known purity it matters little what drones 

 they meet. The following is just to the point. 

 Probably any one of us would be satisfied 

 with the yields of comb honey mentioned : 



I have taken off all my box houev now and have in 

 the neighborhood of 1800 lbs. of box honey and 500 lbs. 

 of extracted, from 22 colonies in spring. My best hive 

 gave me about 200 lbs. comb honey, and two or three 

 others gave me 160 lbs. and upwards; I had other 

 stocks that gave me but very little box honey, they 

 were the light colored, very" handsome, very gentle, 

 very pure Italians. We find that a little dash of black 

 blood is a great improvement in box honey workers, 

 but we don't want enough black blood to prevent 

 striping all the workers. When we get a light color- 

 ed pure Queen, mated with a drone from an impure 

 stock, it shows in the increased activity of the stock, 

 and when we raise. Queens from that stock, we get 

 just about the color we want. Our plan now is to 

 breed from the most industrious stocks both Queens 

 and drones and no others. 



J. 1'. Mooke, Binghampton, N. Y. 



Yesterday I transferred a lot of grubs from cells 

 started in a hive containing old black comb, to some 

 cells I found started on new comb, and gave some to 

 Queenless nuclei. To-day I And them all right and 

 much lengthened out and well supplied with royal 

 jelly. Some of the larvae were prettv good size, some 

 just visible. J. A. Buchanan. 



Did you ever ! From this, it seems that all 

 we have to do when we want a Queen, is to 

 hunt up some old Queen-cells, put a small lar- 

 va' from our choice stock into each, and simply 

 put them into Queenless colonies. Can't some 

 one whittle out wooden Queen cells. — like 

 wooden nutmegs — and thus save the bees the 

 labor of building them? 



Davis' Transition Process really amounts to 

 more than even we had anticipated. Both 

 cells (mentioned last month) to which we 

 transferred larvse, have produced fine 

 Queens. If there are to be no failures 'twill be 

 a novelty in Apiculture. 



Friend B. sent us 50c for an unfertile Queen. 

 As we had finished for the season, proposing 

 to bend all our energies to the work of winter- 

 ing those we had, we had no choice but to go 

 to work and raise him one; this we did simply 

 as follows : We put an empty comb in the 

 centre of our imported stock and left it four 

 days, then it was put in a Queenless colony 

 that was waiting until we could get a laying 

 Queen for them, and left three days at which 

 time the Queen destined for them had com- 

 menced laying. Now as it was late in the sea- 

 son, they must have the Queen at once, and yet 

 we did not want the Queen cells (of which 

 there were 7 in an unsealed compact cluster) 

 destroyed. To accomplish both, we moved 

 the cluster, with the cells, to the north side of 

 the hive and placed the laying Queen with two 

 of her own combs with brood bees and all on 

 the south side, filling between the two with 

 empty combs. As we expected, the Queen 

 cells were all properly sealed in three more 

 davs— 10 days in all from the egg— and as we 

 had no farther need of bees, the comb without 

 bees was taken to the lamp nursery. Observe 

 that Ave only kept a colony Queenless three 

 days to get this lot of Queen cells. After six 

 davs more, 16 from the first eggs, two Queens 



