43G 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nor 



TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF INTRO- 

 DUCING QUEENS. 



AN A B C SCHOLAR'S STORY. 



fiHE queens came all right (some of the workers 

 were dead), a day ahead of the notice. I im- 

 - 1 mediately proceeded to introduce them accord- 

 ing- to directions. When the two long days were 

 fully accomplished, I let out both of them. The 

 $2.00 queen, of course, I was the most anxious about; 

 so, instead of covering the hive over, I tried to see 

 what she would do; or rather, what the bees would 

 do. I could not see her, so I took out the comb she 

 ran down on. Then I found her easily, as she was 

 so different in color from the rest of the bees. The 

 bees did not notice her much, and I was about to 

 put the frame back, telling my wife- she was help- 

 ing me(?), and standing at the corner of the house 

 several rods away— "<S7ic (the queen) is all right," 

 when the royal lady came to the top of the frame, 

 and flew off and away over the tops of the trees. 

 You can well imagine our feelings then, and our 

 exclamations of sorrow and regret; but, just as I 

 was declaring that money could take to itself wings 

 and fly away, and Mrs. M. was saying "Your queen 

 has 'gone up'," she came down again, and ran down 

 between the frames. I tell you, I put on the top. 



Just at this point a book agent came to show me 

 his book. I was just then in a peculiarly good hu- 

 mor, and I had just fifteen minutes to spare, you 

 know, or I would have kicked him out of the apiary, 

 as the last book agent cheated me out of $0.00; so I 

 suffered him to rattle over his well learned lingo 

 until the 15 minutes were up, then I dismissed him 

 and went back to my tested queen. We found that 

 the bees were trying to kill her. Two or three of 

 them just douJiled up on her. This frightened us of 

 course, and Mrs. Miles cried (she stood near now 

 with a vail) "O! they are stinging her! take her 

 away," and so I did, getting her into my closed hand 

 together with the two bees that were sticking to her. 

 Well, as we were trying to get her into the cage, I 

 killed her with my clumsy fingers; so there lay my 

 darling queen, in her dying agonies, in the palm of 

 my hand. [ would like to have cried then, but tears 

 would not come to my relief. Mrs. M. consoled me 

 very much by saying, "She would have died anyhow, 

 from the stings she had got." At this, I dropped 

 her into the top of the hive, and we both rose from 

 our knees and walked over to our dollar queen, the 

 other side of the small apiary, to see how she was 

 being received, being determined that we would not 

 kill her in the same way. 



Now judge of our surprise, our disgust and morti- 

 fication, (just then a neighbor came in) to find no 

 bees, and no queen in the hive! This was too much. 

 I felt for my knife. It was not there. I looked 

 around for some means or way of self destruction, 

 but nothing suitable appeared. So I dropped down 

 on the grass. Mrs. M. comforted me again at this 

 critical point, by saying, "You have me left yet." 

 After waiting there about half an hour for our 

 queen to come back, we got up and went to see if 

 the Italian that I had killed was yet to be found. I 

 lifted the cloth, and there was a ball of bees which I 

 pioked up, and, in the middle of it, was o yellow 

 queen! ! We got her into the cage safe you may be 

 sure, put it over the frames, and closed the hive, 

 and felt like calling our friends and neighbors to- 

 gether, saying "Rejoice with us," &c. To-day, I let 

 her out and they received her all right. I have look- 



ed several times. They are pulling down queen 

 cells. 



Later.— The queen is laying. 



I have been reading Gleanings and have learned 

 why that dollar queen went over to the hive where 

 I had just killed my tested queen, rather than to 

 any other. I had concluded that it was just a streak 

 of good luck mixed with the bad, but it was because 

 they were making such an uproar after the disap- 

 pearance of the queen,— a reason you gave Mr. J. H. 

 Johnson, in Sept. No., for a similar action. 



And I learned more. A common tin pail nursery 

 is just what I am going to use next summer. I don't 

 need to look at it so often, when I am busy on the 

 farm. 



MORE ABOUT MITCHELL'S BOARDS. 



I want to tell you why I decided it would pay me 

 to subscribe for Gleanings. 



One of Mitchell's agents threatened to prosecute 

 me and others, for making and using "Mitchell's 

 Patent Adjustable Hive," as he called my store 

 goods boxes with movable division boards. I told 

 him I could not raise bees without the adjustable 

 boards, in my long hives. 



"Then buy a farm right," was his reply, "which I 

 will sell you for $5.00. Mitchell's price is $10.00." - 



I had not money enough, or I should certainly 

 have bought the right. I told him I would as soon 

 as I could, and, in the meanwhile, I would throw out 

 the boards. At this, he let me off. Some time after 

 this, W. J. Aikins (a subscriber of yours) told me 

 there was no patent on them, but he did not seem to 

 know certainly, so I sent for an A B C. I found 

 plenty in that about the boards, but nothing about 

 the patent. I then sent for a specimen Gleanings. 

 You sent me the July number, in which he and his 

 patent were ventilated in the department of hum- 

 bugs. 



So you see this specimen copy saved me $5.00; 

 and, thinking that I might be benitited in the course 

 of a year to the full cost of the journal, I subscribed, 

 and I believe I have been profited since fully one 

 dollar besides the five. C. R. Miles. 



Pawnee City, Neb., Sept. 7, 1879. 



QUEENS FROITI THE E«Ci VS. QUEENS 

 FROM AVORKER LARV£. 



BJjjfY experience and observations for the past 

 f}8|[ five or six years have led me to the conclusion 

 that much more is lost by our artificial modes 

 of queen rearing than is generally admitted. Arti- 

 ficial versus natural queens was the subject of much 

 discussion in the papers several years ago. Strong 

 stocks, with bees of all ages and brood in all stages, 

 were then considered, by some at least, the princi- 

 pal requirement in order to get prolific and hardy 

 queens artificially ; but it is now a well known fact 

 that even such stocks, when suddenly and unex- 

 pectedly deprived of their queen, in their unscru- 

 pulous haste to replace her, will often rear queens(?) 

 from larva? that have been partially developed into 

 workers. As these larvae are several days eld when 

 their ti-eatment as queens begins, they sometimes 

 hatch within 8 or 10 days from that time, whereas, 

 the time from the hatching of the egg should be 13 

 or It days. 



In T7(e Bee-Keepers' Magazine, Vol. 2, page 192, 

 E. Gallup says: "Now, about the 8 day queens; we 

 have raised in all some sixteen. In every case, the 

 bees had eggs, larvae just hatched, and larvae just 

 ready to seal. Nine of those queens we have kept 



