360 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



placed in the hive at the time of hiving was a sure 

 preventive of the swarm's decamping. This was 

 read with enthusiasm, as here was a plan by which 

 my fears could be entirely removed. Consequently, 

 when my first swarm issued, I hastened to get a 

 frame of brood in all stages, which also contained 

 some honey to start them in house-keeping, as 

 Elisha Gallup used to tell us about. They were 

 hived about two o'clock, and we went to bed that 

 night feeling that our first swarm of the season was 

 well provided for, and would fee sure to stay. The 

 next morning, we took a look at them and went 

 to work. At about 9 o'clock, the cry, -'Bees are 

 swarming," was heard, and, upon reaching the bee 

 yard, our new swarm was seen going for parts un- 

 known. Our lips were bit as we thought of some 

 proper form of sound words to vent our spite on the 

 author of this plan of keeping swarms from ab- 

 sconding, while we resolved that every queen's 

 wings in the yard should be clipped, which was 

 done without delay, Since that time, we have fre- 

 quently hived swarms and given them brood by way 

 of experiment, and have given brood to artificial 

 swarms, and had many of them come out; but as 

 their queen could not tiy, of course they could not 

 abscond. Still, probably three-fourths of the swarms 

 hived in this way staid, and worked all right, while 

 not one in 20 hived in an empty hive bothered us by 

 attempting to leave. Hence our experience goes to 

 prove that unsealed brood will not prevent swarms 

 from leaving, but, on the contrary, makes the prob- 

 ability of loss greater. Hut, says one, bees ought 

 not to leave unsealed brood. Why not V they do in 

 natural swarming, when they issue from the parent 

 hive; upon examining the hive from which our first 

 swarm decamped, we found they had built two 

 pieces of comb as large as your hand, and had built 

 queen cells upon the frame of brood, in which the 

 queen had deposited eggs; thus showing that they 

 considered the conditions the same, or nearly so, as 

 they were in the parent hive from which the^ hud 

 issued the day previous. There was also nearly 

 enough bees left, with those returning from the 

 fields, to care for this frame of brood. Since then, 

 we have used such as this for nuclei by substituting 

 a frame of hatching brood for the unsealed larvae, 

 and, although rather expensive as to trouble, still 

 they make splendid nuclei. 



TWO OR MORE EGGS IN A CELL. 



Queens often deposit two or more eggs in a cell, 

 especially when a colony is weak. It is a question 

 with some what becomes of these eggs. From ob- 

 servation, I am led to believe that most of them 

 hatch, after which, sooner or later, they are re- 

 mored by the bees. I have frequently seen three 

 very small larvse in one cell, and upon one occasion 

 I marked such a cell by placing pins in the comb 

 around it. The next time I looked (in about 24 

 hours) there were but two. These were left till they 

 were about two-thirds grown, when one of them was 

 removed. We were quite excited over the matter 

 at the time, thinking, if drone cells could lie so 

 used, by excluding all worker comb from the hive, 

 we could rear two and three bees in a cell; but final- 

 ly concluded such a thing would not be practical, 

 even if we could accomplish it at all. 



• DO BEES REST? 



Tell J. S. Wilson's "Blue Eyes" that, if her father 

 will make a hive in which to hang one frame, and 

 place a glass on each side of it, so she can see both 



sides of the comb, and then hive a small second 

 swarm in it, or make a strong nucleus, she can see 

 the bees rest and perhaps even sleep. She can see 

 the queen lay eggs, and, in short, can see all the op- 

 erations going on inside the hive. When they are 

 nicely at work on basswood, clover, or buckwheat, 

 sit down by the hive, with the cover to the glass re- 

 moved, and watch the bees as they come in at the 

 entrance. Presently you will see a bee hunting for 

 some of the young or nurse bees; and, when found, 

 the two will put their tongues together, and the 

 loaded bee will give its load to the other, after 

 which this bee will often stay and rest from 5 to 15 

 minutes, and again, as soon as the load is given up, 

 it will immediately return to the field. The young 

 bee will soon go and place its head in a cell, where, 

 I suppose, the honey is placed by it, although it is 

 hard to see what is going on, as the bee's head tills 

 the cell. This and many other curious things can 

 be seen with an observatory hive containing but 

 one frame. G. M. Doolittle. 



Borodino, N. Y., July, 188:1. 



With all due respect, friend I)., lor the 

 opinion of one who has had the experience 

 and success which you have had, I would 

 suggest that you are going a great ways 

 when you think a frame of eggs and young 

 larva' a detriment. I have never given the 

 hoys any rule in hee culture, which has so 

 invariahly worked well as the one directing 

 them to have no hive, under any circum- 

 stances, one hour without unsealed brood. 

 We have had a great many natural swarms 

 brought us this season, and many of them 

 were after swarms. Well, when we were 

 very busy, a number of them were put into 

 hives, without this frame of brood. Some of 

 them deserted the hive and went off because 

 they had no queen, she having been killed 

 in hiving or, by some accident, in dividing. 

 Others followed the queen on her wedding 

 trip. In others, the queen did not lay for a 

 week, and then, to see whether they had a 

 queen or not, we gave them some brood. 

 Over and over again, have I been told that 

 young queens would not lay, but some young 

 brood either started the queen to laying, or, 

 by the queen cells started, revealed the fact 

 that she had been lost. Is there any other 

 quick, sure way of deciding this question? 

 and is not unsealed brood an advantage to a 

 new swarm in such a case? It seems to me 

 I have tried both ways faithfully, and my 

 decision is that I would by no means risk a 

 new swarm in a hive, even if filled with 

 combs, without the comb of unsealed brood 

 that has so long been recommended. Who 

 has not seen a swarm hived without a queen, 

 and seen theni dwindle away without laying 

 up any surplus, when a little unsealed brood 

 would have set them right to work, and giv- 

 en them a queen too, often long before the 

 discovery was made that they were queen- 

 less? 



CilAEN'S PRESS A SUCCESS AFTER ALL, 



fj?> HAVE been using the Given press with perfect 

 J»|[ success. We had trouble to get to going, hav- 

 — ' ing never made any fdn. of any kind before 

 (see American Bee Journal for Aug.); but when we 

 " struck our gait," we made-100 sheets per hour, se- 

 curely put into wired frames. We made hundreds 





