1880 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



n. 



Ql EKN <'EL.L,S; WHEN THEY SHOULD 

 BE GIVEN. 



ijpsx N page 309, Aug. Gleanings, I road as follows: 

 mM "Queen cells, or a newly hatched queen, is to 

 be given every stock, as soon as a queen is 

 taken out." Now, friend Hoot, do you mean just 

 that, or do you wait 24 hours before giving a queen 

 cell? If you mean as you say, it seems a little 

 strange that nearly every writer says, wait 24 hours. 

 1 have often given queen cells at the time I took a 

 queen from a stock, and from 6 to 8 hours after, 

 only to have them destroyed. I have had better 

 success, in letting a young queen run upon the 

 combs, as soon as I had taken out the laying queen, 

 than I have in giving them cells: yet, as far as my 

 experience goes, not more than 1 out of 10 will be 

 accepted, if let out on the combs. The past season, 

 my bees have been very slow about starting cells, 

 and I have had over one-half of the cells destroyed, 

 which were put in after 24 hours time had elapsed 

 from the time the queen was taken away. 



On page 380, American Bee Journal for August, in 

 an article written by Mrs. L. Harrison, we read: 

 "In our early days of bee-keeping, we used to read, 

 to form a nucleus by taking two combs of bees and 

 brood and giving them a sealed queen cell,— and we 

 invariably had them destroyed, and the bees would 

 rear queens to suit themselves from the eggs or lar- 

 vae they had. If the nucleus has been formed long 

 enough for them to have queen cells of their own, 

 and a cell ready to hatch is given them, it will not 

 be destroyed; or if their cells are cut out, and an- 

 other inserted in their place, it will be respected." 

 This corresponds exactly with all of my experience. 

 If I attempt to give a queen cell to a colony from 

 which I have taken a queen, before they start cells 

 from their own brood, the cell is invariably de- 

 stroyed. Hence if, at 24 hours after the removal of 

 a queen, no cells are started, with me it is not safe 

 to give a cell just ready to hatch. As looking over 

 the combs to see just when cells are started is extra 

 work, we now wait 48 hours, and usually all works 

 well. 



Don't you rather commit yourself, friend R., in 

 the two following quotations which I make from 

 Gleanings? On page 369, you tell us, "Each hive 

 should at all times have unsealed brood in some 

 stage," while you say on same page, "Another lot 

 inserted in the same way were not looked at for 18 

 days; at the end of which time, we got a nice laying 

 queen from every hive, so far as I know." Please 

 tell us how you manage to get unsealed brood in a 

 hive, without looking at it in 18 days; also the se- 

 cret of getting bees to accept a queen cell just ready 

 to hatch, immediately upon taking away their lay- 

 ing queen. G. M. Doolittle. 



Borodino, N. Y., Aug. 12, I860. 



In regard to putting in queen cells, friend 

 D., I meant, principally, that no hive should 

 be allowed to stand and be forgotten, until 

 they had hatched a queen from their own 

 brood, or, worse still, got out of brood en- 

 tirely, and started fertile workers. You 

 know I had just been saying that a fertile 

 worker should be considered a disgrace in 

 any apiary. The disposition to procrastinate, 

 or to neglect to attend to queenless colonies 

 should never be yielded to in the least. I 

 took it for granted that our friends all knew 

 of the greater liability of the cells being des- 

 troyed, if put in on the same day the queen 



was removed. I many times speak thus 

 briefly, because if I were to take up all the 

 points in enforcing an idea, I should dis- 

 tract the attention of the reader from the 

 main idea, besides occupying a great amount 

 of space. 



But I must protest against your putting it 

 so very strongly, friend D. We raise cells 

 and queens by the hundreds, and it is our 

 daily business. If I wish to decide any of 

 these points, I can try the matter on a large 

 scale, at almost any time. For instance; we 

 have to-day received unexpectedly a second 

 large lot of imported queens, making over a 

 hundred sent us within the last two weeks. 

 We have also had dollar queens sent in fas- 

 ter than we can use them, until we find our- 

 selves overrun with both queens and queen 

 cells. This has happened several times be- 

 fore, this season. Well, to get rid of these 

 cells, we put a hatched queen or cell into 

 every hive the minute, almost, that a queen 

 is taken out. If the cell is torn down the 

 next morning, we give them another, and so 

 on. Are nine out of ten destroyed? By no 

 means; I should say, we never lose more 

 than half of them, and the saving in time 

 where cells are plenty is a great gain, with 

 so many colonies. Of course, hybrids and 

 very strong colonies destroy more. With 

 gentle Italians, and only enough bees to cov- 

 er about three combs, we do not lose more 

 than } 4 of them. Come and see us, and we 

 will take 50 cells, and try it. By severe 

 smoking according to friend Hayhurst's plan 

 in the A B C, we can introduce hatched 

 queens almost every time. 



In regard to the last paragraph: I by no 

 means expect you to think our apiary is al- 

 ways managed up to the standard I teach. 

 The case I mentioned was where our apiarist 

 had just been taken sick, and before any- 

 body else could be broken in to take his 

 place, things had become very much behind 

 hand indeed. The shipping was the most 

 important matter of course, and, as we could 

 do no better, the number of hives I mention- 

 ed was left unopened for 18 days. Luckily 

 no disaster happened to this lot, but in other 

 parts of the apiary, we had fertile workers 

 as a consequence of this same lack of brood. 



HONEY FROM THE OAK. 



IM BOUT two weeks since, I noticed a large num- 

 Jrj%_ ber of bees at work on a Pin Oak (Quercus 

 ' palustris) tree. On close examination, I dis- 

 covered a sweet substance, resembling honey, 

 around the edge of the cups that hold the acorns. 

 The bees were not working on any part of the tree 

 except the acorns. I went to the same tree again 

 yesterday, and found bees still at work, but in less 

 numbers. A greater part of 1 he acorns were with- 

 ered and dried. I send you a few as a sample. 

 You may notice that apparently there is some kind 

 of an insect inside of the acorn, which probably pro- 

 duces the sweet, and also causes the acorns to with- 

 er and drop, instead of making a natural and per- 

 fect growth. 



On the 26th day of June last, I hived a large second 

 swarm of bees. They appeared to be doing well for 

 a few days, but I noticed, after awhile, quite a num- 

 ber of them on the ground in front of their hive. 



