March, iqio. 



American Hee Journal 



I put more candy in the cage, put the 

 queen and cage back a^ain, and two 

 days afterward I found her majesty 

 tearing down a capped queen-cell, and 

 the bees assisting her. I cannot see 

 how I had overlooked that cell, and 

 that must have been the reason they 

 did not accept her in the first place. 

 La Crescent, Minn. 



Methods of Introducing Queens 



BV DR. C. BOHKEK. 



On page 279 (1909), Mr. R. E. Hickok 

 gives his experience in the introduc- 

 tion of a queen, by dusting both the 

 queen and workers with flour. .And 

 being successful in this one case, he 

 states that he will try it again. Please 

 permit me to suggest to him that it will 

 be well for him not to regard this 

 method of introducing queens as at all 

 reliable. However, in case a colony is, 

 and has been, queenless for 10 days or 

 from which to rear a queen, thus be- 

 ing confronted by certain destruction, 

 2 weeks, and no eggs or larvK available 

 and all this during a honey-flow, they 

 are most likely to accept a fertile queen 

 by simply turning her in among them 

 at the entrance of the hive. 



But I once knew a colony of Cyprians 

 to ball and kill a fertile queen when 

 they liberated her by eating the candy 

 out of the cage in which she had been 

 mailed. They belonged to one of my 

 neighbors who brought them to me 

 the day after they killed the queen re- 

 ferred to, and said to me that if I could 

 do anything with them he would be 

 glad to have me give them a queen. I 

 happened to have a mismated Italian 

 queen in a cage, and the ne.xt morning 

 after he brought the colony to my api- 

 ary, I smoked and drummed them quite 

 a bit, so as to induce them to fill them- 

 selves with honey from their stores, 

 which will put bees in a condition ren- 

 dering them harmless. That is, they 

 will not assume the offensive, but will 

 act solely on the defensive. 



Please permit me to digress slightly, 

 and say that it is by the foregoing pro- 

 cess that bees are brought under con- 

 trol so that persons can enter a cage, 

 and with bare hands and face handle 

 them with apparent carelessness before 

 large gatherings of people without re- 

 ceiving a sting, unless they are pinched 

 or led to believe that they are to be 

 hurt, in which event they will sting 

 quickly. 



While in this mood I turned the mis- 

 mated queen loose on one of the frames 

 set on end, and leaning against their 

 hive. And so far as I could see, not 

 one bee disturbed her, but, instead, she 

 went where she pleased unmolested, 

 and at once became mistress of the 

 colony. 



I have called attention to the fore- 

 going case to show that even where a 

 colony is hopelessly queenless they will 

 not invariably accept a queen when in- 

 troduced by the methods that are as a 

 rule successful, in view of which I 

 smoked and alarmed them so as to 

 cause them to fill themselves with 

 honey, which, in addition to their help- 

 less condition, as to any means of 

 securing a queen, I regarded as an ad- 

 ditional means of putting them in an 

 inoflfensive mood, as far as such a con- 



dition was possible. And in the pres- 

 ence of all this I was still suspicious, 

 and took the precaution of setting a 

 frame on end against the hive in order 

 that I might, by ocular oljservation, 

 witness the moment in which they re- 

 ceived the queen. And if they balled 

 her I could at once dump them into a 

 basin of water, which will cause them 

 to let loose from a queen. 



In fact, I do not regard any method 

 of introducing queens, now in common 

 use, as being invariably reliable, and, of 

 late, when I give a queen to a strange 

 colony I fix no definite time for her 

 liberation. But I put her in a cage 

 made of a piece of ordinary window- 

 screen, wire-cloth, 4 inches square bent 

 into a flattened cylinder with one end 

 closed, by pressing the end of the cage 

 perfectly flat, and closing the other end 

 with a small piece of sponge slightly 

 saturated with honey. Such a 'cage 

 can be put down between the frames 

 as near the center of the cluster as pos- 

 sible, leaving the end of the cage flush 

 with the top-bars of the frames. Every 

 day I take the cage out and note the 

 conduct of the bees that adhere to it. 

 If they cling to it as if bent upon the 

 destruction of the queen, being unwill- 

 ing to let go of the wire, it will be 

 quite safe to conclude that they are not 

 at all friendly to her. But if, on the 

 contrary, they simply crawl over the 

 cage, manifesting no feeling of anger, 

 I feel pretty safe in testing the matter 

 by liberating the queen on a frame of 

 the bees, set on end against the side of 

 the hive so that I can see the manner 

 in which she is received, and if they do 

 not bite at her, and prevent her from 

 moving about over the comb as she 

 wishes, I at once cage her again and 

 leave her 24 to 48 hours longer, and 

 then test the matter again, and so on 

 from time to time until they do treat 

 her friendly. I have been as long as 2 

 weeks in getting a colony to accept a 

 queen. In the meantime, I look for 

 and destroy all queen-cells that the 

 bees start which requires careful 

 and thorough inspection, for, if one is 

 missed, and a young queen is hatched 

 out failure is almost sure to result. 



The first Italian queen I ever bought 

 was in 1864, and was, as far as I know, the 

 first Italian queen ever introduced in 

 the State of Indiana. I had no experi- 

 ence in the introduction of queens, and 

 was extremely fearful of failure; espe- 

 cially so on account of being chided 

 for paying $10 for a queen. (A " bug " 

 she was called, and a humbug at that, 

 by some of my skeptical neighbors.) I 

 got her from -Mr. Langstroth, and 

 adopted a plan of putting her at the 

 head of a colony on what I called "the 

 nucleus plan," by putting a frame of 

 mature brood in an empty hive. .Ml 

 the bees were carefully brushed off so 

 that not one old bee was left on the 

 comb. A number of young bees were 

 emerging from the cells every minute 

 or two, and such bees I thought were 

 not likely to attempt to hurt a queen, 

 as they never knew any queen but the 

 one I was giving them. I put a mov- 

 able division-board in the hive by the 

 side of this comb of brood, and closed 

 the hive for 48 hours, so that not one 

 bee could pass either out or in. I kept 

 them where the maturing and unhatched 

 bees would not get chilled. 



I turned the queen with the bees tha 

 came with her (about .50 in number, 

 being shipped by express) into this 

 hive when arranged as described, and 

 at the end of two days I opened the 

 entrance, and the few old bees began to 

 fly out and in, and at once went to 

 work. In a few hours I opened the 

 hive and found several hundred young 

 bees had emerged, and the queen had 

 begun to lay eggs. In .3 days more I 

 gave them another frame of brood, and M 

 in a short time had a good colony. ^ 

 This method will save a valuable queen 

 without any risk of having her killed 

 if properly managed. 



Lyons, Kans. 



Improvement Through Re- 

 Queening 



BY LEO E. GATELY. 



Reasoning from effect to cause, it will 

 be generally found that the unnatural 

 difference in colonies in the same apiary 

 can be traced almost invariably to a 

 failing queen. As the slightest deteri- 

 oration of the queen throws the colony 

 into an abnormal condition, it is impos- 

 sible to estimate the actual loss incurred 

 by allowing colonies to queen themselves. 



An important factor in the economics 

 of honey-production is the improvement 

 of our bees through the selection of 

 breeding queens from colonies possess- 

 ing the most desirable qualities, event- 

 ually bringing the entire apiary to a 

 higher degree of permanent productive- 

 ness. The apiarist who pays scant at- 

 tention to the improvement of his stock 

 will soon find the very foundation of his 

 business gradually sinking. Without 

 systematic efforts in this respect, an 

 apiary will deteriorate slowly but surely, 

 and the process by which it can be built 

 up is equally tedious. 



To anticipate satisfactory results from 

 ■breeding it is necessary to decide what 

 points we are to breed toward. One 

 race of bees must be selected, and our 

 efforts confined to that race alone. A 

 first cross may occasionally prove supe- 

 rior to either race of which it is com- 

 posed, but such results are seldom per- 

 manent, and are made so only by a limit- 

 less course of thoughtful selection. 



If judgment is exercised in selecting 

 colonies for drones as well as for 

 queens, Italians can soon be so bred 

 that they will cap their product as white 

 and neatly as average blacks. For in- 

 creased yields, simply select colonics giv- 

 ing the highest pound average, and breed 

 from them exclusively. ^ 



Reasoning from a false analogy, many H 

 suppose that the propensity for swarm- 

 ing can hardly be bred out of any race. 

 In this instance we are endeavoring to 

 eliminate an instinct, and greater time 

 is required to accomplish appreciable re- 

 sults. We can, however, produce, with- 

 out delay, bees less given to swarming 

 than were there ancestors, by simply 

 breeding from those that swarm least. 



Honey-producers should learn to rear 

 their own queens. If you are not pas- 

 sionately fond of this branch of your 

 business, rear them in spite of yourself, 

 until it becomes a habit. Once formed, 

 the habit will be turned into a love for 



