September, igio. 



American l^ee Journal 



actions of bees, as I use a large hive, 

 and nearly always have very populous 

 colonies during all the season. Whether 

 a bit of Carniolan blood has anything 

 to do with the longevity of the queens 

 or not I am not sure, although 1 rather 

 suspect this to be tlie case, as I had a 

 queen of that race that was kept as a 

 curiosity till she died at the age of 7 

 years. Up until the last year before 

 her demise she gave good service, and 

 I wish to say that there was no possible 

 mistake in her age, as she was clipped 

 and kept track of from the day she was 

 purchased. 



Since writing the foregoing I have 

 been "going through" a number of 

 colonies for the purpose of hunting out 

 the old queens and putting in cells ready 

 to hatch, that I have been rearing my- 

 self in my first attempt at grafting cells 

 a la Doolittle. Whether the peculiar 

 season or something else is the reason, 

 I find that wholesale superseding has 

 been the rule this summer, and I failed 

 to find a single old queen in all the col- 

 onies examined ; and to make room 

 for the cells, I had to kill some young 

 queens that were of an inferior nature. 



Rearing One's Own Queens 



Now that I have mentioned queen- 

 rearing, I will have to tell of my first 

 attempt at this phase of bee-keeping, 

 for after rearing owe batch of cells of 

 course I feel quite confident about ad- 

 vising others how to do the work! 



While I have, in years past, read a 

 good deal of literature on the subject 

 of queen-rearing, yet for various rea- 

 sons I have never attempted to under- 

 take the work, and have, instead, 

 bought all the queens required. One 

 reason for this is that I am sort of a 

 rough-and-ready bee-keeper, partly by 

 nature and more so by force of circum- 

 stances in which all my bees were 

 bought in different sizes of hives, at a 

 time when cash was such a rare article 

 in my possession that a dime looked as 

 big as a cart-wheel. It is the old story 

 of " we first endure, then pity, then em- 

 brace," and I gradually got along with 

 such a mi.xed outfit so well that I did 

 not mind it so very much. 



Anyway, aside from all these little 

 matters, I looked upon such an opera- 

 tion as transferring the tiny larvs from 

 the cells as too delicate an operation 

 for my clumsy fingers, and even when 

 Mr. Clark, of Borodino, donated to me 

 all the queen-rearing fixtures he 

 brought with him to Toronto to illus- 

 trate his address with, yet that failed 

 to stir me up to try the plan. 



About Aug. 1st', Mr. Sibbald wrote 

 me what "fun " he was having in rear- 

 ing his own queens, and he said I 

 ought to try if myself, as there was no 

 reason but what I could do the work. 

 A few days later I met him in Toronto, 

 and again he mentioned the subject to 

 me, and before parting I got his prom- 

 ise that some dipped cells would be 

 sent me by mail in the course of a few 

 days. The next day they came, and 

 while I had the notion on, queen-rear- 

 ing had to proceed even if all the other 

 work came to a stand-still. 



A few days before that a queen had 

 been killed in attempting to introduce 

 her to a vicious colony of blacks, and I 

 was looking to this colony to have cells 



started to supply me with the royal 

 jelly for grafting purposes. When the 

 colony was examined imagine my dis- 

 gust to find that only 3 or 4 stubby cells 

 were being pulled out over some larvae 

 so old that the bees were about ready 

 to cap them over before they thought 

 of making queens out of them ; and as 

 for royal jelly — well, all I could scrape 

 up out of the lot would go in your eye. 

 However, such a small matter as that 

 was not going to discourage me, and 

 before giving up I would have used 

 some axle ,!,'iease to hold the larvs in 

 the cells, for really I found it hard to 

 place a larva in a cell-cup with nothing 

 to draw it from the transferring tool. 

 (I wonder if that is not one of the main 

 uses of the jelly in artificial queen- 

 rearing.) 



After getting what little jelly ready 

 that was available, a comb of just-hatch- 

 ing larvae was brought in from the col- 

 ony that has headed the yard for 2 

 years. The day was warm and very 

 dull, and say, didn't I have a time to 

 see the very small creatures curled up 

 in the bottom of the cells ? Doolittle 

 says to pare down the cells so as to 

 get at the larvre better, while Roots say 

 it is not necessary. Having only a dull 

 jack-knife handy, the paring was not 

 done, and the fishing was done at long 

 range. 



As I was fishing them out with a 

 small wooden paddle, hastily prepared, 

 the thought came to me. Wouldn't 

 Clark, or Adams, or some of the other 

 experts, grin if they could see me 

 working as I am ? 



After going all over the sticks of 

 cells prepared, for the life of me I 

 could not tell if I had missed any or 

 not, as the day was so dull it was a 

 task to see the very small larvae in the 

 cups after they had settled down in the 

 bit of jelly. To make sure, I went over 

 some again, and I am pretty certain 

 that some cells had at leas/ 2 larvae in 

 them. The one stick of cells was given 

 to the fool colony that did not know 

 how to rear their own cells when they 

 had a chance, and the other stick was 

 given to a young swarm that had just 

 lost their queen on her mating flight. 



That evening I told Mrs. Byer that it 

 would be a surprise to me if a single 

 cell was accepted ; yet when I retired 

 at night I must confess to a feeling of 

 curiosity as to what would be the out- 

 come. 



Next morning, about 10 oclock (I 

 couldn't wait any longer), the young, 

 queenless swarm was looked into, and 

 lo and behold ! crcrv cell was accepted, 

 and the tiny larva, in each, just floating 

 in royal jelly! Later, one of the larvK 

 died before the cell was completed — 

 whether of measles, mumps, or some 

 other infantile complaint I know not; 

 or perhaps in my clumsy transferring 

 operation I gave the poor thing a solar- 

 plexus blow, causing an injury that de- 

 veloped into acute indigestion. 



The other colony had accepted only 

 h out of the !l cells, but in this case all 

 blame was placed on the colony — they 

 really did not know enough to build 

 cells, even with my expert help! 



Ten days later the cells were put into 

 colonies made ready for their recep- 

 tion, and, for lack of confidence in my 



operations, 2 cells were given to each 

 colony. Two days later e^ei-y cell but 

 one had hatched out, and that one was 

 encased in comb that the cell-building 

 colony built all around and over the 

 cell. A bee-keeping friend took the 

 comb and cell home with him, and he 

 intends to cut away the comb and see 

 if the queen is alive in the prison or 

 not. He has promised to 'phone me 

 just as soon as the result is known for 

 a surety. 



Needless to say after such luck I felt 

 like throwing my hat and yelling, "We 

 done it!" But on more serious reflec- 

 tion I refrained from such demonstra- 

 tions, for fear it was just " luck " this 

 time, and very likely such results 

 would not be obtained next time. 



In all seriousness, it is a source of 

 satisfaction to know that one can do a 

 thing if it is necessary, and while I 

 shall likely continue to buy a good 

 many of my queens, yet it is handy to 

 be able, in case of emergency, to know 

 how to do the work on a small scale 

 myself. 



■ *-•-♦ 



Light Honey Crop in Ontario 



Ontario has a rather light honey crop 

 this year — would be i'ery light were it 

 not for the fact that some parts of 

 eastern Ontario have a very bountiful 

 crop. Generally speaking, from To- 

 ronto west, the crop is light, while the 

 farther east one goes the better it is. 

 I note that the northeastern States 

 have a good crop, so quite likely all the 

 eastern provinces of the Dominion will 

 be sharing well, too. Prices are good — 

 in fact, a little higher than last year, 

 and no one when buying seems to think 

 that honey has gone up as much as 

 other food products. 



Ai the time of this writing (Aug. 22d) 

 we are having a good honey-flow from 

 buckwheat. 



" Bee-Keepei^' Guide" 



This book on bees is also known as 

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 Every bee-keeper should have it in his 

 library. It has 544 pages, and 205 illus- 

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'• The Amateur Bee-Keeper " 



This is a booklet of 80 pages, written 

 by Mr. J. W. Rouse, of Missouri. It is 

 niainly for beginners — amateur bee- 

 keepers — as its name indicates. It is a 

 valuable little work, revised this year, 

 and contains the methods of a practical, 

 up-to-date bee-keeper of many years' 

 experience. It is fully illustrated. Price, 

 postpaid, 25 cents ; or with the Ameri- 

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 $1.10. Send all orders to the office of 

 the American Bee Journal, 146 West 

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