562 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



whole plant; leaves about an inch long:, entire; 

 fiowers purplish, borne in axillary clusters; stamens 

 long: excerted, curled. It is quite an interesting 

 plant, about a foot high, the stems very leafy. An- 

 other species is found in the same vicinity, which 

 strongly resembles this one. but the leaves are fur- 

 ther apart on the stem, and the odor differs slightly. 

 Columbus, O. W. S. Devol. 



MODERN TRANSFERRING. 



FRIEND HEDUON'S METHOD. 



N response to your request I will tell you how 

 we proceed to transfer bees from mixed styles 

 of hives to our own favorite hive. 



About swarming time I take one of my Lang- 

 stroth hives, containing eight Given pressed 

 wired frames of foundation, and, with smoker in 

 hand, I approach the hive to be transferred. First, 

 I drive the old queen and a majority of the bees in- 

 to my hiving-box. I then remove the old hive a 

 few feet backward, reversing the entrance, placing 

 the new one in its place, and run in the forced 

 swarm. In two days I find eight new straight 

 combs with every cell worker, and containing a good 

 start of brood. Twenty-one days after the transfer 

 I drive the old hive clean of all its bees, uniting 

 them with the former drive, and put on the boxes 

 if they are not already on. If there is any nectar 

 in the flowers, this colony will show you box honey. 

 I run them together as I would one colony in two 

 parts. Now to the old beeless hive. Of course, 

 there is no brood left, unless a little drone-brood, 

 and we have before us some combs for wax, for 

 more foundation, and some flrst-class kindling-wood. 

 If you have no method by which you can use a 

 full hive of frames, of full sheets of foundation, 

 running a full swarm into them at once, by all 

 means procure it without delay. But if any one 

 has a mania for cutting up combs and fitting them 

 into frames, my method given above does not pro- 

 hibit them from using all the straight worker- 

 combs the old hive contains, after first extracting 

 the honey from them. Should any one wish to in- 

 crease his colonies at the same time he transfers, 

 only the following deviations from the above are 

 necessary: Run the second drive into another 

 hive of full frames of foundation, and use the old 

 hive as before. Now that we have foundation per- 

 fected, so that the bees will draw the lines or side 

 walls to full breeding depth, in from two to three 

 days, why fuss with the old comb from the old hive? 

 Having once experienced the advantages to be at" 

 tained by using the above method, I shall certainly 

 never go back to the old one. All of you know 

 what a nuisance a few odd-sized hives are in the 

 apiary; also some who have just started wish they 

 had adopted some other stylo of hive. The above 

 method of transferring will get all such out of their 

 trouble. 



The cost of foundation and new hives is fully 

 made up by the better combs, and you have the 

 change to better style of hive thrown into the bar- 

 gain. I have thoroughly tested the results of the 

 plan herein described, and am speaking from ex- 

 perience. 



We have just practiced the above upon W col- 

 onies, and without a failure or mishap of any sort. 

 I purchased 16 colonies of bees; that is, I purchased 

 the bees, brood, and honey, with the agreement 

 that I should return the hives and empty combs, 



which I have done. We made each one cover two 

 sets of combs in two brood-chambers, with two 

 queens, besides the surplus sets used above for ex- 

 tracting, and all are rousing strong. When you 

 plan to double your colonies, you remove the old 

 colony to an entirely new location, when you make 

 the first drive. It is now my opinion, that, even 

 without the use of comb foundation, in the days 

 when we had none this plan of transferring would 

 have been the preferable one. As we are cutting 

 out the old combs for wax, we transfer any that we 

 find, that are perfect, now that tbey are all clear 

 from bees, honey, and brood. James Heddon. 



Dowagiac, Mich., Aug. 6, 188.5. 



Friend 11., in your conrlnrlins sentence, 

 " Clear from bees, honey, and brood," I can 

 readily understand how you are clear of 

 bees. and. after the last drumming-out, clear 

 of brood ; but, how about tlie honcii f Old 

 box hives at swarming time, in our locality, 

 are usually heavy with lioney ; and one 

 great obstacle in the way of your method is 

 some way of disposing of this honey. There 

 is also more or less freshly gatliered pollen, 

 which we here consider worth even more 

 than the honey, early in the spring. I pre- 

 sume enough of the old bees will go back in- 

 to tiie hives to care for the unsealed brood, 

 so that none of that is lost. The point you 

 mention, of getting rid of the dauby and 

 troublesome process of fitting old pieces of 

 c(imb into frames, and fastening them by 

 means of splints, transferring-wires. etc., is, 

 I grant, a big step ahead. We decided long 

 ago, in our own apiary, that we wanted no 

 more combs at any price, that were not built 

 on frames of wired foundati(qi. 



INTRODUCING VIRGIN QUEENS. 



"Up FTER I saw G. M. Doolittlc's article on intro- 

 pf|^ ducing virgin queens, in Aug. 1st Gleanings, 



jll^ and as I had such a splendid opportunity to 

 '*-^^ test it, I repared to my nuclei this morning, 

 and will give you exactly what I experienced 

 on .luly 31st. 1 introduted 31 virgin queens to nu- 

 clei that had their queens taken away the day be- 

 fore, excepting three that had been queenless for 

 several days. Of those virgin queens some were 

 caged 15 days in the nursery, and some were caged 

 only ;J days. I let them run in at the top of the 

 hive, and they were, to all apiiearanccs, safe when 

 I left them. 



To-day Aug 5, 1 examined the nuclei, and found 9 

 missing from the 31. One of the three that were 

 several days queenless accepted the one given 

 them; the other two killed theirs. I found only 

 one of them laying. Only one of the queens had 

 her wings injured so that she could not fly when 

 taken from the nursery. I destroyed her. All the 

 others were fine large queens. About two weeks 

 ago I tried another lot. The queens were just a day 

 old, and the nucleus had been (jueenless about 3 

 days. I lost only two, 1 think, out of about 15, and 

 some that had just hatched were accepted at once. 

 I believe the action of the queens has every thing 

 to do with safe introductitn. I let one into a nu- 

 cleus and she set up a terrible piping, as much as 

 to say she was ready to fight any thing. The bees 

 accepted her at once. Had she started to run she 

 would have been killed. W. J. Ellison. 



Stateburg, S. C, Aug. 5, 1885. 



