1885 



GLEANINGS IN BE£ CULTURE. 



when she might not have laid an egg there if wide- 

 spaced boards like Heddon's had been used. 



THE SEASON. 



The season so far has been very good. I have se- 

 cured a good crop of fine clover and basswood hon- 

 ey, mostly basswood. New swarms have produced 

 from 2.5 to T5 lbs. of comb honey, according to size, 

 tim^^f hiving, etc. Chai.on Fowls, 42—90. 



OtjBrlin, 6 O., Aug. 11, 18a5. 



Tlianks, friend F., for the valuable facts you 

 give us. We are glad to hear so good a re- 

 port pf the reversible frames, and also for 

 the ileddon case. I presume I have been 

 on the wrong track, no doubt ; but I don't 

 think I am now. I should be very stubborn 

 indeed if I were to reject the abundant evi- 

 dence given us in regard to the efficiency of 

 the Ileddon honey-board in keeping propo- 

 lis, etc., away from the sections. Besides, 

 we are now selling on the streets of Medina 

 the nicest honey we have ever handled, and 

 it was secured by the Ileddon system. The 

 Ileddon case as we make it, adapted to the 

 Simplicity hive, I believe secures all the ad- 

 vantages you mention.— I am very sorry in- 

 deed if any of our honey-boards have been 

 sent out in the way you mention. I will call 

 particular attention to the matter, and in- 

 struct our foreman to have the perforating 

 done by a careful man who understands the 

 consequences of moving the boards even a 

 hair's breadth while over the saw. We pre- 

 sume, of course, the honey-boards you refer 

 to were made by us. 



VIRGIN QUEENS, AGAIN. 



MORE ABOUT CONFINING gUEENS IN THE CEI.I.S 



«LTHOUGH I have nothing new to offer, giving 

 light on how to introduce virgin queens, 

 more than I gave on page 532, still 1 wish to 

 say a few words relative to virgin queens, 

 and where to keep them. While 1 know that, 

 when left to their " own sweet will," virgin queens 

 are constantly on the move, as friend Root speaks 

 of on page ,533, still, from the experience I have had, 

 I consider this by no means necessary, as all the 

 virgin queens I have succeeded in introducing at 

 from six to nine days old have proved to be the 

 very best of mothers, and none were allowed a cage 

 larger than a I'/s-lnch hole bored in a one - inch 

 board. I keep all ray virgin queens in an Alley 

 queen-nursery, and consider it just the thing to 

 keep such in. Were I using a lamp nursery. I 

 would cage all the cells so as to save the endless 

 watching necessary when the ordinary plan Is used; 

 for an Alley cage allows of many advantages not 

 gotten without it, besides preventing the queens 

 from killing each qther, should they feel so dispos- 

 ed. And this brings me to the quotation from the 

 VamuUan Be*' JounuiJ, found on page 532, which I 

 had before read in that paper, which shows that a 

 queen can be confined to the narrow limits of a 

 queen-cell for six days after maturity, and still be 

 just as good as are those which have a full hive to 

 keep up an endless pai-ade in. Friends Jones and 

 Root seem to think this " novel," and not " easily 

 accounted for," while from the editorial on page 5:^9, 

 It is inferred that the queen fed herself on royal 

 Jelly. Does not friend Root know that a queen can 

 not turn herself around in a queen cell? This being 



the ease, how could she get at the jelly, even if she 

 felt disposed to do so? for the royal jelly is always 

 in the opposite end of the cell from where the 

 queen's head is at the time of hatching. In a few 

 instances I have had queens, after being hatched 

 in the Alley nursery, go back in the cell again, and 

 all such are sure to die there, as they can not sub- 

 sist on the jelly left, nor can they back out or turn 

 around. 



" Well," says some one, " how were the two queens 

 spoken of by friend Jones kept alive?" The bees 

 fed them, of course; and had friend J. looked close- 

 ly he would have found a little hole through all 

 that coating of wax, through which the queen put 

 out her tongue to be fed, as I have seen them do 

 scores of times. The longer the virgin queen is 

 kept in the cell, the more wax is put on so as to 

 make sure no harm shall befall the inmate 

 from the queen, which is at liberty, biting through 

 it. I have seen such cases several times when 

 I have caged queens to prevent swarming, and 

 left them caged a few days past the time for 

 the young queen to hat<.'h, through an oversight. 



It will be remembered by some of the older read- 

 ers of Gleanings, that ten or more years ago I had a 

 queen laying in just three dajs from the time she 

 hatched from the cell. It happened in this way: 

 A colony lost its queen, casting a swarm with a 

 virgin queen; and while they were hanging on a 

 limb I opened the hive to cut the queen-cells, pre- 

 paratory to returning them. Upon looking the hive 

 over I found only one cell besides the one the 

 queen hatched from; and as 1 had the frame having 

 it on in my hands, a beautiful queen emerged from 

 the cell. I at once took said frame (bees and all) 

 with another, and formed a nucleus with them; and 

 in just three days 1 found the queen laying. I now 

 know how it came about, but did not then, hence it 

 caused some to doubt. The queen was, without 

 doubt, six or seven days past maturity when she 

 crawled out of the cell, the bees having fed her all 

 the while through a hole in the cell, so she was as 

 strong and able to tly as the one that was with the 

 swarm. 



In another place in the C. B. J. I see friend Jones 

 speaks of rearing (jueens in such strong colonies 

 that they are so fully developed that they are ready 

 to tly as soon as hatched. This is correct, as far as 

 their being ready to tly; but their being thus ready 

 to tly was because they had been kept in the cell 

 twelve or more hours by the bees after they would 

 naturally have hatched. After much experience 

 and many experiments 1 think I can safely say that 

 no queen can tly as soon as she emerges from the 

 cell, where she is allowed to hatch, as soon as she is 

 mature. 



Now to the keeping of these queens in the cells, 

 should we desire to do so. For the past two years I 

 have been in the habit, to secure the safe hatching 

 of every queen in the Alley nursery, of putting a 

 little honey around the point of each cell, just 

 where the queen would gnaw out, so she could 

 feed herself as soon as she got a hole through (oa 

 every queen is thus supplied by the bees when she 

 hatches in a hive, except in cases where five to 

 twenty are allowed to hatch at will in a hive, as is 

 sometimes the case), and in this way these queens 

 are strong as soon as t)ut of the cell. Carrying this 

 plan still further: Fix a block of wood to receive 

 the cell, in such a way that the queen can not get 

 the lid off, but so that she can get a hole through at 



