630 



GIvEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1 



THE SWARTHMORE SYSTEM OF FERTILIZING 

 NUCLEI CRITICISED. 



Is the Scheme of Small Nuclei for the Purpose a 

 Permanent Success? 



BY GEO. J. VANDE VORD. 



My attention was arrested by the fascinat- 

 ing and alluring description of Swarthmore's 

 eflFective (?) plan of getting queens fertilized 

 from those little one-frame (section size) nu- 

 clei, described in Gleanings, page 434 ; and 

 I almost found an old time enthusiasm aris- 

 ing in me on the subject of mating queens 

 from small nuclei ; but a mental picture of 

 past experience that was pretty full of shad- 

 ows effectually cooled me off, and I began to 

 wonder how many more of Gleanings read- 

 ers had struck shoal water on small nuclei 

 since A. I. Root first enthused on them, only 

 to abandon them after using them for some 

 time. It may interest those who see in his 

 article a way to produce queens at a greatly 

 reduced price, to read of some difficulties that 



lie ahead of them in following his plan, and 

 that he has entirely failed to mention. 



For several years I was using, or trying to 

 use, nuclei composed of from two to four sec- 

 tions, placing several together in one section- 

 super, and having entrances nearly 14 inches 

 apart — about twice as far as Swarthmore's — 

 and differing from one another by having 

 blocks of varying shape at every other en- 

 trance. 



I found such nuclei to be all right for 

 keeping virgin queens in up to the time of 

 their flight ; but an extra large percentage 

 would at that time take to running around 

 outside the entrances ; and if the bees at the 

 neighboring entrance should be fanning, she 

 would run over there, presumably to see what 

 the fun was, and quite frequently she would 

 slip inside the entrance unopposed, to "visit 

 with Cousin Kate," but, unlike Timmy Doo- 

 lan's cat in the comic song, she would never 

 come back. 



Then there is always, by any vSystem, a per- 

 centage that get lost when taking their flight ; 

 and by Swarthmore's plan the nuclei from 



TEXAS HORSEMINT ; ONE OF THE PLANTS THAT HAS LONGER FLOWER-TUBES THAN RED 



CLOVER. 



