1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



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colony, without brood, as he describes, is of no 

 value in the apiary, as a honey-producer; while in 

 the way 1 work, no colony is kept queenless a mo- 

 ment on account of queen-rearing', but all are at 

 work in sections or for extracted honey, just the 

 same as if I were not rearing any queens at all. ~. 

 Mr. Pooshe has to cut his nice worker combs up 

 into strips, on which the bees build the cells. 

 Where one makes a business of rearing queens this 

 is quite an item; for after we have our combs all 

 perfect in our hives it is a pity to spoil them by 

 cutting out long strips for queen-rearing. By mak- 

 ing the wax cups, no combs need ever be cut, 

 where the vision of the operator is good enough to 

 see to the bottom of the cells to take the larva out 

 in transferring. The third objection is the most 

 serious to me of the whole; and that is, that by his 

 plan the cells must be handled very carefully or 

 else they are easily mashed; and in any event a 

 piece of the strip of comb must accompany each 

 cell when it is detached or separated from the bar 

 of wood to which it was fastened, which hinders it 

 (the cell) from being used successfully in the 

 queen-cell protectors. 



Again, unless he kills a part of the eggs or larvie 

 with a match, as does Alley, he will have many cells 

 built together, so that a part must be destroyed in 

 separating them. By using the wax cups, the cells, 

 when completed, can be picked off the stick where 

 they were built, about as you would pick peas from 

 a pod, while the base of them is sufficiently stout so 

 that the queen-cells can be pressed into the combs 

 of queenless colonies so they will be a fixture wher- 

 ever you wish them, thus saving the cutting of 

 combs in placing the cells in the hives as we used 

 to do, and as is pictured out in many of our books. 



In nearly all of the comments on my book, I see 

 many suppose that the book was written for queen- 

 breeders, who follow the rearing of queens as a 

 busiuess; but this is a mistake. The book was 

 written for the sole purpose of benefiting all in 

 the bee-business, from the man who counts his 

 colonies by the thousand down to the amateur who 

 has but two or three. All parties'want queens for 

 any case of emergency which may come up, or for 

 the purpose of superseding those which are past 

 their usefulness, or are not of the "blood " which 

 they wish, or to give to the parent colony after the 

 old queen has gone out with the swarm, so that sec- 

 ond swarming may be prevented. How handy it is, 

 then, to rear such queens in an upper story, get 

 them fertilized in the same by slipping in a perfor- 

 ated zinc partition so as to inclose a comb or two on 

 each end of the hive, from which the queen may is- 

 sue to meet the drones, and, after returning, be 

 kept laying here till she is wanted for use, thereby 

 aiding the queen below with brood all the time she 

 is being held before she is wanted for use! The 

 possibililies which are before us along the line 

 which this perforated metal may bring us, have on- 

 ly begun to dawn upon us. Queens can be reared 

 and fertilized by the thousands in any apiary, and 

 yet no colony be kept queenless for a single mo- 

 ment, nor any nuclei made, but all work in the 

 apiary be going on just the same as if no queens 

 were being reared. The advent of the perforated 

 metal is likely to mark an epoch in our history, fully 

 equal to that of the honey-extractor, movable- 

 comb hive, or any thing of the kind. 



Borodino, N. V. G. M. Doomttle, 



Friend D., I shall have to own up, and 



beg pardon. It is true, I have not, or had 

 not until this morning, June 5J6, looked at 

 your book more than to turn over the pages 

 a little and look at the pictures. The rea- 

 son is, that I am already overworked on 

 reading things that I must read ; but I now 

 find that it would have been far better had 

 I neglected some other things, and given 

 your book the careful attention it deserves. 

 When Ernest made his review notice, lie 

 read the hist six chapters; but I now see 

 that he did not get to the most important 

 matter in the book at all. 1 want to say to 

 our leaders, that friend Doolittle's book is 

 as interesting, at least to me, as any thing I 

 have ever read in regard to bees, hardly ex- 

 cepting father Langstroth's book when I 

 hist got hold of it. One reason is, that it is 

 right along on a line where I worked for 

 months, several j ears ago. I experimented 

 by placing wire cloth between the upper and 

 lower stories. Perlorated zinc was not then 

 known — at least 1 had not at my command 

 any thing to permit the worker-bees to go 

 above and hold back the drones and queen ; 

 therefore my experiments amounted to but 

 little more than having queens raised in 

 nuclei above, in strong colonies. These nu- 

 clei were either shut off entirely by wire 

 cloth, or else these drones and queen had 

 free access to the upper story, liy having 

 upper entrances, I succeeded in getting 

 queen-cells built and queens fertilized to 

 some extent ; but it did not pay, and I was 

 continually annoyed by being obliged to 

 disturb the nucleus every time I wished to 

 get into the lower story of the parent colo- 

 ny. This latter point, if I understand, is 

 still an objection to Doolittle's method. 1 

 do not know whether friend Fooshe had 

 read friend Doolittle's book when he wrote 

 or not ; but it is true, that the whole plan is 

 given in very full details in chapter 7 of 

 Doolittle's book. In chapter 18 we are told 

 how to get queens fertilized in the same hive 

 where there is a laying queen. These two 

 chapters are certainly worth the price of the 

 book to any bee-keeper. In fact, it seems 

 to me that every man, woman, or child at 

 all interested in bees, ought to read friend 

 Doolittle's book. The accounts of his dis- 

 coveries read like a book of fiction. In fact, 

 it sounds to me in some parts like the 

 Arabian Nights ; and yet it is absolutely 

 true, every word of it. You can verify it 

 yourself with your own bees. I know it, be- 

 cause I have experimented all along in the 

 same line. Those who are unfamiliar with 

 this intricate, complicated, and wonderful 

 matter of securing queens from an egg that 

 would, in the usual course of events, have 

 produced a worker-bee, will become famil- 

 iar with the matter by reading friend Doo- 

 little's story. The whole of it seems to 

 have been written in friend Doolittle's hap- 

 piest vein. I should judge that he had giv- 

 en the book great care and pains ; and I be- 

 lieve that is the way he usually does every 

 thing. One reason why I did not give the 

 book more attention, 1 supposed it was a 

 good deal a summing-up of what had been 

 already given in the journals. Hut a great 

 part of the book contains information that 

 has never been in print before, that I know 



