a«tob«r, 1912 



7 



American H^ee Journal! 



some means, persecute tliem so that 

 many of these imprisoned (|iieens would 

 die, even where the apiarist provides 

 plenty of food for them. 



This is illustrated at its best by cag- 

 ing the mother-queen in a wire-cloth 

 cage without any food therein. The 

 bees will almost constantly offer her 

 food by putting their mouths against 

 the wire cloth with the food so you 

 can see it sparkle in the mouth; when 

 the queen, if she is in need of food, 

 will take it (through the meshes) by 

 reaching out the tongue, and thus she 

 is kept in good condition for days, 

 and sometimes weeks. Put a strange 

 queen in this same cage, and she might 

 die of starvation in a few hours. Yea, 

 more, put plenty of food in the cage, 

 so that no other bee save the caged 

 queen can reach it, and the bees will 

 so torment this strange queen, by get- 

 ting hold of her legs and wings, and 

 pulling at them, that she will rarely live 

 a week. 



But the thing that puzzles me the 

 most is how the bees in a cluster, hang- 

 ing down below the frames when win- 

 tering in the cellar, are fed through 

 the 4 or o months they are confined 

 therein. We are told that these bees 

 are constantly changing, and that the 

 ones which form the crust, or outer 

 circle of such a cluster are going in- 

 side every few minutes or hours; warm 

 bees from the inside taking their place, 

 while these cold, hungry bees go in and 

 feed and get warm, and thus the whole 

 colony is fed and "clothed" during 

 their stay in the cellar. But I have 

 watched hours only to see those cold, 

 stiffened bees stay right in that same 

 position so still and quiet that any one 

 would pronounce them dead, did they 

 not know to the contrary. Who can 

 tell us about this part of the matter ? 



Borodino, N. Y. 



in 



Possibly a " New Kink " 

 Introducing Queens 



BY ARTHUR C. MILLER. 



It is passing strange how conserva- 

 tive humanity is, and sometimes it 

 seems as if bee keepers were more so 

 than the rest. Now, there is the matter 

 of queen introduction. With relatively 

 few exceptions they all hold that odor 

 is the governing factor in a (jueen's re- 

 ception, and a queen must be caged in 

 a colony until she has acquired the 

 colony's odor before she can safely be 

 released. The loss of so many queens 

 by the cage method of introduction 

 seems not to make the slightest impres- 

 sion on the holders of the theory. 

 That queens can be scented with all 

 sorts of odors, many of which do ex- 

 cite the bees to stinging (as the odor 

 of a sweaty horse, etc.), and yet to be 

 safely run into an alien colony affects 

 them not at all. The negative evidence 

 of the cage is of more weiglit than the 

 positive evidence of the scented queen 

 cordially accepted before their eyes. 

 The blind following of ancestral prac- 

 tice is woefully out of place in this day. 



The direct introduction of queens is 

 the easiest thing in bee-culture, if one 

 will only bear in mind the laws of bee- 

 behavior, and conform thereto. It is 

 far from a new practice, but owing to 



the lack of knowledge of the underly- 

 ing principles, it has not proved any 

 more uniformly successful in the aver- 

 age person's hands than the cage sys- 

 tem. 



Without repeating the details of the 

 " fasting " plan of direct introduction, 

 as well as several others, a plan which 

 has not yet failed will be given and an 

 effort made to explain why it works. 



A colony to receive a queen has the 

 entrance reduced to about a squart 

 inch with whatever is convenient, as 

 grass, weeds, rags, or a block, and then 

 about t/ir<-f piit)'s of lliich. icliitc smuUf 

 (because such smoke is safe) is blown 

 in, and the balance of the entrance 

 closed. In from 1.5 to 30 secomis that 

 colony will be roaring. The small 

 space at the entrance is now opened, 

 the queen runs in, and the space is 

 again closed and left closed for about 

 lU minutes, then re-opened and the 

 bees allowed to ventilate and quiet 

 down. The full entrance is not given 

 for an hour or more, or even until the 

 next day. The queen may be picked 

 from a comb and put in at the entrance 

 with one's fingers, or run in from a 

 cage just taken from the mails, her at- 

 tendants running along, too. The re- 

 sults are all the same. The alien queen 

 and workers are quite as much at home 

 as are the real owners of the hive. 



It makes no difference whether the 

 receiving colony has just been de- 

 queened, or has been queenless for 

 several days, or even has laynig work- 

 ers, though colonies with such should 

 be united with a normal colony. They 

 are not worth requeening. But right 

 here two conditions must be cited, or 

 the bee-keeper not familiar with bee- 

 behavior will experience trouble some- 

 times. Colonies with sealed queen- 

 cells, or with a virgin queen, will some- 

 times "supersede" the new queen in a 

 few days if that queen has been kept 

 from laying for several days prior to 

 her introduction. A queen taken fresh 

 from the combs, where she was laying 

 freely, will generally cause the destruc- 

 tion of the cells or the virgin. 



To such colonies it has been found 

 advantageous to give a comb with eggs 

 and young larvre just before running 

 in the queen. The queen-cells may be 

 looked for and destroyed or not, but so 

 far as the writer has e.xperimented, it 

 is not necessary to destroy them, the 

 bees attending to it. If, however, the 

 colony is strong and honey is coming 

 freely, a swarm may issue if the cells 

 are not destroyed. More exhaustive 

 observation is needed in this phase of 

 it before it is wise to make positive 

 statements. But with a virgin present 

 the eggs and larvae will make certain 

 the new queen's favorable reception. 

 The mere adding of eggs and larv;e to 

 a colony with a virgin will almost in- 

 variably cause her disappearance. And 

 it is impossible to ensure the safe in- 

 troduction of a virgin to a colony hav- 

 ing eggs and larv.-c. 



The loss of virgin queens in intro- 

 duction is due chiefly to one or two 

 causes, to the presence of eggs and 

 larv:e, or to their running out. If to a 

 nucleus in suitable condition a virgin 

 is given near nightfall (because then 

 all the bees are in), and the entrance 

 plugged with a leaf or leaves, the queen 

 will be safe. Bv mornint;. the leaves 



will have wilted so the bees can get 

 out, and matters proceed normally. 



It is the \yriter's preference, in intro- 

 ducing laying queens, to dequeen the 

 receiving colony immediately before 

 running in the new one. 



The theory of the cause of the re- 

 sults secured is this: Bees in distress, 

 be they workers, drones or queens, 

 know no enemy or alien, and each one 

 is turning to some other for " help " or 

 fond, and every bee which comes with- 

 in tlie influence of the uproar of a dis- 

 tressed colony seems to be seized with 

 the same emotion. The bees, with the 

 queen in the cage, as soon as they are 

 placed at the entrance evince every 

 sign of the same disturbance as shown 

 by the bees of the colony, and it takes 

 but a gentle pufl^ to send them in. 



The closing of the entrance ifter the 

 queen is in is to ensure a complete dis- 

 tressed condition throughout the col- 

 ony, and keeping it closed for the 10 

 or 1.") minutes is to prevent loo speedy 

 relief. Also, if the full entrance is 

 opened the bees may pour out in a 

 mass and cause bother; while, by open- 

 ing only an inch, few rush out before 

 systematic ventilating is taken up. 



The inexperienced and the thought- 

 less need to be cautioned as to two 

 things, closing in a full colony ttiat has 

 no room to get into oflf of the brood- 

 combs, and closing in a full colony sit- 

 ting in the sun in the middle of a swel- 

 tering day. The skilled bee-master ca>i 

 do both of those things, but he does 

 not do it if he can avoid it. And when 

 he does it he stays right on the job 

 keeping eyes and ears open. 



The writer has run in hundreds of 

 queens by various direct methods, and 

 has found the foregoing to be the best. 

 He believes it, as a whole, to be origi- 

 nal with him. Its trial by all bee-keep- 

 ers is urged, for it is considered good. 

 Providence, R I. 



Saving Full Combs for Spring 

 Feeding 



BY EDWIN BEVINS. 



For three or four weeks during the 

 last of August and first of September 

 no honey was gathered owing to dry 

 w-eather. Frequent showers for a few 

 days revived the pastures and ensured 

 a heavy honey crop, but grain was 

 damaged in the shock, as the days were 

 very hot. The early crop of honey was 

 very light, but I think the later rains 

 ensured a fall flow of some magnitude. 



I have had impressed upon me this 

 season, and for two or three seasons 

 before, the importance of having two 

 sets of worker-combs for each colony 

 of bees. Without these my honey crop 

 this year would be almost nothing. 

 The same is true of last year and the 

 year before. Bee-keepers will, sooner 

 or later, learn the importance of having 

 a lot of combs filled, or partly filled, 

 with honey for use in spring. Most of 

 litem, I lake it, will be slow to adopt 

 the methods described by Mr. Doolit- 

 tle in his book, " A Year's Work in an 

 Out-.Apiary ;" but by some means they 

 should contrive to have a good many 

 of these filled, or partly filled, combs. 

 Their importance is manifest in the 

 production of comb honey, but they 



