590 



cjLea^'IKgs in uee cultdke. 



AvCi. 



The first frame I took out had a nice young queen 

 on, which was laying, so I put her bacli, thinking 

 they had killed the queen that was clipped. The 

 other day I wanted an untested queen for a cus- 

 tomer. I went to that hive, and commenced taking 

 out the frames at one side. To my surprise, there 

 was my queen with her wing cut. I took out the 

 rest of the frames, and at the other side of the 

 hive was the other queen, both laying right along. 

 [ have often had two queens in one hive, when the 

 one was to be superseded on account of old age, 

 but I consider this a rare occurrence; for the queen 

 that has her wing cut, that is in the hive now, is 

 only one year old— a good layer, and as tine a queen 

 as you want to see, and there are no signs of their 

 superseding her. C. M. Hicks. 



Fairview, Md., July iO, 1887. 



The fact you relate is not so very un- 

 common, especially when the second queen 

 was raised in the hive with the old queen. 

 Only recently we had a colony which had 

 had two queens in the hive for two months. 

 We do not know how much longer the state 

 of domestic affairs might have existed; but 

 needing an extra queen for a ([ueenless hive, 

 we removed one of the queens. 



SUPERSEDING QUEENS ; A QUESTION. 



Four years ago I bought three queens from I. K. 

 Good, and two of them died; but the other lived till 

 about a month ago, and proved to be a very prolific 

 one until this spring. T noticed that the colony did 

 not recruit as fast as it should, therefore I sup- 

 posed the queen had died, and I 0])ened the hive 

 and made an examination and found her apparent- 

 ly well. But I noticed that the brood and eggs she 

 laid were very irregular, and not very much ot it. 

 I also noticed that the bees had prepared cells 

 ready for her reception, but she would deposit an 

 egg only here and there over the combs. I did not 

 like to kill her, so I thought 1 would wait a little for 

 further developments of the case. About the 1st 

 of June a friend of mine came to see me and I told 

 him about it. He said I must be mistaken about 

 the queen being alive; and to satisfy him that I 

 was not, we opened the hive and found her. But 

 here came the surprise to us both— a colony of 

 about a quart of bees, with cells, started as though 

 they were going to swarm. The queen was still 

 laying; but we noticed that she was not well. Her 

 wings looked as though they had been singed by 

 fire, and she looked very stupid, so we closed the 

 hive to wait for further developments of the ease, 

 and see if they were going to swarm or not. The 

 queen-cells looked as though they were about five 

 days old at the time. In about ten days I opened 

 the hive and found a fine young queen hatched, 

 and the rest of the queen-cells torn down, and the 

 old queen lying at the entrance of the hive dead. 

 This young queen has been laying some time, and 

 the bees are working with a will. But heretofore, 

 in the later days of the old queen, the bees wei-e 

 almost dormant. What we want to know is, if the 

 (lueen knew that she was going to die, and had the 

 bees form queen-cells, and she deposited eggs in 

 them, for a young queen, or did the bees form the 

 <iueen-cells and put the eggs into them? and, when 

 they were sure of a young (jueen, kill the old one 

 and throw her out of the hive? or did the bees and 

 (jueen work together in order to save the colony? 



IJnkville, Ind., July l;J, 1887. J. Kunz. 



Friend K., your experience is nothing 

 new, as you will see by the A B C book ; in 

 fact, it is the usual way for queens to be su- 

 perseded, only you are wrong in thinking 

 the young queen killed her mother. I do 

 not believe they ever do this, for we have so 

 many times found a young queen assisting 

 the old one ; and there have been so many 

 reports in om- back volumes of this same 

 thing, in my ojiinion it occurs very much 

 oltener than we know of. I have known 

 old (]neens to do very good service, even 

 when their wings were shriveled up, and 

 when they moved about on their combs like 

 an old gentleman or old lady. When queens 

 begin to look old in this way, one or more 

 cells are usually to be found ; and the first 

 queen that hatches usually destroys the other 

 cells. Tnless honey is coming in bountiful- 

 ly, the old queen may remain in the hive 

 several weeks or even months, after the 

 young queen commences laying; but sooner 

 or later she becomes too feeble to hang on 

 the combs, drops to the bottom of the hive, 

 and is dragged out as any other useless 

 piece of furniture. 



BEES AND CHICKENS. 



As 1 first mentioned chickens as drone-brood and 

 drone-eaters some time ago, perhaps the readers of 

 Gi-EANiNOs are under the impression that I keep 

 both in one yard, which is not the case, as I well know 

 how much the disadvantages outweigh the advan- 

 tages in so doing, as described by Grant Scofleld a 

 few months ago. But he has missed, or not j'et 

 experienced, the worst of the evils derived there- 

 from, and of which I should like to inform your 

 readers, r^ast year I had several hatches of young 

 chickens, of which some escaped through the fence. 

 Thej' soon made good drone-catchers and bee-eat- 

 ers. Three got stung over the eyes, of which but 

 one recovered, and two died in great agony after 

 several days. 1 would have killed them to relieve 

 them, but for the fancy stock. While I agree with 

 all, that bees and chickens are nice to keep togeth- 

 er, they should be strictly kept in separate yards. 



Hammonton, N. J. C. H. Luttgens. 



FHADENBIIKGS PORTABLE BEE-BRIDGE. 



I have .lust come in from doing a good job for the 

 bees in the apiary ; and that is, putting a substantial 

 bridge to each hive. I have always seen the lack 

 of some good device lor the bees which drop short 

 of the alighting-board to crawl over, and get into 

 the hive. But I have it at last. Taiic a piece of 

 board, equal in length to the width of your hive, 

 and from 6 to 12 inches wide. Bevel both edges 

 from the same side. 



Then drive 2 common wire staples on one side, 

 one near each end. This is the bridge complete. 

 Now take a hammer, 2 wire nails one inch long, and 

 a pair of nipi)ers. Go to a hive in the apiary and 

 drive the nails in the front edge of the alighting- 

 board, the same distance apart, and corresponding 

 to the staples on the bridge. Leave iV inch of the 

 heads out. Next take the nippers and bend the 

 head up so as to form a hook. You can then slip 

 the staples of the bridge over these hooks, and let the 

 other beveled edge rest on the ground. You want 

 one to every hive in your apiary. It is cheap, dur- 

 able, and easily applied; and if the staples and 

 nails are all driven by a gauge, all will be inter- 



