GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Conversations with Doolittle 



At Borodieo, New York. 



QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 

 Can you tell us how a queen makes the 

 noise in piping? My neighbor beekeeper 

 says that the noise is made with the 

 wings, but I am somewhat in doubt. 



I have watched virgin queens 

 many times when they were in the 

 act of piping, and never yet saw one stand- 

 ing uja with wings " purring and flutter- 

 ing," as I was told they did when I first 

 began keeping bees. One day, when I heard 

 a queen piping quite vehemently, I careful- 

 ly lifted the frames tiU I came to the one she 

 was on. In later years I found out that 

 such careful lifting is not required ; for 

 when a queen is really in earnest she will go 

 on with her noise, even when the frame she 

 is on is handled quite roughly. 



A piping queen does not stay long in one 

 place, but is like the seventeen-year locust 

 which sings her song on a limb of a tree 

 and then goes to some bush or fence-post to 

 sing the same song over again. So the 

 young queen will run about among the bees 

 for a little, when she will suddenly stop and 

 crouch upon the comb till she apparently 

 lies as flat as possible, when the head is 

 slightly inclined upward, or o& from the 

 comb, and the piping sounds uttered. This 

 seems to require considerable effort, as there 

 is a tremor throughout the whole body. 



From almost hours of watching I have 

 never known any queen to pipe unless she 

 stopped and thus arranged herself on the 

 comb, nor have I ever heard a " pipe " from 

 any queen while she was on any other place 

 than a comb. I thought the comb was 

 necessary, so that the feet might lay hold on 

 the inside of the cells, but had to give that 

 up, for they perform this operation on 

 smoothly sealed honey, or on sealed brood 

 with apparently the same effort as on un- 

 sealed cells. I never saw a queen pipe with- 

 out a slight incline of the head upward, nor 

 witliout an apparent stiffening of the whole 

 sj^stem and a slight tremor of the body. 



Just how the noise is made I was always 

 at a loss to know. The noise sounds very 

 much as if a tiny saw were wrestling with 

 a tiny splinter, only the first noise is mucli 

 longer drawn out than those whicli follow. 

 Then the interval between the first and 

 second notes is much longer than are those 

 which follow in rapid succession up to five 

 or six, according to how long the queen has 

 been piping, and how enraged she becomes 

 from tlie quahking of one or more queens 

 in tlieir cells wliich are being held as pris- 



oners there, awaiting the issue of a second, 

 Ihird, or fourth swarm. I have no idea as 

 to how the queens quahk in their cells; but 

 certainly this cannot be done by any flut- 

 tering of the wings. Who can tell us more ? 



How can I tell whether a colony has a laying 

 worker ? I am told that .such workers lay only in 

 drone comb. Is this right ? 



Doubtless laying workers use drone-cells 

 more largely than they do worker-cells, but 

 they will use either, and more often prefer 

 a queen-cell cup than any other kind of cell. 

 Then lajdng workers generally place more 

 than one egg in a cell, while a fertile queen 

 rarely ever lays more than one egg in a cell, 

 unless it is at a time of few bees in early 

 spring with a sudden and generous supply 

 of pollen. At such times a prolific queen 

 will often lay two or more eggs in a cell. 

 But no one who has carefully examined to 

 know how a j^rolific queen places her eggs 

 in the bottom of any cell, with each stand- 

 ing on end as if glued there, wll be 

 " caught napping " regarding the eggs of 

 laying workers. They attach their eggs in 

 all manner of waj'S to the sides and bottoms 

 of the cells, and often put from three to 

 ten in any queen-cell cup that may happen 

 to be in the cluster of bees where such are 

 laying. Then these eggs lie about in differ- 

 ent angles to the base of the cells, so that 

 even the inexperienced have a susj^icion that 

 something is wrong. 



Are large colonies more liable to swarm than 

 small ones? I am told that they are. But I read 

 that large colonies are needed to get good results 

 in surplus honey. 



I think there may be a misunderstanding 

 in this matter regarding large colonies. 

 With a large liive, say one holding twelve 

 Langstroth frames, or a hive containing 

 2500 to 3000 cubic inches, a colony in such 

 a hive will not be as much inclined to swarm 

 as will a colony in an eight-frame L. hive, 

 or one holding 1800 to 2000 cubic inches. 

 Now, in the usual waj^ of speaking, any 

 colony in the large hive will be called, four 

 times out of five, a large colony, while the 

 one in the small brood-chamber would be 

 called a small colony; and under this ren- 

 dering the small colony will be more likely 

 (o swarm than the large one. But with the 

 same proportion of bees as to the number 

 of cubic inches, I have never been able to 

 see much difference as to the inclination to- 

 vv'ard swarming. Of course, with each hive 

 proportionally filled with bees, the swarm 

 issuing from the large hive would be large. 



