NOVEMBER 15. 1915 



941 



attendance, with both his ears wide open). 



A paper on the benefits of bees to the 

 fruit-jrrower, by Prof. A. J, Cook, State 

 ]Iortienltural Commissioner, was read be- 

 fore tiie meeting. Among other things he 

 mentioned the complaint sometimes made 

 against tlio bees that thej' cari'y pear blight. 

 Be said that, while it was doubtless possible 

 for bees to spread this disease in the same 

 manner as do oilier insects, they are only 

 one of a number of agents that do this, and 

 their removal would not greatly aiifect the 

 amount of pear blight; that the beneficial 

 work of the bees as poUenizing agents vast- 

 ly outweighs any harm they might do by 

 spreading pear blight. 



Among others. President Wood called 



upon Mr. J. D. Bixby, editor of the West- 

 cm Honeybee, and a visitor from Covina. 

 Mr. Bixby gave some conclusions from his 

 experience with European foul bi'ood, em- 

 phasizing the fact that he considered it nec- 

 essary to melt up all combs containing or 

 having contained diseased brood, but not 

 other combs, in the diseased colony— as, for 

 instance, super combs above a queen-ex- 

 cluder. 



The meeting was one of the most inter- 

 esting the club has had for some time, and 

 would doubtless have been of benefit to 

 some who were kej)t away perhaps by the 

 rather cool cloudiness of the day. 



Ventura, Cal. 



A PROCEDURE FOR LATE FALL QUEEN -MATING 



BY JOHN L. BYARD 



Read before the Hampshire, Hampden, Franklin Beekeepers' Association, March 19, Northampton, Mass. 



Having for some time presumed that I 

 could procure select matings of queens dur- 

 ing late August or early Septembex", I de- 

 vised what, perhaps, is a process with some 

 unique features. These do not pertain 

 particularly to the mating of the queens, 

 but more especially to the nucleus in which 

 mating occurs. I first selected a drone 

 colony. This was done late in August. 

 Queen-cells containing maturing queens 

 were then procured, 

 caged, and made ready 

 for i n t r d u c tion. 

 WLen introduced the 

 queens were left for 

 several weeks without 

 attention, at the end 

 of which time a large 

 percentage of the 

 aueens were found 

 mated. 



The nuclei were pre- 

 pared as follows : 



Nucleus hives were 

 the combination boxes 

 in which either four 

 full Langstroth frames 

 could be hung or a 

 larger number of Ben- 

 ton frames (one-third 



tlie size of the Langstrotli frame, and hung 

 in the opposite direction). I first supplied 

 a candy-feeder in the form of a division- 

 board. A frame containing a piece of new 

 bright comb the size of a quarter or fifty- 

 cent piece was then added. Sometimes, 

 instead of this small piece of comb, I sup- 

 plied a frame with a narrow starter. Two 



or three frames with starters were also 

 supplied on either side of the center comb. 

 When the nucleus was prepared, I shook 

 a quart of queenless bees into the hive, 

 closed the entrance, and set the nucleus in 

 the shade. The next day, at about four in 

 the afternoon, the virgin queens having 

 hatched, I ran one into each nucleus, clos- 

 ing the entrance. On the following day I 

 removed the entrance-block, liberating the 



Scene of the Massaclui setts convention at Stoughtou this summer, 

 little liives could be opened without smoke or veil. 



The 



bees. These nuclei were then without at- 

 tention for two weeks, after which time I 

 found nine queens laying. It should be 

 stated, however, that in introducing the 

 virgins one was killed and one escaped in 

 handling. 



As a result, from nine virgins thus han- 

 dled eight were purely mated and one was 



