548 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1 



day, when they are to be brought out and 

 allowed to fly. If each nucleus and the 

 drone colony are fed a little warmed dilut- 

 ed sweet just before setting- out, and the 

 hives set facing" the sun, queens and drones 

 will fly the same as they would were it 

 three hours earlier in the day." 



"Well, I have bothered you more than I 

 intended, and I wish to thank you for the 

 plain way and the many plans you have 

 given me. I will now be going." 



"If I have helped you any I am glad of 

 it, and you are certainly welcome. But be- 

 fore you go allow me to say that, after hav- 

 ing tried all of the plans given, I have come 

 to the conclusion that, for the practical api- 

 arist, the first plan is the one to follow; 

 and, let me whisper in your ear, that the 

 mismated queens which you will get by this 

 practical plan will give you just as good 

 results in honey as will any of the purely 

 mated queens; and honey is what the aver- 

 age bee-keeper is after. To my mind, what 

 the average bee-keeper wants is one or two 

 pure Italian queens from which to rear his 

 queens, then let them mate as they please; 

 and let me assure you that such a mode of 

 procedure will give any but a queen-breed- 

 er perfect satisfaction, and the breeder also, 

 so far as honey-gathering is concerned. 

 Of course, it will be necessarj^ to have a 

 good queen to rear stock from every two or 

 three years, else we shall soon run into a 

 race of bees we shall not be satisfied with." 



<?&-"--»- 



wismm: 



SWARTHMORE'S REPLY TO " QUEEN BREEDER." 



Small One=frame Boxes for Fertilizing Queens; is 



the Plan Feasible in the Hands of the Average 



Bee-keeper ? 



BY SWARTHMORK. 



Queen Breeder attacked me in veritable 

 hybrid spirit; but I have rubbed out the 

 stings, and will now light up the smoker. 

 Perhaps his temper may yield to the bel- 

 lows. 



Queen Breeder prefaced his remarks with 

 the statement that he had had no experience 

 with nuclei of smaller size than three or 

 four frames (L. size, I presume), which 

 means he has never attempted before to 

 mate queens in any other way than b3r prac- 

 tically full colonies. This being so, he 

 should not have jumped into the thing so 

 heavily at the start. "Would he advise a 

 beginner in apiculture to start with 300 

 booming colonies ? No ; he would say, 

 "Start small; studjs experiment, and work 



He did not follow in detail the directions 

 as stated in his attack. He used a smaller 

 box, thus making five entrances, or flight- 



holes, on a side, similar in alignment, and 

 quite close together, which is undoubtedlj' 

 the cause of the loss of fully half his queens 

 at flight. He made — well, simply a mess 

 of securing brood in the little combs, and 

 wonders why eggs were removed from the 

 "north side." Simply because of the hon- 

 ey-flow he speaks of. Does not Queen 

 Breeder know that bees frequently remove 

 eggs and larvae, not protected by developed 

 brood, to make storage room for honey dur- 

 ing a sudden flow? This often happens, 

 even in well-regulated hives. Allow me 

 here to say that a few nucleus colonies kept 

 upon small combs (fitted into large frames, 

 of course), the season through have sup- 

 plied for me all the brood in section frames 

 that could possiblj' be used, at no loss and 

 with very little trouble. It was out of the 

 question to try to tell in a single magazine 

 article the many wa}'s of securing brood, 

 so I gave what seemed to me at the time the 

 quickest and best. Most bee-keepers de- 

 quoen to start cells (or ex-queen which is 

 almost the same in principle); and by hiv- 

 ing such bees, after the cells have been . 

 started, with a young laying queen, on to a 

 set of smalls combs, brood will be secured 

 quite r^ipidl}'. In my exhaustive work the 

 brooding of small combs is thoroughlj^ cov- 

 ered. 



Miniature queen - fertilizing nuclei have 

 been used by Mr. Alley for over forty years. 

 Man}' queen-specialists have never used any 

 but small frames for mating queens, for the 

 reason that they are more economical than 

 large ones, more easy of manipulation when 

 once one "gets the hang of them," and un- 

 doubtedly successful. 



After Queen Breeder found his 200 mated 

 and laj'ing queens in the little boxes he 

 speaks of he should have taken them from 

 the frames and joined the remaining queen- 

 less boxes, if testing was desired. His loss 

 here was purel}' hy his own blunder. 



Queen Breeder closes by telling what a 

 bother the lids are to adjust and readjust. 

 In this he is quite right. I did not claim 

 perfection — far from it — nor do I claim it 

 •j'Ct, nor will I ever claim it. But the box 

 has been improved, and can now be han- 

 dled with much more ease. A number of 

 the improved boxes have been sent to Mr. 

 F. Greiner, Mr. Holtermann, the Rambler, 

 Mr. W. H. Laws, and several others, who 

 have kindl}' consented to give them a thor- 

 ough trial, and to report their success or 

 failure. Let us wait for these reports. 



It is still my belief that the small fertil- 

 izing-boxes can be used commercially if un- 

 derstood. Thej' were designed in the first 

 place, more especially, for those who would 

 mate a few queens for themselves at small 

 cost, without much disturbance to full colo- 

 nies. There was no need of so much nonsen- 

 sical tearing asunder of colonies as Queen 

 Breeder went through with. He simply did 

 not quite understand what he was to do — 

 that is all. 



We have used these little boxes commer- 

 cially' in numbers as high as 300, and to- 



