150 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



March S, 1903. 



an ordinary summer-stand in our home-apiary. When the 

 apple-blossoms opened, those bees were ready for work and 

 took in some surplus — a thing which I had never seen before. 

 When the clover came, the six colonies began to swarm. 

 and I dare say we harvested more swarms and took more 

 honey from those six colonies than from the other 25 put 

 together. Some of the earliest swarms cast some swarms 

 themselves which made good colonies before fall. P^rom 

 31 or 32 colonies, all told, we increased to some 60, and took 

 four or five thousand pounds of surplus honey. 



In my mind this evidences the necessity of keeping our 

 bees well sheltered from the cold in the spring. But to 

 keep them sheltered means nothing if they do not have a 

 plentiful supply from which they can draw to breed, and it 

 is in this that large hives are of use. With large brood- 

 chambers, there is always a plenty of honey, if the colony 

 has been treated right the previous season. So the bees are 

 more likely to be able to breed, when they should. But in 

 any case, it is not a bad policy to give stimulating feed. A^ 

 I said before, it must be given in small doses. We are not 

 aiming at the storing of honey. All we want is to keep the 

 bees active by giving them to understand that help is at 

 hand. If my reader has never tried it, he does not know 

 how quickly bees get accustomed to being fed. Give a col- 

 ony nourishment forthree days at the same hour and at the 

 same place, and they will expect it the fourth day, exactly 

 as if they were spoiled kittens or well-fed chickens. But the 

 feeding must be done in a judicious manner. 



If you want to feed your hens to made them lay, you 

 would not throw your grain to them in a 4-inch snow, or at 

 improper hours. Your aim would be to place it where they 

 could get at it without getting too cold or without having 

 to stay off their perch at an unseemly hour You must 

 treat your bees as you would your hens — keep their habits 

 in mind, and feed them only when and where they will not 

 be compelled to become chilled to reach the food. Remem- 

 ber that their honey-supply is expected to last them till the 

 warm days come, and if you give them extra feed, give it 

 only when you know that it will do good and can do no 

 harm. 



If the bees are fed early in the morning in cold weather, 

 or when they ought to stay in the hive, a great many of 

 them will become excited and will rush out and get chilled. 

 If food is given for stimulating breeding, it should be given 

 in the evening when there is but little chance of the bees 

 venturing out, and when the robber-bees are not likely to 

 disturb them. Hancock Co., 111. 



Methods of Rearing Good Queen-Bees. 



BY L. STACHELHAUSEN. 



MR. HENRY ALLEY expresses the opinion that no 

 good queens can be reared by a colony having a fertile 

 queen. This is an astonishing assertion if taken into 

 consideration that in the natural stateall queenlarv^ during 

 the swarming-time are nursed by bees when a fertile queen 

 is in the hive ; the same is true when an old queen is super- 

 seded by the bees. The queens reared in queenless colonies 

 are rare exceptions. But I think Mr. Alley is opposed to 

 the upper stories over a queen-excluder for rearing queens 

 in them. 



I am of the opinion that in these upper stories as good 

 queens can be reared as in queenless colonies, and by both 

 ways worthless queens, too, if we do not observe' some 

 other important points. 



Mr. Alley correctly says, on page 725, "The entire 

 thing lies with the nurse-bees." If our bee-keepers had 

 given more attention to the nourishment of bees such ques- 

 tions would have been settled long ago. Such analyses as 

 Mr. Alley asks for were made years ago, and they show that 

 the food given to queen-larv:e, or that given to worker- 

 larva; less than four days old, and that for young drone- 

 larvw, have a different chemical composition, nevertheless 

 they all are /«//)' digested pollen and honey (chyle), and are 

 prepared by the young nurse-bees in the true stomach. The 

 chyle is identical with the blood of the bee, showing even 

 the blood-globules. All this is sufficiently proven, but in 

 some of our text-books we do not find it mentioned, or an 

 incorrect explanation is given. 



How the same food can have these different composi- 

 tions is explained in different ways, but as this is more 

 theory I will not say more about it. We know that the bees 

 need a good supply of pollen and honey to prepare royal 

 jelly, or still better if pollen and nectar is gathered from 

 the field. Further, we know that a colony has more and 



richer larval food (and this is royal-jelly) if the number of 

 young bees is large compared with the number of 

 young larva;. These young bees prepare the chyle and feed 

 the larvie instinctively ; if not enough young larv;e are 

 present the young bees find no consumers of the chyle ; it 

 remains longer in the stomach and is getting richer in albu- 

 men. This surplus of young bees, and consequently of 

 chyle, causes in swarming-time the building of queen-cells, 

 and at last swarming ; at other seasons, if a queen is not 

 prolific in egg-laying any more, we have again a surplus of 

 young bees, and the old queen will be superseded. A large 

 surplus of young bees compared with the open brood is the 

 most important thing for rearing queens. In a colony with 

 old bees only, or in a weak colony, we will get worthless I 

 queens. We have to consider this, we may rear queens in I 

 upper stories or in queenless colonies. 



I rear some queens for my own use and none for sale. 

 I rear them in upper stories over an excluder, and at a 

 season when the bees are gathering honey, and I think no 

 better queens can be reared. If I had to feed the colony I 

 would probably prefer a queenless colony. 



The advantage of these upper stories is not to get better 

 queens, as by a queenless colony if properly managed, but 

 it is that this colony is not spoiled for honey-production, 

 and is developing in the lower story just as well as any 

 other colony ; this is a great advantage. Besides this, the 

 preparing of the colony takes less time and labor. For 

 rearing queens in upper stories we must have a strong col- 

 ony, or the cells are not accepted ; but queenless colonies 

 will rear some kind of a queen even in the poorest condition. 

 For this reason in upper stories there is less danger of get- 

 ting worthless queens. I know this, because this way of 

 queen-rearing is the main cause that Italian bees and arti- 

 ficial queens have lost all reputation in (Germany. 



I will describe the way I use for rearing queen-cells : 



1. I take 5 or 6 brood-combs without bees, from some 

 other colonies, and hang them in an upper story over a 

 queen-excluder and over a strong colony. 



2. Eight or ten days afterwards nearly all of this brood 

 is capped, many young bees are hatching daily, and as no 

 young larva; are present a surplus of chyle is prepared, and 

 the colony is in proper condition for queen-rearing. Now 

 I remove the hive to a new place, but the upper story with 

 bees and all is set on the old stand. Soon this colony will 

 show all signs of queenlessness, and now (in 2 or 3 hours) I 

 give the brood-strips (Alley's method) between two brood- 

 combs. 



3. Twenty-four hours afterwards this hive is arranged, 

 that is, the hive with the queen is set again on the old stand, 

 and on top of it, over the excluder, the story with the now 

 started queen-cells. 



Sometimes I manipulate differently. I may give this 

 queenless colony another set of queen cells and remove the 

 first lot to another upper story prepared 7 or 8 days before. 

 Or the first lot of queen-cells may remain in this queenless 

 colony until they are ripe and can be used in nuclei, as this 

 is the easiest way to prepare a queenless colony for cell- 

 building, if such a one should be preferred. Probably it 

 would be better to set this queenless colony with the entrance 

 closed in a cellar and keep it without open brood for a long 

 time, that is, to give the brood-strips later. 



Some scientists believe that the youngest bees prepare 

 the richest chyle, what we would call royal-jelly. If this is 

 so, hatching brood should be present in the colony which 

 rears queen-cells, and this is secured by the above plan. 

 Mr. Alley takes away from a strong colony the queen and 

 all the brood, and gives the brood-strips after some hours. 

 Hereby we have the necessary surplus of young bees, and 

 they are in proper condition, but this method could probably 

 be improved by giving some capped brood at the same time 

 with the brood-strips. 



It is considered as very important to select larv;e for 

 queen-rearing at the correct age. If the larval food for 

 queen and worker larva? (less than 4 days old) would be the 

 same in the same colony, as some believe, any larva; under 

 this age would be good enough; but if the food for the 

 young worker-larva; and the royal jelly is different, as the 

 analyses as yet seem to indicate, we should select larva; as 

 young as possible. To decide this question it would be 

 necessary to analyze larval food taken from queen-cells and 

 worker-cells from the same hive and at the same time. This 

 was not observed in the analyses mentioned above. Besides 

 this, we see oneother difference — the queen-larv;i! are al- 

 ways floating in an abundance of food, the young worker- 

 larva;, too, as long as they are small, receive more food than 

 they consume, but later not so much food is given any 

 more. For this reason very young larva^ are preferable 



