

43d YEAR. 



CHICAGO, ILL, MARCH 26, 1903, 



No, 13. 



Clipping; Queens is greatly favored by 

 some and as severely condemned l>y others, 

 but, as a rule, those who favor clipping have 

 tried queens clipped and undipped, while 

 those who condemn it have never thoroughly 

 tried clipping. If you have never tried clip- 

 ping, it might be a good plan for you to clip 

 a small proportion of your queens, and then 

 you could judge better as to which plan is 



best for you. 



^ 



Laying AVorkeivs. — One continues to see 

 uiention in bee-papers of a colony having " a 

 laying worker,'' with perhaps a remark as to 

 what became of "the laying worker." It 

 should be remembered that careful analyses 

 have shown that in a laying-worker colony 

 a large proportion of the bees are found to 

 contain eggs. The shaking off the bees at 

 some distance from the hive, so that "the 

 laying worker'' may not find her way back 

 home, will thus be seen to have .some imagina- 

 tion connected with it. A laying worker will 

 probably find its way back to its home as 

 readily as any other worker. 



Placing Hives in Pairs is strongly 

 advocated by those who have practiced the 

 plan. It is claimed that the bees will never 

 make the mistake of entering the wrong hive 

 of a pair; if a mistake is made it will be by 

 entering the corresponding hive of another 

 pair. This gives the advantage of economy 

 of space. A further economy is gained by 

 putting two rows together close, back to 

 back, thus making the hives in clusters of 

 four. If you level your hives with a spirit- 

 level— and by all means you should — you will 

 find it much easier to level a stand for two 

 hives than a shorter one for one hive, taking 

 less than one-fourth the time. 



Introducing Virgin Queens. — The 



Australian Bee-Bulletin, page '200, says: 

 " Bees are said always to accept a virgin 

 queen." That is one of those half-truths that 

 are often the most dangerous errors. The 

 truth is that, in general, virgin queens are 

 not nearly so easy to introduce as laying 

 iiueens. The bees seem to want some one to 

 engage immediately in the work of laying 

 eggs, and a virgin queen does not till the bill. 

 There is, however, a short time in the life of 

 every virgin queen when she seems to be 

 readily accepted by any colony, even one 



which has a normal queen with which the 

 bees are entirely satisfied. That time is dur- 

 ing the babyhood of the queen, and does not 

 last many hours after she emerges from the 

 cell. At that time she does not seem to be 

 recognized as a queen — she is merely a baby, 

 and will do neither good nor harm. 



As soon, however, as she becomes old 

 enough to put on the airs of a queen she must 

 take her chances as such. If the colony is in 

 need of a queen, her chances of acceptance 

 are much better than if she had been left out 

 of the hive till more mature. She is already 

 there, in peaceable possession, and possession 

 is nine points of the law. If there is present 

 a laying queen that the bees are thinking of 

 superseding, the young Miss has the same 

 chance as if she had emerged from a cell 

 matured in the hive. But if there is present 

 a laying queen with which the bees are en- 

 tirely satisfied, then as soon as she is old 

 enough to be recognized as having royal blood 

 in her veins, she is promptly seized as a 

 usurper. 



Just remember that until a virgin queen is 

 a few hours old she will be kindly received in 

 any colony. Whether she continues to re- 

 ceive kind treatment after she begins to assert 

 her royalty depends upon circumstances. 



Have You a Spirit Level ?— If not. 

 get one and use it in leveling your hive- 

 stands before they get any heavier. If your 

 bees are in the cellar, level the stands before 

 the bees are brought out. Don't think you 

 can level well enough by the eye, especially if 

 the ground is not level. Just level two or 

 three stands by the eye, and then test them 

 by a level, and you will very likely be done 

 with the eye-business. No matter about 

 leveling from front to rear — perhaps it will 

 be all the better if the hive tips a little for- 

 ward — but from side to side they should be 

 level. 



Absorbent Covering for Hives. — 



Straw mats, coverings of chaff, etc., have 

 been used to put over brood-frajnes in winter, 

 and are much in favor. The name "absorb- 

 ent,"' however, conflicts with the popular 

 theory as to such coverings, which is that the 

 atmosphere of the hive slowly passes up 

 through the vi ires of the mat or other cover- 

 ing. If the ah' passes through it can hardly 

 be said to be absorbed. The real value of 

 such coverinf-'p probably consists in their be- 

 ing non-conduL-lors, retaining the heat. The 

 following Stray Straw from Gleanings in Bee 

 Culture is in point: 



R. Khomlx-i_'. in an able article in Bienen- 

 Vater, repori- investigations as to ventilation. 

 He put a suiw mat over a hive, filled the 

 hive with Mimke, then watched the smoke 



escaping upward. It came through the needle- 

 holes, the wrinkles in the binding, and espe- 

 cially along the crack where the cushion lay 

 on the hive, but never a bit came through the 

 straw. That the straw is impermeable is 

 further shown by the fact that it becomes 

 i damp. If air passed through it, then the 

 moisture would pass through and settle on 

 the outer surface, leaving the mat dry. If he 

 is right, and I suspect he is, then we are a bit 

 off in thinking that cushions are good be- 

 cause the air passes through them. They are 

 good because they are non-conductors, keep- 

 ing warm. The air must be allowed to es- 

 cape through little holes or cracks, and the 

 under surface may be water-tight, only so it 

 is warm.— [There is something in this, I be- 

 lieve. Absorbents will take up water; but if 

 they would allow air to pass through them, 

 that water would be evaporated, but it is not. 

 The common practice now is to put a sealed 

 cover over the brood-frames in winter, and 

 then the so-called absorbents on top, not to 

 "absorb," but to provide a non-conductor of 

 heat.— Editor.] 



Use of Drones. — Among the old writers 

 will be found those who credited the drones 

 with laying all the eggs. Later they were 

 counte'd water-carriers. Modern authorities 

 geoerally consider their sole function that of 

 fecundating the young queens, yet of late 

 there seems a tendency to attribute to them 

 other functions. 



Some maintain, in a general way, that a 

 colony will do better if allowed to rear a rea- 

 sonable amount of drones, the fact that the 

 bees are eager to rear drones being sufficient 

 proof that it is the right thing to do. But it 

 is not always a safe thing to appeal to Nature. 

 That would lead the poultry-raiser to have as 

 many cocks as hens in his flock. 



There seems, however, more force in the 

 argument that drones aid in keeping up the 

 heat of the colony, and this argument obtains 

 more especially among some of the German 

 and French bee-keepers. One German writer 

 gives what he considers a striking instance. 

 A very strong colony, from which might have 

 beea expected a heavy harvest, had all its 

 drones destroyed, and the harvest was almost 

 nothing, because a large proportion of the 

 field-bees had to stay at home and keep up 

 the heat, which heat would have been pro- 

 vided by the drones. 



Admit that the destruction of the drones 

 resulted as claimed, does it follow that it is a 

 good thing to have in each colony a force of 

 dronas, independently of their use as mates 

 for the young queens '. Suppose that the 

 drone-comb in which the drones were reared 

 had been worker-comb instead. Would not 

 the workers reared therein have served eciually 

 well as heat-producers ; Will not a pound 

 of workers produce just as much heat as a 

 pound of drones ' Will they not produce 

 more i It is not the bee that is sitting per- 

 fectly still, but the bee that is moving about 

 in lively action that produces heat. The 

 nurse-Vices are in lively action, the drones are 

 not. The drone takes its e.vercise out in the 

 open air. wasting its heat in warming the 

 weather rather than in warming the hive. 

 The truth would seem to be that the workers 

 product more heat than the drones, and pro- 

 duce it at no cost, while they are at work as 

 nurses, awaiting the time when they will add 

 to the stores of the hive as fielders. 



