June 4, 1903. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



359 



the Ontario Bee-Keepers' Association at their next annual 

 meeting. Carried. 



The Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Prof. C. C. James, 

 attended the afternoon session of the meeting, and being 

 called upon for an address, stated that he came to listen 

 rather than to talk. In his address he said it was rather in 

 the form of a confidential talk, and not for publication. He 

 advised the bee-keepers to get more in touch with the De- 

 partment, and make more advancement than they had been 

 doing. The Government did not know much about them ; 

 they must make their work better known. 



[ Contributed Articles j 



Rearing Queens in Upper Stories. 



■ BY L. STACHKLHAUSKN. 



ON page 248, Mr. Hasty says: — "So far as words and 

 names go, Stachelhausen's method of starting queens 

 in upper story is a sort of swindle." Mr. Hasty has 

 surely not read my article on page 150 very carefully. Not 

 anywhere did I claim that I start the queen-cells in upper 

 stories. The described plan comes very near to it, but twicfe 

 in my article I called this removed upper story a qucenless 

 colony. I said expressly that I used Alley's brood-strips, 

 and that they must be given to queenless colonies for some 

 hours to get queen-cells started, while Doolittle's cell-cups 

 cati be given in the upper story at once. I do not like to be 

 estimated as any kind or sort of a swindler, and hope Mr. 

 Hasty will correct this injustice and his bad opinion. 



This preparing of a queenless colony of the right con- 

 dition to start queen-cells causes considerable work, if 

 Alley's directions are followed ; so, for many years, I ex- 

 perimented to find a way for forming such colonies with 

 less expenditure of time and labor. So, if anything is new 

 or particular in my manipulation you may say : Stachel- 

 hausen's method of preparing a queenless colony for start- 

 ing queen-cells. 



This spring I use still an easier way with success : I pre- 

 pare a bottom-board with an entrance closed by wire-cloth 

 and place this anywhere in the shade near the hive, on 

 which the upper story over the excluder was arranged a 

 week before. About four o'clock in the afternoon I simply 

 set the upper story on this bottom-board and close it with a 

 cover, so that no bee can escape. This is all the work neces- 

 sary to get the queenless colony. Soon the bees will get 

 uneasy on account of queenlessness, and a large part of 

 them would leave the hive if it were not closed by the wire- 

 cloth. Two or three hours later I give the frame with the 

 prepared brood-strips between two brood-frames. (This 

 empty space should be prepared before the story is removed 

 from the main colony.) During the night the bees have 

 started queen-cells and early in the morning of the next 

 daj' this story is set over the excluder on its old place again. 



On pages 136 and 230, I read articles of Arthur C. Miller, 

 in which the author lays the most weight on the fact that 

 young bees are necessary to rear good queens. In my arti- 

 cle (page ISO) I said : " A large surplus of young bees com- 

 pared with the open brood is the most important thing for 

 rearing queens," and tried to explain ivliy it is so. It is in- 

 teresting that such men as A. C. Miller, Henry Alley and 

 E. L. Pratt arrived at the same conclusion by practical 

 tests, as we did by theory. To some extent it is a proof 

 that our theory is correct. 



In an upper story we can create this surplus of young 

 bees, if we wait 8 or 10 days before we give the queen-cells 

 to be cared for, as, during this time, many young bees will 

 have hatched and the young brood is all capped. The only 

 question may arise, whether these young bees will stay in 

 the upper story, or will go down into the brood-chamber, 

 where they may find plenty of young brood to be fed. In 

 fact, this may happen if in a large brood chamber is a com- 

 paratively weak colony. This, of course, should be avoided ; 

 only strong colonies, which occupy fully not only the brood- 

 chamber, but the upper story, too, (even if no brood is in 

 the latter) are fit for this purpose. Then we have to con- 

 sider another fact, which is entirely overlooked by most bee- 

 keepers. In the bee-hive a most remarkable order is preva- 

 lent. The queen lays eggs in the cells in a certain order, 



going around on the comb in circles, and when a certain 

 number of eggs Is layed, she goes to the next comb, etc., so 

 that the oldest brood is in the middle in the form of a globe, 

 and the next oldest surrounding it, like the shells of an 

 onion, etc. 



If the young bee has hatched, she is not strolling around 

 in the hive hunting for larvii- to be fed, but remains just in 

 the space between two combs, where she was born. Her 

 duty, the first days, is to clean her own cradle. In due time 

 the queen in her circling way arrives on this spot. In the 

 meantime the young bees have accumulated chyle in their 

 stomachs, and so where the queen finds empty cells she will 

 find young bees, too, which are eager to feed their chyle to 

 her, of which she needs and consumes so large a quantity. 



With the young larva; the nurse-bees grow older, and 

 the food they prepare is exactly, of the kind corresponding 

 with the age of the larva; and the age of the nurse-bees. 

 When the larva; are capped the nurses have to keep them 

 warm only, and are soon ready to do other work. 



If such order would not rule the colony, but the bees 

 would loaf in the hive, it would not only cause a continued 

 uproar, but it would be hardly possible that every larva re- 

 ceived just the proper food vital for its age. It is true, the 

 bee-keeper sometimes mixes this wonderful order up consid- 

 erably, and thinks he has done a great thing. The bees ac- 

 commodate themselves to the altered condition as well as 

 possible, but sometimes weeks may pass before everything 

 is in order again, and sometimes a real damage is done to the 

 colony. 



In the upper stories, too, the young bees do not leave 

 the combs as long as some brood is in them, except when 

 they are forced to do so by the bee-keeper. Everybody can 

 see this, if he gives Italian brood in the upper story of a 

 black colony, and examines it 8 or 10 days later ; if the 

 honey-flow is not very good, he will find very few black 

 bees on the 3 or 4 brood-combs; while the other combs con- 

 taining some honey are occupied by black bees only. An 

 upper story, if the colony is strong enough and the whole 

 arranged correctly during a moderate honey and pollen flow, 

 is in the same condition as a colony with the swarming-im- 

 pulse, and will rear just as good queens. 



Bexar Co., Tex. 



Queen-Clipping— Reasons For and Against. 



BY J. D. GEHRING. 



jj"r\EUBEN BOND," who took some practical lessons 

 r\ in bee-keeping in my apiary, as related in a series of 

 articles published in the American Bee Journal about 

 two years ago, came to see me one day, in the midst of the 

 busy season, " to find out," he said, "how to clip queens, 

 and why they should be clipped." 



Replying, I reminded him that there were several things 

 in the bee-keeping line of much greater importance to him 

 just then than queen-clipping. " Besides," I said, " it is a 

 long story in all its details ; hence, I will at present merely 

 tell why queens are clipped. And even that is not easy to 

 explain briefly, because, while one bee-keeper has one set of 

 good reasons for doing it, another has a quite difi'erent set 

 for it, and yet another has an equally good set — in his opin- 

 ion, of course — for not clipping his queens. 



The one says he clips his queens because it is easier to 

 control swarming when the queens are clipped. "That 

 alone is enough reason for me," he says. The others say, 

 " I believe in queen-clipping because it is easier to keep track 

 of them afterwards, and because I believe they lay better and 

 are less liable to sneak into the sections to lay, and because 

 I don't have to climb trees and do many like undignified 

 things, when my queens are clipped." 



Ask the third— an equally well-informed bee-keeper- 

 why he doesn't clip his queens, and he will probably answer 

 about as follows ; 



"I don't clip my queens because I don't believe in de- 

 priving an intelligent, industrious and useful creature like 

 a queen-bee of the divinely bestowed blessing of liberty. 

 And I don't and won't do it. because I think it's a wicked 

 thing to do to maim and mar for life a beautiful little crea- 

 ture like a queen-bee. Besides, I wouldn't clip my queens 

 for practical reasons that I can mention." He continues : 

 " I am a very busy man and can't aS'ord to stand around 

 in my apiary on the watch during the swarming season for 

 clipped queens when they come out with a swarm. If my 

 queens were clipped, and a swarm issues when I'm attending 

 to business somewhere else, she'll probably get lost in the 

 grass, or get picked up by a bee-bird. I don't keep my hives 



