Aug-. 6, 1903. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



501 





Contributed Articles 



J 



Finding Queens— Pollen in Extracting-Combs. 



BY C. DAVENPORT. 



THOSE who have read what I have written iu the past 

 know that for comb honey I use and prefer the black or 

 German bee. And all who have handled black bees 

 know that it is a hard and of ttimes impossible matter to find 

 a queen in a populous colony without straining or running 

 the whole force through zinc. I keep all laying queens 

 clipped and generally go over the hives in the spring before 

 the colonies get very strong. But last spring it was so very 

 cold and unfavorable almost all the time that I disliked to 

 open the hives or disturb the bees as much as would be 

 necessary to find the queens. When I did start in at this 

 work most of them were fairly strong, and as soon as I 

 opened a hive and began to handle the frames the bees 

 would begin to boil up over the sides of the hive or collect 

 or hang in bunches on the bottom-bars of the frames, and 

 it seemed impossible to find a queen without the use of zinc. 

 I would attach entrance-guards to the hives, then shake all 

 the bees on the ground in front, and after most of them had 

 crawled through the zinc the queen could be found among 

 the few outside. But for some reason this method did not 

 work well this season. The bees seemed loth to crawl 

 through the zinc and in some cases a large part of them 

 would collect around or under the hives and stay there all 

 night. 



So I devised or studied up another plan by which a 

 queen can be found so much quicker, that I am taking space 

 to describe it. It may be old to some, but I do not remem- 

 ber ever seeing it described. And, no matter how strong a 

 colony is, the queen can by this method be very quickly 

 found ; and the plan will, I have since found, work equally 

 well with a swarm if it is for any reason desired to find 

 their queen. 



I took an empty hive-body and over the bottom tacked 

 or nailed an all-zinc queen-excluding honey-board. A tight 

 bottom was nailed on another empty hive-body and the out- 

 fit was complete. 



The empty hive with the tight bottom was placed on the 

 ground in front of a colony and over it I would place the 

 other body on which the zinc was nailed. Now, if I have 

 made myself understood, it will be seen that we have two 

 empty hive-bodies with a sheet of zinc between the two, 

 placed in front or beside a colony whose queen it is desired 

 to find. 



Taking out the first frame it is looked over for the 

 queen and if she is not found the frame and adhering bees 

 are hung or placed in the empty hive-bodies. This is re- 

 peated with all the frames unless the queen is found before. 

 We will suppose, which is usually the case with me, she is 

 not. If the colony is very strong and becomes much ex- 

 cited, a large number of bees will be running around on the 

 bottom-board of the now empty hive and collected on the 

 inside. The hive is now quickly picked up and set over the 

 one containing the frames, a sharp blow on each side rolls 

 what bees are adhering to it down among the frames, and 

 if there are so many bees on the bottom-board that the 

 queen might be among them without being easily discov- 

 ered it is held over the frames and the bees jarred off among 

 them. 



The bottom-board and hive are now placed back on 

 their stand. With the left hand one of the outside frames 

 is raised up two or three inches, then with the closed right 

 hand the top-bar is struck a sharp, quick blow near its cen- 

 ter. One blow of the right kind usually clears a frame so 

 that a queen can be readily seen if she still adheres to it. 

 As fast as the frames are cleared of bees they are placed 

 back in the hive proper, on which the cover is now placed. 



When I thought about this plan I was afraid that the 

 bees would, instead of crawling down through the zinc, 

 crawl up over the side. But in practice the most of them go 

 right down through the zinc so that the queen is readily 

 seen. 



After the queen was clipped I would let her run in at 

 the entrance, and then dump the bees down in front and 

 they would go in sooner, for, of course, with this method, 

 they have no zinc to go through at the entrance. 



A neighbor bee-keeper near swarming- time offered to 

 make quite a wager with me that I could not by this plan 

 find the queen in one of his strong colonies in five minutes. 

 In a trifle less than three I had found and clipped her, 

 placed the frames back in the hive and dumped the bees 

 down in front. But in this case I did not look the frames 

 over to find her. Some might, and in fact I had some fear 

 that it might, injure laying queens when jarred down on a 

 sheet of zinc in this manner, but out of over ISO so treated 

 not one was injured or lost, and they went right on laying 

 at their usual rate. By the entrance-guard plan, when a 

 queen stayed out over night before being found and clipped, 

 it would in some cases be a number of days before she 

 would resume laying as well as before. 



POLLEN IN EXTRACTING-COMBS. 



During the last few years I have produced considerable 

 extracted honey, and one great drawback about this branch 

 of our pursuit that I have to contend with is pollen in the 

 extracting-combs. Last spring I had about 500 full-depth 

 combs that were filled nearly solid full of pollen. The 

 method that has been described, of soaking such combs in 

 water until the pollen can be thrown out with the extractor, 

 is ain utter failure, so far as such pollen as is gathered here 

 is concerned. I gave the plan a most thorough trial last 

 spring in all kinds of variations. Some combs I soaked for 

 a short time, some for a few days, and some for over two 

 weeks, but in no case, where the cells were full or nearly so, 

 did it soften or loosen enough so that it could be thrown out 

 with the extractor. Where there was but a small amount 

 in a cell it would work all right. Some of these combs I 

 soaked in water and put them through the extractor three 

 times. Of course this removed some of it, but the larger 

 part still remained in the combs, and I found that combs 

 soaked in water soured and molded badly in spite of all I 

 could do to dry them. 



The plan of giving these combs containing bee-bread 

 to the bees in order to have them use it up will not do here, 

 because, as a rule, there is too much of it gathered all 

 through the season. The only way I know of to overcome 

 or get rid of this, as it might be called, surplus pollen is to 

 shave or cut it out of the comb. I lay a comb down on a 

 board that just fits inside the frame. Then with the ex- 

 tracting knife I cut or shave the comb, pollen, and all down 

 to ' i or V of its original thickness. These combs are then 

 placed over strong colonies some time before the flow com- 

 mences, and the bees will usually dig out and throw away 

 what pollen is left before building out the comb again. 

 Southern Minnesota. 



A Protest Against Unripe Extracted Honey. 



BY R. A. BURNETT. 



IN a recent number Mr. A. I. Root, in one of his Home 

 articles, spoke of a bee-keeper in Northern Michigan 

 who sold her honey in a perfectly raw state to a confec- 

 tioner, and that both the buyer and seller of said honey 

 seemed to be well pleased with their operations. " The 

 producer sold a much larger quantity of honey from each 

 colony of bees by taking it out of the combs before it was 

 sealed than if it had been sealed and allowed to ripen before 

 extracting." 



Now, if there is any one thing that is more injurious than 

 another to the sale of extracted honey, it is unripe or im- 

 properly cured honey. I do not know that I have read any- 

 thing in a long time which annoyed me more than the pub- 

 licity given to that method of obtaining a large quantity of 

 honey. 



I have for many years sold honey to manufacturers ; 

 but where they got uncured honey it had the effect of reduc- 

 ing their consumption in the near future, as it did not give 

 satisfaction in the product of which it was a component. 



I will take the liberty of citing a most striking example 

 of marketing honey in a green state. Certain bee-keepers 

 in the main buckwheat sections of New York, in recent 

 years, got immense returns from their bees by taking oft" 

 the combs before the honey had been sealed, or very soon 

 thereafter. Some of them were called " Lightning Opera- 

 tors." Their honey was sold on the reputation that buck- 

 wheat honey had made for itself, that of being a good arti- 

 cle for baking purposes ; but after two or three years of dis- 

 appointment with buckwheat honey (that they got hold of) 

 these manufacturers finally determined that they would use 

 no more buckwheat honey, for of late it had been very un- 

 satisfactory in many instances. The result is, that for the 



