664 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOLhl>AC. 



Oct. 15, 1903. 



and the Alley. Not knowing very much about the Alley 

 method, I shall contine my discussion principally to the 

 Doolittle plan now. 



The practitioners of the Doolittle method know it is 

 necessary to dip royal jelly from one queen-cell to another, 

 also to transfer the larva; for the queens. And also know- 

 ing that some of the so-reared queens, or a good many of 

 them, do not come up to the standard or expectations, I be- 

 lieve I found the cause of this short-coming the past season. 



Last summer, in June (I do not exactly remember the 

 date, but it matters not), I took some queen-cells and a piece 

 of comb with larva; into the house, as the day was rather 

 cool, and it being noontime there was a good fire in the 

 kitchen. I thought I would rather transfer the larvaj and 

 fix all up there, for the temperature was high, at least 9S 

 degrees F. I put the piece of brood to be used into my 

 clothes, next to my body, to keep it warm, but the queen- 

 cells containing the royal jelly I was not so careful with, 

 but cut them out and carried them in my hands to the house, 

 laid them on the table, and went to work at once dividing 

 the jelly, and putting a portion into each respective cell-cup, 

 a /a Doolittle ; when, after I was done with the job, I took 

 the piece of comb containing the larva;, that I had kept in 

 my clothing until then, shaved the cells down as directed 

 by Mr. Doolittle, picked up the spoon I had used in trans- 

 ferring the jelly (which I had made expressly for the pur- 

 pose out of hard maple, one end of which I had made into 

 a curved toothpick, for picking the lava; out of the bottom 

 of the cells), when, for some reason I do not know, I touched 

 iny lips with the spoon I had previously used for transfer- 

 ring the jelly, and which was yet wet therefrom— why, it 

 felt as cold as ice ! 



At once it dawned upon me why some of the queens 

 reared by this method are inferior, for, if the temperature 

 of the jelly sinks below that of the atmosphere surrounding 

 it, which it surely does, it is no wonder that some of the 

 little larva? produce poor queens after receiving such a "cold 

 bath " as they would have had in this case had I not discov- 

 ered the rapid cooling off of the jelly. But mind, it takes a 

 lot of heating in order to raise the temperature of the jelly 

 in the wax-cups to a normal one again. And, therefore, I 

 would caution the beginner to be very careful, if using the 

 method in question, lest he have some poor queens, although 

 it may be a success in the hands of an expert. 



I, for one, am in favor of having the queen put the eggs 

 for the queens in the cell-cups herself, without my touching 

 them at all, as the experience I had last summer proves it is 

 a very dangerous thing to do. It seems to me something 

 like taking a half-hatched chicken out of its shell, holding 

 it in my hand awhile, and then putting it back again and 

 closing up the egg and allowing the chick to hatch. I won- 

 der if it would be as strong as if I had never taken it out 1 

 I hear some one say, "Oh, well, a queen-larva is no 

 chicken." I know it is not, but both are alike in some 

 respects, at least, and that is in this : They both require the 

 natural course for development, and experiments made show 

 that the temperature of a colony of bees varies but little, 

 however extreme the atmosphere surrounding it may be ; 

 consequently, it seems to me that a larva of such tender age 

 can scarcely stand the radical change of temperature to 

 which it is subjected to in the transferring process. It also 

 seems possible that by making some improvements and 

 short cuts a much larger percentage of queens can be reared 

 under the swarming impluse than has been done heretofore. 



Some of the readers of the American Bee Journal un- 

 doubtedly remember me telling about cutting a brood-comb 

 about half way through the middle and placing the same in 

 a colony preparing to swarm, for the purpose of getting 

 queen-cells built on the lower edge of the comb. L,ast sum- 

 mer I tried cutting only about two inches off the bottom of 

 the comb, and inserted a stick with dipped cups, a la Doo- 

 little, except dipping the entire stick into melted wax, and 

 found the queens to lay promptly in them. But I believe if 

 one would go to the trouble and take away the brood-combs 

 from a colony intending to swarm, and insert several — say 

 three or four combs with queen-cell cups — the queen would 

 lay in them in such rapid succession that nearly all of them 

 would hatch at the same time. 



Now, in order that I may not use too much space, I will 

 close and let the other folks have their say. 



Chippewa Co., Wis. 



[ Our Bee-Keepins Ststers | 



Conducted by Emma M. Wilson, Marengo, 111. 



Queen-Rearing-— Feeding Bees— Other Questions 



Queenie Jeanette is the title of a pretty song in sheet 

 music size, written by J. C. Wallenmeyer, a musical bee- 

 keeper. The regular price is 40 cents, but to close out the 

 copies we have left, we will mail them at 20 cents each, as 

 long as they last. 



I launched my canoe into queen-rearing recently, and 

 was utterly smashed on submarine snags not yet discovered. 

 Help ! help 1 



I have a "select-tested" queen ' from a well-known 

 breeder, and her bees are a beautiful yellow, but so small 

 (not more than three-fourths as large as my big, brown bees) 

 that I hesitated to rear queens from her ; but I tried, any- 

 way. 



I used two Danzenbaker hive-bodies with excluder be- 

 tween, the lower one containing the queen and her brood, 

 the upper one 10 frames of brood from other colonies. I let 

 this stand eight days, then removed the queen and all 

 frames from below, but left almost all the bees. I put 3 

 frames of young brood and eggs from an Italian queen in 

 the center of the upper story, putting below frames taken 

 from there. 



Ten days from removal of queen, just as I was about to 

 go around and break up this colony into nuclei (after spend- 

 ing about a week sawing and nailing on nucleus hives), this 

 colony swarmed. This was Aug. 24. On examining the 

 3 frames given, I found about 12 or IS little sealed cells, the 

 most insignificant I have ever seen, some indeed barely 

 larger than drone-cells, varying to about an inch in length, 

 and about the size of a lead-pencil around, not one of which 

 I'd think of using. Now, several frames distant, in the 

 same story, there were two splendid cells, out of which 

 queens evidently had emerged. I put those on frames of 

 brood from a black queen given over the excluder eight days 

 before removal of queen. 



So endeth effort No. 1. 



The following is trial No. 2 : I removed the Italian 

 queen and shook nearly all bees from an upper story (which 

 was the one containing brood) of another colony into the 

 hive out of which she came, and the nest day I shook nearly 

 all the bees from another strong colony into this hive, for I 

 did not feel sure I had enough young bees (of course, the 

 queens were temporarily removed while shaking was in 

 progress). Although goldenrod was still in bloom, on the 

 third day I fed about three-fourths of a quart of extracted 

 honey because the weather turned cool and cloudy, and con- 

 tinued so for several days. 



Now, on the day for forming nuclei, on looking in the 

 hive, I found the same kind of tiny little cells as before. 

 Failure again ! 



Now for questions : 



1. In my first attempt, do you think those bees started 

 out with the idea of superseding their queen, and after- 

 wards found themselves crowded, and decided to swarm ? 



2. What is the reason the bees would not make larger 

 cells ? Do you think the queen, whose bees are so small, is 

 at fault, or have I simply " bungled ?" (Don't hesitate to 

 say so — it is not the first time.) 



3. Is extracted honey fed without thinning? 



4. Why must feeding be done early ? Can't the bees 

 ripen honey if the weather is such that they can fly ? In 

 this locality there are not many weeks, or even days, in 

 which they can not fly. 



5. In wintering out-doors, would entrance-blocks be any 

 advantage ? My hives have an inch across the entire front. 



6. Last fall I stupidly left a super containing 10 sec- 

 tions of drawn comb on a hive during fruit-bloom ; these 

 sections were filled (no other hive had supers then). Now, 

 next spring, if I add supers underneath each colony would 

 the bees store in them if there is any surplus ? (Fruit blooms 

 in March and April, and I don't care to disturb sealed cov- 

 ers.) Would it interfere in any way with brood-rearing ? 



7. Why should hives be exactly level if frames are not 

 loose-hanging? 



8. If brood in the same comb hatch into both yellow and 

 dark bees, does it indicate the queen has been impurely 

 mated ? 



9. Does not hanging out frames for bees to rob cause 

 robbing when not desired ? 



10. Where does Miss Wilson get her buckskin gloves ? 

 and at what price 7 



