1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



505 



ment on a large number of colonies that it is 

 rather doubtful if we ever again depend on 

 honey as a winter food. 



I think Prof. A. J. Cook, nearly forty years 

 ago, was the first man who called our atten- 

 tion to this very important subject. It was 

 at a bee-keepers' convention in Utica, N. Y., 

 and I can never forget how anxious father 

 Quinby and Capt. J. E. Hetherington were 

 to inquire all about this substitute for honey 

 as a winter food, which at that time was a 

 new discovery. If his advice had been taken 

 then it would have saved the lives of far 

 more colonies of bees than there are to-day 

 in the United States. 



Delanson, N. Y. 



[When this article was written Mr. Alex- 

 ander had not seen the special series of ar- 

 ticles on spring management that appeared 

 in our two March issues, wherein spring 

 feeding, except to prevent starvation, was 

 considered ill-advised. Even if he had seen 

 them, it is presumed that his advice would 

 have been just the same, except that he prob- 

 ably would have presented some arguments 

 in defense of the practice for his locality. 



As we have before pointed out, our corre- 

 spondent has a late honey-flow, mainly from 

 buckwheat, and therefore this must be taken 

 into consideration. — Ec] 



THE PLURAL QUEEN SYSTEM. 



A Review of the English and American 

 Systems; Their Advantages and Disad- 

 vantages as Viewed from the Standpoint 

 of a Traveling Bee Expert in England. 



BY J. GRAY. 



In this article I propose to review briefly 

 the various conditions under which two 

 laying queens will live in peace in one colony. 



PLURAL QUEENS UNDER NATURAL CONDI- 

 TIONS. 



When supersedure takes place in a colony 

 of kindly disposition the old queen is allow- 

 ed to continue while the young one takes up 

 the duties of motherhood. The forces that 

 go to makeup this variation from the normal 

 conditions of a colony are twofold — disposi- 

 tion and plenty. The bees of a colony of 

 kindly disposition will extend their kindness 

 to the old queen, neither workers nor young 

 queen showing fight; and while stores are 

 pouring into the hive the old queen still finds 

 some workers to feed and care for her. Here, 

 then, is one of the vital points; Under what 

 conditions can I get a colony to feed two 

 queens, without which all our efforts will 

 f ail ? Note how easily the hundreds of drones 

 are disposed of, all for want of food. It is 

 not a question of drone fighting drone, but 

 it is a question of starvation. When those 

 conditions arrive that a queen begins to re- 

 strict her laying because she is not fed so 

 lavishly, then comes the time that one queen 

 is neglected and starved. It is here that 

 Alexander is beaten by the bee. 



THE ENGLISH SYSTEM. 



Our Wells hive provides for the two colo- 

 nies becoming one in scent and heat, only 

 until harvest time, when the two forces are 

 worked together in one common super. I 

 pointed out in my last the greatest fault of 

 the system; i. e., the big unwieldy hive. There 

 is also another fault that comes through the 

 two colonies carrying the same scent. 



Dr. Miller has called attention to the fact 

 that a colony will use one side of the hive 

 more than the other. It is just this that 

 causes trouble with the Wells — both colonies 

 carry the same scent, with the result that, in 

 the early flights, one side increases to the de- 

 pleting of the other until at last the queen is 

 missing from the weakened side. I have 

 had the same experience when tiying to win- 

 ter tiered-up instead of side-by-side scent, 

 and heat allowed only between the two. 



THE ADVANTAGES OF THE WELLS SYSTEM. 



The advantages are a big yield of honey 

 and less swarming. The lesion it teaches is 

 that it takes about four days for two colonies 

 to acquire the same scent. 



THE HAND SYSTE3I. 



This has some very good points. The 

 shallow frames make a crowded condition 

 of brood-nest which would tend to favor two 

 queens from the workers' point of view. 

 The queens Ijeing kept apart by the exclud- 

 er, their time is not wasted by useless fight- 

 ing, even though their stings were cut off, 

 and the frames are shallow enough for two 

 sets to form one chamber with a queen in 

 each set. 



Doolittle has pointed out how bees contract 

 with cold, and occupy only half the space. 

 When this contraction occurs there would be 

 the fault of starving one queen, as in the 

 Wells system. Is it possible to modify the 

 Hand system and use a queen-excluder in 

 summer and wire cloth in winter, with an 

 upper and lower entrance? Even then the 

 risk would still remain that the lower en- 

 trance might be used the more. 



THE ALEXANDER SYSTEM. 



This would have been excellent if possible 

 to carry out; but it fails at the most critical 

 time. We want a system that will carry us 

 through the winter It would be hard on the 

 stock to sacrifice every other queen, and, 

 when the spring comes, raise an equal num- 

 ber to fill up again. 



Modern apiculture has guided the bees to 

 perform some wonderful work, yet this prob- 

 lem presents a big difficulty in that we are 

 against the natural instinct of the bees. 



Long Eaton, England. 



[Mr. Gray suggests the use of wire cloth 

 after the honey-flow, or during winter, in- 

 stead of perforated zinc; for when a flush of 

 good times for the colony has passed, one of 

 the queens will be missing because the bees 

 favor one more than the other. It is possi- 

 ble, if the cluster were divided by wire cloth, 

 the two queens could be maintained over wiur 

 ter. — Ed ], 



