1008 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15 



now replace the frame in the hive and await the 

 appearance of your queens. 



Now a few words as to the disposition of the 

 queens when they hatch. Divide your bees up 

 by any method you care to follow. The plan 

 which I generally adopt is to remove three frames 

 containing brood and bees, and place them in an 

 empty hive; then carry the old hive to a new site 

 at least 15 feet from where the parent hive was 

 originally located, placing the queenless three- 

 frame colony in exactly the same position for- 

 merly occupied by the old hive. Of course, all 

 the flight bees will return to the new hive, which 

 will, by the time a queen is hatched, have become 

 a fine colony well on with the fourth frame of 

 comb. Now watch your cell-cage; and just as 

 fast as you find queens hatched, remove them 

 and drop them (without smoke) right among the 

 bees in the queenless hive. There is hardly a 

 chance of the bees balling if the queens are intro- 

 duced before they can fly. I have given this a 

 most thorough trial this season, and lost but one 

 cell, it being torn down by a virgin that was left 

 imprisoned for two days on account of my not 

 having a hive ready for her. 



Sandusky, W. Va. 



LWe endorse what our correspondent has to say 

 in reference to queen-rearing on a small scale; 

 that is, it is a mistake for a bee-keeper owning 

 perhaps ten or fifteen colonies to think that he 

 must have a complicated apparatus for rearing 

 his queens. But it seems to us that the plan here 

 described could be still further simplified, and 

 improved at the same time. It requires rather 

 close watching to remove virgins just as soon as 

 they are hatched, and we can not see why it 

 would not be vastly better, instead of placing 

 cells in the cage in the manner described, simply 

 to leave them where they were first constructed 

 until they are ripe, and then distribute them 

 among the nuclei already prepared. This would 

 save all the expense of the cage, of the wax col- 

 umns, wax cones, etc.; and since it is much safer 

 in the long run to introduce ripe cells than vir- 

 gins, there would be some saving. In most cases 

 it would be necessary to protect the cells in the 

 usual manner with regular queen-cell protectors, 

 which also provide means for attaching them to 

 the combs. — Eu.] 



THE CASE METHOD OF REQUEEN- 

 ING EXPLAINED. 



Good Queens Reared Under the Swarm- 

 ing Impulse. 



BY WM. W. CASE. 



In reply to John M. Davis, page 700, I would 

 say that I do not think I was understood con- 

 cerning queens reared in swarming time, in the 

 article quoted I v\"as not writing a dissertation on 

 queen-rearing, but a method of procedure to en- 

 able many who fail to get a honey crop from 

 weak colonies or from excessive swarming to 

 remedy those conditions and reap a nice proht. 



In the first place I did not think any one would 

 infer that I used cells for breeding sealed after the 

 colony swarmed, I stating that such cells could 

 be used for seven days, meaning, of course, that 

 the last ones (sealed when the swarm issued) 



would hatch by the eighth day, and intending to 

 give the impression that all unsealed cells should 

 be destroyed. Now, by preventing the queen 

 from leaving the hive for two, three, or four days, 

 by traps or otherwise, large numbers of prime 

 sealed cells may be obtained (I have had as many 

 as nine), sealed before the swarm has finally been 

 hived. Such cells produce the best of queens 

 possible to get, even though placed in nuclei or 

 even mating-boxes if the temperature is kept right. 

 As a matter of practice I do tiot divide the cell 

 colony into nuclei until about the seventh day. 



In defense of my queens, I might say that I 

 went into winter quarters, fall of 1907, with 49 

 colonies. Two, through an oversight, starved to 

 death; and three, for some cause or other, came 

 out queenless, which, however, were early replac- 

 ed from the South. On June 18, 1908, 45 of the 

 47 colonies were working in the supers, covering 

 more than 1500 sections on that date. None 

 were given brood from others excepting the three 

 queenless ones above mentioned, which were 

 slightly aided, one of them now working in the 

 supers, and none had the aid of a second queen 

 to reach that condition, but one swarm having 

 issued previous to that date. 



I am not rearing queens for sale, and have no 

 ax to grind. 



Frenchtown, N. J., June 22. 



TWO SEASONS' EXPERIENCE WITH 

 TWIN MATING-BOXES. 



Seme Data to Show the Economy of a Nu- 

 cleus Holding Four Ounces of Bees. 



iV M. T. PRITCH.ARD. 



[The writer of the following article has charge of our north 

 yard, where, with 200 double baby nuclei, he will rear, in practi- 

 cally three months, 2000 queens — has reared 1500 already. He 

 does not seek alone mere numbers but quality of stock. — Ed.] 



A system of record-keeping is used in one of 

 the queen-rearing yards of The A. I. Root Co. 

 which enables us to know at the end of the sea- 

 son just what has been done with each nucleus. 

 Some data taken from these records may help us 

 to decide between small nuclei and nuclei with 

 full-sized frames. Five twin mating-boxes were 

 taken from the storehouse, and an examination 

 was made of the ten records, there being two nu- 

 clei in each box, each having two frames one- 

 third the size of a Langstroth frame. They are 

 probably a fair average of the yard. 



These nuclei were all started between the 18th 

 and the 27th of June, using four ounces of bees 

 for each nucleus, and they were run until after 

 the first of September. One, however, swarmed 

 July 5, and was given a new supply of bees the 

 same day. The last cjueens we; j taken from them 

 Sept. 22. During the season's work with these 

 ten nuclei, 47 virgin queens and 41 cells were in- 

 troduced; 15 of the virgins were lost in introduc- 

 ing, 7 more were lost at mating time, and the re- 

 maining 25 became laying queens. Of the cells, 

 7 failed to hatch; 2 were lost at mating time, and 

 32 became laying queens. 



After two seasons' experience with the twin 

 mating-boxes I am satisfied that the little colonies 

 will hold their own through the queen-rearing 

 season if started with young bees. Our greatest 



