1318 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1 



THE BAIN NURSERY CAGE AND ITS USE AT THE ROOT HOME YARD. 



or rejected. He accordingly has all his ripe cells 

 attached to wooden cups let down into a wooden 

 cage that he has deviled, see illustration, so that, 

 when a virgin hatches, she is in a little wooden 

 box with wire cloth on one side. Within 24 

 hours she is allowed to run in at the entrance of 

 the hive that is to receive her. To accomplish 

 this the cage is opened so that the mouth of it is 

 directly in front of the entrance of the nucleus or 

 hive, as the case may be. Soon she will crawl 

 out, but may have to be "steered " with a spear 

 of grass until she gets her nose pointed toward 

 the entrance, when she will likely run in. Mr. 

 B. says the fingers must not or better not come in 

 contact with the queen. She must have no foreign 

 odors clinging to her. The younger the queen 

 the quicker she will crawl into the entrance. If 

 too old she will be timid, and this has a bad effect 

 on the bees. 



One advantage of introducing young virgins 

 instead of giving cells is that it allows one to se- 

 lect the best queens and discard the others; where- 

 as, when a cell is put into the nucleus, if the 

 hatching virgin is not what she ought to be, time 

 is lost. While she may be removed and another 

 cell given, the whole process has to be repeated. 



Another and very important advantage in this 

 virgin plan, says Mr. Bain, is that the cells clear 

 up to the exact moment of hatching, are incubat- 

 ed in strong colonies where colony temperature 

 vyill always be right. This insures large vigorous 

 light-colored queens all hatching at almost the 

 same hour; whereas, he says, a cell given to 

 a nucleus may suffer a reduction from the proper 

 temperature, and this will necessarily affect the 

 queen within the cell. 



In large queen-rearing operations it will hap- 

 pen, however, that it will not be possible to have 

 in readiness a queenless nucleus or a hive for 

 e--very queen before she is 24 hours old. Then 

 one will have to introduce in the regular way, 

 taking his chances on having the queen injured. 



The illustration accompanying shows a batch of 

 24 cells, in as many cages, all of which hatched 



a queen save those where the cell is seen project- 

 ing down, and from which the queens had not 

 emerged. All of these queens were exceptional- 

 ly large and a bright yellow. They were so 

 beautiful, indeed, that we could not resist the 

 temptation to take a photo of them; but we re- 

 gret that the reproduction here does not begin to 

 convey the relative sizes and beauty of the queens. 

 They were as handsome a lot as we ever saw, 

 hatching within an hour of each other. 



The cage is one that is preferred by Mr. Bain 

 and of his design. It is a simple J-s-inch block 

 1'4 X2,'4^ with one side chambered out as shown. 

 This is accomplished by boring three one-inch 

 holes nearly through the wood. Both ends are then 

 bored out, one to receive a cell and the other a 

 feed cup; after which the open side is covered 

 with wire cloth. Mr. Bain prefers to have one 

 side of solid wood so that the virgin has a secure 

 resting-place clear from the reach of any hostile 

 worker that may be in the nursery hive. By 

 having a hole through bolh ends of the cage a 

 queen that is not disi'osed to go out can be push- 

 ed out. 



A SWARM THAT SENT SCOUTS TO 

 THE WALL OF A HOUSE. 



BY FRANK C. PELLETT. 



Last summer we were remodeling our house, 

 and a large portion of the weather- boarding was 

 taken off one side, and sheeting and building-pa- 

 per put on. This was left partially unfinished for 

 some time, and we noticed a large number of 

 bees going in and out of an opening for several 

 days as though they had taken up their residence 

 there. Finally a very large swarm came and went 

 at once into the opening. I was ready for them, 

 and filled up my smoker and drove them out at 

 once, when they clustered on a limb of a large 

 apple-tree near at hand, and were soon hived. A 

 few days later we again noticed bees at work 

 there, and they continued to do so for several 



