490 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



actions under smoke and others that we are 

 familiar with. 



Corvallis, Oregon. 



A BLACK HAT THAT PROVED TO BE A TAR- 

 GET FOR THE BEES 



BY THE BEEMAN 



Three years ago I hii-ed a man to help 

 take off the honey. It was after the flow 

 was over, and the bees are cross when there 

 is no flow. We wore veil and gloves. The 

 hum of the mad bees soon attracted my at- 

 tention to his black hat. The bees were not 

 bothering me; but the black hat about four 

 feet from me had nearly a dozen stings, 

 and the bees were vei-y mad. We left the 

 yard, and I brought out a straw hat for 

 him. We went to the same place in the 

 yard to work, and the bees did not bother 

 us. A few days • later he went with my 

 brother to an outyard, and wore the black 

 hat. He put on a veil and left off the 

 gloves. The bees attacked him at once, and 

 they soon found his hands. The next day 

 his hands were swelled badly. My brother 

 did not have Ms veil on; and the bees, being 

 mad, attacked him, and then he put on a 

 veil, and took the honey and carried it to 

 a wagon, as the man with the black hat 

 could not go into the yard. 



I have been run out of the beeyard on 

 account of my black hat a number of times. 

 We wear veils only when the flow is poor; 

 and if I stop in the yard to see how the 

 bees are working they soon find the black 

 hat. I will not buy another black hat while 

 I work with bees. Sometimes I get stung 

 while walking through the yard without 

 stopping; and when I am going to the yard, 

 if I have the black hat on I change it unless 

 I forget it. 



Chamberino, N. M. 



A CONVENTION OF i„REE 



Requeening ; Laying Workers 



BY R. F. HOLTERMANN 



One evening when visiting Mr. Hardy 

 in New York the question came up regard- 

 ing requeening apiaries. Mr. George B. 

 Howe considered queens up to two yeai*s of 

 age quite profitable, of course requeening 

 whenever any showed signs of failing pow- 

 ers. 



Messi-s. Howe and Hardy considered the 

 month of October a time when bees accept 

 a new queen very readily. Mr. Hardy had 

 often successfully introduced a queen at the 

 entrance, running her in during the early 

 oool morning, and Mi'. Howe said that he 



had frequently introduced queens to queen- 

 less colonies by running them in at the top 

 of the hive in October in the early morning. 



MATING OF QUEENS. 



In 1908 Ml". Howe had tkree queens mat- 

 ed twice. Three days after the first mating 

 they mated again and laid three days after 

 the second mating. Mr. Howe had eye- 

 witnesses to this at the time. Normally in 

 a honey-flow queens lay three days after 

 mating; but it is dangerous to consider a 

 colony queenless, even if no eggs are in the 

 hive for quite a time after a virgin queen 

 hatches. He had known of a Carniolan 

 queen not laying until tln-ee weeks after 

 she emerged from the cell. Italian queens 

 are often slow about mating and laying. 

 If such queens were too slow, he found it 

 best to destroy them. Virgin queens often 

 come out several times to play in front of 

 the hive before going out to mate. JMr. 

 Howe said that ciueens would sometimes be 

 drone-layers when they began laying, and 

 would become normal queens afterward. 



LAYING WORKERS COME FROM OVERFED 

 LARVAE. 



A discussion took place upon the subject 

 of laying workers. Mr. Howe's many years 

 of experience with bees warranted him in 

 making the following statement: "You 

 never find laying workers in queenless colo- 

 nies in the spring. Some varieties of bees 

 are more liable to have laying workers than 

 others. Those more liable are those which 

 feed the larvae more. 



" If during the breeding season you kill 

 a queen and destroy all the queen-cells after 

 seven or eight days, then fertile workers 

 will develop ; but I never had a case of fer- 

 tile workers in a colony of black bees. In 

 a Carniolan colony, if you kill the queen 

 and then destroy all queen-cells, after eight 

 days laying workers will soon develop. I 

 have seen in such a colony as many as 50 

 or 60 laying workers. I have quite fre- 

 quently seen them back down in the cell to 

 lay. The normal workers in a colony will 

 feed the laying woikers. The latter are 

 plumper than ordinary workers. I find 

 fewer laying workers among Italians, and 

 none at all among the blacks. 



" I believe that overfed larvas, when the 

 colony is hopelessly queenless, produce lay- 

 ing fertile workere. A colony having no 

 brood when queenless can not overfeed 

 larvae to produce fertile workers." 



The writer suggested t)iat the reason why 

 there are so many eggs in some cells in 

 which laying workers laid was because, un- 

 like the queen, the workers do not examine 

 them before they lay in them. To this, both 

 Mr. Hardy and Mr. Howe assented. 



Brantford, Ontario, Ca. 



