m 



December, 1914- 



American ISee Journal 



the four days I take out all the frames, 

 destroy all queen-cells and sprinkle 

 meal successively upon bees and frames 

 and shake the bees back into the hive. 

 On one of the frames, without bees, I 

 put the queen and continue the process. 



5. The saltpeter method Vkfas em- 

 ployed by me in cases w lere I had to 

 do with a very resistent colony. It is 

 simple. I stupefy the whole colony, in 

 the evening, with saltpeter fumes and 

 simply insert the queen from above. 

 This method is somewhat rigorous. 



Now for the results on 11 colonies : 



Sammtrr. AcctpleJ. Killed. Total 



1. Swarm method 7 3 10 



2. Smoke method 7 4 11 



3. Cage method 11 11 



4. Meal method 8 S 



5. Saltpeter method... 1 1 



Aside from this reckoning there was 

 one colotiy. No. 23, on which every 

 method failed as shown below. 



Wese- that the smoke method has 

 given the least favorable results, there- 

 fore I abandoned it and have not the 

 intention to employ it again. I do not 

 doubt that under favorable circum- 

 stances it is as good as any other 

 method (not better), but if I wish to 

 be sure, I shall employ the la^r,- method. 



I do not like the meal method he- 

 cause it gives so much dust. The 

 swarm method is too complicated ex- 

 cept for superseding. 



What now are the conclusions of my 

 experiences? I think they prove 

 almost evidently the smfll Iheoiy. It 

 explains the escellent effect of my 

 method with the wire cage; in so long 

 a time as 7 to 10 days the queen has 

 certainly acquired the odor of the 

 colony and is no longer a stranger. 

 But it explains as well the ill-success 

 of the two other methods. There the 

 bees are taken by surprise ; they ac- 

 cept the foreign queen in the first mo- 

 ment, but woeto her if any disturbance 

 arrives! A single robber in the hive 

 excites the bees and makes them vigi- 

 lant. They recognize the queen as a 

 stranger; they ball her or she is stung, 

 and will soon be dead or mutilated. I 

 should like to ask a smell-theory ad- 

 versary to explain the following ex- 

 perience which my son made some 

 years ago: I haddevised a new method 

 of superseding, by daubing the queen 

 with a weak watery extract of bees 

 (without abdomens), to cover her own 

 odor, and we had indeed generally 

 good results, but not always because 

 theodorof the bee extract vanishes, and 

 by and by the personal odor of the 

 queen comes forth again. 



He had a glass hive which had a 

 fertile queen and which he dequeened. 

 In the evening he gave this colony, at 

 once, two young queens daubed. They 

 were well accepted and could be seen 

 quietly marching on the comb on the 

 following day. Curiously enough, the 

 queens avoided meeting each other and 

 were never on the same side of the 

 comb. On the second day my son was 

 curious to see whether the bees would 

 still again accept their own queen, and 

 he let her run in in the evening. Of 

 course all three queens were marked 

 distinct y and differently. The next 

 day both foreign queens were dead 

 and their own queen walked majesti- 

 cally on the comb. The bees had rec- 



ognized their own queen, and I think 

 certainly not at her dialect or visage, 

 but at her proper odor. 



May I give some details on the spe- 

 cial case mentioned above .'' The col- 

 ony No. 2.3 was extremely resistent. I 

 dequeened it June 1 1, in the morning, 

 and gave it a young queen with the 

 smoke method. She was killed, and 

 after having destroyed the cells I 

 formed of the colony a swarm, June 

 28, to which I gave another queen. 

 After some days the queen lay dead 

 before the entrance. July 0, I stupefied 

 the whole colony with saltpeter and 

 gave another queen. July 7, I noticed 

 that the colony was excited. I opened 

 the hive and found the queen balled, 

 but still healthy. As she was a valua- 

 ble queen, I took her off at once and 

 gave, with meal, an old queen 3 years 

 old, knowing that old queens are gen- 

 erally easily accepted. July 13 the 

 queen was balled and there were no 

 eggs. I put her into a wire-cage, shook 

 the whole colony into a swarm-box, 

 which I plunged for half a minute com- 

 pletely into the lake and gave them the 

 queen (a new method highly recom- 

 mended in one of the last numbers of 

 the Munichner Bienenzeitung). The 

 swarm was put back into the hive. 

 July 16 I saw that the queen had some 

 paralyzed legs (stung?). July 17 she 

 was lying on the alighting-board still 

 living but very feeble. Nevertheless I 

 gave them, with meal, another queen, 

 the same day (this was the fifth queen), 

 and fed them milk and syrup in the 

 evening. 



July 19, the queen was balled in the 

 center of the entrance; she had a lame 

 leg (stung). I shook again the whole 

 colony, covering the bees with an 

 abundant spray of water and gave the 

 queen again. July 24, no eggs and no 

 queen, colony quiet. I gave two frames 

 with very young brood, and in the 

 evening the colony was very restless. 

 Now, do what you will, thought II 

 August 12 there was a young queen, 

 but the season being so late I took her 

 away and gave about two pounds of 

 bees from other colonies, also a fertile 

 young queen by the swarming process 

 (the sixth queen). August 2i) found no 

 eggs, but larva: 4 to 6 days old, no 

 queen. The colony was exceedingly 

 restless while I was examining it; 

 therefore. I thought they might accept 

 a seventh queen. I shook the whole 

 colony, sprayed the bees with water 

 containing a little extract of lemon 

 and put in another queen who had a 

 lame leg, on a comb containing brood. 

 She was not attacked, and was finally 

 accepted and is still now in the hive 

 where she has made nice brood. That 

 is the history of an anarchist colony, 

 isn't it? 



Zug, Switzerland. 



fWith the above article Dr. Bruen- 

 nich has sent us a detail of each intro- 

 duction, with dates, etc. We did not 

 insert this because it would have made 

 the article too long, and it is very 

 comprehensive anyhow. His statistics 

 are very interesting. His trials are of 

 value because the results are so care- 

 fully noted. But he is in error in think- 



ing that we, in America, always have 

 good honey weather. 



The cage method which he gives is 

 original and differs widely from the 

 cage rriethod used here. He inserts 

 bees into the cage from the colony to 

 which the queen is introduced. We 

 leave the queen, without bees, in the 

 introducing cage, relying on the bees 

 to feed her, if there is no candy, and 

 they always do, unless they are so des- 

 titute as to be unable to feed their 

 brood. In times of scarcity it is 

 thought indispensable to feed the col- 

 ony to which a queen is being intro- 

 duced. But we find 48 hours sufficient, 

 in most cases, to acquaint the bees 

 with their new queen. As Dr. Bruen- 

 nich says, their behavior on the cage 

 usually tells how they feel towards 

 her. We release her either by letting 

 the bees eat through the candy to her, 

 or if there be no candy, by putting a 

 chunk of honey in place of the stopper. 

 It seems'that the less a colony is dis- 

 turbed after releasing the queen the 

 less danger there is for her. " A single 

 robber in the hive excites the bees." 

 We have seen bees ball a queen several 

 days after her introduction, owing to 

 disturbances. Hand, in the October 

 number, page 348, gives similar advice 

 to that of our learned Swiss friend. 



Imported queens, coming to us from 

 Italy, with the strong and strange smell 

 of heather honey, were much more 

 difficult to introduce than our own 

 queens. Likewise, a queen which has 

 traveled for several days and is fa- 

 tigued, is less apt to be accepted than 

 a young laying queen taken from a 

 nucleus in our own apiary and in- 

 serted at once in a neighboring col- 

 ony. That is another reason why", 

 aside from the advantage of knowing 

 that we are breeding from our best 

 honey producers, home-reared queens 

 are the most satisfactory. — Editor.] 



Long Idea Hive 



BY I. E. rR.\NE. 



I WAS much interested some time 

 since in taking care of a good sized 

 yard of old-fashioned hives with 

 old style frames that 1 had supposed 

 were long since discarded, as well as a 

 solar wax extractor that I thought was 

 going out of use. 



Yet here I found in southeast Florida, 

 in the yards of O. O. Poppleton, the 

 "long idea hive," or was it called "the 

 new idea hive " more than 40 years 

 ago ? I remember making and using 

 some of them 45 years ago this last 

 season. Instead of making the hive 

 2story as now generally practiced, it 

 is made to be used only as a 1-story 

 hive, and some 3 feet long and just 

 wide enough to take in a frame of 

 any given size across the hive. His 



