OCTOBER 15, 1912 



dry. We partly agree with Mr. Hutchin- 

 son in saying that the temperature is sec- 

 ondary to dryness and ventilation. — Ed.] 

 SiEGWART says, Sclnoeiz. Bztg., 202, that 

 when bees are shipped without combs or 

 other means to give them a good foothold, 

 many a bee loses its life when the package 

 is thrown, because of the bursting of the 

 crowded honey-sac. If that is confirmed, 

 it seems there might be some danger in the 

 ordinary shaking of bees, especially if they 

 fall ujjon a hard surface. [We suspect thei'e 

 is something in this. When we first began 

 shipping bees in pound and half-pound 

 packages we did not (as we now do) make 

 use of a series of roughlj^ sawn slats about 

 34 inch ai:)art, fastened longitudinally 

 through the cage. The result was that many 

 of these packages were reported dead. In 

 later years we put in these supporting slats, 

 find find the bees go through in much better 

 order. The slats are put close enough to- 

 gether so that they act somewhat like combs 

 in supporting the bees. In the old pound 

 packages there was a large amount of va- 

 cant space, making it necessary for the bees 

 to hang on to each other. This, we thought, 

 cost considerable leg strain or weariness, 

 and would, therefore, to a certain extent, 

 reduce the vitality of the bees. — Ed.] 



Penn G. Snyder^ replying to your ques- 

 tion, p, 601, I think the Swiss introduce 

 their virgins to the mating nuclei the same 

 as the Root Co. introduce queens, at least 

 sometimes, to bees in one of their new ship- 

 1 ing packages by means of a candied cage. 

 Your ex2:)erience on three different occa- 

 sions differs from mine on hundreds of oc- 

 casions. When a dequeened colony has 

 brood in all stages, it is a rare thing for 

 a virgin to emerge from its cell in less 

 than 12 days, but quite often it is more 

 than 12 days. If it emerges in 12 days, 

 then the larva chosen must have been not 

 more than a day or two old. You say, 

 "Naturally, the older the larvae selected, the 

 earlier the queen emerges from her cell." 

 That's a rather common idea, but fallacious. 

 We are told that, after a worker larva is 

 fed three days, it is weaned. Then it is 

 fed two days more, and the feeding of that 

 two days makes it five or six days more in 

 developing. If it should be chosen for a 

 queen just before being sealed up, do you 

 think it would then develop within 1.5 or 

 16 days of the time the egg was laid? And 

 if chosen any time after being weaned, do 

 Auu think there would not be a posti^one- 

 ment of the time of emergence? If chosen 

 when four days old, if such a larva could 

 be made into a queen at all, it seems fair 

 to guess it would take it so much longer 



to develop that the younger larvee would 

 beat it getting out of its cell. But I don't 

 believe my bees ever chose a four-day-old 

 larva for a queen, if they had any thing 

 younger. 



Not often is my enthusiasm stirred as it 

 was by a sight of a 3-lb. package of bees 

 without brood or bees, received by ex- 

 press from the A. I. Root Co. They've got 

 the thing down fine as to the matter of 

 package. A cubical cage of wire cloth has 

 inside supports for the bees; and the bees 

 looked so bright and contented — only four 

 dead at the bottom — that I spent some time 

 admiring the outfit as a real thing of 

 beauty. It would be imi^ossible to ask a 

 more successful shipment, unless those four 

 bees could be saved, and it is possible they 

 died of old age. What better way of get- 

 ing a valuable queen than in such a pack- 

 age? Just run the bees into a hive with 

 perhaps a frame or two of brood, and 

 there you are — no introduction, no risk. 

 [We may explain to our readers by say- 

 ing that we are making experiments in 

 testing packages suitable for shipping bees, 

 without combs or brood, thus eliminating 

 the danger of transmitting foul brood of 

 any sort, and at the same time very ma- 

 terially reduce the weight, and consequent- 

 ly freight or express charges. Combs and 

 the hive constitute over 75 per cent of the 

 weight of a medium colony of bees ; in 

 other words, an ordinary colony with 3 

 lbs. of bees and brood with honey would 

 run about 45 lbs. shipping weight. Three 

 pounds of bees without the brood, combs, 

 or hives comes within 6 lbs. Bees go at 

 the rate of a rate and a half by express. 

 While a 3-lb. package of bees is not the 

 equivalent of a medium colony, 5 lbs. would 

 be. A 5-lb. package would run about 

 9-lbs., gross weight, as against 45 lbs. for 

 the equivalent of a colony of bees in a 

 ten-:^rame single-walled hive. If the 

 reader will turn back to our editorial on 

 page 502, August 15, on migratory bee- 

 keeping he will understand a little better 

 what we are driving at in these experi- 

 ments; in other words, we hope to elimi- 

 nate the possibility of transmitting disease, 

 and 80 per cent of the weight in shipping 

 colonies of bees in single lots or in car- 

 lots. This would make it possible to ship 

 1000 colonies of bees in one car as against 

 300 on combs in hives. The possibilities 

 are so great, and would mean so much to 

 the industry, that we feel inclined to do a 

 little experimenting in a small way, with 

 the view of going at it in a larger way if 

 the preliminary experiment seems to jus- 

 tify it.— Ed.] 



