Jan. 18, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



39 



of say No. 3, putting No. 3 in a new place. No. 1 will swarm 

 again in a day or two, when No. 1 will be replaced by its 

 swarm, and you will put No. 1 in place of No. 4. Next day 

 or so another swarm will issue from No. 1, and you will pro- 

 ceed as before, so long as No. 1 sees fit to swarm. That 

 will give you 5 or 10 swarms with young queens that are 

 daughters of your best queen. 

 CZdNow let us go back to the time of the first swarm. 

 When No. 1 swarms, instead of letting the swarm be satis- 

 fied with an empty hive, fill up the hive with brood from 

 other hives, and by strengthening it sufficiently it will bo 

 likely to swarm again in a short time, when the story can 

 be repeated as before ; and this can be kept up till you have 

 as many as 27 colonies with improved queens. By follow- 

 ing up the same thing each year, you will soon work out all 

 the black blood ; at least to such" an extent that you will 

 have no pure blacks. 



Of course, there are other ways by which you can have 

 all changed the first year, but this is intended as an easy 

 and safe way for an inexperienced operator. 



A Bunch of Beginners' auestlons. 



1. What is the "Golden method" for producing comb 

 honey ? 



2. In artificial swarming, say I had S colonies and S 

 empty hives, can I take out 4 frames (I have 8-frame hives) 

 of brood, put them into hives containing 4 frames of full 

 sheets of foundation, replacing the frames I took out with 4 

 frames of full sheets of foundation ? Will the brood I put 

 in the empty hives hatch out all right without any bees, 

 nurses, etc.? Should I shake off the bees into the old hive 

 before I put them into the empty hive ? How about a queen 

 for the new hive ? Should there not be some queen-cells to 

 hatch out also, in the four frames I transfer to the empty 

 hives ? 



3. Can I easily know a queen-cell ? 



4. Are there queen-cells in every frame of brood-comb ? 



5. I intend to work for comb honey — swarming condi- 

 tions being best for comb honey — would it weaken the 

 worker-force by removing the four frames of brood, espe- 

 cially if I did not shake off all the bees into the old hive ? 



6. I don't quite understand about cutting out cells and 

 putting in queen-cells, etc. 



7. About the Heddon method of transferring — the box 

 that is to be placed on top to drum the bees into — the top of 

 the hive I suppose is taken off ; is the box to be large 

 enough to fit the whole top ? If not, what is to prevent the 

 bees from flying out around the sides of the small box ? Is 

 the bottom -of the box all open, or just a hole for the bees to 

 go into the box ? How would it do to have a window in the 

 top ? South Carolina. 



Answers. — 1. You will find the " Golden method " fully 

 described in this journal for 1899, pages 4, 33, 65, and 97. 



2. No ; to put frames of brood without any bees in a 

 new hive will be only dead loss. Don't think of trying to 

 make new colonies at all until you know more of first prin- 

 ciples by studying a good text-book. If your friend, whose 

 journal you read, has no text-book to lend you, it would be 

 a very nice thing for you to get a book to lend him. You 

 need both a bee-journal and a text-book ; but you should 

 have a book first if you must get along without one of the 

 two. 



3. You will have no trouble whatever in knowing a 

 queen-cell the first time you see one. If you see on a comb 

 something that looks like a peanut made of beeswax, that's 

 a queen-cell. 



4. There may be one or more queen-cells on one comb 

 and none on the rest. There may be queen-cells on every 

 comb in the hive. There may not be a queen-cell in the 

 whole hive, and most of the time there is none present. 

 Generally, however, rudimentary cells, or cell-cups are 

 present. But a complete queen-cell will be found only when 

 the bees are rearing a young queen. 



5. Every cell of brood removed will weaken the future 

 force, the time when such weakening comes depending 

 upon the age of the brood removed. 



6. You will probably have no difficulty in understand- 

 ing all about it from your text-book. The object of this de- 

 partment is to supplement the text-book, and anything not 

 clearly understood from your text-book will be most cheer- 

 fully answered here. You will easily understand that if all 

 the things of the text-book are answered here, it would take 

 up all the room, for beginners are coming into the family 

 with every number, so the whole journal would be taken up 

 with things that can be found in the books, and the journal 



would be of no value to any one who has such a book in his 

 possession. This is by no means meant to discourage ques- 

 tions ; they are gladly welcomed ; only let them come after 

 reading the text-book. 



7. When bees are to be drummed out of a box-hive, the 

 box-hive will usually be found with no bottom nailed on ; 

 so the hive is turned upside down and the drumming-box 

 placed over. If the box is not of the same size as the hive, 

 then there must be some sort of adjustment by means of 

 pieces of board or cloth, the particular adjustment depend- 

 ing upon the difference between the box and the hive. Lat- 

 terly, however, it is not considered necessary to have a close 

 fit ; a little smoke will prevent the bees flying out, and the 

 bees may be driven with a large open space unprotected. 

 The more free the passage from the hive to the box the 

 better. A window would hardly be worth the trouble, and 



is not necessary. 



^-•-♦^ 



What Makes a Laying Worker? 



What is a laying worker? Is it a worker fed a few days 

 as a queen, or can any worker lay eggs ? I have several 

 times had colonies that became queenless when there was 

 no brood in the hive, and such colonies never developt lay- 

 ing workers. This generally occurred in. the fall, during a 

 time when the queens were not laying. The bees would 

 live until they were robbed out or died out in the spring, 

 and never developt any laying workers. 



I tried the experiment of putting a frame of brood, just 

 ready to seal, in one hive, after which it produced laying 

 workers. I also took from a strong colony its queen and 

 all of its brood, and left it in that condition for 30 days, and 

 no laying workers appeared. I then gave them some old 

 brood, and in due time they developt laying workers. 



I do not claim that the above experiments prove any 

 thing, as bees do not always do things exactly the same, 

 but I would like to know what some of the leaders think 

 about it. Oregon. 



Answer. — Answering the spirit of your question, I 

 must say I don't know what it is that makes a laying 

 worker. It was formerly held by some that in some way, 

 perhaps by being near a queen-cell, a young worker got 

 enough roval jelly to enable it to lay eggs. Perhaps no one 

 holds that'opinion at the present day. It can hardly be that 

 it is " a worker fed a few days as a queen," for the scien- 

 tists tell us that for the first 3 days queens and workers are 

 fed alike, the worker being weaned or fed on coarser food 

 after the first 3 days, while the queen has the same diet con-_ 

 tinued during the remaining two days of her larval life. So' 

 you see if a worker were fed two days more than usual on 

 royal jelly, she would be a queen complete. 



Your own observations seem to show that workers may 

 take up the business of egg-laying rather late in life. 



It was formerly thought that a single laying worker did 

 all the business. Then it was thought there might be sev- 

 eral, and within a few years actual dissection has shown 

 that a large number, if not the majority of workers in a 

 colony, may be engaged in egg-laying. 



The time of year and existing conditions may make 

 quite a difference as to the matter of workers promptly tak- 

 ing up the egg-business. The kind of bees also has some- 

 thing to do with it. In some cases a colony may be queen- 

 less a long time with no laying workers. In other cases 

 they may begin laying while a young queen is present but 

 not yet laying. 



All things considered, it seems not unreasonable to be- 

 lieve it is possible that any worker may get to laying, but 

 just what conditions are necessary to make that possible I 

 don't know. 



York's Honey Calendar for 1900 is a 16-page pamph- 

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 should-be consumers. The forepart was written by Dr. 

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 effective helper in working up a home market for honey. 

 We furnish them, postpaid, at these prices: A sample 

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 ordering 100 or more copies at these prices. 



