306 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



May 17, 1900. 



described the bee-escape honey-board (shown here) which is 

 useless for the purpose there recommended, but which is of 

 so much use in transferring or changing bees from one hive 

 to another, that I am using it entirely for that purpose. In 

 fact, I believe its use is the easiest plan of transferring of 

 which I know. 



"Now, as the harvest draws to a close, I would prepare 

 some of the brood-chambers such as I winter the bees in. 

 with full combs of honey or empty ones, as seems best ac- 

 cording to the season, and have them ready to place on the 

 stands which are occupied by swarms in shallow brood- 

 chambers. When the time comes to take off the last of the 

 comb honey, take one of these prepared brood-chambers 

 and put it on the stand of one of the small brood-chamber 

 colonies ; on it (the prepared brood-chamber) put one of the 

 bee-escape honey-boards ; first having taken the queen 

 from the small brood-chamber and put her in the large one ; 

 and above the bee-escape honey-board put the brood-cham- 

 ber from which the queen was taken, then carry the comb- 

 honey supers removed from the small hive to the honey- 

 house. 



As the bees hatch out from the small brood-chamber 

 the drones and young queens, if any are reared above the 

 excluder, as is sometimes the case, will pass out thru the 

 bee-escape in the front end of the honej'-board to the out- 

 side of the hive, which ends all bother with them, and the 

 brood-chamber becomes a super for extracting the fall 

 honey. 



Mr. Bevins further says : " Of one thing I am toler- 

 ably well convinced, and that is, that the wintering of bees 

 without the necessity of feeding, and the securing of a 

 large amount of surplus, are things which can not be with 

 any certainty combined." 



By the above method the labor and expense of feeding 

 is reduced, and the amount of surplus obtained from the 

 colonies which swarm has often been one-third more than 

 from the best of those which did not swarm. The hives 

 from which the swarms issued, and those which are not 

 strong enough to work well in the boxes, are used to fill 

 extracting-combs, and of these enough are used for feeding 

 purposes. 



As I am living in Northern Illinois, and not in a very 

 good location for honey, I will say that I am very well con- 

 tent with the amount of surplus which " Providence and 

 the bees permitted me to have " during the last season, 

 which was a little over SO pounds per colony, spring count ; 

 tho it was not obtained as Mr. Bevins says, in his last para- 

 graph, he would get it. 



I have read his articles as coming from a practical bee- 

 keeper of experience, and I think we would not differ much 

 on general principles. 



To sum up, my plan is simply this : Use any kind or 

 size of hive you like, according to your location, so as to 

 have the bees send out strong swarms as near the opening 

 of the hone3' harvest as possible. Hive these swarms in 

 shallow brood-chambers, on />(// drawn co»ibs, to make them 

 more contented to catch all the pollen, and to save buying 

 foundation from year to year for use in hiving swarms. 

 Use only the swarms, and the strong colonies which do not 

 swarm, for comb honej', and use all others for extracting, 

 or for honey to feed as needed. When the comb honey is 

 removed, transfer the bees in small brood-chambers back to 

 large ones by the use of bee-escape honey-boards. The use 

 of sectional brood-chamber hives would make it unneces- 

 sary to transfer the bees, but it is so easy to transfer that 

 any one who prefers larger frames can have them in use for 

 the greater part of the year. Dupage Co., 111. 



Shipping' Queens with Old Bees- 

 Spring. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLK. 



-Backward 



MY experience has again told me this spring that old 

 bees, or such bees as have been wintered over, those 

 which emerged from their cells last September or 

 October, are practically worthless for shipping queens in 

 early spring. I began to suspect this some years ago, since 

 when I have been keeping a sharp lookout in the matter. 



Some years ago the call for early queens was great, as 

 it always is, and thinking to please my customers, I shipt 

 very many within a week after the bees were, out from the 

 cellar. The result was that more than half so shipt were 

 reported as arriving dead. This I could not understand, 

 for I had used the same cages, food and ventilation as were 

 used the fall before without a single loss. Later on, after 



there was plenty of suitable-aged bees to send with queens, 

 I met with the same general success which had been at- 

 tained before. This set me to studying, ajid I soon arrived 

 at the conclusion that the trouble lay in having- to use old 

 or nearly worn-out bees, where queens were sent prior to a 

 month from the time of setting from the cellar. 



The next year I tried again, and found that my loss in 

 queens sent out from one to three weeks after setting from 

 the cellar was fully as great as it was the year before. I 

 then refused to send queens before the bees had been from 

 the cellar 30 days unless the purchaser would take the risk 

 on them ; so I sent very few, as the purchaser always wishes 

 the seller to guarantee safe arrival. 



This year, at the urgent request of a few parties, I have 

 sent out a few queens, only to experience the same loss as 

 before, and so I write this, advising all of our northern 

 queen-breeders to guard against such loss, by not sending 

 queens till they can find bees of suitable age to send with 

 them, for a queen will not live long in early spring after 

 her accompanying attendants are all dead. The trouble 

 seems to lie in the fact that the vitality of a bee which has 

 lived from September to May is nearly gone, and when they 

 come to stand the strain of confinement they are soon ex- 

 hausted, and die in a very short time. 



This loss of early queens in the mails is something very 

 undesirable, not only to the seller, but to the purchaser as 

 well, even where the seller guarantees safe arrival ; for 

 where a loss is reported the seller has at once to make 

 another of his full colonies queenless in addition to the 

 first, for this loss comes at a time of year when it is too 

 early to rear queens advantageously. Then the buyer, ex- 

 pecting his queen, has usually made a colony queenless to 

 fit it to take the expected queen with the least danger from 

 losing her by introduction, and where she reaches him dead 

 he has a queenless colonj' on hand to wait till he can get a 

 letter to the breeder, and the breeder send another queen 

 back if he can do so. If he can not send another queen 

 right away, then the purchaser must allow his colony to 

 rear a queen from the brood in the hive, or send to some 

 one else for a queen, which, in either case, generally re- 

 sults in a colony whose usefulness is destroyed for that sea- 

 son as far as surplus honey is concerned. 



But how old should bees be to be of suitable age for 

 sending with a queen ? My experience proves that the 

 younger the bee, providing said bee has had a chance to fly 

 out from the hive and empty its intestines, the better for 

 successful results. As bees, when in a colony is in a nor- 

 mal condition, do not fly out of the hive till they are six 

 days old, those suitable for shipping with a queen should be 

 from 6 to 12 days old. 



And how do I tell bees of this age from those both older 

 or younger ? In this way : From experience I have found 

 that where combs of brood are taken from the bees and 

 kept at a temperature which will perfect the brood by keep- 

 ing this brood in a warm room over a strong colony with 

 wire-cloth between, or in a lamp-nursery, till enough bees 

 have emerged to protect this brood, the young bees will fly 

 out to empty themselves on the first pleasant day after they 

 are five or six days old, so that in from two to six days more 

 the older bees will be of suitable age for shipping with the 

 queen. Now, if we open the hive containing these bees of 

 right age we will find that a certain part of the bees will 

 almost immediately thrust their heads into the cells and 

 begin to fill with honey. By examining closely we will 

 note that such as are filling themselves are not the young 

 fuzzy ones, nor those which show by their light, downj' ap- 

 pearance that they are next older than the fuzzy ones ; nor 

 are they those whose abdomens are distended with excre- 

 ment from the food consumed in the larval state. Conse- 

 quently they must be the bees which have flown, and those 

 are just the ones we want. 



Then, again, open a hive which you know is composed 

 of bees over 20 days old, and unless j-ou pour in too much 

 smoke, or jar the hive, or handle the combs roughly, 

 scarcely a bee will put its head into the cells to take honey ; 

 neither will the old bees from hives recently brought from 

 the cellar be seen with their heads in the cells on opening 

 the hive, if it is opened as it should be. Therefore, in put- 

 ting up queens I catch the bees which are to accompany 

 her from those which have their heads in the cells loading 

 up with honey as soon as the hive is opened, this loading 

 up telling me that they are the bees most suitable for the 

 purpose of keeping a queen safe and sound to her journey's 

 end. And I now do not feel like guaranteeing the safe ar- 

 rival of queens until I can find such suitable bees to put up 

 with them for shipment. 



