514 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Aug. 16, 1900. 



not be poured on too small a surface of coals, otherwise a 

 part of the sulphur will not burn as it should. 



LENGTHY CAGING OF VIRGIN QUEENS. 



I am about g'oingr into the queen-rearintj business. I am led to be- 

 lieve that if I can introduce old virgin queens when I take out a layinj^ 

 queen from a nucleus, that a f^ain in time can be made, as these old vir- 

 frins will g-el to laying- sooner than would those hatcht in the nuclei. 

 Therefore, I wishto know how lon^ a virg-in queen may be kept confined 

 in anursery-ca^e, or otherwise, before she becomes too old to be fertilized? 



Answer. — So far as my experience goes, all perfect 

 queens will fly out to meet the drones when from five to 

 nine days old, during the months of June, July and August 

 if the weather is favorable to such flight ; and any contri- 

 vance which prevents their doing so is an injury to the 

 future value of the queen, in my opinion. If the weather is 

 unsuitable, this same queen will have no desire to go out 

 till such a day comes ; hence, there is no uneasiness, con- 

 sequently no injury to her value. But confine her once on 

 a nice day, when she has a desire to go out, and she is in- 

 jured to the extent of the efi^orts put forth to accomplish her 

 purpose. I do not believe it possible for any queen to be 

 just as good after being kept confined so she can not fly out 

 to meet the drone, when nature prompts, as she would be if 

 she had her liberty to do as she pleased. 



As said above, the rule is for a queen to go out when 

 from five to nine days old ; but during the months of April 

 and May, also of September and October, in this localit}', 

 queens frequently do not become fertile till they are from 

 two to four weeks old ; yet these queens have proved as 

 good as any, as far as lean see. Having this in mind, I 

 once argued that if I kept virgin queens confined till they 

 were three or four weeks old, they would be as good as any. 

 So I kept queens in nursery-cages and otherwise till from 

 two to four weeks old, then introduced them to frames of 

 hatching brood, but not one of these queens which were 

 confined past the time when they had a desire to fly proved 

 to be nearly as valuable as queens allowed to do as they 

 pleased. Some which were kept confined nearly four weeks 

 never were capable of keeping as many as four Langstroth 

 frames full of brood at their very best. 



After an experience covering a period of nearly 20 years 

 in trying nearly every kind of " short-cut plans," as they 

 are called, to secure laying queens often from nuclei, by 

 using virgin queens of advanced age to take the place of 

 laying queens taken from nuclei, I have settled down to the 

 conclusion that the giving of a mature cell, in all cases 

 where a queen is removed in such a way that we desire a 

 virgin queen to take her place, is much the best plan of any, 

 taking all things into consideration ; good queens being 

 thus obtained every time, providing the queen-cells are 

 reared in such a way that they will give good virgin queens. 



Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



Naturally-Built Comb vs. Comb Foundation, 



BY S. A. DEACON. 



IN the American Bee Journal for Nov. 4, 1897, Mr. C. P. 

 Dadant has a rejoinder to my contention (for it is cer- 

 tainly no refutation of it), viz.: that the advantage of 

 using costly comb foundation over that of allowing the bees 

 to construct their own combs has been hitherto somewhat 

 overestimated ; and in which contention I am borne out by 

 the practical experience of a California contributor, who 

 signs himself " Sage-Brush." 



Mr. Dadant's reply, which, I confess, I had awaited with 

 fear and trembling, is hardly so scathing, and certainly not 

 so conclusive as some doubtless expected it to have been ; 

 and as I have not been utterly annihilated by him, I have 

 cancelled the order for my funeral. In upholding the value 

 of foundation, he stood on very delicate ground, and with 

 the true modesty and gentlemanly instincts so conspicuous 



in the composition of the Dadants, he was no doubt ham- 

 pered with a desire to avoid extolling too exuberantly the 

 use of a commodity in whose consumption he is pecuniarily 

 interested. 



Mr. Dadant has certainly by no means disproved, in 

 fact he has not even disputed, my contention that the term 

 "drawing out the foundation " is altogether a misnomer, 

 or dispelled the idea which it is so likely to induce, viz.: 

 that when, upon opening a hive, we see a long string of 

 bees all clinging to each others' " coat-tails " (like a lot of 

 school-boys playing at " tug-of-war "), they are necessarily 

 engaged in pulling or " drawing " out the foundation ; nor 

 has he by any means disproved my statement that the use 

 of foundation is, in a great measure, wasteful ; in fact, he 

 has, if anything, confirmed my assertion that the bees do 

 not " draw out " the side-walls, tho they may utilize the wax 

 in them to extend or increase the depth of the cells as far 

 as it goes ; for he says that " after the bees have workt on 

 foundation, any little boy can see that the base and side- 

 walls are very perceptibly thinner." 



Now, as nobody has hitherto had the rashness to assert 

 that the bees "draw out " the base, it is reasonable to con- 

 clude that this thinning down of it is effected b5- their re- 

 moving a lot of surplus wax with their mandibles, and 

 which means a waste of the bees' time and of their owner's 

 money ; for they could more rapidly secrete and use their 

 own wax, costing the bee-keeper nothing, as against 50 

 cents a pound for foundation. And is it not reasonable to 

 conclude that if the bees thin down the base — by digging 

 out and removing the surplus wax — the side-walls are thin- 

 ned down in precisely the same laborious and time-wasting 

 manner, and that they do not therefore " draw them out " 

 at all ? Indeed, such mode of construction would be quite 

 opposed to their natural instincts. Hence, I have no hesita- 

 tion in repeating my statement, viz.: that to imagine that 

 the bees " draw out " the thick side-walls — presumably after 

 the material composing them has become plastic by the 

 heat of the atmosphere and of the crowded hive — is a silly 

 and unreasonable belief, in spite of Mr. Dadant's rather 

 discourteous remark that, in asserting that the bees do not 

 " draw out the foundation " Mr. Deacon does not know what 

 he is talking about. 



Mr. Dadant tells us that the bees " remodel the side- 

 walls " and complete the cells by adding some of their own 

 wax. This is tantamount to saying that they break down 

 the costly material that we supply' them with, and re-con- 

 struct after their own manner — a totally different thing to 

 their " drawing out " the side-walls ! Yes, Mr. Dadant em- 

 phatically says "they remodel them, Mr. Deacon to the 

 contrary notwithstanding." Why, that's exactly my argu- 

 ment, and on this point Mr. Dadant and myself are per- 

 fectly agreed ! 'V^otre main, Monsieur. Shake ! 



And will Mr. Dadant, or any other man, venture to 

 deny that this demolishing and rebuilding by the bees is 

 just as much a waste of labor and time, as tho, in arranging 

 for the building of a long wall one foot wide and six feet 

 high, one were to furnish the masons with biicks previously 

 cemented together in the shape of a stumpy wall three feet 

 thick and two feet high, necessitating the demolition of the 

 same ere they can go on building, and that, too, when they 

 are quite willing to supply their own bricks, all loose and 

 handj', gratis, and which bricks must be otherwise wasted ? 

 The cases are identical. If the bees must needs first gnaw 

 away the wax and then " remodel " — as Mr. Dadant plainly 

 affirms they do — no sane person can possibly deny that 

 furnishing them with material in a shape they find useless 

 for their purpose, and that at SO cents a pound, constitutes a 

 waste There is no getting over it — it is too self-evident. 



I do not say that there is ?w advantage in using founda- 



