THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



239 



died of hydrophobia since May 9, 1876, in 

 this State alone. Two have died in a town 

 not over 12 miles from Wenham, since last 

 April; and there are upwards of 100 persons 

 in Mass. who have been bitten by rabid 

 dogs, and who are fearing death by the 

 above disease. H. Alley. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Introducing Queens. 



Why is the introduction of queens so suc- 

 cessful in spring and early summer, and so 

 difficult later in the season ? I have spent 

 many liours thinking over this, subject, 

 without finding a plausible answer. 



At first I thought that bees, being more 

 cross late in the season than earlier; the 

 difficulty arose from their unamiable dispo- 

 sition. But now I have all pure bees; most 

 of them can be handled late in the season 

 without being the least aroused; yet I have 

 had queens killed in Oct. by the most peace- 

 able of them; while the bees of colonies 

 more difficult to handle accepted the new 

 queen readily. 



Then 1 supposed that, some robbers hav- 

 ing crept into the hive, the bees had mis- 

 taken my queen for a robber. No doubt the 

 robbing of a colony is often prejudicial to 

 the safe introduction of queens; but we 

 have had queens killed when not a robber 

 had entered the hive. So till lately I was 

 at a loss to find the true cause of this diffi- 

 culty ; yet, step by step, I arrived at a con- 

 clusion which gives me hopes that I have 

 at last found the true cause of this case, and 

 the means of avoiding it. Indeed, these 

 means are not yet sanctioned by experi- 

 ence; but I will try, and 1 beg some of my 

 friends to try for themselves and report. 



Late in Oct., my son and I were looking 

 for a queen. We had visited every comb 

 without finding her. Then, as we resolved 

 to replace hei', we began anew our search, 

 putting every comb, as soon as visited, in 

 an empty hive for this purpose. All the 

 combs had been searched in vain, when my 

 son saw in a coi-ner of the hive, on the bot- 

 tom board, a small ball of bees; the queen 

 was in the inside of it, a prisoner. 



Naturally, the question came to my mind, 

 "Why did the bees imprison their own 

 queen?" It was a cold day; we had very 

 few bees flying, and had not noticed a 

 single robber around us. Certainly the 

 queen was not imprisoned before our open- 

 ing her hive. As we had not been able to 

 find her on the combs, she must have drop- 

 ped olf when we took them out. A bee on 

 the bottom, probably one ot the guards, was 

 astonished to find a queen so far from the 

 place where they are accustomed to dwell, 

 and, mistaking her for a strange queen, 

 climbed on her back; a few other workers 

 caught the same Idea, and soon formed the 

 ball, in which she was imprisoned. 



Now, how many valuable queens have 

 been killed by such accident, who can say? 

 The lesson that we can draw from such ac- 

 cidents is that it is not always safe to visit 

 the bees late in the season. 



But to my subject. In the Jan. number 

 of the Bee World, Mr. Mahin narrates that, 

 having to introduce several queens, he took 

 away those to be replaced and put every 

 queen to be introduced in place of the sup- 

 pressed one, on the same spot of the comb. 

 Five queens were thus introduced, not one 

 was killed. One of them having been put 



on the other side of the comb, was im- 

 prisoned by the bees; another, who run 

 around the comb on which she had been 

 placed, was also imprisoned; but both were 

 released after some time and accepted. 



Now if we bring together both these re- 

 marks—first, that a queen of a colony can 

 be mistaken for a stranger by her own bees 

 if she drops accidently from the brood; and 

 secondly, that a strange queen can be mis- 

 taken as their own by the bees, if she is put 

 where their queen was before suppression — 

 we arrive at tlie conclusion that the bees 

 will be more ready to accept an alion 

 queen if, when she is put caged in the hive, 

 her cage is near or directly upon the brood. 



In early summer the brood is very abun- 

 dant in the hives; it is spread everywhere; 

 the bees are accustomed to see their queen 

 going in all parts of the hive, hunting for 

 empty cells. Then the introducing of 

 queens is easy; but in Oct. there is little 

 brood in the hive, only a small part of a few 

 combs contain it. These combs have their 

 upper part filled with honey. The hive is 

 cold, but around the brood, where the queen 

 used to dwell and lay. If we put in a hive 

 in such circumstances a caged queen, and if 

 the cage is not placed directly upon the 

 brood, the bees are not well disposed to ac- 

 cept her on account of her distance from 

 the brood. She is held as a stranger by the 

 bees, who do not yet know that their queen 

 is missing, and queen cells are started by 

 the bees, who having hunted for her around 

 the brood were unable to find her. 



If my theory is true, we can easily avoid 

 all losses of queens while introducing, by 

 the precaution of lowering the cages so that 

 they touch the brood. 



In the Feb. number, Mr. Alley writes 

 about his method of introducing queens by 

 drumming out the bees. I have tried this 

 method several times on box hives of my 

 neighbors; but with only partial success. 

 A queen is never safe by this method, when 

 honey is scarce; for you cannot prevent 

 strange bees from joining those drummed. 



If Mr. Alley had to introduce imported 

 queens at the moment of their arrival, when 

 they have the smell of rotten or dysenteric 

 bees, he would not be so positive in his as- 

 sertions. Ch. Dadant. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



An Explanation. 



In answer to friend Alley, who refers to 

 me in the June number as " a prominent 

 bee-raiser of Ohio," and quotes Novice as 

 stating that I never raised queens on Kel- 

 ley's Island, please let me say that for two 

 summers I spent my entire time on that 

 Island, raising queens. This can be proved 

 by many witnesses. Friend Alley cannot 

 produce a single word from my pen advis- 

 ing him to get queens of me. He wrote me 

 for 3 untested queens, which I sent. In a 

 few days he sent me two queens in his own 

 cages, claiming that they were the ones I 

 sent. Why, then, were they not returned 

 in my cages ? 



I will make this proposition: I will send 

 a tested queen to the editor of The Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal, if he will do the same, 

 and he shall report in the Journal which 

 produces the best bees. It is my motto to 

 raise pure Italians, but if friend Alley has 

 better bees than mine, I want some of his 

 stock. A. Benedict. 



