THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



337 



^oxxtspon&tntt. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Bees of the Same Colony Fighting. 



As there has been considerable discus- 

 sion in the Journal on the above subject, 

 I have concluded to give my experience. 



I am of the opinion that bees of the same 

 colony never fight, though I have had many 

 stung and killed by bees of the same colony. 

 Two years ago last spring, I lost my bi'eed- 

 ing queen about May 15th, and tlie colony 

 proceeded to rear a lot of queens. 1 made 

 nucleuses enough to hatch 7 of them, but 

 being too early in the season, only '3 of them 

 ever became fertile. One of them com- 

 menced laying at about 10 days old, and the 

 other at about 18 days; the remainder vs^ere 

 all killed by their own colonies. The first 

 trouble I discovered among them was when 

 1 opened a hive and found a knot of workers 

 clustered together; I supposed the queen 

 was in trouble, but when I examined the 

 cluster I found no queen in it; upon further 

 examination I found her in another cluster 

 near by. The two clusters had evidently 

 been all one but had separated in some way, 

 and all were trying to destroy the queen. 

 Those on the outside of the cluster were 

 stinging other workers while trying to get 

 at the queen. I had 5 queens destroyed in 

 this way, after which it was almost impos- 

 sible to have them hatch a queen and retain 

 her until old enough to become fertile. 



Last year I had occasion to cage a number 

 of fertile queens, and I put several of them 

 in a hive tliat had a laying queen; in a 

 short time I saw quite a number of dead 

 bees on the alighting board. On examina- 

 tion, I found the cages containing the 

 strange queens were matted in a cluster of 

 hostile workers, and perhaps 2,000 or 3,000 

 dead ones in and about the hive, and as 

 honey was plenty and no pilfering going 

 on, it is certain that those hostile workers 

 on the outside of the cluster stung the 

 others while attempting to sting the queens 

 in the centre of the cluster. The queens 

 did not sting the workers, for they were 

 caged and could not get at them, were they 

 so disposed. I terminated the trouble by 

 taking the caged queens away. 



This year I had a natural swarm; the 

 queen having her wing clipped I let them 

 return to their old location, after removing 

 the old hive and putting an empty one in,, 

 place of it. About 3 hours after tliat I saw 

 a bunch of workers in front of the hive, and 

 on stirring them up to drive them into the 

 hive, 1 discovered they had clustered on a 

 strange queen that had united with them 

 while swarming. The queen and about 75 

 workers were stung to death. The workers 

 were stung by workers on the outside of 

 the cluster while trying to reach the queen 

 with their stings— and not by fighting. 1 

 suppose it was a virgin queen out on her 

 bridal trip, that united with the; swarm 

 while on the wing. If another swiarm had 

 united with them while on the wing, the 

 workers \mited peaceably, or more would 

 have fought than in that one small cluster. 



Last year there was so much said about 

 shade, ventilation, etc., to prevent swarm- 

 ing, that I have experimented considerable 

 with it this year, and my opinion is that 



neither shade nor sun; neither top, bottom^ 

 nor side ventilation, nor any or all of them 

 combined, will prevent, retard, or in any 

 way atfect, swarming. They will swarm in 

 spite of all. S. K. Marsh. 



Polo, Mich. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Changing the Larvae in Queen Cells. 



Having read in some of the bee papers of 

 removing larvpe from newly-formed queen 

 cells, and putting in their places larvfe from 

 another hive, I have been trying it. I have 

 a stock, the queen of which produced a low 

 grade of what are incorrectly called hybrid 

 bees— there are no hybrid bees. Desiring 

 to raise a better queen for them, I cut out a 

 piece of comb and fitted into the place a 

 piece taken from another hive, iilacing it in 

 such a position that the cells on one side 

 opened downward. I supposed that the 

 bees would take advantage of this favorable 

 position, and build queen cells upon it; but 

 they did not. Several queen cells were 

 started on other combs, and with a flat- 

 pointed stick I removed the larvie from 

 them, and put other larvfe from my best 

 stocks in their places. 



In one case I put a larva into a rudimen- 

 tary cell, such as are frequently found on 

 the edges of combs. The cell contained 

 neither egg, larva, or food. In all these 

 cases, five in number, the operation was 

 successful. The bees at once began to feed 

 the grub I had ]>ut Into the rudimentary 

 cell, and the next day I found the cell con- 

 siderably lengthened out, and the young 

 grub lying in a bed of royal jelly. 



None of the young queens have hatched 

 yet, as the operation was performed only a 

 few days ago; but I regard the success of 

 the experiment as beyond question. 



The only difficult thing in the operation 

 is the rem'oval of the worker larva from its 

 native cell without injuring it. To do it 

 successfully requires careful and delicate 

 manipulation. It can be most easily done 

 by cutting out a small piece of comb con- 

 taining the larv* to be transferred, when 

 one side of the cell can be cut away, and 

 the young grub lifted out with perfect ease 

 and safety. 



Many cases will occur in which those 

 who raise queens can in this way utilize 

 cells containing larv?e of black or mixed 

 bees, and raise pure queens from them. If 

 I had known how easily larvpe could be 

 transferred to queen cells from which the 

 larvpe had been removed, I could have saved 

 valuable time in queen rearing. 



M. Mahin. 



Logansport, Ind., Sept. 6, 1877. 



For me American Bee .Tournal. 



Straws. 



Mr. Editor:— If we could all depend up- 

 on each other's honesty, we could write a 

 valuable article in fewer words, as our as- 

 sertions would need no " reason why" to 

 prove their truth. I think each one can get 

 the experience of the other in an incompari- 

 bly short space. Something in this way: 



COMB FOUNDATION. 



Have had two years' experience with all 

 kinds; about 50 lbs. in all. The pure yel- 



