430 



THE; mwammi^mm mmm jQiamnmi^. 



COMEl 



QUEEN-CELLS. 



Do Worker-Bees Destroy Queen- 

 Cells i — Jiist-Hatelied Queens. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BY G. 51. DOOLITTLE. 



A correspoudent writes to me thus : 

 "Lately I have seen it stated that bees 

 never destroy queen-cells until after 

 some queen has stung the embryo 

 queens, after which the workers will 

 remove the dead queens and tear down 

 the cells ; also, that should a young 

 queen emerge from a queen-cell placed 

 in a colony having a fertile queen, she 

 -would not be molested until the reign- 

 ing queen happened to meet her, when 

 the former would be dispatched. Do 

 j'ou find this to be the case ?" 



In reply, I will state that I have not 

 found such to be the case ; and, further, 

 I stand ready to give the party who 

 claims such to be a fact, $100, if he or 

 she will come into my apiary and 

 demonstrate it, for I would willingly 

 pay that price to know how to intro- 

 duce a ripe queen-cell or a just-hatched 

 virgin queen to any colony I so desired 

 at the same time I took away a laying 

 queen. Even as good a bee-keeper as 

 Mrs. Harrison cannot do it, if we are 

 to judge from what she writes, when 

 she says : 



" In my early days of bee-keeping, I 

 used to read that when forming a 

 nucleus by taking two combs of bees 

 and brood and placing them in an 

 empty hive where I wished the nucleus 

 to stand, I should give them a sealed 

 queen-cell at once. After trying it 

 very many times, they have been in- 

 variably destroyed, the bees building 

 queen-cells to suit themselves from the 

 eggs and larv;"e which they had." 



To say that Mrs. Harrison has 

 jumped at these conclusions, or has not 

 had much experience, is belittling one 

 of our best api.arists — one who stands 

 as high in the ranks of bee-keepers, as 

 a careful, thorough, persistent experi- 

 menter, as any of the fraternity. No, 

 this will not do. Bees will destroy 

 queen-cells where no queen is present 

 in the hive to sting the inmates of the 

 cells, as I have learned hundreds of 

 times to ray s(jrrow. I do not say that 

 thej' will sting the embryo queen, for I 

 have no evidence to that effect ; but I 

 have often opened hives in which I 

 placed queen-cells a few hours before, 

 ■to find the bees biting away at the 

 cells and dragging out the struggling 

 inmate, if such inmate was far enough 

 advanced to be about ready to hatch. 



At times of swarming, when I have 

 had many cells about ready to hatch. 



when taking them away to prevent 

 after-swarming, I have given as high 

 as a half dozen to a single colony from 

 which I had just taken a queen, and 

 in an hours' time had every cell opened 

 b}' the workers, the yoving queens 

 dragged from their cradles, and ruth- 

 lessly cast out at the entrance of the 

 hive. There has been no one thing 

 that I have labored on more patiently 

 than I have on this immediate intro- 

 duction of queen-cells when taking a 

 laying queen from a nucleus, for in it 

 there is much money to the queen- 

 rearer ; yet all of this labor was in vain 

 till I hit on the queen-cell protectors, 

 as I have given in my book, and pre- 

 viously in the different bee-papers. By 

 the use of these, I now put queen-cells 

 in any hive at the same time of taking 

 out the laying queen, and in most 

 cases make a success of it. 



TREATMENT OF JCST-HATCHED QtJEENS. 



As to the just-hatched queen not 

 being molested by the bees until the 

 reigning queen meets her, I find this 

 to be equally as mistaken au idea as 

 was that about the queen-cells. In the 

 past I have often tried to get a young 

 queen into a hive having an old and 

 woru-out queen, in the vain hope that 

 this young queen woidd supersede the 

 old one. 



This was generally done with the 

 cells taken out in trying to stop after- 

 swarms as spoken of above. I would 

 listen until I found a cell in which I 

 could hear a queen gnawing at the lid 

 of the same, when I would take the 

 cell to such a colony, lift the quilt a 

 little, smoke the bees so as to keep 

 them from flying at me, when I would 

 carefully remove the end of the cell or 

 the side from the same, ,and let the 

 young (jueen out among the bees. 



The very first thing they would do, 

 would be to seize the young, downy 

 thing, and commence to bite her wings 

 and legs, at the same time beginning 

 to draw her out of the hive, the same 

 as they did those which they removed 

 from the cells. I would smoke them 

 until they let go of her, only to have 

 her seized by the next worker which 

 came along. 



Sometimes they would nin into a 

 cell to get awaj- from their tormenters. 

 for here they could stay with tlie points 

 of their abdomens sticking out, the 

 bees seeming unable to draw them out 

 or harm them while in the cells. Drone 

 cells are the ones the most often en- 

 tered, and it is nothing unusual to 

 have young queens stay in such cells 

 half a day at a time, when thej' are 

 being persecuted by the bees, whether 

 there is any other queen in the hive or 

 not. By so staying, the bees are often 

 obliged to tolerate them (where a 

 queen has been removed) till they are 

 finally accepted. 



The above is the same as I find it 

 where I try to introduce a just-hatched 

 queen to a colony from which I have 

 taken a laying queen at the same time 

 I put in the young one. If 1 try to 

 run such young queens in at the en- 

 trance, as some claim they do, tlie 

 young queen is seized at once and im- 

 mediatel}' drawn from the hive and 

 cast away, in nine cases out of ten. If 

 she is older, then she is clustered by 

 the bees, or " balled," as it is usually 

 termed. 



It may be that m}' bees are different 

 from others, and need educating, but 

 I suspect that all bees are very much 

 alike ; therefoi-e I repeat what I have 

 said before, that *100 is ready for any 

 one who will demonstrate to me in my 

 own yard, that queen-cells or young 

 queens can be successfully introduced 

 at the time of taking away a laying 

 queen, without any more precaution 

 than inserting the queen-cell or letting 

 the young queen run in. Here is a 

 chance for bee-keepers to earn "an 

 honest penny," and at the same time 

 get a name which will stand high 

 among apiarists for ages to come. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



PRIZE ESSAY. 



Extracted Honey — Wiiere it 

 Comes From, What it is, etc. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY R. m'knight. 



"Extracted honey" is a modern 

 phrase employed onlj^ since the intro- 

 duction of the honey-extractor. It is 

 generally used by the bee-keepers of 

 America, when referring to honey 

 separated from the comb, in contra- 

 distinction to honey iu the comb. In 

 Britain, the same article is known as 

 " run honey ;" by the uninitiated it is 

 frequently denominated "strained 

 honey." 



Extracted is the purest form in 

 which honey can be procured ; but not 

 the form in which it commands the 

 highest price in the market. There 

 are two or three reasons why comb 

 honey should be more highly esteemed: 

 The first of these is founded in the be- 

 lief, on the part of many, that only in 

 this condition can it be obtained iu 

 absolute purity ; another reason with 

 some people is because a sense of the 

 beautiful, combined with a relish for 

 what is delicious, predominates. 



We can admire the man if we can,- 

 not commend his extravagance, who, 

 knowing the relative good value of 

 both, prefers to pay a higher price for 

 comb than for extracted honey, for 

 certainly nothing that can be put upon 

 the breakfast table e<iuals a piece of 



