I go:; 



THE AM ERIC AW BEE-KEEPER 



97 



tin chimney, having the tops nipped in 

 a little and then bent out to form a 

 crown which will give vent to the burn- 

 ing lamp when the pan of wax is placed 

 on top. All these utensils are inexpen- 

 sive and can be picked up around any 

 home. A little experience will soon in- 

 dicate the right temperature to keep 

 the wax for expeditious work. 



Englewood, N. J. Feb. 17, 1902. 



QUEEN EXCLUDERS. 



A FEW GOOD SUGGESTIONS WITH REFER- 

 ENCE TO TIIEIU USE 



(By Dr. C. C. Miller.) 



QRi On page 61 M. 

 F. Reeve seems quite posi- 

 tive that without queen exclud- 

 ers queens will be sure to go up into 

 the supers and lay there. I may say to 

 Mr. Reeve that I have produced comb 

 honey for a good many years, and I 

 have never used excluders to keep the 

 queens from going up and I would not 

 be troubled using excluders for that 

 purpose if they were furnished for noth- 

 ing. I do not mean that I have never 

 had a queen lay in a super, but that 

 the cases are so rare that it would not 

 pay to use excluders to keep queens 

 down. 



For years there has been this conflict 

 of opinion, one man saying that exclud- 

 ers were unnecessary another being 

 equally positive as to their being indis- 

 pensable. While my experience is the 

 reverse of that of Mr. Reeve. I am 

 quite ready to believe that he is entirely 

 correct, and that without excluders 

 queens will be sure to go up into his 

 supers. 



For a long time it puzzled me to 

 understand how there could be the dif- 

 ference, but I think I have solved the 

 mystery. Nowadays there is little or no 

 drone comb left in the brood chamber, 

 and the bees make desperate efforts to 

 secure drone brood. More than once, 

 when using ten-frame hives, I have 

 known the queen to go outside the 

 brood-nest and lay eggs in a patch of 

 drone,-comb, leaving one or two combs 

 without any brood between this patch 

 of drone-brood and the worker-brood 

 of the brood-nest. You will notice that 

 Mr. Reeve especially mentions that in 



his supers he found "the nicest lot of 

 •capped drone cells." 1 am not certain 

 whether this was in working for comb 

 or extracted honey, and it doesn't mat- 

 ter; he says at the outset that exclud- 

 ers are necessary for either. If I am 

 not greatly mistaken the queen goes 

 up into the super to lay because the 

 workers have there prepared drone 

 cells for her. 



If they go up into his supers to rear 

 drone brood, why don't they do the 

 same thing for me? Simply because 

 there are no drone cells in mine to bait 

 the queen up. I use top and bottom 

 starters of worker foundation, filling 

 the sections entirely full. If I should 

 use small starters I would consider ex- 

 cluders indispensable. 



I would not think of working for 

 extracted honey without excluders, for 

 even if only worker comb should be 

 m the supers there would be at least 

 part of the time empty comb there, and 

 whenever the queen should be a little 

 crowded for room she might find her 

 way up. When working for comb hon- 

 ey, I should want excluders, unless 

 there was so much drone comb in the 

 brood chamber that there would be no 

 desire to have any elsew^here, or un- 

 less the sections were so filled with 

 vvorl'cr foundation that there was no 

 chance for drone comb above. 



Marengo, 111., April 7, 1902. 



A SINGLE ORGANISM. 



Being So Regarded, a Colony of Bees Should 



Not Be Carelessly Divided— A Field for 



the Exercise of Thought. 



(Arthur C. Miller.) 



TDeCENTLY Mr. Stachelhausen has 

 ^^ been calling attention to the so- 

 called "Gerstung theory," the essential 

 factor of which is viewing a colony of 

 bees as a unit; i. e., no single member 

 is a perfect individual, but only a part 

 of a body. In a sense this view is cor- 

 rect, but not to the degree claimed by 

 Gerstung's supporters. In the "'Re- 

 view," of March, Mr. S. D. Chapman, ■ 

 writing on the causes of swarming, 

 called attention to the proportions o\ 

 old, j^oung and middle-aged bees con- 

 stituting a colony. These topics are in- 

 teresting and worth investigating; but 



