THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



37 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Novice, and Wliat He has been Doing, 

 up to July 5, 1869. 



Dear Bee Journal : We hope yonr readers 

 have not concluded that " Novice's Eeverses" 

 have quenched his enthusiasm, as he has been 

 quiet so long. That is far from being the case. 

 Urgent business demanded his attention so close- 

 ly for the past few months that no time pre- 

 sented itselt, save the "small hours" of the night; 

 and, after a day of toil, those seemed hardly the 

 thing for a general talk, such as you, Mr. Edi- 

 tor, have a right to expect. Our "better-half," 

 moreover, decidedly objects to such pastime on 

 Sundays, although we were full of matter to 

 "gossip about bees ;" and thus it has all accu- 

 mulated until the present time. So here we are. 



We would remark to our readers that, after 

 sending our last article, Ihe editor kindly gave 

 us some suggestions, as follows, in regard to 

 speedily buildmg up an apiary again. 



April 24, 1869. 



Dear Sir : I am sorry to hear of the reverses : but have 

 a suggestion to offer, which may possibly be of some ser- 

 vice in re-establishina; your apiary speedily. We all 

 know that a prolific queen can lay many more eggs than, 

 from want of room and other causes, she actually does 

 lay. Some years ago a German bee-keeper, named 

 Vormwalt, conceived the idea that by means of artificial 

 incubation, this reserved power of a queen might be made 

 available for a rapid multiplication of stock. He con- 

 structed a hot-bed in the ordinary manner, and sunk into 

 or set over it a nucleus hive made water-tight ; and sus- 

 pended therein, when the temperature had risen to brood- 

 ing heiglit, frsimes containing combs with sealed brood, 

 taken indiscriminately from his hives. The young bees 

 hatched out in due time, and were taken charge of by 

 some dozens of advilt workers which had been transferred 

 with the brood combs, there being some honey in those 

 combs for their support. Empty worker combs were in- 

 serted in the parent nives, in place of the sealed brood 

 removed ; and thus the queens were accommodated with 

 a fresh supply of empty cells, which they speedily stocked 

 with eggs— encouraged thereto by the strength of their 

 colonies and abundant .stimulative feeding. These were 

 in turn transferred to the hot-bed nucleus, when the 

 brood was sealed. By a suitable arrangement the young 

 bees when hatched were passed into a nucleus hive with a 

 a sliding bottom, set over the one in which the 

 hatching was carried on ; and thence used for strength- 

 ening or building up colonies. The account stated that 

 Mr. V. was very successful in hatching brood taken 

 out immediately after the cells were sealed. Ovipositing 

 was thus kept up almost without intermission, and a 

 multitude of working bees, relieved from duty, could 

 join in out-door labors. 



I do not pretend to give you the exact details, but 

 merely an outline of the process, which your own ingenu- 

 ity would doubtless enable you to improve upon, if you 

 are tempted to try the experiment. As you have plenty 

 of empty combs, and honey enough for stimulative feed- 

 ing, it strikes me that this process might be worth try- 

 ing ; and if successful it would be quite a novelty in bee- 

 raising in this country. 



This letter was received about the 1st of May, 

 and we had been for some days studying on the 

 feasibility of making our few remaining queens 

 supply eggs for more than one hive, as we found 

 two of our surviving thirteen colonies were 

 queenless in April ; and we soon after killed 

 one of the rest by accident, as will be mentioned 

 hereafter. Hence, by the middle of May, we 

 really had only ten queens, and our stocks were 

 so weak that there were not enough bees, we 

 should think, to make more than four decent 

 swarms. We mention this, that our readers 



may know what we had to build up on, especi- 

 ally Mr. Argo, who has our sincere thanks for 

 his kind notice of our mishap, iuthe July num- 

 ber. His supposition that the disease, or what- 

 ever it is called, was the result of our imprudence 

 in not taking the bees in early enough, is cer- 

 tainly a mistake. This he would have seen by 

 reading our article more carefully, as about half 

 a dozen stocks were carried in quite early — ^just 

 about the proper time — but they suffered alike 

 with the rest, and the neighbor we mentioned, 

 lost his only Italian stock in precisely the same 

 way, with the hive half full of sealed honey, on 

 its summer stand. 



We think we shall leave our bees out next 

 winter ; but already begin to feel a dread of the 

 result in any case. 



To go back to our subject. We immediately 

 determined to try the artificial hatching ; but as 

 the weather was tolerably warm by the 1st of 

 May, we thought we would not then go to the 

 expense of an apparatus, and worked in this 

 way. We removed two frames each of sealed- 

 brood from two of our Langstroth hives, and 

 placed the four in an empty hive, having first 

 shaken off all the bees. This was theu placed 

 close to our Stewart stove in the kitchen, in 

 which we keep fire day and night — the family 

 having little dread of the contents, as they could 

 hardly believe that real live bees would be the 

 result. 



We would mention here that we have several 

 times tried the experiment mentioned in Mr. 

 Langstroth's book, of putting an Italian queen 

 into a hive of black bees, and counting the age 

 of the young bees before they gathered honey 

 and pollen, and the time always agreed with 

 that statement. 



These bees were hybrids, and on the third day 

 they made such a humming that we took them 

 out of doors, and only carried them in at night. 

 On the fourth day we opened the hive, and could 

 hardly beUeve our eyes, so great was the num- 

 ber of gray, downy " baby bees," as the chil- 

 dren called them ; and we were much surprised 

 to find queen-cells started by the little chaps. 



On the fifth day they were flying so busily 

 that we thought they were being robbed ; 

 but on going close to the hive, found they were 

 all right. 



Oa the sixth day we gave them a pure queen 

 from another hive that we wished should start 

 queen-cells ; and on the seventh day, Mr. Edi- 

 tor, there was no disputing it, they were work- 

 ing briskly on the fruit blossoins, bringing in 

 honey and pollen! In a week more, any one 

 would have pronounced that hive the heaviest 

 swarm we had, judging from the way they 

 worked. 



Why did they commence to work at an age so 

 much younger than usual ? Was it because there 

 were no old bees among them, and necessity 

 obliged them to work ? We do not think we 

 carried a dozen bees at farthest on the frames, 

 when the bees were shaken off and brushed 

 from them. 



We formerly made our artificial swarms by 

 raising queens in a nucleus ; and then, as soon 

 as the queen began to lay, caging her in an 

 empty hive set in the place of some old stock. 



