144 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



For tlie American Bee Journal. 



How to treat the Fertile Workers. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Recollections of the ITew York State 

 I Fair. 



^Lr. Editor : — T see in the Xovember number 

 of the Bee Jourxal. page 99, J. W. G. asks 

 what should l)e done with a good colony contain- 

 ing a fertile worker, ttc. 



Xow, it may be interesting to J. ^Y. G., and 

 perhaps to others, for me to relate a few experi- 

 ments I have tried, the past season, with such a 

 colony. 



Early in the season I drove a swarm out of a 

 cross-bar hive, for the purpose of making an arti- 

 ficial colony. In twenty-four hours after the 

 operation, supposing I had succeeded in securing 

 the old queen in the" new colony. I introduced a 

 queen cell to the old hive. On examining the 

 same hive twenty-fom* hours afterwards. I found 

 the inserted queen cell all destroyed. I then 

 went to my new colony and found they had com- 

 menced building tkone combs, and on taking 

 out some of the combs I found eggs in quite a 

 number of the cells ; and from the" irregularity 

 of the manner in which they had been depos- 

 ited — some cells have a number of eggs, (as I 

 many as eigiit) and some none at all — ^I was sat- | 

 isfied I had a worker to contend with, for I have | 

 had them to contend with before. I now thought ( 

 I would try a few experiments with this colony. | 

 In the tii'St place I introduced a capped queen j 

 cell. On examining again twenty-four hours \ 

 afterwards, I found 'that tlie bees bad covered j 

 this cell completely all over with drone comb, j 

 I let them remain until it was past the time for i 

 the queen to hatch, and finding it did not hatch, j 

 I next introduced a queen in a wire cage, and I 

 on examining the hive again in the com-se of ! 

 twenty-fom- hours, I found my queen dead in the 

 cage, with two of her legs torn otf. 



I now turned the hive "bottom up and tacked 

 some %\ire cloth over the bottom, set it back 

 again on its stand, and fumigated the bees with 

 putf-ball. I allowed tliem to reuiain just fifteen j 

 minutes (liaving raised tlie Mve up on little ! 

 blocks, so that the air could pass under it); then { 

 removed the cap and honey-board, and dropped 

 a young fertile queen in on the top of the bees. 

 She was well received, and to-day that stand is 

 as prosperous as any colony in my yard. 



Wliat etfect the fumes of the putt-ball had on 

 the worker, either mentally or physically. I am 

 unable to teU. AMiether it turned her •"hate" 

 into "love," or whether it killed her, others can 

 judge as well as mj'self, but sucli was the restfit 

 of my experiment. 



My impression is that the fertUe queen intro- 

 duced as above stated, not bein^ stupified with 

 the fumes of the puft-ball, was in a state suc- 

 cessfully to encounter any rival she might dis- 

 cover in performing the maternal duties of the i 

 hive. • I 



One thing more ; Mr. Thomas says we can | 

 successfully introduce queens with chloroform, i 

 after removing the old queen. Xow, may we ! 

 not do it before remo\ing the old queen, on the i 

 principle before stated, allowing the introduced | 

 queen to kill her rival. Let some one report. 



John T. Rose. | 



Petersburg. Moxroe Co.. Mich. ' 



In the last number of the Bee Journal, Jtlr. 

 Hadsell. of Breesport, X. Y., gives a brief ac- 

 count of what he saw and heard concerning 

 bees, at the State Fau* at Eknira, in September 

 last. 



I also had the pleasm-e of attending that Fair, 

 and must confess that I found it a very poor 

 place in \vliich to learn annhing about bees. I 

 saw there the ^Ir. Graves, referred to by ^Ir. 

 Hadsell. and although he is a man who devotes 

 his whole time to bees and luves. selling -'rights," 

 transferring. »S:c.. I must give him the credit of 

 having some of the most absurd ideas pertaining 

 to the subject, of any man I ever talked with, 

 who pretended to know anything about it. If 

 he did not profess to know evernhing, and at- 

 tend such gatherings for the piupose of lecturing 

 to the multitude, he would be excusable ; but as 

 it is. I think he is not. 



For the edification of any readers of the Jour- 

 nal who may not have been present on this 

 noted occasion. I will relate a portion of the 

 teachings of this "grave" man. 



He had on exhibition a hive which he called the 

 "Graves Hive." It was, I should judge, about 

 two-tlurds full of coml). built moderately straight 

 upon the frames ; and when asked if he had not 

 selected them from ditfenMit hives, he answered — 

 " Why. no. sirl You could not do it. It would 

 be impossible!" "Don't you see," he con- 

 tniued, "that the tops of the combs are thicker 

 in some places than in others ; and that they are 

 built wa^'ing from one side of the frame to the 

 other. How are you going to change them ?" 

 All the answer we coidd make to this, Avas that 

 we had been performing impossibilities all siun- 

 mer, for what would frames amount to, if you 

 could not change them? 



He then informed me that though he very sel- 

 dom made use of smoke, and ncAer used a bee- 

 dress, his bees "never stung him." .Just then, 

 a bee (which must ha-re belonged to some one 

 else, I suppose, as his own had been taught bet- 

 ter manners) gave him a smart " dab" under the 

 eye, which caused Mm to suspend operations for 

 a few minutes. He said that he had kept Italian 

 bees, but would have notlung more to do ^ith 

 them, as the other bees would soon "rmi them 

 all out ;" and when asked to give his reasons for 

 forming this opinion, he said — "because there 

 are so many more of them. 



He also informed us that he practised artificial 

 swarming altogether, and when requested to 

 give his method of performing tlus operation, 

 said he simply " took h;xlf the combs and bees 

 from the hive, and just put them in a new Mve, 

 fining out with empty frames." We rather ob- 

 jected to this on account of the amount of drone 

 comb that would surely be built, if any was built 

 before the yomig queen hatched. Whereupon 

 he exclaimed that tnis "theory" was all non- 

 sense; that "bees would build worker comb just 

 as Avell without a queen as with one!" This was 

 too much, so we asked Mm if he read the Bee 

 Journal. " Xo." said he " vou may read Bee 



