46 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



An experiment. 



J. G. Alexander. 



I take this opportunity of relating 

 what I consider a rather curious ex- 

 jDerience. You will remember perhaps 

 that I got a queeii from you last June, 

 for a colony which had dwindled 

 down to almost nothing; in fact when 

 the queen arrived I do not believe 

 there were over two hundred bees 

 left; well, I put a couple of frames 

 well filled with brood into the hives; 

 together with the adhering young 

 bees (which I had Ijeen informed 

 would not leave the brood) hoping that 

 tlie}^ would soon hatch out; but to 

 my surprise and disappointment, when 

 I peeped into the hive the next even- 

 ing I found that the young bees on 

 the combs which I had put in, had 

 not only absconded themselves but 

 had apparently taken the remnant of 

 the old colony along with them. The 

 new queen remained, however, and 

 I determined to try an experiment; 

 I remembered that Mr. Alley hatched 

 queens artificially, and I said to my- 

 self "why can I not hatch workers in 

 a similar manner?'' I tried it, and 

 the result proved that my reasoning 

 was correct. 



The weather at the time was very 

 warm, so I increased the heat of the 

 hive, at random of course; by putting 

 in, on top of the frames, some hair 

 felt I happened to have, and on top 

 of that, so as to completely fill the 

 Qfx\) of the hive, a number of layers of 

 woolen carpet: I let it rest here, as I 

 had done all I could, in my ignorance 

 of the science which governed the 

 matter. I had little hope of success, 

 as I thought it hardly probable that 

 the heat would be just right; I was 

 afraid it would be too intense, so im- 

 agine my surprise a week after, when 

 I came home one day and my wife 

 told me that the hive was full of bees, 

 she had that forenoon uncovered it 

 and seen them; I hastened out to sat- 

 isfy myself and found that it was so 

 indeed; by this time too, the queen 



was working, and not a great while 

 after I found lots of yellow bees 

 mixed Avith the black ones; the colony 

 "grew apace" and last fall was of 

 quite a respectable size, but without 

 any stores to speak of, so I had to 

 feed them for winter and hojDe they 

 will pull through. 



The queen is a fine one, and reflects 

 great credit on your skill in queen 

 raising. _ 



Worcester, Mass., Jan. 20, 1890. 



Our fiiend is wroiip: in supposing we •'hatch" 

 queens in the way he did the worker bees. When 

 we use tlie queen nursery, we place it in the centre 

 of a brood-nest of a powerful colony of bees. 

 Thus the queen cells have the benefit of the same 

 temperature as the sealed brood. -Ed. 



Success in introducing virgin 

 queens. 



The fertile queen sent me from the 

 Bay State Apiary and received July 

 31, 1889, is in fine condition and has a 

 sti'ong colony and plenty of supplies 

 for winter, besides giving me a sur- 

 plus fioni fall crop of asler honey, 

 fifty-four pounds extracted, having 

 strengthened her with brood from 

 other colonies. The bees seem some- 

 what mixed in varieties of colors, but 

 those that are not hard to select of 

 her own bees are a beautiful bright 

 color. 



The early part of the season, 1889, 

 here, as reported by beekeepers at 

 many other points, was almost a total 

 failure, owing to the cold, rainy and 

 damp weather accompanied with fre- 

 quent high winds ; but the fall harvest 

 of wild aster, l^eginning about the 9th 

 of Septembei' (my bees about starved 

 out and I vvas preparing to feed for 

 winter supplies) was copious and con- 

 tinued up to Oct. 12, when we had 

 heavy frosts which closed the lioney 

 flow for the season of 1889, giving me 

 a surplus of nine hundred pounds of 

 comb and extracted honey from eight- 

 een colonies. 



Wliy is it that I have seen no re- 

 ports of the wild aster as a honey 

 plant? I know of no other plant that 

 exceeds it in bountiful supply of se- 



