526 



already engaged in it. If a person comes 

 along who wishes to start in bee-keeping, 

 give him all the advice and information in 

 your power ; get him started right, or not at 

 all. I don't wish to be understood that I 

 am opposed to the bee periodicals or the 

 supply dealers, for we need them both. But 

 I am strongly opposed to inviting every- 

 body to join our ranks. Brother bee-keep- 

 ers of the National Convention, I have set 

 the ball rolling, kick it whither you will. 

 Oquawka, 111. Will. M. Kellogg. 



J. Hecldon, Mich., thought bee-keep- 

 ing anything but a health-giving occu- 

 pation. 



A. A. Winslow found it quite health 

 inspiring. 



J. Heddon, had a statement to make 

 and wanted it printed in the Journal, 

 About three years ago he was attacked 

 by a complaint something like hay 

 fever. Last summer he went to Petos- 

 key, Mich., and was cured; but upon 

 his return, on going to work in his 

 honey-house, he was again afflicted. 



Mr". Collins, Texas, suggested an im- 

 mediate cure to be the application of 2 

 or 3 good, healthy Italian workers. 



The Secretary read a paper on 



Introducing Virgin Queens. 



There is something strange, and to me un- 

 accountable, in the antipathy of bees to a 

 virgin queen not hatched among them, and 

 even to one hatched in a cage within their own 

 hive and surrounded by them on all sides. 

 One would think that when queenless they 

 would as readily receive a virgin queen as a 

 laying one ; but such is not the case. 



It is a fact which every queen-breeder has 

 found to his cost that a considerable per cent 

 of the queen-cells introduced to nuclei or to 

 full colonies are destroyed by the bees before 

 the young queens hatch, and there is loss and 

 delay in providing queens for them. To cage 

 cells and introduce them is exceedingly easy. 

 A queen nursery is easily constructed by any 

 one who has any mechanical skill, and where 

 queen-cells are plenty, and there are not hives 

 ready to introduce them, they can be caged, 

 put into the nursery, hung in any hive in place 

 of a frame, and the young queen allowed to 

 hatch. All this is easily and quickly done ; 

 but the trouble begins when we attempt to in- 

 troduce these newly hatched queens among 

 strange bees. 



The first plan proposed was to place the 

 newly hatched queen among the bees before 

 she had colored, as soon as possible after she 

 had emerged from the cell. But I, and doubt- 

 less others, have found that this plan is not 

 uniformly successful. Sometimes the presence 

 of a queen so introduced will be tolerated 

 until another can be reared, when she will be 

 destroyed. In other cases she will be hugged 

 to death or stung within a few hours of her 

 introduction. In some eases she will be 



received, and the experiment will be success- 

 ful. In the swarming season, when honey is 

 coming in plentifully, the plan would proba- 

 bly succeed in a large majority of cases, at 

 other times but few would be received. 



Some years ago I thought I had discovered 

 a plan by which an apiary might be Italianized 

 with neatness and dispatch ; I caged a cell and 

 put it into a hive where there was a laying 

 queen. As soon as I found that the young 

 queen had come out of the cell, I removed the 

 old queen, and in twenty-four hours opened 

 the cage, and allowed the young queen to come 

 out. The experiment was completely success- 

 ful, and I rushed into print, as an enthusiastic 

 novice naturally would, and proclaimed to the 

 world my valuable discovery. This was near 

 the close of the season, and I did not have 

 opportunity for further experiment until the 

 next summer. Others took my advice, and I 

 followed up the plan the next season, but the 

 result was a pretty general failure. 



When a queen-cell is caged and introduced 

 into a queenless colony having eggs and brood 

 from which a queen can be reared, the bees 

 will, in many cases, destroy the young queen 

 when liberated or shortly after. When she 

 first comes out among them they may not 

 seem to be hostile. Some of them may offer 

 her food, and you may think she is perfectly 

 safe, but in a day or two, if you find her at 

 all, you may find herdead in front of the hive. 



But there is one plan which with me has 

 been uniformly successful, and that is to 

 deprive the bees of all brood. When that is 

 done it is as easy to introduce an unfertile 

 queen as a fertile one ; I have not failed in a 

 single case, except in a few in which the queen 

 got fast between the cage and the comb of 

 honey put in for her subsistence, and died. 

 Nuclei may be made by putting a sufficient 

 quantity of bees with combs of honey and no 

 brood into a hive, together with a caged virgin 

 queen, and keeping them confined for not less 

 than 48 hours, (72 would not be too long) 

 when they will not return to the hives from 

 which they were taken. The young queen 

 may then be liberated with perfect safety, so 

 far as my experience teaches me. It may be 

 asked, Will not the bees desert the hive when 

 the queen leaves on her bridal excursion ? I 

 answer, No ! I have reared a great many 

 queens in nuclei, and I have never given one 

 unsealed brood to prevent them from leaving, 

 and have never had a swarm to leave. I do 

 not believe that there is the slightest danger of 

 their leaving if they have plenty of honey, 

 and the nucleus hive is not too much exposed 

 to the hot sunshine, nor over-crowded with 

 bees. 



The best introducing cage I have found, one 

 which I have very recently adopted, is made 

 as follows : Take 4 pieces of wood about J-g 

 of inch square and 3 inches long : lay 2 of 

 them down on your bench parallel with each 



