108 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



June 



from the ripe cell has emerged. Or, in- 

 crease can be prevented by taking queen 

 from the swarm and returning it after 

 all queen cells have been cut, the queen 

 from the ripe cell being now at liberty. 

 These little kinks are all valuable and 

 go toward helping make up tlie full 

 fledged bee-keeper. 



SECRET OF SUCCESSFUL HONEY 

 PRODUCTION. 



At the bottom of the last column, 

 page 86, is a [great big] little item, 

 taken from the Review. Turn back and 

 read it again. Do you believe it? If 

 "one of the greatest secrets of success- 

 ful honey production is that of having a 

 great force of field workers during the 

 honey liarvest," is the truth, will it not 

 pay big money to work for that great 

 force? Yet how many who read this 

 really work for such force. Those 

 who do not cannot call themselves 

 a "great success"' at bee-keeping. 

 But tliere is a little item left out which 

 ought to have been included with what 

 is given. Including it, the item would 

 read, "One of the greatest secrets of suc- 

 cessful honey production is that of hav- 

 ing a great force of field workers during 

 honey harvestwithnodi)<posiUoiior ejfort 

 toswarvi." Unless this latter is included, 

 the whole harvest may be frittered 

 away in dividing up that "great force" 

 till not a pound of surplus honey is ob- 

 tained, or the whole force sulking and 

 fooling the time away in the vain at- 

 tempt at dividing up where hindered in 

 the attempt, by methods generally prac- 

 ticed. To manage bees that a great field 

 force can be on hand during the honey 

 flow, with no desire to swarm, is some- 

 thing worthy of the best attention of 

 the apiarists of the present time. 



There are still left more good things 

 in the May Bkk-kekpeu. which 1 had 

 marked, and desired to touch upon, but 

 time and space forbid. Read carefully 

 the whole issue; there is much in it. 



Borodino, N.Y.. May 5. 1900. 



^r 



Read our Clubbing List on IJrd pp. cover. 



VIRGIN QUEENS. 



The Effects of Keeping them Caged, Etc. 



BY W. H. PRIDGEN. 



MR. DOOLITTLE, in the May 1st 

 Gleanings, gives the keeping of 

 virgin queens from the bees the 

 black eye. Has learned that they should 

 be in immediate touch with the bees at 

 all times, after many years of careful 

 watching, and has given up the idea of 

 introducing old virgins to save time. 



1 never did much of this, as I soon 

 learned that I could get a laying queen 

 from one just hatched, about as soon ; 

 but as I can gain from one to three days 

 by giving the just hatched downy 

 misses, with the assurance that as few 

 will be rejected as there are cells 

 that fail to hatch, and are torn down, I 

 would be glad for Bro. Doolittle to tell us 

 if he thinks they are really injured at all 

 when only allowed to remain caged a 

 few hours at most, and especially if 

 kept at the temperature of a strong 

 colony. 



I keep my cells in immediate touch 

 of the bees until the time for distribu- 

 tion, and then keep them where the 

 queens emerge sooner than is often the 

 case if given to nuclei, and especially ear- 

 ly in the season, and in nuclei newly 

 formed. 



At any rate, according to Bro. Doo- 

 little's figures, their life and usefulness 

 is not sliortened mucli, liis estimate 

 being that it is "at the rate of three 

 months for every day thus kept away 

 from the bees." If he is right, which I 

 am not disputing — and I believe he is 

 right in a measure — I have a queen 

 doing good service that sliould show the 

 age of four and a half years. For ex- 

 perimental purposes I kept her in the 

 nursery twelve days and caged in the 

 colony to which she was introduced, 

 three days more, last July. She is now 

 active, fresh and nice looking, and is 

 possibly an exception to the rule. 



It seems that some consider the use of 



