44 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



March 



The U. D. Cage. — Continued. 



room for this work the plugs should tx' 

 one inch apart, or the tins may be left out 

 atfirst to be put in place after the 

 cells are capped, as one pleases. 



Asa nursery this cage fills the bill — 

 seventy-five queens are accommodated 

 in a single frame; laying oV virgin, they 

 will be as well cared for by the bees as 

 though each queen were in a separate 

 hive by herself. I have had as high as 

 two hundred queens in a single nucleus ; 

 and this winter I shall undertake to 

 winter seventy-five queens to the colony, 

 to get even with my friends in the South, 

 who have heretofore led me sixty days 

 on account of location. 



' ' S W A RTHMORE. ■ ' 



.Swarthmore, Pa., Oct. I'.tOO. 



A 



SETTING BEES FROM CELLAR ETC. 



BY a. M. DOOLITTLE. 



COKKE.SPONDENT wishes me to 

 tell in The American Bee- 

 keeper how I set the bees from 

 the, cellar and also if I set each colony on 

 the same stand it occupied the fall pre- 

 vi(jus. Answering the last question first. 

 I will say that it is supposed by many 

 that when the bees are set from the cel- 

 lar each colony must occupy the exact 

 position or stand that they did the sum- 

 mer previous, or else many bees will be 

 lost by going back to their former loca- 

 tion. Those who are at all familiar with 

 bees know that the young bee. when it 

 comes out of the hive for the first time, 

 marks its location by turning its head 

 toward the hive upon taking wing, when it 

 commences flying in front of the hive in 

 circles, each circle growinsr larger as it 



Through the courtesy of Glean- 

 ings in Bee-culture, in which jour- 

 nal the U. D. cage was previously ] Ig 

 described, we are permitted to 

 present an excellent illustration of 

 its construction. LTpon receipt of 

 a sample cage, which "Swarth- 

 more'' sent for inspection, we had 

 some misgivings as to the advisa- 

 bility of confining virgin queens 

 with perforated zinc ; and accord- 

 ingly wrote " Swarthmore" asking o 

 for his experience. We can do no 

 better than to give the reply in 

 his own words : 



My Dear Mk. Hii.i. : V i rg i n 

 (lueens, if properly developed, can- 

 not pass the Tinker zinc: they can the 

 Root zinc, however. It is very important 

 to make sure of fully developed (pieens 

 liy giving cells to powerful colonies only: 

 a fairly strong colony will build a few cells 

 of good size- — perluips six or eight ; but 

 the queens coming from them are some- 

 times small and ])Oor. A colony strong 

 enough to start twenty live good cells 

 should be chosen, and after the beeS liavc 

 worked on said cells thirty-six hours. 

 they should be rcmov(>d and given to an- 

 other powerful colony to be linisheil. lu 

 this way no undersized virgins will ever 

 lie found in tlu; cages. 



■SwAiniiMORK. ■■ 



Showing construction of U. D. Cage, 

 goes further from the hive until it is lost 

 from sight. In this way the exact spot 

 of '•home'' is located, after which no 

 uu)re precaution needs be taken by oui- 

 bee. for it seems to remember ever after- 

 wards where its home is. For this reason 

 it leaves its hive on all subsecpuMit times 

 in a direct line of Hight. never looking at 

 the hive at all. so that if the hive is 

 afterwards carried to a new location, the 

 bees do not seem to know it. (unless cai- 

 ried two or more miles away so that all 

 the surroundings are (Mitirch different) 



