1871.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



11 



made the sides, bottom, and top of tliin boards, 

 I i)iit in this a comb of hatching brood, pnt the 

 queens in, and as fast as the yovmg bees hatched 

 out, tlic queens filled the cells with eggs. I 

 watched them very closely for a few days, and 

 was delighted at the prospect, as I thought, of 

 safely introducing my last two imported queens. 

 After six days, I concluded to release one, but 

 first looked over all the combs for eggs and 

 queen cells. I saw none, as I had removed the 

 old queen ten days before, and concluded all was 

 right. I lifted out the Queen C'asile, took out 

 the frame containing the new queen, set it in 

 the hive gently, and thought I had succeeded 

 with ove at least; but next morning, I found 

 her dead at the entrance. On further examina- 

 tion, I found a young unfertile queen, that had 

 hatched from a small cell that I had overlooked. 



Just liere I will say to beginners, when look- 

 ing for queen cells that you wish to cut out, 

 shake or brush all the bees from every comb 

 that has brood in it, or you will sometimes over- 

 look queen cells that the bees are clustered on. 



On the seventh day, I took out the other and 

 last of seven imported queens, and to be doubly 

 sure there were no queen cells or young queens 

 in the hive, 1 shook off all the bees, examined 

 the combs, and then run the bees to see if there 

 was any queen among them. I found none, and 

 set the queen at liV)erty, as the former. All 

 went Avell for two days, when I found her in a 

 cluster of bees, almost dead, with one of her 

 antenna? pulled oft' at the first joint, and she 

 died in a few hours. 



Last season, 1870, to gratify the curiosity of 

 my assistant, I put five queens in these castles, 

 and lost four out of the five. 



You state it is alleged that queens so intro- 

 duced arc invariably accepted, and the old queen 

 of the colony, or any fertile worker, discarded, 

 etc. If so, why do they not discard the queen 

 when a queen is i^laced in a hive in a cage ? I 

 have, for several years, been in the habit of pre- 

 serving queens that I had no immediate use for, 

 by putting tlicm in cages and suspending them 

 between the brood combs of any hive that has a 

 fertile queen laying eggs ; and have left them so 

 sometimes for two or three months. Last sum- 

 mer I had nine queens so preserved at one time, 

 in one hive, for two weeks, with the queen lay- 

 ing eggs all the while. 



On page 231, Mr. Grimm gives his experience 

 in introducing queens. In his first case, had he 

 set the queens at liberty, and closed the entrance 

 so that only one bee could pass at a time, it is 

 my opinion that he would liave saved all his 

 queens. I introduce queens as per instructions 

 of Mrs. Tupper, and failed only in one case out 

 of a great many, — and that failure lay to the 

 queen having been taken from a swarm that had 

 settled. I think the queen still had the swarm- 

 ing impulse, swarmed out, and was lost. 



Let not what I have here said prevent others 

 from trying the Queen Castle, as many may suc- 

 ceed where I failed. In the early spring, or in 

 the swarming season, I usually succeed in every 

 way ; but later in the summer, I find it more 

 difficult. H. Nesbit. 



Cynthiana, Ky.., Ai^ril 11, 1871. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



introducing Queen?. 



As this is the season for introducing queen.-?, 

 perhaps a few suggestions at thi'; time will not 

 be amiss. Many of the readers of the Journal 

 know that my favorite method for introducing 

 is the use of tobacco smoke. In my opinion all 

 that is necessary is to scent the bees and queens 

 alike, and there is no trouble. Of all the 

 methods that I have seen in print, I think there 

 is none so good as the tobacco smoke. A few 

 days since I introduced eight queens safely into 

 very full stocks of bees, and was only a little 

 over an hour about it from the time I com- 

 menced to look for the old queens. I did it in 

 this way : I gave the bees tobacco smoke to 

 keep them quiet while I was hunting out the 

 black queens. They were all in movable comb 

 hives All the bees that were on the combs were 

 brushed into a box about a foot square. The 

 Italian queen was put in with them. Then, 

 with my fumigator, I commenced to smoke them 

 and shake them about in the box, so that all 

 would be smoked alike. When they began to 

 look as though they were daubed with honey, 

 (and I presume they were, as the smoke seems 

 to make them vomit, ) they were then turned on 

 the frames, the cap jjut on, and the hive left 

 quiet for a short time, until they were somewhat 

 recovered from the effects of the smoke. Many 

 of tliem will cluster in the cap, if the colonj'^ be 

 a large one and the weather is warm. Should 

 they do so, they are to be shaken down in front 

 of the hive, and left to run in at their leisure. 

 The lioncy board is then put on, and no one 

 could tell, from the appearance of the bees next 

 day, whether they had been meddled with or 

 not. Nearly all the queens I introduced in this 

 way were accepted by the bees. 



The bees left in the hive should also have a 

 good quantity of smoke, but not near so much 

 as the bees the queen is put with. A pint of 

 bees is enough to put the queen with. If this 

 operation is performed when forage is scarce, 

 care must be taken that other bees do not rob 

 them. Just befoi-e sunset is a good time to in- 

 troduce queens in this way. 



The honey harvest bids fair to be a poor one 

 here in New England. The apple blo.ssom was 

 light, and white clover is nearly dried up, as we 

 have had no rain for quite five weeks, and no 

 prospect of any at present. 



The weather was so cold during the first part 

 of May, we could not raise queens, as the bees 

 would not make cells. We have had some very 

 hot and some very cold weather for the season. 

 Our first queens were sent out May 29th. 



Those correspondents who wrote us, and do 

 not give the name of the State in which they re- 

 side, must not expect answers. We have re- 

 ceived several letters of this kind within a few 

 weeks. One man sent us ^2.50 for a queen. lie 

 did not sign his name to the letter, or give the 

 name of the State, and yet was in a great hurry 

 for his queen. 



H. Alley. 



Wenham, Mass., June 8, 1871. 



