1872.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



269 



American Bee Joiunal, vol. 1, for 1801) was wit- 

 nessed under the following circumstances : In 

 ]Mr. S. B. Parson's apiary at Flushing, Messrs. 

 William W. Gary and R. C. Otis saw a young 

 Italian queen leave a small nucleus for fertiliza- 

 tion. She returned without success, and as she 

 left a second time, they closed the entrance to be 

 more certain of seeing her condition when she 

 returned. A few drones belonging to the nu- 

 cleus finding their entrance obstructed, took 

 M'ing and hovered near the box. The returning 

 queen mated with one of them, which dropped 

 dead instantly, and was picked up and preserved 

 in alcohol. This occurrence proved that fertil- 

 ization did not necessarily take place high in the 

 air. A return of our old malady prevented us 

 from testing this plan, which seems to us more 

 feasible than any hitherto communicated to the 

 public. 



It will be observed that we do not shai-e Mr. 

 William R. King's fear of "the fiery workers" 

 interfering with the natural jiropensities of the 

 drones, for we have seen no evidence of any 

 such fear, until about the time when the workers 

 are intent on driving them from the hive. Up 

 to this time they treat them with great affection, 

 not only cherishing them in the larvaj state, but 

 being always willing to give them honey, when 

 they solicit it. 



If this plan should i)rove a success, the nuclei 

 with their fertilized queens could be removed 

 and others set in their places, so that it would 

 be necessary to keep only a small number in the 

 fertilizing house at any one time. 



L. L. Langstroth. 



Introducing Queens. 



M. M. Mahin, in the March No. of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal, gives his way of introducing 

 queens. He says he has introduced one with 

 pepijermint water, but would not advise the plan 

 for valuable queens. 



I wish to inform Mr. Mahin that we have been 

 introducing queens in that way for the last four 

 years. It is highly useful for imported queens, 

 as it would be very dangerous to cage such 

 queens for any considerable time, after they have 

 been traveling for from twenty-five to thirty- 

 five days. 



My father found this method described on p. 

 16, vol. 4th, of American Bee Journal. He was 

 so confident of its safety that he at once used it 

 for introducing some imported queens. There 

 was so much peppermint in the original recipe 

 that some of the stocks remained in a state of 

 feverish excitement for several days. We pre- 

 pare it as follows : In a pint of sugared water, 

 put a teaspoonful of essence of peppermint ; 

 open the hive, kill the queen, and sprinkle both 

 sides of the comb, bees and all, with tlie prepa- 

 ration — then dip the new queen into it and place 

 her on one of the combs. The evening is the 

 safest time to introduce, when almost all the 

 bees are back from the fields. We use a chicken's 

 wing for sprinkling. 



We have never lost a queen introduced in this 



way, although we have used it witli hundreds. 

 When we expect imported queens to arrive, we 

 cage beforehand a number of queens, so that we 

 can at once introduce the imported queens. We 

 have introduced as many as fifteen imported 

 queens, within an hour after their arrival. 



C. P. Dadant. 

 Hamilton, Illinois. 



[For the American Bee Jourual] 



Condensing Swarms. 



We have said considerable in the American 

 Bee Journal about keeping bees condensed, or in 

 a compact mass, in order to have them work to 

 advantage, raise brood, build comb, evai^orate 

 their honey, &c., but as there are a large num- 

 ber of new subscribers we think it will do no 

 harm to give our ideas on that subject once 

 more, and especially about the management of 

 the extractor. 



A friend of ours has lost several stocks of bees 

 this winter and his nucleus swarms. We saw 

 these bees in December last, and could have in- 

 formed him that they would starve to death 

 before spring, just as well then as we could do 

 after they were actually dead. To begin with 

 his nuclei; he extracted their honey late in 

 the season, and the consequence was they were 

 filled again and sealed up thin, wateiy honey. 

 They had abundance if it had been properly 

 evaporated, but that not being the case, they, 

 were never quiet, and consequently consumed 

 all their stores and starved to death in February. 

 Now it is my candid opinion tliat if the same 

 honey had been extracted and condensed so as 

 to have one-third the amount, and then fed back 

 to them, they would have had abundance and 

 would have remained jjerfectly quiet all winter. 

 It is astonishing what a small amount of good 

 honey of the right consistency it takes to winter 

 a stock of bees. Now if his stocks that starved 

 had been condensed by the use of the division 

 board to six or eight combs, they would have 

 evaporated their honey so as to have had abun- 

 dance to winter on. This condensing must be 

 attended to while the bees are gathering their 

 stores. In using the extractor, we must be very 

 careful not to use it too late in the season ; yet 

 honey stored late in the season, if the stock is 

 well managed is just as good for wintering pur- 

 poses as any. To illustrate this, honey stored in 

 June is always good for wintering, because the ^ 

 weather is warm, and the bees are raising large 

 quantities of brood and the stock is strong in 

 numbers, consequently they get up heat enough 

 to evaporate their honey, and one pound of this 

 honey will go farther towards wintering a stock 

 of bees than three pounds stored late in the fall 

 in the same sized hive. Why? Because the 

 weather being cool, they are rearing but little 

 brood and the stock has only about one-half the 

 number it had in June or July. But condense 

 this stock to one-half the number of combs and 

 we get a good quality of honey for wintering or 

 winter food. Take one of our nuclei with 

 tiiree combs, keej) it crowded with bees of the 



