504 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



June 14, 1906 



of the newly-reared queens, reach so large an amount of 

 brood as the queen that begins in the spring and builds with 

 the expectation of casting a swarm. Thev prepare for the 

 population of 2 full hives then. The reason the hives are 

 so over-populated at this time is because the old bees, that 

 should be off to the fields gathering honey, are loitering 

 around the hive waiting to depart for the woods with the old 

 and much respected queen. There are not often too many 

 bees, but the bees are not in the right place. In order to 

 set the bees at work we must change their dispositions, and 

 that necessitates the removal of their queen. 



Now, if the colony swarms some day, and takes the old 

 queen along, the old bees off in the fields do not, when thev 

 return and find the old queen gone, get the pouts and stand 

 around doing nothing. They keep on at their work more in- 

 dustriously than ever, seeing that they have tlie future pros- 

 perity of the colony depending upon them to an increased 

 degree. When a swarm issues I take the old queen away 

 at once. Then I confine the bees long enough that they 

 forget the purpose for which they came out of their hive. 

 Then they are permitted to return to the old hive grad- 

 ually, as if returning from the fields. If they are permitted 

 to come out and cluster and then are returned again and 

 again the disposition of departing becomes more and more 

 fixed upon them, so that when the honey they take along 

 becomes digested and converted into wax for comb-building 

 in their new home, they have become so disinclined toward, 

 and forgetful of, their old domicile as to regard a new home 

 as the only possible alternative. Chatsworth, Cal. 



m 



Bees Destroying Queen-Cells With Live 

 Queens 



BY ALLEN LATHAM. 



ON page 445 Mr. Alley says : "I wish to inform the bee-keep- 

 ers of the world that no bees, queenless or otherwise, 

 ever destroy or tear down queen-cells that contain live 

 queens. A colony having a queen (either a virgin or a 

 fertile one) will not destroy a queen-cell until a queen first 

 stings the imprisoned or embryo queen; then the worker- 

 bees complete the destruction." 



I know Mr. Alley, and I know that he believes that he 

 is right. He will say. too, that others are mistaken in be- 

 lieving that bees will tear down cells when no queen is 

 present. I wish that he was right, for then I should never 

 bother to protect cells with cell-protectors made of wire- 

 cloth. If bees are imprisoned in a hive they will gnaw away 

 at a queen-cell till all the wax is off the cocoon portion, and 

 frequently get a hole through above the cocoon. As soon 

 as that hole is through it is good-bye queen, unless help 

 comes. 



Therefore, Mr. Alley, I refuse to be informed, and I 

 rather think that I shall not be in a class of one in refusing 

 to learn this lesson. 



Does Mr. Alley, or anyone else, believe that a queen 

 can sting the imprisoned virgin or embryo before a hole is 

 gnawed? Does any one think that it is possible to thrust 

 the sting through a wall of wax? If he does, then his 

 power of belief is big. 



I wish to inform the bee-keeping world that the em- 

 bryo queen, or the imprisoned queen, is never stung till 

 after a hole is made in the cell. Personally, I doubt if the 

 embryo queen is usually stung at all. A vigorous virgin 

 nearly ready to emerge may arouse the ire of the free vir- 

 gin, and be stung, but many an embryo is simply hauled 

 out by the workers. 



The hole is begun by the free queen. As soon as a 

 cell is thus injured the workers will tear it down. 



Many a time I have seen cells with holes in them, and 

 the queen inside still alive. Has Mr. Alley not seen this? 

 If the queen is alive, has she been stung? 



Last fall I was tardy in caring for a batch of cells, and 

 when I went for them I found that a queen was out gnawing 

 at the other cells. In one she had a hole which had been 

 enlarged enough to pass a small pea through. Though 

 others had been gnawed, none had holes. I wished to save • 

 all the queens possible, and as I had been successful formerly 

 in patching up torn or broken cells, I determined to save this 

 one with the hole in it. I laid a bit of comb foundation 

 over the hole and sealed it down with a hot iron. That 

 cell and all the others of the batch hatched strong queens. 



The one in particular, which, if Mr. Alley is right, had been 

 stung, became mated and showed every appearance of being 

 a good queen. 



If Mr. Alley can explain away the last-stated stubborn 

 facts, perhaps I shall relent and consent to be informed. Mr. 

 Alley is a man of wide experience, and lie has kept bees twice 

 as long as 1, ami I naturally would hesitate to question 

 what he has to say. I have read the article from which 

 I quoted with great interest. There are lots of good things 

 in that article, but in the case quoted Mr. Alley has proved 

 himself mortal, just like the rest of us. 



Norwich, Conn. 



13-Dadant Methods of Honey-Production 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



A MUCH-DEBATED question in the production of ex- 

 tracted honey is whether to remove the honey before it 

 is ripe, and ripen it by artificial means, or remove it 

 only when entirely ripened. We prefer the latter method. 

 When the first extractor was introduced, bee-keepers 

 had much less experience about the ripening of honey than 

 they have to-day. It seemed quite natural to remove the 

 honey just as fast as gathered by the bees. Larger quanti- 

 ties could thus be harvested, but it did not take the producer 

 long to find out that such honey often had no consistency, 

 and would run like water. In fact, fresh harvested honey 

 often drips from the cells when the comb is slightly inclined 

 out of the perpendicular. This is, however, by no means 

 constant, for some kinds of honey, in dry seasons, prove 

 ripened very shortly after the gathering. Honey from 

 heather is often mentioned by French apiarists as impossible 

 to extract, owing to its great density. I have never had the 

 good luck to visit a producer of heather honey, or I should 

 have made particular enquiry as to the possibility of ex- 

 tracting it promptly after it has been brought in. 



But our main crops of honey in the Middle West are 

 not such as will bear being harvested at once without re- 

 quiring artificial ripening afterwards. We have tried both 

 artificial ripening and the more popular way of allowing the 

 combs to remain in the super until the bees have thor- 

 oughly evaporated the excess of moisture. The latter method 

 is, in our opinion, much preferable. There is but one thing 

 that would induce us to extract honey before it is fully 

 ripe — the impossibility of furnishing the bees with a sufficient 

 number of supers. 



We have seen a few such seasons, and in those instances 

 we have taken the pains to place the honey in open tanks in 

 warm rooms. Usually, when there is an extraordinary sea- 

 son, the honey is less watery than in poor seasons, and the 

 time required for ripening is therefore less. A very wet 

 season, when honey contains a great deal of water and 

 evaporates slowly, is usually a poor honey season anyhow. 

 In such a season we leave the supers on until a few days 

 after the crop is over. We have sometimes taken the addi- 

 tional precaution of keeping the greater part of the honey 

 in a tank for a few weeks. In a first-class year, if we are 

 compelled to extract for want of a sufficient number of 

 supers, we sometimes take off the first supers filled, leaving 

 the last one on the hive for later extracting. 



The question has often been asked : Must honey be 

 sealed over to be considered ripe? I do not believe that seal- 

 ing is a criterion. There are seasons when the bees will seal 

 combs when the honey is insufficiently ripened. We have 

 seen this happen oftener with basswood than with any other 

 crop. In such cases the honey may ferment, and will, a 

 little later, burst the cappings. This may not be noticed 

 if the honey is still on the hive, for the bees will then look 

 after it and probably manipulate it and transfer it from one 

 cell to another, as the careful housekeeper transfers her pre- 

 serves when they show signs of fermentation. The bees 

 have not the resource of boiling or heating their stores to 

 remove the germs of fermentation, but trust them to do 

 for the best with the means they have at hand. But if 

 the honey which is capped and unripe has been removed from 

 the hive by the bee-keeper, and has been extracted, he will 

 soon notice that it forms gas-bubbles, and the watery portion 

 will come to the surface. If the honey has been kept in the 

 comb, the capping bursts and the liquid honey forms out. 

 But this sealing of unripe honey is a rare exception. As a 

 rule, the bees are very careful to ripen the honey thoroughly 

 before sealing it. 



On the other hand, if the bees have been supplied with a 



