816 



Sept. 27, 1906 



American Dee Journal 



eggs, was in all probability the true 

 cause of her ability to destroy the Ital- 

 ian queen. 



As to why the Italian colony per- 

 mitted the black colony to enter their 

 hive on terms of peace is a matter that 

 I can not account for, farther than to 

 say that in this case it actually oc- 

 curred, and that I regard it as a real 

 occurrence, and not in strict harmony 

 with the law that governs the honey- 

 bees. 



Some seasons I have had bees accept 

 queens that had j ust emerged from their 

 cells, and last year I could not get them 

 to accept a virgin queen at all. Why 

 this difference in the willingness of 

 bees to accept a virgin queen as soon 

 as hatched, one season, and flatly re- 

 fusing to do so some other season, is an 

 unsolved problem ; or, at any rate, no 

 one has yet pointed out the true reason 

 as to why such difference in the temper 

 of bees is made manifest. 



One time, when I was in Mr. Lang- 

 stroth's apiary at Oxford, Ohio, an 

 Italian queen emerged from a cell just 

 at the moment he opened the hive to 

 see if the queen had come out, as he 

 was expecting her to emerge at any 

 time. He removed her at once, placing 

 her upon a comb covered with strange 

 bees. The hive he placed her in was 

 closed immediately, and in about half 

 an hour we looked to see how she had 

 been received, and found she was mov- 

 ing about leisurely among the bees. 

 This, he told me, he often did when he 

 had such a place for a young queen, 

 and I judged it to be a fact that bees 

 would invariably accept queens just 

 hatched, from any colony. But expe- 

 rience has taught me that there are 

 many exceptions to this rule, if a rule 

 we may properly term it. I am of the 

 opinion that when there is a free flow 

 of honey, bees are more liable to hurt 

 a strange queen than they are when 

 there is little or no honey to be col- 

 lected. 



Lyons, Kans. 



Methods of Queen-Introduc- 

 tion 



BY DR. J. H. HEAGY 



After some years of experience in 

 handling the honey-bee— 35. to be more 

 accurate— I have concluded that the 

 scent factor is the prime factor in in- 

 troducing new queens in established 

 colonies, rendered queenless by acci- 

 dent, or purposely, so as to enable the 

 apiarist to inject new blood and new 

 life in his apiary through the introduc- 

 tion of thoroughbred queens. 



The common method— the method 

 advocated by queen-breeders univer- 

 sally — is to render the colony queen- 

 less, then insert in the hive the cage 

 containing the new queen and a few 

 bees that accompany her, preferably 

 between the middle frames and midway 

 of the frames, there leaving it until 

 the bees eat a tunnel through the candy 

 and thus liberate the queen. To those 

 who have tried this plan, it is unneces- 

 sary to say that often— too often— the 

 results are either immediate death 

 to the queen, or, if not at once, the bees 

 may accept her for a few days, or until 

 she commences to lay, and then kill 



her and rear a queen to suit themselves. 

 This occurs so often, indeed, that a 

 great many apiarists frequently blame 

 the queen-breeder for sending a queen 

 badly mated, or one mated with an in- 

 ferior drone, when the real truth of 

 the matter is this, that the bees ac- 

 cepted the introduced queen for a few 

 days only, and, as soon as laying com- 

 menced, they balled her, and smothered 

 her to death, or may, indeed, have at 

 once stung her to death and carried 

 her out of the hive. So that the new 

 queen is one of their own rearing, and 

 not the introduced queen at all. 



This is especially liable to occur in 

 apiaries where the bees are not looked 

 after very carefully, or in the yard of 

 the novice, even the old, experienced 

 apiarist may be fooled in the same man- 

 ner and "cuss" the breeder for send- 

 ing inferior stock, when the above has 

 been the reason for poor stock " show- 

 ing up " after he has introduced a 

 superior queen. 



Now, my manner of introduction 

 does away with all this risk, because 

 in following my rules for introduction 

 you remove the cause of the killing, 

 and the cause is the extraneous scent 

 on bees and cage you employed in the 

 introduction. The queen may have 

 been in the cage over a queenless col- 

 ony for some time prior to mailing to 

 you, and acquired the scent of the bees 

 in that way ; or the cage may have had 

 several queens in it at various times, 

 and even been in two or more colonies, 

 and so have acquired the scent of some 

 two or three, or several colonies. When 

 introduced, their scents act on the 

 nervous and enraged bees much as a 

 red rag acts on a mad bull. The bees, 

 rendered fierce by the removal of their 

 gentle mother, are ready, and even 

 hunting, for trouble, and the moment 

 the cage is thrust within the hive, they 

 fall on it in their blind, unreasoning 

 rage and would tear it to pieces if able 

 to do so. They at once commence to 

 tunnel through the candy to liberate 

 the queen. The moment they pene- 

 trate to her they at once kill the en- 

 closed bees, drive her out into the hive, 

 ball and smother her at once, or, per- 

 haps, sting her to death ! 



The method of introduction which I 

 have evolved after losing some very 

 fine queens, is this: On receipt of a 

 queen from the mail, prepare a fine 

 camel's-hair brush — one such as is 

 made in a quill-holder. Cut it to a fine 

 point and lay aside until ready to use 

 it. Also have warm water handy. 

 Remove the queen, catch her by the 

 wings, and after wetting the camel's- 

 hair brush, gently brush her all over 

 with it, underside as well as back, 

 wings, thorax, and every available 

 portion of her. So soon as you have 

 completed the " royal bath," place the 

 queen in a new cage— one that has 

 never held bees before— indeed, one 

 that has never been near a colony is 

 the only one to employ. 



After placing the queen in the new 

 cage, go to the queenless colony to 

 which you wish to introduce her, catch 

 a dozen young bees just hatched out, 

 place these in the cage along with the 

 queen, and insert the cage and con- 

 tained bees in the hive, preferably be- 

 tween the middle frames, and about 



half way down the comb. Push the 

 frames together to hold the cage if the 

 bees cluster on it ; shut the hive, and 

 don't disturb it for 5 days. 



At your next visit to the colony, you 

 will find the queen alive and laying 

 for all she is worth, contented, and the 

 bees well satisfied with her. 



I have tried the above plan many 

 times, and always successfully. In- 

 deed, I have treated a queen as above, 

 going all over her with the warm water, 

 and at once liberate her in a colony 

 that was mostly old bees ; they ac- 

 cepted her, and she is to-day the head 

 of that same colony. If old bees will 

 accept a queen, young bees will also do 

 so, for it is the old bees that always 

 make the trouble. 



Black Lick, Pa. 



Queen-Cell Cups from Drone- 

 Comb 



BY W. C. GATHRIGHT 



I wish to endorse the plan of getting 

 queen-cell cups from drone-comb, as 

 given by L. B. Smith, on page 701. I 

 have practised this plan with perfect 

 success. Last year I changed to the 

 plan of using strips of worker-comb, 

 destroying larva; in 2 cells, and leav- 

 ing one, so as to get room \o cut the 

 cells apart. The main reason for 

 changing to this plan was to avoid 

 having to transfer larva;, but this sea- 

 son finds me using the drone-cell cups 

 again. The bees seem to accept them 

 more promptly. Often with the strips 

 of worker-comb the bees would only 

 start 2 or 3 cells out of 20 larvae given 

 them, but with the drone-cells I often 

 have every cell built out. 



But what prompted me to write this 

 was to find out if Mr. Smith uses a 

 queenless colony to get them started. 

 I always do, but to get a colony queen- 

 less I do not go to a colony and remove 

 its queen. I take the super off my cell- 

 building colony, bees and all, with (jfie'V, 

 excluder nailed to the bottom, and set 

 on a bottom-board. I do this in ihe 

 evening, and by the next morning they 

 are ready to build cells. In about 24 

 hours this super is placed back on ilie 

 hive from which it was taken, and tfte 

 cells are finished over the colony hav- 

 ing a laying queen below. 



Another little item I have found very 

 essential, is that after the drone-cells 

 are waxed to the cell-bar, and the cells 

 cut back about half their length, I 

 place them in a queenless colony with- 

 out larvae for at least 2 hours, and at 

 the end of that time I find them all 

 worked over, the edges smoothed and 

 the bottoms polished until they fairly 

 shine. When in this condition, the 

 bees v* ill accept almost every cell, and 

 start feeding the larvae at once. It is 

 useless to use comb that has been out 

 of the hive even a short time, for there 

 is an accumulation of fine dust in the 

 bottom of the cells, and the bees will 

 not have them unless they are clean. 



It has also been my experience that 

 to prime the cell-cups with royal jelly 

 is of no use. The bees always remove 

 it, though for what cause I never ccuM 

 understand. 

 Fillmore, Calif., Aug. 27. 



