48 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Mallini Queen-Eees Long Distances. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY W. A. PRYAL. 



Although a number of queen-breeders 

 of this country have been fairly success- 

 ful in shipping queens to foreign lands 

 through the mails, still, a few of these 

 breeders, as well as many others who 

 have not been favored with a foreign 

 order, have been pretty unlucky in send- 

 ing queens across the continent of 

 America at certain times of the year. 

 One would think that if a man who has 

 been successful in shipping bees, say to 

 Australia, would also send them every 

 time to any part of the Pacific Coast 

 without losing a single bee. Yet, such 

 is not the fact. I have known of 

 breeders who have sent their queens 

 almost everywhere, but who cannot 

 send them to California without fre- 

 quently losing some. 



There are many causes for this, some 

 of which I shall try to tell about in this 

 article. What I shall write about will 

 be based altogether on observations and 

 experiments last summer. In carrying 

 on these experiments, I did it not only 

 for my own benefit, but also for the 

 benefit of the queen-breeders of the 

 country. It had become annoying to 

 me to receive a queen dead, that I was 

 hoping would come to me alive. Some- 

 times I would have a colony to which I 

 wanted to introduce an Italian queen, 

 and expected one from the East in a few 

 days. I would, consequently, let this 

 colony remain queenless, as I hoped to 

 give them the queen which I expected 

 in a day or two. But how provoking it 

 would be wheji the (|ueen, whicJi was 

 expected with so much anticipation, 

 came to hand as dead as dead could be. 

 This state of affairs not only happened 

 once, but a number of times. It was for 

 the purpose of learning a way to get 

 queens to this State alive every time, 

 that I gave a good deal of attention to 

 the subject. That I learned something 



of value, I am satisfied ; that my experi- 

 ments will be of value to those breeders 

 who ship to these distant parts, I also 

 hope. 



When I would get one of these queens 

 dead, I would first look to see if the food 

 in the cage had given out. In no case 

 have I ever found that the food was 

 anywhere near exhausted by the bees. 

 More often the food would be hardly 

 consumed ; sometimes it was so hard 

 that I would not be surprised but it 

 would have required a good sized sledge 

 hammer to break the so-called candy 

 sent as food for the poor bees to exist on 

 while in transit. 



Then I would look to the ventilation. 

 This I have considered an important 

 thing in shipping queens ; too often the 

 shipper trusts to the ventilation pro- 

 vided by the manufacturer of the cages 

 he uses. For short distances, these ven- 

 tilation holes made by the manufacturer 

 are quite sufficient, but for long dis- 

 tances and through a very hot country, 

 they are far from being just right. It is 

 well that the maker does not undertake 

 to make them as open as a saw-mill, for 

 they would, in the language of Bill Nye, 

 allow too much atmosphere to enter 

 them. This would not do during the 

 early or late months of the year, should 

 the breeder have occasion to ship at 

 those seasons. 



I find that one of the reasons that 

 much of the candy used in the cages be- 

 comes hard, is because the wood of 

 which the cage is made soaks up the 

 moisture of the candy ; in other words, 

 the honey, of which the candy is partly 

 composed, is absorbed by the wood. 

 This state of aifairs is easily remedied 

 by coating the hole, where the candy is 

 to be stored, with beeswax or paraffine. 

 This should also be done, as it prevents 

 the candy from becoming poisoned by 

 the wood, as is sometimes the case. 



Another thing that I learned was un- 

 necessary during the heated term of the 

 year was, that it is dangerous to send 

 too many bees along with the queen. I 

 have found that some breeders will send 

 as many as 16 in a two-ounce cage dur- 

 ing July, when nine or ten were plenty 

 enouf^h. One breeder had the former 

 nuran^r in an ounce cage; it stood to 

 reason that so many bees raised the 

 temperature in the cage to a very high 

 degree when the bees were crossing the 

 deserts where it is naturally hot. No 

 bees in the world could live through 

 such a trying time as they must neces- 

 arily be subjected to in a small compart- 

 ment where each individual bee helps to 



