THE BER KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



263 



FALL MANAGEMENT. 



Look After the Oueens and Winter-Stores. 



E. D. OCHSNER. 



',1ft « 



±. 



OW that the 



_, main honey- 



f flow is over, and 



\— . «» « the d a y s are 



growing shorter, 



the next ques- 



,^^1 ^^ Jp^^ dition of the col- 



!^HB~ ^^^y onies that must 



>; ^^^ Jp pass the coming 

 , '^ T'y , winter. I exam- 

 ine all of those 

 that have swarmed; as, in twelve to six- 

 teen days after a queen has hatched she 

 is laying. No eggs, show queenlessness. 

 When there is a laying queen she must 

 have plenty of room to lay in August and 

 September or we need not expect to have 

 her colony come through the winter in 

 good condition; as the old bees will all 

 die before spring, and there will not be 

 enough young bees to pull through a 

 late spring. If a queen does not lay good 

 in September she should be encouraged 

 by feeding the colony. 



Now for an examination of the colonies 

 that have not swarmed, and of the first 

 swarms, to see if any cjueens are failing. 

 If the lack of brood shows a failing queen, 

 look her up and destroy her, and then go 

 to the nuclei and take a laying '98 queen 

 and proceed to introduce her. I have 

 just put in six very fine Italian queens 

 bought of W. Z. Hutchinson; and two 

 days later they were all laying. 



To introduce a queen to a colony that 

 has been queenless 12 to 16 days, I pro- 

 ceed as follows: 



Put the caged queen between two combs, 

 leaving the face of the cage open to the 

 bees, and allow it to remain for 24 hours. 

 About simset I open the hive, after smok- 

 ing mildly, and taking out a comb of bees, 

 let the qtieen ( but no bees ) out vtpon the 

 comb. After watching her for fifteen 



minutes, if the bees . show no signs of 

 fight, I daub her with honey, put back 

 the comb, and close the hive, and put on 

 a feeder. Four days later the results 

 will be surprising. 



Now for winter stores. If the apiary 

 was run for extracted honey, there should 

 have been saved out about three full 

 frames of capped honey to each colony; 

 as the best honey is none to good for 

 wintering. Besides, we do not know 

 whether there will be a fall flow; so you 

 see it will be safer with plenty of nice 

 capped honey on hand. This is better 

 than feeding sugar so late that the bees 

 cannot cap it. 



If bees are to be moved to the home- 

 yard for wintering, attend to it at once, 

 or as soon as there is no more honey to 

 be gathered. Do not make the sad mis- 

 take of waiting until it is so late that they 

 will not have a few good flights before 

 putting into the cellar. Do not move 

 them when it goes down 40° above zero. 

 Prairie di' S.\c, Wis. Aug. 3, 1S9S. 



THE BREEDING OF BEES. 



Cross-Breeding to be Abandoned. The Im- 

 portance of Beauty- 



E. A. DAGGITT. 



A thing of beauty is a joy forever.— /f £,4 rs. 



tN his excellent 

 1 article on the 

 laws of heredity 

 in the June issue 

 of the Review, 

 Mr. Crane 

 brings out one 

 important point 

 in breeding that 

 deserves partic- 

 ular notice by 

 those interested 

 in the improvement of the honey bee. I 

 refer to the mistake of crossing different 



