1894 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



547 



appeared in due time. This continued through- 

 out tlie season. I have forgotten how many 

 queens I removed from the hive. Sept. 20 I 

 overhauled the hive for tlie last time, and found 

 a beautiful yellow queen, with plenty of hatch- 

 ing bees, and the old queen still laying; but she 

 was in a shriveled condition. Both would ap- 

 pear on the same frame together. I took a 

 straw and directed their heads together, but 

 they ignored each other's presence. 



I find it characteristic of the imported blood- 

 ed Italians for two queens to live in harmony 

 together, and each generation to grow more 

 yellow. In the summer of 1884, as fast as I got 

 a load of new swarms I took them 4K miles 

 from home to an out-apiary. The next day 

 after they had been carried away I noticed 

 that, where the daughters of the imported 

 queens stood, many bees returned with both 

 pollen and honey, but not a bee from any other 

 strain of Italians returned. That was convinc- 

 ing proof that imported blood is superior to any 

 other, being stronger and better wingers. They 

 had been as far, or nearly as far, as the out- 

 apiary before being carried there. In 1886 I put 

 on some top stories to extract from, but no 

 queen-excluder. The old queen laid above, and 

 the bees built cells above, and in due time 

 a young queen hatched, went out, mated, and 

 returned. There was an entrance in the upper 

 story, for bees to pass through. That queen 

 was of the imported strain. She remained in 

 the upper story all summer, and was very pro- 

 lific, while I found the old queen, which was a 

 daughter of the imported queen, below, with 

 any quantity of brood. That colony gave me 

 more honey than any other two. I always keep 

 my old queens' wings clipped, therefore I know 

 the old from the young, even if there were no 

 dittorence in their appearance. To sum up, I 

 find that, to introduce imported blood into one's 

 apiary once in a few years, greatly improves 

 the bees in prolificness. They are more hardy, 

 live longer, and, best of all, gather more honey,, 

 than any other strain of bees I ever had to do 

 with. 



Browntown, Wis. 



TRANSFERRING BEES FROM BOX-HIVES. 



'Question. — Briefly stated, what is the best 

 nil hod of transferring bees from box hives'? 



Ansu'cr. — The majority of our most practical 

 bee-keepers of the present time believe that 

 what is known as the '" Ileddon plan " of trans- 

 ferring is the best of any so far given. This 

 plan is as follows: Drive the bees from the box 

 hive and put them into a hive furnished with 

 frames of wired foundation, the furnished hive 



to be placed on the stand the; colony had occu- 

 pied up to the present time, while the box hive 

 with its combs of brood and honey, with the 

 few adhering bees, is to be ilaced close beside 

 the new hive. In :.'l days after all the brood 

 shall have emerged as worker bees, drive the 

 bees again from the box hive, driving clean this 

 time, and, after destroying the queen with this 

 last drive, or the om; in the colony driven be- 

 fore, according as to which is the most valu- 

 able, unite the bees with those first driven out, 

 thus getting the bees all on to nice straight 

 combs, and in good shape to give a good yield 

 of surplus honey. The combs are now taken 

 out of the box hive, the honey extracted from 

 them, and they are rendered into wax to help 

 in making more comb foundation. 



Now, while the above is probably the best 

 known plan where the combs in the box hive 

 are crooked or poor, and the season of the year 

 that when the bees are securing honey from 

 the field, yet if the combs in the box hives are 

 good straight ones of the worker size of cell, or 

 we do not have the foundation, or we wish to 

 do this work early in the season, before the 

 bees are getting honey from the fields so that 

 they will not draw out the foundation readily, 

 then, decidedly, the old plan or method given 

 in nearly all the standard works on bee culture 

 is the proper one to use. I never could under- 

 stand the logic that melted up good straight 

 worker combs, made the wax from them into 

 foundation, wired the frames to keep that 

 foundation from sagging, and then '"trans- 

 ferred " the foundation into those wired frames 

 with an amount of labor nearly equal to that 

 required to transfer the original combs, all for 

 the fun of saying that we used the Heddon 

 plan. Straight worker comb, properly trans- 

 ferred into a frame, and fastened by the bees, 

 makes just as good a frame of comb as is the 

 one finished from foundation; and a frame 

 properly filled with comb, without any wires 

 in it, is just as good for all practical purposes, 

 including shipping bees across the continent, 

 as is the one having wire in it; while the wire 

 is a positive nuisance if, from any reason, holes 

 get in the combs from moldy pollen, mice, or 

 any thing of the kind, so that we wish to "put 

 in a patch" of workf^r comb to keep the bees 

 from building in drone comb. I have shipped 

 bees to nearly all parts of the United States 

 and Canada on combs unwired, and have yet 

 to hear of the first comb broken in transit. I 

 do not wish to be considered cranky; but when 

 a thing savors of more money out than of profits 

 in I have always felt it a duty as well as a 

 privilege to enter a mild protest, after which I 

 am not to blame if any see fit to use any thing 

 recommended which may result in a financial 

 loss. 



PREVENTION OF INCREASE. 



Question. — What is the best way to keep down 

 increase? The colonies which I now have fur- 



