408 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



June 26, 1902. 



time the sun " breaks the clouds." and appear to be workings 

 well, while they are not g-etting a living for themselves 

 and the brood, to saj' nothing about storing sufficient to 

 afford the presence of drones, or these "gentlemen of 

 leisure." as one bee-keeper calls them. After ourquestioner 

 has studied into matters long enough he will know that 

 such a state of affairs as this during white clover bloom is 

 not an uncommon occurrence ; and I believe a failure of 

 nectar in the clover blossoms, in our correspondent's 

 locality, is the cause of the killing of his drones. 



The fact that only two of the colonies have swarmed, 

 when all came out strong from the cellar, and that no 

 swarming is being done at the time of writing, shows that 

 there is no secretion of nectar to amount to anything, else 

 his colonies would keep on swarming. Only two swarms, 

 with the bees killing oft their drones, is proof to my mind 

 that the clover he saw his bees work upon is yielding little 

 else save pollen, even though it appeared to him that his 

 bees were working well. 



As to what the result will be, I see no reason to fear 

 anything bad, unless this honey-dearth continues so long 

 that his colonies starve from his neglect to feed them. 

 Nature makes no mistakes, and bees never kill off drones 

 where they are needed. The colonies which have not 

 swarmed have given up all idea of swarming for the pres- 

 ent, without doubt, so they have no need of drones ; and I 

 will venture the assertion that, if he will look into the hives 

 of the two colonies that have swarmed, he will either find 

 drones or a young fertile queen, for a colony having queen- 

 cells or a virgin queen will preserve their drones till the 

 very last, even though the whole colony perish with hunger. 

 If the failure of nectar continues, then the drones in these 

 two colonies will be killed off as soon as the young queens 

 have become fertile or laying queens ; but our correspon- 

 dent can rest assured that, until said queens have been 

 mated, the drones in those hives will not be driven out as 

 useless consumers. 



My opinion is that whenever drones are being killed off 

 in the spring of the year, or in early summer, it will amply 

 pay to examine the colonies, and all not having sufficient 

 stores to warrant them in keeping their drones, should be 

 fed. In this way we not only preserve the drones so that 

 they will be present should a sudden flow of honey come on 

 so as to cause the bees to swarm before drones started after 

 this flow arrived, were perfected ; but it would also cause the 

 bees to keep up the rearing of worker-brood to a greater or 

 less extent, thus providing the bees for the basswood honey 

 harvest. In fact, it never pays to allow colonies to come 

 anywhere near the starvation point at any time of the year, 

 and especially is this true during the forepart of the season. 



Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



No. 4. Rearing Long-Lived Queens and Bees. 



BY DR. E. GALLUP. 



Now for the discovery in dissecting the fjucen-cell that I 

 found, in the before mentioned basswood log hive. The queen 

 was in the embrj'o stage, pretty well advanced, and had what 

 I will call an umbilical cord, attached to the point of the 

 abdomen and the outer end glued to the bottom of the cell, 

 with a large amount of royal food in the cell. I never have 

 seen this fact mentioned by but one writer, and that I think 

 was in the proceedings of the late Canadian convention. I 

 never have seen this cord attachment to any nymph reared 

 from an egg laid in a worker-cell in all I have ever examined, 

 but have seen them from eggs laid in queen-cells by the cjuecn. 



Two weeks ago (May 3) my youngest boy brought home 

 two small black swarms. In hiving them one had no queen 

 so I gave it a frame of brood to hold them until I could 

 fix them to suit. In 7 or 8 days, perhaps more, I gave a 

 sealed cell from a superseding colony, and cut out 6 cells care- 

 fully from the comb I gave them, so I could examine them 

 thoroughly at my leisure. This comb was taken out of the 

 superseding colony. Five of those nymphs had no cord 

 attachment, but the 6th one did; this nymph was a little far- 

 ther advanced than the other .5. This must have been a 

 superseding cell that I had overlooked. The .5 were started 

 in worker-cells; they never have the cord, neither does a 

 worker or drone nymjjh. Now, here is a kink that queen- 

 breeders would better look into. When I first made the dis- 

 covery I intended to follow it up, but soon had to leave bee- 

 keeping for my other occupation. I claim that the queen 

 draws nourishment from this large amount of food through 

 this cord, in a somewhat similar manner to human beings and 

 animals. Who knows? 



Now, no one need dispute the fact that the queen depos- 

 its the eggs both in the cells built by the workers at natural 

 swarming and superseding time. The cord is attached inside 

 of the abdomen just at the very point, and extends nearly if 

 not quite a 16th of an inch inside. Cut the cell out of comb 

 whole, and then dissect carefully from the base of the cell in 

 making your examinations. 



In dividing colonies for increase, and allowing one part, 

 or compelling one part, of the colony to rear queens from a 

 worker-egg never was satisfactory to me. Queens thus reared 

 are short-lived, and consequently their colonies cannot come 

 up to the scratch. 



I have received two queens from a party that started out 

 well, but they did not hold out satisfactorily, at all. 



I have already told you that bees stop breeding here for 

 a while but can forage all winter. Well, towards spring I 

 noticed that they were not showing up right, and on opening 

 out one hive I found the queen and about a single handful of 

 workers. The other hive had about twice as many, so I 

 broke up both colonies. You can readily see that they were 

 so short-lived that when the queens stopped breeding there 

 was where the spring dwindling came in. I had one queen 

 that reared extra-fancy colored bees, but she could only oc- 

 cupv a piece of comb about the size of my hand. There was 

 no dwindling, for there was nothing to dwindle. Another 

 queen kept her hive fairly full of brood, but the workers did 

 not live long enough to store any more honey than they con- 

 sumed from day to day, and early in the fall dwindled to 

 nothing. I could tell of dozens of colonies that were about 

 as worthless as the above. My object of sending for q\ieens 

 to different brei;ders last summer was to try to select a good 

 strain to breed from. In selling, I kept one queen from one 

 breeder that is holding out well so far. 



As a boy I was a great and intense fancier of pets. Some 

 12 years ago I went into the Brown Leghorn business, paying 

 .$5.00 for a sitting of premium eggs, and had a good hatch. 

 But all got the swelled head. That was easy to get along with. 

 I had lots of sure cure, warranted to cure swelled head, so I 

 cured up a trio — two pullets and a cockerel. In breeding 

 from those I had lots of swelled heads for 5 years, and, by the 

 way I had one chick hatch from that first sitting with as 

 beautiful a swelled head as I have ever seen. 



I went into fancy pigeons; purchased a pair of Nuns; 

 kept them three years and never raised but one young one — 

 all died with canker when from one to three weeks old. I ex- 

 changed eggs with other pigeons, and the Nuns could raise the 

 other pigeons every time, but the other pigeons could not 

 raise Nuns. I had lots of fun trying to cure canker with "sure 

 cures," and I learned that the disease was transmitted in the 

 egg. Cut the heads off; don't breed from diseased chickens 

 that you have cured. I have had no diseased chickens of any 

 kind for five years. 



I have had several cases of bee-paralysis. Take an ax 

 and cut the queen's head off; introduce another queen and 

 the cure is complete — providing you do not introduce another 

 diseased queen. 



I was born in Canada. 65 miles north of the Vermont line; 

 I kept bees there, and they wintered on the summer stand, 

 usually in a small open shed built for that purpose. They 

 were frequently confined to their hives from November 1 until 

 May 1. and there were very few dead bees on the bottom- 

 board in the spring. They wintered splendidly, providing 

 they were ventilated right, and had sviflicient stores. The 

 thermometer often sho\ved 40 degrees below zero. One time 

 in particular it was 40 degrees below zero for 8 days and nights 

 in succession. The bees came out nearly as strong in the 

 spring as they went in in the fall. No spring dwindling or 

 bee-paralysis was known there then. They swarmed natur- 

 ally, and "reared natural queens. No monkeying with them 

 to try to beat Nature. They were long-lived bees. 



I might have given my ideas in a short article and right 

 to the point, and "not pestered the editor and readers as I 

 have, but my object is to get up a new fad — get all interested 

 enough to go at it with a vim that will make success instead 

 of a faikire of the business. 



Rear long-lived, healthy queens, and rear them in a 

 natural manner. I care not how long you get their tongues 

 or tails. We want bees for business, not for fancy. 



Orange Co., Calif. 

 (Continued next week.) 



Queenie Jeanette is the title of a pretty song in sheet 

 music size, written by J. C. Wallenmeyer, a musical bee- 

 keeper. The regular price is 40 cents, but to close out the 

 copies we have left, we will mail them at 20 cents each, as 

 long as they last. 



