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AMERICAN BEE lOURNAL 



Aug:. 14, 1902. 



THE PROCESS. 



There is no need of artificial queen-cells, transfer of 

 larva;, etc., for one who rears queens only for his own use. 

 Besides that, the one who is not experienced in the business 

 may fail. He may injure the larva; during the " transfer," 

 or choose some too old, or do it so awkwardly that the bees 

 will have to remove the jelly and replace it. This will 

 necessarily check, to some extent, the growth of the larv*. 

 Whether the delay is injurious or not, I don't know. Better 

 avoid it. 



We will simply take a comb of eggs and very young 

 larvce , cut under the eggs and larva; holes wide enough to 

 accommodate good cells, and as long as convenient, and put 

 the comb thus prepared in the nursing colony. As soon as 

 the cells are started an examination is made, and if some 

 are built too close together, a few are destroyed so as to give 

 sufficient room to the others. We want none but good, big 

 cells — they give the bast queens. Exactly why, I don't 

 know. Perhaps big cells and plenty of room go together. 



As soon as these cells are capped, or thereabout, we can 

 give another comb and start the next batch of cells. 



Two or three days after the cells are capped they are put 

 in cages. The cages are either left in the nursing hive orput 

 where the queens are to be introduced. In that last case 

 the queen must be removed. 



QUEEN-CAGES. 



I make my own queen-cages for sake of cheapness. The 

 West cages are all that can be desired, but they cost too 

 much. I make them of wire-cloth ; the two edges are sewn 

 together with foundation wire. They are made over a 

 round stick of wood. A few small saw-cuts across one side 

 of the stick helps to pass the wire under. At the top end I 

 put a ring of thick wire, one end of it projecting as a handle 

 to fasten the cage to the comb. The wire-cloth is simply 

 turned over the ring. The other end is closed permanently, 

 by pinching the sides together. The top end can be closed 

 by any kind of suitable stopper. 



The queen-cells are cut with a small piece of comb 

 forming a tail-piece. They are introduced in the cage at 

 the top, and the tail-piece pressed into the wire-cloth so as 

 to hold the cell, and the stopper put in. 



Care must be taken in constructing the cage that no 

 wire should protrude inside so as to injure the queen. 



As far as I know, it will not do to cage queen -cells just 

 after they are sealed. At that time the end is very thick. 

 As soon as the queen has spun her cocoon, the bees remove 

 the surplus wax ; the end of the cell in then smoother, some- 

 what darker, and of a leathery appearance. If the surplus 

 wax is not removed, the queen cannot cut her way through, 

 and dies in the cell. At least I had a few that I thought 

 were lost that way. 



The cages should be placed at least two inches apart, 

 that is, after the young queens have emerged. 1 did once 

 put a number of them close together, and lost nearly all the 

 queens. I suppose that they worried themselves to death 

 trying to destroy each other. 



No feed is needed. The bees will feed the caged queens 

 provided the cages are within the cluster, that is, where the 

 bees are constantly. Knox Co., Tenn. 



[Continued next week.) 



What Caused the Bees to Die ?-Was It Spraying ? 



BY I'KOF. A. J. COOK. 



The following letter from Mr. J. Luther Bowers is of 

 great interest, and I am glad to send it for publication in 

 its entirety : 



Prof. Cook : — I want to give you an account of my bees. 

 Something like six or seven weeks ago I noticed by getting I 



out early, say before sunrise, a great many young bees, just 

 hatched, on the alighting-board in the last struggles of 

 death ; and from that time until the present I find the same 

 thing, and at this writing, in front of each hive, there are 

 from one pint to half a gallon of dead bees. 



The bees are close to the house and part of the garden 

 which is always free of weeds. Now this ground has been, 

 each morning, literally covered with bees crawling in every 

 direction, and, when I irrigate, the little ditch gets clogged 

 with bees. Some of my hives are almost depopulated. I 

 have examined hive after hive. The young bees seem to 

 gnaw out all right, but do not seem to be perfect. This 

 morning, in my rounds, I found one of the best queens dead 

 on the alighting-board with other dead bees. This queen I 

 received April 10, 1902. I opened some of the hives of the 

 strongest colonies and found only a few just-hatched brood 

 (but no eggs), and those were scattered, none together, in 

 all cases from five to eight cells apart. One hive was well 

 filled with bees, and most of the brood-nest cells partly 

 filled with a very light honey. There was no sealed brood 

 in this hive, and no eggs found ; I did not look for a queen, 

 as I concluded she was dead, too. 



I have tried three times to get a very strong colony to 

 build queen-cells ; in fact, I have tried three different colo- 

 nies during the period named. On June 3 I took away the 

 queens ; on the seventh day I destroyed all queen-cells and 

 inserted in each a nice frame of brood and eggs in all 

 stages ; on June 21 I opened each of these hives, but not a 

 queen-cell did I find. I again gave each a frame of brood 

 and eggs ; I did not open the hives again until July 4, and 

 to my astonishment no queen-cells had been built. I again 

 gave them each a nice, new comb with fresh eggs, not over 

 five days since they were laid, and to my surprise no queen- 

 cells, but this comb was filled with honey and no brood 

 whatever. 



I have reared many queens — made a business of it prior 

 to 1882. I never ran up against a case like this before. My 

 hives have no smell. I never saw a case of foul brood in 

 the East or in California. 



I have been so situated that I could not keep bees until 

 the last two years. When I first came to California, in 

 1883, I had charge of John Bidwell's bees in Butte County. 

 There were some 300 colonies. Since that time I have been 

 superintendent of five large fruit-ranches, and at the pres- 

 ent time I am manager of the Fisher Ivake Packing Co., 

 and have here quite a little apiary. 



February 1, 1901, I got two colonies in soap-boxes, and 

 had 7 swarms. In the fall I began the winter with 9 colo- 

 nies, and secured 110 sections of nice, white honey, I win- 

 tered 9 strong colonies, have secured about 200 sections of 

 honey this season, and have 27 colonies ; but the way 

 things look now I do not know how many I will have in 

 another month. 



My bees have had for flora, mustard, hoarhound and 

 black sage since fruit-bloom ; and at this time a field of 60 

 acres of radishes, and also a field of lettuce of 110 acres, are 

 in full bloom, to which they have free access. During the 

 last six or seven weeks the buckeye has been in bloom, and 

 at our county convention, July S, it was suggested that the 

 buckeye bloom was the cause. I have visited other apiaries 

 and find them as bad as mine. I have tried to give you the 

 facts. Can you give me the solution, or a remedy, or tell 

 the cause ? J. Luther Bowers. 



Santa Clara Co., Calif., July 15. 



Answer. — I have never known but one case at all like 

 the foregoing, and that was a case of wholesale poisoning 

 by spraying fruit-bloom. A large apple-orchard at Grand 

 Rapids, Mich., was sprayed while in full blootri. The sea- 

 son was propitious, and the bees swarmed on the trees eager 

 for the tempting nectar. The result was great loss of bees 

 in all stages — brood, young bees, old bees, and even queens 

 died. If it was earlier when the orchards were in bloom, 

 and the orchards being sprayed for codling-moth or canker- 

 worm, I should feel pretty sure of the cause of the alarming 

 mortality. 



Can it be possible that poisoned honey was stored weeks 

 ago, and is now being used to the destruction of the bees? 

 In case no such poisoning can be explained, or made to 

 harmonize with the facts, then I should look to the nectar. 

 Such immense acreage of lettuce and radish is rare. Can 

 the bloom furnish poisonous nectar? It is not to be be- 

 lieved that buckeye furnishes poisonous nectar. I have 



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