Aug. 21, 1902. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



535 



build <iueen-cells. How it is, I do not know. But I suppose 

 that the majority of the nurses take to the field-work, and 

 that when the effff-layin^ is resumed, those reniaininij have 

 all the_Y can do to feed the younfj brood, and have no time 

 to fool away construclitif,'' queen-cells. 



L'ATCHINC. AND CAKKYING QUEKNS. 



A trick of my own to catch a queen is to throw a cup of 

 ■water on her, whether she is on a comb or in a <|ueon-trap, 

 or before an entrance-guard. 



I frequently carry queens from one apiary to another 

 simply by putting them in the cages described above, and 

 the cages in my pocket. A few hours of fasting does not 

 hurt them. 



KINDING THE OUKKNS. 



Perhaps the most disagreeable part of the operation is 

 to find the queen to be replaced. After trying nearly all 

 the methods of which I read, and almost all those I could 

 think of, I finally settled on the following : 



Smoke the colony ; take out the com I s as rapidly as pos- 

 sible, puttinj; them into a comb-basket. Look into the hive ; 

 the queen may be on the walls or on the floor. As there 

 are but few bees left she can easily be seen if there. Cover 

 the hive, closing also the entrance. Now shake the bees 

 from the combs on a sheet or some boards two or three feet 

 away from the entrance, replacing the combs in the basket. 

 Cover the basket. Now, uncover the entrance of the hive 

 (not the top), put on an entrance-guard, and start the bees in. 

 You will see the queen readily if she is among them. If not, 

 you will find heron the combs. Do not uncover the hive 

 and return the combs until the queen is found. 



Some details need a few more explanations. Do not 

 smoke the bees more than necessary, yet enough so there 

 will be no danger of having to do it again. Smoke first at 

 the entrance, not much, or you might drive the queen in the 

 super or on the under side of the cover. Then smoke from 

 above, not too much, either, chiefly between the combs and 

 the walls of the hive. Then again a little at the entrance 

 so as to drive the queen back on the combs, if she happens 

 to be on the floor of the hive. If supers are on, it is well to 

 first smoke through them, as the queen might be in the sec- 

 tions. The whole is done in little time. The object is to 

 drive the queen among the combs or rather on the combs, 

 instead of driving her off the combs and perhaps clear out 

 of the hive. 



It is not necessary to shake off the bees clean from the 

 combs; only enough so the queen can easily be seen. A 

 virgin queen will be almost always found on the combs ; a 

 laying queen being heavy with eggs will, on the other hand, 

 fall easily from the combs. 



In looking over the corobs watch especially the space 

 between the comb and the end-bars and bottom- 

 bar. Sometimes the queen is near the bottom opposite 

 you, and when you turn the comb to look on the other 

 side she passes under and is on the " other side, too." I 

 suppose she does that to avoid the sun or the light, as the 

 apiarist inspecting a comb invariably turns it so the light 

 strikes it. 



The covering of the hive is to prevent the shaken bees 

 from climbing in (queen and all) before the operator is 

 ready. It also prevents a virgin queen from alighting 

 unbeknown to the apiarist. Virgin queens do often take 

 wing and come back a few minutes later. 



If there are some queen-cells on the comb that are to be 

 saved, they should be cut off and caged before shaking, 

 otherwise their occupants might be injured. Often, when 

 ripe cells are on the comb, a number of virgins emerge 

 while the combs are in the basket. Be sure to get them all. 

 In taking the combs out of the hive, I take one or two 



on one side, and then begin on the other side. This still 

 diminishes the chances of leaving the queen on the walls of 

 the hive. 



QUEEN-TKAI'S. 



When the apiarist is not present all the time during the 

 swarming season, the best is to have the queen-traps at- 

 tached to the hives. Then if a swarm comes out during his 

 absence the ijueen will be caught in the trap, and he then 

 knows which colonies have swarmed, and saves his swarm. 



That is all right so far as the saving of the swarms is 

 concerned, but the queens do not remain in the traps. In 

 the course of a few hours they invariably succeed in getting 

 back through the cones. The <lrones are not quite so smart. 

 Still, a number of them do go back. There is room right 

 here for improvement. 



As orginally constructed the queen-traps (and entrance- 

 guards I are a considerable help to the bees against robbers. 

 But the present traps are just the reverse. The robbers 

 learn to get in, and come out through the upper story while 

 the home bees are vainly watching in front of the lower en- 

 trance. This should also be corrected. 



LONGEVITY OF BEES. 



Some writers have lately insisted on having strains of 

 long-lived bees. I do not see the point. Bees in the work- 

 ing season do not die of old age, but from accidents and 

 actual wearing out of the body, especially of the wings. If 

 you look at those which leave the hive to die, you will al- 

 most invariably see them with ragged wings, unable to fly 

 any more. But for the accidents and wearing out, the 

 workers might live perhaps as long as the queens. 



It has been said also that the rearing of brood is what 

 shortens the life of the bees the most. I just don't believe 

 it. It is true that bees die faster when the most brood is 

 reared. But the bees rear brood when they gather nectar. 

 And it is the gathering, with its exposure to accident and 

 wearing out, that kills the bees. Knox Co., Tenn. 



Working for Beeswax in Australia. 



In Australia, with honey at a very low price, and with 

 some kinds of honey not readily marketable, there is live 

 interest in the question whether it may be a profitable 

 thipg to work chiefly for wax. and the matter has been dis- 

 cussed no little. Opinions vary greatly. R. Beuhne ex- 

 presses himself thus in the Australian Bee-Bulletin : 



The editor of the Australian Bee-Keeper thinks that 13 

 pounds of honey (the amount which, according to Cowan 

 and Simmins, is necessary) is an excessively high estimate. 



In my opinion it is a very low one, and I have never 

 been able to get below 20 in my wholesale attempts some 

 years ago to convert inferior honey into wax ; notwith- 

 standing that the attempts were made under the most favor- 

 able conditions of strength of colonies and of temperature, 

 and a dogged determination on my part to succeed, I 

 finally gave it up and got rid of the inferior honey by shift- 

 ing away from it. 



Unless we feed back the honey, which is a ruinous pro- 

 ceeding, we can not get more than one pound of wax to 

 every 25 pounds of honey in running bees for wax. Box- 

 hives produce as high as 1 to 20, when they have been 

 allowed to become chocked up, resulting in endless swarm- 

 ing. 



The amount of wax asserted to be wasted when bees 

 have no opportunity to build combs is greatly over-esti- 

 mated. Has any one ever found a half-ounce on the bot- 

 tom-board of a liive in which a swarm was hived on sheets 

 or combs ? Let it be wasted ; it is paid for many times 

 over by the honey stored if combs are given, and after a 

 few days it will take all the wax they produce for sealing 

 cells. 



" Loyalstone." on the other hand, considers the cost in 

 honey only about a fifth as much. His plan of procedure 



