378 



May 2, 1907 



Amarican ^^e Journal 



tors? I suppose you have seen them. 

 Are they not a success? 



15. There is a man Hving in this city 

 who says he kept bees in Ohio }-ears 

 ago. and that he had hundreds of queens 

 fertilized in confinement, and he told 

 me how he did it. It is very simple. He 

 used a barrel; took one head out of it; 

 then had that covered with something 

 that would not admit light. Then he 

 made a hole in the other end about 3 

 inches in diameter and covered it with 

 a glass on the inside. Then he made 

 another hole near this large enough to 

 introduce the queen and drones. Then 

 he stopped this up. The queen and 

 drones would collect at this glass. The 

 other end was covered by glass. The 

 covering of this glass was quickly re- 

 moved and in the dash for this light the 

 drone would meet the queen. Before 

 the large glass was uncovered the small 

 one was darkened. I told him fertiliza- 

 tion in confinement was talked of 40 

 years ago, but was abandoned to-day as 

 impracticable, but he claimed it had 

 been practicable with him. He is not 

 in the business now, but is a practising 

 physician. Iowa. 



Answers. — It is perhaps not to be re- 

 gretted that bee-keepers do not all think 

 alike. If a beginner should take for 

 his model the best bee-keeper in the 

 world and blindly follow in his foot- 

 steps, he would not come out so well as 

 to do some thinking for himself. Even 

 a beginner, too, may sometimes think 

 up something that, at least for his con- 

 ditions, may be an improvement over the 

 plans of the veterans, and I feel pretty 

 sure that from a man of your experi- 

 ence I could learn something, even if it 

 is worth while for you to ask ques- 

 tions. 



1. It depends something upon plans 

 whether it is better to have numbers 

 on hives permanent or movable. If 

 each hive is to keep the same location 

 always, it is better to have the num- 

 bers painted on the hives. But that sort 

 of numbering wouldn't suit my' plans 

 very well. The hive that stands at the 

 beginning of the first row m the home 

 apiary is No. i. But I may, for some 

 reason, change that hive to some other 

 place, and then the number must be 

 changed to fit the t'lacc. That, you will 

 see, makes the changing of numbers a 

 necessity. This spring, for instance, for 

 the sake of the drones — because queen- 

 rearing is done in the home-apiary — I 

 kept at home any colonies which dis- 

 tinguished themselves in the out-apiary 

 last year. The numbers of course had 

 to be changed, and it is an easy thing 

 to pull off one tin tag and put on an- 

 other. If you find no necessity for 

 changing numbers, }-ou are rather to be 

 congratulated. For sometimes — indeed 

 much oftener than is pleasant — tags get 

 lost ; and sometimes when one is hur- 

 ried the tags are not changed for some 

 time when hives are changed. Indeed, 

 at this present writing, a lot of tags on 

 my hives have not been changed that 

 need changing. I'm not proud of it, and 

 I'm not advising others to be so shift- 

 less. 



2. Almost certainly, if left to them- 

 selves. It's "up to yfn" to see that thev 

 don't. 



3. I have had a few cases in which 

 a dummy has been left out at the side, 

 and the bees lengthened out the cells 

 until they came within y^ inch of the 

 hive-wall. Unless your bees are better 

 trained than mine they are likely to do 

 the same thing. 



4. Yes, I have done the same thing, 

 and I have also received sections that 

 needed no wetting when received. If 

 only 2 or 3 sections in a box should 

 break, I wouldn't wet them. 



5. The plan you mention, which is the 

 shake - swarm plan, leaves the colony 

 constantly diminishing in numbers for 

 21 days, for not a young bee will emerge 

 till tlie end of that time. The nucleus 

 I give has at least 2 or 3 frames of 

 brood, and sometimes can hardly be 

 called a nucleus, having from 3 to 5 

 frames of brood. Indeed, in some cases 

 it is about as strong as the colony re- 

 moved. Possibly you may say, "If you 

 leave the old colony in full strength, it 

 will swarm again. Why will it not 

 swarm if another colony of equal 

 strength is put in its place?" I sup- 

 pose the reason is that a j'oung queen 

 is present, and the brood is different 

 from what it was in the colony that had 

 been swarming. .At any rate I never 

 had one swarm. (As a postscript I 

 may add that the new queen has no 

 swarming fever, and the old one has.) 



6. Yes, if bottoms are loose, and you 

 want to clean off only the bottom. If 

 you want to clean out rabbets, the other 

 way is better. Or, if bottoms are stapled 

 on, it may be easier to change hives than 

 staples. 



7. That "younger the brood the bet- 

 ter the queen" business may be carried 

 too far. No better queen can be reared 

 from an egg just laid than from a larva 

 a day or 2 old, and the larva has the 

 advantage that it will be 4 or 5 days 

 in advance of the freshly-Iaid egg. The 

 bees seem to understand this, and they 

 would not start any cells on the edge 

 of the comb that contains only eggs, 

 and as that part of the comb is in the 

 way, I trim it off so the cells will be 

 started on the edge, where the bees like 

 it best, and where it suits me best to 

 cut off cells. 



8. Yes, you have tilings somewhat 

 mixed; I hardlv know why, but it 

 doesn't matter. I wouldn't advise you 

 to use that plan unless you are rearing 

 queens by the hundred, and I'm sorry 

 I didn't say so in the book. I don't 

 use it myself when I rear queens only 

 for my own use, which I have always 

 done with the exception of one year. 

 You are quite right; if you get your 

 prepared queen into a queenless colony 

 that's all you need, and generally some 

 colony will be queenless in an apiary of 

 anv size. If not, you can make any 

 colony queenless long enough to start 

 a batch of cells. 



9. I hardly know why ynu should have 

 trouble. If the nucleus-hive is put on 

 a new stand, and the bees imprisoned 

 for I to 3 days, each nucleus ought to 

 mark its own entrance. 



10. It is absolutely necessary that no 

 bee can get through fro.m one side to 

 the other at top, bottom, or anywhere 

 else except by going outdoors through 

 the entrance. 



11. Better have no workers in the cage 



with her. Sometimes the bees will not 

 find her, but you can provision the cage 

 with candy and then the queen is inde- 

 pendent. 



12. Look for a bee with its head in a 

 cell taking a lunch. It is partly bent so 

 its wings project in the most convenient 

 manner, and you can easily take the 

 wings between thumb and finger. But 

 unless to ship a queen, I don't know of 

 any need ever to put workers in a cage. 



13. Supply manufacturers make them 

 to order. 



14. The West cell-protectors are all 

 right. 



15. If you have any faith in it, try 

 it, and then tell the rest of us of your 

 success. 



Queen-Rearing and Swarming 



1. Does the plan of opening a hive 

 shortly before swarming time and de- 

 stroying the queen-cells necessitate the 

 devotion of one colony to queen-rearing, 

 to supply the demand for young laying 

 queens to be put back 8 days later? 

 Or can some of the queen-cells taken 

 from the colony be utilized? If so, 

 how? 



2. Why not, at the time of opening 

 the hive and removing the old queen, 

 save one of the best cells that will hatch 

 in a few days — say 5? Would not this 

 queen, upon- arriving home from her 

 mating trip, destroy all queen-cells in 

 the colony? Would it prevent swarm- 

 ing? Michigan. 



Answer. — Good cells obtained from 

 anywhere may be utiHzed, of course 

 keeping in view to obtain them from 

 best stock. Even if the cells are not ad- 

 vanced, merely started, they may be put 

 into an upper story over an excluder on 

 a hive with a laying queen, and the bees 

 will care for them. For this purpose a 

 colony with an old queen is better ; the 

 best being a failing queen that the bees 

 arc about to supersede. 



I 



leporf$ and 



Bulk Comb Honey 



Having read an article on page 257 on the 

 "Production of Bulk Comb Honey," I wish to 

 give my method, as I have practised that 

 method all my bee-keeping life — 23 years. In 

 fact, I have sold but little of any other kind 

 of lioiiey but bulk honey, and my custo- 

 mers seldom call for any other. One mer- 

 chant who handles a large part of my crop 

 told me that the honey I put up in quart and 

 2-quart glass jars *'did not last till it was all 

 gone!" All he had to do 'was to put a few 

 j ars in sight and it went quickly. I fill in 

 about ^ extracted and the rest nice squares of 

 white comb, and I get about as much for it as 

 section honey brings. The receptacles are use- 

 ful in any family and they pay as much per 

 pound for the j ars as the honey. The same 

 is true with tin pails in which I sell a great 

 deal of honey. I j ust weigh it all to the 

 customer, and at wholesale the pails cost about 

 10 cents per pound, and they buy and make 

 no complaint. There is no need to put in 

 more than 1-3 comb honey, either. I sell all 

 my extracted honey that way, except where 

 extracted is wanted for medicinal or cooking 

 purposes, or a few buy it for their table use. 

 But those are mostly old customers who know 



