June 20, 1907 



American Hee Journal 



fragrance, and wliero tlic boes do not 

 come. On the morrow, sometimes the 

 day after, the bees have discovered the 

 sugar and have recognized it as a use- 

 ful material. Nibbling at tlio morsels 

 with their fcehlc little mamlibles, they 

 realize that this process is not prac- 

 tical for gathering the sugar. Thcv go 

 for water to dissolve the sugar and then 

 ])unip out the sugared water. 



The preceding suffices, I think, to 

 raise doubts as to whether we owe the 

 colors of tlowcrs to the bees, as Sir .Tohn 

 Lubbock said. 



Then whv are dowers colored? Whv 



X'5 



not inquire to what mysterious adapta- 

 tion we owe the color of th(' rocks, of 

 precious stones, or of sunbeams? This, 

 evidently, is neither a reply nor an ob- 

 jection. Hut tlie partisans of the 

 Sprengel theory have this to answer: 

 Why are mushrooms rich of hue? Many 

 who are convinced of the iloral ailapta- 

 tion to inse<'ts say that the edible 

 mushrooms are colored like the poison- 

 ous varieties so as to prevent being 

 gathered. As well might we say that 

 the poisonous varieties assume the col- 

 ors of the edible kinds so that they may 

 be sought!- — Times-Democrat. 





i^onventioL.. 



,. ^-.-»^^.-M..V» jj^V ^ .. 



Report of the Chicago-Northwestern 



Bee-Keepers' Association, held in 



Chicago, Wednesday and 



Thursday, Dec. 5 



and 6, 1906 



(Contitiued from pa^e 521 ) 

 Introducing Queens. 



"How do you introduce queens?" 



Mr. Taylor — I seldom introduce a 

 queen except in the spring. If I want 

 to change a queen, or the colony is 

 queenless, I open the hive and observe 

 the conduct of the bees, and you can 

 tell, if they have a peculiar way of act- 

 ing, running together, perhaps running 

 towards your hand a little, with their 

 wings lifted and a slight shaking mo- 

 tion, you can turn your queen right in. 

 They are all right. Sometimes, if I 

 am in doubt, I will put a queen-ex- 

 cluder on the top, let a few bees come 

 up, let the queen loose and decide then. 

 I hardly ever cage a queen in the spring, 

 because the bees are so anxious to get 

 to work that they will almost invariably 

 accept the queen ; in fact, I do not know 

 that I remember when a colony that was 

 queenless refused to take a queen early 

 in the spring. 



Mr. Abbott — Suppose you had a black 

 queen and you wanted to give them an 

 Italian. 



Mr. Taylor — Take her out and wait a 

 day or two to let them find out they 

 had lost a queen. They are terribly 

 anxious to get a queen in the spring, 

 and that running together a little and 

 a slight shaking of the wings shows 

 that they are looking for one. 



Mr. Abbott — I supposed that among 

 all the progressive bee-keepers the one 

 most in advance and at the forefront 

 was R. L. Taylor, of Michigan. 



Mr. Taylor — No ; I am a fogy, sir. 



Mr. Abbott— But I see he says that 

 the hive should be left for a day or 

 two for the bees to find out that they 

 are queenless. Now in the name of com- 

 mon-sense, I want to ask why? I asked 

 that question, and I asked it that I 



might bring out just that one idea. IVliy 

 make a colony know it is queenless? 

 There is something to this. You are 

 wasting a great deal of time when you 

 wait 2 days for the colony to find out 

 that they are queenless. Now if Mr. 

 Taylor will tell ic/iy, perhaps I will say 

 something more. 



Mr. Taylor — Two days early in the 

 spring do not count very much, and 

 you do not have to wait to see whether 

 they are ready to receive her or not. 

 It is the easiest way. Of course, I 

 remember at one time that I was hand- 

 ling some bees, when I used to fool with 

 them, and had a lot of them shaken on 

 the ground, and in stumbling around 

 with my big feet I must have hurt the 

 queen. I noticed before I got through 

 the colony that the bees were in a tur- 

 moil. They were running up on the 

 front of -the hive, and on the side, and 

 looking around as lively as possible. I 

 concluded something had happened to 

 the queen. I looked on the ground and 

 found I had stepped on her. I got an- 

 other queen and they were perfectly 

 satisfied with the other queen. 



Mr. Abbott — I have been trying for 

 20 years to get into current bee-litera- 

 ture and bee-books this one statement, 

 that it is not necessary for any colony 

 to be made queenless in order to intro- 

 duce a queen safely a day, or an hour, 

 or a minute, except what time is neces- 

 sary between pincliing the queen's head 

 off and turning the other queen out, 

 or putting her in a condition to get out. 

 After 20 years' trial I do not think 

 that that statement is in a bee-book, or 

 in any bee-literature that has not come 

 directly from my mouth in reporting 

 something that I have said in a conven- 

 tion about it. 



Dr. Miller — .Allow me to speak and 

 say right here tliat Mr. Abbott perhaps 

 never reads anything I write, or he 

 would not say that sort of thing. 



Mr. Abbott — I beg your pardon, then. 

 It is not in any book. 



Dr. Miller — It is in the American 

 Bee Journal. i 



Mr. Abbott — I have said it in the 

 .•\nicrican Bee Journal several times, 

 commenced alx)ut 25 years ago, and I 

 have been saying it ever since. I want 

 to say again, for the benefit of those 

 uiio have not heard me say the same 

 thing, tlial I never make a colony 

 queenless. I do not rear queens any 

 more, but on every cage I find direc- 

 tions, and those directions I invariably 

 tear off because they say to make the 

 colony queenless 48 hours, and then in- 

 troduce the queen. 



Dr. Bohrer — Do you simply remove 

 the queen, destroy her, and turn the 

 other one loose? 



Mr. Abbott— No, sir. When I have 

 [ queen or a half a dozen queens that 

 I want to keep, I put them on top of 

 ilie frames of a colony and leave them 

 tliere 2 or 3 days. If I want to intro- 

 duce one of those queens I hunt out 

 the old queen, pinch her head ofif and 

 turn one of the others free. If I wanted 

 the old queen free in the hive day after 

 to-morrow, having introduced one to- 

 day, I would take that old queen out, 

 put her into a cage and turn another 

 one free, and in a very little while the 

 queen in the cage is out on the combs 

 laying, and the bees never know they 

 have been queenless. They have no 

 feeling of resentment towards those 

 queens in the cage any more than they 

 have to the one free on the combs. They 

 are just as friendly with any one of the 

 5 queens on top of the frames as the 

 one in the hive laying eggs, and they 

 take one just as well as another. What 

 is the use of killing the queen and 

 having them start queen-cells, which 

 they will in 48 hours, and take the 

 chances of their killing the queens? 

 When they start cells they are antago- 

 nistic to any queen, even their own 

 queen. 



Dr. Miller — How long after you put 

 that queen in before the bees liberate 

 her? 



Mr. -Abbott- 1 fix it so that she will 

 be out in an hour — not to exceed an 

 hour. 



Mr. Whitne}' — I purchase a consid- 

 erable number of queens usually, and 

 I have been anxious to find the best 

 way of introducing queens, having tried 

 various methods. I heard Mr. Abbott 

 give his method of introducing queens 

 here, a couple of years ago, I think, and 

 thought I would try it. I sometimes 

 get a half-dozen queens in rainy weath- 

 er. Perhaps there will be 2 or 3 days 

 of bad weather ; I can't introduce them. 

 I know what colonies I wish to intro- 

 duce those queens to, and I distribute 

 them around over the frames and leave 

 them there till the weather clears up so 

 that I can introduce them, and then I 

 remove the old queens and let young 

 queens free immediately. I have never 

 lost a queen, when introducing them in 

 that way. Of course, I would do the 

 same thing if the weather were not 

 bad, but it is a convenience if the 

 weather is bad, to take this plan of 

 doing it, and it never fails under any 

 circumstances with me. Always place 

 the queens over the frames of the col- 

 ony in which j-ou wish to introduce 

 them, without removing the little paste- 

 board or cork, and when you get ready 



