22 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



January 



an excluder they are safe. The bc^s 

 will not destroy them. If the cells 

 are cut from the comb and put in a 

 protector the; may be left in the 

 brood-nest and never come to harm. 

 In due time a young queen will be 

 found laying in the hive. 



I realize that in making this asser- 

 tion I am stating an opinion in con- 

 flict with that of the best-known 

 writers on this subject. For instance, 

 in the March number of Gleanings, 

 Mr. Doolittle wrote: "In a case of 

 supersedure the bees pay very little 

 attention to the cells except to sut5- 

 ply them with royal jelly, allowing 

 the mother queen to go about them 

 as she pleases." 



Here in the tropics, queens lay 

 during the whole year, except for 

 short periods of rest at intervals. 

 They wear out very quickly and con- 

 sequently we have cases of super- 

 sedure in our apiaries at all times. 

 Our queens here seldom do efficient 

 work for more than one year to 18 

 months. This gave me excellent op- 

 portunities to continue the experi- 

 ments begun in Texas, and I was de- 

 lighted to find that my conclusions 

 were abundantly verified. 



In cases of supersedure, the young 

 queen and the hive mother work to- 

 gether, but not for long. In looking 

 into the hive a few days after one 

 finds it to contain two queens, the 

 older one will be found to be missing. 

 Some writers state that it is only a 

 mother and daughter that will thus 

 labor together. I have found evi- 

 dence to cause me to doubt this. It 

 cannot be always the case. I winter 

 young queens by the Alexander 

 method, above the brood-nest. In 

 uniting these super colonies with the 

 main colony for the honey-flow, I 

 found in at least three cases that the 

 old and new queen were working to- 

 gether. I marked these hives and ex- 

 amined them again at my next visit. 

 In every case the old queen was 

 missing. 



Supersedure cells from good stock, 

 when reared under favorable condi- 

 tions, are as good as the best swarm 

 cells. 



In a great many cases the bees 

 were evidently trying to supersede 

 their queen when a careful examina- 

 tion failed to reveal any cause for 

 such action. The causes of supersed- 

 ure are, therefore, at certain times, 

 in doubt, but usually can be ar- 

 tributed to age or decrepitude of the 

 mother. 



Bluevine or Climbing Milkweed 



In the April, 1919, issue of this 

 Journal we had some short articles 

 about this plant. Much interest has 

 been aroused and numerous requests 

 for seeds have been received. While 

 under favorable conditions it is a 

 good honey plant, we would call at- 

 tention to the fact that is is a serious 

 pest in the corn fields and would 

 warn readers against planting ft in 

 localities where it is not already es- 

 tablished. Even where it grows 

 freely it is not always valuable for 

 honey, apparently. 



The photograph herewith shows the 

 leaves and the seedpods. This pho- 

 tograph was taken by the associate 

 editor for his book on honey plants 

 which will shortly be published. 



Sugar Feeding 



"Special orders for sugar have been 

 placed with Sugar Equalization 

 Boards in Massachusetts to feed the 

 bees. A ton and a half has been al- 

 lowed for 2.000 swarms." 



The above is a clipping that I took 

 out of the Dearborn Independent. It 

 shows about how much sense some of 

 the public ofiicials have. If this is 

 true, a ton and a half of sugar would 

 be a pound and a half for each col- 

 ony; that would help the bees a lot I 



I fed my bees this fall 20 pounds 

 for each colony, and I am not sure 



now whether or not they have 

 enough to last them over winter. 



In your editorial you ought to com- 

 ment upon this "liberal allowance" 

 for the bees of Massachusetts. 



C. O. SMEDLEY. 



(The clipping is interesting. If the 

 authorities figure 1J4 pounds per col- 

 ony, it is just in the line of the aver- 

 age man's knowledge of bees and 

 beekeeping. But they may figure that 

 only one hive in 10 will need feeding, 

 in which case the amount would be 

 about correct. 



More than once we have seen peo- 

 ple who imagined that we were 

 making ready to manufacture honey, 

 when, in a short time, we were buy- 

 ing 1,000 pounds of sugar for 500 colo- 

 nies. But every man is ready to ac- 

 knowledge that the amount is small 

 when he learns that it figures only 

 2 pounds per colony. It is well to 

 bring such facts before the public 

 once in a while. — Editor.) 



Seed pods 8nd leaves of the c'uiiliiiig milkweed or bluevine. 



Bee Incubation 



By Will H. Gray. 



IN reading over the lectures of Dr. 

 Phillips and Mr. Demuth there 

 appears to have been a lot of dis- 

 cussion on the subject of keeping 

 back brood rearing in the early part of 

 the year, and then quickly building up 

 for the honey flow, thus avoiding the 

 wastage of stores and bees without 

 any adequate return. This was in 

 California, where the bees can fly 

 about the year around. It was sug- 

 gested then that a cold storage plant 

 might answer the purpose and keep 

 the bees quiet until eight weeks or so 

 before the honey flow opened. 



Years ago, when I had my first hive 

 (and it was a weak one), I was greatly 

 afraid they would die out, so, being of 

 a mechanical turn of mind, I fitted a 

 tin can in the back of the hive behind 

 the dummy board (My frames ran 

 with the entrance then, and they do 

 still). I had a drain cock out of this 

 can so that I could run the water oflf 

 without disturbing anything. Then, 

 night and morning. I filled the can 

 with water at 80 degrees F., and lo 

 and behold the queen came and filled 

 the back frames solid with brood 

 and then worked forward from that. 

 I don't remember how long I kept it 

 up, probably two or thiee weeks, and 

 I fed all the time. I remember ex- 

 plaining it all to the Rev. J. G. Dig- 

 ges, editor of the Irish Bee Journal, 

 and he threw cold water on my 

 schemes by suggesting that I make 

 a separate foot warmer for each bee! 



A few years ago I tried out a simi- 

 lar plan, only using instead of the hot 

 water, a six-candle-power carbon 

 electric lamp, auv! the results were 

 again very good, the queen taking up 

 her quarters next the dummy board. 



Of course these experiments are 

 not conclusive enough except for fur- 

 ther and more accurate tests. But my 

 idea is that instead of the bees just 

 dragging along trying to pull through 

 until the honey flow, one might have 

 l>y artificial heat a large colony that 

 could do something with the flowers 

 then in bloom, or else go in for the 



