228 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



June 



liable for any delays after arrival. But 

 many a queen could be saved that is 

 lost because of careless handling. I 

 have seen queens in cages handed 

 around for hours among the children 

 of the family out of curiosity and as 

 if they were a thing to play vifith. 

 They require great care, their future 

 fertility depending upon the atten- 

 tion given them, and that is what 

 prompts this statement. 



BEES WHICH WOULD NOT AC- 

 CEPT A QUEEN 



By Rev. Albert R. Rue 



In your January issue I read with 

 interest the article by Eugene Hol- 

 loway entitled "Colony of Bees that 

 Would Not Accept a Queen." It is 

 of much interest to me because of 

 some unique experiences I had this 

 summer along the same line. In June 

 I ordered a dozen pure Italian queens 

 from a well-known breeder of queens 

 in the South. I introduced them ac- 

 cording to directions, as I had often 

 done before. Most of the colonies 

 accepted the queens as soon as they 

 were gnawed out of the cages. Two 

 gave me difficulty. 



One aO'lony had a young queen in 

 the spring, superseding a pure Ital- 

 ian that I had introduced the year 

 before. I did not like her, and so 

 killed her, immediately introducing 

 the new queen from the South. After 

 about a week I opened the hive, as 

 I did the others. I found most of the 

 queens laying, but there was no sign 

 of a queen in this hive. I was pretty 

 sure they had killed her, because they 

 had a fine array of queen-cells 

 started. I took all the cells out and 

 sent for another queen in the South- 

 land. She arrived in six days. I 

 introduced her in the same way. 

 About ten days later I went into the 

 hive to see what had happened. I 

 found not a sign of a queen any- 

 where. I then sent South for an- 

 other. In about a week she arrived. 

 I went into the hive and looked it 

 through very carefully to be sure 



they had not slipped one over on me, 

 and hatched a queen for themselves. 

 There was no sign of anything to in- 

 dicate a living queen. Then I intro- 

 duced the third queen in the same 

 way. After a week I looked into 

 the hive and found no queen. I wait- 

 ed another week and looked again, 

 thinking that maybe the third queen 

 was there, but was delayed in laying 

 because of the long trip from the 

 South. But there was no queen in 

 the hive. 



Then I was just wondering what 

 to do next. I felt I had spent enough 

 money and time on that swarm. I 

 planned to let them raise one of their 

 own. I took a frame of fresh eggs 

 from a hive that two months ago ac- 

 cepted their queen, and gave it to this 

 swarm. They immediately started 

 queen-cells, and in due time hatched 

 out a fine queen. She was certainly 

 a beauty. I think I never saw a finer 

 young queen the second day after 

 she had emerged. It was getting 

 late, and there were few, if any, 

 drones in my apiary besides those in 

 the hive with the young queen. She 

 was fertilized during the week fol- 

 lowing, and had time before going 

 into winter quarters to lay just a 

 few eggs on two different frames. 



The other . of the two colonies 

 worked differently. They had a jet 

 black queen, being a wild swarm I 

 found on a bush. I killed her and in- 

 troduced one of the twelve queens, 

 the same as all the -others. While 

 she remained in the cage waiting for 

 the bees in the hive to release her, 

 the bees had built some queen-cells 

 on one of the outer frames. I saw 

 them there when taking the center 

 frames out a week later to see if the 

 bees had accepted the new queen. I 

 found her on the center frames and 

 laying. It was at this time I saw 

 the small quen-cells on the side 

 frames. Three weeks later I opened 

 the hive to take a little look at things. 

 I saw a few fine Italian bees crawl- 

 ing about, just as baby bees. There 

 was some other capped brood emerg- 



ing and ready to emerge. Then there 

 seemed to be nothing else but fresh 

 eggs. I knew something was wrong, 

 and on further investigation I found 

 the pure Italian queen was gone, and 

 they had raised a young queen, black 

 as black could be, from the eggs of 

 the former queen in the hive. 



Those two colonies are in winter 

 quarters, both with queens of their 

 own choice, and not those that I 

 wanted them to have. 



Iowa. 



Fart of the apiary of O. E. Timm, Secretary of the Nebra-.k:i Honey Produ<?ers' Association. 

 This yard averaged 76 pounds per colony of surplus. 



DIFFICULT QUEEN INTRODUC- 

 TION 



By W. E. Jaor 



After reading the experience of Mr. 

 Eugene Holloway in the January 

 Journal, and also the editor's answer, 

 it has occurred to me that a little fur- 

 ther comment might be of interest. 



Of course the editor is right that 

 the best time to introduce a queen is 

 immediately after the removal of the 

 old queen, but sometimes we have to 

 introduce her to a colony that has 

 been queenless some time. 



I had a colony at one time that re- 

 fused everything I offered them. 

 They were blacks that I was trying to 

 Italianize. It was getting late in the 

 season and I had about concluded to 

 break them up. However, I had a 

 queen (fine, pure-blooded, but old) 

 that had been superseded several 

 times successively, having been 

 switched several times to other hives 

 while being superseded. She appeared 

 very feeble and I despaired of her 

 living more than a week or two. I 

 opened the black hive without smoke 

 and dripped her on the frames and 

 put back the cover. Three days later 

 she was laying "to beat the band," 

 and brought the colony safely 

 through the winter. I secured sev- 

 eral good queens from her the next 

 spring before she was finally super- 

 seded. 



Another case : A colony swarmed 

 and lost its virgin and had devel- 

 oped laying workers. I had been sick, 

 so I could not get to them before this 

 condition developed. 



I also had a colony with a 2-year- 

 old queen that was not holding her 

 end up. I took her out and in a very 

 careless, hurried way, smoked her 

 into the laying worker colony, which 

 was in a leaky hive, all of which was 

 against probable success. In due 

 time there was plenty of capped 

 worker brood. 



Now why? Other experiences sup- 

 port my explanation, which suggests 

 the remedy for a colony long without 

 a queen. 



A queen that is old or apparently 

 failing, or even feeble from starva- 

 tion, will ivot be attacked by bees, 

 (sometimes in a queen-right colony, 

 until she has recovered.) Therefore, 

 introduce to the long queenless hive 

 an old or feeble queen, by either the 

 smoke or starvation methods. You 

 do not value the colony much, for the 

 bees are generally old, and you do 

 not value the queen much, because 

 she also is old and perhaps never was 



