486 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



June 



were started, but the queeu horselt, a little reduced 

 In size, was moving about quite lively, and not an 

 egg could be discovered. Can you explain these 

 eccentricities ? 



Can any practical bee-keeper, one who is more 

 interested in honey-production than in the sale of 

 novelties, answer a few questions about Carniolans? 

 Are they equal to Italians in hardiness ? in fecun- 

 dity ? in protecting' themselves against moths and 

 robbers'? in honey-gathering? Are they superior 

 to them in gentleness ? Are their hybrids gentler 

 than Italian hybrids? This last is of some impor- 

 tance in this neighborhood, where blacks aiid mon- 

 grels abound. 8— David Strang, 13—13. 



Lincoln, Lincoln Co., Tenn., May 34, 1886. 



rriend S., I do not know any reason why 

 your queen stopped laying so suddenly, un- 

 less she has failed and will soon be super- 

 seded. If the yield of honey stopped just 

 about t-he time she stopped laying, that 

 might account for it ; but they seldom stop 

 all at once, as in the case mentioned.— Our 

 experience with the Carniolans does not 

 warrant us in calling them any thing better 

 than Italians. They are rather gentler to 

 handle than the average run of hybrids, but 

 we can not find that they are any more so 

 than full-blood Italians in general. In oth- 

 er respects they are just about like Italians 

 ^we can not discover any difference worth 

 noticing. See Our Own Apiary, this issue. 



SAFE INTRODUCTION OF QUEEN- 

 CELLS. 



AN INVENTION THAT SEEMS TO PROMISE A CHEAT 

 DEAL. 



fRIENDS Root, Hutchinson, and others, have 

 told us in the past how they took a laying 

 queen from a nucleus or full colony of bees, 

 and immediately (before closing the hive) 

 gave the bees a nearly mature queen-cell, 

 they having little or no trouble i-cgai-ding the bees 

 destroying such cell, any more than they did to 

 wait 48 hours before giving such cell, as most of the 

 bee-keepers of the world are obliged to do, if they 

 would be at all certain of success. If I remember 

 correctly, Mrs. Harrison said she could not succeed 

 with more than one cell out of twenty by this plan; 

 and my failures were still greater than hers, for I 

 do not now remember of ever getting more than 

 one cell accepted, where said cell was put in within 

 six hours after the removal of the queen. In fact, 

 I have so utterly failed that I had become a little 

 skeptical, classing such stories of success along 

 with the stories of successful artificial fertilization 

 of queens. 



Well, the time having again arrived when I de- 

 sired making the most possible out of the nuclei I 

 had formed, this subject of immediate introduction 

 of queen-cells and virgin queens came up in my 

 mind. It was evening, and I had lopped down on 

 the couch waiting for the return of a part of the 

 family, and thinking what I could do regarding this 

 matter. In a half-dreamy sort of way I wandered 

 over the past and thought that my only plau of suc- 

 cess had been by the one friend Root had given, of 

 putting a square wire-cloth cage over a cell, and 

 pressing the cage into the comb, thus keeping the 

 bees from the cell for two or three days; but as the 

 bees often ate under this cage and thwarted my 



plans, I felt that it was little in advance of wast- 

 ing 48 hours. While these thoughts were in my 

 mind I fell asleep for a short period. When I 

 awoke, instantly the thought came to me to go and 

 make a small funnel-shaped cage of wire cloth, 

 just large enough to hold a queen-cell, and I 

 was master of the situation. I at once made a 

 round V-shaped stick, and taking a small square 

 piece of wire cloth, rolled it around the stick in 

 such a way that the hole in the small end of my 

 wire-cloth funnel was as large as a lead-pencil. I 

 next cut off a piece of a 'a-inch cork and placed it 

 in the large end when my cage was ready. 



The next day I was to send off some queens; and 

 as I had a lot of cells ready to hatch the day after, I 

 had only to wait during the night before I could try 

 my plan. Accordingly, as soon as I took the queen 

 out the next day to ship away, I went and got one 

 of my nearly mature queen-cells, slipped it in my 

 cage, with the point down into the lead-pencil hole 

 as far as it would go, put in the piece of cork, ran a 

 small wire through the meshes of the cage above 

 the cork, so as to keep the coi-k in, and at the same 

 time make a handle to hold the cage in any posi- 

 tion I wished it among the bees, when the wire was 

 bent so as to hook over the top of the frames, and 

 the caged cell hung in the hive. More were treated 

 the same way, for some way I felt confident that 

 the plan would succeed. 



I was now called away from home for two days, 

 and upon my return I found that, in each hive hav- 

 ing a caged coll, there was a nice virgin queen; 

 while in a few hives in which I had put some of the 

 same cells without caging, all were destroyed. I 

 hf^ve now used this plan for two weeks, and in not a 

 single Instance have I failed of having the cells 

 hatch all right, and the bees accept the queen. The 

 plan also gives you the privilege of placing the cell 

 right in the center of the smallest cluster of bees 

 without cutting or mutilating the comb, as must of 

 necessity be done by the old plan in these little col- 

 onies during cool weather, which Is no small item 

 with those desiring perfect combs. I suppose I 

 might have waited before giving this plan to the 

 reader, till I had tried it through one season; but 

 when 1 thought of how I had been bothered for 

 years, and of the little expense required for all to 

 test it, I concluded that I would not wait; for if it 

 worked with all as it did with me it would save 

 many queens for the bee-fraternity. The principle 

 of the plan is this: The bees always destroy a cell 

 from the side or base, and never at the point. The 

 cage protects the cell everywhere except at the 

 point, but still allows the bees to got accustomed to 

 the presence of the cell, the same as if the cage 

 were not there. The lead-pencil hole allows the 

 queen to hatch, the same as she would if the cell 

 were not caged, while the bees can feed her and 

 hold her in the cell as long as they please, so that 

 she can not get out till they are ready to accept her. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Borodino, N. Y., June 1, 1886. 



Friend D., I suppose you know the idea of 

 caging queen-cells is not new. Cages spe- 

 cially adapted for this purpose have been 

 advertised for a good many years. There is 

 one point in your invention, however, that 

 seems to be new, and that is, leaving an 

 opening in the apex of the cone, large 

 enough for the young queen to bite her way 

 out. The wire-cloth cones used by friend 



