Yol. XYI. 



DECEMBER 15, 1888. 



No. 24. 



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QUEENS GOING BACK TO OLD HIVES. 



HARD MAPLKS; HONEY IN BROOD-NEST, ETC. 



fN page .530 of Gleanings for July, 1H88, S. C. 

 Perry tells us about a queen just hatched 

 going back to the hive from which she was 

 taken some two hours before, and killing the 

 (jueen which he left there. In the foot-notes 

 at the end of this item by friend P., the editor 

 seems to think that P. has made a mistake, and 

 that the queen he found there was a third queen. 

 Now, I have every reason to believe that friend P. 

 was perfectly correct in his conclusions, for I have 

 had several queens just hatched return to the par- 

 ent hive in just the way this one did, so T know 

 what I affirm. In the first place, the incident spok- 

 en of by friend P. is one of those cases where the 

 queen was kept back in the cell, being fed in the 

 cell till she was strong enough to Hy, so of course 

 could fly as well as any of the bees; otherwise she 

 could not get back, for, as I have said before in 

 these columns, no queen ever flies as soon as she is 

 ready to hatch, doing so only when held in the cell 

 by the bees for some little length of time after she 

 is mature. " Rut," says one, "how did the queen 

 got back, even if she could flj- ? " There was noth- 

 ing to hinder her doing this, any more than there 

 is to hinder all of the young bees, that can fly, re- 

 turning to the parent hive, as they always will 

 when making nuclei by taking frames of brood 

 from colonies having a laying queen, as nearly 

 every bee-keeper experiences sooner or later who 

 tries to make nuclei in this way, without shutting 

 up the bees for 24 hours or longer. In such mak- 

 ing of nuclei, probably half of the beesl taken have 



never flown; yet all that can possibly fly go back to 

 where they were taken from, although never hav- 

 ing seen the outside of the hive before. How is it 

 done? Why, they simply follow those back which 

 know the way. In case of the pig spoken of by the 

 editor, it would have been easy to account for its 

 getting back home had an older brother or sister 

 been taken along with it, who had traveled over 

 the road several times before, as was done in the 

 case of this queen spoken of. In my many experi- 

 ments in making nuclei I have had young queens 

 and bees return many times, where any older bees 

 went with them; but where making them by the 

 caged-f ram e-of -brood plan, when no other bees 

 went with them except those hatched inside the 

 cage, I never knew of a single bee returning, no 

 matter how old they were when let loose from the 

 cage, although while changing them from the cage 

 to the hive I have had nearly every one of the bees 

 and the queen take wing. 



HONEV from hard jMAPLES. 



On pagt' 56:!, of July 1.5th Gl.e.\nings, Mrs. Chad- 

 dock gives just my experience about bees working 

 on hard maples. If bees ever get any honey to 

 store in their honey-sacs, I have never been able 

 to find it, and I have looked and studied along this 

 line of honey-producing more closely than along 

 any other line. We are told nearly every year of 

 bees getting honey from the hard maples, and I 

 had hoped that my turn to And bees so getting 

 honey would come next; but after killing several 

 bees each year during many years, while at work 

 on the hard maple, and always finding their honey- 

 sac empty, 1 have come to the conclusion that 

 there was a mistake §pme^hefe. pillow, of seve^- 



