1892 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



693 



workt'is do not comint'iieo oponitions until all 

 tho sealed brood has had lime to hatch, but I 

 am not siuv of this. 



In brief, satisfactory evidence of the presence 

 of layinR workers might be simmered down to 

 this: More tlian one ejic in a drone or queen 

 cell. 



rrUK FOR I-AYING WOKKKKS. 



I think I have tried about all the different 

 cur(>s I'eported. and I am not sure that I would 

 use any of them that c()nteini)late the contin- 

 uance of the colony, unless it b(> to ff(>t the bees 

 to raise another queen. Taken early enough, 

 the tiees will respect a (iue(>n-c(>ll; in fact, they 

 are trying to raise a queen with their own use- 

 less brood; and if you give them a frame of 

 good brood you may have a queen raised. Hut 

 they might not iais(> a very good qu(!en thus, 

 and in any case it will take some time, and it is 

 better to giv<> them a sealed cell as near hatch- 

 ing as possible. I_ have succeeded by giving 

 them a young queen just hatched. But after 

 the affair gets to be chronic, and the rounded 

 cappings are seen on the worker-cells, more 

 heruic treatment is needed. 



Om the wholi'. I am not sure but it is best in 

 all cases to resort to the heroic treatment of 

 breaking up the colony. Just distribute the 

 contents of the hive, giving one or two frames, 

 lices and all. to each of several other hives; 

 and if you wish any thing more continued on 

 the same stand, just put another hive on the 

 stand, having in that hive at least two frames 

 of brood with adhering bees, and a sealed 

 queeu-cell. After you have experimented long 

 enough at trying to save a colony with laying 

 workers. I feel pretty sure that you will agree 

 with me that the most profitable thing is to 

 break up the whole business, and that it will be 

 cheaper to srart a new colony than to continue 

 the old. " C. C. Miller. 



Marengo. 111. 



CALIFORNIA. 



LAK(iK YIELDS PER COLONY, AGAIN; SLIPSHOD 



BEE-KEEPERS IX THE LAND OF THE SETTING 



SI:N; THE OTHER SIDE. 



In (Jleanings for Aug. 15 I read with interest 

 the two articles on introducing queens. One of 

 the writers e.xpresses the opinion that the meth- 

 od given on your queen-cages is not good. I have 

 jusi been introiJucing seven by that method, and 

 six out of the seven are now accepted, and lay- 

 ing in their respective hives. I say. by your 

 method : but. come to think of it, I did make a 

 slight change. Instead of taking out the cork 

 on ijulting the cage among the frames, I left it 

 in and did not take it out until on examination 

 the bees seemed to be walking quietly over the 

 wire gauze and feeding the cagfd bi<es. On 

 three of the cages. 24 hours after being in the 

 hive, bees were clinging clo.sely. biting at the 

 win-, and wishing migh'ily they could get at 

 those queens; but. left in a day or two longer, 

 they became more friendly to the caged in- 

 mates; and, as I say evi-ntually. all but one 

 weri' accepted. When the bees have been in the 

 cages for a week or more, as is often the case 

 when sent from the East to California, so much 

 candy in the cage is consumed that it is possi- 

 ble for the bees in the hive to eat through to the 

 queen before it is good to have them do so; and 

 therefore I believe it is good not to remove the 

 cork until the bees seem friendly. 



THE LIZARD, THE t^UEEN. AND THE FLIES. 



We have a great many lizards here, and I 

 have often watched to see whether or not they 



eat bees; but I never caught one in the act till 

 one which stays about my house — a species of 

 pet — gobbled "up a queen for me the other day. 

 The qiieen. which had a clipped wing, had fall- 

 en to the llooi', aiui was crawling about there. 

 The lizard saw her from the rafters, and, quick 

 as a Hash, he rushed down the side of the house 

 and swallowed her. Lizards are great destroy- 

 ers of house-flies. I believe my pet catches a 

 hundred or two every day. In extracting time, 

 when my honey-tiedaubed clothing makes me 

 particularly attractive; in the estimation of Hies, 

 the lizard will perch him.self on my knee and 

 catch them by doz(^ns. 



In my article in (Jleanings for July 1.5th I 

 mentioned Mr. Whitiaker's yield of 419 lbs. of 

 honey per spring st ,ck as tieing the greatest 

 amount to the hive ever produced here. Mr. 

 Lechler. whose {)lace A. I. Root visited on his 

 lirst trip to California, takes exception to that, 

 and mentions a crop of his own — 18,7(i3 ll)S. from 

 30 spring stocks, or iV.'o lbs. per hive. His exf)e- 

 rience of that season and the one previous is il- 

 lustrative of the nps and downs of the bee-man, 

 as. the previous season, beginning with 130 col- 

 onies he got no honey, and lost, besides, from 

 starvation. 100 of his stocks. Mr. L. was inex- 

 perienced then; but nowadays when his bees 

 are starving he feeds them. He is buying su- 

 gar this year by the ton for that purpose. 



It is a common thing here for persons with no 

 experience to go heavily into bee-keeping; and 

 as a general thing, too, before that experience 

 has been acquired they experience some heavy 

 losses. I know a man who. three years ago, was 

 the owner of 800 hives of bees, and who actually 

 knew not much more about the management of 

 an apiary than we can suppose the poor crea- 

 tures in New York do whom we read of as hav- 

 ing never seen a blade of grass. Of course, he 

 has not 8(X) hives now. If he has even 100 next 

 spring he is in good luck. Many of the special- 

 ists in bee-keeping here know little more about 

 the pursuit than putting the bees in a box when 

 they swarm, and, when the box is filled with 

 honey, taking it away. Look into their hives 

 and you will find frames tilled with drone comb 

 in the brood-nest. Expostulation calls forth 

 the retort that the bees know best what is good 

 for them. Some will argue that drones help to 

 keep the hive warm, forgetting that the work- 

 ers which they have displaced will not only do 

 that, but also help to keep the hive cool, which, 

 in this climate, is ofttimes a more important 

 matter; and it seems to me that the 



greatest numbskull of THEiM ALL 



should see the greater profitableness in rearing 

 bees which gather honey, to rearing those that 

 only eat it. The production of drones, like the 

 coming of immigrants to our shores, should be 

 restricted. Even in the apiaries getting the 

 best care, there are many times more drones 

 raised in the extracting-supers than are at all 

 necessary. Of course, queens can be kept out of 

 the extracting-supers by the use of queen-. -x- 

 cluders ; but for my part, I lost so heavily from 

 my comijs melting down a few years ago that I 

 am afraid of any thing which interferes in the 

 least witli the ventilation of the hive. Some of 

 our bee-men do use them, however, quite ex- 

 tensively. I have heard that one of them, a 

 frequent contriljutor to th(i columns of (Jlean- 

 iNGs. leaves his extracting-supers on all winter, 

 with the bees confined below by the excluders. 

 If this is the case, and there are no quilts be- 

 tween the two sections to confine the warmth 

 generated by the bees to the brood-nest, it ap- 

 pears to me he is committing as great a mistake 

 as he who lets his bees fill the brood-nest with 

 drone comb. By the way, one of our most suc- 

 cessful bee-men, one who has 700 stocks, and 



