1897 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



887 



]>ort\\1iily fi>r ohsorvation lliut I have had, 

 thai, while an Italian (jueen may he as dark 

 as a common hl:ick. there is a difierence in 

 the shades of the two — the Italian, while 

 being as dark as the other, having a rich 

 (perhaps mahogany) tint not shown in the 

 black. And yet these importe<l queens of 

 such different appearances would all have the 

 same worker progeny, of the same color, and 

 the same number of baiuls. Now, if there is 

 no mistake about these imported queens of 

 different looks being all of true blood, there 

 would be nothing but what should be expected 

 that their royal progeny should ])resent differ- 

 ences of appearance, while the worker progeny 

 would be true to type. 



I have been called to account for saying 

 that no one could decide from the looks of 

 drones or queens as to the piirity of the stock, 

 but with mv present light that is my belief. 

 To an inquirer I made the reply that I could 

 not give the distinguishing marks of a pure 

 Italian drone ; and when scouted at by a 

 queen-rearer for giving such a reply I asked 

 him to give me those distinguishing marks, 

 but never got any reply. 



2. If you mean by Camiolans the gray bees 

 that were first known by that name, and that 

 the viorkers that you say were black were the 

 same gray black as the full Carniolans, then 

 it seems ])retty plain that an Italian drone 

 was met, as is usual in the case of a first cross, 

 part of the workers taking after one parent 

 and part after the other. And with that view 

 of the case the bright-yellow virgin would be 

 nothing strange. But from yotir asking the 

 question as you do, I suspect that you mean 

 the black workers were unlike the regular 

 Carniolan workers, but like common blacks, 

 in which case I don't know enough to reply. 

 The workers being part yellow and part black, 

 the drone might be of mixed yellow and black 

 blood, but in that view the Carniolan blood 

 of the mother is left out of the count altogeth- 

 er, and that leaves me at sea. Perhaps the 

 editor can make matters clear. 



3. Proljal)ly unusual at least ; and yet what- 

 ever will account for the presence of the ^-el- 

 low workers will account for the yellow queen. 

 She took after her sire. 



4. The usual thing would have been for the 

 bees to ball the queen when you released her 

 from the cage. She did the unusual thing by 

 running away from her pursuers and escaping 

 from the hive. After that she entered hive 

 No. 2, where she stood a i)retty good chance 

 of being killed, for the bees would be more 

 likely to kill a queen that had been caged and 

 chased ; and, it being a dry time when they 

 were not anxious to have a queen laying, her 

 chances of life w-ere thereby lessened. Still, 

 they were queenless, and the odd chance 

 came her way. Quite possibly she would not 

 have been so well received in No. 2 if you had 

 had a hand in the affair. But they were left 

 entirely to themselves ; and. although they 

 may have balled her at first, being left entirely 

 alone they released her. 



•5. No, I think I never had a similar experi- 

 ence. The onl}- way I can think of such a 

 thing happening would be that honey was not 



yielding very well, and as soon as the bees 

 got well started on the foundation the flow 

 became still more scant, making the bees 

 finish out and seal o\er what they were already 

 working on. I can hardly imagine such a 

 case occurring in a good flow. 



1 mav sav, in passing, that I should consid- 

 er it very objectionable to have an inch space 

 between" top and bottom .starter — one-fourth 

 inch at most, and then the bees will join the 

 two starters together before the bottom .starter 

 has a chance to lop over or be gnawed down. 



Marengo, 111. 



[I could adopt every paragraph of Dr. Mil- 

 ler's answer above as an expres.sion of my 

 own belief and experience, and, for that mat- 

 ter, I believe every queen-breeder could do the,- 

 same. — Ed.] 



KEEPING SURPLUS QUEENS OVER WINTER. 

 Oitestion. — Will j'ou please tell us in next 

 Gleanings how to keep surplus queens over 

 winter? If it can be done it would be very 

 profitable to havt a few extra queens, to take 

 the place of any that might turn up missing 

 in the spring. I generally supply many of 

 my colonies with young queens in the fall, 

 killing the old ones; but if I could only keep 

 the young ones over v inter, I should prefer it 

 to doing as I have done in the past. I am 

 thinking of caging several in a queenless col- 

 ony. Will that plan work well ? 



A?iszver. — It is verj' doubtful about your 

 succeeding in keeping a surplus of queens 

 over winter by the plan you suggest, especial- 

 ly if you live north of latitude .'^8°. unless on 

 the Pacific coast. In my younger bee-keeping 

 years I tried almost every way I could think 

 up or hear of to keep a surplus of queens over 

 till spring; but to make the thing a practical 

 success, I was ol)liged to have a colony of bees 

 strong enough to occup}- at least three spaces 

 between combs, at this time of year. With 

 what is termed a "four-frame nuc'eus," and 

 by setting the same, with about ten pounds of 

 honey, in the four frames, in the cellar, as 

 earl)' as- November first, I could generally suc- 

 ceed pretty well till they were set out in the 

 spring, and sotietimes the}- would pull clear 

 through to the honey harvest and build up to 

 full colonies; but it would happen more often 

 that they would rapidly waste away during the 

 last half of April and in earU' May, till they 

 would die entireh', or be robbed out by strong- 

 er colonies. Where I could tell about failing 

 queens thus early, I could kill them and unite 

 these little colonies with their young queens 

 with the colonies from which I killed the 

 queens. But I could see little in favor of this, 

 beyond what would have been had I killed 

 the poor queens in the fall and done the unit- 



