1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



513 



wa}-s happened that, when I was doing any 

 thing with the nuclei, the young queens would 

 pipe This would frequently happen while I 

 had the frame with the queen on in my hand, 

 and time after time I have watched the queen 

 during the process. The queen was generally 

 moving quickly about, as young queens are 

 apt to do when disturbed ; but when about to 

 pipe she would always stop, press her thorax 

 and abdomen against the comb, and bend her 

 head back till the part which usually faces di- 

 rectly forward was looking directly upward. 

 This bending-back of the head was the most 

 decided movement made. It would occur as 

 the sound was emitted, and between the notes 

 the head would return to its normal position. 

 The wings gave slight tremors, but not suffi- 

 cient to account in any way for the sound. I 

 never saw a queen "running about and pip- 

 ing." They always stopped still during the 

 process. 



It seemed to me it was not a very easy mat- 

 ter for the queen, and always seemed to call 

 forth a good dea^ of effort on her part. I 

 think it may be considered settled that the 

 wings have nothing to do with piping. The 

 facts noticed by Frank Cheshire and others, of 

 queens piping when the wings were absent, 

 should set this point at rest. 



Warrnambool, Vic, Aus., Feb. 4. 



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ANSWERS TO 



SEASONABLE 



QUESTIONS 



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SUCCESSFUL BEE-KEEPING. 



Question. — I am a beginner in bee-keeping, 

 having just purchased two colonies, and sub- 

 scribed for Gleanings. Will you please tell 

 me through your department in that paper, in 

 brief, how I may become a successful bee- 

 keeper? 



Answer. — This is giving me quite a task, 

 and one upon which might be written enough 

 to fill many numbers of Gleanings, and even 

 then "the half never be told." In fact, all 

 of the thousands and millions of words which 

 have ever been written on the subject of bees 

 have had "successful bee-keeping" as their 

 object. Yet, out of the thousands who have 

 read the words written on this subject, how 

 many have become successful bee-keepers ? I 

 venture the assertion of not more than one in 

 ten. And before I pass on to the " brief " of 

 the matter, allow me to say that the success in 

 bee-keeping, as well as in any other pursuit in 

 life, comes through the man. If you are will- 

 ing to put your whole life and being into 

 apiculture, there is little doubt that success 

 will crown your efforts ; but if you go at it in 

 a sort of listless, go-as-you-please spirit, you 

 will stand the same chance others have stood, 

 of recording " failure " on your banner. 



Now, in brief, to be successful the apiarist 

 must have a simple movable-frame hive of 

 some kind ; and the main work up to the 

 general honey-harvest, the time of which 



should be familiar to the apiarist, should be 

 to secure as many bees as possible on the 

 stage of action at just the time that harvest 

 arrives. All know that bees gather honey or 

 nectar, instead of producing or making it, and 

 that the eggs laid by the queen produce bees ; 

 consequently the more eggs the queen lays, 

 the more bees we get; and the more bees we 

 have at the right lime, the more honey they 

 gather. In fact, one way of looking at it is, 

 the queen is the producer of the honey. 

 Therelore if we wish good returns from our 

 bees we must see to it that we have good 

 prolific queens, and that they fill the combs 

 with brood before the honey season com- 

 mences, so that, when the honey harvest 

 comes, the bees will be obliged to place the 

 honey in the sections, or surplus-apartment, 

 as there will be nowhere else for them to store 

 it. 



But how shall we secure combs full of brood 

 and plenty of bees to carry on the labors of 

 the hive by the time our honey harvest begins ? 

 As soon as spring opens, our bees should be 

 examined by lifting the frames of each hive ; 

 and if the colonies are weak the bees are shut 

 to one side of the hives by means of a division- 

 board, so as to keep up the necessary heat for 

 brood-rearing, on as many combs as they can 

 cover. As soon as the queen has filled these 

 combs with eggs I part them in the middle, 

 inserting a comb of honey which has had the 

 sealing to the cells broken by passing a knife 

 flatwise over them, between those occupied 

 with brood, and in a few days the queen will 

 fill this also, and so we keep on until every 

 available cell is occupied with brood. If the 

 bees can not use up all the honey given at 

 each insertion, give an empty comb occasion- 

 ally, and do not put in either till those combs 

 they already have are fully occupied with 

 brood; for if you do a loss rather than a gain 

 will be made. 



Thus it will be seen that, instead of the 

 queen laying her eggs on the outside of the 

 cluster, she lays them in the center of the 

 brood-nest, where they should be. After the 

 hive is full of brood and bees it does not make 

 so much difference, as the weather is warm 

 and bees are plentiful, so that the queen can 

 deposit her eggs anywhere in the hive. 



As soon as the strongest colonies have their 

 hive full, take a frame of brood just gnawing 

 out and place it in the weaker ones, giving 

 the strong one an empty comb for the queen 

 to fill again, and so keep on until every hive 

 in the apiary is full of bees and brood. When 

 this is accomplished put on the sections, and, 

 as was said at the commencement, if any honey 

 is gathered it must be put in these sections. 

 Each section should have a small piece of 

 white comb or a strip of comb foundation 

 attached to the top as a "starter," and to 

 cause the bees to work more readily in them. 

 The center tier of sections, if possible, should 

 be full of comb left over from the previous 

 year. As soon as one-fourth of the sections 

 are filled they should be taken off before being 

 colored by the bees passing over them too 

 long, and empty ones put in their places, 

 thereby causing the bees to work with renew- 



