792 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1. 



faculties that you will be able to pass judg- 

 ment upon her. The very best tendencies be- 

 come abortive in unfavorable circumstances. 

 Edison could not have invented what he did 

 had he been raised among the Hottentots. 

 This comparison may be a little far-fetched, 

 but it expresses my thoughts in a plain and 

 forcible way. 



I have no doubt that some others, in the 

 same circumstances, and with the same expe- 

 rience that we have had, might have come to 

 different conclusions; but no one should con- 

 demn a system which is plausible, and based 

 on the experience of many years, without first 

 giving it a trial. 



In another article I will make a comparison 

 of large and small hives for wintering, with 

 our experience in the matter. 



Hamilton, 111. 



[I presume it is almost unnecessary for me 

 to state that the foregoing, so far as it relates 

 to swarming, is quite in line with my own ex- 

 perience. 



Mr. Hutchinson, referring to these Dadant 

 articles, suggests that we should not lose sight 

 of the fact that Mr. Dadant runs his bees for 

 extracted honey, and that, therefore, swarm- 

 ing is more easily controlled. I would ask 

 Mr. Dadant whether, if he were to produce 

 comb honey exclusively, he would make his 

 brood-chamber smaller; if not, would he, in 

 his opinion, be able to control swarming to 

 the extent that he now does? For my own 

 part, I do not see why these big colonies 

 would not produce comb honej' about as well 

 as extracted — perhaps not so large an amount. 

 But, as I stated to Mr. Doolittle elsewhere in 

 this issue, we should not lose sight of the one 

 element of locality. I am ready to concede 

 that, in some places, yes, perhaps in many, 

 the smaller hives might give a better result in 

 comb honey. — Ed.] 



HOW TO REOUEEN CHEAPLY. 



The Best Method for the Bee-keeper who Runs a 

 Large Number of Colonies. 



BY DELOS WOOD. 



It seems strange to me that so many bee- 

 keepers spend so much of their own labor in 

 trying to save work for their bees. This may 

 do for those who keep a few bees " for fun," 

 but with me it is a matter of bread and honey, 

 or, in other words, I keep bees for profit, and 

 I want them to save work for uie. Farmers do 

 not spade up their ground to save work for 

 their horses. They make the team plow the 

 ground to save work for themselves. I had 

 thought to throw out a few hints on this sub- 

 ject in regard to queen-rearing, but supposed 

 it too late in the season ; but your note on Dr. 

 Miller's last Straw, Sept. 15th, has caused me 

 to write this article. 



Perhaps a professional queen breeder like 

 Mr. Doolittle can afford the time to make ar- 

 tificial cell-cups and grafted larvte ; but I am 

 sure the honey-producer can not. Neither 

 can he afford to hunt up queens day after day, 



to keep those first hatching from destroying 

 the others. I believe that the man who pro- 

 duces tons of honey each jear can also pro- 

 duce as fine queens as any one who does noth- 

 ing but rear queens. One colony will produce 

 hundreds of the best queens during one season, 

 and store a fair amount of honey, and, I think, 

 with less labor than by the Doolittle plan. 



I would set apart my two best colonies of 

 Italians, one for rearing drones and the other 

 for queen-cells. To the one for drones I would 

 give a large amount of drone comb. The oth- 

 er I would stimulate by feeding, to induce the 

 swarming-fever, giving plenty of worker comb 

 in two story hives, so as to get as large a 

 swarm as possible. This swarm with the old 

 queen I would put into an empty single-story 

 hive, and let them build comb in as many 

 frames as possible. After the queen has begun 

 to lay a small circle of brood in several combs 

 I would take her from the hive and give her a 

 new colony. I would then take each of these 

 new combs of brood and cut around through 

 the circle of cells, just in the same ring that 

 the queen lays, leaving the larvie (just hatch- 

 ed) at the bottom of the piece of comb left in 

 the frames, taking off the lower part of combs 

 containing only eggs. These larvse are hatch- 

 ed, usually, the third day from the time the 

 eggs were laid. The bees are now in their 

 best condition for all kinds of work, and will 

 build queen-cells by wholesale, and of the best 

 qualit)', and will put them on the bottom of 

 this cut comb, which, being cut in the shape 

 of the edge of a saucer, will cause the ends of 

 the cells to spread out from each other as you 

 can spread your fingers apart. This gives 

 room to cut out each cell without injury to 

 any other. 



These eggs were laid within a few hours of 

 each other, and will all hatch at the .same 

 time, and may all be removed to the nuclei at 

 one time, and the young queens will all, or 

 nearly all, begin to lay at the same time. 

 These queens will be raised in a full colony, 

 under the natural-swarming impulse, and will 

 be "the best queens in the world." If one 

 chooses to watch the old colony awhile, many 

 good queens may be obtained from that. 

 Queens raised in this new comb are, I think, 

 apt to be brighter than those reared in dark 

 combs. Advocates of leather-colored queens 

 should hive the swarm on old combs. 



Your engraving on p. ()85 shows the comb 

 cut with the circle the wrong way ; and if you 

 had not used the cell-cups, and placed them 

 wideh' apart, the points of the cells built from 

 larvte in the comb would have been likely to 

 touch each other. The colony used as I have 

 said will build several lots of cells before be- 

 coming discouraged ; and by giving an occa- 

 sional comb of hatching brood it may be kept 

 building cells almost indefinitely. Perhaps 

 one trying to supersede a queen might keep it 

 up longer, but I do not think they would build 

 so many cells at one time as they might do un- 

 der the Doolittle plan. 



I have never been successful in getting good 

 queens started from the &^^. My bees, when 

 given eggs only, will wait for them to hatch 

 before starting cells, and by that time they 



