572 



GIvEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15. 



and every morning or evening, as most con- 

 venient, take out this comb of eggs and place 

 on the other side of the division board, and 

 mark so I shall know when the eggs were laid, 

 and give the queen another comb to lay in for 

 the next twenty-four hours. In this way I 

 shall have, each day, eggs by themselves, and 

 four days later I can select larvae that I am 

 sure of. I shall know that the largest will be 

 not far from two days old, and the youngest 

 one day. Another advantage is, when going 

 to out- yards later ia the season I can find plen- 

 ty of brood of just the right age all in one 

 comb, which I can take with another comb of 

 brood and bees and put in a nucleus hive and 

 carry to my furthest yard, without trouble. I 

 found this method of carrying brood from 

 yard to yard last year entirely practical. Of 

 course, I do not expect to rear queens away 

 from home except during the swarming sea- 

 son or when honey is plentiful. I found, after 

 some practice, I could transfer those little lar- 

 vae very readily; and once I found I had trans- 

 ferred some fifty larvae in sixteen minutes ; 

 but I found it took me quite too much time to 

 put royal jelly into the cells before placing in 

 the larvae. I am going to use a quill this year 

 cut out like a trough, and fill with jelly, and 

 then, with a stick the size of a match, run the 

 proper amount into each cell from the end of 

 the quill, and thus save time when time is 

 most valuable. You will be quite likely to 

 meet with failure from trying to use hives 

 without sufficient bees. When Doolittle says 

 a colony must be strong I think he means 

 something much stronger than most of us 

 think of when we use the same word. The 

 disposition of bees to rear queen-cells behind 

 or above a queen-excluding division - board 

 seems to come from a union of the supersed- 

 ing and swarming instincts ; and to secure the 

 best results a colony must be strong enough to 

 swarm, and honey must be coming in every 

 day, either from the fields or by feeding. 

 When you rear queens in the lower story, few- 

 er bees will doubtless answer. 



"Another thing that bothered me was to 

 get the size of my dipping sticks just right. 

 At first I made my artificial cells, I thought, too 

 large. I made more sticks which seemed too 

 small, and so I made one little mistake after 

 another. Doolittle says he fitted his sticks 

 into queen-cells. But I found a great varia- 

 tion in queen cells ; besides, queen -cells have 

 such a way of stretching that I did not feel 

 very sure whether they were right or not. 

 That I might know to a dot the best size, I 

 have made quite a number of plaster casts of 

 the inside of well-developed queen cells, and 

 find them to vary both in size and shape. 

 Some cells I found to be quite irregular, some- 

 what flattened, and concavo convex from base 

 to mouth or opening. I found one cell }i in., 

 or a little more, in diameter, one wny, by 

 about 1% in. the other diameter. A very fine 

 cell built to supersede a queen measuied slight 

 ly less than ^ inch in its largest diameter, and 

 tapered slightly toward each end to f ^ or a lit- 

 tle less. Thus you see that a stick f^ inch in 

 diameter at ^X inch from the end, and ^ or a 

 little less at Ji inch from the end, is about as 



nearly light as it is possible to get them. In 

 making sticks, use a caliper rule and you can 

 get them exact. 



" Doolittle's work on queen-rearing is most 

 excellent ; but there is one serious fault in the 

 last edition. You will have to study it very 

 carefully, and learn where in any chapter to 

 find any item you may want to look up, as 

 there is no index except to the chapters, which 

 seems to me a great drawback, as we often 

 want to get some little fact that we remember 

 in a general way — as, the best way to form a 

 nucleus or introduce a virgin queen — and have 

 not time to look over two or three or more 

 pages, as it may be a whole chapter, to find it 

 when we are short of time." 



"I wonder how the D jolittle method of 

 queen rearing will work when you get your 

 strain of non-swarming bees fully developed," 

 said George Crafts, who had joined us in dis- 

 cussing queen-rearing. 



" Weil," said I, '"it is rather early yet to 

 tell ; but if they fail to rear a suitable number 

 of queen-Cells above a queen-excluding honey- 

 board — why, we shall get some other breed of 

 bees to do it for us. How would one or two 

 hives of S} rian bees answer? I have often 

 wondered if it would not pa}' to use them for 

 this very purpose. They would be much su- 

 perior to any other race. If I could get hold 

 of a gentle strain of these bees I think it 

 would be well worth while." 



" How do you manage to get rid of a colony 

 of large black ants? I have one hive where 

 these ants have fairly taken possession of the 

 packing of shavings, and it looks as though 

 they would be in possession of the bees and 

 honey too pretty soon," said Deacon Strong. 



" I have been troubled with them some," I 

 replied, "and I used kerosene You know 

 kerosene is good for almost every thing I 

 have found it especially good for ants. Just 

 pour it right over them and down in the shav- 

 ings. It makes them squirm, and it looks 

 wicked, but it is effectual ; and, besides, this 

 is a world where we prey on one another. 



" ' The falcon preys upon the finch, 

 The finch upon the fly ; 

 And that a rose may breathe its breath, 

 Something el.se must die.' 



" The use of kerosene has not seemed to 

 hurt the bees any, but you don't want to let it 

 touch them. By the way, Jonas Jenkins was 

 down to see me last night He wanted to 

 learn something about bees ; said his business 

 had not paid very well ; had made some bad 

 bargains, and was afraid he might lose his 

 farm." 



Just then Tim Fasset happened along, and 

 his fun -loving nature could not resist the 

 temptation to say that he thought " the worst 

 bargain Jonas ever made was when he married 

 Mariar. ' ' 



' ' What do you know about Mariar ? " I ask- 

 ed. 



" Oh ! my wife's first cousin lived for two 

 years next neighbor to him. I guess she is a 

 pretty good woman, but she is cur'us. If 

 Jonas got tired she would say, ' Jonas, what 

 makes you work so hard ? we have only one 

 life to live.' If he didn't work hard she 



