694 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 1. 



■which the candy is eaten out and the queen 

 released, so that the whole thing, from begin- 

 ning to end, is automatic. All the receiver of 

 any queen has to do is simply to take the cage, 

 remove the cover, and then lay it on top of the 

 brood-frames of the queenless colony ; close 

 the hive up, and ' ' let 'er go, Gallagher. ' ' You 

 press the button, and the bees do the rest. 



This method of introducing is no experi- 

 ment. We have used it in our own apiary for 

 a year back. Mr. Ward ell, our apiarist, came 

 to the conclusion that bees were eating out the 

 candy too quickly, and sometimes releasing 

 the queen before they had had a chance to be- 

 come acquainted with her. He conceived the 

 idea of nailing a piece of pasteboard over the 

 candy, as a restrainer, which, from his knowl- 

 edge of bees, he thought they would gnaw 

 away. The scheme worked perfectly. He 

 thought so little of the invention that he did 

 not tell me any thing about it, and I presume 

 he had been using the method for some six 

 months before I happened to blunder on to it 

 — that is, I learned that he had made an im- 

 provement in the ordinary method of intro- 

 ducing by the candy plan. He continued us- 

 ing it with the greatest success ; but, as he 

 used it, it was in connection with the Miller 

 cage, which used just the same principle as 

 the Benton. 



Early this summer we applied the plan to 

 all the Benton cages we sent out, and the re- 

 sults secured have been uniformly good. By 

 the old plan, after the receiver of the queen 

 had removed the cork the candy had been so 

 much eaten by the bees, in some cases, after a 

 long journey, that the bees would sometimes 

 release the queen in from ten to fifteen hours, 

 which is altogether too short a time ; but now 

 these same bees spend from twelve to eighteen 

 hours in eating away the pasteboard before 

 they get at the candy, and at the very least 

 calculation it takes very nearly 24 hours be- 

 fore they can release their new queen-mother, 

 and nine times out of ten it will be much 

 longer. 



I asked Mr. Wardell what per cent of queens 

 he could introduce safely by this method. 



"Why," said he, "I do not lose any at 

 all." 



"Would it be safe," I asked, "to say in 

 print, that at least 99 per cent of the queens 

 introduced by that method would be received 

 and accepted by the bees ? " 



" Why," he replied, "if I were using the 

 Miller cage I think I could guarantee a good 

 deal better than 99 per cent." 



We have heard of many methods of intro- 

 ducing queens, but I do not think there has 

 been any thing yet devised that is so simple 

 for the beginner and the average person to ap- 

 ply as the candy-pasteboard method. If the 

 Miller cage is used (a flat oblong cage), and 

 the colony has not been queenless for over 

 four or five days, you can almost guarantee 

 absolute introduction. The Root Co. would 

 do so now ; but the trouble is, so many colo- 

 nies to which queens are introduced have been 

 queenless for a week or ten days that the bees 

 get to depending on their cells, and then it is 

 often very difiicult to introduce to them a 

 queen by any plan. 



THE VARIOUS MODERN METHODS OF QUEEN- 

 REARING COMPARED. 



Mr. WARDEivt, our apiarist, has, as our 

 readers know, been very successful with the 

 Doolittle method of rearing queens — so suc- 

 cessful, indeed, that he felt disinclined to try 

 any other. Said he, " Ernest, I get good re- 

 sults by this plan that I am used to, and from 

 your own statement I make a success of it ; 

 now do not go and ask me to go and try some 

 other fellow's new-fangled plan, and get me 

 all mixed up." But I insisted that he try the 

 Pridgen, the Atchley, the Alley, and the Jones 

 methods. Having heard the most favorable 

 reports from Dr. Miller about the Pridgen 

 plan I was very anxious Mr. W. should give 

 it a very thorough test, and this he seems to 

 have done very carefully and conscientiously. 



The Pridgen plan differs from the Doolittle 

 in that the Pridgen removes the cocoons of 

 larvae, just hatched, by means of a little 

 stick with a concave bottom that fits tightly 

 into the cocoon. This cocoon on the stick he 

 inserts in his little goblets, or wax cups, twists 

 the stick, loosening cocoon until it adheres to 

 the cup. The plan further differs from the 

 Doolittle in that Pridgen does not make use 

 of royal jelly, but simply depends on the reg- 

 ular food which the larva has in the bottom of 

 the ordinary worker-cell, and which has been 

 removed — cocoon, larva, and all — at one oper- 

 ation, and inserted in a goblet queen-cup. 



The Jones plan, which is practically the 

 same as the Alley, makes use of ordinary 

 drone cups, or cells, shaven down, and then 

 grafted, every one or two cells in alternation, 

 with royal larvae. 



The Alley plan is the same, except that he 

 uses worker comb containing eggs, every oth- 

 er cell of which is destroyed, including the 

 egg. 



The Atchley method is much the same as 

 the Pridgen, except that the Atchleys remove 

 the cocoons and insert them, or did do so, in 

 cups by means of tweezers. 



Mr. Wardell has tried faithfully and care- 

 fully all of these methods, and at the present 

 time he is using all of them side by side. The 

 result is, he has drifted somewhat from his 

 first love, the Doolittle plan, and now prefers 

 drone comb, grafting with royal jelly and lar- 

 vae every fourth cell. That is to say, he grafts 

 one drone-cell, skips two, which he destroys, 

 then grafts the next one, and so on. He will 

 take an ordinary queen-cell of the right age, 

 when it has the largest amount of royal food, 

 and with the quantity in that cell he will sup- 

 ply 20 ordinary drone-cups with sufficient food 

 to give the cells which he grafts a good start. 

 But before the drone-cells are grafted he en- 

 larges the opening of the cell by means of a 

 blunt stick. These grafted cells of drone 

 comb are then fastened on a stick and insert- 

 ed in a frame. It is next given to a queenless 

 colony that has previously been fed up for 

 three or four days, and then deprived of all 

 unsealed brood. 



COLONIES FOR CELL-BUIIvDING. 



He now prefers queenless colonies, or colo- 

 nies that are about to supersede their queens, 

 to upper stories having a reigning queen be- 



