1904 



CLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



493 



to lift the bar and insert it in an open-top 

 frame. By boring a series of holes in this 

 removable top bar you will have something 

 still more convenient, in that you can re- 

 move one or all the cells at any time with- 

 out disturbance to the colony. Simply 

 thrust the wooden cups through the holes, 

 and they are in such position that they can 

 be manipulated, one at a time or by the 

 barful. through a split in the sheet without 

 tearing the colony asunder each time you 

 go for cells. Much smoking and much 

 handling destroy bees' prospects at honey, 

 and in wintering well. The flange will 

 prevent the cup from dropping clear through, 

 and they are never waxed enough to pre- 

 vent their read}' drawing without the least 

 trouble. We seldom use smoke in cell-shift- 

 ing nowadays. 



Why does Mr. Phillips do his grafting 

 from large combs when small ones are so 

 much more convenient to handle? further- 

 more, the life of a breeding queen can be 

 prolonged on small combs. If a small comb, 

 filled with compressed cups, is placed in 

 the midst of the little breeding-hive, the 

 queen will lay directly in the cups and save 

 the trouble of transferring or grafting larvae 

 altogether — simply remove the cups and 

 set them in holding- shells, supplying other 

 cups in the frame for the queen to lay in. 

 As with the grafting- cup, these forcing- cups 

 may be used over and over. 



In closing I should like to venture the 

 statement that any queen-rearer who uses 

 more than a hundred or two of bees in a 

 nucleus for mating a virgin queen is not 

 using the most economical plan. We sel- 

 dom put more than 100 bees, often less, into 

 our fertilizing- boxes, which we shall this 

 season set out in large numbers; and if you 

 happen our way, come cut and see for your- 

 self. Queens fly fn m these boxes just as 

 freely as from a full colony, and mate as 

 promptly. I might say that full-sized frames 

 are out of place in a modern queen-mating 

 yard run with the best economy. 



Swarthmore, Pa., Dec. 15. 



[Mr. Pratt has certainly been up to date, 

 and perhaps even a little ahead of the 

 times, in his methods of rearing queens. I 

 believe it was he who first suggested mak- 

 ing the cell-cups under pressure with a 

 suitable die; and while he was not the orig- 

 inator of wooden cell cups, he may have 

 been the first to put them into any thing 

 like extensive use. 



Regarding grafting, it may be necessary 

 to paint only the inside of the cups with 

 royal jelly; but whether it is or not, it does 

 not take any longer to put in a drop than it 

 does to smear the inside to give it the prop- 

 er smell. 



There may be an advantage in having 

 the wooden cups with a flange; but as we 

 work, I can see no advantage. Of course, 

 it is possible to pull out a cell on the Pratt 

 plan without lifting a frame; but when one 

 removes the frame he can take a pick of the 

 best; or he can discard those that have been 



rejected, and substitute others in their place 

 much quicker than he could pull out the 

 flanged wooden cups one by one to deter- 

 mine which ones of the number have been 

 rejected or were in any way defective. 



Mr. Pratt is to be congratulated for so 

 persistently advocating the possibility of 

 queens being fertilized in small nuclei. We 

 have heard from a couple of good breeders 

 who have succeeded with small lots of bees, 

 but not with original nuclei hanging on 

 stakes as Mr. Pratt first described. It 

 was these that some of our subscribers test- 

 ed; and if friend Pratt could have heard 

 some of their comments, he would not have 

 felt flattered to say the least. But not all 

 good ideas are successful the first time. 

 During the process of evolution there are 

 necessarily more or less changes to be made 

 until success is finally secured. — Ed.] 



FURIOUS ROBBING. 



Prevention Better than Cure ; the Porter Bee- 

 escape, and How it may Prevent Trouble 

 and Stings. 



BY WM. M'EVOY. 



Last season, while driving up a farmer's 

 lane in a locality where the honey-flow had 

 come to a sudden stop about: the last of July, 

 I saw the owner of some 60 colonies of bees 

 and his help taking off his crop cf honey, 

 and bringing it into a woodshed where the 

 bees were entering almost every part of the 

 building, and in there the extractor was 

 kept moving at a lively rate, and so were 

 the bees and every thing else. The day 

 being extremely warm, and the bees not 

 finding any honey in the fields to gather, 

 they looked well after what the farmer was 

 taking away from them. I had sent the 

 livery horse a long distance away to be tied ; 

 but when I saw the raging storm of angry 

 bees robbing and trying to sting every thing 

 that came in sight I dreaded the bees hunt- 

 ing up the horse and causing a runaway, 

 and rig for me to pay for. These fine peo- 

 ple kindly offered to get me a veil. I thank- 

 ed them, and said that I did not need one, 

 as I always protected myself with a good 

 smoker, and had not worn a veil in over 25 

 years. At last the bees became master of 

 the situation, and put every one out of bus- 

 iness. 



I advised the bee-keeper to get the real 

 Porter bee- escapes, and in the evening to 

 put one under each super; and in the sec- 

 ond evening after he would find the bees 

 practically all out of the supers; and then 

 in the evening, when all was quiet, remove 

 all the supers to a good tight room and do 

 the extracting there. 



I live right in the center of a village 

 where I keep about 200 colonies; and just 

 as soon as I find the bees inclined to rob I 

 put the Porter bee- escapes under the supers 

 and then take off the supers after the bees 

 have gone down, and don't have any rob- 



