79: 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15 



done in the same weak nucleus. Up to the 

 sealing- of the cells, and perhaps to the 

 emerg-ing- of the virgin from the cell, no col- 

 ony can be too strong in which to have the 

 work done. Will it do any better to have 

 the succeeding work done without a full 

 force of bees? You have succeeded at Me- 

 dina in getting queens fertilized with so 

 few bees that the whole force could be put 

 in the shipping-cage. But what kind of 

 work will such a queen do at laying? Do 

 you know any thing about it? I think that 

 they will be all right. Perhaps the wish 

 is father to the thought. At an3' rate I'll 

 probably know something about it some of 

 these days, for I have a queen which will 

 be tested in a full colony which was fertil- 

 ized and began laying with probably not 

 more than a dozen bees to give her aid and 

 comfort. 



I've had quite a number of queens fertil- 

 ized without any brood, and with only 

 enough bees to man fully a section of honey. 

 I used common hives. In a very few I used 

 two brood-combs containing a little honey. 

 In the others I used a section of honey in a 

 wide frame, either alone or with a dry 

 brood comb. From a colony with a laying 

 queen I took a frame of brood with adher- 

 ing bees, shook into the nucleus enough 

 bees to cover well the section, dropped in a 

 virgin not more than a day old, closed up 

 tight, and didn't open the entrance for 60 

 hours or more. 



" Wouldn't these bees, not being queen- 

 less, kill the virgin queen? " Not a bit of 

 it. A virgin queen will be kindly received 

 in any colony, even one with a laying 

 queen, if the virgin be young enough. (If a 

 laying queen is present the virgin is likely 

 to be killed after she is two or three days 

 old). It's less trouble to give a ripe cell, 

 and so far I like it fully as well. 



I think the queens are slower about lay- 

 ing than with stronger nuclei, but the loss- 

 es are hardly more, up to the time of lay- 

 ing. But unless confined by excluder, the 

 young queen is likely to skip soon after be- 

 ginning to lay. 



A curious thing is that robbers do not 

 trouble these diminutive colonies, although 

 trying to get under the covers of strong col- 

 onies. Only one of the little fellows has 

 been robbed out, and that may have been 

 after absconding. The reason may be the 

 smallness of the entrance, and the great 

 distance from the entrance to the section of 

 honey. [It is to be feared that you and 

 some others of our readers have formed some 

 misconceptions regarding these miniature 

 nuclei and the scope of their usefulness. 

 See editorial elsewhere. 



I will say right here that these little lots 

 of bees will not prove to be satisfactory un- 

 less they have brood, a little feeding, and 

 they must be handled without smoke the 

 greater part of the time. 



Queens lay in our miniature nuclei quite 

 promptly — no slower, I think, than in the 

 larger ones. Note the important requisites 

 in the use of these little mating-boxes. 



A year ago, when we used smoke in 

 opening these little boxes we had some 

 trouble from robbing; but it may be that 

 these small lots of bees are too insignificant 

 to attract very much attention. We have 

 had only one case of robbing from them, 

 and then it was when an inexperienced 

 operator went to handling them over with 

 smoke. — Ed.] 



|S yrorr) Oi& 



By 



Wi 



35 



Bienen Zeitung says that, as the queen 

 lays only worker eegs the first year of her 

 life, the finest combs are such as are made 

 by first-3'ear queens. 



Bienen Zuechtei- says fermented pollen is 

 often the cause of spring troubles among 

 bees. A writer says a bottle of good bee- 

 feed, in which a few drops of fruit brandy 

 have been mixed, will cure the trouble. 

 Quite likely the efficacy of the brandy is all 

 imagination; but if confined to the bees the 

 risk is not great. 



U/ 



Some new way to destroy ants comes up 

 with commendable regularity. A German 

 writer says, in Bienen Ztiechter, if a hole 

 is made in an ant-hill, and a lump of cam- 

 phor put in and tamped over, the ants will 

 seek new quarters. A good dose of borax 

 poured in will answer the same purpose, 

 and costs practically nothing. At times 

 ants are annoying to bees, and their hil- 

 locks are unsightly at best. 



A writer for a German bee journal, liv- 

 in Calabria, Italy, says he has for years 

 used lemons to attract swarms. He says, 

 " Our bee-keepers attract their swarms in 

 a few minutes, and get them where they 

 wish, be it in a log, a hive, a box, or even 

 in their hat. To do this they simply rub 

 some bits of lemon or lemon leaves in the 

 places designed for swarms. Some use es- 

 sence of lemon." There's no doubt that 

 bees like the odor of lemons. Who doesn't? 



A friend wisely suggests that, if some of 

 the energy that is now used to get editors 

 to recant who have been guilty of saj'ing 

 that comb honey is mostly manufactured 

 could be used in informing said editors be- 

 forehand in regard to the facts, the canard 

 would not see the light so often. It occurs 

 to me that, if the General Manager of the 

 National would put this whole matter in 

 the form of a pamphlet, illustrating fully 

 the use of foundation, and giving a history 

 of the canard in question, and send a copy 



