836 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 1 



to answer. I think, however, I would favor 

 the plan that is already put out by the com- 

 mittee.— Ed.] 



Baby nuclei "will not prove to be satis- 

 factory unless they have brood, a little feed- 

 ing, and they must be handled without any 

 smoke the greater part of the time, ' ' page 

 792. Is there any need to use smoke any of 

 the time? They're about as gentle as so 

 many flies, even if the colonies from which 

 they are taken are not noted for gentleness. 

 If, as a rare thing, one of them should resent 

 interference, just hold right still for a few 

 seconds till their minds have time to clear. 

 I saw Adam Grimm do that years ago with 

 nuclei not much larger than the ones now so 

 prominently before us. Brood and a little 

 feeding will no doubt help and hasten mat- 

 ters, but never a brood nor a food have they 

 had from me, and they have by no means 

 been failures. Very likely, with brood and 

 food there would be quicker work and fewer 

 failures, and one who has plenty of time 

 can use them. If one is very busy it may be 

 cheaper to have a larger number of nuclei, 

 and save the time and bother of brood and 

 food. I wonder if you've tried it without 

 brood or food at Medina. [Yes, sir, 'e; but 

 much better results are secured with brood 

 and feeding; and, besides, the beginner or 

 the person who has never tried these baby 

 nuclei should have favoring conditions to 

 start with at least. We have succeeded 

 without brood, but do not believe the aver- 

 age person could. — Ed.] 



Bro. Doolittle, you are entitled to cred- 

 it for the discovery of the law that from 11 

 to 1 a queen is on one of the two outside 

 combs of brood, if there is such a law, and 

 I have no proof that there is not. But it 

 doesn't seem that you make any use of your 

 knowledge of the law, for your instructions 

 on page 794 are to look carefully over each 

 frame in order through the whole hive. 

 Now, if there are only two frames in the 

 whole hive on which the queen should be 

 found, why not quietly lift out those two 

 frames at the start, and save the time of 

 handling the others? Then it will be time 

 enough to look over the other combs after- 

 ward in the exceptional cases where the 

 queen is on one of the central combs. [Nei- 

 ther have I any proof that Mr. Doolittle is 

 not right. But it seems to me the queen is 

 liable to be anywhere in the hive where 

 there is room for her to lay. It may be on 

 the one side or the other, or in the center. 

 My rule is to look for fresh-laid eggs. She 

 seems to make a sort of progress, moving 

 slowly from one comb to another. If there 

 are very young larvje in one comb, and eggs 

 in the next one, she may be on this comb; 

 but if not, on the next one. I shall be glad 

 to believe that our friend is right, and would 

 therefore like to get reports from our sub- 

 scribers who have made this subject a mat- 

 ter of careful observation. —Ed.] 



Dr. E. F. Phillips says, p. 802, "As is 

 well known, a young virgin queen is normal- 

 ly accepted without any difficulty by any 



colony which has been queenless long enough 

 to know its queenless condition." Quite 

 true; but is it the whole truth? Is it not 

 true that a virgin young enough will be ac- 

 cepted in any colony? That truth, if it is a 

 truth, is a discovery of my own, and one is 

 likely to be partial to one's own babies, so I 

 should like to know if others have found any 

 exception to the rule that a virgin less than 

 a day old (I'm not certain about the exact 

 age— it may be a little more or less than 

 that) will be accepted in any colony, queen- 

 less or not. I've tried it many, many times, 

 and I think there has been no exception as 

 yet. When a virgin is under a day old, the 

 bees don't seem to think there is any thing 

 unusual about her— they treat her with in- 

 difl:'erence. If put into a hive with a laying 

 queen, she has been accepted with the usual 

 indift'erence. After she has become a little 

 older, the bees seem to discover that she is 

 of royal blood with aspirations; and if their 

 queen is all right the virgin will be killed. 

 If their queen is one that they desire to su- 

 persede, the virgin is cherished and treated 

 with the respect due to royalty. I have 

 given a baby virgin to a colony with laying 

 workers, and in due time she monopolized 

 the egg business. The fact that no one has 

 as yet disputed my statements made several 

 times in the past few years makes me some- 

 what hopeful that there are no exceptions to 

 the rule; but I'd like to have the observa- 

 tion of others. The rule is of value if true 

 —handy for laying workers; and when I 

 take a laying queen from a nucleus I always 

 drop in a baby virgin if I have one. [You 

 may be right; but it seems to me that a very 

 young virgin receives some sort of attention 

 more than the average young bee. I think 

 you are right that even bees that are queen- 

 less will not be hostile toward the young 

 mother to-be. —Ed.] 



yVeieJiborjJleldj 



55 



Revue Eclectique says if the leaves of ab- 

 sinthe be rubbed on the hands the bees will 

 not alight on them, as they have a great 

 aversion to that plant. If swarms are in 

 the habit of alighting on certain inconven- 

 ient limbs, this plant, if rubbed on the 

 bark, will repel them. 



A Holland-Dutch bee-journal says a very 

 nice varnish for furniture can be made by 

 dissolving propolis in alcohol and then strain- 

 ing it. By the way, who has ever made a 

 quotation on propolis by the pound? Per- 

 haps many a nice penny is flung away on 

 this rather troublesome substance. As Dr. 



