114 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Feb. 15 



Rearing a Queen above an Excluder with which to 

 Supersede Old Queens. 



Do you think it advisable to requeen by rearing a 

 queen above the excluder, and then allowing her 

 to go below into the brood-nest? Which of the two 

 queens would survive? I see some writers say both 

 would live in the same brood-nest. 



New Castle, Col., Jan. 2. S. R. Stewart. 



[Under some conditions it is possible to requeen 

 above queen-excluding zinc, in the manner you in- 

 dicate; but as a general thing you will find it much 

 more practicable to rear the queens in separate nu- 

 clei, remove the old queen, and introduce the new 

 one. The difliculty with the plan of rearing queens 

 above the excluder is that there is almost sure to 

 be a battle royal between the old queen and the 

 younger one. While the latter will be the probable 

 victor, she might be the one to be destroyed. Whtn 

 queens grapple in a mortal combat, there is some 

 element of chance. The one that gets the best 

 hold, or, to use the parlance of the day, 'the drop 

 on the other fellow," is the one that is the winner. 

 Or. to put it another way, the queen that gets the 

 best grab, so that she can deliver her sting, will be 

 the victor whether she be the older or the younger. 

 In a battle between a virgin queen and a queen in 

 the height of her egg-laying, the odds will be, as a 

 rule, in favor of the former.] 



Mclntyre's Hive-weighing Device, 



Mr. Mclntye has sent me a drawing of a weigh- 

 ing-device as shown below. He says it weighs but 

 5 lbs., and that with it he can weigh 100 colonies in 

 less than an hour. It certainly looks good, and 

 those who practice weighing their hives each fall 

 might well investigate its merits. 



sometimes go t a-o miles, and even three when the 

 nectar-yielding blossoms are distributed evenly 

 over the distance, they will rarely go over an ob- 

 struction 1000 feet feet high, and a mile or a mile 

 and a half beyond. 



Some plants yield nectar only rarely when condi- 

 tions are just right. It is hardly probable that 

 your bees were gathering honey-dew from the hlo.s- 

 soms. Real honey-dew. when present, is found all 

 over every thing. If the bees were working on the 

 blossoms and not on the leaves, you may rest as- 

 sured they were after nectar rather than honey- 

 dew.— Ed,] 



A Colony Wintered in a Warm Room with an 

 Entrance out of Doors Gave Fine Kesulls. 



Mr. Root:— I note what you say on the subject of 

 indoor wintering of bees, page 764, Dec. 1. My expe- 

 rience does not agree with yours. My best test was 

 made in the winter of 1907. On July 25, 1907, I took 

 a colony of medium-strength Italian bees, divided 

 them five frames each, giving each division a young 

 Italian queen. I put one colony in the house in a 

 small room off the main part of the house, the other 

 one in the back lot. Beginning July 25 I led each 

 of them 54 pint of syrup each evening for ten days. 

 They both built up. filling each ten-frame hive well 

 with bees and plenty of stores for winter. The one 

 in the lot 1 packed in a chaflF'case in November. 



The colony in the house had an entrance 2x5'8, al- 

 ways open. The main part of the house kept from 

 55 to 70 degrees: but the room where the bees were 

 was about lu degrees cooler. They did not consume 

 an extra amount or food, as you report, as I took 

 from them in March two full frames of honey, sub- 

 stituting frames with full sheets of foundation in- 

 stead, and took the same amount from the colony 



M'INTYRB'S HIVE-Wf;iGHIN(; DEVICE. 



The directions for use are, briefly, as follows: 

 Take it on one hand as you would a fire-shovel, and 

 slip it under the hive. Press down on the han- 

 dle until the hive is raised clear from the hive- 

 stand, and it will give the correci weight. 



Mt. Joy. Ontario, Can. J. L. Byer. 



Will Bees Cross a Mountain in Search of Honey? 



Will some one inform me whether bees will cross 

 a mountain varying in height from 500 to 1000 feet. 

 and a mile to a mile and a half in width, in search 

 of honey-yielding blossoms? I live in a hollow at 

 the foot of a mountain of this description, the two 

 points extending about a mile toward the west, and 

 being about a mile apart. My bees can fly west- 

 ward as far as they please, without crossing a 

 mountain, but are fenced in by mountains on the 

 north, east, and south. 



HONEY FROM DOGWOOD-BLOSSOMS. 



In the spring of 1901 I noticed bees working on 

 dogwood-blossoms on a tree in my front yard. They 

 worked there several days. I had never seen bees 

 work on these blossoms before, neither have I no- 

 ticed them since. I thought perhaps there was 

 honey-dew on the blossoms. 



Iluntsville, Ala., .Ian. 6. H. M. Webster. 



fit is our opinion that bees would not cross the 

 mountain, especially if it were a mile or a mile and 

 a half across it. If you desire to get the benefit of 

 any flora on the other side you had better move a 

 part of the bees over. As a general thing, bees will 

 not fly over a mile and a half. While they will 



outdoors, also giving frames with foundation in 

 stead. 



In April the house colony seemed to have double 

 the number of bees, and the results during the sea- 

 son were fully double those of one out of doors, ow- 

 ing, I am persuaded, to their strength early in the 

 season. The house colony produced 222 sections of 

 fine honey, and I took from them seven nuclei that 

 built up all right for winter. 



One thing I observed closely, and made careful 

 noie of. The house bees never took a flight on any 

 day nor earlier in the day than the outdoor bees; 

 and on one occasion the latter came out an hour 

 earlier in the day. t^om my experience I believe 

 it profitable to put bees in a room or house kept 

 from 50 to 60 degrees, with the entrance open to out- 

 door air. 



Urbana, O. O. J. JONES. 



Two Bad Cases of Laying Workers. 



The past season, for the first tii e in my fifteen 

 years of bee-keeping I had two pronounced cases of 

 laying workers. Colony No. 22, at the beginning of 

 the honey-flow, had no less than 47 capped queen- 

 cells. Of course, I expected that a swarm would be 

 cast; but on examining the combs a few days later 

 I found all the cells destroyed and a fine young 

 queen present. I supposed then that every thing 

 was all right: but on making another examination 

 a week later I found the young queen was gone, so 

 I introduced another one, in a mailing-cage, in the 

 regular way. At first she was accepted; but a few 

 days later the bees again got rid of her. I had no 



