1911 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



267 



Conversations with 

 Doolittle 



At Borodino 



EARLY DRONES. 



"I wish to rear some early queens before 

 the drones of black and hybrid bees kept by 

 my neighbors begin to fly. How can I se- 

 cure drones early from my best drone moth- 

 ers, for my queens?" 



I doubt the wisdom of trying to rear 

 queens before there are any flowers in bloom 

 or before the colonies are strong enough or 

 the hives fairly well filled with bees and 

 brood; and by that time some of your neigh- 

 bors' colonies are likely to have drones also. 

 Queens reared out of season are generally of 

 poor value — so much so that it is better to 

 sacrifice the purity rather than have queens 

 of inferior quality. As a general rule I would 

 advise waiting for strong colonies before 

 commenciog. 



Where one wishes to rear reasonably 

 good queens just as soon as sucti work 

 can possibly be done I have found the fol- 

 lowing method as good as any: In the fall, 

 select the queen or queens you wish for your 

 drone-breeder, and give to her or to their col- 

 onies the bees from some weaker ones early 

 in October, having killed the queens of 

 these weaker colonies about a week before 

 uniting. See that there are two drone combs 

 in the center of the brood-chamber of these 

 united colonies, with two combs of worker- 

 cells between them, and that stores enough 

 have been provided to last until the follow- 

 ing May. 



As soon as it is out of its winter quarters, 

 the colony should be made as warm as pos- 

 sible, and should be given a teacupfui of 

 warmed syrup in a feeder each evening. 

 For this purpose a division-board feeder is 

 preferable, as this can be brought right up 

 to the cluster, and the syrup will warm the 

 bees and enable them to take the feed, even 

 if the weather should be quite cool. If you 

 can take a few bees at this time from some 

 strong colony, keep them in a comfortable 

 room for two days, and then unite them 

 with your drone colony just at night by let- 

 ting them run out of the confining-box into 

 the hive through a little hole in the cover- 

 ing on top. These bees will cause the queen 

 to be fed for drone eggs much sooner than 

 otherwise, thus favoring the early depositing 

 of eggs in the drone-cells. 



When you notice capped drone brood in 

 this colony, it is time to begin to rear queens. 

 Feed the drone colony during every cold or 

 rainy spell, and at all times when the bees 

 can not secure any thing from the fields; 

 otherwise the drones may be killed or your 

 drone brood dragged out, for all colonies 

 having good queens seem to realize that 

 drones are not needed so early in the sea- 

 son. 



As soon as the drone part seems to be a 



success, select the strongest colony, one 

 which should have its hive well filled with 

 bees and brood, and look over the frames 

 until you find the queen. Set the frame 

 having her on one side w'hile you fit in a 

 sheet of queen-excluding metal near the cen- 

 ter of the hive, this sheet fitting so closely 

 that it will be impossible for the queen to 

 get around it, or she may get in with the 

 cells and destroy them. Put that part hav- 

 ing the younger brood on one side and the 

 older brood on the other, taking care that 

 the frame with the queen is near the older 

 brood. Twenty-four hours later, take out a 

 frame from the side opposite the queen; 

 shake the bees off, and give it to some other 

 colony if it has brood in it, allowing one 

 fanue of brood to come betw^een the exclud- 

 er and the empty space made by taking 

 out this frame. Next prepare a stick of 

 cell-cups from your best breeder for queens 

 and place it in the space referred to, and the 

 bees will go on and perfect the cells just the 

 same as if an upper story were used later on, 

 with an excluder between it and the brood- 

 nest below, as is the usual custom. If there 

 is an abundance of bees to cover the entire 

 length of this stick of cell-cups, you should 

 get from twelve to eighteen perfected cells 

 from the twenty cups given; but if ten are 

 perfected you will have no reason to com- 

 plain. 



As soon as the queen-cells are ripe, nuclei 

 should be prepared to receive them, or, any 

 colonies with poor queens which were not 

 superseded last fall could be used to advan- 

 tage by killing the queens three or four days 

 before the inmates from the cells emerge. 

 If you use only very small larvie, or those 

 not more than tw^enty-four hours old, for 

 grafting the cells they will become ripe in 

 eleven days, or in ten days where those from 

 thirty-six to forty-eight hours old are used. 

 By a little close watching of a larva for the 

 first forty-eight hours after the egg hatches 

 you will soon be able to tell its age by glanc- 

 ing into the cells. If there are not enough 

 colonies in the apiary having poor queens to 

 take all of the ripe cells, it is better to di- 

 vide a colony or tw^o into nuclei rather than 

 keep them without a good laying queen at 

 this time of the year w^hen the eggs that are 

 being deposited are needed to render the 

 colonies prosperous for the clover harvest of 

 honey. 



Then, too, colonies used for protecting 

 virgin queens at this time of the year, from 

 the time the ripe cells are given until the 

 young queens begin laying — which should 

 be about fifteen days — are very much im- 

 paired for good results in the harvest. The 

 queen emerges from the ripe cells in from 

 five to fifteen hours after the cell is given to 

 the colony; then it will be from seven to 

 nine days before she goes out to meet the 

 drone, and from two to three days more be- 

 fore she begins laying. During these twelve 

 or fifteen days a good queen, ir undisturbed, 

 would lay eggs enough to make all the 

 difference betw^een a good crop of honey and 

 a poor one. 



