328 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



outfit is from four to eight tons of honey a 

 (la^r, and no attention whatever is reciuired. 



HIVES PAINTED INSIDE AND OT'T. 



The last few years I have painted my 

 hives on the inside as well as on the outside; 

 and after testing tlie ])lan for five years on 

 several hundred I find it jiays, as the boards 

 never warp out of true, and the bees don't 

 use much ])ropolis on the smooth white 

 paint surface. liees winter just as well, 

 seemingly, as in hives not ])ainted; but this 

 might not be true in a cold climate as re- 

 gards the ])revenlion of wari)ing. Just stop 

 and think of the elTect a large swarm of bees 

 must have on an unpainted hive while 

 evaporating honey until the moisture fairly 

 tiows out of the hives. Is it any wonder 

 that the hives warj) so? 



Riverside, ("al. 



A BEGINNER'S 



TROUBLE IN 

 QUEENS. 



INTRODUCING 



BY REV. GEO. A. WALTEK. 



In .July, fHU9, I decided to Italianize one of 

 my four colonies of hybrids; and as I did 

 not want to risk too much I ordered a select 

 tested Southern Italian queen. When she 

 arrived I shook the colony in front of the 

 hive and found two dark queens among the 

 bees. I took these (pieens into the house 

 and ])ut them imder a glass tumbler. The 

 moment they discovered each other there 

 i)egan a "battle royal," which lasted prob- 

 ably 80 seconds, when one stretched out, 

 stung to death. coiKjuered, while the other 

 ))romenaded around triumphantly, ai)i)ar- 

 ently feeling highly elated over her victory. 

 The new (pieen was introduced according to 

 directionson thecage. Inabout 4Nhoursshe 

 was released and accepted. Exactly three 

 weeks later I saw some very ])retty golden 

 liees among the dark hybrids at the entrance, 

 and in about seven weeks I had a colony of 

 l>ure Italians. I was as ])roud of that (pieen 

 in a way as I was of my twins in our house, 

 and again and again I brought her forth to 

 show her uuijesty to visiting friends, many 

 of them never having seen a bee-cjueen. 



In Sei)tember, while looking them over I 

 was surprised to find half a dozen or more 

 (jueen-cells all cai)i)e<l over in different parts 

 of the hive; but' my "beauty " was missing. 

 The hive was full of bees, so 1 thought I 

 must have overlooked her, and that they 

 were making ])rei)aration to swarm, so I cut 

 out all the cells. Later it dawned on me 

 that ])erhai)s my queen had died or was lost. 

 I shook the colony out, and, sure enough, 

 my (|ueen was gone. These bees went into 

 winter quarters queenless, and to the grave- 

 yard the following si)ring. 



During the winter I contracted for some 

 select tested Italian (pieens, some to come 

 in two-frame nuclei. One of these ((ueens I 

 wanted early in UtlO, to take the i)lace of a 

 poor queen in one of my other colonies of 

 hybrids which went into winter quarters 

 after having done nothing all summer. I 



received her early in April, and introduced 

 her by hanging the cage between the frames 

 in this weak colony, having removed the 

 dark (pieen first. After several days I found 

 her on one of the combs among the bees, 

 ai)i)arently contented. The weather contin- 

 ued quite cool, and about two weeks after- 

 ward a friend of mine told me he had seen a 

 small cluster of bees, several days before, 

 hanging on a hitch ing-post about a block 

 from my home, and that, ujmn investiga- 

 tion, he had found a fine Italian (pieen 

 among them. We went to my hive and 

 found the (jueen gone. She swarmed out, 

 a])parently because her family was too small. 

 The same day she was found dead on the 

 ground near the i)lace where the cluster had 

 hung. She hadn't laid a single egg before 

 she left the hive. The bees killed the next 

 queen. 1 bought some colonies of hybrids 

 just then, and out of one of these I took the 

 queen with a frame of brood and the li\e 

 bees on it, and transferred it to this stubborn 

 weak colony, putting it in the center of the 

 brood-nest. This i)laii worked all right, for 

 the colony began to build up at once. 



From the two-frame nuclei with the select 

 tested queens which I had purchased 1 de- 

 termined to raise my own (jiieens later in 

 the season, and Italianize my whole ajnary, 

 which had now increased to about lo colonies. 

 But in .luly the American foul brood hit my 

 ainary so hard that all but a few colonies be- 

 came badly diseased. Every effort to hatch 

 queens during this month failed, the tjiieen 

 larva^ dying, a))])arently, from the disease, 

 just as the worker larva^ died after the cells 

 were ca))i)ed over. 



I determined to make one more effort be- 

 fore the season ended, so I moved two of my 

 Italian nuclei, which were now strong eight- 

 frame colonies (with the disease in a milder 

 form) to an isolated location several miles 

 out. I built three two-frame "baby" hives, 

 and ordered three virgin queens. When 

 they came I shook bees from three of my 

 colonies into a wire-cloth box and took out 

 to this isolated ])lace. The baby hives (into 

 each of which I i)laced one frame tilled with 

 honey, and another partly filled with brood 

 and honey), I wet the bees and (jueens thor- 

 oughly so they could not lly, and dum])ed 

 about one-third of the lot, with one queen, 

 in front of each of the baby hives, letting 

 them rim in together. 



One week later I found a laying queen in 

 each one of these hives. I caged No. 1 suc- 

 cessfully: l)ut when I tried to catch No. 2 

 she took wing and flew out. Although I 

 waited a full hour she did not come back, so 

 I lost her. No. o I caged without any trouble. 

 One of these I introduced by the reliable 

 cage-and-candy method. She was received 

 all right, and was safe in the hive four days 

 later. However, I had ])ut the dark queen, 

 which I had removed from the colony to 

 which I introduced the Italian queen, in a 

 hive-body with two frames of brood and 

 bees, on a new stand not far away. A week 

 later I found this black rascal back doing 

 business at the old stand, and my young 



