GLEANINGS IK BEE CULTURE 



as far apart as i3ossible, with the entrances 

 contracted with different contrivances to 

 help the queen find the location, were queen- 

 less most of the time. I could not explain 

 the reason, but now I can. The last contro- 

 versy about the matter enlightned me fully, 

 and the exi^erience confirms it. 



The answer to the query on p. 536 is, 

 " Normal conditions/' as in the case of su- 

 persedure. 



Mr. Beuhne says, p. 535, " Early in the 

 spring I exchange queens between colonies 

 liaving a three-year-old queen and nuclei 

 with previous season's queens." Would he 

 or you please ex^Dlain the modus operandif 

 It may be quite plain to experts, but I 

 should be thankful for details. By the by, 

 tliis three-year-old-queen business does not 

 confirm last paragraph on page 518. 



If " hives are tiered up three and four 

 stories high without a queen-excluder ,'' how 

 is the extracting managed? No brood in 

 the top stories? How is one sure where the 

 queen is? How are the supers taken from 

 the hives — by using Porter escapes or brush- 

 ing the bees from the combs? How about 

 the lower stories having combs full of hon- 

 ey at the sides? Is there any entire absence 

 of drone comb in the upper stories? 



Mr. Beuhne says, p. 535, " These are, of 

 course, the best colonies, and the general 

 average for the 100 colonies in this apiary." 

 How is it that out of eight colonies in this 

 apiary not less than five colonies are num- 

 bered over the one hundred — viz., 260, 248, 

 205, 127, and 256? 



In the spring Mr. Beuhne expects the 

 queen to lay in at least two stories; there- 

 fore, before that, she is confined to one story. 

 As the colonies are tiered later three and 

 four stories high, where and how does he 

 keep so many empty combs? I have no- 

 ticed the instructions given on pp. 547 and 

 486. This is a perplexing question with me, 

 and one of long standing. Although I can 

 not practice the freezing part, for obvious 

 reasons, I thought that combs kept from 

 the moths would last indefinitely, being 

 made of wax. Two galvanized tanks of 250 

 and 150 gallons each were properly packed 

 to the top with the combs, carbon bisulphide 

 applied at intervals, and the tanks properly 

 covered. But the combs crumbled, disinte- 

 grated, and turned to earth in the end. Only 

 a heap of dust at the bottom of the tanks 

 and the stacks of wired frames was found. 

 The tanks were in the extracting-room. 

 Trinidad, B. W. I. 

 [Mr. Beuhne's reply follows. — Ed.] 



EXCHANGING QUEENS BETWEEN DIFFERENT 

 COLONIES 



BY F. R. BEUHNE 



In reply to Mr. Carmona, above, as to the 

 method of exchanging queens as mention- 

 ed in my article, Aug. 1, p. 535, there is 

 really very little to explain. A comb of 

 brood with the three-year-old queen on it is 

 taken from the colony and inserted in the 

 vacancy made in the nucleus by the removal 

 of a similar comb with the young laying 

 queen. The latter is then in turn put into 

 the vacant space between the brood-combs 

 of the colony. A small box is used to hold 

 one of the combs ar.d queen while the other 

 one is put into its place. This exchanging 

 of queens would, perhaps, be somewhat 

 risky if the bees in an apiary are demoral- 

 ized by robbing. I have not, however, had 

 a single failure. Of course, queens can be 

 exchanged by the introducing-cage method: 

 and when the nuclei contain frames of dif- 

 ferent size from the colonies it is the only 

 liossible way. I much prefer the other 

 method, as there is then no need of going 

 back to see whether the queen has been re- 

 leased and to remove the cage. 



queen-excluders; tiering up. 



In answer to the question, " If hives are 

 tiered up three and four stories high without 

 a ciueen-excluder, how is the extracting 

 managed?" I would say that the theory is to 

 let the queen have the free range of the 

 whole hive before the main honey-flow. At 

 the first extracting, the queen and the most 

 suitable brood-comb are put into the bottom 

 body with an excluder between it and the 

 upper stories. An exit is provided for 

 drones to escape from the upper stories to 

 avoid getting the excluder clogged with 

 dead drones. I admit this entails some extra 

 work and attention to details, but it is well 

 paid for by results. Inserting the queen- 

 excluder when extracting for the first time 

 is the best method for " an ordinary honey- 

 f^ow." If the flow is heavy, such as men- 

 tioned on pages 534, 535, Aug. 1, the ex- 

 cluder is not needed at all. The intake of 

 honey is so great that the queen is forced 

 down to the lower combs. No brood in top 

 stories? Yes, of course there is. Brood 

 from top stories is exchanged for combs of 

 honey in the lower chamber. Porter escapes 

 are not used by any one here so far as I 

 know. In two of my apiaries the very small 

 ants would be in before the bees get out of 

 the combs; and why go to a hive twice — 

 once to put the escape in, and then to take 

 the honey away when you can take the hon- 

 ey away at once in very little more time? 

 One frame is taken out and temporarily 



