APUIL 15, 1916 



309 



GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE 



HOW TO DO AND HOW NOT TO DO ; CLIPPING QUEENS 



BY R. P. HOLTERMANN 



When a beekeeper has only a few queens 

 (o clip, it is not a matter of very great im- 

 portance when the clipping is clone. For 

 instance, if hundreds of queens require to 

 be clipped it may not be advisable to wait 

 until fruit-bloom to do it, because, with 

 pi'obably unfavorable days there may not 

 be sufficient time to clip them all, and in 

 that ease T would begin to clip at any time 

 when the bees are gathering pollen -and 

 nectar freely. No reason has ever been 

 given, so far as I know, why it is more 

 injurious or risky to clip a queen during 

 the time of, say, maple-bloom in comparison 

 to apple-bloom ; and after having clipped 

 thousands of queens any time warm enough 

 for the bees to gather pollen and honey, 

 during a time ranging from early willow to 

 clover and beyond, I have not been able to 

 discover any ditference in results. The 

 longer a beginner waits after spring opens 

 to hunt the queen in a normal colony, the 

 stronger the colony will be, and the more 

 difficult it is to detect a queen. 



Before a beginner undertakes to clip a 

 queen, or even find her, I take it for granted 

 that he will have studied in literature the 

 appearance of a queen on the comb, and 

 have in his mind's eye just about what a 

 queen will look like. If the operator has 

 never seen a living queen, it is quite an 

 undertaking for him to find her, and I 

 should be disposed to advise setting an 

 empty hive in front of the old hive, with its 

 entrance toward the old hive. Upon this, 

 place a super, with a queen-excluder tacked 

 to the bottom of it. Upon shaking the bees 

 into this super from the combs in the hive 

 in which the queen is to be found, and final- 

 ly dumping the bees which remain in the 

 old hive into the super, the bees will soon 

 work their way thru the queen -excluder and 

 thru the entrance of the new hive back to 

 their brood and hive. In this they can be 

 gently driven with smoke. The worker bees 

 can go thru the queen-excluder, but the 

 drones (if any) and the queen cannot. In 

 this way a queen should be readily found. 

 I look into this super after shaking each 

 comb, or even glance over f'e combs before 

 shaking it, and frequently find her before 

 having half sliaken the combs; but it is not 

 well to spend much time over this. 



Difficult as it may be for a beginner who 

 is not a keen observer to find a queen the 



first time, it is still more difficult to catch 

 and clip her. There are generally other 

 bees about her that might sting. Let them 

 sting. Under the fingei-nail is a splendid 

 place to be inoculated. But we are also 

 genuinely afraid we might injure the queen. 

 This latter is, I believe, true of every be- 

 ginner. 



I shall take it for granted that the opera- 

 tor knows the difference between the head, 

 thorax, and abdomen of a queen. Some 

 queens are much more disposed to take wing 

 than others. Young queens are also much 

 more likely to fly than older queens. Where 

 a queon appears to be light-footed, and tries 

 to run about the comb and over other bees, 

 even moving her wings, be careful. She has 

 escape in mind ; and if one is not careful 

 she maj^ take wing any moment ; and if she 

 does I would not give much for the chance 

 of recovering her. If 'you want to make 

 reasonably sui'e that she will fly, chase her 

 with your thumb and finger, or blow a little 

 smoke on her. If the queen does take wing, 

 keep yourself and the comb in the position 

 in which you were when she flew, but the 

 chances are she was too excited, when she 

 took wing, to locate herself. After holding 

 a comb ten minutes, looking for the return 

 of the queen, I would not wait any longer. 



I have noticed students giving sharp puiTs 

 of smoke with the object of separating 

 worker bees and queen. This is bad prac- 

 tice, as it tends to make a queen take wing. 

 The least likely place for a queen to take 

 wing is when she is quiet and her feet are 

 on the comb. That is a place and attitude 

 where she can be picked up by the beekeep- 

 er with the least clanger. 



A queen should never be picked up by 

 the abdomen, as that is the most easily in- 

 jured part of the body. Many of us have 

 seen dents in the abdomen of a queen, just 

 as we have seen a dent in a tin pail. This 

 was the result of outside pressure, and it 

 never came out. Such a queen is generally 

 superseded. The queen must not, then, be 

 grasped by the abdomen ; but a queen can 

 safely be gTasped by the thorax. 



Some advise practicing clipping by tak- 

 ing drones. If a beginner can first see some 

 one else clipping queens it is quite a help. 



?Iolding the queen betwepn the thumb and 

 finger may be a long way from having her 

 in such a position that one can clip her 



