JULY 1, 1916 



525 



on the seaside, and sight along miles of 

 towering cabbage palmettoes on the main- 

 land side. It does seem that.no number of 

 bees could ever cull all the blossoms that 

 must open along the Indian River when 

 mangrove and cabbage palmetto are both in 

 bloom. The honey is thus always mixed, 

 never pure or separate. But each is a light 

 honey, which is fortunate, or else the light 

 would inevitably be spoiled by the dark. 

 The blend is a good honey. 



THE " HONEY " METHOD OP INTRODUCING. 



Whenever I hear a beeman telling a new 

 or retelling an old method of introducing 

 queens I always " sit up and take notice." 

 I do more. I begin to ask him questions. 

 And the first question is, " Will it introduce 

 a virgin queen ? " If he says yes, then you 

 may be sure I always try the method at the 

 first opportunity. When the Miller method 

 of using smoke was being agitated, of course 

 that method had a good trial in my apiaries. 

 And while I did succeed in introducing 

 virgins to nuclei occasionally (tho seldom to 

 full colonies) the one troublesome but essen- 

 tial feature of that method, viz., the neces- 

 sity of having not more than a one-story 

 hive, made it almost impossible for me to 

 use it when I wished to do most of my in- 

 troducing, for that is right in the midst of 

 the orange-honey flow, when hives are often 

 three stories high. To take off the two 

 supers, reduce to one story, and then smoke 

 the bees almost to suffocation, and do it all 

 with the supers piled up alongside, wait- 

 ing till the queen was in made it of little 

 IDractical use to me, tho it is a useful thing 

 to know, and have on hand for occasion. 

 Not long ago my good friend Mr. F. M. 

 Baldwin, now of Sanford, said to me, '' Did 

 you ever try the honey method? " When I 

 said no, he said further that he had obtain- 

 ed almost uniform success with it, and that 

 Mr. Clute, also of Sanford, used it almost 

 altogether, with uniform success. Well, 

 after such testimony I tried the method. 

 Tho I had heard of it before, I had been 

 rather afraid to daub the queen all over and 

 pour her into a hive, especially if she was 

 a valuable one; but J took the first oppor- 

 tunity, and tried it on a rather inferior tho 

 laying queen. All worked well. Inside of 

 a day she was laying. I then tried it on a 

 more valuable queen with the same result, 

 laying inside of a day. Then I went it one 

 better, and put it to the ultimate test. I 

 found a frame of fine virgins, just hatched, 

 and put one into each of three hives, de- 

 queening them at the same operation. All 

 three were accepted and mated all right. 

 Then I tried it on a colony that had been 



queenless for a week and had capped cells. 

 I did not even remove the cells. The next 

 day but one I looked into the hive, and was 

 suri^rised to note the cells still there. Of 

 course I gave the virgin up for lost. I was 

 just placing the hive back in position when 

 I noted the virgin running brisklj' over one 

 edge of the comb, dodging under the bottom- 

 bars. She looked as vigorous as any queen 

 need to. While I could not account for the 

 presence still of the capped cells, yet the 

 introduction of the virgin was an assured 

 fact. I next tried it on colonies that were 

 dequeened at the operation, but introducing 

 virgins two or three days old that had been 

 caged in queenless colonies ever since being 

 hatched. I have yet to report the first fail- 

 ure. The method seems sure. It is easy ; 

 and, tho a little fussy, if you call pouring 

 a bit of honey over the combs fussy, still it 

 is far less bother, and takes less time than 

 any other method that I have ever tried — 

 even the smoke method; and instead of be- 

 ing painful to the inmates of the hive it is 

 pleasant and soothing, for there is about 

 half a teacupful of honey poured in at the 

 operation, the queen being soused well into 

 the cup beforehand, and all poured together 

 into the top of the hives. Watch till you 

 see her rolling over and over down among 

 the frames in a sticky mass of sweetness, 

 and your heart will fail you at first; but 

 when you see that same queen laying the 

 next day, and looking as bright and clean as 

 if she had had a fresh-water bath, your 

 fears will never recur. I shall continue to 

 give this method severe testing; and if it 

 works as well as it appears so far to do I 

 shall be mightily obliged to my good friend 

 who called my attention anew to an old 

 device. I should like to have others try it 

 and report. 



ANSWERING INQUIRIES. 



For several weeks I have been deluged 

 with letters of inquiry regarding honey con- 

 ditions in Florida, and iiossibilitiej for bee- 

 keeping here. Most of the letters contained 

 no stamps for reply. I will take this op- 

 portunity to state that I cannot promise 'o 

 answer all letters, even when they do con- 

 tain stamps, nor many of them, at times of 

 special work with the bees; but those that 

 seem to contain questions that are apt, per- 

 tinent to statewide conditions, or right to 

 the point on some special location, I will try 

 to answer in this department in so far, at 

 least, as I can. In this way a wider circle 

 will be reached, the replies will be put on 

 record, and when, in a few weeks or months, 

 Ihe same inquiries are made again (as they 

 surely will be), I can simply refer them to 

 Gleanings, such and such a date. 



