September, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN B K E CULTURE 



(179 



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GFEXPERIE 



Conversations with Doolittle 



''I have a colony which has heon (jueenless 

 for several weeks. Will the inslnu'tions for 

 introtlueing sent with the caiie be applicable 

 to such colonies as this one?" 



It is doubtful if the instructions sent by 

 most breeders of queens for their safe intro- 

 ductiou would be applicable to such a case. 

 Some years ago a man in Canada ordered 

 one of my best breeding queens, and asked 

 for a plan of safe introduction. I wrote 

 him, telling him how I generally succeeded, 

 also how to put the cage on the combs, etc.. 

 giving all the items which I considered 

 necessary. A week or so later he wrote 

 telling me tliat lie had lost her in trying to 

 introduce her, and incidentally mentioned 

 that he inti'oduced her to a colony that had 

 been queenless for three or four weeks, and 

 asked what I sui)posed was the trouble. I 

 suppose his colony had a queen or some- 

 thing it was cherishing as a queen. He did 

 not say whetlier or not he had given this 

 'Colony unsealed brood at different times 

 dining the time they had been queenless; 

 but from the tone of his letter I judged that 

 he had not. And so in answering this 

 question I wish to call particular attention 

 to and to emphasize this thought : Never 

 try to introduce a queen to a colony which 

 has been long queenless without first giving 

 such a colony unsealed brood, so as to know" 

 to a certainty that they are queenless. Ac- 

 cording to very many letters during the 

 past, asking about the loss of queens in in- 

 troducing, I am led to believe tliat more 

 queens are lost in trying to introduce them 

 to supposedlv queenlass colonies than from 

 all other causes put together. 



But I think I hear some one asking, "How 

 shall I know to a certainty that a colony 

 has or has not a queen, by simply putting 

 in unsealed brood?" In all of my experi- 

 ence, covering more than forty years, I find 

 that any colony not having laying w'orkers, 

 or an unfertile queen, will always start 

 queen-cells on brood given them. Even 

 with laying workers, the bees will sometim:s 

 start queen-cells; but where eggs are scat- 

 tered about in the cells promiscuously 

 among the brood given, after three or four 

 days iiave elapsed, it is easy to know that 

 such liees have something they are tolerating 

 as a queen. As a rule, one might about 

 as well try to get a queen into a colony 

 that has a laying queen as to try to intro- 

 duce one to a colony having laying workers ; 



and colonies being without a queen for 

 tlu-ee or four weeks are quite likely to 

 have such workers. If a colony builds 

 (lueen-cells, and no eg-gs are visible among 

 the brood given, after four days, it is 

 safe to assume that it is queenless, and 

 that, if the right amount of care is used, a 

 fertile queen may be successfully intro- 

 duced. But if a colony does not start 

 queen-cells on brood given it, it is a danger- 

 ous undertaking to try to introduce a queen. 



HOW TO KEEP DRONES THRU SEPTEMBER. 



Another party wishes me to tell how to 

 keep drones until late in the season for the 

 mating of queens reared late, in localities 

 w-here there is not a fall honey-flow. In 

 this locality it is often the case that colonies 

 do not rear drones after bass\vood ceases to 

 secrete nectar. For this reason, at the close 

 of the basswood honey harvest I go to each 

 hive having my drone-breeding queens and 

 take all the drone brood they have and mass 

 it together in one hive, generally carrying 

 the bees on each frame along with the brood. 

 This brood thus collected makes that hive 

 two, three, or four stories high, according 

 to the amount of drone brood found. The 

 more of this brood that I find in the egg 

 and larval form, the better I am pleased, as 

 this brood will not be out of the cells for 

 nearly a month, so that these last will be in 

 full vigor during September, which month 

 is as late as good queens can well be reared. 

 Before massing this drone brood over the 

 colony, which should always be a very 

 l^opulous one in worker bees, the queen 

 should be taken away, as only queenless 

 colonies will keep drones after the honey- 

 flow is over. The colony is then allowed to 

 rear a queen of its own ; and as soon 

 as she gets to laying she should be taken 

 out, and the bees allowed to rear another 

 queen from her brood, and so on, thus keep- 

 ing the bees in a queenless state, or rearing 

 queens all the time. If this precaution is 

 not taken the drones we are trying to pre- 

 serve will be killed off as soon as a queen 

 has been laying long enough so that larvae 

 have hatched. If, by being kept thus queen- 

 less, the colony becomes weak in worker 

 bees, brood should be given them from other 

 colonies so as to keep them strong enough. 

 Such a colony of drones requires much 

 honey, for each drone fills up on honey 

 every time it leaves the hive for a flight, 

 which is every pleasant day after it be- 

 comes of suitable age. There is generally 



