MAY, 1920 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



279 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



body and set above a queen-excluder, over 

 a good strong colony with a laying quecii. 

 In place of the laying-worker brood-combs 

 there are given at least four or five combs 

 of brood, larvae, and eggs, from normal colo- 

 nies, the queenless colonies being allowed 

 to build cells which are destroyed nine days 

 later when a laying queen is introduced. 



In looking thru a hive to find the queen 

 I have been most successful by first remov- 

 ing two frames from the center of the hive 

 and leaving them outside while examining 

 the balance of the frames with this large 

 g;ip in between. This works especially well 

 with hives like the Long Idea and with 

 queens that are not inclined to leave the 

 lirood while the combs are being examined. 

 Those queens that are inclined to leave the 

 brood when the combs are examined may 

 usually be headed off by removing the two 

 frames of brood from each end of the brood- 

 nest (not the hive), then looking over the 

 combs from each end of the brood-nest and 

 working toward the center. 



My winter cases are used to house my 

 two-frame nuclei. A half of a box is made, 

 having a removable cover and lacking one 

 side, to hold two frames with the necessary 

 bee-spaces but allowing one inch below the 

 frames to give room for any queen-cells that 

 may stick out below the frames. Such a 

 half of a box is nailed on to the inside wall 

 of the winter cases and a half-inch hole 

 bored thru the case wall and a small en- 

 trance board nailed on the outside bottom 

 of the hole. Sacks of packing are placed 

 next to the nucleus for protection. When 

 the nuclei are no longer needed the half 

 boxes are removed and the hole in the win- 

 ter case well closed up for the winter. 



With this system there are no colonies to 

 watch and feed daily; no larvae to transfer; 

 no loose cells to handle; no cells exposed to 

 the weather; no cells to cage; also, all cells 

 are built during a honey flow. 



You may call this a lazy man 's system if 

 you wish. At this season of the year my 

 time is too valuable to do any unnecessary 

 fussing, the value of which is doubtful. To 

 me this is a valuable short cut in case one 

 has no foul brood but a good strain of bees 

 to begin with, and practices annual requeen- 

 ing with all but the best colonies. 



Greenville, Wis. Edw. Hassinger, Jr. 



Comments on Hassinger 's Method. 

 [In this article Mr. Hassinger has shown 

 some short cuts in requeening that are well 

 worth considering. The weeding out each 

 season of all but the best queens is in it- 

 self a long stride towards successful honey- 

 production, and the plan of utilizing the 

 winter cases and packing in making up mat- 

 ing boxes will appeal to those who realize 

 the importance of keeping the queen-cells 

 warm at hatching time; but I would like 

 to caution beginners that to have 50 per 



cent or more of the colonies queenless for 

 a period of three to four weeks would be a 

 heavy drain on tlie yards, and one which the 

 beekeeper could ill afford in case he has a 

 fall flow in his locality. In Mr. Hassinger 's 

 location, we are told, the fall flow only 

 serves as a stimulation; so the loss of bees 

 that would have hatched from eggs that 

 might have been laid during these few 

 weeks, would, in his case, be of little value. 

 In those places where one can count on a 

 fall flow, however, I believe that those 

 colonies that are to furnish the cells for 

 requeening could be made queenless eight 

 days in advance of the others. This would 

 shorten the queenless period 30 per cent for 

 those colonies whose queens were killed on 

 account of their being of an inferior quali- 

 ty. Mr. Hassinger says, however, that if 

 he were to kill the queens in the other 

 colonies and at the same time give them 

 a frame with unprotected cells, 50 per cent 

 of his colonies would destroy all such cells 

 and raise cells from their own brood. His 

 experience does not agree with mine- 

 In regard to introducing queens to those 

 colonies that did not accept the first queen, 

 I believe that if they were good Italian 

 colonies, and sealed brood were given them, 

 they would be in as good condition for in- 

 troducing queens before allowing them to 

 build cells as they would after, but with 

 some hybrids this would not be true. 



This article brings up the question of 

 using natural cells built under a queenless 

 impulse. It is well known that colonies 

 which have been made queenless, in their 

 haste to improve the time in which queen- 

 cells can be started, often start some of their 

 cells with larvae two or three days old, this 

 being fully half of the feeding period of the 

 larvEe. Queens reared in this way could not 

 be expected to equal those which have been 

 fed as queens for the entire time. Yet these 

 cells, started from two- or three-day-old lar- 

 va3 having 30 or 40 hours start of the oth- 

 ers, are the first to hatch. And since the 

 first queen out destroys all the others, the 

 queen remaining in the hive is likely to be 

 lacking in quality. Mr. Hassinger thinks 

 such a queen would be just as prolific as one 

 raised from the egg, tho she might not be 

 prolific for as long a time. Now I ques- 

 tion not only the prolificness, but also the 

 entire quality of the queen. But, since Mr. 

 Hassinger admits the queen may be deficient 

 in length of prolificness, I feel justified in 

 concluding that her other qualities will be 

 likewise deficient. I think the practice of 

 using natural cells built under a queenless 

 impulse should be discouraged, unless they 

 are built in colonies whose queen-cells have 

 all been destroyed seven or eight days after 

 they were made queenless and the bees thus 

 compelled to start queen-cells on the given 

 frames which contain eggs only or just 

 hatched larvae. — Mell Pritchard.] 



