July, 1931. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE C U L T IT R E 



417 



queen would be killed. The Push-in cage 

 was nearly perfect and yet not quite. What 

 could I do to put on the finishing touch? I 

 wondered if the Atwater-Tlionipson-Chan- 

 try-Costello device (that is a rather long 

 name for such a small doofunny) would 

 help. Then I happened to think of the prin- 

 ciple of tlie newspaper method of uniting 

 bees brouglit forth by Dr. Miller. Why was 

 it so successful, and why were no bees 

 killed when using it? Evidently it was 

 because the bees after gnawing thru the 

 paper came in contact with each other one 

 at a time. That is the same principle in- 

 volved in the queen-excluder. So i gave it 

 a trial in connection with the Push-in cage 

 and presto! it was the missing link! I put 

 it to all sorts of severe tests, and it was suc- 

 cessful every time. I found that to be ab- 

 solutely sure in every case it was necessary 

 to put in the cage containing the (jueen 

 only, and leave it two days. Then remove 

 the gate over the queen-excluder so that the 

 bees can get to the queen, and leave it two 

 days more, then remove the cage, thus turn- 

 ing the queen loose. 



Importance of Permitting Access to the 

 Queen Thru Perforated Metal. 



We must remember this: A queen is not 

 introduced until she has mingled with the 

 bees. If she is in a cage and kept away 

 from the bees, she may be in position to be 

 accepted, but acceptance must take place 

 after she is out of the cage, if the ordinary 

 mailing cage is used. Now with the Push-in 

 cage note what takes place. The queen is 

 on the comb, has good honey to eat, and 

 takes on the odor of the colony; but if no 

 bees can get to her, she still has the dan- 

 gerous ordeal to go thru — that of actually 

 getting among the bees. If she suddenly 

 gets among them, she may be frightened 

 and start to run and the bees will grab her; 

 but, if the bees get to her one at a time, 

 things are different. I have watched the 

 bees get into the cage thru the excluder 

 many times. When the first bee gets in the 

 cage with the queen, the bee is very much 

 afraid of the queen and will usually turn 

 around and try to get out. As the odor of 

 tlie queen has been given to the comb en- 

 closed by the cage, the bee feels it is getting 

 into another hive. Then tlie bee will go up 

 to the ((ueen and hold out its tongue and 

 offer to feed her, as if it were making a 

 l)eace offering. Another bee comes in, tlien 

 another. Each acts as tho it were getting 

 into a new colony and is in no mood to offei' 

 fight. By and by more bees come in and 

 pass out, and the word goes around that 

 they have a queen. The queen at once 

 sjteeds up on egg production, and the fact 

 that all the cells under the cage contain 

 one or two dozen eggs does not matter, as 

 she keeps on, sometimes filling the cells 

 half full of eggs. 



Bees Behave as if Superseding Queen. 



Now T Ijelieve the secret of tlic success 

 of this cage is this: It is a known fact that 



bees will accept an old, failing queen, when 

 they would not a younger one. A queen 

 that is being superseded can usually be 

 dropped into any queenless colony and will 



The Chaiilry piiiu-iple as applied to the ordinary 



mailing cage. After two days the Iiole covered with 



the perforated zinc excluder is opened .permitting 



access to the queen before she is released. 



be accepted. I believe this cage gives tho 

 bees the supersedure impulse. They know 

 they have a queen, for they have either 

 been in with her or have had a smell of some 

 of the bees that have; but they seem to 

 think that if they have a queen, she must 

 be a poor one, as she is laying eggs in only 

 such a small patch and laying a lot of them 

 in each cell. Plainly they seem to reason 

 that that queen must be superseded. I have 



The .7a\' Siiiitli cage with reception cage in place. 



come to this conclusion from the fact that 

 the bees will build a piece of comb to the 

 bottom of the cage in the sjiace made by 

 removing the frame to make room for the 

 cage. On this comb they will start a large 

 number of queen-cells, expecting the queen 

 to lay in them. On a piece of comb only 

 four inches long, I have frequently seen a 



