GLEANINGS IN I3EE CULTURE. 



Mat 



GALLUP'S PLAN OP INTRODUCING QUEENS. 



The reailcrs of Gleanings, or at least quite a num- 

 ber of them, know that I have had quite a large 

 practical experience with bees, and now I am going- 

 to toll them how I introduce a valuable queen when 

 I want to bo certain of success, and without a proba- 

 bility of failure. It is a well-known fact to practical 

 bee-keepors, that at certain seasons of the year we 

 can introduce with ease by various processes, and 

 then again we will fail. Now, it is the old bees that 

 play the mischief, and not the yuungones. We once 

 in a while find a colony that will not accept a strange 

 queen on any conditions. Now, when I receive an 

 imported queen, or any valuable queen that I wish 

 to be certain about, I go to any populous stock and 

 take out one card of sealed and hatching bees, to- 

 gether with the adhering bees. Then go to another 

 and do the same until I have three or more cards or 

 combs (be sure not to get the queen from any of 

 those stocks), place them in a new hive and on a 

 new stand, and you have a stock prepared to re- 

 ceive your new queen. By mixing bees from sev- 

 eral hives, they discover their queenlessness at once ; 

 and by allowing the queen to be caged 24 hours in 

 your prepared stock, or until your old bees are all 

 gone back to their parent stocks, which they will do 

 the first fair day, liien there are none but young 

 bees left. Liberate your queen, and build up to a 

 full stock by giving sealed brood as fast as required. 

 Of course we use a division board in the new or pre- 

 pared stock until filled up. In 40 years' practical 

 experience I have never once failed by the above 

 process. We introduced the imported queen we got 

 last fall, by the above process, and wintered her on 

 4 cards, and built up this spring to a full colony. 



E. Gallup. 



Santa Paula, Ventura Co., Cal., April 4, 1881. 



We like your ideas of plenty of stores first 

 rate, friend (t.; but after having given the 

 plan of mixing bees to get a place for intro- 

 ducing queens a pretty thorough trial, v:e 

 have decided rather in favor of nuclei con- 

 taining bees from only one hive. The re- 

 sult was rather contrary to my previous 

 opinions, I must confess." 



^■•■1 



POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETVVEEN 

 BLACK AND ITALIAN BEES. 



[Continved from page 166.] 



flHE Macks are more ready than the Italians to 

 work in surplus-honey receptacles not closely 

 ' ■ connetted with, the main hive. My shallow 

 cbamber between the tops of the frames and the 

 honey-board, which admitted the bees and the heat 

 of the hive so freely into the supers, was a great 

 Buccoss with the blacks. When the hive was crowd- 

 ed, and the honey harvest good, they so filled the su- 

 pers that the newly forming eomb could seldom be 

 seen, except when the bees were taking their after- 

 noon playspell; and if the honey-board was left off 

 they began their new work at the top of the \ippor 

 cover. The Italians, however, as though distrust- 

 ing the safety of storing elsewhere, are reluctant to 

 begin comb-building, except in close connection 

 with their brood-nest. Supers placed on the shallow 

 chamber are often neglected, even when supplied 

 with combs, while they so overfill the combs below as 

 to check greatly the proper increase of bees. If the 

 boney-board is removed they usually begin to build 



from the tops of the frames, extending their tombs 

 upivard, even when their weight eauscs them to 

 bend more or less before thej' can be attached to 

 the top.* I was finally compelled to dispense with 

 the shallow chamber for Italians.l- 



5. Tlic comb honey made hy the Macks from any 

 li'jht-colored supplies is usually more attractive than 

 that stored from the same sources hy Italians. This 

 is owing to the former leaving a larger air-spaco 

 than the latter between the cappings and the sealed 

 honey.1; 



6. With a queen of the current year, the blacks will 

 hardly ever swarm, while, long after the usual swarni- 

 ing season, young Italian que»ns will often lead off 

 swarms. 



v. " Black bees are much more sensibly affected by th» 

 loss of their queen than the Italians. The almost 

 frantic agitation which usually follows the removal 

 of a queen from a black stock, is well known. Re- 

 moving large numbers of queens for sale during the 

 working season, from Italian colonies, such agita- 

 tion was the exception instead of the rule. In most 

 cases the only special sign that the bees missed 

 them was the building of queen-cells. This greater 

 attachment of the blacks to their queen is in some 

 cases a loss, as they seldom attempt to supersede an 

 old or inferior queen, and are thus much more liable 

 to become queenless than the Italians, who do not 

 hesitate to take timely measures to replace a queen 

 whose fertility is much below par.§ A careful ob- 

 server has given, in the French Bee Journal, satis- 

 factory proof of the numerous losses resulting from 

 the death of aged black queens. It is probablj' the 

 fact, however, that more bees are lost in winter in 

 Italian than in black stocks, oven if more entire col- 

 onies of the former than of the latter do not perish 

 — the strange attachment of the blacks to their 

 queen inducing them to cluster more compactly, in 

 order to be nearer to hor. 



8. In biiildinr/, an Italian swarm seldom begins as 

 many combs as the blacks, and therefore toorlcs them 

 more compacthj, squaring them out, as it were, as they 

 proceed.W 



9. Black bees mill readily build, between guide- 

 frames, worker combs, tohile it is very difficult to get 

 any satisfactory result in this line from Italians. 

 They will abandon the hive over and over again, or 

 sulk for days doing next to nothing, as though they 

 were conscious that, in the combs thus unnaturally 

 separated, they could not prosper, ignorant, of 

 course, that the separators would eventually bo re- 

 moved. 



10. The Italians, both young and old, adhere with 

 much tenacity to their combs when they are lifted from 

 the hive, while the blacks, more especially those neicly 



- Thov sometimes'build a number of small eoiubs in the shape 

 of buttresses, to keep their main work in proper position until 

 they can reach to the top. 



+ If the supers rest upon the tops of the frames, nn<l have no 

 bottoms, and the guide combs, or ' ' starters, ' ' are fastened to 

 the tops of the frames ofthe lower hiveand near oue of the up- 

 rights of the supers, the Italians will readily till them by extend- 

 in)? their combs upward. If bottoms ai-e used, they should be very 

 thin, and the stai-ters should be low down, and attached to one 

 of the upritrhts. Instead of swarminpr uj) into the supers like 

 blacks, so tew enter them that the whole process of comb-buUd- 

 ing can easily be seen. 



t Mr. W. W. Gary .showed mo combs of sealed honey made by 

 the Ei^jTitian bees, which looked very much like honey whieli 

 had ' ' sweated, ' ' from being kept in a dami) place 



§It is only since the introduction of the Italians that it has be- 

 come such a common occurrence to And two laying queens in 

 the same hive, usually the failing mother and the vigorous 

 daughter. 



II Jlr. Cary found that the Egyptians, in extending their combs 

 downw.ard, built tluni almost a» sijuaieat the bottom as though 

 they laid off their work by a carpeater's rule. 



