726 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1 



taken from the brood-nest above, or anoth- 

 er. If another, the old queen may be left 

 where she is till I decide what to do with 

 her. If I wish for increase, at the proper 

 time, whenever I think a sufficient number 

 of the newly hatched bees have gone below, 

 or I conclude I have left in the old brood- 

 nest enough brood and bees for the nucleus 

 of a new colony, I remove the old brood-nest 

 to a new stand. If I do not wish for in- 

 crease I may kill the old queen and let the 

 young bees go below through the bee-es- 

 cape till all are hatched, or let the old queen 

 continue laying for a while before she is 

 removed. If I put the old queen below, and 

 wish for increase, I introduce a new queen 

 above and make a new colony at the proper 

 time as before. If I make the bees above 

 queenless, I usually keep queen-cells cut out 

 — a small job, for the larvae soon become 

 too old, although I have got along all right 

 by laying a piece of perforated zinc over the 

 hole of the bee-escape. 

 Solon, Maine. Turner Buswell. 



[We should be glad to get reports of this 

 from many of our subscribers. The only 

 thing I fear is that too many of the bees 

 might desert the brood in the old hive, caus- 

 ing chilling or starvation of the unsealed 

 brood. — Ed.] 



AN OLD QUEEN-BREEDER FAILS TO MAKE 

 THE BABY NUCLEI WORK. 



I have had to give up queen- rearing in my 

 out-apiary, as there are too many blacks and 

 hybrids in the vicinity. I can attend to a 

 hundred nuclei, and some over. I am not 

 depending on baby nuclei. I tried about a 

 dozen of Laws' make last year, but made a 

 failure. I have not tried since. He rec- 

 ommends, if I understand right, to renew 

 the bees in the mating-box every time a 

 queen is taken out. Is this the case with 

 the Swarthmore? The bees would invaria- 

 bly swarm out in mine. It may be that I 

 did not keep them stopped up long enough. 

 As to the Sibbald plan, it is the best in the 

 world to have queen-cella built, but surely 

 they had better be cut out before the first 

 one hatches out, or there will be a good 

 many bees less in the hive when examined 

 two weeks from time of operation. I trans- 

 fer larvae in drone comb, and give to one of 

 these artificial swarms without royal jelly 

 or fussing with cell cups; and I can have as 

 many cells built as I want that will make as 

 pretty a picture as you want to see. 



To get best results I give a frame of even- 

 up larv£e, first for 24 hours, and then take 

 that away and put in an upper story to 

 have cells that are started finished, and 

 about one hour after taking away that 

 frame of brood I transfer larvse into drone 

 comb, and they will accept nearly all, and 

 in that way work the one colony for queen- 

 rearing on two sets of larvae. 



Coronaca, S. C. J. D. Fooshe. 



[Our first experience with baby nuclei was 

 unfavorable. We tried them the second and 



third time, and still they apparently went 

 back on us; but now we have discovered 

 some secrets of our failure. We have al- 

 ready given in late issues some of them; 

 but the most important is to take queenless 

 bees from an outyard and give them a vir- 

 gin, and, if practicable, brood. Make up as 

 many of these as possible at the outyard; 

 bring them to the home yard, then give 

 them virgins. Keep them shut up for 24 

 hours, then let them loose, but do not put 

 them near the entrances of strong colonies. 



We do not find it necessary to give a fresh 

 lot of bees each time a queen is fertilized. 

 Last summer we used the same bees over 

 and over again, and are doing it this sum- 

 mer. 



We have reared some very nice cells off 

 from drone comb, and that, too, without 

 royal jelly, as you speak of; but in all kinds 

 of weather and under all conditions we get 

 far better results with the royal jelly, and 

 the Pratt wooden queen-cups are much more 

 convenient to work with. — Ed.] 



THE LEWIS-HALL IMPROVED FOUNDATION- 

 FASTENER. 



Replying to your footnote to my article 

 regarding "bottom starters," etc., page 552, 

 I will say yes, I think any machine or fasten- 

 er using a hot plate can be arranged as you 

 say, so far as I know, though the Daisy, I 

 think, would waste too much wax. The 

 Lewis has a very thin sheet-steel plate; and 

 when sharpened it melts away scarcely any 

 wax at all. By using the beveled edge, and 

 by slanting the fastener slightly forward, 

 all the melted wax flows toward the edge of 

 the plate, and is wiped off and used for fas- 

 tening each starter by the starter as the hot 

 plate drops back from under it, so there is 

 no waste wax-drip at all. 



Until I learned not to turn the lamp up so 

 high as to smoke, and make the hot plate 

 black, the waste wax would get black, and, 

 of course, that made trouble. Yes, I have 

 a good reason for fastening them as I do. 

 Perhaps the main reason is because I am too 

 clumsy and thick-headed to learn how to 

 handle such a narrow strip of wax (especial- ■ 

 ly when the mercury was playing up around 1 

 90 and 100°), and get it in the section where 

 it belongs. You say it seems to you that, 

 to cut up and fasten in the ordinary way 

 separately, is quicker, and then your closing 

 sentence seems to imply that a ' ' master me- 

 chanic ' ' would need to be employed to 

 change the machine. I don't know how 

 many I can fasten in in a day, or in an hour; M 

 but I have fastened in as many as 23 in a 1 

 minute; but one wouldn't want to rush 

 through life at that rate very long. 



But say, E. R., I have confidence enough 

 in my plan to believe I can take a new ma- 

 chine out of the shipping-case, arrange it 

 for bottom starters, set it up, and put in 

 5000 or 10,000 starters (bottom and top), and 

 do it just as well and quick as you can, or 

 any other man (Dr. C. C. M. not except- 

 ed). ■ F. W. Hall. 



Hull, Iowa. 



