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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15 



goes out to meet the drone alone, with none 

 of her bees accompanying her, is fertilized, 

 and soon becomes mother of the colony. ' ' 



"And Muth - Rasmussen wishes to say 

 that, under the circumstances he has given, 

 a part of the bees invariably swarm out with 

 the virgin queen when she goes out to mate, 

 leaving nothing from which the bees might 

 rear another in case this virgin fails to re- 

 turn. And I hope to hear from many on 

 this point, especially from those in Cali- 

 fornia. Now, as we have left it to the 

 readers of Gleanings to tell us their ex- 

 perience in this matter, suppose you tell me 

 whether you think the queen, on her return 

 from a successful mating, would go to the 

 old hive or to the swarm hanging on the 

 limb." 



" In cases of this kind I should expect that 

 the virgin queen would alight with the 

 swarm, and stay with the swarm until the 

 same was hived, or found a home in some 

 hollow tree or cave, when, or after which, 

 the queen would go out to meet the drone, 

 from the fact that I never knew a virgin to 

 mate until her colony was established in a 

 home of some kind. I have opened hun- 

 dreds of after-swarms within one to three 

 days after they were hived, to see about 

 how they were building comb, and I never 

 saw eggs in any cells earlier than two and a 

 half to three days from hiving, while it was 

 more often four to six days, ' ' 



"Thank you for your opinion on this 

 point. And now will you give your opinion 

 still further? If the young queen, after 

 having met the drone, returns to the place 

 where the swarm had settled, but the swarm, 

 in the meantime, while the queen was in the 

 air, has been brought back to the old hive, 

 will the young queen come back to the old 

 hive, or will she remain at the settling- 

 place, lost like a young bee that does not 

 know its own home? " 



" Should such a thing happen as you are 

 supposing, the queen would return first to 

 where the swarm had settled, and, not find- 

 ing it, she would return to the old hive, as 

 she marked the locationof her old home 

 when she went from it, the same as all the 

 bees with the swarm do. All bee-keepers 

 who practice clipping queens know that, if 

 any thing happens to their queen after they 

 have clustered, they will go back to the 

 hive from which they came." 



"Thank you again. And now just one 

 more question. If the young queen, after 

 mating, returns to the swarm hanging on 

 the tree, and the swarm is not hived by the 

 owner, will the swarm return to the old hive 

 of its own account, or will it finally leave in 

 search of a new home?" 



"It would leave in search of a new home; 

 for, so far as my experience goes, all swarms 

 having their queen in perfect order with 

 them, look up a new home, and never re- 

 turn to their old home. They start out from 

 their parental roof with the intention of es- 

 tablishing a new home, and they always do 

 this unless thwarted in their purpose by the 

 loss of their queen. ' ' 



"These are interesting questions, and I 

 do not remember seeing any thing exactly 

 to the point, either in bee books or papers." 



"Pardon me for thinking that the reason 

 you have not so seen is because others have 

 not found out that bees swarm with the last 

 and only young queen they have, when she 

 goes out to meet the drone, thus purposely 

 leaving the old home hopelessly queenless. 

 This is not in accord with nature's ways." 



WHAT BECAME OF THE QUEEN'S WINGS? 



At dinner Mrs. Janes informed me a 

 swarm of bees lit in the maple-tree. She 

 had found and caged the queen (clipped), at 

 the time the swarm went out. When she 

 showed me the hive they had gone from I 

 remarked at once that my record showed no 

 clipped queen in that hive, and at once 



Prompted me to examine the queen closely, 

 saw she hadn't a sign of any wings what- 

 ever — only frayed stubs at the shoulders 

 where should have been wings. That ex- 

 plained why she was not flying, though un- 

 dipped by me. So we fixed hives as want- 

 ed, fully expecting in due time the swarm 

 to come back. In a few minutes we saw 

 them begin to break up; but instead of com- 

 ing back, as I was expecting them to do, 

 they arose and flew away and did not come 

 back at all. A dozen queen-cells were left 

 in the hive, about as old as usual, after the 

 swarm left, so it is evident there was anoth- 

 er queen besides the one we found without 

 wings, and she evidently had at one time 

 had wings, or could not have gone out to 

 mate and perpetuate a colony. The only 

 way I see is that the bees had raised anoth- 

 er queen and let both remain in the hive, 

 which is rather hard to explain and allow 

 time enough for the last queen to get ready 

 to swarm. What became of this queen's 

 wings, any way? My first thought before 

 examining cells was that, as she couldn't 

 fly, they had waited till a virgin queen 

 hatched and went with them; but the cells 

 left contradict this, as they were not cap- 

 ped over. W. M. Janes. 

 Paducah, Ky. 



[Friend J., the old queen you caged had 

 good wings once. I can not tell just how 

 she has lost them, but queens often have 

 their wings torn off this way after being 

 balled by angry bees. I had one very valu- 

 able queen for several years that looked 

 more like a big black ant than she did a 

 queen. When she got old she was allowed 

 to stay in the hive with her royal daughter. 

 This is not very unusual. The young queen 



