1005 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



871 



would not stay in a new hive. I examined 

 the hive they came out of, and some of the 

 queen-cells were bitten open. I shook them 

 back into the hive they came out of, and 

 they stayed. 



I think the queen did not leave with the 

 swarm, but stayed and got in her work on 

 the queen-cells. 



None of the hives that cast natural 

 swarms cast after-swarms. 



Parma, Idaho, June 15. F. A. Powers. 



THE WEATHER AND THE HONEY-FLOW; THE 



CAUSE OF QUEENS BALLING. 



I have read carefully Mr. Crane's article, 

 page 306, also the one by Mr. Classen, page 

 486. Our main flow this year was in just 

 such a time as Mr. Crane described. I don't 

 think that thunder has the same effect that 

 he says it does. But we have a very sorry 

 crop of honey, but more swarms than we 

 have had in ten years. As to whether or 

 not a dry season darkens honey, our best 

 honey is made in a dry spring. When we 

 have a wet time we always get a bad lot of 

 honey. We have only amber honey, but 

 some of it looks dark and smoky, and is al- 

 ways thin. 



I want to ask a question. I hived a swarm 

 with a clipped queen. The next day was 

 rainy; but the next they came out, I put the 

 queen back, but late that evening I found 

 her dead. What was the cause? I hived 

 one off a pine. As soon as they went in I 

 moved the old hive and put a new one in its 

 place. In a minute or two they came out 

 and went back to the pine. I looked and 

 found the queen balled. I put the ball in 

 cold water. As soon as I could get the 

 queen I put her back in the new hive. The 

 swarm soon came back, and has been all 

 right ever since. What do you think was 

 the cause? As indicated above, about the 

 only thing we got this year was swarms and 

 robber bees. J. S. Patton. 



Havana, Ala., June 3. 



[A swarm will very often ball the old 

 queen, because there is a virgin present that 

 suits its fancy more. It will, if it make re- 

 peated attempts to go off, and the queen as 

 often fails to follow, because she is clipped, 

 finally kill her. When the first attempt is 

 made the swarm should be properly hived, 

 and even then a virgin may come into the 

 family with the result that the old mother 

 is sacrifice d. Or it may happen that a small 

 swarm will unite with a large one unbe- 

 known to the apiarist. There will then be 

 some balling business going on in all proba- 

 bility. -Ed.] 



DO virgins go into the wrong hive by 

 mistake? 

 Referring to your footnote to R. J. Mel- 

 ville's article, p. 609, regarding "mistakes 

 made by virgin queens," I beg leave to 

 argue that, in many cases, they don't make 

 a mistake, for this reason. On May 23 I 

 introduced a golden queen to a three-frame 

 nucleus. Thinking that all was well, I no- 



ticed them but little afterward until July 1, 

 when I was watching them, and was sur- 

 prised to see a queen alight and run right 

 in, which proved to be returning from her 

 wedding-flight. On opening the hive or nu- 

 cleus, which had been made up of black 

 bees, I found that there were no eggs; but 

 i found some capped brood and young bees 

 by the hundred emerging, which were pure 

 goldens. I wondered why they had super- 

 seded this queen, which was a young one, 

 which I had just received from Arkansas. 

 But I found to-day that the queen was not 

 superseded till after she had deserted. I 

 find her now in a colony of blacks, at least 

 40 feet from this nucleus, with thousands of 

 young goldens already at work. She could 

 not have come from another hive, as there 

 are no other goldens within 50 miles of here. 

 I can't understand just why she left unless 

 crowded out for room. "The swarm with 

 which she found a home was hived April 22, 

 and at that time had a queen that was ap- 

 parently all right. 



I think this instance will be a puzzler for 

 that veteran bee-keeper Dr. Miller. 



W. S. McKnight. 



Newtopia, Ala., July 15. 



[The instance cited does not really prove 

 any thing either way. Our large experience 

 rearing thousands of queens shows that vir- 

 gins do get confused just as do young bees, 

 and go into the wrong entrance sometimes. 

 That a queen may purposely go into another 

 entrance, is not denied. When a laying 

 queen has filled all the available cells in a 

 baby nucleus full of eggs, she is quite liable 

 to leave for larger quarters, and the bees 

 may or may not go with her. —Ed.] 



how to winter a plurality of queens in 

 one hive outdoors. 



I have several large observatory hives and 

 also a lot of small ones as nuclei, where I 

 keep queens for future use. I have also 

 several ten-frame hives with screen divisions 

 in the center— a queen on each side— and 

 wintered them on the summer stand with- 

 out any loss. When I need a queen in the 

 spring 1 take one out of one side, then re- 

 move the screen division. This method has 

 proven to be very satisfactory. I am not 

 sure whether any one else has ever done 

 this for keeping queens for spring use; but 

 I would recommend every one giving it a 

 trial, using, of course, a chaflf hive. It has 

 taken a lot of time, labor, and study, but I 

 now look with pi'ide over my apiary, and 

 believe I have as well-equipped and up to- 

 date one as there is in the country. 



Wm. Reiber. 



Spring Mills, Pa., July 12. 



[Where you speak of "screen divisions in 

 the center," you probably mean several 

 wire-cloth division-boards that reach from 

 end to end, and top to bottom of the hive, 

 running parallel with the frames. You do 

 not say whether you have more than one 

 frame in a division. Attempts have been 



