108 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



long it had been off nobody knows, but 

 the gale had continued furiously all of 

 the previous night. They seemed to 

 be clustered about the centre of the 

 combs, quite a little way from the top. 

 She hunted up the covering in a hurry 

 of course and weighted it that time. 

 The first pleasant day I looked after 

 them and reduced the space to three 

 frames "8^ by 14]-" inside. Two frames 

 would give more space than they could 

 occupy. Rather to our surprise this 

 cold experience did not seem to affect 

 them at all seriously. 



They began the work of building up 

 nearly as early as their neighbors, but 

 being so few, of course it was a slow 

 process. They became a very strong 

 colony and swarmed in July but gath- 

 ered no surplus honey. 



Had on a queen-trap and let the 

 queen go back. 



MORE QUEENLESS COLONIES. 



May 24, 1 89 1, bees swarmed out- 

 Put them into a hive with a lot of part- 

 ly drawn combs. Found them loath 

 to enter. Next morning running about 

 as though queenless. In a day or two 

 went to work apjiarently all right. Full 

 apple blossom. Examined in one week. 

 No signs of queen ; combs about full of 

 honey. 



, May 30, same old colony sent out 

 another swarm, and June 2, still another 

 with three queens. Let one of them 

 run into the queenless hive. In the 

 fall they had more honey than any oth- 

 er three colonies. After cutting out all 

 the remaining queen cells I found one 

 of the other young colonies without a 

 queen. After vainly trying to catch a 

 cell or queen for them I let them run. 

 Their combs were a sight to see. Lay- 

 ing workers ; dozens of eggs in some 

 cells ; drones of all sizes down to about 

 one-half of that of a worker bee ; about 

 the same length but slimmer, wasp-like. 

 I know this colony had a queen to be- 

 gin with, was probably lost on the ''wed- 

 ding tour." 



Here then are two cases in which 

 bees were put into hives without queens 



and stayed and went to work, too, so 

 the old saying that the "bees won't work 

 without a queen," and that "if the 

 queen dies," or is "lost, strayed or sto- 

 len," the "bees stop work and die," is 

 proved to be not always reliable. Lost 

 two pretty good colonies by starvation. 

 Looking at the combs of one of them a 

 few days ago I found lots of little white 

 worms (about one-fourth inch long) in 

 the dead bees. The hive hsd been 

 kept closed all the while. How did 

 they get there ? 



Tyngsboro, Mass. Asa M. Swain. 



The queen was lost hi some way, or did 

 not succeed in passing into the upper cham- 

 ber of the trap as is the case once in a 

 while. Probably there were so many 

 drones in tlie hive that the tube was 

 clogged so that before she could enter the 

 trap slie returned to the hive. 



1 never knew worker bees to commence 

 depositing eggs after being queenless 

 but a Week. Four weelis is, as a rule, 

 as soon as they do such a thing. 



A quart of bees, in a double-wall hive, 

 will stand a long spell of zero weather. 



The white worms in the dead bees is a 

 "spontaneous" growth.— Eu.] 



THE WEATHER IN NEBRASKA. 



We have had a week of pleasant 

 weather and the bees are doing finely 

 considering what the weather has been 

 heretofore, only thirteen pleasant days 

 from April ist to iMay 22. It has taken 

 feed and care to keep them rearing 

 brood, but I think it will pay. That 

 house apiary must have been quite a 

 luxury if you have had weather similar 

 to ours this spring. 



My trap is doing good ser\ ice but I 

 can put it on only one hive at a titne 

 so I hope to receive the rest as soon as 

 possible. 



Caught about a quart of drones yes- 

 terday from one hive (that Alley queen 

 I told you about in my last letter) and 

 it is full again to-day, emptied twice 

 yesterday. They had some drone comb 

 but were not satisfied with that but 

 'raised a row or two of drones along the 



