180 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



My hives all had a back door, closed 

 when not required. When a new queen 

 was required, the nucleus hive in which 

 she was located was brought up and put 

 with its door as close to the back door 

 as possible, and facing the same way. 



When they had become accustomed to 

 the change, and were flying all right, a 

 space at the back of the queenless hive 

 was partitioned off by means of a tightly- 

 fitting division-board made of perforated 

 zinc (not excluder zinc), and the frames 

 from the nucleus with the bees and new 

 queen put into this space, and the back 

 door opened, and a day or two after the 

 zinc partition was taken away, frames 

 closed up, , etc. 



The ncent had become the same, and I 

 never had a case of fighting or killing 

 the queen ; and with hives having fer- 

 tile workers, this was the only plan to 

 insure success. I suffered a good deal 

 with certain races, from these pests — I 

 suppose, from bad management. 



FEEDING DRY SUGAR. 



Dry-sugar feeding is never mentioned. 

 It is clean, wholesome, and no trouble. 

 It does not induce robbing, and is most 

 useful to tide over a sudden bad time. 



Panama. 



Queens Mating — Bees stealing Eggs, 



R. I. CROMLEY. 



On page 737 of the Bee Journal for 

 June 2, 1892, I noticed an article writ- 

 ten by Mr. W. J. Davis, about young 

 queens mating with drones five miles 

 distant from his apiary. I think that 

 drones have a certain place to congre- 

 gate, and their noise attracts virgin 

 queens that may be on the wing at the 

 time, and they go to these places and 

 are fertilized. I have discovered two 

 places that they congregate in great 

 numbers, about % mile from my apiary. 

 Go there when I will, when the drones 

 are flying, and I can find the air full of 

 them, over a space of two acres. If I 

 stand between my apiary and the place 

 of congregating, I can see the drones 

 coming and going continually. 



STEALING EGGS TO REAR QUEENS. 



I also noticed an article written by 

 Mr. Geo. E. Fellows, on page 741 of 

 the same number of the Bee Journal, 

 about bees stealing eggs from another 

 colony, for the purpose of rearing a 

 queen, as they were queenless. I do not 

 think such is the case. I had a case 



similar to his, but I do not think the 

 larva was stolen. 



Last August I received an Italian 

 queen from Italy ; she was 16 days on 

 the way, and the accompanying bees 

 were all dead but three or four. I in- 

 troduced her successfully into a queen- 

 less colony ; there were neither eggs nor 

 larvae in the hive. I looked at her every 

 few days to see if she was laying, and 

 kept this up for two weeks, but I could 

 never find any eggs. 



I did not look at her again for a week, 

 and, to my surprise, I could not find her, 

 but found a very nice queen-cell nicely 

 sealed, which hatched eight days later. 

 There is no doubt but this cell was built 

 for the queen, and the only egg she laid 

 was in this cell. 



This looks as though a queen had in- 

 stinct enough to know that a colony 

 cannot prosper without a queen. 



About 70 per cent, of the bees in this 

 neighborhood died during the past win- 

 ter. White clover is very plentiful in 

 this section this season, but secretes no 

 nectar for the bees, as they do not work 

 on it at all. 



Muncy Station, Pa., July 15, 1892. 



Hiving Swarms. Alstte Clover. Etc. 



C. H. DIBBERN. 



The new modified swarmer is working 

 nicely, and we are getting very fair- 

 sized swarms. The beauty about the 

 thing is, that you do not have to be con- 

 stantly on the watch for swarms. The 

 fact is, our bees are not watched at all. 

 Every few days we look over the hives 

 and see if any have swarmed. If so, 

 we change the surplus cases to the new 

 hives, and give them bees enough to 

 make them strong working colonies. 



We are using hives full of combs to 

 hive the swarms on, and place them 

 right on the hives, that we expect to 

 swarm. We believe that by using hives 

 containing combs, we get much larger 

 swarms by the swarmer than where 

 foundation or empty hives are used. 

 Then just now we are very anxious to 

 use up all the combs we have on hand, 

 as the bees can care for them much bet- 

 ter than we can. 



We have heretofore disputed a state- 

 ment made by Mr. Henry Alley, of 

 Massachusetts, that when two or more 

 swarms issued at about the same time, 

 each would go back to its own location 

 when the self-hiver was used. Our ex- 

 perience seemed to justify us in making 



