108 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. Jui 



SIXTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



By W. ;. DAVIS, Jst. 



FOURTH LETTER— Continued from Page 89, May Number. 



THE HIVE from which the swarm 

 has issued is placed anywhere 

 in the bee-yard that suits the 

 pleasure of the bee master. By re- 

 moving the old stock, most of the field 

 workers will be drawn off and join 

 the swarm, and there will be less 

 liability of after swarms. We are 

 working for comb honey and perhaps 

 do not desire increase of stocks. In 

 such cases, in a day or two, take combs 

 from old stock; shake the bees in front 

 of the young swarm; and give combs 

 and brood to such as may need a 

 little help to become box workers; 

 first, however, removing all queen cells 

 that may have been started. 



In regard to two or more 

 swarms uniting on the wing, I 

 wish to say that no matter how 

 many swarms unite, there will be 

 no quarrel between queens and 

 bees, if the ,swarms uniting are all 

 led by laying queens, or all led by 

 virgin queens. But if one swarm hav- 

 ing a fertile queen, and another with a 

 virgin queen unite, there will be 

 trouble, for the bees with the laying 

 queen will ball the virgin queen every 

 time and the bees with the vir-gin 

 queen will ball the fertile queen, and 

 you will have confusion enough. An 

 Ohio bee-keeper last summer wrote to 

 (one of our bee periodicals saying, that 

 his bees were swarming and he had a 

 great deal of trouble with the bees 

 balling their queens and they would 

 not stay hived, etc. I do not at- 

 tempt to quote his exact words but 

 give the substance of them. But 

 I noticed the editor gave no reason for 

 such actions on the part of the bees, 

 and no remedy for the evil. To dis- 

 tinguish between a first and an after 

 swarm, we will call a swarm that is- 

 sues with a fertile or laying queen in a 

 normal condition, and one with a vir- 

 gin queen in an abnormal condition. 

 With the first there are no contingen- 

 cies. When hived, they work and pros- 

 per; with the second they may com- 

 mence work but a later examination 

 may reveal a few discouraged bees and 



possibly some drone brood. A lay 

 queen will walk into her new ho 

 with dignity and would scorn the ii 

 of going out alone, but a virgin qui 

 will often come out and fly around j. 

 see what she can see and like man; 

 lass talves chances that older o: 

 would not risk; for sometimes she fj 

 to find her sisters, or enters pla 

 she ouglit not, or she may be cau; 

 by some varmint. 



Again, in changing combs with 

 hering bees to build up colon 

 always deal with those colonies in . 

 same condition as to their queens, 

 the adult bees are all removed fi 

 a comb of brood, it can be placed i 

 any colony without risk of queens 



I believe that many stocks 

 nuclei that are found queenless 

 made so by the bees killing their ( i 

 queen, on her return from her v ■ 

 ding trip. She goes out a rollicl 

 virgin and returns not the same 

 yet she is the same bee. She has t a 

 roaming in realms of ether. She e 

 been abroad and she puts on airs, o 

 wonder her sisters don't know h€ 



THE NUPTIAL FLIGHT. 



Mr. Maeterlinck describes the ^ !• 

 ding flight of the queen in such p< c 

 language that I will be excused 

 quoting: "She starts her flight b| 

 wards; returns two or three time! 

 the alighting board; and then haJ 

 definitely fixed in her mind the e:[ 

 situation and aspect of the kingij 

 she has never yet seen from witbl 

 she departs like an aii-ow to the zel 

 of the blue, she soars to a brigbj 

 luminous zone, that other bees atl 

 at no period of their lives. Far a'*! 

 the males have beheld the appariij 

 have breathed the magnetic perfl 

 that spreads from group to groupJ 

 every apiary near Is instinct witl| 

 Immediately crowds follow her 

 the sea of gladness, whose liil 

 boundaries ever recede. She, obe;[ 

 the magnificent law of the race, ctl 

 es her lover and enacts that the strl 



