THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



ii 



I'JOo. 



either mas« without caging the lay- 

 ing queen, the bees of the said queen 

 wonld have balled and killed all the 

 virgin queens, and the sisters of the 

 virgin queens would have killed the 

 laying queen and there wonld have 

 been confusion in the bee yard for 

 hours, and that too with the expecta- 

 tion that other swarms would issue 

 and add to the roaring of wings. 



Always give such double swarms 

 plenty of room, ventilation, and shade. 

 Leave the fertile queen caged for 

 four days and she can be safely 

 liberated. One so caged was neglected 

 for a month. On examination nO' 

 brood was found in the hive. The 

 queen was set at liberty and resumed 

 her duties apparently lanlnjured by 

 her long imprisonment. 



Now, I wish to give a case for the 

 veterans in bee-culture, which I con- 

 fess is new to me: I had two stocks 

 that lost their queens, and were not 

 looked after as soon as they should 

 have been owing to the press of 

 other work, and when discovered the 

 combs were pretty well supplied with 

 eggs by laying workers. In fact, they 

 were more than supplied for some of 

 the cells I judge had eight or ten 

 eggs in. I at once supplied them 

 with nearly mature queen cells. 

 The young queens hatched, and In 

 due time became fertile. But In the 

 meantime the eggs of the laying 

 workers hatched, and in due time, 

 the bees capped the brood as worker 

 brood; smooth, not the raised cells 

 like trying to raise drones in workers 

 cells. We all understand that no 

 laying worker eggs can produce 

 workers, and capping of the brood 

 puzzled me, and excited my curiosity. 

 But I discovered that a few days 

 after the brood was capped it died, 

 and some before capping. 



I infer that t?he bees having a laying 

 queen fed the brood as workers, which 

 wa,s a diet not suited to their nature. 

 I presume it is nothing new to 

 apiarists that bees sometimes try to 

 rear a queen from an egg intended 

 for a drone, and how the occupant of 

 the roj^al cell would slip down in the 

 cradle and then bees lengthen the 

 cradle until It became a laughable 

 object as a queen cell, and later de- 

 veloped a dead gTub. I conclude 

 the bees sometimes make mistakes 



223 



like other mothers in how they feed 

 the babies. This is how I did, and 

 why: I cut ont all the brood of the 

 laying workers and cremated it, and 

 all was well. 



We have never known svich a thing 

 as foul brood in this locality, and the 

 savants of bee literature tell \is that 

 foul brood can not emanate from 

 dead brood. This may be true, but 

 1 would advise all beginners to allow 

 no dead brood Mathin reach of living 

 bees. It frequently happens that 

 colonies perish in late winter or early 

 spring with more or less brood in the 

 combs. Always cut it out and burn 

 it. 



On tlie 4th of June, 1905, the valley 

 of tlie Brokenstraw was visited by a 

 disastrous flood and some of my 

 stocks were drowned and the brood 

 perished. All such dead brood was 

 cut out and buried deep In the ground. 

 I suppose at that particular time it 

 was easier to buiy, than to find any- 

 thing dry enough to burn, as our gas 

 .•supply Avas shut off by a break in 

 the line. I believe In the old adage, 

 that "an ounce of preventive is bet- 

 ter than a pound of cure." It is not 

 only true of "foul brood" but of many 

 of "the ills of life. 



Youngsville, Pa., Oct. 5, 1905. 



^VORK IN THE OUT YARD. 



Taking; the Liast Honey. 



By F. Greiner. 



TO REMOVE honey from the 

 hives at a time when no' honey 

 is coming in from the fields 

 is sometimes anything but an agree- 

 able task. The secret to get along 

 easily with it lies in the prevention 

 of robber bees obtaining the first drop 

 of honey. How can we succeed in doing 

 this? in the first place we must work 

 quickly. When honey has to be re- 

 moved from the hives in the outyards, 

 we cannot always use escape-boards in 

 the usual way, although a liberal 

 quantity of wire-cloth, cone-shaped es- 

 cape-boards will come veiT handy in 

 covering up the honey after removal 

 as will be shown. 



The smoker needed when taking off 

 honey should be a good one and of 

 large capacity. With this the bees are 

 quickly driven down. It may be ac- 

 complished in a quarter of a minute if 



