578 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Sept. 14, 1899. 



* be started around each egg given them. Let the bees 

 work on the cell-cups from 36 to 48 hours, after which 

 ^^he5' should be placed in colonies having a queen not 

 ^^t^Sf-han one year old. 



Fig-. 2 represents another standard frame. One- 

 half of this frame is filled with wood, but. unlike the 

 one described in Fig-. 1. the wood is nailed in the up- 

 per half of the frame, and not at the ends, as in No. 1. 

 as will be seen. One side of the open space is covered 

 with wirecloth, and two smaller frames are used in 

 this frame, having- one of their sides covered with 

 perforated metal firmly nailed to the wood. These 

 frames are just T'2 inches between the vertical pieces, 

 and are notcht at the top so the strips of wood to 

 which the cell-cups are made are held in place. The 

 cell-cups are removed from frame No. 1, and then 

 placed in the smaller frames, which are then in- 

 serted in frame No. 2, with the open side toward the 

 wirecloth ; then the frame is placed in the center of 

 a powerful colony of bees, and a/jvays between two 

 frames of brood. The result is, in three daj's more there is 

 as fine a lot of queen-cells as one ever saw. 



Twelve days after the eggs are given the bees, the cells 

 should be transferred to nuclei, or, what I consider much 

 better, to a queen-nursery. I feel bound to say that, by this 

 process, I have produced queens much superior to those 

 reared under the swarming-impulse. 



To the inexperienced this method may seem fussy. All 

 I can say is that no one can rear queens without doing 

 much hard, pretty fine and fussy work. There are many 

 fine points connected with the above that one must get ac- 

 quainted with by actual experience. These particular 

 points cannot be explained in one short article. Catch on 

 to them by experience. That is the proper way to do. The 

 cells illustrated were begun and finisht by bees. There is 

 nothing artificial about them. — Gleanings in Bee-Culture. 



Essex Co., Mass. 



New Swarm Deserting the Hive and Queen. 



BY G. M. DOOtlTTLE. 



A CORRESPONDENT writes: "Will you please an- 

 swer the following questions thru the columns of the 

 American Bee Journal ? I had a swarm come out one 

 da}'. It clustered and was hived in the usual manner. In 

 the evening the bees slowly swarmed out and went back 

 into the old hive, leaving a small bunch of bees in the new 

 hive. These remained six days when they, too, swarmed 

 out. I found the queen with them. What made the most 

 of the bees leave their queen and go back ?"' 



Answer. — The above is one of the most perplexing 

 things which occasionally happen in the swarming season 

 in a large apiary. The general cause is that a few strange 

 bees from another swarm or elsewhere go in with the 

 swarm when they are on the wing or when running into the 

 hive, and for this reason the queen is balled for safe keep- 

 ing, or for some other purpose — just what. I never could 

 determine. Others have told me that is was to prevent the 

 few bees which came in with the swarm, from harming 

 their mother queen, but for some reason there is a linger- 

 ing doubt about this in my mind. But as I am not satis- 

 tied as to the reason, I allow the reason of others to stand 

 till I can prove them wrong. 



Where the queen of the newly-hived swarm is thus 

 balled, the bees not finding her running about among their 

 number, seem to think that the}- have lost her, and so re- 

 turn to the old hive, as all bees of a swarm do when the 



f I ' '• 3- SHOWING FRftWe jjRSANCt.'WlT^ 



queen does not cluster with them from any cause like dipt 

 wings, etc., which does not enable her to fly, onlj* in this 

 case the bees balling the queen, and those very near this 

 ball which can catch the scent of the queen, stay with her. 

 If these returning bees are stopt from going home they will 

 scatter into other hives, and are lost by being killed as in- 

 truders. I have had thousands slaughtered b.v their trying 

 to enter into other hives, and soon learned that it was bet- 

 ter to let them go home, than have them killed entirely thru 

 my interference. 



Sometimes I would hunt out the queen by smoking the 

 ball of bees till they releast her, when she was caged and 

 placed between the combs, or hung down from the top-bars 

 of the frames, when no combs were used in hiving the 

 swarm. In about half of these cases this satisfied them, 

 while at other times they would ball the cage, so it would 

 do little if any good. 



I now secure the queen as before : but instead of using 

 a common round cage I make a large flat one to reach clear 

 across the frames. Into this I put the queen and lay it on 

 top of the frames, when the bees can reach her thru the 

 wirecloth between every frame in the hive, which always 

 seems to satisfy them. The next morning I let he'r loose 

 and remove the cage. 



ROUND PIECES OF \V.\X NK.'VK HIVE-ENTR.\NCES. 



"What is the significaTice of finding in the morning a 

 lot of little round pieces of dirty-colored wax near the en- 

 trance of some hives?" 



Answer. — So far as my observation goes, the finding 

 of such round pieces signifies that drones are hatching out ; 

 or, more properly speaking, emerging from their cells ; for, 

 if any one will take the time to examine closelj', he will 

 find that the drone, when about to emerge from the cell, 

 bites the cover of the cell entirely oflF by a smooth cut, 

 while the workers leave only fragments of the cappings of 

 their cell-coverings when thej' gnaw out. The queen cuts 

 off the capping to her cell the same as does the drone, ex- 

 cept, as a rule, a little piece on one side is left, which often 

 acts like a hinge to a door, the "door" often closing after 

 the queen has gone out. Where no such hinge is left, then 

 the caps to the queen-cells are tumbled out of the hive the 

 same as are the drone-cappings, but in no case would there 

 probably be more than four or five caps from queen-cells 

 out in front of the hive on any one morning. 



If the little door thus closes, as is spoken of above, the 

 bees often make it fast, so that the inexperienced bee- 

 keeper is often deceived into thinking that the queen has 

 not yet emerged from her cell. 



Then, again, it often happens, as soon as the queen has 

 emerged from her cell, that a worker goes into the cell to 

 partake of the roj'al jelly left in the cell, after which the 

 cell-cover flies back, or is pusht back by the ever-traveling 

 bees, the bees then sticking it fast, when the bee is a pris- 

 oner, which has caused manj- to think that the inmate of 

 the cell was not a queen but a worker ; hence they call their 

 colony queenless. sending off for a queen, only to lose her 

 when they try to introduce her. 



It is well to understand all of these little kinks in bee- 

 culture, as such an understanding will often pay us largely 

 in dollars and cents. 



Some suppose that the round caps spoken of by the 

 correspondent indicate the uncapping of cells of honej', 

 either by robber-bees or preparatory to the carrying of the 

 honey from the outside of the hive to the center thereof; 

 but this is a mistake, as the cappings from the honey-cells 



