174 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



I 



For the American Bee Journal, 



Reply to J. W. Merrifield. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



On page 100, present volume of the 

 Bee Journal, J. VV. Merritiekl asks 

 why the plan of giving each colony a 

 laying queen immediately after 

 swarming, had not proven a success 

 with me. That is right. If you do 

 not understand anything, ask ques- 

 Uons, and 1 will explain, if I know 

 Bow ; if I do not, I will frankly say so. 



For years, we have been told that no 

 colony should go without a laying 

 queen a single day, if it were possible 

 to give them one, and plans of intro- 

 ducing queens, which required that 

 the hive should be queenless a few 

 days previous, have been severely 

 criticised. We have also been told, 

 for years, that the bee-keeper who 

 wished to secure the best results from 

 his bees, should have a laying queen 

 ready to give each old colony as soon as 

 they swarmed, as the time lost to 

 them, by rearing aqueen, was equiva- 

 lent to a swarm of bees. Being eager 

 to know, for myself, all the plans which 

 would give the best results, I have 

 experimented largely, and the truth 

 of the statement that the time lost to 

 the bees by rearing a queen in natural 

 swarming, was equivalent to a swarm 

 of bees, is the first reason it has not 

 proven a success. If it were bees I 

 was after, the case would be different. 

 With me, white clover yields enough 

 honey to keep the bees breeding 

 nicely, and prepares them so that 

 they mainly swarm from June 20 to 

 July 1. Our honey harvest is from 

 basswood, which blooms from July 10 

 to 16. Now, all who are familiar with 

 natural swarming, know that the bees 

 are comparatively few in numbers in 

 spring, and increase by the rapidly 

 increasing brood produced by the 

 queen, which, in due time, hatch into 

 Dees, until a swarm is the result. 



By giving a laying queen to a colony 

 immediately after it has cast a swarm, 

 we bring about the same result 

 (swarming) as before, for we place the 

 bees in the same condition. The only 

 difference is, that having plenty of 

 brood, they build up quicker, and are 

 prepared to swarm in a shorter ttme. 

 As this second swarming, brought 

 about by giving the laying queen, 

 comes right in our basswood honey 

 harvest, it cuts olf the surplus honey, 

 for it is well known that bees, having 

 the swarming fever,do little or no work 

 in the section boxes, and if allowed to 

 swarm, the object we have sought 

 after (section honey) is beyond our 

 reach. 



Having given the result of my ex- 

 perience on this point, let us look at 

 how the same colony would work, had 

 we not given the bees a laying queen. 

 Eight days after tlie swarm has is- 

 sued, the first young queen will have 

 emerged from her cell, as a rule, lyhen 



the apiarist should remove all the 

 other queen-cells from tlie hive, so 

 that second swarming is entirely pre- 

 vented. In ten days more our young 

 queen is ready to lay, which is about 

 the time the ba.sswood begins to yield 

 honey largely. During this period, 

 between the time the swarm issued 

 and the young ^ueen commences to 

 lay, the bees not having any brood to 

 nurse for the last half of the time, 

 consume but little honey ; hence, as 

 fast as the young bees emerge from 

 the cells, they are filled with honey ; 

 for bees, not having a laying queen, 

 seldom build comb in the sections. 

 Tlius, whan the young queen is ready 

 to lay, she finds every available cell 

 stored with well-ripened honey. At 

 this point, the instinct of the bees 

 teach them that they must have brood 

 or they will soon cease to exist as a 

 colony, and a general rush is made for 

 the sections, the honey from below is 

 carried above, so as to give the queen 

 room, and, in a week, we have, as a re- 

 sult, the sections nearly filled with 

 honey. I have often had such colo- 

 nies fill and complete 30 two-pound 

 sections in from 8 to 12 days, while 

 those to which I had given the laying 

 queen immediately after swarming, 

 did little but swarm during the same 

 time. 



Bear in mind we are talking about 

 (iroducing comb honey, not extracted. 

 Different locations may give different 

 results, still I think that nearly all 

 sections give a large How of honey at 

 a certain period during the season, 

 rather than a steady, continuous honey 

 harvest the whole season. To such 

 sections these remarks are especially 

 applicable. 



My second reason is, that after 

 basswood we have a honey dearth, 

 hence, the bees from the introduced 

 queen are of no value, but, on the 

 contrary, become consumers. On an 

 average, ittakes21 days from the time 

 the egg is laid, to the perfect bee 

 ready to emerge from the cell. Then, 

 if the colony is in a normal condition, 

 this bee does not commence labor in 

 the field till 16 days old ; hence, the 

 eggs for the honey-gathering bees 

 must be deposited in the cell 37 days 

 before the honey harvest ends, or 

 else they are of no value as honey- 

 producers. As the basswood is all 

 gone before the eggsof the introduced 

 queen become honey-producing bees, 

 and as the larger part of them die of 

 old age before buckwheat and fall 

 flowers yield honey, it will be seen 

 that a great gain is made by letting 

 each old colony, having cast a swarm, 

 rear their own queen, for, thereby, 

 we save the expensive feeding of the 

 larvse, which are to become expensive 

 consumers of the honey of the hive. 

 Also, the chances are, that when the 

 colony rears its own queen, they will 

 be stocked with younger bees for 

 wintering in November, than where a 

 queen was introduced immediately 

 after swarming. 



The one point worth knowing above 

 all others in bee-keeping, is a thorough 

 knowledge of the location we are in, 

 as to its honey resource, and then 

 getting the largest amount of bees 

 possible at that or those times to 



gather the honey, having just as few 

 at all other times as is consistent with 

 the accomplishing of this object. A 

 prominent apiarist advised.a tew years 

 ago, using artificial heat to get our 

 bees strong so that they would swarm 

 in April, while others, like L. C. Root, 

 was advising keeping theiD in the 

 cellar till pollen was plenty, to pre- 

 vent early and useless brood-rearing. 

 The advice of the first would be to 

 bee-keepers the same as my sending 

 four men and teams 12 miles to the 

 railroad for a carload of lumber when 

 I did not know it was there for cer- 

 tain. They went and came back, but 

 no lumber. The part which particu- 

 larly had a bearing on me was, I had 

 to pay them the same as if they had 

 found the lumberand brought it back. 

 Just so with getting bees out of sea- 

 son. We have to pay the same price 

 for them that we would to get them, so 

 that each one became a produce! in- 

 stead of a consumer. 



If all who read this article will study 

 their location, and then rear their 

 bees in reference to that location, I 

 think they will find their bees will do 

 as well as their more successful 

 neighbors. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Wintering, Ventilation, Etc. 



DR. I. P. WILSON. 



Dear Editor :— After spending an 

 hour very pleasantly in reading the 

 Journal, I desire to say that the ex- 

 tracts you have published from Mr. 

 Baldridge's letters are quite sufficient 

 to convince any candid mind that 

 right is n6t on his side. Yes, your 

 readers, " certainly," will approve of 

 the controversy being terminated 

 right here. The columns of the Jour- 

 nal are too valuable to be occupied 

 with such wrangling. 



My bees have wintered tolerably 

 well. I had SO colonies last fall, and, 

 for the first time for many years, I left 

 all but 12 colonies on their summer 

 stands. One of the 12 placed in the 

 cellar, died of diarrhoea, and 8 of 

 those left out died of the same disease, 

 while 3 colonies starved. 



For a number of years I have made 

 a practice of ventilating each colony 

 so that a circulation of air can be had 

 through the hive. Those that died of 

 diarrhoea were not so ventilated. My 

 method of ventilation is as follows : 

 The cap on top of the hive has two 

 auger holes, covered with wire screen, 

 directly opposite each other. The 

 strip covering the front (or back) 

 opening in the honey-board is left off. 

 The entrance of the hive may be left 

 entirely or partly open. Thus they 

 are ventilated through the entire 

 winter. When it is waim etiough for 

 the bees to commence flying in the 

 spring, the houey-board should be 

 closed. The circulation of the bees 

 will cause a circulatio" of the air. If 

 an inch auger hole is made a little 

 above the centre of the front of the 

 hive. I do not find it necessary to leave 

 the honey- board open. I refer now to 

 bees left'on their summer stands. 



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