624 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



day of the previous examination. 

 Again, early last spring, a gentleman 

 called upon me on much the same 

 kind of a day to get a queen. I opened 

 colony after colony, at least five or 

 six, and every time found the bees 

 balling the queen. These are a couple 

 of a great many instances which I 

 could give, where I have found 

 queens called when the only explana- 

 tion I could give was disturbance in 

 bad weather. Mr. Doolittle has lately 

 said that in exposing brood in cold 

 weather, it is very easily* chilled, so 

 that the Itees remove it. I have never 

 observed the fact, but can readily be- 

 lieve that it is the case. 



2. At times when bees are not get- 

 ting honey rapidly, they should not be 

 opened in the middle of the day,- 

 which is the time usually recorii- 

 mended by the books for working 

 with bees. As soon as the frames of 

 a colony are exposed at such times, a 

 number ot bees, industriously forag- 

 ing around to find honest work, are 

 attracted by the smell of honey. The 

 smoke of the operator helps them to 

 gain an entrance into the open hive, 

 and a taste of the coveted sweets, and 

 the mischief begins. Constantly in- 

 creasing crowds follow him around, 

 and force themselves recklessly into 

 every hive he opens, exciting the bees 

 with which he is working to fury in 

 stinging, and going themselves to al- 

 most certain death. The whole yard 

 is soon in an uproar, and a battle is 

 begun which continues, at least, for 

 the remainder of the day, and whose 

 victims lay in piles of thousands at 

 every entrance, and often include 

 queens as well as subjects. I suppose, 

 at such times, a movable tent is a 

 kind of protection against robbing, 

 but I regard it as an encumbrance 

 which is perfectly useless, if a little 

 care is observed to leave all necessary 

 manipulations to the proper times of 

 the day. The evening, I consider the 

 proper time, par excellence, for liand- 

 ling bees. They are strict believers 

 Ib the old adage, " Early to bed and 

 early to rise." When the sun is yet a 

 half-hour high they begin to knock 

 off work and gather quietly at home, 

 and it must be something extraordi- 

 nary which will tempt them away 

 much after this time, unless they are 

 educated to bad habits. Home seems 

 to have a soothing effect upon them 

 as well as upon the human species. 

 Now is the time to do with them what 

 is necessary to be done, and by lively 

 work, everything necessary in seasons 

 of robbing, even in a large apiary, and 

 even where queen-rearing is made an 

 extensive speciality, can easily be 

 done. Of course there would not be 

 time in a large apiary, for putting on 

 boxes and taking of surplus and ex- 

 tracting, but such work is done only 

 when honey is coming in, when one 

 can work at any time of day, without 

 danger from robbers. 



It is surprising to one who has never 

 tried it, with what ease and success, 

 queens of all kinds, virgin as well as 

 fertile, can be smoked into the en- 

 trances of hives at twilight. Bees are 

 not on the lookout for strangers at 

 tliis time of day, and they are ready 

 to accept anything put into their 



hives, especially as the smell of all is 

 made alike with a little smoke. I 

 have not caged a queen of anv kind 

 for the last two years, and I have 

 scarcely lost one in this time in in- 

 troducing, and I have not found it 

 necessary to use tobacco smoke either, 

 as Mr. Alley recommends. 



Bees may also be handled in seasons 

 of robbers, early in the morning. 

 There are few times in the summer 

 when a little honey is not found early 

 in the morning, enough to take the 

 attention of the bees, and keep them 

 away from the bee-master long 

 enough for him to do what he cannot 

 find time to do in the evening. 



3. All necessary handling of bees 

 must be done with the utmost rapid- 

 itv, and with Justas little disturbance 

 of the arrangements of the bees as 

 possible. To this end, all racks and 

 boxes should be easily adjusted, so 

 that in removing surplus, the bees 

 may be exposed as little, and for as 

 short a time, as possible. If a hive is 

 kept open for a long time, while com- 

 plicated gimcracks are torn apart and 

 fitted together again, robbing is apt to 

 be induced even in seasons of the best 

 honey flow, and the workers soon find 

 out that their attention is wanted at 

 home, to protect their stores, and to 

 re-establish the destroyed order of 

 the hive, even if the demoralization is 

 not commvniicated to all other colo- 

 nies, and a consequent serious loss of 

 honey is the result. 



So any extensive mauling of a large 

 colony of bees for so little reason as, 

 perhaps, to find a hybrid queen to put 

 a pure one in its place, should be care- 

 fully avoided. 



I have been in the habit, for a long 

 time, if any of my neighbors come to 

 me to get some bees, just to raise 

 honey for their own use, to recom- 

 mend them to keep them in a box 

 hive, and to " take them up " in the 

 fall, believing they will get more 

 honey in this way than if their bees 

 were maided over every little while, 

 as beginners are very apt to do. If 

 the above precautions in handling 

 bees come to be generally heeded, I 

 would begin to feel tliat the movable- 

 comb hive is a safe thing in the hands 

 of beginners, but not till then. 



'Mr. Cook thought but few colonies 

 coidd 1)6 kept by one man. if all the 

 handling was to be done only in the 

 evening. 



The secretary replied that when 

 honev was coming in, bees could be 

 handled easily at any time in the day, 

 but in a time" of honey dearth, there 

 should be need, even in a large apiary, 

 of no more handling that could be doiie 

 in the evening. 



Mr. Root thought that an impression 

 might go abroad from the paper, that 

 would be undesirable. Tliere were 

 many now keeping bees in box hives, 

 who were afraid to have their bees 

 transferred, fearing injury to them, 

 and it wt)uld be unfortunate to have 

 them conlirmed, in such opinion. The 

 fact is, it is worth $1 to a colony to be 

 transferred. It would generally pay 

 to drive bees out of a hive, and wash 

 and scald it, and paint full the cracks, 

 sometimes, to get rid of the parasites 

 which were apt to trouble bees. He 



had even known them to lurk in the 

 grain of the wood, so minute were 

 some of them. 



Mr. Ilahman transfers and prevents 

 any trouble from robbing by closing 

 other hives. 



Vvot. Kroeh had had great trouble 

 the past season in introducing queens. 

 He would like to hear Mr. Root's 

 opinion on the subject. 



Mr. Root said he was the most suc- 

 cessful in introducing without a cage, 

 lie knew in an instant when a queen 

 would be killed, but could not tell 

 how. He thinks queens are killed, if 

 at all, the instant they touch the 

 combs. There is not much trouble if 

 bees are well-filled with honey. He 

 shakes the bees all out and then puts 

 the new queen with them, and lets 

 them run in. 



Mr. Hutchinson said he introduces 

 queens by Mr. Moore's plan, with a 

 round cage. He places it between the 

 combs, with corks, for 36 hours. He 

 then takes the cork from one end and 

 closes it with paper covered with 

 honey. In a short time the bees eat 

 through the paper and liberate the 

 queen. 



Mrs. Thomas objected to that 

 method l)eing called by the name of 

 Mr. Moore, or any other man. She 

 had used that method for 18 years, and 

 never heard it called by any one's 

 name. She never introduces queens 

 to full colonies. 



Prof. Kroeh preferred to introduce 

 queens to brood, by putting the queen 

 on a frame of brood, and then putting 

 tliat frame into a wire-cloth box, and 

 then into the hive. After a few days, 

 when a quantity of brood was hatched 

 out with the queen, let them out to 

 the other bees. He had succeeded 

 once when he did not expect to, by 

 lifting a frame of bees with the queen 

 from a nucleus and putting it into the 

 middle of a queenless colony. 



Mr. Cunkey had introduced a great 

 many queens, and had come to the con- 

 clusion that the less troulile taken to^ 

 do it, the better. He always used the 

 Betsiiiger method, and was generally 

 successful. 



Mr.Hahman had visited Mr. Root, at 

 Medina, Ohio, and had seen the man 

 who introduces queens there do it, as 

 if the bees had got educated to receive 

 strange queens. 



Mr. Root said, he did not like any 

 method by which the bees liberated 

 the queen. He wanted to see how the 

 bees received her when they first had 

 access to her. He had never seen any 

 reason for thinking that it was danger- 

 ous to examine bees soon after a queen 

 was introduced. 



Prof. Kroeh asked Mr. Root what 

 " balling " meant. 



He aiiswered that there was some- 

 thing very mysterious about it. He 

 did iiot know the cause, but could 

 easily tell a queen which had lieen 

 balled. Tliey have a smooth, shining 

 appearance, and were worthless. 



To a (piestion as to whether he ex- 

 tracted from the brood nest, he an- 

 swered, that he had no hesitation in 

 extracting from combs with unsealed 

 brood in them. He had seen brood 

 started from the bottom of the cells by 

 extracting, but he always found that 



