1903 



GLEAxVINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



591 



TRANSFERRING BY THE SHORT METHOD. 



I have a very strong- swarm that came to 

 me iu 1902, in a box hive, that I intend to 

 transfer as soon as they swarm, by the 

 " Heddon short waj'," as desciibed in the 

 A B C of Bee Culture. If the. queen should 

 refuse to come out, what could I do to get 

 her? My old hive is only partly filled with 

 frames; and their delay in swarming- is be- 

 cause, I suppose, the}' are filling- the hive 

 to the roof. On page 337, in the ABC 

 book, you sa}', " If the old queen in the 

 new hive is a valuable one she should be 

 cag-ed at the time of making- the second 

 drive." Why should she be caged at the 

 second drive? S. A. Peak. 



Northumberland, Pa. 



[If the queeu refuses to come out after 

 driving (an altogether unlikely probabili- 

 ty), the only thing- to do is to tear the hive 

 to pieces and hunt till you find her; for to 

 carrj' out the Heddon plan the old queen 



must be out of the old hive and in the new 

 one. If j'ou do not see her at the first drive 

 that would not be proof that she did not run 

 in with the rest. 



The old queen should be caged at the sec- 

 ond drive, for the simple reason that, in 

 the old hive in the mean time, there may 

 and probably will be either a virgin or a 

 laying- queen, or possibly several virgins. 

 If there is no choice between the old queen 

 that is run out at the first drive, and the 

 young queen or queens in the second drive, 

 pay no attention to the queens, but let them 

 fight it out, on the principle of the " survi- 

 val of the fittest."— Ed.] 



POISON OR DISEASE — WHICH? 



I am sending you a specimen of a dis- 

 eased honey-comb which is troubling us 

 bee-keepers of this county in half a dczen 

 apiaries, to m}' knowledge. It has appear- 

 ed in 50 to 250 hives. In my opinion the 

 disease is neither foul brood, black brood, 

 nor pickled brood. A great many of the 

 bees have no wings. You can see they are 

 not capped over, but slightly raised above 

 the comb. It is worse in some hives than 

 in others. I have lost 80 hives. The bees 

 did not all swarm — only a few; and what 

 did swarm with me went into the hives. 

 The disease is in the mountains mere than 

 in the valleys. The honey crop up in this 



CHALON FOWLS' POKTABMC EXTRACTING HOUSE. SEE EDITORIALS. 



