636 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July IS 



die. If it is crushed, there will be a trans- 

 parent, slightly yellow fluid from it as if it 

 were in the nature of dropsy in the human 

 family. I should be glad to hear from 

 some of our subscribers, and also to receive 

 specimens of the dead bees. It may be a 

 new disease. — Ed.] 



QUESTIONS ABOUT SHAKEN SWARMS. 



I had two colonies of bees that swarmed 

 one day apart. I hived them in separate 

 hives, shook the bees oflF the combs of each 

 old colony in front of each new hive, leav- 

 ing enough bees in the old hive to take care 

 of the brood. Eleven days later I repeated 

 the shaking with the one, and ten days 

 later with the other; twenty-one days from 

 the time they swarmed I shook all the bees 

 off the combs in front of the new hive of the 

 one colony; the other, twenty days from the 

 time they swarmed. About 1000 bees went 

 back into the old hive of the one colony, and 

 about 2000 bees went back into the old hive 

 of the other colony. Five days after the 

 last shaking I shook the rem:.ining bees 

 from each old hive in front of each new 

 hive. The one with about 1000 bees, as 

 nearly as I could see, killed them all. The 

 one with about 2000 bees I could not see 

 that they killed any. Would you please 

 inform me why those two colonies of bees 

 acted so differently, as there was only one 

 day's difference in swarming? I can't see 

 why they acted so differently unless it was 

 that the one that killed the bees had the 

 old queen, and the other the young queen. 



L. H. LiNDEMUTH. 



Lehmaster, Pa., May 26. 



[This was referred to Mr. L. Stachelhau- 

 sen, who replies. He is possibly the best- 

 posted bee-keeper on the subject of shaken 

 swarms in the United States. — Ed.] 



I see that, 20 and 21 days after swarm- 

 ing, you shook all the bees from the old 

 hives in front of the swarms; but in one 

 case 1000 and in the other case about 2000 

 of the bees returned to the old hives. Right 

 here is something I do not understand — 21 

 days after swarming, all the worker brood 

 has hatched; and if all the bees are shaken 

 in front of the swarms, you have broodless 

 combs, nothing else. What is the reason 

 for keeping them on the old stand? I would 

 remove the old hive entirely, and use the 

 combs somewhere else. If some of the field- 

 bees would return they would find the old 

 hive gone, and try to enter one of the neigh- 

 boring hives, and they will be accepted if 

 they have their honey-sac filled. 



Now, you say that you have shaken these 

 few bees in front of the swarm 5 days aft- 

 erward. In one case they were nearly all 

 killed; in the other case none were killed, 

 and you want to know why this difference. 



It is always difficult to explain some 

 things if we do not know all the circum- 

 stances. Two different explanations are 

 possible. 



1. Field-bees with an empty honey- 

 stomach, if introduced to another colony. 



are generally killed; but if they come back 

 from the field with a load, and try to enter 

 a wrong hive, they are not molested at all. 

 In the one case Mr. L. may have disturbed 

 the bees sufficiently, which caused the bees 

 to fill themselves with honey, and they 

 were accepted. In the other case they 

 probably could not do so, for some reason 

 unknown to me, and were killed. 



2. Whether the swarm had an old or a 

 young queen will make no difference, I 

 think, in this respect; but something else is 

 to be considered. Bees of an after-swarm 

 can hardly be united with a colony having 

 a fertile queen. It seems that the bees see 

 the danger that a young virgin queen may 

 kill the old fertile mother. On the other 

 hand, queenless bees are generally accept- 

 ed. This may explain Mr. L.'s case in an- 

 other way. If with the 1000 bees there 

 was some kind of virgin queen it is not as- 

 tonishing that they all were killed by the 

 colony having a young or old fertile queen; 

 and if among the 2000 bees no queen at all 

 was present, and they had full honey-sacs, 

 they were accepted all right. 



L. Stachp:lhausen. 



Converse, Texas. 



THE UPPER-STORY PLAN OF SUPERSEDING 

 QUEENS. 



Doolittle in his books on queen-rearing, 

 which I have translated into German (and 

 published), says on page 111, second edi- 

 tion: "If you desire to supersede any 

 queen, etc., all you have to do is to put on 

 an upper story with a queen-excluding 

 honey-board under it; place a frame of 

 brood with a queen-cell upon it, in this up- 

 per story; and after the young queen has 

 hatched, withdraw the queen-excluder, and 

 your old queen is superseded without your 

 even having to find her, or having the least 

 bit of time wasted to the colony. 



Concerning this method I have found no 

 mention made of it in your ABC. Pray 

 tell why. Is it practically worthless? or 

 have you mentioned it in the ABC? I 

 should be very grateful if you would be so 

 kind as to answer my question. 



A. Strauli. 



Scherzingen, Switzerland, Jan. 29. 



[The item you refer to in Doolittle's book 

 is one among several good things found 

 therein; but, from the nature of our work, 

 we were able to give only extracts or brief 

 sketches of some of the methods referred to 

 in his excellent work. For that reason we 

 did not include the part you refer to. As 

 to the plan itself, I have not tested it, and 

 therefore referred it to Mr. Doolittle, who 

 replies. — Ed.] 



The plan Mr. Strauli asks about worked 

 perfectly in all trials before the book was 

 published; but since, when bees were in- 

 clined to rob, as no nectar was coming 

 from the fields, it has sometimes failed. 



I find bees are very "freaky " things, 

 and every little while they will upset rules 

 that have worked for 10, 15, or 20 years — 



