PUBLISHED EVERY WEEK 



AT $1.00 PER ANNUM. 



SStli Year. 



CHICAGO, ILL., JULY 25, 1895. 



No. 30. 



Coj;)tributcd /Vrticlcs* 



On Important Afyiarian Sulyjects^ 



Bees Building Ill-Shapeti Combs, Etc. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



A correspondent writes me thus: "I have a colony of 

 bees which built nice, thinly-drawn, beautiful combs in the 

 middle sections of the super, while the outside sections con- 

 tain some of the heaviest and most ill-shapen combs I ever 

 saw. Can you tell me why this is so ? Please answer through 

 the American Bee Journal, as I take that paper." 



Something of this kind has been spoken of before in our 

 bee-papers, and some seem to think that such a state of affairs 

 comes about by the changes in the weather, the thicker combs 

 being built while the weather was cool, and the thinner when 

 the weather was warm. Others account for it in a somewhat 

 similar but different way, which is that as the thin combs 

 were built in the center, therefore this shows that there is 

 greater heat over the center of the cluster of bees than else- 

 where, as would be natural, while the heat not being so great 

 on the outside, made the wax less pliable, hence the thicker 

 and irregular combs. But I do not agree with either of these, 

 for, as far as my knowledge goes, bees do not attempt to work 

 wax unless the temperature is right for the successful working 

 of the same, and bees are capable of making a right tempera- 

 ture just when and where they please, as I have often proven 

 with my self-registering thermometer. A small cluster of 

 bees can easily keep a temperature of from 93-^ to 95^ during 

 a cold, frosty night, as many night experiments testify, and 

 that is plenty warm enough for wax-working. 



From past experience I should account for the state of 

 affairs spoken of by the correspondent, as being the loss of the 

 queen in that particular hive, and especially as he does not 

 speak of noticing any other colonies building such peculiar 

 comb. If cold had been the cause of the trouble, all of the 

 colonies would have built thick, irregular combs as well ; but 

 as it was one particular colony that did so, we must look for 

 the trouble at this point. 



Several years ago I had a colony of bees that were nicely 

 at work in the sections, having a part of them filled with 

 comb, when one day, in handling the frames below, I lost the 

 queen by her falling off the comb, as I suppose, and from that 

 date until tbey got a laying queen they built the poorest and 

 thickest combs that I had ever seen at that time. Many of 

 the sections had the comb in them " stubbed " off at the sides 

 and bottoms ; some were not built more than half down when 

 the cells were lengthened out, filled with honey and sealed 

 over, so that very much of the honey was unsalable. Since 

 then, in trjing to control swarming by caging the queen, I 



have had the same state of affairs, so that I am very positive 

 that loss of queen was the cause of the whole trouble. In fact, 

 I am often made to understand when a colony has lost its 

 queen by the looks of the comb which they are building in the 

 sections, thus being able to remedy the matter, when I other- 

 wise might not know it, or not until the colony was consid- 

 erably injured. 



That not nearly as nice comb is built when a colony has 

 no laying queen in the hive, is one of the reasons why I do not 

 like the plan of taking away the queen in swarming-time to 

 prevent swarming. Of course, where the sections are filled 

 with thin comb foundation, better results are obtained, but 

 even then the combs built by any colony not having a laying 

 queen, are not nearly as nice as the same colony will give 

 when the mother-bee is doing full duty in the hive. 



Good Queens. — Another correspondent writes me thus, 

 regarding the book, " Scientific Queen-Rearing :" " A friend 

 tells me that you claim in your book on queen-rearing, that 

 queens reared by what you term a ' natural process,' are bet- 

 ter than those reared by other methods. Is this a fact ?" 



My book was put before the public with the sole purpose 

 of benefiting the public, without any claims for it save a care- 

 ful trial of the plans outlined in it by the one who was not 

 fully satisfied with his or her present attainments along the 

 line of rearing queens. I only wish to take space here to say 

 that I do not claim for the queens reared as I advised in the 

 book any superiority, because they are cradled in artificial 

 cradles, or because these cradles are supplied with plenty of 

 royal jelly into which the selected larvae are transferred, or 

 anything of that kind. No, nothing of the sort. These are 

 only conveniences to pave the way for having the queens 

 reared just when and where we wish them, by that good and 

 inexpensive way of having them reared in upper stories of hives 

 having a laying queen below, to supply bees to care for these 

 cells all summer, so that we need not keep making colonies 

 queenless every little while to rear queens, thus avoiding lots 

 of labor, and throwing many colonies out of their normal con- 

 dition, only to shorten our surplus honey crop to the extent 

 which we uoqueen colonies for this purpose. 



What I do claim as superior is in bringing the colony into 

 that condition where they will rear queens Icisurclij, and un- 

 der the safe conditiojis that they do in superseding their own 

 queens without the interference of man, as all know the very 

 best of queens are reared. When this can be done, and that, 

 too, without having a queenless colony as a loss on our hands, 

 I think that all will concede it to be of advantage so to do. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



11^° It will pay any young bee-keeper to visit a large bee- 

 keeper, who has a successful record, as one thus gains many 

 hints that will be of great value to him. — Prof. Cook. 



