1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



391 



and all I had to do was to reap the benefits! 

 I ti'ied hard to be unassuming, but inwardly 

 I could not help feeling proud that I knew 

 every thing about bees. 



I did all this studying in the winter; and 

 how I longed for spring to come that I might 

 demonstrate what I already knew! How 

 that winter persisted in staying with us, and 

 how reluctantly did spring show her shining 

 face! But at last, in the latter part of March, 

 there came a beautiful bright warm day — 

 just the time for clipping the queen! I had 

 never seen a queen, and my anxiety to view 

 her majesty was something fierce. I had an 

 assistant cover me with mosquito-bar. I put 

 on mittens and wrapped my wrists with rags. 

 Then I fired up the smoker and prepared to 

 go into action. How I dreaded opening that 

 hive! I felt a little pale, but my teeth were 

 set and it was do or die. I was too big a 

 coward to retreat while everyone was watch- 

 ing. I must have been an awe-inspiring 

 sight to those bees as I swooped down upon 

 them, dressed in armor, with the smoker 

 spitting smoke and tire. I soon enveloped 

 the hive in smoke, gave it a few jolts and 

 tore off the cover, then smoked again. Of 

 course, the bees cowed before such a vicious 

 onslaught. Now, the books said: "Catch the 

 queen and clip her." Clipping was the pri- 

 mary object of the expedition, but I saw 

 where the books were right in saying "catch 

 the queen" before saying "and clip her." 

 The only change in the wording of that I 

 would make would be to precede that with 

 "find the queen." I took out the frames 

 carefully, and stood them around the hive in 

 various places, but could not "catch the 

 queen." I looked and looked. There were 

 more bees in that hive than I had expected 

 to see in ten hives. The separation of a mix- 

 ture of the proverbial hay-stack and needle 

 would have been a cinch compared with the 

 task in hand. I hunted all the afternoon, 

 and had to give it up on account of darkness. 

 I was disgusted but not discouraged. This 

 problem confronted me: " If I fail to find one 

 queen in half a day, how long will it take to 

 find several thousand queens?" (the num- 

 ber I expected to have in a year or two). 



Nothing succeeds like a failure, and the 

 next day I went after them with more zeal 

 than ever. On lifting out the third frame 

 my eyes rested on a bee the like of which I 

 had never seen before. It was a long bee, 

 and she walked with a more majestic tread 

 over the comb, and did not seem to be in 

 such a rush as the rest of the bees. She was 

 of a dark Vjrown color, and how handsome 

 she looked! Verily this must be the queen! 

 The queen of Sheba might have looked good 

 to Solomon, but she was not arrayed like 

 this one. The next thing, "catch the queen." 

 I tried to make the catch, but she was not so 

 easy. Just as I would close my fingers on 

 her she was not there. At last I got hold of 

 one wing, but she buzzed around so that I 

 let her drop. Again I got her by the wings 

 and tried to transfer her to the left hand, but 

 her head did not stick out far enough for me 

 to get a good hold, and she backed out and 



got away. Next time I shut down so hard 

 that I was afraid I would kill her, and then 

 let up so that she got away again. This time 

 she dropped in the grass and I had a time to 

 find her. The fourtn time I held her between 

 my left thumb and finger in a trembly fash- 

 ion, much as a dog bites a rat, and probably 

 the sensations to tne rat and queen were sim- 

 ilar. I then got the shears. I forget wheth- 

 er they were a large pair of tailor's shears or 

 the kind they use for shearing sheep. In my 

 enthusiasm I had used them to pry frames 

 apart with, and they were more or less 

 gummed up with propolis. I slid them un- 

 der the wings and shut down. The wings 

 bent over, but would not cut. I tried again 

 and again, until I either wore the wings in 



NOW THE BOOKS SAID: "CATCH THE QUEEN 

 AND CLIP HER." 



two or pulled them off. But I got them off, 

 and a leg with them. Is it any wonder that 

 those bees decided they needed a new queen 

 — one more in keeping with the modern ideas 

 of rapid transit? A little later I thought I 

 would "shook" them into a new Danzenba- 

 ker hive, and I was astonished to find that 

 they had a new yellow queen with wings of 

 the regulation length and a full quota of 

 legs. 



P. S. In my first article I forgot to tell 

 where I was educated. Was educated at the 

 State Agricultural College of Indiana. Grad- 

 uated with horrors at the foot of the class 

 and received the degree of R. F. D. 



[Many a beginner has a similar experience. 

 When he pays anywhere from one to three 

 dollars for a nice queen, and then essays to 

 clip to keep his three dollars from tiying 



