1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1438 



UNQUEENING, WHEN AND HOW DONE. 



"Mr. Doolittle, I wish to have a talk with 

 you about unqueening, or taking the queen 

 away from colonies of bees." 



"But you are not wanting to take the 

 queens from any of your colonies at this time 

 of the year, are you? " 



"No; but I tried the plan in a limited way 

 last summer, and have been very enthusiastic 

 over it. A bee-keeper who knows you, told 

 me you had two plans of unqueening, and I 

 want you to tell me how you work with them. 

 When do you begin the work? " 



"About fifteen days before the expected 

 honey-harvest." 



"Why that jiumber of days? " 



" So that the young queen may commence 

 to lay a day or two after the honey-tiow is 

 on." 



" What do you do with the old queen? " 



"1 kill her or form a nucleus with her and 

 one comb of bees and brood, just in accord 

 with which seems the most profitable to me." 



"What do you do with the nucleus?" - 



"Use it for taking an occasional qmen 

 from to replace poor queens, or from which 

 to get an occasional queen at any time of 

 emergency when it is necessary for me to 

 have a queen at once. No bee keeper should 

 attempt to keep bees without running one 

 nucleus to about every twenty-five colonies 

 he may have in his apiary. If queens are 

 not needed, these nuclei will build a frame 

 of worker comb every week or so during the 

 summer months, and thus add much value to 

 the sum total at the end of the year." 



' ' I see. What further do you do with the 

 colony now made queenless?" 



"Ten days later all queen-cells are cut, 

 and a ripe queen- cell, from my very best 

 comb-honey queen, is given, and. that ends 

 the matter, unless by outside diagnosis I mis- 

 trust this young queen is lost or fails to be- 

 come a perfect mother." 



"If you mistrust the queen is lost, what 

 then?" 



"The hive is opened; and if no eggs or lar- 

 v:t' are found, a queen from the nucleus is 

 given." 



"Ah! I now see something of the value of 

 that nucleus. I could have saved quite a 

 considerable the past season if I could have 

 had queens for three or four colonies which 

 I found queenless just in the height of the 

 honey-flow. But do the bees not swarm out 

 with the queen when she goes out to meet 

 the drones? " 



"Some claim that they do so; but with me 

 no such trouble has occurred during the 

 past." 



" What about the other plan? " 



"The other plan uses the old queen; or, in 

 other words, the queen is not killed nor taken 

 from the hive." 



" Do you begin about the same time as 

 with the first? " 



"Not quite as soon. With this plan I wait 

 till about five days before the expected har- 

 vest, when the queen is caught and caged, 

 the cage containing her being placed just on 

 top of the bottom- bar to a central frame in 

 the hive, near the entrance end." 



"Why do you place her and the cage 

 thus?" 



"Because I find that, when she is at this 

 point, the bees as a rule work right along the 

 same, or nearly so, as they would if the queen 

 had her liberty. In other words, when I cage 

 a queen and put the cage near the top of the 

 brood-chamber the bees seem to feel as if 

 they were queenless, start queen-cells at once, 

 or as soon as they would if the queen were 

 taken from the hive, and lack in energy about 

 working, very much the same as a queenless 

 colony does. But cage her near the entrance, 

 at the bottom of the hive, and work goes 

 right along, often without any queen-cells 

 being started at all." 



"That is a point worth knowing, certain- 

 ly. But what next after caging the queen? " 



"I wait ten days, then open the hive, cut 

 the cells, if any are found, when the stopper 

 to the cage is removed and replaced with one 

 having about two inches of queen-candy in 

 it." 



"Why that much candy? " 



"This amount requires about two to three 

 days for the bees to eat through it so as to 

 liberate the queen, thus keeping them with- 

 out a laying queen for about fifteen days." 



"But ten and two or three does not make 

 fifteen days, does it? " 



"No; but I said without a laying queen. 

 A queen just from a cage does not begin to 

 lay at once, or immediately upon her release 

 from her imprisonment. She has to be fed 

 prepared food for about two days before she 

 begins to lay very much." 



"That is something I had not thought 

 about, but presume you may be correct in 

 the matter. But does not this week or ten 

 days of honey harvest, when no eggs are be- 

 ing laid in the cells, cause the brood-cham- 

 ber to become filled with honey? " 



"To no great amount, where the queen is 

 caged near the entrance, for the bees are at 

 work in the sections all the while, very near- 

 ly the same as would be the case did the 

 queen have her liberty. And this way seems 

 to work fully as well as the first regai'ding 

 the prevention of swarming; and, so far as I 

 can see, the presence of the queen thus caged 

 in the hive gives all the energy to the bees 

 ever obtainetl under any circumstances where 

 the old queen remains in the hive during the 

 swarming season." 



"But does not such a liberating of the 

 queen just at this time in the harvest result 

 in a whole lot of bi'ood-feeding when the 

 honey-harvest is at its height? " 



"All the eggs laid by the queen are gener- 



