1907 



GLEANINGS IN'BEE CULTURE. 



1493 



WHY CELLS WERE NOT STARTED. 



"1 have been following the Doolittle plan 

 for preventing swarming by caging the queen 

 on a frame in the hive, and liberating her 

 after ten days, when the queen-cells were to 

 be cut. I was going to requeen with these 

 cells; but upon looking through the hive 

 there was not a sign of a queen-cell to be 

 found. Will you please tell me why? And 

 if there is any other good way to requeen 

 when working on this plan, will you please 

 tell me about it? When I caged the queen 

 there were eggs and brood in all stages; but 

 at the end of the ten days there were no eggs 

 nor larvas, the brood being all capped over, 

 the most of the cells not containing brood 

 having more or less honey in them. 



The above was written by J. Victor Hud- 

 dle, West Jefferson, Ohio, during the swarm- 

 ing season of 1907. 



I might answer the above by simply writ- 

 ing the word "location." But Mr. Huddle 

 might feel that I was not giving him all the 

 light he wished, if I did so. Some feel dis- 

 posed to "poke fun " at having many of the 

 ills of apiculture laid to location, while oth- 

 ers feel that location has very much, if not 

 all, to do with the disagreement among bee- 

 keepers in regard to the workings of the dif- 

 ferent plans put forth in our literature which 

 pertains to the honey-bee. My belief is that 

 both sides are partly right. I know that lo- 

 cation does play a very important part in 

 many of our experiments and plans; and I 

 also know that very many, in trying the dif- 

 ferent plans given to the public, experiment 

 so looselyand carelessly that the plans would 

 not work with them as they did with the 

 promoters, even were they in the vexy same 

 location, and tried the plans at the very same 

 time and in the same apiary. And this is 

 not said as casting any reflection on our cor- 

 respondent, either. With these few words 

 on location I will give my views on "why 

 queen-cells were not started." The place in 

 the brood-chamber used for caging the queen 

 has much to do with the starting of queen- 

 cells, according to my experience. If she is 

 caged near or at the top of the frames, many 

 more queen-cells will be started than where 

 she is caged in the center of the brood -nest 

 or near the bottom of the same. During the 

 later years, when working on this caging-of- 

 the- queen plan to prevent swarming I always 

 caged the queen at the bottom of the brood- 

 nest, slipping the cage containing her just 

 above the bottom-bar to one of the central 

 frames, wherever I could find a place where 

 the comb was not attached to this bottom- 

 bar, and during some years not a single 



queen cell would be started; and, after one 

 of these years, I told a bee-keeping friend 

 that, if he would so cage his queens when 

 working on this plan, there would be no need 

 of opening hives at the end of the ten days 

 to look the frames all over, for it would be 

 safe to conclude that there would be no cells 

 to destroy — just liberate the queen, and that 

 is all there is of it. We were both so pleased 

 with the saving of the work and annoyance 

 which always attends the shaking of the bees 

 off from all the brood-combs in a hive and 

 hunting up the queen-cells, often in some of 

 the most out-of-the-way places, that we swung 

 our hats in the air and concluded we had 

 made a great discovei'y which the bee-keep- 

 ing world had never dreamed of. But with 

 the next year a changed condition existed, 

 right in the very same old location, and in 

 every colony where a queen was so caged, 

 from two to twenty queen-cells were started, 

 and we agreed that we were glad we had not 

 shouted ''eureka" over the matter so that it 

 might have been heard beyond our own ears. 

 Nevertheless, from years of experience I have 

 found that the rule holds good, that, under 

 all the varying circumstances which come to 

 any locality, many more queen-cells are like- 

 ly to be started where the queen is left caged 

 at the top of the brood-nest than whei'e she 

 is left near or at the bottom; and if we wish 

 still more cells started she should be caged 

 in the surplus apartment of the hive. The 

 reason for this seems to be that, with the 

 queen caged below or on the brood, the bees 

 do not consider themselves as queenless to 

 the extent they do where she is away from the 

 place they are accustomed to have her when 

 she has her liberty; and so they neglect, un- 

 der certain conditions, to make any provi- 

 sion for her replacement till the brood gets 

 too large to be fed, and turned over into a 

 fully mature queen. In the above our cor- 

 respondent and the readers of Gleanings 

 have the best answer I am able to give re- 

 garding why cells were not started. 



And now as to any other good way for get- 

 ting cells for requeening when working on 

 this plan for the preventing of swarming: I 

 have found that, after any queen has been 

 caged, no matter in what part of the hive she 

 may be placed in, if a frame having a bar of 

 prepared queen-cell cups is given two days 

 later, the bees will go on and perfect those 

 cups into large queen-cells, which, when 

 ripe, will give as nearly perfect queens as 

 can be reared outside of the swarming im- 

 pulse, or by the plan given in "Scientific 

 Queen-rearing. ' ' In fact, under most circum- 

 stances, as good queens can be reared in this 

 way as can be reared under any conditions, 

 for this caging is done at a time of year when 

 the bees can rear queens to the very best ad- 

 vantage; and if the queen is caged on the 

 bi'ood, or near the bottom of the same, the 

 bees work at the queen-cells with the same 

 leisure and perfection that they do under the 

 best swarming impulse ever attainable, which 

 has been nature's plan of handing down to 

 us during all of the past centuries the honey- 

 bee of the present; for the direct effort of 



