1883 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



565 



queens, the rest from J. W. Keeran, of Blooming- 

 ton, 111. ; and I want to say here, he is a prompt, hon- 

 est man to deal with. I have ordered a number of 

 queens of him (all untested), and they proved to be 

 purely mated, producing large, gentle, three-band- 

 ed bees; queens very prolific, and bees good work- 

 ers. All my queens are laying, keeping the combs 

 filled, although there is very little honey coming in. 

 They have not gained 3 lbs. to a colony in 4 weeks. 

 Goldenrod and other fall flowers are abundant, but 

 bees do not work on them. It is, and has been for 

 several weeks, very dry. The spring or summer 

 yield of tioney was heavy. Honey is slow sale at IS^i 

 cts. per lb. I think it will bring a better price, un- 

 less the bees do better than at present. Gleanings 

 is a most welcome guest. D. C. Ayaks. 



Moawequa, Shelby Co., 111., Sept. 6, 188i. 



INTRODUCING VIRGIN QUEENS. 



FOUL BROOD AND ITALIANS. 



AS several of the friends have given their ex- 

 perience in introducing virgin queens, I will 

 ' give mine. If I have one or more virgin 

 queens to introduce, I preceded as follows: I go to 

 the parent hive and takeout all the combs that have 

 these virgin queens on them, and stand the combs 

 outside the hive (remember, this can be done only 

 in a flow of honey, when there are no robbers about). 

 I then go to as many queenless hives as I have 

 virgin queens, if I have that many, and I smoke 

 each colony well; then I take out of each of the 

 queenless colonies a sheet of brood with the adher- 

 ing bees, and I stand that outside of its respective 

 hive (leaving the hive open), and so I go to the whole 

 number, as many as I have virgin queens I wish to 

 introduce. Inowgoto the first queenless hive, where 

 I left the comb standing outside; pick up the comb, 

 and go to where I left the virgin queens on the 

 combs outside their own hive. I pick off one of 

 these queens, and place her on the comb I have 

 brought with me from hive No. 1 that was queenless. 

 I watch the bees and the queen for a few moments, 

 to see that all is well; but as a rule, the bees pay 

 little or no attention at all to her. 1 take the comb 

 with the queen, bees, and all, back to hive where 

 they belong; set it quietly in its place in the hive; 

 close all up, and wait patiently the result. I do not 

 disturb them till it is time for the queen to begin 

 laying. In the same way I proceed with all the 

 hives spoken of above. 



Now, I have been very successful in the way of 

 introducing virgin queens; and the way I look at it 

 Is this: The trouble in introducing virgin queens 

 to a queenless colony is, first, she is rushed into the 

 midst of a strange lot of bees; and she, not being a 

 fertile queen, they naturally take a dislike to a 

 queen that is not prepared at once to go on and fill 

 the proper duties assigned or expected of a queen, 

 and, in most cases, they think it best to dispose of 

 her and take their chances on getting something 

 better. Well, now for my reasons for proceeding as 

 stated above: As all old bee-men know, after you 

 have had the hive open a few moments (if there are 

 no robbers around), the bees fill themselves with 

 honey, and become quiet. They get used to the 

 light and to your presence, and generally they as- 

 sume a kind of a " don't care " disposition, and are 

 ready to accept almost any terms (only so they 

 have peace). Well, now, after you have been to all 



these hives, and set a sheet of brood out of each, by 

 the time you get around with the newly hatched 

 queen they that are on the comb, and those that are 

 in the hive are all in the best nature, and, as a rule, 

 all goes well. But, now, understand, it is not always 

 sure. The bees either kill some of them, or they 

 get lost on their wedding-tour. But as I said before, 

 I have had better hick introducing virgin queens 

 this way than any other I ever tried. 



On page .537, Milton Hewitt speaks of a disease of 

 bees, and wishes to know if Italians are aBfected with 

 foul brood the same as the blacks. Now, friend 

 Root, my experience is not at all like yours. After 

 an experience of six years in California, where foul 

 brood is the regular diet, morning, noon, and night; 

 in the winter and in the summer, I saw but one 

 pure Italian stand of bees that had foul brood, and 

 this was a lazy, good-for-nothing queen; and in the 

 spring of 1880 her colony had foul brood.. But, 

 blacks; whew! I have seen too many. Now, I do 

 not say that Italians will not have foul brood; but I 

 do say, I never saw more than one stand have it, 

 while I have seen hundreds of blacks "go where the 

 woodbine twineth," wiih that most of all dread dis- 

 ese, foul hrofjd. 



In some future number of Gleanings I will give 

 my remedy for foul brood, and what I use to keep 

 the disease off when in a locality where it prevails. 



Water Valley, N. Y. A. W. Osburn. 



Friend O., I slioulcl advise letting young 

 virgin queens loose at the entrance of the 

 hive, or, if you choose, by turning up the 

 mat over the combs. It is true, some of them 

 will "come np missing ;" yet if they are well 

 watched, the number is so few that we have 

 decided to take the chances. If they have 

 been hatched several days, and are running 

 about on the combs, i would just swap 

 combs; and if honey is coming in, there 

 probably won't be any fuss ''in the camp." 

 Tour plan may be safest, after all, and I 

 have given it because it embodies very im- 

 portant points in handling bees. When one 

 has become sufficiently acquainted with the 

 habits of bees, to know just what he can do 

 with impimity , he pretty soon begins to find he 

 can do almost any thing he wants to do. — I 

 am very glad to hear you pay the Italians the 

 tribute you do, in regard to foul brood. It 

 has always seemed to me that their energy 

 would enable them to shake off disease, and 

 also in the same way throw out moth millers 

 and robbers ; but I have never heard the idea 

 advanced before, that I know of. 



PRACTICAli RESULTS. 



finding a bee-tree. 



HILE passing through the woods some half- 

 mile from my apiary early one morning:, 

 just about sun-up, all of a sudden I heard 

 the industrious hum of bees; and upon looking I 

 found that they were sucking at the root of a large 

 white-oak. On account of disease, the sap of the 

 tree had fermented, and was slowly running out; 

 and 'twas this that attracted the bees— or, at least, 

 that was my supposition. It might, however, have 

 been that the bees, like a great many of the frater" 

 nity, had become attached to the word " Root," and 

 were working there on that account. To my sur" 

 prise, they were all black bees. This being a fact, I 



