AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



537 



dueries ajid Replies. 



Capi tie Queens for 2 or 3 Weeks. 



QuEKY 763.— Will it injure, in prolitic- 

 ness or otherwise, a young queen that 

 has been laying a week or 10 days, to 

 cage her for 2 or 3 weeks ? — J. W. J. 



Yes. — H. D. Cutting. 



No. — Dad ANT & Son. 

 I think not. — A. B. Mason. 

 In my judgment, yes. — Mrs. Habrison. 

 I suspect it does a little, but not much. 

 — C. C. Miller. 



I do not know, but fear that it would. 



— C. H. DiBBERN. 



I think not ; but possibly I am wrong. 

 — Eugene Secor. 



Not often, if she be kept at a proper 

 temperature. — E. L. Taylor. 



It would be likely to do her a perma- 

 nent injury. — J. M. Hambaugh. 



Perhaps. It will injure your business 

 to make it a practice to do so, I think. — 

 James Heddon. 



All such prolonged caging has a ten- 

 dency to weaken the prolificness of the 

 queen. — J. P. H. Brown. 



I would not like to risk it. Much 

 would depend upon the manner in which 

 she was- caged, and upon her supply of 

 food.~M. Mahin. 



It would do her no good to so cage her, 

 and unless I had some special reason for 

 caging her, I should, by all means, let 

 her have her liberty. — G. M. Doolittle. 



I do not think so, but who knows for 

 certain ? Queens are often injured in 

 shipping, but who will say that he can 

 tell just how it happened ? — A. J. Cook. 



I do not think it does any harm to con- 

 fine a queen 4 or 5 days, but I know of 

 no necessity, except in shipping queens, 

 to confine them for so long.-— G. L.Tinker. 



I do not thiiik it will. I can see no 

 reason, either, why it should. Young 

 queens are carried from Maine to Califor- 

 nia — in fact the world over — without 

 injury. — J. E. Pond. 



According to my experience, yes. 

 Young queens that are shipped in cages, 

 being out no longer than from 2 to 4 

 days, will not live, on the average, as 

 long as queens reared and kept at home 

 at steady work, and queens that are one 

 or more years old are worthlesSi except 

 as breeders, if caged and shipped a few 



hundred miles. Such is my experience. 

 — G. W. Demakee. 



Much depends upon the care exercised 

 in the transaction. While it may not 

 injure the queen to cage her for 2 or 

 3 weeks, after she has commenced to 

 lay, it should not be practiced unless 

 there is an urgent necessity for doing 

 so. When carefully put into properly 

 provisioned cages, queens have been 

 mailed to Australia, but nearly all of 

 them are short lived, and many are 

 injured more or less. — The Editor. 



Transferring" Bees, Etc. 



Will Mr. Heddon please answer the 

 following through the Bee Journal: 



1. If that "forced or transferred" 

 swarm (see page 472) may be expected 

 to cast a swarm, after the "forcing " or 

 " transferring?" 



2. Does he still practice the plan out- 

 lined on page 126 of the Bee Journal 

 for 1883, for preventing second swarms? 



3. Should we place a colony, say, a 

 week before swarming time, on top of 

 a hive filled with empty combs, with a 

 queen-excluding honey-board on top of 

 the latter, would the colony cast a 

 swarm, or try to ? Hallett & Son. 



In response to the questions of Messrs. 

 Hallett & Son, let me say that the reply 

 I shall make will not be suitable for an 

 article in the Bee Journal. 



1. Whether the forced «warm will cast 

 a swarm or not, will depend upon the 

 same peculiar local conditions which 

 would govern the actions of a natural 

 swarm. They are not apt to, in most 

 localities, provided they are managed so 

 as to prevent increase, if the owner does 

 not desire any increase. 



2. Yes ; I always transfer by the new 

 method, called modern transferring, 

 whenever I have any transferring to do. 



3. Yes ; if they had previously ar- 

 ranged to do so. But, of course, the 

 bees would return, as the queen could 

 not go, and, when the young queens 

 hatched, probably one of them would 

 pass through the excluder, and out 

 would come the swarm, to stay. But if 

 the season was not favorable to swarm- 

 ing, and the bees had made no previous 

 preparations, then probably they would 

 not come out. But I do not believe in 

 any of the compulsory methods to pre- 

 vent swarming. The best methods are 

 those which prevent the desire, and all 

 preparation for swarming. It is much 

 like the best method of guiding out 

 children in the way they should go. 



Dowagiac, Mich. James H?:ddon. 



