46 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



that " the queen is simply the vehicle of 

 transmission from one generation to anoth- 

 er, and it is the qualities to be transmitted, 

 rather that the vehicle of transmission, that 

 should receive our attention." I also asser- 

 ted that prolific queens, those of unusually 

 great laying powers, are of no more value, 

 except to the man using a large brood nest, 

 and that it would be better for him if he 

 would reduce his brood nest to the capacity 

 of the average queen. As nearly all of my 

 correspondents opposed me at that time, 

 perhaps I may be pardoned for now quoting 

 something in my defense. It is from the 

 pen of Mr. B. Taylor and published in the 

 American Bee Journal. After describing 

 the advantages of his new house apiary, and 

 mentioning the wonderful yield of comb 

 honey secured from one colony, he says :— 



" Doolittle said long ago that 800 inches 

 of comb .space gave room enough for any 

 queen, and my experience confirms his judg- 

 ment. The colonies with two sections gave 

 no larger swarms than those with one. I do 

 not recommend small hives to those that give 

 but little attention to their bees, but for the 

 scientific apiarist, to get the most ivhite comb 

 honey, they are indispensable. 



I must say something more about the col- 

 ony that produced the 250 pounds of honey. 

 There has been a great deal said in the bee 

 papers about the importance of always re- 

 moving inferior queens, and filling their 

 places with good ones. My experience had 

 led me to suspect that the bees could attend 

 to this about as well as us big, smart fellows. 

 However, I last fall resolved to give this fine 

 point more attention in the future, so I went 

 to such hives as my judgment had deter- 

 mined had poor queens, and wrote on them 

 plainly — ' Poor queen. Re-queen this,' in- 

 tending to attend to it in the spring. I placed 

 the colonies on the summer stands in the 

 house, and upon examining them I found 

 the one that afterward made the big yield 

 was marked for re-queening, and this was 

 the reason the hive was not given an extra 

 section. It increased the task of finding and 

 destroying the bad queen, but other work 

 pressed, and the job was neelected. If I had 

 got my intentions carried out, I should have 

 killed one of the best queens that it was ever 

 my fortune to possess, as she kept the hive 

 boiling over with bees during the entire 

 season." 



I know of some successful bee-keepers 

 who allow no old queens in their yard, and 

 if large brood nests are used I must admit 

 that I think such a course advisable, while 

 others equally successful allow the bees to 

 do their own superseding. 



There is one other point brought to my 

 mind by the reading of Mr. Taylor's article, 

 and that is, does the same colony give the 

 best yield every year ? Some of you may re- 



member that there were some quotations 

 from a German bee journal given last year 

 in the Review, showing the conditions under 

 which bees store the most honey, and the 

 question is, are not those conditions of more 

 importance than even the qualities that the 

 queen may transmit ? What part does the 

 queen play in bringing about those condi- 

 tions ? If a young queen keeps her combs 

 supplied with eggs, and a bountiful surplus 

 is the result, and then poor crops are harves- 

 ted by her colony when she is older, then we 

 get an argument on the other side, but it 

 seems that Mr. Taylor's colony did better 

 the next year after the queen was condemned. 

 I am a little curious to know why he con- 

 demned her. 



I suspect that one cause of his success in 

 this instance was the complete filling of the 

 brood nest with brood. 



Bee - Escapes, How to Put Them On, and 



How They Save Labor and Prevent 



Robbing. 



" 'Tie pleasant * * * to see the stir of the 

 great babel, and not feel the crowd."— COWP£/f 



It is yet a little early in the season here at 

 the North to begin talking about bee escapes, 

 but it will not be so very long before they 

 will be in use in the South or in California. 

 I had a card to-day from C. W. Dayton of 

 California, and he said that the bees were 

 beginning to work quite briskly on the wil- 

 low and eucalyptus. By the way, the article 

 t' at I am now writing this introductory for, 

 is from the pen of this same Dayton, and the 

 editor of Gleanings, from which paper it is 

 taken, says it is one of the best reports they 

 have received showing the value of bee es- 

 capes. Of course, it must appear in the Re- 

 view, and if it is given now it will not crowd 

 out something else later in the season. Mr. 

 Dayton says : — 



" In my work I have been testing escapes 

 more, and less, sometimes to the number of 

 thirty or forty ; and to say they are advan- 

 tageous always would not be my belief, 

 yet I think them a decidedly useful imple- 

 ment. It is not the trouble of putting them 

 on that is an objection, nor taking them off : 

 in fact, if we work as fast as we can, the time 

 amounts to nearly nothing. Sixty to one 

 hundred per hour could be put on by a little 

 practice. They can be put on at any tim, 

 but probably the best time is in the evening, 

 and wheel the upper stories into the extract- 

 ing-room the next morning, utilizing he 

 cool of the evening and morning when it is 

 pleasant and invigorating to work — while 



