504 



THE MMERICMIt WElTi JOURffMS^. 



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rare thing that I miss a queen in going 

 over a hive, but if I do, I never trj* 

 longer at that time, but close the hive 

 and try again when the sun is right 

 another day. 



To show what can be done, if the 

 above course is pursued, I will sa}-, 

 that in six hours, during the middle of 

 the day, I have found and clipped the 

 wings of 40 blacli and hybrid ijueens, 

 for a party who had concluded tliat he 

 wished his queens' wings clipped ; and 

 I have reason to believe that any one 

 can do as well after a little practice 

 along this line. 



To keep the sun just right, wheel 

 the hive around a little, one waj- or 

 the other for the time being, where 

 you have to worlc five or six hours at a 

 time. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



SAVING HONEY. 



Removing^ Queens to Save 

 Honey Consumption. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY ALEX. W. STITH. 



As nearly all persons now seem to 

 be desirous of sometliihg new, I will 

 describe a method by which an api- 

 arist may secure (or rather, save) 

 many pounds of honey, and at the 

 same time not injure a colony of bees, 

 and as far as mj' knowledge extends, 

 this idea originated entirely within my- 

 self. 



It would be almost as reasonable to 

 pei-rait a number of harvesters to re- 

 main boarding with us, after the har- 

 vest is over, as to have a surplus of 

 bees reared during the latter part of 

 June, and the first part of July, which 

 bees will only answer as consumers 

 instead of producers, as bees at this 

 time of the j-^ar will only create a 

 home market for honey, in the way of 

 consumption in rearing brood, which 

 is only necessary at certain intervals 

 during the season. 



All practical bee-keepers iu Ken- 

 tucky well know that here our surplus 

 honey is usually gathered in a period 

 of about six weeks, and after this 

 time has elapsed, a surplus of bees is 

 only detrimental to the welfare of a 

 colony of bees, as well as to tlie api- 

 arist. To obviate this difficulty, about 

 the middle of June I kill all of my 

 queens that are three years okl, and 

 .such others as do not exactly fill the 

 bill, regardless of age ; and for those 

 that I wish to retain, I prepare empty 

 hives of sufficient size to accommodate 

 three frames of brood. 



I then remove the queens from the 

 old hives, together witli three frames 

 of combs containiutj brood and ad- 



hering bees, and put them into new 

 hives or nuclei. The colonies from 

 which the queen are taken will at once 

 proceed to build queen-cells ; and those 

 colonies should be examined every ten 

 days, and all queen-cells destroyed ; 

 at the same time exchange with them 

 a comb of brood and eggs, taken from 

 some of the small, or nuclei colonies, 

 containing a queen, to prevent the 

 appearance, or presence, of fertile 

 workers, which often infest colonies 

 that are long queenless, without the 

 necessary material, such as eggs or 

 larva, from which a queen can be 

 reared ; and as the queens in the nu- 

 clei have only use of three combs, 

 consequently only a limited amount of 

 brood can be reared. 



I let the queens remain as described 

 for a period of six weeks, and at the 

 end of this time, the queens can usually 

 be introduced to their future habita- 

 tion, by i^lacing the three combs, 

 queen and all together, near the cen- 

 ter of the hive, provided, however, 

 there are no queen-cells remaining in 

 the okl hive at the time of introduc- 

 tion, or, for a certainty, the queens 

 may be caged for 24 or 36 hours. The 

 only objection that could be urged 

 against such procedure is, the extra 

 labor in manipulating, but I have ex- 

 perimented far enough in this line to 

 be thoroughly convinced that the 

 amount of honey thus saved will richly 

 repay the apiarist for the necessary 

 labor required. 



In order to make the matter more 

 plain to the reader, suppose that we 

 figure a little, and that an apiarist has 

 50 colonies of bees, and that by the 

 method above described, one pound of 

 honey per colony is saved each day 

 that they are thus queenless, which is 

 surelj' a very low estimate ; and allow 

 one week of the time for most of the 

 brood in the old hives to be sealed, 

 and say they are allowed to remain 

 queenless for 5 weeks or 35 days. 

 Now 50 colonies at this rate would in 

 35 days save 1,750 pounds of hone}', 

 whicli, at 10 cents per pound, would 

 amount to |175 ; and counting .$50 ex- 

 pense for nuclei hives, $15 for extra 

 lavor, and sa}' |10 for perhaps a loss 

 of a few fine queens, it will be seen 

 that we have the nice little sum of 

 1100 left by the experiment. 



The first thing that drew my atten- 

 tion to the perceptible difierence in 

 the amount of honey in the hives that 

 remained queenless for weeks, and 

 those that had queens, was made 

 manifest to me as a queen-breeder, by 

 removing queens for the purpose of 

 queen-rearing ; and I am so honestly 

 convicted that if the above described 

 method be strictly adhered to, the 

 most fastidious will be convinced. 



Portland, Ky. 



BEE-SENSE. 



Bee§ do Select a Location Be- 

 fore Swarming;. 



Written, for the American Bee Journal 



BY GEORGE POINDEXTER. 



Having hunted bees for more than 

 thirty years, and started my apiaries 

 from the wild bees captured in the 

 forest, I am armed with experience 

 and observation enough to satisfy me 

 that bees do locate a home before 

 leaving the parent hive ; and also after 

 thej' do leave, some will go direct to 

 the tree or hive that has been cleaned 

 out by the scouts. I have given them 

 chase direct to the tree, cut the tree 

 within half an hour, and found the 

 hollow clean and varnished with pro- 

 polis. 



Some swarms leave, not knowing 

 anything of a future home, and will 

 fly until tired out, and alight on any 

 object that comes in their way ; but if 

 exposed to the hot sun or rain, they 

 will get up again and go to a more 

 favorable place. Then in obedience 

 to the instinct imbued within them by 

 nature's law, they leave the cluster in 

 almost every direction, by the hun- 

 dreds, in search of a home. Then 

 they will be found cleaning a half- 

 dozen different places at the same 

 time, but they will accumulate the 

 strongest at the most favorable hollow, 

 and when the swarm "breaks camp," 

 a quart or more of bees will be found 

 hanging where the swarm had left ; 

 these are the scouts that were clearing 

 other trees, and not knowing the loca- 

 tion of the swarm, they stay there 

 until they dwindle away and finally 

 disappear. 



Some swarms alight on a limb of a 

 large tree, in a fence-corner, or in a 

 grape-vine, and being full of honey 

 before the scouts find a suitable loca- 

 tion, they start combs, and then the 

 scouts cannot entice them to go., as the 

 queen has laid a few eggs. I have 

 found bees in all of these places, but 



1 have never found anj- honey in such 

 combs ; yet I have thought they sniffed 

 the battle from afar oft", and never 

 thought it worth while to gather any 

 honey except for present use, as they 

 would only leave it for the raccoons to 

 enjoy. 



■ I have transferred them to frame- 

 hives, from their open-air hive, and in 



2 or 3 days the combs would be full of 

 honej'. Some swarms will clean out a 

 hive with the intention of swarming, 

 but the weather or honey-flow will 

 make a change in the programme. I 

 have seen scouts clean out a hive and 

 stay at the entrance for 3 or 4 days, 

 evidently waiting for the decision at 

 home, and if anj- intruder comes 



