1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



309 



brood-chamber and the upper story 

 of a very strong colony. For this 

 purpose it is necessary that the col- 

 ony should fill its brood-chamber 

 and super with bees. If you do not 

 have any colony strong enough for 

 that you must add bees to it a few 

 days previously. Of course the old 

 bees united to it will go back to 

 their home, but the young bees will 

 remain and it is the young bees that 

 are needed to feed the larvae. 



If your colony is of sufficient 

 strength, give it, in the super, 

 two combs of sealed brood, between 

 which you place your comb of cu- 

 pules. 



Should the bees of this colony re- 

 fuse to build queen-cells out of the 

 cupules, which is a rare occurrence 

 if the colony is strong enough, you 

 can compel them to build the royal 

 cells by removing this super and 

 placing it on the stand of the main 

 brood-chamber, setting the main 

 brood-chamber right by the side of 

 it, but with its entrance at the op- 

 posite side, in the rear instead of the 

 front. This operation should be per- 

 formed early in the morning. The 

 next day you place both hive and 

 super back to their original posi- 

 tion, with the super above the main 

 brood-chamber. You will then find 

 that nearly all the cupules are being 

 worked upon. This method is rarely 

 needed to compel the workers to 

 construct queen-cells. It requires a 

 little more experience than the first 

 two methods described above. 



To prepare a comb of cupules, take 

 from the colony containing your 

 choice queen, a comb containing lar- 

 vae a day old. Carry it away from 

 the apiary to a convenient spot. 

 Then, with the punch, cut out as 

 many cells as you need and place 

 them into the cupules with the 

 "pusher." Then get a comb from 

 your breeding colony and screw the 

 cupules into it. It may then be put 

 back in the center of the hive as 

 stated above. 



At the end of 8 days, when the cells 

 are sealed, and the queens getting 



ready to hatch, build up nuclei, or 

 make divisions, or remove your old 

 queens and enclose your queen-cells 

 in royal cages, so that when they 

 hatch they remain prisoners. Within 

 2 or 3 days you may release them to 

 be fertilized. 



You may introduce a hatching 

 queen in this way in a colony hav- 

 ing a young queen ready to be fer- 

 tilized. Just as soon as she begins 

 to lay, you may remove her and re- 

 lease the other at the same opera- 

 tion. You simply take off the cover 

 of the cage and the bees consume 

 the candy and release the queen. By 

 alternating in this way, you may se- 

 cure laying queens verv rapidlv. 

 E. BARBEAU. 

 St. Eustache, Quebec. 



Introducing Queens 



I HAVE no luck introducing queens ; 

 have tried every plan I have read 

 of, smoke, syrup, etc., but they 

 kill them; throw them out every 

 time; have removed the old queen 

 and destroyed cells. How long can 

 a queen be kept alive caged, and is it 

 necessary to keep bees in cage with 

 her? The candy melts and drowns 

 them for me in hot weather. 



Missouri. 



Try the following for the intro- 

 duction of queens : 



Have one of the little flat Miller 

 queen cages that are sold for 10 

 cents. When you receive your queen 

 or have a queen ready for introduc- 

 tion, remove the queen which you 

 wish to destroy and place her in the 

 cage. Put the cage between two 

 combs in the center of the hive near 

 the brood. After 2 to 4 hours take 

 the old queen out of the cage, kill 

 her and put your new queen, without 

 any of her workers, in that same 

 cage, in the same spot between combs 

 of brood. After 48 hours, release her 

 by placing a chunk of comb honey 

 in place of the stopper of the cage. 

 Close the hive and do not disturb it 

 for at least 2 days. This method suc- 

 ceeds with people who cannot suc- 



ceed with any of the other methods. 



The idea of caging the old queen 

 for a few hours in the cage intended 

 for the new queen is to give the bees 

 the suggestion that their queen is in 

 that cage. 



Never kill a queen ahead of time, 

 when you wish to introduce a new- 

 one. Better not let the bees know 

 they are queenless for a single hour. 



A queen will live a number of days 

 in a cage, alone, if in the middle of 

 the brood-comb. — C. P. D. 



One-Story Jumbo or Two-Story L 

 Hives 



By Arthur C. Miller 



IT was recently my good fortune to 

 examine several score of colonies 

 which were kept on two Lang- 

 stroth bodies as permanent brood- 

 chambers, and the conditions were 

 not pleasing from an economic stand- 

 point. With scarcely an exception, 

 all the brood was in the upper cham- 

 ber and the lower chamber contained 

 nothing but empty combs. Some of 

 the colonies had swarmed and others 

 were preparing to. To make matters 

 worse, the combs of the lower body 

 were often badly gnawed. Here was 

 a direct waste of nearly half the 

 equipment, a matter which cannot be 

 lightly passed over in these times of 

 high prices. 



When these colonies were prepared 

 for winter last season the brood- 

 nest had been in the lower story and 

 the upper story was fairly full of 

 stores. This spring the owners had 

 simply put on the supers and let the 

 brood-chambers alone, after assuring 

 themselves that the colonies had 

 queens and were prosperous. The 

 few cases where brood was also in 

 the lower story were where the up- 

 per set of combs were still pretty 

 full of stores, far too much for 

 profit. 



Advocates of the two-story plan 

 will doubtless retort that the own- 

 ers should have transposed the posi- 

 tion of the two bodies or have shift- 

 ed more or less of the brood to the 

 lower stories. But the owners ob- 

 ject to "manipulation" as being too 

 costly. In most of the yards exam- 

 ined there were also Jumbo hives, 

 and these were proving so much 

 more satisfactory that the owners 

 are, as fast as possible, shifting to 

 that style of hive. 



In a nutshell, the two-story Lang- 

 stroth, as a brood-nest, is too big, 

 and not only costs nearly twice as 

 much but is of the wrong propor- 

 tion and necessitates the handling 

 of twice as many frames when a col- 

 ony has to be gone through. Theoreti- 

 cally, the bees should not behave so; 

 they should extend the brood-nest 

 downward, because the text books 

 say so. Naughty bees to put such a 

 crimp in the sale of the two-story 

 brood-nests. 



Moses Quinby, the Wise, studied 

 bee behavior and experimented on 

 hive sizes and proportions perhaps 

 more fully than anyone else has, and 

 he finally settled on a hive that has 

 proven itself to be right. The Jum- 



