THE BEE-KEEPRS' REVIEW. 



269 



ui1':en-TK.\i>.s versus ci.ii'PEn oi'Ki'NS. where there is not a fall honey flow. He 



On page 209 he says Mason is "enthusi- 

 astic in praise of queen-clipping, and cites 

 a host who are with him. I was once 

 with him, and would be still were it not 

 for the queen-trap which I now prefer 

 to clipping." lie then proceeds to give 

 his reasons; and among them all 1 see but 

 one that I would consider of enough 

 value to justify the outlay for traps if 

 they cost as much as they cost me — 75 

 cts. each. He says "the presence of a 

 queen in the trap will always reveal the 

 fact that a swarm has issued." That is 

 the only good reason I ever knew or 

 heard of that makes the trap of any value; 

 except as indicated below, and I'm not 

 sure but the time employed in examin- 

 ing the traps for queens as he prefers 

 would be of more value than the time 

 spent watching for queens when swarms 

 issue. 



Mr. Hairston says "I have no use for 

 (jueen-traps. •'•■ Throw them awa}- 



and clip your queens." 



But there are certain conditions under 

 which I believe the use of a queen-trap is 

 advisable; even if the queen is clipped. 

 I have a few colonies upstairs in our barn, 

 and the entrances to the hives vary from 

 ten to fifteen feet from the ground, and 

 when a swarm issues and the queen falls 

 that flistance she is pretty sure to be in- 

 jured. If the bee-keeper is so crowded 

 for room that the hives can not be put far 

 enough from each other to prevent the 

 queen returning to the wrong hive when 

 she comes out with a swarm, it is a good 

 plan to have some device to prevent the 

 queen leaving the hive, or to catch her 

 when she does leave, an<l I know of noth- 

 ing better than an entrance guard, or a 

 (|ueen-trap. 



I'KKSEKVI.vr, DRONES FOR L.\TK ^'^''-EN- 



R EAR I NO. 



In the Progressive Bee-Keeper for 

 .\ugust Mr. Doolittle tells how to keep 

 drones until late in the season for the 

 mating of late raised f|utens in localities 



says : — 



Well, what do I do? Just what I did 

 j^esterday, July 21, which was to go to 

 each hive which had my drone-breeding 

 queens in them and take all of the drone 

 brood there was in their hives and mass 

 it together in one hive, making that hive 

 two or three stories high, according to 

 the amount of drone brood I found. 

 Some of this brood was in the egg form, 

 and will not be out of the cells under 

 nearly a month, so that these last 

 will be in the full vigor of manhood 

 during the month of September. Why 

 I am massing this brood now is because 

 it is at the close of the basswood hon- 

 ey harvest, and a few of the colonies 

 are showing signs of persecuting their 

 drones, from which I know I must take 

 care of this drone brood if I would pre- 

 serve it, as the next thing after driving out 

 the living is to destroy all drones in the 

 brood form. •■' * Before massing this 

 drone brood over the colony, which 

 should always be a very populous one in 

 worker bees, the queen is taken awaj-, 

 as only queenless colonies will keep 

 drones after the honey flow is over. This 

 colony is now allowed to rear its own 

 • queen, and when she gets to la^'ing she 

 is taken out, and the bees allowed to rear 

 another queen, and so on, thus keeping 

 them in a queenless state nearly all the 

 time, otherwise they will kill off the 

 drones we are trying to preserve as soon 

 as the queen has been laying long enough 

 so that many larviu have hatched. If by 

 being kept thus queenless, the colony 

 becomes weak in worker bees, brood 

 should be given from other colonies, 

 enough to keep them strong enough .so 

 they do not become a prey to robber bees. 

 Such a colony of drones requires lots of 

 honey, for each drone fills up on honey 

 every time it leaves the hive for a flight, 

 which is every pleasant day after it be- 

 comes of suitable age. There is generally 

 honey enough in the combs containing 

 drone brood to last well into the fall, 

 when it is to our interest to feed some 

 warm thin syrup each day at about noon, 

 when it is warm and pleasant, so as to 

 insure a full flight of these drones. 

 Then, if in addition to this, we go some 

 cool cloudy day, a day not in accord with 

 the pilfering ideas of robber bees, and yet 

 not cold enough to chill the bees handled, 

 and carefullv look over all of these combs 

 in our drone colony, picking out and 

 killing every inferior looking drone, we 

 shall have something which will give us 

 stock the next year we may well be proud 



