ee- 



eepeps jAeViecu. 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL 



Devoted to tl^e Interests of Hoqey Producers. 



$100 A YEAR. 



W. Z. HOTCHlf*SOfl, Editor & Pi»op. 



VOL, VI, FLINT, MICHIGAN, SEP, 10. 1893, NO, 9. 



AV'ork at ]\dIicliigarL's 



Experiraental 



Apiary. 



B. L. TAYLOK, APIARIST. 

 peatt's HIVERS. 



HS stated in a 

 former arti- 

 cle the Pratt 

 Hiver was inclu- 

 ded in my plan 

 for a series of ex- 

 periments to be 

 conducted during 

 the white clover 

 honey sea son. 

 Five of them were 

 used, the first of 

 which was put in 

 place .June l(5th 

 on a hive which I shall call No. 1 while a 

 swarm from it was in the air. As the en- 

 trance to this hive was not guarded by a 

 queen trap, and no queen being found in 

 front of the hive as was to be expected since 

 I clip my queens, I put a trap to the lower 

 entrance and caused the bees to enter 

 through it that I might find and determine 

 the character of the queen. The result was 

 ihat I found two or three virgin queens 

 showing that the swarming was probably 

 caused by the rearing of queens to supersede 

 the old one or on account of her death. The 

 young queens were removed and the trap 



left in place to enable me to determine the 

 purpose of the next queen that should at- 

 tempt to try the open air. A few days later 

 a young queen was found in the trap no 

 swarm having issued. She accordingly was 

 returned, the trap removed and the lower 

 entrance left open for the convenience of the 

 queen. 



The history of No. 2 up to July 2nd was 

 given in my article in the .July number of 

 the Review. Upon the 13th of -July it 

 swarmed again, being the fourth time, but 

 this time I discovered the queen was a virgin, 

 showing that the old queen had probably been 

 killed on the return of the swarm .July 2nd. 



The remaining three hivers were also put 

 in place -June 17th. 



No. 3 was the only other one of the five 

 from which a swarm issued and from it, 

 first, on the 20 of June. On the next day I 

 found that the queen had been killed by the 

 bees of the returned swarm, so a trap was 

 placed at the lower entrance. After this a 

 swarm issued on each of the following dates: 

 •Tune 30th and -July -nd, 4th and 8th. In the 

 last case the swarm was hived in another 

 hive and given the queen in the trap. In all 

 the previous ones the swarm was returned 

 and the queen removed. 



In studying results it should be remem- 

 bered that these five colonies were of more 

 than average strength and were selected on 

 that account because I was anxious to test 

 the hiver by actual swarming. 



If the percentage of loss of queens in these 

 experiments is to be taken in any way as a 



