THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



181 



queens, hence, there should be some in- 

 terest in the followinj^ from the pen of 

 that ohl veteran, EHsha Galhip. In 

 writing to the American Bee Journal, he 

 says : — 



When I read in the report of the Chi- 

 cago Convention ]Mr. Riker's account of 

 longevity cf bees, I felt like hurrahing 

 for him. He has struck the right key. 

 I have been watching the discussion 

 about long tongues. 



.\llow me to tell how to rear short- 

 lived queens, and short-lived workers so 

 that the merest novice can run an apiary 

 for profit in two seasons, and never make 

 a mistake. Understand that 1 have been 

 "through the mill"— it is no guess-work 

 or theory with me. Now we are ready to 

 commence. 



Take a small box, say 6 inches square, 

 fit in some comb containing a few eggs 

 and larvae just hatched. Now get a 

 small (juantit}- of bees and place them in 

 the box with the comb; place them in a 

 dark room or cellar, and in about three 

 days set them out and let them go to 

 work, and if they succeed in rearing a 

 queen ^-ou will have a short-lived one, 

 and she will rear short-lived workers. 

 Don't bother your head about whether 

 your nucleus contains old workers or 

 nurse-bees, it won't make so much dif- 

 ference, only the fewer nurse-bees the 

 nearer you come to starving the embryo 

 cjueen. 



I obtained mj* first Italian queen from 

 W. W. Cary, of Massachusetts. Queens 

 were then selling from $5 to f 20 each, 

 and I was going into a fortune at once 

 (in theory), and it was "just as easy as 

 rolling off a log." But in practice it was 

 a failure. I did not sell any queens, but 

 I was learning, all the same. 



When I went to the first Cincinnati 

 convention I roomed with .Adam Grinmi 

 and we di.scussed the queen-breeding 

 theory thoroughly, and when I bade him 

 good-by, he said, "Gallup, next summer 

 I will send you a queen that is a queen." 

 .\nd he did. She was one of the verv 

 best queens I ever owned — prolific, long- 

 lived, and reared long-lived workers. 

 She lived to be 6 years old. Those bees 

 were extra honey-gatherers. When I 

 got my first large hive, whose colony pro- 

 duced 600 pounds in ;,o days, I hived a 

 large prime swarm on the loth of May 

 from my Grimm stock. .\s soon as they 

 commenced to build drone-comb I filled 

 out the balance of the hive with ready- 

 made worker-comb — 48 combs, all on tlie 



ground floor, and the queen spread her- 

 self grandly. 



I made other large hives containing 36 

 combs each. None of my large colonies 

 cast a swarm the second season, so I 

 thought I had a non-swarming hive. But 

 the third season my large colonies all 

 swarmed, some 8 to 10 days earlier than 

 those in standard hives, becau.se they had 

 superseded and reared new queens to suit 

 the capacity of the hive. Those swarms 

 were so large when they came out that it 

 took three standard hives, one on the 

 other, to contain them. The queens all 

 lived 3 or 4 years, and one lived 5 years, 

 whereas many queens reared in small 

 nuclei die of old age the first season, and 

 all are worthless the second season. Bees 

 hived in cracker-boxes, nail-kegs and 

 small boxes for a series of seasons soon 

 get so they rear queens to suit the size or 

 capacity of the hive or box. 



Now allow me to tell how to rear long- 

 lived queens and bees. My 14-year old 

 son takes quite an interest in bees, and 

 he has made two 9 frame Langstroth 

 hives all under the same roof, side by side, 

 so that all can be turned into one hive. 

 Now when all are full, and if the two 

 queens do not fill to suit with brood, we 

 will fill with hatching brood from other 

 hives, so as to have an immense quantity 

 of nursing bees, and bees of all ages. 

 Now in a hive of that capacity, and filled 

 in that manner, we expect to rear long- 

 lived queens and long lived workers, and 

 we shall not be disappointed. I know 

 positively, by actual experience, that the 

 lifetime of the bees from queens reared 

 under the best possible conditions is fully 

 three times as long as those reared under 

 the opposite extreme. 



Now, Mr. Riker, let us shake, as you 

 and I are both on the same side of the 

 fence. 



Reading the above calls to my mind 

 the the advice that D. A. Jones used to 

 give regarding the securing of queen 

 cells out of the swarming season. It was 

 to shake off two-thirds of the bees from 

 one or two colonies into the hive contain- 

 ing the colony that was building thf 

 cells, thus furnishing a great abundance 

 of nurse-bees in proportion to the amount 

 of larvae that is to be nursed. I have 

 several times, as late as September, 

 shaken so many bees in front of the col- 

 ony that was building cells that they 

 could scarceh' all crawl into the have, 

 and the result was some of the finest 



