214 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



same manner. If the queen happens to 

 be upon the inside of the comb that he 

 removes, he will find her, but if she hap- 

 pens to be upon the outside of the comb 

 next to the one he removes, she will sure- 

 ly crawl around behind it before he has 

 finishe<l examining the one that he has 

 removed. With this plan of hunting for 

 a queen the prospects are that she will 

 not be found upon the combs, but will 

 be found upon the bottom or sides of the 

 hive among the great masses of bees that 

 this prolonged process has driven from 

 the combs. With the plan described by 

 Mr. Getaz, the tendencies are to drive 

 and keep the queen in the center of the 

 brood nest. 



I/et me make one more suggestion: 

 When a comb is removed, before giving 

 it even a glance, throw a quick, sweeping 

 glance at the outside of the next comb. 

 This glance will often catch the queen 

 "piking" for tlie bottom of the comb. If 

 this glance had not been given, .she would 

 have passed t)Ut of sight ere the removed 

 comb had been even hastily examined. 



OUEEN EXCLUDERS. 



When .111(1 Where they are Needed, and When 

 not Needed. 



As much as the use of queen excluders 

 has been discussed, the conclusions there- 

 on are widely divergent. As in many 

 other cases, the reason for the difference 

 often arises from a lack of a full under- 

 standing of all of the factors in the case. 

 In the American Bee-Keeper, Dr. INIiller 

 takes up the subject and points out why 

 the excluder may be needed in one in- 

 stance, and not needed in another that 

 may, at first, appear to be the same. 

 The Doctor says: — 



On page 6i M. F. Reeve seems quite 

 positive that without queen excluders 

 queens will be sure to go up into the su- 

 pers and lay there. I may say to Mr. 

 Reeve that I have produced comb honey 

 for a good many years, and I have never 



used excluders to keep the queens from 

 going up and I would not be troubled 

 using excluders for that purjiose if they 

 were furnished for nothing. I do not 

 mean that I have never had a queen lay 

 in a super, but that the cases are so rare 

 that it would not pay to use excluders 

 to keep cpieens down. 



For years there has been this conflict 

 of opinion, one man saying that exclud- 

 ers were unnecessary, another l)eing 

 equallv posiiive as to their being indis- 

 pensable. While my experience is the 

 reverse of that of Mr. Reeve, I am c|uite 

 ready to believe that he is entirely cor- 

 rect, and that without excluders queens 

 will be sure to go up into his supers. 



For a long time it puzzled me to un- 

 derstand how there could be the differ- 

 ence, but T think I have solved the 

 mystery. Nowadays there is Utile or no 

 drone comb left in the brood chamber, 

 an 1 the bees make desperate efforts to 

 secure drone brood. More than once, 

 when using ten-frame hives, I have 

 known the queen to go outsitle the brood 

 nest and lay eggs in a patch of drone- 

 comb, leaving one or two combs with- 

 out any brood between this patch of 

 drone-brood and the worker-brood of the 

 brood-nest. You will notice that Mr. 

 Reeve especially mentions that in his 

 j-ujiers he found "the nicest lot of cap- 

 ped drone cells." I am not certain 

 whether this was in working for comb 

 or extracted honey, and it doesn't matter; 

 he says at the outset that excluders are 

 neces.sary for either. If I am not greatly 

 mistaken the queen goes up into the 

 super to lay because the workers have 

 there prepared drone cells for her. 



If they go up into his supers to rear 

 drone brood, why don't they do tlie same 

 thing for me? Simply because there are 

 no drone cells in mine to bait the queen 

 up. I use top and bottom starters of 

 worker foundation, filling the sections 

 entirely full. If I should use small start- 

 ers I would consider excluders indespens- 

 able. 



I would not think of working for ex- 

 tracted honey without excluders, for 

 even if only worker com!) should be in 

 the supers there would be at least part of 

 the time empty comb there, and when- 

 ever the queen should be a little crowded 

 for room she might find her way up. 

 When working for comb honey I should 

 winl excluders, unless there was so much 

 drone comb in the brood chamber that 

 there would be no desire to have any else- 

 where, or unless the sections were so filled 

 with worker foundation that there was no 

 chance for drone comb above. 



