90 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



hive, the bees are apt to take a " sconner" 

 at her, as the Scotch say. After a ([ueen has 

 been confined for some time in a little box, 

 tumbled about in mail bags, and then sud- 

 denly exposed to the light for awhile, it must 

 give her a kind of shock to find herself in a 

 populous hive again. She is still kept a 

 prisoner for what must seem to her a long 

 interval. She wants to promenade, but can- 

 not. She wants to lay, but there are no 

 cells within reach. Her instiiicts are com- 

 pletely repressed. Whea, at length, she is 

 liberated, is it any wonder that she is dis- 

 concerted at first, and acts umiaturally ? It 

 is for these reasons that I have come to the 

 conclusion not to buy any more queens to 

 be sent through the mails. When I get a 

 queen, I want one that is tested and choice, 

 that I may improve my stock. I have so 

 many times had them arrive in an enfeebled 

 and languid condition, and needing to be 

 nursed and invigorated, that I have pretty 

 much concluded never to order a queen any 

 more except in a nucleus. The bees do not 

 want their hive turned into a royal hospital. 

 They are nervous and excitable. They have 

 been longing for a worthy occupant of the 

 vacant throne. If "Her Majesty" is flur- 

 ried and acts strangely, they will probably 

 be similarly affected. The aspirant does 

 not behave as a queen should. They regard 

 her as a pretender, and do not care to crown 

 her. 



Prolificacy is a great point in a queen. 

 Our seasons are short, and we want the hive 

 stocked with workers in the shortest time 

 possible. Must it not be a severe check on 

 a laying queen, and likely to injure her 

 powers of reproduction to put a sudden stop 

 to her egg-laying function ? I do not think' 

 it hurts a queen for egg-laying to be 

 gradually lessened, and at length suspended. 

 She is used to that. It is one of the laws of 

 her being. But it is " agin natur " to call a 

 sudden halt just when all the energies of her 

 being are concentrated on egg-produftion, 

 and I do not see how it can be done witliout 

 temporary, and perhaps permanent injury 

 to the very function which makes her most 

 valuable. Of all the methods of queen in- 

 troduction, I prefer that of taking a comb 

 with adhering bees and queen from a 

 nucleus, and hanging it in the queenless 

 colony, as described by you so wpU in the 

 first paragraph of second column, page 7,'>. 

 So I would have my nuclei composed of 

 frames the same size as those of the work- 



ing hive to facilitate this plan of introduc- 

 tion. The next best mode, in my opinion, 

 is to use a large cage, as described in the 

 second paragraph of the same column. I 

 have sometimes made a cage of wire cloth 

 more siiacious than the Peet, and placed it 

 where it would cover empty cells, and cells 

 with some honey in them. This gives the 

 queen a chance to walk around, gratify her 

 laying instinct somewhat, and prepare for 

 the ausi)icious moment when she is given a 

 larger liberty. 



I do not see any " mistakes " in your pro- 

 gram, and if I thought any opinion express- 

 ed erroneous, would have some hestitation 

 in saying so, but would be inclined to bow 

 to the superior editorial wisdom of one who 

 is an exi^erienced, practical bee-keeper, and 

 as Mr. Heddon says, "a successful doUar- 

 and-ceut honey producer." I also approve, 

 under befitting circumstances, of all the 

 methods of introductiou specified, save and 

 except that of chloroforming. I tliink that 

 whatever stupefies bees so that they drop 

 down on the bottom board, is objectionable. 

 When they recover from such stupefaction, 

 they feel somewhat as a man does on sober- 

 ing off after a drunk. In early days of bee- 

 keeping experience, some of us tried tobacco 

 and Devil's puff-l)all as bee- controllers. I 

 did, and found it made the bees irritable. 

 They were up in arms on a repetition of the 

 dose. Insects and the lower order of 

 animals are not like man. One drunk 

 suffices them, and as a burnt child dreads 

 the fire, so they shrink from another ordeal 

 of the same kind. Old Aristotle sang : "He 

 found it a foretaste of heaven to get drunk, 

 but a foretaste of hell to get sober." A sin- 

 gle lesson of that kind is enough for them. 

 Would that it were the same with man ! 



I believe that in all our operations with 

 bees, we should conform to nature as closely 

 as we can. Some bee-keepers deride the 

 idea of being at all swayed by considera- 

 tions of what is natural in the case of bees. 

 They are going to bend this insect to their 

 will, and whatever in their habits does not 

 suit them, they are going to obliterate. If I 

 believed that the bee was evoluted by acci- 

 dent or some blind material force, I should 

 see no reason why we should not amend, 

 change, and revolutionize them at will. 

 But every existent being is made conform- 

 able to certain laws, and I firmly believe 

 that the Creator knew what he was about 

 when he made the honey-bee. Hence I am 



