1877, 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



273 



INTRODUCING Ql^EENS. 



fiiHE queen sent mo before, arrived in due time 

 and In (irood shape. I immediately depi-lved a 

 J swarm in an American hive, of their queen, and 



in. 24 hours afterward tried to Introduce the new 

 queen. They rejected her vigorously. 1 kept the 

 queen cells destroyed and tried to get them to accept 

 her each day, for i'<?»i consecutive days, and they re- 

 jected her as stubbornly the last day as they did the 

 "first. I employed sweetened water and peppermint 

 and smoke, but to no purjiose. When caged, I kept 

 tlie queen in the hive sometimes on the frames, but 

 most of the time In a wirecloth tube inserted between 

 the combs. On morning ol the eleventh day I found 

 her dead In the cajire. I then oflfered them their old 

 queen, which I had preserved in a nucleus. They 

 seemed glad to see her and on examination the next 

 day found her laving and every thing anparently all 

 right. To day I find them queenless and with no un- 

 sealed brood. You will please send me another queen 

 by mall for the 81,10 encloseil, with as little delay m 

 possible. The Simplicity hive suits me better than 

 any hive I have yet seen. 



James R Walkek, Forest City, Illinois. 



Cases like the above will occasionally occur, 

 and I know of no better way than to keep try- 

 ing as you did ; but I would be very careful 

 that the queen had plenty of food all this time. 

 If there is food in the cage, where the outside 

 bees cannot reach it, I should expect her to 

 live safely a couple of weeks or more. 7 have 

 never lost a queen in the candy cages in a hive, 

 and I have had them caged a long time. If you 

 remove all their queen cells, after their brood 

 i^ all sealed up, they will usually receive a 

 queen, but when they get so determined as in 

 the case you mention, they will sometimes kill 

 every queen offered them. In such cases, it 

 does them good to take all their combs away, 

 and leave them until they are humbled by hun- 

 ger ; then feed them liberally, and release the 

 queen among them. When they seem to be all 

 right, give them back their combs. Such cases 

 usually occur in the fall, after the honey yield 

 has ceased, and generally when they are rather 

 short of honey. Feeding regularly for several 

 days before the queen is given them, will often 

 get them into a friendly mood, if they can be 

 free from the annoyance of robbers. 



Two or three have reported losses because 

 they did not follow, in full, the directions I 

 gave in the ABC, especially in regard to look- 

 ing into the hive 20 or 30 minutes after the 

 queen is released. They waited a half day, and 

 then found her dead in a knot of bees, while if 

 they had looked at the time mentioned, they 

 could have rescued her unharmed. No matter 

 how well a queen is received at tirst, you 

 should take a second look at her, after she has 

 had time to make a complete promenade of the 

 hive. 



aitt ■Qt ^m 



Another discovery :— If queen cells are built on a 

 new sheet of fdn. (a matter that can easily be secured 

 by putting a sheet In a hive until eggs are deposited 

 lu It, and then putting it in a queenless colony) we 

 can pick the cells, when ripe, from the sheet without 

 mutilating either the cell or the comb. Well, 11 you 

 put the cells in a lamp nursery a.s soon as they are 

 sealed, they will remain so transparent that you can 

 see the queen all the time, when the como is held be- 

 tween you and the sun ; and now comes the beauty of 

 the whole matter. A!)out .■? hours before the queen 

 bites her way out, she begins to move: keep the 

 temperature full up to 1(0 and as fast as you discover 

 queens moving, pick off the cells and lav them over 

 the cluster of bees between two combs. If the bees do 

 tear the cell down, tliey have a live queen, and If they 

 do not, she Is sure to hatch in 3 or 4 hours. In either 

 case there is no dclav, and the queen to be removed, 

 Is kept laying in the hive until the last minute. 



From Different Fields. 



fjjHE tested queen you sent me, I introduced Aug. 

 5th, and she commenced to lay at once— result — 

 — J the black bees have disappeared as if by mnglc, 

 and in their stead 1 have a line stock of uniformly 

 three banded bees of great slz'^. I thought some time 

 ago that my bees were not doing anything with the 

 fdn., but upon examination since, I falrlv shouted. In 

 good old Methodist style, to Und more than one sheet 

 built out, and full of young brood, capi)ed and as 

 "heavy as lead." j. n. Blain. 



Mt. Sterling, Ohio, Sept. 10th, '77. 



Smoker rec'd to-day, used It in removing boxes and 

 fire did not go out; think I shall like ii very much. 

 Queen received of you a few ilays ago is laying nicely. 

 M. Shuck, Des Moines. Iowa, Sept. 14, '77. 



In "Notes and Queries," Sept. No. of Gi.eani.sgs 

 *' P." asks how he can cool bees wax In large cakes 

 without its cracking. I have caked wax in sl< quart 

 milk pans without Ins cracking, by covering the pane 

 to keep It from cooling rapidly on the top. 



Wasn't Chinese Wistaria ailvertised a couple of 

 years ago, as a honey producing, climbing vine J* 



Edgar Sagek, Hudson, Ills., Sept. 12th. '77. 



Wistaria produces pollen only ; see page 58, 

 Vol. III. ______ 



SWEET CLOVER. 



We have had a very poor honev season and I did 

 expect to go Into " Blasted Hopes" this fall, but I see 

 now that I will get to the other side. We had a rain 

 the last ot Aug. and there Is now a great flov of hon- 

 ey, for I And one hive has made 40 lbs. In 10 da' sin 

 section boxes and another little less; they are rolling 

 In honey now. No swarms this season. I have raised 

 sweet clover for 8 years, and find It the best honey 

 plant here about; It blooms irom May to Nov. I have 

 some 9 feet In height, in bloom, and black with bees 

 all day. Cultivate the same as corn. 



ALEX. FiDUES, Centralia, Ills., Sept. 7th, 1877. 



I have tried to use fdn. in places where I have cut 

 out pieces of drone comb, but have found it next to 

 impossible to keep it straight, as it appears to me, it 

 must be put in nearly the size of the openings and 

 then it will bulge. I use the two story Langstroth 

 and after considerable attention, had succeeded la 

 getting nearly all worker comb In the lower story. 

 Having spare combs for tlie upper storj', I expected 

 this season, to have got along well, but the queens, 

 with very few exceptions, would persist In laying ki 

 the upper story and It kept me busy fighting against 

 drone brood, instead of extracting. Doolittle says, 

 "Keep her eggs out ol the combs we extract from"— 

 but how? The British bee-keepers, I observe use 

 perforated zinc, for this purpose, as it would appear 

 with good result. 



The early part of the season, was good, but since 

 the middle of July bees have done little more than 

 sunply their want's. Briar. 



Fitzroy Harbor, Ontario, Canada, Aug. 31st, 77. 



If you attach your fdn. only at the upper 

 edge, you will have no bulging. As it is quite 

 a task to cut out and replace the drone comb, 

 we have decided to melt them up, and make 

 new comb of fdn.; the great amount of wax in 

 many of the old combs, will more than pay for 

 a nice new comb. We have had very little 

 trouble with the queen laying in the upper 

 story in drone comb, if the combs are spread 

 so far apart that the cells are made very deep. 

 This makes the labor of extracting very much 

 less, and also the labor of the bees, for if you 

 get combs for the extractor twice the ordinary 

 thickness, you save half the labor of capping, 

 and yourself half the labor of uncapping. The 

 perforated separators, or even the common 

 tin separators we use for sections, would with- 

 out doubt keep the queen from going above, 

 but we should consider them unnecessary ma- 

 chinery. 



