THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



315 



we soon have a hive packed with brood; 

 next, we have never had a colony with 

 two or more laying queens prepare to 

 swarm. Then it is the nicest way imag- 

 inable to supersede inferior queens. You 

 can have the choice queen you wish to 

 keep in the colony some time before re- 

 moving- the old queen, and both will be 

 laying in harmony together. Scm.etimes 

 we find a colony that has lost its queen, 

 and its combs are so full of pollen that 

 they appear alm.ost worthless. When 

 this is the case, just run in at the top of 

 the hive, after a few puffs of smoke, two 

 or three laying queens and you will be 

 surprised to see how soon these combs 

 will be filled with larvae and capped 

 brood: and shortly after its brood begins 

 to hatch, these colonies will be the strong- 

 est in the apiary, and I can not see any 

 reason why you could not winter a large 

 number of queens that were reared late 

 in the fall, and have them ready for your 

 early increase; or for sale much earlier 

 than they could possibly be reared in the 

 spring. If surplus queens can be kept in 

 full colonies during the winter season as 

 safely as during the summer, then cer- 

 tainly another great forward step will 

 have been taken in modern bee-keeping. 



I expect to try wintering some surplus 

 queens in full colonies this coming winter. 

 In fact, I can already see many advan- 

 tages that this new departure from the 

 old methods will give us. We should 

 naturally think that, with several queens 

 in a colony, they would separate to dif- 

 ferentparts of the hive, and starta brood- 

 nest alone by themselves; but. not so. 

 They all seem to act together, commenc- 

 ing in the central part of the hive, and 

 spread their eggs naturally toward the 

 outside. A short time ago I opened a hive 

 containing five queens. Four were on 

 one comb, three on one side, and two in 

 the act of laying. Again. I opened another 

 hive containing four queens, the fourth day 

 after they were introduced, and 7 of the 

 9 combs in the hive were filled with eggs 

 as full as I ever saw combs filled. 



After reading the foregoing, I sat down 

 to the type writer, and was about to 

 v/rite out what I thought about the 

 scheme, when my eye was caught by 

 another article in the same issue of 

 Gleanings. It was written by Mr. J. E. 

 Chambers, of Texas, and expresses my 

 views so exactly that I am saved from the 

 trouble of writing many criticisms. Mr. 

 Chambers says: — 



I have read with much interest, the ar- 



ticle of Mr. Alexander, on the practicabil- 

 ity of keeping a plurality of queens in one 

 hive, page 475 in the April 1st issue, also 

 the letter from Mr. Pressler. page 617, in 

 the May 1st issue, and J. A. Green's note 

 on the following page. While I do not 

 wish to say that Mr. Alexander is entire- 

 ly wrong about this matter, 1 will go to 

 the extent of saying that, with most bee- 

 keepers, it would be impractical if not 

 impossible; for, just as Mr. Green says, 

 some colonies will unite without the least 

 trouble, while others will fight to the end, 

 notwithstanding the employment of heroic 

 means to subdue them. Like Mr. Green, 

 I am not the least in doubt about laying 

 queens killing each other, though they do 

 not always do so. I know that it is en- 

 tirely practical to use two queens in each 

 hive in order to get colonies strong enough 

 lor a given honey-flow, when otherwise it 

 would not be possible to bring them up to 

 the desired strength; but 1 have so far 

 found it impossible to do so without the 

 use of means to keep them separate, if 

 there is any thing of which I am certain, 

 it is this: That a plurality of queens in 

 any hive except under certain well-known 

 conditions is not in accord with the known 

 instinct of bees; and as I do not consider 

 that the bee is possessed of any intelligent 

 capacity for improvement, I do not feel 

 very sure that they will ever be brought 

 to act in accord with man's desires when 

 t'leir own instinct goes counter to such 

 desires. 1 am aware of the fact that, 

 under certain conditions, bees accept a 

 plurality of queens: but even under these 

 vary unusval conditions the vast majority 

 of colonies refuse to have more than one 

 quesn; and if it were at all natural for 

 them to have all of these queens, I am 

 positive that, during the many years bees 

 have been handled by intelligent men, 

 there would have been many colonies 

 found having a plurality of queens, thus 

 indicating that such was a primary in- 

 stinct of bee nature. No one need come 

 forward telling me that such has been the 

 case when queens were failing, for I am 

 perfectly aware of the fact: but I am 

 speaking of perfectly normal conditions. 



1 have been using two queens to build 

 colonies up faster than was possible with 

 one, especially when a flow was near at 

 hand and the time not sufificiently long for 

 the best success under the old practice; 

 but as 1 said before. I have had no suc- 

 cess in the way Mr. Alexander mentions. 

 Som.e colonies operated in this way last 

 year gave 180 lbs. of honey during four- 

 teen day of sumac bloom, while the ones 

 not handled in this way gave an average 

 of only 50 lbs. I am not trying to take 



