ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



119 



having a queen reared and fertilized 

 over another with a laying- queen, with 

 me that is not a success. 



Mr. Wheeler: Have you tried it? 



Dr. Miller: Yes; I have tried it in 

 late years. After having that case so 

 many years ago, I thought it was *a 

 fine thing; but I cannot succeed now. 

 I think Mr. Doolittle mentions that in 

 his book. There are so many failures 

 about it. 



Mr. Wheeler: Even with a queen- 

 excluder? 



Dr. Miller: Yes, even with a queen - 

 excluder, 



Mr. Whitney: Do you know ihow 

 old the old queen was in that hive? 



Dr. Miller: I don't know. That 

 might make a very decided difference, 

 A very young queen below would en- 

 courage an old queen above. In any 

 case, I think it was entirely separate 

 from the other; I don't believe that 

 young queen went down. I don't know 

 the age of the queen, and that may 

 have much to do with it. 



Mr. Wheeler: If the honey-flow 

 ceased before the young queen was 

 mated, there wo'Uld be danger of her 

 killing the old queen also. 



Early Blooming of Yellow Sweet 

 Clover. 



"How much earlier will the yellow 

 sweet clover bloom than the white 

 sweet clover?" 



Dr. Miller: In my locality, three 

 weeks. I think it is generally claimed 

 two weeks, but this year there was a 

 difference of three weeks. 



President York: The yellow usually 

 blooms three weeks earlier than the 

 white, I» believe. 



Mr. Kannenberg: I find, in our lo- 

 cality here, it blooms four weeks earlier 

 than the white clover. We tried it 

 last year, and the yellow clover was 

 four weeks earlier. 



Mummified Lizard. 



President York then read a letter 

 from C, T, Wise, of Acton, Calif,, as 

 follows: 



"I send you iby today's mail (under 

 separate cover) a small California 

 lizard, or 'swift,' that I found 'mum- 

 mified' in one of my colonies of bees. 

 The little animal had evidently en- 

 tered the hive at the front and run to 

 the rear of the hive, where it had toeen 

 killed by the bees, and then so en- 



cased in propolis as to preserve it in 

 its present condition. 



"It was somewhat of a curiosity to 

 me, so I thought it might 'be inter- 

 esting to you. I trust it will reach you 

 all right. C. T. WISE." 



Preventing Swarming With Young 

 Queens. 



"Can we prevent swarming by giv- 

 ing young queens?" 



President York: How many have 

 succeeded at it? (No hands were 

 raised.) 



Dr. Miller: I don't know whether to 

 raise my hand for that or not. If you 

 get a colony to rear a ycung queen by 

 taking the old queen away, it is prac- 

 tically certain that that colony will 

 not swarm that season. 



Mr. Whitney: Unless they rear two. 

 Dr. Miller: O, j^es; you might have 

 • what would be practically a second 

 swarm by rearing two. I will put it 

 this way: If you succeed in having a 

 colony rear a young queen, and that 

 queen gets to laying, after she gets 

 to laying you are safe from any 

 swarming. If there were two or three 

 young queens reared, you would be 

 pretty sure to have swarming. I 

 thing Mr. Hutchinson did practice get- 

 ting young queens from the South and 

 introducing them early, and he felt 

 safe from swarming by doing so. Is 

 that not right, Mr. Taylor? 

 Mr. Taylor: I think so. 

 Dr. Miller: I think that it is. Now, 

 ■with me that will not succeed. If I 

 havg a young queen and introduce her 

 early in the season, as I did, I can 

 count on swarming pretty certainly; 

 but if the young queen is reared in the 

 hive, in that case there would be no 

 laying for some time, usually about 

 ten days. That seems to make a dif- 

 ference. Gravenhorst, an eminent 

 German authority, gave that as a fact 

 a good many years ago, that where a 

 colony reared a young queen, that made 

 the colony immune to swarming. But 

 I did have this year, I am sorry to 

 say, two colonies swarm which had 

 reared a young queen in their own 

 hives. But it was an exceedingly bad 

 season for swarming. As a rule, I 

 would count it a safe thing, if you 

 take away a queen from a colony, give 

 it a queen -cell, and let them rear a 

 queen, that colony will not swarm. 

 I think it would be safe ninety-nine 

 times out of a hundred. 



