SHIPPING QUEENS. 323 



while their sisters on the hills had to be fed for Winter. 

 But the labor of transportation, the risk incurred, if the 

 colonies are strong and heavy, and the difficulty of trans- 

 porting old bee-hives, without danger of some bees escaping, 

 make the habitual shipping of bees for pasturage hardly 

 advisable.* 



Shipping Queens. 



594. It was in the numerous and partially successful 

 attempts, which we made before 1874, to import bees from 

 Italy, that we became acquainted with the conditions neces- 

 sary to the shipping of queens. 



595. When they are to be confined a long time, the ques- 

 tion of food is the most important. Many were the blunders 

 made by the first shippers, who imagined that they required 

 a large amount of food, and literally drowned them in honey. 

 By repeated and costly experiments, we ascertained that the 

 bees that arrived in the best condition were those that were 

 fed on the purest saccharine matter. Those that suffered the 

 most, were those that had the most watery, or the darkest, 

 honey. Water (271), which some Italian shippers persisted 

 in giving them, in spite of what we could say, was noxious; 

 as the consumption of it, with the food, helped to load their 

 abdomen with matter that could not be discharged, causing 

 what is improperly called dysentery (784). Water is needed 

 only in brood rearing. 



596. Old bees, or rather, bees that have begun to work 

 in the field, will stand a longer trip than young bees, as the 

 latter consume more honey, and need to discharge their 

 abdomen oftener. 



* Yet, in some locations, it is practiced regularly with success. Mr. 

 R. F. Holtermann, of the Province of Ontario, at the National Bee- 

 Keepers' Convention held in Chicago in December, 1905, described the 

 method by which he transported bees to different spots for the differ- 

 ent crops during the season, with success. In Northern countries the 

 transporting of bees in summer is attended with less danger than In 

 warmer sections. 



