90 
“ NOVICE’S ” GLEANINGS IN BEE bULTUIlE. 
IN IT WKM. TO I' N BERTA 14 K TO 
WL\TElt A ((l ErSLKSS COLON V ? 
E are sure there are at least 
a few of our readers who have 
seriously asked themselves this ques- 
tion, anil, without claiming we haTe 
done it ourselves, we will tell you what 
we do know of the matter. 
In our experience in queen rearing 
during the past summer and fall, a friend 
called on us, and in discussing the matter 
of having young queens attacked by their 
own bees, he suggested that this almost 
invariably occurred during an entire ab- 
sence of eggs or brood in the hive; and 
that the bees worried the queen because 
she didn't lay eyys for them to take care 
of. Perhaps we may here remark that 
our experiments did not tully corrobor- 
ate this theory, for we have had queens 
attacked when about ten or fifteen days 
old even with brood and eggs in the hive, 
tint we think the unsealed brood helped 
to prevent it. 
Well, we so far fell in with the idea that 
wc determined to keep eggs or unsealed 
brood constantly in nil of our queen rear- 
ing nuclei, then numbering forty or fifty. 
Now in ease the young queen be lost in 
any way, it was plain that a new one 
would be reared, from this brood or eggs, 
which made it quite desirable that all 
•these eggs should be furnished by our 
ehoicestjqucen : and Novice proposed the 
Argo queen be kept furnishing eggs con- 
stantly, to lie taken as soon as laid and 
distributed among the fifty nuclei, "just 
to keep them busy enough to be out of 
mischief.” 
"Hut you’ll ruin our 'Argo’ colony, pro- 
tests "P. G.” 
O, no,” says Novice with animation, 
• for we will keep them supplied with 
brood from other hives, and a prolific 
queen like that one will lay two or three 
thousand eggs daily, when necessary.” 
Accordingly the hive mentioned was 
deprived of all the eggs it contained ami 
an empty worker comb interposed be- 
tween two brood combs. After about 48 
lmui'8 we almost invariably found this 
comb nicely filled with eggs. These 
combs when thus filled were cut into 
strips about 2x11 inches, and when pit. 
into the nuclei were •(•''thoroughly cared 
for that almost every egg produced a bee. 
As each square inch produces about titty, 
each slice adds to the population of one 
nucleus something like 1100 full blood 
Italians, hi order to have the comb of 
eggs taken care of without fail it should 
tie inserted in the center of the cluster of 
ill*.'. 
Our combs will cut so as to give about 
sixteen such pieces, and in order to give 
one to each nucleus about, once a week, 
our “Argo” queen was obliged to lay over 
g.tlOO eggs daily, which she would do 
readily if sealed brood was constantly 
kept on each side of the comb in which 
we wished the eggs deposited. 
Would all those eggs have produced a 
like number of bees, had they remained 
in the hive? Most assuredly not, but 
where they do go to, we are not now pre- 
pared to determine. One thing is very- 
certain. and that is that nearly every 
queen lays a much larger number of eggs, 
both in spring and fall, than can bo used 
for brood, unless a great part of them be 
taken care of by- other queenless colonics, 
or colonies containing queens that don’t 
lay. 
Perhaps our readers have remarked 
with what eagerness a colony, destitute of 
eggs or brood from any cause, will take 
to a comb containing eggs, and how 
surely each ol these eggs will produce a 
bee. 
To get round to the point from which 
we started, then our course would he to 
winter a queeuless colony, just as we do 
the rest, providing they contained .suffi- 
cient bees. As soon as practicable in 
1 the spring we would insert a comb in the 
cluster of a strong colony, just long 
enough tor the queen to deposit a few 
eggs in it, and give this to the destitute 
colony and about once a week repeat the 
operation, giving a few more eggs each 
time. Of course they will rear a queen 
which they may keep until nearly time 
for drones to appear, when she should be 
killed to induce them to rear a good one. 
The colony from which the eggs arc taken 
sutlers almost no loss at all compared 
with that sustained where combs contain- 
ing scaled brood and larvae are taken; 
• and likewise the queeuless colony will 
undertake to rear only so many of the 
eggs as they can conveniently take care 
of, whereas had sealed brood or larvae 
been given them they would many times 
have allowed the greater part of it to per- 
ish. 
it is our opinion from the experiments 
we have mentioned that one good queen 
could be made to furnish eggs thus, sul- 
ficient to not only keep up the population 
of one dozen colonies, but to slowly 
build them up. We should advise such a 
course only to those who think it a 
pleasure to work with and handle bees, 
admitting, of course, that by tar the 
easier way is to have a good queen in 
every stock, but ns queens lire sometimes 
lost in November or the winter months, 
' i i s well to consider what is best to be 
done in such a case. Our readers can 
probably recall many instances of pro- 
ducing good strong colonies of those 
found qurenless in the spring, when linit- 
]y aid lias been given. Oetting eggs in 
the combs is a simple matter, hut getting 
these eggs hatched into larvae by the 
thousands in one hive, at any desirable 
season of the year, is yet an unsolved 
problem. See Problem No. 12 and Id. 
; Wk expect to be able to furnish back 
numbers to all applicants, and the price 
for Vol. I. will lie the same as Vol. II. 
Jloth will be sent, with photograph, tor 
|| $1.30. 
