118 
GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 
Oct. 
A. I. ROOT Co. Sirs— I sent for n Sii.Olf Queen and 
rac'd her about throe weeks ago. I introduced her as 
vou introduced your imported Queen, but she got out 
although 1 secured the front with wire cloth, as I 
thought perfectly. I sent for another Queen and in 
the meantime placed the hive witli hatching brood 
on the. stand of an old stock. I rcc’d the latter Queen 
on Monday last and placed her in a wire cage between 
the frames immediately ; 48 hours later I released her 
and watched her with the other bees, when one bee 
palled her by the wings I took her away and caged 
her again. Tills morning about 10 o’clock 1 opened 
the hive, smoked the bees and sprinkled with sweet- 
ened peppermint water. I released her and watched 
the bees on the combs for some minutes. They per- 
sist in building Queen cells but 1 have repeatedly cut 
them out; now. 1 o’clock, I have just been out to look 
at them. I left the sheet spread out in front to see if 
they killed the Queen. When watching the bees with 
the’ Queen this morning 1 perceived no hostility and 
left them. 1 looked at them repeatedly but now at 
1 o'clock, on examining the bees carried out i find 
her dead. 
Hus. Mont. AN, Elyria, O. Sept. 4tli, 1874. 
We get altogether too many reports like the 
above. Although it seems our friend did all 
that could be done with the latter Queen, site 
certainly deserves some censure for letting the 
former get away. Until bees enough have 
hatched to gather around the Queen and make 
her contented to remain with them, say 24 
hours or less, they should be carefully fastened 
in. No need of wire cloth for this, as they 
need no provision for ventilation, but the hive 
may be made tight by crowding cloth or paper 
into the entrance. Any decent hive can be 
made perfectly secure in this way with but 
little trouble, and if the young bees have never 
seen any other Queen they will always accept 
the one furnished. It seems to us this method 
is always a perfectly safe one. We have al- 
ways had much trouble in introducing Queens 
late in the fall by the caging process; they 
will sometimes destroy them after they have 
been laying a week or more, therefore, keep all 
old bees away from a valuable Queen if she is 
rec’d late in the season. 
On the 10th of July my two last natural swarms 
came out anil lit on an apple tree within three feet of 
each oilier in a ilifllcult position tojilve. I finally got 
them hlveil all right anil separated, but must have got 
the two Queens In one hive, for In four or five minutes 
alter hiving, bees left one hive and went all together. 
1 opened them the last (lav of Aug. and found them 
full of beautiful combs and full of honey, and knowing 
It would lie to their interest I extracted two gallons of 
nice thick honey from them. This may not seem very 
large to vou but it is so much better than I ever ex- 
perienced in the swarming line I had to tell it. 1 have 
had blank swarms come the middle of July and not 
half fill their hive. 
YVm. Paynk, Spencer, Medina Co. O. 
This report is encouraging for the Italians, 
as the month of August here, is almost with- 
out exception, not a honey month. 
Will a Queen reared from a pure bred purely fertil- 
ized Italian Queen mother produce any entireiylblack 
bees ? I have reared Queens for ten years and never 
had a Queen that was reared from a pure mother of 
my selection, to produce any black bees whether ma- 
ted witli an Italian or common drone. 
J. A. Buchanan, Wintersvllle, O. 
Our experience is about the same. Our first 
Queen from Mr. Langstroth stocked our Api- 
ary with Queens that produced two or three 
banded bees, but no black ones. In selecting 
one of these daughters to breed from the next 
season, we had colonies producing some bees 
all black, and the whole of them so cross that 
they they positively were enough to “make a 
preacher "ahem, get out of patience. Since 
then we have had more or less of the cross 
black bees every season until we reared from 
our Argo Queen ; her daughters produced no 
black bees so far as we know, and our present 
Imported Queen's have produced none. Hence 
the position we have taken for years, that so 
far as honey was concerned, if we could only 
be sure of having all Queens reared from one 
of known purity it matters little what drones 
they meet. The following is just to the point. 
Probably any one of us would be satisfied 
with the yields of comb honey mentioned : 
I have taken ofl'all my box honey now and have in 
the neighborhood of 18(io lbs. of box honey and 500 lbs. 
of extracted, from ‘22 colonies in spring. My best hive 
gave me about 200 lbs. comb honey, and two or three 
others gave me loo lbs. and upwards; I had other 
stocks that gave me hut very little box honey, they 
were the light colored, very handsome, very gentle, 
very pure Italians. We find that a little dash of black 
blood is a great Improvement in box honey workers, 
hut we don’t want enough black blood to prevent 
striding all the workers. When we get a light color- 
ed pure Queen, mated with a drone lrom an impure 
stock, it shows in the Increased activity of the stock, 
and when we raise Queens from that stock, we get 
just about the color we want. Our plan now is to 
breed from the most industrious stocks both Queens 
and drones and no others. 
J. 1*. Mooke, Blnghampton, N. Y. 
Yesterday I transferred a lot of grubs from cells 
started ia li hive containing old black comb, to some 
cells I found started on new comb, and gave some to 
Queenless nuclei. To-day I find them all right and 
much lengthened out and well supplied with royal 
jelly. Some of the larva; were pretty good size, some 
just visible. J- A. Buchanan. 
Did you ever! Front this, it seems that all 
we have to do when we want a Queen, is to 
hunt up some old Queen-cells, put a small lar- 
va; from our choice stock into each, and simply 
put them into Queenless colonies. Can’t some 
one whittle out wooden Queen cells, — like 
wooden nutmegs — and thus save the bees the 
labor of building them '! 
Davis’ Transition Process really amounts to 
more than even we had anticipated. Both 
cells (mentioned last month) to which we 
transferred larva;, have produced line 
Queens. If there are to be no failures ’twill be 
a novelty in Apiculture. 
Friend B. sent us oOc for an unfertile Queen. 
As we had finished for the season, proposing 
to bend all our energies to the work of winter- 
ing those we had, we had no choice but to go 
to work and raise him one; this we did simply 
as follows: We put an empty comb in the 
centre of our imported stock and left it four 
days, then it was put in a Queenless colony 
that was waiting until wo could get a laying 
Queen for them, and left three days at which 
time the Queen destined for them had com- 
menced laying. Now as it was late in the sea- 
son, they must have the Queen at once, and yet 
We did not want the Queen cells (of which 
there were 7 in an unsealed compact cluster) 
destroyed. To accomplish both, we moved 
the cluster, with the cells, to the north side ol 
the hive and placed the laying Queen with two 
of her own combs with brood bees and all on 
the soutli side, idling between the two with 
empty combs. As we expected, the Queen 
cells were all properly sealed in three nun® 
days— 10 days in all from the egg— and as we 
had no farther need of bees, the comb wlthou 
bees was taken to the lamp nursery. Obf® ' ‘ 
that we only kept a colony Queenless 
days to get this lot of Queen cells. After s • 
' days more, 16 from the first eggs, two tine 
