August 19, 1886. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
169 
■where I can watch both her and the action of the bees. 
Whenever I observe the bees favourably disposed towards 
her, clustering in a quiet way in the outer compartment, will 
at dusk cautiously draw the slide, and success is certain. If 
I mean to join the queen and bees that form the nucleus to 
another hive, I place them in a large frame of perforated 
zinc and place it in the centre of the hive for at least twelve 
hours, after the hive has undergone the same manipulation 
as mentioned above for the reception of a single queen. 
Owing to the Syrians raising many queens I have taken 
advantage of that, and experimented a little. The inclina¬ 
tion of the Syrians to raise so many queens is a great draw¬ 
back to their well-doing, unless they be excised on the eighth 
day after the old queen has left. In one case this year from 
the issue of the first swarm until the last cast, three weeks 
passed. To make the most of these bees the royal cells 
should be all excised, unless one on the eighth day after the 
old queen has left, and neither queen nor queen cell should 
be given to a hive at any other time than after the eighth 
day. 
Allowing queens to run in at the entrance is a risky way 
of introducing queens. I have done it often, and in most 
cases the queen was badly treated. The old and depending 
bees are always placed at the entrance, and a queen will be 
seized and killed or wounded before the attacking bee has 
time to consider she is wanted inside. Queen cells have 
been placed in the hive by the dozen, and not one of the 
queens in these cells survives. In one case where I returned 
a first swarm to part of its combs, one royal cell had been 
left. It hatched, the laying queen was deposed, and in forty- 
eight hours after the young queen was laying. There was 
no loss in a case of this kind. Very different, however, was 
it in another. A young man had a stock back for the Clover, 
but progressing and giving promise to be a good one for the 
Heather. He was downcast about it, and begged a second 
swarm from me to join to it. I cautioned him respecting 
the likelihood of the old queen being deposed, and the risk 
attending the young queen on her wedding trip ; but no 
advice was taken, the result being the old queen was deposed 
and the fertilisation of the young one was delayed or re¬ 
tarded for three weeks, and instead of having a forward 
colony it is simply beginning anew. The loss, however, I 
will make up to him with a few frames of brood from one of 
my populous colonies of Syrians, and he in return has 
promised me a helping hand with my hives at the moors, of 
of more importance to me than a swarm of bees or a few 
frames of brood. Some bee-keepers add the value of their 
surplus stock to the balance sheet, but I expect I shall be 
only too glad if someone would come at the end of Septem¬ 
ber and take mine away. In one nucleus of Syrian bees 
that was queenless for a week but deprived of its royal cells 
only four hours before introducing a queen, she was killed 
by one excited bee immediately she was set free, although 
the cluster of bees showed distinctly they were favourably 
disposed towards her. It was done by way of experiment, 
otherwise I should not have released her till sunset, or a 
little after, this being the time bees are disposed to be quiet; 
in fact, bees at that time cease, as a rule, from all labour for 
a short time. In five minutes after they killed the queen I 
gave it a small piece of comb, l£ inch square, containing 
eggs and larvse, and in three hours after I observed nine 
royal cells begun—the lesson to be derived from it being, do 
not be in a hurry in introducing queens, nor to do it in any 
way that is likely to be repugnant to the bees. One hive in 
ten days after throwing its first swarm had a young queen 
fertilised; this fertilised queen, together with two virgins, 
were thrown out of the hive. Dissection proved very little 
spermatheca to be in the sperm sac, and it is plain a queen 
may be fertilised while queen cells or young queens are in 
the hive ; also that the bees possess the power of knowing 
when a queen is in a fit state to be allowed to live or when 
she should be deposed from defects or functional disorder.— 
A Lanarkshire Bee keeper. 
QUEEN INTRODUCTION, &o. 
Dr. Geo. Walker, Wimbledon, otherwise “ A Surreyshire Bee¬ 
keeper,” on page 56, replies to my criticism of his letter after giving the 
readers of the British Bee Journal my plan, which he says is “ to keep 
the bees without a queen or eggs for two days, and then let the queen run 
in, when they will take to her at once.” 
In the following issue he admits that it would have been better 
had he quoted me exactly in my own words, and says he only re¬ 
ferred to the plan generally, and mentions trying it with a Ligurian 
queen, which I take to be the same one he alludes to, and which he kept 
caged in the hive upwards of a week till he went to Liverpool, when he 
found the bees would not receive her ; and now he says “followed out my 
instructions to the letter, and wants to know why he failed.” Did he ? 
Do I not clearly and distinctly imply in my letter that the queen was never 
to be caged inside the hive ? also aid I advise feeding the bees P No, and 
had the bees accepted the queen under such treatment I should have been 
surprised. 
He now pretends to give the opinion of other bee-keepers to support 
his own assertions and quotes Mr. C. N. Abbott, but does not give particu¬ 
lars as to where they are to be found, so I will quote him from the B.B.J. 
for July 1st, 1886 ;—“ Notwithstanding the opinions of the “ Hallamshire 
Bee-keeper ” and others cited by Mr. Walker, it may be taken for granted 
that there is no condition in which alien queens will be so likely to be 
well received after caging as that existing in a hive in which there are 
young brood in all stages and plenty of hatching bees. Put that in italics, 
Mr. Editor, and let others disprove it if they can.” 
So it will be noticed that Dr. W. has quoted “ young brood in all 
stages ” as “ young bees ” and “ plenty of batching bees ”—that is, those 
bees that are nibbling off the caps to creep out as “ hatching brood.” Mr. 
Abbott does not specify it as a condition that there should be any young 
bees, but Dr. Walker has it there should be “ plenty.” 
I freely admit that I cannot make out exactly what Mr. Abbott means. 
It is the vaguest proposition I have ever seen, but he thinks it so import¬ 
ant that he tells the Editor to put it in italics. Then he quotes Mr. Boot, 
who, like himself, has a failure for quoting people wrcngly, and who has 
given as a “ safe ” plan putting the queen alone or with only the bees 
which accompany her on some hatching brood in a lamp nursery and 
hatching out the young bees until sufficient to make up what he calls a 
“ colony.” It is true he recommends the “ put ” cage, probably because 
he makes it—he always advises using what he sells as being better than 
any other—and if a queen is lost then he has to supply another, but I have 
never seen him state that it was anything but fairly successful. 
I consider I have given sufficient to show he has not quoted correctly. 
Is it likely when he cannot quote correctly he can repeat a simple experi¬ 
ment correctly, or describe one correctly which he has made ? 
It is well known that your Journal, Mr. Editor, through articles signed 
“A Lanarkshire Bee-keeper,” “Felix,” and others, has always scouted 
the “ brood-spreading and stimulative feeding ” teaching advocated by 
“ A Surreyshire Bee-keeper ” and his co-writers in the B. B. J., in which 
journal, under the heading “ Useful Hints ”—which are very useful to gauge 
the writer’s knowledge of practical apiculture—for July 8th, says : “Many 
a colony brought up to honey-collecting strength a month or six weeks 
ago is now in pitiable plight from depletion of its population and the 
attendant evil of chilled brood. In our own district this evil has been 
very prevalent, in some cases leading on to foul brood. The queens, 
stimulated to egg-laying by syrup-feeding or the uncapping of comb 
honey, have produced more brood than the bees could well cover, while 
the speedy dwindling of the latter, caused sometimes by robbing as well 
as foraging, has left whole sheets of unsealed larvae to perish and rot—a 
meet hotbed for the reception of bacilli or foul brood germs. In several 
cases we have found fine queens with distended ovaries, accompanied by 
about a dozen bees on three or four frames of putrifying larvae, without 
any of the odour so well known to the practised expert of foul brood.” 
Could a more sickening picture possibly be drawn from life, or rather 
death ? Mark all this in the writer’s “ own district.” Contrast this with 
stocks packed heavy enough at the beginning of September to last till 
the following June or longer, according to “Lanarkshire’s” advice, and 
compare the two extremes. I shall be glad of every honest attempt to 
prove I am wrong, but I will warn all I shall accept none that is not in 
accordance with my teaching. Mr. Abbott goes and extracts all the 
honey out of a queenless lot, and then gives them a queen on the flight 
board, not at the entrance or flight hole as I direct; then, because she was 
likolv to fall off, he dropped her in the back of the hive. He says she 
was balled, and yet he admits they accepted her after being balled from 
Thursday to Sunday night, was at liberty on Monday, but on Wednesday 
he could not find her, though he found eggs and a queen cell. Then he 
says he removed all the combs from the hive, leaving the bees alone, and 
gave them a queen the same night and the combs back next morning— 
which is practically one of the ways I give in the previous issue of the 
B. B, J. to apply the “ law ” I lay down, and also supplied some bees to 
and directed a customer to introduce one by it also ; and then he exclaims 
“ that he has not pirated any of the tunes played by the big drum o’ the 
band.” Mind, he uses no brood or hatching bees, but just my law, which 
he says he finds at fault, only he cages the queen somewhere about the 
hive or box, after totally depriving them of queen and combs, and setting 
her at liberty a little before the time (twenty-four hours) I lay down as 
being absolutely safe. 
Perhaps Dr. Walker will be able to see the vast difference between the 
plans recommended by Mr. Abbott in the B.B.J. for July 1st, and what 
he reports in the same journal for July 22nd as having practised. First 
he runs things down, and when he finds they are good he dubs it his plan 
