December C9, 1887. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
573 
operation thus far is complete. The nucleus is, in fact, 
ready to receive a ripe queen cell. The stock containing 
the.royal cells must now be opened, and a cell cut out, 
taking the greatest care not to shake or bruise the rcyal 
cot, and also cutting out with it an inch of the adjoining 
comb. This cell must now be placed head downwards 
between the combs of the nucleus, and kept in position 
by a pin stuck through the spare piece of comb cut out 
for the.purpose. The nucleus must now be kept warm, 
and a little feeding done if necessary. In the course of 
a /ew days the princess will emerge; shortly after that 
will meet the drone, and, unless some accident happens, 
become fertile. She must then either be removed to a 
strong stock or extra combs must be added to the nucleus, 
which will thus be gradually built up into a strong stock, 
and in reality form a swarm. Care must be taken not 
to allow the queen cells to suffer a chill during removal, 
and extreme caution is necessary when excising them 
from the comb to which they depend. This method may 
be adopted at any time when the weather is fit for the 
flight of queens and drones, and no difficulty need be 
apprehended in carrying it out. 
Introducing the queens to stocks will receive attention 
in a following article, but at present it may not be unwise 
to again call, the attention of bee-keepers to the value of 
co-operation in this as in many other matters connected 
with the management of the apiary. If one bee-keeper 
gives up a stock for drone-raising, and a neighbour gives 
up a stock for queen-rearing, both will receive a benefit, 
and both will have the advantage of the trouble and 
expense being divided. Many bee-keepers naturally 
object to devoting their best stock to raising a few queens. 
In small apiaries it is certainly only at a considerable loss 
that queens are raised, because possibly only three or 
four are required, and the remainder must be destroyed 
unless they can be sold or exchanged, and this is in most 
districts rarely possible. It is preferable in such cases 
to purchase the queens if they can be obtained from re¬ 
liable men at fair prices; but it is no economy to give 
a low price, and receive a diseased or comparatively worth¬ 
less queen. It is far better on the whole for a few small 
bee-keepers to club together and agree to divide the 
expense of queen raising between them rather than to 
trust to strangers. The best stocks must always be 
chosen for the purpose, and if early drones are required, 
the greatest possible care must be taken to feed the stock 
regularly, otherwise the larvae will be certainly destroyed, 
and the hope of the bee-keeper frustrated. 
Many experienced men prefer to re-queen all their 
stocks in autumn, and provided the queens are not reared 
too early the princesses will mate with the selected 
drone, because the other drones will in all normal cases 
be killed at the end of the honey season. Such 
queens are good unless accidentally killed or maimed for 
two seasons, except when hives of large size are used, and 
the productive powers of the queen are consequently 
taxed to the utmost. As such large hives should always 
be used in our opinion, if profit is the object of the 
management of bees, it will be necessary to have a fresh 
supply of queens every year, but when small hives are 
used a queen which in a large hive would be comparatively 
worthless, will in a small hive with a circumscribed 
brood nest be equally as valuable as a younger and more 
fertile mother. Each one must act in the manner best 
calculated to effect his object. It is sufficient to have 
pointed out the means by which queens may be success¬ 
fully reared, and as it were compelled to mate with 
selected drones.— Felix. 
BEES WEARING OUT AT THE HEATHER 
RIPENING HONEY. 
WHE - N J !*T an t0 read “ A Lanarkshire Bee-keeper's ” contribution 
on page o03, taking me to task for misquoting him, I really felt surprised, 
j urely, I thought,.my memory has not been playing me a trick, and led 
me to asenbe to him what had been said by someone else I always 
read his articles with great care-firstly, to get all the information I can 
tor I have an idea he was a veteran bee-keeper before I was born and 
is a thorough master of his subject. Secondly, to see or get hints on 
points that are still unsolved, for he has such a happy knack of stating 
them, which makes his articles so interesting. Therefore I determined 
at once I would find the quotation, but before I reach to the end of the 
paragraph he says, “ I have witnessed hives at the moors having nearly 
aH their bees lost but not by working on the Heather, but by some 
occult influence of Heather or season which I cannot explain.” Here 
we have it ; he has seen strong hives dwindle down to nuclei on the 
moors, and. he cannot explain the cause. I do explain it- I sav it 
caused by Dees being.tempted to leave their hives through’the smell of 
the Heather and getting chilled before they could return. To prevent it 
I place the hives a mile off the Heather. I did not imply, or intend to 
imply, that he had said Heather had a weakening influence on bees 
individually. I meant that strong stocks dwindled down to weak ones 
as the context of my contributions will show. I also tried to show that 
when hives were located a mile away off Heather, nuclei rapidly 
increased into fud stocks, while full stocks appeared to lose none of 
their population, owing to the fact that when working on the Heather 
bees are not worn to death so much in flying from blossom to blossom. 
He does not appear to have ever made any experiments on the Doint - 
probably I never should have suspected the real cause had I not had 
the entree of almost every apiary in my district, and as I keep my eves 
open I quickly susp?cted it. Then curiously enough, the only experiment 
made by others he quotes goes in favour of my theory, thaUa mile away 
is. the proper location. Then I see “ Mid-Lothian ” comes forward to say 
his bees have always done best when placed a mile off. Now while T 
assert most positively that one mile off the Heather with 300 to 600 feet 
rise is the proper place to fix them, I do not wish to say or imply that 
they will do so equally well five miles off, or why am I annualb/at the 
trouble and expense of moving my bees four miles nearer/ I simply 
said that in fine settled weather bees would work well at five miles 
distance, yet I know they will not attempt the journey if there is a risk 
of being caught m a storm. I maele this assertion and gave my facts to 
prove it to refute a statement made in another Journal that bees would 
starve with good pasture two miles off. Then, again, while I fix; on one 
mile as being the best, I do not think the extra advantage will pay for 
mfles r off ble and 6SpenSe 0f movin S b,,es if the y stand within three 
°ur friend speaks of bees working in different places at different 
times.of the day : for instance, they would be working on one patehffi 
morning and another m the afternoon, the afternSon patch being 
always deserted in the morning, and vice versa. I once propounded the 
theory that ‘-the honey flow depended on the amount of sunshine and 
not on the amount of flowers ”— i.e., no sun no honey, much sun much 
oney, and I was well laughed at. This was several years ago, and yet I 
still assert this theory to be true, though it did not seem to work during 
the past droughty summer, the fact being the earth was devoid of moit- 
ture to help the sap to flow. The last spring I noticed a fine bed of 
Arabis albidam full bloom, where the sun could not shine upon it 
untd 3 p m. then it came between two houses, in the form of a narrow 
ribbon-like beam I he interesting point was to see it totally neglected 
by the bees till the sun reached it, then they only worked on "the narrow 
strip it shone on moving as it moved. I venture to assert therefore 
that where the bees did not work no sunshine fell. 
The other point he differs from me about is the Pettigrew theory of 
bees re-swallowing their honey to evaporate it, and implies that because 
bees store ripe honey in the new comb they first make in an empty hive 
they could not re-swallow it, and therefore the -theory is untenable f 
do not see it in this way. When bees have empty cells they first de- 
posit them honey in those celis and ripen it afterwards, and acting on 
that theory I have for several years always extracted my honey the first, 
thing m the morning before the bees began working, and I have yet to 
see the first crude honey thrown out; it is while still warm run through 
muslin and bottled, and always sets as hard as a brick. The wet emntv 
combs set the bees m a rage for gathering more honey, and with the 
day before them and plenty of sun they not unfrequently refill their 
combs with ripe honey for extracting next morning. I once extracted 
the same combs filled with ripe honey three mornings in succession. 
Now does it not occur to our friend's mind that when bees have no 
comb they keep the honey in their sacs until some have evaporated 
theirs into wax and built comb for them to store it in ? The instance, 
he gives does not in my opinion prove Pettigrew wrong, it only shows 
that bees can adapt themselves to altered circumstances. Those who 
disbelieve Pettigrew had better first get over these two facts—viz crude 
thin unripe, watery honey is always found in the combs in the evening 
of the day honey has been gathered ; while next morning, that is before 
any bees begin working, every bit is quite ripe. If bee-keepers will only 
get up and take the day by the forelock they will never require such 
inventions as honey ripeners,” i.e., spoilers. |I should think the authors 
of some of them must lie in bed until the cool of the evening There 
is one with quite a maze of zigzag passages and hot-water arrangements. 
—A Hallamshire Bee-keeper. 
