BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Some years, the shippers of queens suffer a much heavier loss than in others. In the main, hot weather is the cause although the blame is usually laid on the queen candy. If the candy is made hard so the bees will not become daubel, it will give perfect results, at least for all ordinary shipments. Some have suggested that pure sugar candy lacks the nitrogenous food contained in pollen, and that this causes the loss in long shipments. Pollen could not be used in candy, as it would cause death by dysentery. Our friend, Allen Latham, queen-breeder of Norwichtown, Conn., has been experimenting by mixing a little royal jelly with the candy as this would furnish the nitrogen and, being predisested, would cause no intestinal disorder. We have been experimenting with it also, but have not gone far enough at this writing to come to any conclusion. However, Mr, Latham's plan looks good.
We believe the principal eause of loss in hot weather is the lack of ventilation. Inagine a queen with her escorts, in a mailing cage with two little slits in the side of the eage, packed in a mail suck, with all sorts of mail matter crowded all around the eage, and then perhaps with twenty-five or fifty more sacks piled on top of it and all out in the sun, with the thermometer reading one hundred in the shade. The wonder is that any survive. During very hot weather we use and recommend what we call "the hot-weather eage." It is the regular mailing eage with a heavy fibre cover raised about one-eighth of an inch with wooden eleats. This remedies much of the hot-weather troubles.
**QUENEN CANDY.**
CHAPTER XXIV.**
The other important feature in the perfect shipment of queens is the food during transit. Much trouble is experienced in shipping queens with candy not sufficiently hard. I have experimented quite extensively along this line by keeping a number of eages containing worker bees and different kinds of food in the attie, the basement and various other places under all sorts of conditions and temperature, and found the chances of queess greatly in favor of the harder candies. Not realizing how decidedly candy affects the bees, many make the mistake of using candy too soft. Wateh the bees in the mailing eage. You will see them continually rubbing their sides against the candy. If it is a trifle too soft they gradually get it on their sides and into their breathing tubes. Then they fret, which makes a bad matter worse, and they die from worry and suffocation. Upon examination the dead bees do not appear candy-daubed at all, but that is what really caused death.
The commonest method of making eage candy is to take honey or invert sugar, put it in a vessel, set it on the stove and heat to a temperature of about 140 degrees. Then stir in as much powdered sugar as possible, put it on the bread board and knead in more powdered sugar until very, very stiff. You cannot get in too much sugar or knead it too thoroughly. Another difficulty is encountered in the use of this sort of candy made with powdered sugar. As is commonly known, powdered sugar contains from three to five per cent starch to keep it from becoming lumpy and hard. This does not make the best grade of candy, for starch causes dysentery to bees in long shipments, but for short shipments no harm is done. Powdered sugar without starch may be obtained by special order, but it becomes so lumpy after a few days that fine, smooth candy cannot be made with it.
However, good candy can be made with either the sugar containing this small amount of starch or the pure powdered sugar. The pure sugar is to be preferred. During the war when powdered sugar could not be produced we made a fondant out of granulated sugar that gave excellent results; but it is a very exacting process to make it, so that we abandoned it. The candy that we consider the very best, however, is made from pure powdered sugar and homemade invert sugar.
As to the use of honey for eage candy, it is generally acknowledged that \(\Lambda\)merican fou broad has been spread in this manner. Even if the present laws are complied with, there is still danger. 16, for instance, the shipment is neoompanied with a certificate of health from an apiary, the candy may have been made of honey from some other apiary, disease infected; or, the diseased honey may have been produced some time before when the apiary was infected. The source and spread of hex disease are so mysterious and disastrous that we cannot be too careful of contagion,and, while the purity using such diseased honey would of course be ignorant of the fact, the damage is done nevertheless. Therefore not only should the breeder be particular but the purchaser should also exercise precaution and, for introducing the queen, he should never use the cage in which she is shipped. Let him always transfer the queen to a cage of his own, and burn the shipping cage.
As to hoiled honey, it is about the worst thing which can be used in making sandy. Bees that have been fed on it for only one day frequently show distended abalomens, indicating they will soon die of dysentery.
For ordinary shipments, invert sugar has been used instead of honey. This may be purchased from denlers in beekeepers' supplies. With the proses of making the very best grade of queen cage only without the use of honey, there is no reason why honey should ever be used in making queen candy at all, even for extremely difficult shipments as is the case in export trade or in very hot dry weather. It has been considered that a fine quality of white honey is superior. However, the chemist tells us that honey and invert sugar are the same as far as the process of drying out is concerned. Now we know that commercial invert sugar is not so thick as honey, and that it does dry out more than honey. Pure water boils at a temperature of 212 degrees. If a heavier substance such as sugar is added, it requires a higher temperature to bring it to a hoil. By this test one can easily prove that the commercial invert sugar contains more water than honey, which causes the easily made with it to dry out sooner than honey. The commercial invert sugar boils at a temperature of 287 degrees, while a good quality of honey boils at a temperature of 245. After this fact was learned some invert sugar was made by using granulated sugar and tartarie acid, and it was hoiled till it reached a temperature of 250 degrees, which is five degrees above the boiling point of honey. This gave a very thick, heavy syrup, so thick that it had to be warned before it could be handled, which inhced me to do some investigation along this line. The result of these experiments led me to make my own invert sugar, which is thicker than honey and therefore is superior to the best honey for queen candy. As was expected, candy nude with this and powdered sugar does not dry out at all, no matter how hot and dry the weather is.
**Receipt for Making Invert Sugar.**
Put one-half round of water in a kettle and placee over the fire until it comes to a boil. Then add one round of granulated sugar, either beet or eane sugar, they being exactly alike. To this add abort ten grains of tartarie acid. As few will have pharmacists' scales to weigh the acid, you can use about one-cigillill of a ten-sponful or a small amount on the tip of a table knife. If trouble is experienced in getting the right amount, an empty 22-short rifle cartridge may be used as a measure. One of these holds 212 grains, therefore four of these level full will furnish the right amount. A little more or less will do no harm. Put in the acid and allow the syrup to boil slowly without stirring until a temperature of \(250^{\circ}\) is reached. Then pour it into a Mason jar. The acid should be kept on the jar as this syrup, being so thick, will absorb moisture if left exposed to the air.
**Making the Candy.**
Take the bread board and cover it with powdered sugar two or three inches deep. Warm the invert sugar slightly, not above \(120^{\circ}\), so the dough will work up easily. Pour a little invert syrup on the sugar and cover it with more sugar. Then work the dough up into a ball and knead the dough until it is so stiff one can scarcely pinch off a bit between the thumb and the finger. In fact, I have never been able to make this candy too stiff. Considerable kneading is required to get it just right. If the air is moist the candy becomes sticky, a n d more sugar should be worked into it before provisioning the cages. This candy will keep indefinitely. One winter we placed some above the hot-air register of the furnace, and in the spring it was still soft and the bees at it readily. If worked long enough it will become quite dry, more like bread, but will not become hard. In that condition it will not gather moisture and will not run. As pure powdered sugar will become lumpy if kept on hand too long, it is advisable to order twenty-five or fifty pounds and make it all up at once. When first made, if the weather is damp, it is well to keep the top covered with a little dry powdered sugar.
## Chapter Xxv.
It is quite unnecessary to say anything about putting the queen candy into the compartments other than some suggestion as to the amount required. For shipments anywhere in the United States or Canada, one compartment full of candy is plenty if twenty-five or thirty bees are put into the cage. If fifty or more are placed in the cage or if the shipment is two thousand miles or over, two compartments should be filled. For export, it is well to fill three of the compartments in the export eage.
After provisioning, the perforated tin that covers the hole in the cage should be swung around the tack placed in it so that it may be easily removed with the fingers. Having the eages provisioned, place them in the hive-seat on the left side. Open the nucleus hive and give the bees a very light puff of smoke from the smoker. Lift out the frame and find the queen. Piek her up with the right hand by taking the two wings between the finger and the thumb. With the left hand put the brood-frame a short distance down into the nucleus hive and tilt it over away from you so it will remain there. This makes it very convenient to pick up the nurse bees. Take up the mailing cage with the left hand and put the queen into the cage, closing the hole with the fore-finger of the left hand. Then proceed to pick up the worker bees by the w i n g s and poke them into the cage, head first, closing the hole in the cage after each bee with the finger as before. When one gets e-eustomed to it, be can fill a eage in half a minute. Once in a while the bee-keeper will get hold of a bulky bee that insists on bracing with its front feet and refuses to go in. When the pressure is brought tonear with the finger, the bee runs out its siting, with the result that in time that finger becomes somewhat collous. \(\Lambda\) thimble might be used on the left forefinger, but this is awkward and unsportsmanlike.
**The Question of Cataleptic Queens.**
In handling queens, many beekeepers have observed that once in a great while a queen suddenly becomes unconscious and sometimes dies. The reason assigned is that she took a cremple or had a cataleptic fit.
The author has observed this for the past twenty years. Some seasons it would oceur but once; during others half a dozen times or more. In my mind there had always been some doubts whether or not the queen was cataleptic. One season, the loss was heavier than usual. One day two were lost. I say "lost" as the queens were always discarded after having a "fit," for previous experience had made me believe that they were permanently injured by having these "spells."
The day the two queens were lost, I observed how very similar was the action of the injured queen to one that had been stung by another queen. There was a sudden collapse, then a slight quivering of the legs. In one case this lasted for over half an hour, when the queen slowly revived. In the other case, the queen quivered for about the same length of time and then died. It seemed certain to me that in some mysterious manner these queens were getting poison from a sting. Could it be that the poison on my fingers from worker-stings was causing the mischief? Investigation failed to substantiate this. I noticed that in one case the queen had taken hold of the tip of her abdomen with a front foot, which might indicate that she had received a slight prick in the foot from her own sting. I therefore watched carefully and soon this belief was confirmed. The queen in taking hold of the tip of her abdomen exposed the sting. Then, in trying to get hold with the rest of her feet, she would strike right at the point of the sting. In this manner she undoubtedly received some of the poison. Since that time we have taken great care that a queen is not allowed to take hold of the tip of her abdomen, consequently no more queens have been afflicted with fainting spells.
**CLIPPINGQUENES' WINGS.**
(Chapter XNVI.
There is considerable controversy on as to whether it injures a queen to clip her wings. This controversy has been on ever since the practice of flipping was started. Some claim it injures the queen, and some as stoutly maintain it does not. My experience leads me to agree with both fractions. The following article, written by me and published in "_Gleaninges,"_ tells of my first attempt at clipping a queen.
AN AMNING AND YET NOT UNOMMON EXPERIENCE OF REGINNERS.
The first colony of bees I got was in a ten-frame homemade hive, which I kept standing in the back yard the first year, not daring to go near it. In the fall, I went out one night and peeped under the cover, and was surprised to see that there was no honey. I supposed all a fellow bad to do to 'get honey was to get some bees and they would do the rest. Nothing succeeds like success, so they say. Not so here. Nothing makes me succeed like a failure, so I determined that next year those bees should make some honey or furnish a reasonable exercise.
I subscribed for (themings and got the A B C. Then the bee fever took hold of me is earnest. I studied the book night and day. I knew it all by heart. I got the "Facts About Bees," and learned it till I could recite it as easily as a minister can quote scripture. The argument in it was good. Everything in it was all worked out. How grateful I felt that everything had been learned for me, and all I had to do was to renp the benefits! I tried hard to be unassunings but inwardly I could not help feeling ground that I knew everything about bees.
I did all this studying in the winter; and how I longel for spring to come that I might demonstrate what I already knew! How that winter persisted in staying with us, and how reluctantly did spring show her shining fone! But at last, in the latter part of March, there came a beautiful, bright warm day--just the time for clipping the queen! I had never seen a queen, and my anxiety to view her majesty was something feree. I had an assistant cover me with mosquito hair. I put on mittens and wrapped my wrists with rags. Then I fired up the smoker and prepared to go into action.
How I decided opening that hive? I felt a little pale, but my teeth were set and it was do or die. I was too big a coward to retreat while every one was watching. I must have been an awe-inspiring sight to those bees as I swapped down upon then, stressed in arnor, with the smoker spitting smoke and fire. I soon enveloped the hive in smoke, gave it a few jolts and itore off the cover, then smoked again. Of course, the bees coward before such a vigorous enslught. Now, the looks snid, "Catech the queen and clip her." Chipping was the primary object of the expedition; but I saw where the hooks were right in saying "Catech the queen" before saying "and clip her." The only change in the wording of that I would make would be to precede that with "find the queen." I took out the frames carefully, andstool them around the hive in various places; but could not "catch the queen."1 looked and looked. There were more bees to that hive than I had expected to see in ten lives. The separation of a mixture of the proverbial haystack and needle would have been a vineh compared with the task in hand. I hunted all the afternoon, and had to give it up on account of darkness. I was disguested but not disguoragel. This problem confronted me, "1f if fail to find one queen in half a day, how long will it make to find several thousand queens?" (the number I expected to have in a year or two).
Nothing succeeds like a full sure, and the next day I went after them with more zeal than ever. On lifting out the third fume my eyes rested on a hoe the like of which I had never seen before. It was a long bee, and she walked with a more maj jestie trend over the comb, and did not seem to be in such a rush as the rest of the bees. She was of a dark-brown color, and how handsone she looked! Verily this must be the queen! The queen of Shelbaught have looked good to Nolumon; but she was not arrayed like this one.
The next thing, "Catch the queen."1 tried to make the catch, but she was not so easy. Just as I would close my fingers on her she was not there. At last I got hold of one wing, but she buzed around so that I let her drop.
Again I got her by the wings and tried to transfer to the left hand, but her hech did not stick out far enough for me to get n good hold, and she knocked out and got away, Next time I shut down so hard that I was afraid I would kill her, and then let up so that she got away again. This time she dropped in the grass, and I had a time to find her. The fourth time I lield her between my left thumb and finger in a trembly fashion, much as a dog bites a rat, and probably the sensations to the rat and queen were similar.
I then got the shears. I forget whether they were a large pair of tailors' shears or the kind they use for shearing sheep. In my enthusiasm I hud used them in prying frames apart, and they were more or less gununned up with propolis. I slid then under the wings and I shut down. The wings again and again until I either wore her wings "cropped" as one correspondent puts it. However, if enre is taken and the clipping done properly it can be no more injurious to a queen to have her wings clipped than it would be in ease the wing of a hen is clipped to keep her from flying over the fence and getting into the lettuce bed--it all depends on how it is done. If the wings are clipped too short, injury may result. In such a case nerves and arteries may be severed. If about one-third of the wings is clipped off, no harm can possibly come of it. This bears out in practice, for in thousands of queens clipped in that manner, I never knew of one injured. The bees treat such queens in exactly the same way as though they had their entire wings and do not supersede then any sooner than the others.
In clipping queens' wings some prefer to hold her majesty by the legs,while some prefer to hold her thorax between the finger and the thumb of the left hand. \(\Lambda\)Iter trying both 1 prefer the latter method. To clip a queen, first pick her up by the wings with the forefinger and thumb of the right hand. Then pass her to the left hand, placing the thumb on the upper side of the thorax and the forefinger on the lower side. In this position her abdomen forms a curve over the end of the finger, leaving the wings projecting in such a manner that they may be easily clipped. Then pass a blade of the scissors under the wings and clip off about one-third of the length. If preferred the wings on one side only may be clipped. It is not necessary to clip off much of the wings in order to prevent the queen from flying, as a laying queen has all she can do to fly when she has all of her wings in good order. The queen must never be clipped before she begins to lay, for of course, since she nates with the drone on the wing, she could not mate if her wings are clipped. As she never mates after she begins to lay, no harm is done by clipping her wings as described after eggs are laid. The wings of the queen do not grow out again after clipping, so one operation is sufficient for her lifetime.
Lest the beginner might not thoroughly understand the significance of the above, let it be understood that a queen must under no circumstance be clipped before she begins to lay, for it cannot be definitely ascertained that she has mated and fertilized until she begins to lay. As the queen mates only upon the wing, it can be understood that if her wings were clipped she could not fly and therefore could not be fertilized. There are frequent cases where the amateur catches a swarm, and, if the queen is found, she is clipped to keep the swarm from absorbing. One should be careful in such cases to be sure that the queen he elips is a laying queen, for, if the swarm should be an after-swarm with a virgin queen, clipping would render her incapable of mating. In such a case if the swarm were not given another queen, it would be lost. In some cases the virgin would become a drone-layer and in others she would be killed by the bees who seem to think it was the queen's fault in not going out and mating. After the queen is killed by the bees, the colony soon runs to laying workers and is worthless.
**INTRODUCHSQUENS**.
('Hapter XXVII.
Nearly thirty-live years ago, Mr. 6, M. Doolittle wrote, "Perhaps there is no one subject connected with heekeeping that has received so much notice in our hee papers and elsewhere as has the introduction of quencis." We find the condition in this respect very much the same today. Methods come and flourish for a time, and then quietly vanish. Many of these so-called "new methods" were used and discarded before any of us were born. I have been guilty of making some startling discoveries, only to find that they had been known many years ago and discarded because they were of no account. Other interesting facts I have come upon, only to realize after a certain period of time that they were advocated by others years ago. For instance, I proved to my own satisfaction that the presence of quencis-cells in a live has little or no effect upon the bees' accepting a quecis, provided no virgins emerged before the quest was laying. This is contrary to the general belief and I thought I stood alone in this, yet Mr. Doolittle says the same thing in "Seientifie Queen Rearing," Lately the "Honey Method" of introducing quecis has come forward and was thought by many to be something new, but Mr. Doolittle also describes that. Yes, and it is just as unreliable today as it was forty years ago. One year I used tobacco steus in my snooker to introduce quecis, closing the entrance until the bees came out of their delaunch. I thought I had something good as well as new, but we find that Alley used it many years ago. I think it is the best of any "smoke methods," but it is poor enough at that. We can all avoid traveling in a circle in this manner if we will only read all of the older publications in bekeeping. The old "unasters" can teach us much. Many times we can find the very thing we are getting ready to "invent" and also the reason why it is "no good," All kinds of torture have been inflicted upon the innocent queen and bees during queen introduction. There are the "Stravation Method," the "Drowning Method," the "Honey Death Method," "Perpemprint," numerous "Smoke methods," "'dnorform," "'arabolic Acid," etc. Yes, and away lark in 1744 the English had the "Until Hall Method," When one of these hulls was "puffed" at the hees, they became unconscious. Dr. Phillips tells me that they claimed it made the hees "forget," and when they came out of it they had forgotten all about the queen question and couldn't remember whether the queen they then possessed was the one they always had or not. No doubt many of the quecis introduced in that manner also forgot to lay, and many would "forget" to live.