BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
While thinking of this matter one day, I resolved that I would find out the truth regarding it, if possible; so I caught some of my most prolific queens and caged them, the same as I would for shipment, giving them the usual number of bees for an escort, and placed them in my shop. A part of these were thrown about the shop, and handled about as I thought they would be when shipt away, while others were handled very carefully or let alone entirely; all being kept from the hive from one to two weeks. Upon returning them as the heads of colonies again, some of them proved of little value, and, strange to say, a part of those that were of the least value were among those treated the most carefully. I was now satisfied that the cause very largely lay where I mistrusted that it did--in the sudden stopping of a queen from prolific egg-laying; for whenever a queen expects to leave a hive with a swarm, she almost, or altogether, stops egg-laying preparatory to leaving, but doing the same gradually.
If I am correct in the above conclusion, and I believe I am, then the plan of keeping queens out of colonies for a week or so before sending them out can only remedy the matter as far as they are liable to being bruised is concerned; while it has really no bearing on the main cause of the trouble. The keeping of them in a nucleus for a few days, would come nearer to nature's way of preparing the queen to leave the hive, than any of the other plans; yet this will not fully accomplish the object, nor do I know of any that will.
Having solved the matter to my satisfaction, that queens were mainly injured by suddenly stopping them from pro
### 104 Doolithic on queen-Rearns
Life egg-laying, and not finding any plan to fully overcome this difficulty, I next tried to find out if this unprolifeness had any effect on the daughters from these once prolific queens, but now almost valueless mothers. I am pleased to be able to go on record as saying, that, so far as I can see, such injured queens produce just as prolific daughters after their confinement as they did before. For this reason I would advise all who receive queens, that do not seem as prolific as they would desire, to rear queens from them immediately, or as soon as any of their brood is old enough for that purpose. In this way the buyer gets a fair return for his money, even if the queen bought does not prove to be all that he had expected or desired.
### 104 Chapter Xxii.
QUALITY OF BRFS AND COLOR OF QUERNS.
Had I thought that this book would have been considered complete without it, I should have preferred to leave this chapter out; for I am well aware that we do not all agree as to which is the best race of bees, how these bees should be markt, etc. However, as I thought that all would not consider it complete, and as I desire to injure no one's feelings, I will try in a mild, brief, impartial way to tell what I believe to be the truth about them, as lookt at from the stand-point of this locality--Central New York.
The black, or German bee, probably all are quite familiar with. All the really good qualities that I know of them are their readiness to enter the sections and build comb, and smooth, white capping of the honey of the same. Their poor qualities, as I find them, are their inclination to rob, and willingness to be robbed; their running from the combs, and out of the hive, unless handled very carefully; they do not resist the wax-moths, are poor honey-gatherers, except in times of plenty; are inclined to sting with little provocation, and do not work in a business-like way.
This last particular I do not know that I ever saw mentioned; and by it I mean that they live only from "hand tomouth," as it were, calculating only a day or so in advance. They go into the sections to work, and build comb only so long as honey comes in plentifully. The least slack stops comb-building, only that the cells are lengthened on those that are already built, so that I have frequently found sections one-fourth full of comb, and that one-fourth lengthened out, filled, and capped over, without being attach to the sections except at the top. I never saw anything of the kind with any other race of bees, for they all start and build the sections full of comb as if they calculated to do something business-like.
**If** another yield of honey comes in a few days, these bees start the comb down a little further, when it is again stubbed off if the flow slackens; and again and again do the same thing until I have counted as many as five times in a single section where they have started and stopt, making the face side of the comb resemble a wash-board.
It has been claimed that there is a difference in these bees, some saying that there is a large brown bee of superior merit; others claim great things for their gray bees, both of which varieties are said to be a great way ahead of the little black bee; but I wish to say, that, after getting queens from several claiming to have these superior strains, and placing them beside the "little black bee" that our forefathers used to have, there is not a bit of difference in them, so far as I can see, or any of my bee-keeping friends to whom I have shown them.
The queen-bee of the German race seems to be the most constant in color of any of the bees that have come under my notice; all of which are of a very dark brown upon the upper side of the abdomen, while the under side of the same is of a yellowish brown. Out of scores of specimens which I have examined I could not detect the least variation of color, so that in these bees we have queens which will duplicate themselves as to color, if we do not have such in any other race.
Right here I would say, that, in speaking of markings, I shall notice only those which are first, or permanent, as are those colors on the horny scales, or segments of the abdomen; for nearly all other markings are of hair or fuzz and are soon worn off, so that an old bee does not look nearly as showy as a young one, when the color of the fuzz is new and bright. The head and thorax of all the races of bees are very much alike, except as the color of this fuzz gives them a lighter or darker appearance. To be sure, the Cyprians have a bright spot, or "shield," as it is called, at the back of the thorax between the wings; but as I find this same spot on the best market Syrians and Italians, I do not see how it can be used as a test of purity of the Cyprian race, as some claim for it. Hence the abdomen of the bee is the place we are to look for the markings of the different races.
Perhaps I ought not to say anything of the Carniolans, for the two queens which I received that were said to be pure, were not at all alike as to their worker progeny. From these two queens I decided that it was a mixt race, when I lookt at the progeny of one queen; and that it was only a peaceable strain of the black bee, when I handled those of the other queen. My trial of these bees from these two queens, agreed with the reports of the most of those at that time, in that they were not nearly as good as the Italians. As to the "steel blue" color claimed for them, I will say that the same will be seen on a lot of black bees, just hatch, if held so that the light strikes them just right. From the experience that I have had with these and their offspring, I concluded that I had no use for them, so I superseded the queens. Of late they seem to be growing in favor, and I shall try to give them another trial in the near future.
The few queens which I reared from these mothers varied from a jet black to a light brown, one of which was fairly a shiny-black, like a crow, or what we term a "crow black-bird." There was no constancy of color in either the bees or queens.
I have thoroughly tried the Syrian bees, and for this locality I consider them the poorest of all bees yet brought to this country. The two great faults which make them thus are, first, not breeding when they should breed, and then breeding beyond measure when they ought to breed but little; which results in few laborers in the field in the honey harvest, and countless numbers of consumers after the harvest is past, to consume all that the few gathered.
Consequence, no profit.
Second, the workers begin to lay eggs as soon as the queen leaves the hive, whether by swarming or otherwise, so that the combs are filled with a multitude of dwarf-drones, to the disadvantage of the bees, combs, and owner.
Laying workers are always present with these bees. At times they sting fearfully; at other times they are nearly as peaceable as Italians. However, they will not venture an attack unless the hive is disturbed, as do the black bees. A colony of Syrian or Cyprian bees will let me stand an hour at a time right in front of their entrance, turning out for me, and not offering to sting; while in less than ten minutes a black colony will resent such impudence to the score of hundreds of stings, if I do not leave.
The Cyprians I disliked to part with, for they were really good bees in all points but one; but that one point was altogether too sharp for me. Of all the bees to sting when provoked, these bees "beat all." In opening a hive, smoke does no good, while the least mishap will, without warning, send hundreds of hissing, angry, stinging bees all over one's person. They also have "a touch" of the laying-worker nuisance, but nothing nearly so bad as the Syrians.
With me, the markings of the Cyprian and Syrian queens are very much alike, except the stripes or rings on the Cyprian queens have more yellow on them than do the Syrians; and the yellow is of a bright orange-color, while that on the Syrians is less bright, and often dusky. Every segment of the abdomen has both yellow and black upon it, unless it be the last one at the tip, which generally is.nearly or quite all black, or very dark brown. The queens of these two races of bees are next in constancy of color to the German queens.
Lastly, we have the Italians, and it is hardly necessary for me to say that they are my choice among all the bees that I have ever seen, either for comb honey or for extracted. Some claim that they will not work in the sections readily, while others think that they give the cappings of their honey a watery appearance. In neither of these points do I find any trouble with them; for if rightly managed, so that the hive is filled with brood when the sections are put on, as it should always be, they work in the sections on the first appearance of honey in the fields; while I have none of the watery-appearing honey from them, which is produced by both the Syrians and Cyprians. To be sure, they do not use as much wax on their combs as do the blacks, but they use enough, when we take all things into consideration, such as the cost of wax, toughness of comb, pleasure of eating, etc.
Espectally am I pleased with these bees when we have a light yield of honey, for at such times they work right on, untiringly, storing a little honey in the sections every day, at times when hybrids and other bees are scarcely getting a living. They will also work on the red clover more than any other bees, as I have proven during many seasons, storing nice, white honey at the same time the German and hybrid bees are gathering only that of dark color. This one quality alone would give them the preference over the other races, with me, had they not many other redeeming qualities besides.
The queens are very inconstant in color, especially those from an imported mother, such varying from that of a German.queen to a bright, golden orange-color the whole length of the abdomen; some of the best specimens of my home-bred stock, not having even a particle of black on the extreme tip, or point. By crossing the best specimens of my home-bred stock, with similar specimens from different apiaries from 100 to 1,000 miles from me, I have succeeded in securing bees of the Italian race which are far more constant in color than any I could get ten years ago; while at the same time my bees have vastly improved as to their working-qualities. By this method of crossing, I believe it possible to get a bee of the highest type, as to working-qualities, as well as to produce the handsomest bees in the world.
While I would by no means sacrifice working-quality for color, or anything else, yet when we can have a beautiful bee combined with one having the very best working-qualities, why not combine pleasure with profit? It is one of the "queer" things which a queen-breader meets with (as nearly all such breeders will bear me out), that where a party orders several queens, writing that he does not care for color, only give him good working-quality, he will, nine times out of ten, select the very yellowest one you would send him, to breed from, while his next order will call for all yellow ones.
Of hybrid bees I have little to say, for I believe that the crossing of any of the races with those of the same race, procured from some apiary 200 or more miles away, will produce just as good results as to honey, as will the crossing of the different races.
**REARING A FEW QUEENS.**
Now put the frame in place in the upper story again, and close the hive. If other cells were started on this comb, besides the ones which you destroyed by taking out the jelly, they should be destroyed also. In case a queen is allowed to hatch from such cells before those hatch which you have started, they will destroy those of a better quality that you have worked for.
In ten days from the time you prepared the cells, go to the hive and slip in a queen-excluding division-board near the center, if you want two queens to hatch and become fertile. If you want only one, you need not fix the hive fin this way at all; for the first queen that hatches will destroy all the rest. All you need to do in this case is to bore a half-inch or larger hole in the back part of the hive, five days after the queen is hatch, and close it again after she begins to lay.
But as it will be natural for you to want two queens at least, we will suppose that you have the queen-excluding division-board in place, after which you are to get a frame containing a little brood, from any hive in the yard, and after shaking the bees off this comb in front of their own hive, you are to take one of the nearly-mature queen-cells off the comb that they are on, and stick it on this comb, the same as you did the wax-cup; using this way of fastening the cells to the comb until you get enough accustomed to the work so that you will not injure them by pressing them into the comb, as I advised in Chapter IX.
Now place this frame on one side of the hive, and the one on which the cells were built, on the other side, having the queen-excluding division-board between them. If you have more than two completed queen-cells, and you wish to save them, of course you will need more upper stories, or will form nuclei for them, this being written on the supposition that you are only desirous of rearing just two extra queens.
In five days after the young queens hatch, bore a hole from the back part of the hive into each of the apartments having the queens, leaving these holes open till the queens begin to lay, when they are to be closed. You will now have two as nice queens as you ever saw, reared without much trouble; and they can be kept where they are until you desire to use them without their interfering with the workings of the colony in the least, any more than they have done so far, which is none at all.
This rearing of queens and having them fertilized in a hive having a laying queen in it, without in the least interfering with the working of the bees or the hive, is something which holds me almost spell-bound when I think of it, and something that we have heretofore considered impossible.
Another point right here (and one which I consider worth much more to any one, than the price of this book, even tho he may keep only two colonies of bees), and that is: If you desire to supersede any queen in your yard, on account of her being too old to be of farther use, or if she is of another race of bees from what you desire, all you have to do is to put on an upper story, with a queen-excluding honey-board under it, place a frame of brood with a queen-cell upon it, in this upper story, and after the young queen has hatch, withdraw the queen-excluder, and your old queen is superseded without your even having to find her, or having the least bit of time wasted to the colony.
In fact, the possibilities which this perforated-metal may bring, have only just begun to loom up before us, so that what the future may bring forth in this matter can hardly be conceived by any. Truly, our pursuit is one of the most fascinating of any of those that are engaged in by man; and I am thankful to Hlin who ruleth all things, that I have a part and a lot in this matter.
That all who read this book may try to carry out the thoughts herein advanced, to still greater perfection, and strive in the future to rear only queens of superior value, so that we may soon be able to say,
"THE COMING BEE IS HERE."
is the best wish of the author.
LATE EXPERIMENTS IN QUERN-REARING.
Since writing the preceding Chapters, I have been experimenting further along the ideas contained in Chapter XIII, as I found that owing to the conditions under which I had tested the thoughts and experiments therein contained, there was a possibility of a failure along that line, when the plans were used under other conditions than those which existed during the times when I had formerly used them. In previous years, owing to my selling nearly all of my stronger colonies of bees to fill the many orders which I had for the same, I had no colonies of suitable strength to tier up early in the season, so that the plans then tried were used only after the basswood had blossomed and later, in having queens fertilized over a queen-excluding honey-board. During the next year (1889) having more strong colonies than usual, owing to fewer sales, and the bees wintering better, I tiered up several hives early in the season, and very much to my surprise, found that which had previously work to perfection was a failure, as far as the fertilizing of the queens from these upper stories was concerned. The cells were allowed to hatch just the same as before, but when the queens came to the age of two or three days, the workers began to worry and tease them, which resulted in their being killed sooner or later, while in one or two instances the result was a general row "upstairs," in which many bees were killed besides the queen. At this time the bees were only living from "hand to mouth," as it were, for the forepart of our season was the poorest I ever knew.
When the basswood began to yield honey, I again began to have the same success which I formerly had, either owing to the peculiarity of this locality, which brought about former conditions, or to some additions which I made to the hive, or perhaps both. When I saw that what I supposed was the same plan that I had formerly used, was failing, I began to study into the matter to see if I could not find a remedy, and about the first thing which appeared was that I did not have the hive first as I had previously, altho I now had it arranged the same as I gave in Chapter XIII in this respect.
Some may think that it would be strange for such a thing to occur, and perhaps it was, yet it was one of the most natural things in the world, as you will soon see. As all of the older rea.'ers of the bee-papers are aware, when I commenced using the Gallup hive I used it the same as Gallup recommended, using twelve frames in the hive. As the years past by, I believed that twelve frames were too many for the brood-apartment, so I made dummies or division-boards to take the place of one or more frames, according to the time of the season, or as I wisht to contract or expand the hive, my custom being to expand the hive during the forepart of the season, and contract it the latter part, or contract at the beginning of basswood bloom.
After a little thought along the line of what had caused the failure this season, when no failure had occurred before, it began to dawn upon me that in my former experiments I had contracted the lower hive down to eight frames, so as not to rear a large number of bees during the basswood bloom, to become consumers of the honey later on, as we have no fall flow of honey here; and in this contraction might be found a solution of the problem, for I now had both stories of the hive filled with combs, as it was the forepart of the season, the lower hive being now filled so as to rear workers for the harvest. In this latter case the brood came directly under that part of the queen-excluder running under the apartment petitioned off with the perforated-zinc division-board, so that when the young queen ran down on the zinc, she and the old queen could get their heads together and try to kill one another, which resulted in the bees worrying the young queen when she was old enough to be recognized as a queen, the same as bees always try to worry virgin queens in the queen- nursery after they are two or more days old, as they always do when such nursery is hung in a hive having a laying queen.
When younger than this, the bees do not seem to notice them in either place, nor does the young queen try to get below. Without intending it, I had so partitioned off the upper story in my previous experiments that the apartments the queens were in, at each side of the hive, came directly over the dummies, so that there was no temptation for the old queen to come out in the bee-space over and between the dummy and the queen-excluding metal, while at the same time there was no brood below these apartments to tempt the virgin queen to try to go below, as there was apparently nothing but wood there; altho the bee-space between the dummy and queen-excluder gave the worker-bees free access up through the bottom of the apartment, as well as through the zinc division-board in the upper story.
When writing Chapter XIII, I had not the remotest idea that these dummies played such an important part in the.matter, nor am I now fully certain that they will make the plan a success always in all localities, and at all times of the year, but I believe that they have much to do with the plan working so successfully in this locality; for nothing could work more perfectly than it has with me since the dummies were put in the lower story when fixing the hives for the basswood bloom.
Right here I would say what I forgot to say in the body of the book, which is, that I tack the queen-excluder, used between the upper and lower stories, to the bottom of the upper hive, tacking it on lightly with small wire nails. This makes it so that when I wish to get to the lower hive for any manipulation of the same, all I have to do is to lift off the upper story, the same as would be done were there no queens above, or any queen-excluder used. In this way there is no more danger to the young queens when the hive is off than there is at any other time.
After finding what I believed to be a solution of the former trouble, and knowing that all would not want to use dummies under these queen-rearing apartments, I began to experiment to see how the matter in regard to the young queens going down on the perforated metal, so as to cause trouble, might be obviated, and arrived at the following:
My queen-excluding honey-board is what is called the "wood-and-zinc" board, having a full bee-space on the upper side of it. On this upper side I tackt a strip of wire-cloth of the right width to come out to the queen-excluding division-board, tacking it on each edge of the wood which formed the bee-space, thus giving a bee-space between the honey-board below, and the wire-cloth, which entirely prevented the virgin queen from getting to that part of the queen-excluder immediately under her apartment, yet at the same time allowing the warm air from below to come up into the apartment, the same as it would were the wire-cloth not there.