BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
All of the above "heroic" methods remind me of the way the students of "Anthropology tell us the cave inan who lived a few hundred thousand years ago got his wife. Now the cave man was not at all sentimental in his wake-up but rather intensely practical and conducted his business affairs in a drastic manner. He did not believe in all this serrenading by moonlight, neither did he ever buy 500 gasoline to take his prospective hrile joy-riding in his fiviver, and he had no use for this swinging-on-the-gate stuff. Not he' When he wanted another wife to add to his heterogeneous collection, or if one was getting old and he thought she needed superseding, he picked up his club and went after another wife. As the people in those days were vegetarians, he knew where to look for one; so about supper time he would find her out in the alfalfa or sweet clover patch enjoying the evening meal. He walked up behind her, swattel her over the heal with his club, and carried her back to his cave where she became his dutiful and obedient wife.
Now, he got a wife sure enough and maybe it is a matter of sentiment, but don't you know I like the way we do it nowadays much the better! So likewise I like more sentimental methods of introducing questions. If the heroic methods just mentioned were sure in their results, we might overlook the rough treatment; but they are not. There is no method that will permit the taking away of a queen and immediately releasing another in the colony with anything like certainty, for it is entirely against hee nature and you cannot change bee nature. Let us try to understand and work in harmony with it. I am sure better results run he obtained.
**Loss in Introducing with the Mailing Cages.**
Probably the method used today in the majority of cases is that of introducing the queen in the same cage in which she was shipped through the mail. The loss of queens by this method has been frightful. Men who have had many years' experience as inspectors and are in position to know, have told me that they believe 50 per cent of queens are lost in this manner. An expert honey producer in California told me that he had kept track of his loss, and found it to be one out of three in the introduction of all queens he bought through the mail. Various reports have come to me where six queens out of twelve are lost by using the common mailing cage as an introducing cage.* Now if the bees would kill the queens outright the damage would not be so great, but frequently the queens are injured so they never make good; yet they remain at the head of the colony, possibly a year or more, losing for the heekeeper the surplus that colony would have made had the queen been properly accepted.
Footnote *: My friend, M. T. Pritchard, one of the best queen-broiders in the country, says the mailing cage is quite reliable for introducing provided the queen is kept caged 48 hours before the Jews get at the candy to release her. He says if this presentation is observed the loss will be negligible. He recommended playing the candy hile with a pile of heavens for two, and in some hard cases, four days, at the end of a hrih time the pile is removed and fresh candy put in.
It has often been a wonder to me how the heekeeper have been content with this heavy loss. If a stockman in buying cattle lost fifty per cent or even five per cent by having the cattle flight when he united the herd, he would look for better methods. The loss to the heekeeper is not so much in one lump, but the percentage is the same whether it is cattle or bess. In this connection we are reminded of the story told of a man who, in telling his friends how to teach their boys to swim, said : "All that is necessary to teach a boy to swim is just to catch the kil and pitch him right into the sleep water. He will swim all right, for he has to. I know that method works, for I taught my eight boys to swim in just that very way, and I lost only one out of the eight!"
However, if this method of queen introduction must be used, the best way, in our opinion, to use this cage is to remove the queen from the colony to be requested, take out a frame and set it away in the honey-house, spread the brood-frames apart, place the eage between the frames with the wire screen downward, and press the eombs tightly against the eage to hold it in position. In this manner the bees cluster on the wire and get acquainted with the queen. It is well to track a piece of tin over the candy for a day so the bees cannot release her too soon. When there is a honey flow on, this method will be successful, probably in four cases out of five. However, I believe this is the most unreliable method of any that I shall describe.
**The Doolittle Cage.**
The Doolittle cage is better. To make this, saw off two pieces from a broom handle, one five or six inches long and the other piece one inch long, for the ends of the eage. Then construct a cylinder of wire-screen cloth the size of a broom handle to fit between the ends. The wire screen is tacked permanently to the short piece. A hole about three-eighths of an inch in diameter, to be filled with candy for introducing, is bored through the long piece, which is withdrawn from the wire cylinder in order to put the queen into the eage. To introduce a queen, she is first transferred from the mailing eage to this one. A frame of honey is taken out to make room and the eage placed down between the brood-frames, which are pressed together to hold it in place.
**The Miller Gage**.
Dr. C. Miller constructed a cage similar in principle to the Double; but he made his flat, using two wooden elets so that he could show it into the entrance or place it between frames without removing a comb to make room for it. A modification of this cage is shown with the queen-excluding attachment. Either of these gives some better results than the mailing cage, but still there is considerable loss when conditions are not just right. Many of the Double and the Miller cages are in use throughout the country. Some prefer one, some the other. With their use, the mailing cage is discarded, thus preventing the possible spread of American font brood, as this disease has been scattered far and wide through diseased honey in the mailing cage.
**The Push-in-the-Comb Gage**.
Realizing the shortcomings of the above methods and reviewing the methods used in introducing queens, there seemed to be one style of eage that gave nearly perfect results, and that is the cage known as the "Push-in-the-comb cage." Mr. Doolittle used this cage and stated that not one queen in a hundred was balled when it was used. To make this eage, take a piece of wire-screen cloth about six inches square and eut a notch out of each corner, so that when the edges are bent down it will form a bee-tight cage with one side open. The queen is placed on the comb, the cage is put over her and pushed down into the comb. In two days the bees usually burrow under the cage and release the queen. If she is not out by that time, the eage is taken out and the queen released. This cage gives much better results than any of the others described, but it has some undesirable features. Sometimes it comes out of the comb or the bees gnaw away the comb, release the queen prematurely, ball and kill her. Moreover, since there is no convenient way of getting the queen into this eage, some are lost.
**Our Introducing Cage**.
Realizing the heavy loss in queens, I have been experimenting for a number of years to perfect a cage that is sure in its working by using the principle of the Push-in-the-comb cage, and overcoming the objectionable features. I believe I have succeeded.
received through the mail, it is a good plan to burn the cages unless the ready in the cages contains no honey. American foil broad has been scattered all over the country in queen-age candy.
As soon as the work is removed over the exeluder the queen increases egg-laying at a rapid rate, because the hees can get to her and feel her. She lays in all empty cells, then goes back and lays in them again and again, sometimes almost filling them with eggs. She, therefore, is laying at full speed, and when released from the cage will fill the frames with eggs at an astonishing rate. I have frequently found eggs in three frames the day after the queen was released.
The queen lays more eggs the first day after being released than she would in two or three days where she could lay no eggs in the cage, and had to build up to egg-laying after being released.
She has greatly increased in size, so by the time she is turned out she is a large laying queen, with the odor of the colony : the hees have been feeling her and have passed in and out of the cage so that the queen is as much the mother of that colony as though they had retired her themselves. When this cage is used as above described, I have yet to lose a single queen. Others have done equally well. In fact, I do not believe a queen would ever be killed by the bees when the cage is properly used.
Upon several organisms, I have had queen's killed because I had overlooked some cell from which a queen emerged and killed the one that I was trying to introduce. Upon several occasions, virgins from nuclei got into the live, were accepted, and killed the laying queen as soon as she came out of the cage. Once when I was making increase I shock the bees into a new hive at the time I released the queen. She came up missing. There were rulsbases who probably killed her. I have lost the same thing happen to a queen that had been in the colony for a year, so I do not consider that the losses mentioned were in any way the fault of the method of introduction. To avoid the possibility of having a virgin in the colony, one should examine the cage at the time of releasing the queen, and if there is another queen in the hive the bees will be balling the cage. In such cases hunt up the other queen and remove her, leave the cage in a couple of days more and the queen will be accepted. I have saved several queens in this manner.
### Reasons for Acceptance.
This is the "sentimental" method, and it in no way injures the queen. It is well known that an old and failing queen can be introduced to almost any colony as the bees pay no attention to her. From the fact that the bees know they have a queen while she is in this cage and that she can not set out and lay in the combs in a natural manner, I believe they consider they have a queen that needs superseding, which is another reason they accept her so readily. I have noticed that at times they build a piece of comb in the space left vacant by the removal of the frame, and on this comb they start numerous queen-cells, expecting the queen to lay in them. Sometimes a dozen or more cells will be started on a piece of comb not more than four inches long and two or three inches wide.
### Introducing Queens to Laying Workers.
As a rule, it is not worth while to try to introduce a queen to laying workers from the fact that they will not readily accept the queen, and, even if it is successful, these old bees are not capable of setting as nurses; so that, if it does build up at all, the colony is very slow in doing so. However, the following method has been entirely successful in putting the laying workers back on the job in a satisfactory manner: Take a frame of emerging brood from another colony and use the cage on that as previously described. Set this in the center of the colony of laying workers and introduce as before. The bees readily accept the queen, and the frame of emerging brood furnishes nurse bees enough to give them a start. If late in the season and the colony is weak, it is well to give it two or three frames of brood at the time of introducing the queen.
### Emerging (or Hatching) Brood Method.
One method without the use of any of the above-described eages has been used for many years with almost perfect success. It is that of placing the queen on combs of emerging brood after having brushed off all of the bees. The main objection to this method is the time and work it takes. However, if one has a very valuable queen and does not mind the work, it gives excellent results.
The procedure is as follows: Take four or five frames of brood and put them over a strong colony above a queen-exeluder. In ten days all of the brood will be capped over. Now take off these frames of brood from the colony and be careful to brush off every bee. Place them in an empty live and stop up the entrance with rags so that no bee can get off. Takethis into the house, remove the perforated tin on the mailing eage containing the queen, set the eage down on the bottom-board and close the bive. The queen and bees will enwel out of the eage on to the eombs. Keep this live in the house so that the temperature is even in order that the bees may emerge and not become ehilled or overheated. In five or six days set this live on a stand, open the entrance just wide enough for one bee to get in and out at a time. Wateh to see that robbers do not overpower it, as it will be a couple of weeks before the bees can put up much of a defensive fight. Do not allow your curiosity to get the better of your judgment and induce you to open the hive for several days after you put in the queen, for, if there are not many bees emerged, the queen is apt to fly out. I once lost a fine imported queen in that way. This method gives excellent results when carried out as above described.
Emerging brood may be taken directly from the hives instead of placing them above a queen-exclnder, but in that ease the unsealed brood enwel out, die and make a muss.
### Unsatisfactory Modification.
Some have suggested a change in this method and recommend that, instead of putting the hive with brood into the house, it be set over a wire screen above a strong colony in order that the bees may get the heat from the colony below. In theory this is fine, but in practice it is a pronounced failure. Many of the queens will be found dead when this method is followed. It does not look reasonable that the bees sting the queen through the wire, but that may be the eans of the death of the queens. My assistants in nailing up queen eages frequently get their fingers stung through the wire screen. One day when the weather was rather cold, I had a nailing eage containing queen and bees. I placed my hand over the wire screen to see if it would warm them up. Immediately a bee planted its sting in the center of my hand, leaving it there. It is possible that the bees sting the queen through the screen. At any rate many have reported losing queens when introducing them in this manner, above a strong colony over a wire screen; but the former method of removing brood to the house is an excellent one.
### A Common Cause of Failure in Queen Introduction.
Resardless of what method is employed in introducing queens, it is very essential that all eombs be put back in the same position that they were before removing. If this is not done, many queens will be killed even after they have been accepted and have been laying. When the combs are not put back as they were originally found, this is what is apt to happen: When the new queen is released from the eage, she takes a "saving around the circle" to see to it that all queen-cells that have been started are destroyed. Now, if a comb of honey has been inserted in the middle of the brood-nest, the queen does not realize that there is more brood over the other side of this comb; consequently she does not go over to that side to attend to the destruction of any cells that may have been started there. She seems to think that she has been all over the brood-nest, and settles down to -lag-laying. \(\Lambda\) few days later a quench emerges on the other side of the comb of honey, and sooner or later the virgin and the laying queen meet and the laying queen is always killed. I lost many queues in this way before I discovered the cause. Many who buy queues through the mail have trouble from this cause. They will wonder why it is that, although the queen was laying profusely, she was "supersecule" so soon, for she was found in front of the live dead and a virgin was discovered in the live. She was not superseded; she was killed by the virgin that came from the other side of the live.
**Why Queens Die in the Mailing Page.**
When the common mailing cage is used as an introlneing cage, in some instances all the workers and the queen are found deal after the cage has been in the live. We have had many impurities as to the cause of this loss. I am satisfied that the bees of the colony sting the workers and queen confined in the cage through the wire. Some beekeepers have tried to shorten the period of quencelessness of the colony by putting the mailing cage into the live before removing the old queen. Their theory is that the bees will get acquainted with the queen, and she can, therefore, be released as soon as the old queen is removed. In practice, however, this failed to work. All workers and frequently the queen are killed in the cage, or else killed as soon as released from the cage. It was found necessary to leave the cage in the live from two to four days after removing the old queen. Therefore, no time was saved but many queries lost. In the push-in cage, however, there is not this loss from the stinging through the screen, probably because the queen naturally stays on the comb out of reach of the angry workers of the colony.
There does not seem to be this loss when the round Doolittle cage is used, possibly for the reason that the queen stays near the edge nearest the comb. When a Doolittle cage is used with a queen-exclusive inside the cage and the entire canal three or four inches long filled with early, a large percentage can be successfully introduced. This lacks, however, the one important feature, that the queen can not lay while in the cage, and when released is not received as readily as a layin queen.
## Disposing of nuclei at close of season.
CHAMPER ANYIII.
When the queen-rearing season is over, it is of course necessary to dispose of the nuclei. In warm climates, part may be kept over until spring if they are strong in bees and rich in stores. In case one has extra queens, this is an excellent plan since there is always a great demand for queens in the early spring before any can be reared. This demand is caused by the fact that many colonies come out openless, and if queens can be prevented the colonies would be saved.
I find it profitable to winter our nuclei even as far north as Vineennes. 'Two twin-nuclei, with standard Junho size of frames, are placed in a case and packed in sandwich much after the plan used in packing full colonies. In case the nuclei are well -supplied with honey and have enough bees to fill the lives nicely, they winter as well as stronger colonies that have more room. If the honey producer can winter a few queens in this manner, he will find that they come in handy the next spring in giving them to queenless colonies and replacing queens that are failing. In reopening such colonies, the whole nucleus (queen, combs and bees) is set over the one to be reughened and united by the newspaper method, for this nucleus will not be needed for queen-rearing since it will probably be a number of weeks before queen-rearing can be started.
However, a large percentage of the nuclei must be disposed of as the queens in then will be needed for colonies. An excellent way to accomplish this is to gather a number of nuclei in one place in the center of where the group formerly stool, then in the midst of them place a live with two or three frames of honey. Next, remove the frames from the nucleus hives and brush off all of the bees in front of the hive. Some go in, and others go back to their old location. Finding their nucleus gone they 'circle around till they come back to the hive where the bees are fanning when they join these, and as all begin to fan they call the bees in the air to them. 'After this more nuclei may be emptied, and all the bees will at once go into the hive. It is a good plan to have a queen trap on the entrance in order to catch any virgin that is apt to be overlooked. I usually put in about three pounds of bees, Then I go to a colony that is weak and dump the bees in front of the hive. They immediately run into the entrance. In this way weak colonies can be brought up to the required strength. If one wishes, he can put a large number of bees together and give them a laying queen, forming a new colony. | believe it is better to strengthen weak colonies, for we can usually find a few of such.
Now the question arises, "Will not the bees go back to their old location the next time they take a flight?" No, they do not, for when they set up the fanning as they run into the hive, they seem to put themselves intothe condition of a new swarm and they will stay anywhere they are placed. I have never seen a single bee return to the old stand after it had once joined the new hive. Another peculiar thing in this connection is the fact that bees never fight against the colony with which they are united and never kill the queen. They seem so denormalized that they are willing to aeeept things as they find them. In uniting them in this manner it is well to make the colony extra strong, for many of these nucleus bees are old and will die off before spring. This plan of disposing of the nucleus bees has been of mueh value to me, for it has enabled me to build up weak colonies to good strength and winter them over, where otherwise it would have been necessary to unite these weak colonies to save them, thus reducing the number of colonies.
### Packing Cases for Nuclei.
Many honey producers use extra hive bodies or extracting supers for nuclei; but some will undoubtedly find it more profitable to make or buy a special nucleus hive. In using an extra hive body it is necessary to have an extra bottom-board and cover, so there is little if anything saved in using them. A twin nucleus hive, with room for two frames and a division-board in each side, is a splendid equipment and is hard to beat. It is a source of great satisfaction to have on hand throughout the season a number of queens to use in case of emergency. This is especially true in the spring, for in a large apiary there are sure to be at least a few colonies which come though the winter quenches. If the bekeeper has an extra queen wintered in a nucleus, this can be united with the queenless colony and it will build up ready for the honey flow in fine style.
In wintering the nuclei in cases if the opening in the winter case were directly in front of the nucleus entrance, the two entrances would be so close together as to cause drifting. We, therefore, make a tunnel one-half inieh inside measurement, which is placed at right angles with the nucleus. In this manner the bees fly out at the side instead of in front. The tunnel is whittled off round at the end, and a round hole is bored in the winter case. That the bees may easily find the entrance, the end of this tunnel is painted black. For packing, sawdust is used, four inches on bottom, and six inches on top and sides. It is important to use sawdust which has been kept under cover for one summer and which is perfectly dry. Green sawdust in our experience is no better than no packing at all.
**CARE OF COMBS**.
('HAPTER XNIX.