The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1884-08-01
The Care Of Bees.

The queen is the mother of the col
Dny. Her only duty seems to be to pro-
1uee eggs, of which she will often lay
twenty thousand in a day The
title liking" is enormously applied to
her, when the drone is meant. Her age
varies, but she lives about three years.
Although the destiny of a colony de-
ponds upon her presence, yet one will
thrive some time after her departure;
pollen and honey viii be gathered as
before; but there viii be a dWindlng
away and absence of a stimulus. If
queen is lost at the beginning Of winter,
the colony will probably last until next
July. Losses may occur at any time,
and if they happen during the honey
season the bees will replace them them
selves, unless they occur when all after
swarming is given up.
When honey is abundant and the hive
full of bees there will be a number of
royal cells started. These are usually
built near the edges of comb, and pro-
ject at an angle of about forty-fYe de-
grees. They are half an inch in dia-
meter and an inch or more in length.
The queens mature in about sixteen to
twenty days. Within nine DAYS of ma
turing the royal cells are capped over
and The old queen leads out the first
swarm. From eight to nine days
there are exceptions to this rule, some-
times as late as fifteen days-a young
queen will come out. If you viii go to
your hive about this time (morning is
best) you will hear her piping" Ow-
ing to their cramped position. she
makes a louder noise than her sisters,
who are kept in their cell by the boss.
The piping of the queen is of much
importance to the bee-keeper. If you
hear one of a morning, and the season
is good, you may invariably expect q
swarm that day or the next. But should
all aftersWarming be abandoned, the
Matched queen will destroy all the 9th
ers, and in three days will meet the
drone. Should she be lost, on this oc-
casion, there can be no other one
raised, since they must be produced
fronA the egg or Larvae DO older than
three or four days. AS the old queen
left the hive nearly two weeks previous,
there would be no eggs or Larvae of the
proper age.
The apiarian should be prompt and
examine his bees frequently. If there
is dwindling away, ascertain the
cause. Ii eggs or Larvae are found, no
further proof will be necessary; if not,
q queen should be introduced at once,
or frame of brood given from another
hive. Perhaps in examining your hives
you have found plenty of drones and
drone brood, but no signs of Young
workers. There is a certain phenome-
non connected with this instance. The
workers are females, and seem to have
no power of producing eggs. Never
theless, on the loss of their mother,
some of them have their structure
changed, and will lay eggs. These
eggs will only produce drones, no mat
ter in what kind Of cells they are laid
Several of these ''worker-layers'' may
be in hive at one Time. You can tell
their presence by the manner in which
they lay their eggs The eggs of a
queen are attached at one end to the
bottom Of the cells, and only one egg is
found in a cell at time. Not so with
the worker. I have found as high as
seven eggs in a single cell attached in
various ways. 1t would be useless now
to give them a queen or queen CELL The
bees would not have it so, and the
layers would destroy either. The
remedy is to carry the hive some dis
lance from the stand. remove the
frames, one at a time, and brush away
all bees. Have box at the stand to
catch them. When they are treated
thus the worker-layers, not being out Of
the hive for SO long, are lost. You may
now introduce queen by taking wire
cage without top, press the edges Of it
into the comb over some honey, SO the
queen may have food. The bees will
cut under the cage and liberate her.
Queens may also be introduced by drop
ping honey on them and putting them
in the hives. The bees will forget the
strangers and go to licking the honey
Cincinnati Commercial Gazette.