Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1899-06-10
Mistellaneous 8eadins.
MR.. SIMPSON AND HIS BEES.
Further Points of Interest About the Ca,
tawba junction Apiary.

Wednesday only told portion of th'
story of Mr.. H. C. Simpson and BIZ
bees. The writer secured from Mr.
Simpson other facts that are of no les
interest.
For instance, it is a very common
idea among the uninitiated that strain
ed honey is more expensive than hon
ey in the comb. That is mistake
The opposite is true. For instance
the making of comb requires grea
deal more time and labor than the
making of honey. 1t is estimated tha
in the collection of pound of wax
the bees consume anywhere from /:
to 20 pounds of honey. A pound O
wax collected can be manufactured
only into enough comb to hold Il
pounds of honey.
For this reason, instead of selling
honey in the comb, Mr.. Simpson is 8
purchaser of all the bees wax that be
can get at a price which he considers
reasonable. With little machine tina,
he has for the. purpose, he manufac
lures the wax into what is called the
foundation for honey comb. This
foundation consists of very light
sheet of wax, indented on both sides
as for cells, and apparently such 6
good imitation that it looks as if even
the bees would not be able to detect the
counterfeit. But to the bees the imi.
tation is undoubtedly very clumsy
arrangement. They make it almost
over again before they get it to sui,
their notion, and when they finish
with it, the wax is made to 60 about
twice as far as the machine was able tc
make it 20.
Another thing that Mr.. Simpson has
down to a very 6ne point, is the man.
agement of swarming bees. 1t is very
seldom that a swarm goes off from
him. That is because he so we'll un
derstands them. For instance, the
swarming tendency is controlled en-
tirely by the queen. No colony OF
bees can tolerate more than one queen
in a, hive at time. The death of 6
queen means trouble. In such ar
event, the bees Immediately begin their
arrangements to produce her successor
This is done by Gaping over several
cells containing more recently laio
eggs. Then the eggs, as they develop
into worms, are either fed on a differ
ent kind of food from the other bees
or a larger quantity, of the same kind
Within 16 days queen is produced
possibly several. In the event all at
tempts fail, the colony is doomed tt
extinction, and in the event there is
more than one; the surplus queens are
made way with in some manner. Te
provide for contingencies, the bees
have a queen cell or two in proper
shape all the while. If the colony
does well during the first honey max
ing season, it sets up new queen and
drives the old queen out with biz
crowd of workers and drones. This
makes the swarm. And here is where
Mr.. Simpsons knowledge comes in
He is aware that no colony would at
tempt to set up an establishment of its
own without queen, and, therefore
he handicaps the queens by clipping
their wings. That is, be clips only one
wing-a small piece off the end Of it
just enough to prevent flight.
When a swarm of bees attempt to
go off with queen that cannot fly, ii
speedily meets up with trouble. The
swarm settles on a neighboring tree
maybe, and the queen may get there
also by crawling. Then, as the next
step, scouts are sent out to find &C.
sirable place for a hive. When the
scouts return, the bees attempt to
leave; but soon discovering that they
are without a queen, they return to
the point from which they started
On rediscovering the queen, they make
another attempt, with the same result
as before and finally give it up as a
bad job.
If Mr.. Simpson should come along
in the meantime, and this is very like.
ly, he hunts out the queen, places her
in a wire cloth cage and places this
cage near the entrance to hive
Fretty soon the colony begins to swarm
around her, and then he sets her free
and starts her into her new home
The other bees follow, and the opera.
tion of hiving is er without so much
as sting to the operator or a great
deal of trouble.
This trick of clipping the wings Of
queens, however, is matter that must
be dealt with very cautiously. The
bees do not like the idea of the slight
est defect in the queen, and when they
are satisfied that she cannot fly, they
will have nothing more to do with her.
1t generally takes them four or five
attempts to make swarm before they
seem 10 find out certainly the cause OF
their trouble.
PRIZE BULL WHIPPED BY A Sow
A rather unusual battle occurred on
the farm of James A. Bill, at Lyme,
on Saturday last. A prize-winning
n..o.> l,,ll .uoal h., NJ Dill boI