REARING AND INTRODUCING QUEENS
QUEEN-REARING
In a small apiary there is little need for the special rearing of
queens; the natural increase may safely be depended upon to supply
all the colonies which lose their queens or which have unprofitable
ones. It is always well for even the most casual bee-keeper to take
the trouble to re-queen from his strongest and best colonies. However,
the time when queen cells are naturally built may not be the most
convenient or the most desirable time for giving certain colonies a
new mother. This being the case, queens may be developed through the
power of suggestion, as follows: Select a frame of brood from the best
colony; with a toothpick tear down the partitions between three worker
cells which contain eggs or larvæ less than two days old and destroy
two of the eggs or larvæ; repeat the operation in several places. Place
the frame back in the hive, being very sure that there is sufficient
space between it and its neighbouring frame, so that good queen cells
may be built. If there is a scarcity of honey, feed the bees. The
cleverness of bees is clearly proven by the readiness with which they
take a hint, and they almost invariably build queen cells upon the
comb thus treated.
This method we have found perfectly satisfactory, but for those who
rear queens for sale, other very interesting practices have been
invented. The greatest of these was devised by Mr. Doolittle, one of
the foremost queen-breeders in America. He makes artificial queen cells
by dipping a small, smoothly rounded stick in warm wax repeatedly,
thus making a little cup, thin at the edge and thick at the bottom.
Rows of these little cups are placed on a bar the thickness of a
brood-frame and fastened there with hot wax. In each cup is introduced
a bit of royal jelly and a very young larva. The bar is then inserted
horizontally into a frame of brood-comb, part of the latter being cut
away to give room for the future cells, which project down from the
bar. In such a royal nursery, he develops his queens for the market.
INTRODUCING QUEENS
Though royalty in the hive is of quite another feather than in human
society, yet there is quite as much ado when it comes to installations
in one as in the other. While a bee-colony is absolutely devoted to its
own queen, it may seriously object to a queen thrust upon it by some
outside power. And thus it happens that the introduction of a new queen
into a hive is fraught with danger to her majesty as well as to the
pocket-book of the bee-keeper.
BALLING THE QUEEN
“Balling” in the hive is an indignity that may well have suggested to
other societies the method of black-balling unwelcome seekers after
honours. The bees ball an unwelcome queen by gathering around her
in a compact mass, remaining there until the unfortunate usurper is
smothered or starved, or both. As if to live up to their mathematical
reputation, this ball is quite spherical because each bee is an
animated atom of centripetal force scrambling and pushing toward the
centre. This method of smothering royalty is regarded as an evidence
of the worker’s reluctance to sting a fertile queen. But observations
are recorded which state that the bees on the outside of the ball seem
fiercely trying to sting, and that the individuals nearest the queen
ofttimes share her fate because of this venomous attitude of their
sisters. Whether this use of the sting by the outsiders is for the
purpose of fighting their way toward the centre, or whether they are
mad with a desire to kill the queen, is by no means a settled question.
However, if they were bent upon stinging her to death, she would
scarcely be alive after having been balled for some time; while it is
a matter of common experience that by breaking up the ball and driving
off the murderers, the queen may be saved. Sometimes the bees will ball
a queen for a time, then voluntarily release her and accept her.
There are two ways generally followed for dissolving this lump of
excited regicides and saving the queen. One is to drop the ball in a
shallow bowl of water. This baptism seems to cool the hot blood and
the bees swim off, trying to preserve their own lives. The other is to
smoke the ball until it dissolves into individual bees, so anxious to
get breath for themselves that they forget to shut off the breath of
the obnoxious queen. There is a danger attending the latter method, for
unless the smoking be done carefully and without blowing hot air on
the bees, they will become infuriated by the heat and surely sting the
queen; as they evidently regard her, and rightly, as the cause of their
suffering.
WHEN TO INTRODUCE A QUEEN
The colony should have been queenless long enough to realise the danger
of the situation, but not long enough to have done much toward building
queen cells and developing larval queens; in the latter case they
prefer a queen of their own dynasty and object to any other. Thus, if
a queen is to be superseded she should be removed and, about two days
later, the new one should be introduced.
It requires experience to know certainly that a colony has become
queenless, for often, when there is no brood or eggs in the cells there
is a virgin queen, which eludes the eye, as she does not appear very
differently from the workers; a colony with virgin queens of its own
cannot be induced to accept an introduced queen.
Mr. Root tests a colony which he suspects is queenless in the following
clever way: He takes a cage containing a laying queen and holds it
over the frames so that it touches them and the bees may thus get the
scent. If the bees have no queen they express their pleasure at this
godsend in a very pretty manner by a joyful fluttering of the wings,
which conveys the idea of happiness to even our dull senses. To such a
colony, the queen may be given with no formalities.
HOW TO INTRODUCE A QUEEN
The colony should be made good-natured by having plenty of food. If
there is scarcity of honey, the bees should be fed for a day or so,
great care being taken not to start other colonies to robbing by
exposing the syrup. The queen is then introduced in a queen-cage,
which should be placed between the brood-combs. This should be done
as carefully as possible without disturbing the bees. At the end of
forty-eight hours an examination should be made, and if the bees are
balling the cage, she should be left twenty-four hours longer. When the
bees gather around the cage in normal numbers she may be entrusted to
them without fear.
QUEEN-CAGES
First of these are the shipping-cages, and it is a thrilling moment
when one takes a package from the mail, labelled “Queen Bee, Deliver
Quick.” And it is still more exciting when the cover slides around,
revealing her gracious majesty with a few attendants, safe beneath the
wire screen; for no bee-dealer would be so heartless or foolish as to
send a queen on a journey without a few ladies-in-waiting to give her
companionship and care.
The cage in which a queen is shipped is always tagged or labelled with
directions for introducing the queen, which, if followed implicitly,
almost always insures success.
The plan of a queen-cage is a cell made of wire screen with twelve to
fifteen meshes to the square inch, large enough to allow the bees to
thrust in their antennæ and thus get acquainted with their proposed
sovereign, but not large enough to permit a sting to be effectively
thrust through. The cell, itself, is large enough so that the prisoner
will not suffocate if the cage is balled. At one end of the cage is an
opening into which is pressed a cork of candy, over which is tacked a
piece of pasteboard, through which is a central line of perforations.
At first the bees are wild to get at the queen, and incidentally in
their attack they get a taste of the candy through the holes in the
pasteboard. This distracts their attention, and they work industriously
at biting away the pasteboard to get at the candy. And by the time
they have worked their way through the delectable door, their attitude
towards the prisoner is naturally sweetened, and usually they accept
her at once. The “Good candy” is used for this purpose, for the queen
is also sustained on this confection during her incarceration, and
unless a moist candy is used, she will suffer for lack of water.
Home-made cages are usually employed in introducing queens from the
home apiary. These are of various forms and devices, the Miller being
a favourite. His materials are as follows: One block of wood 3 × 1¼ ×
⅜ in.; two blocks of wood 1 × ⁷⁄₁₆ × ⅜ in.; two pieces of tin 1 in.
square; two pieces of fine wire 9 in. long; one piece of wire-cloth 4½
× 3½ in.; four wire nails ½ in. long. (Plate V.)
The illustration shows how the material is used. The space between the
two small blocks of wood, held in place by the pieces of tin forms a
door for the candy. The large piece of wood serves as a plug at the
other end of the cage, which may be removed, and the cage set down over
the queen, thus capturing her without handling her. When a queen is
placed in a cage she should always be allowed to climb up into it. It
is not natural for her to climb down.
THE NUCLEUS METHOD
This method of introducing very valuable queens is said by experts to
be absolutely safe. It is accomplished by making a nucleus of two or
three frames of brood, which is sealed and some of it just breaking
through the cell caps. Not an adult bee is permitted to remain, and
there should be as few uncapped larvæ as possible, since such will
starve. The queen is placed on these combs and the young bees, as
they issue innocent of men’s scheming, accept her as their legitimate
mother, and a colony is soon built up. A nucleus hive of this sort
must be placed in a warm room, unless it is hot weather, as there
are no bees to warm the brood. Care must also be taken to put a wire
screen over the entrance of the hive for a day or two to prevent the
queen from escaping if she becomes uneasy midst such a dreary waste of
adolescence.
MAXIMS FOR INTRODUCING QUEENS
Be sure the colony is queenless before attempting to introduce a queen.
Be sure the bees have not progressed far in rearing young queens.
Be careful not to anger or disturb the bees by smoke or hot blast or
otherwise when placing the queen in the hive.
If honey is scarce, feed the colony before trying to introduce the
queen.
Place the cage containing the queen on the frames near the centre of
the brood-chamber, wire cloth below her, so that the cage rests on the
bars of the frames.
Do not disturb the colony for forty-eight hours after introducing the
queen-cage.
Be careful not to allow the queen to escape by flight when liberating
her.
Remember, a queen crawls up instead of down.
After queens are two or three years old they should be replaced by
young queens.