MillerThousand AnswersBeekeepingQuestions.pdf - BioBees

174 DR. miller's[J. How do you clip a queen's wings? Is it good policy todo so?A. Probably the majority think it is good policy to clip. Mr.Doolittle catches a queen by one wing, lets her hold to the combwith her feet, and with a very sharp knife cuts the wing againstthumb and finger. Probably a larger number, myself in the number,use a pair of scissors, holding the queen by the thorax (notby the abdomen or hinder part) between the thumb and finger ofthe left hand, and cutting off most of the two wings on one side.Q. If a clipped queen swarmed from a hive upon a high standand fell to the ground in the absence of the apiarist and couldnot get back, would the swarm return to the old hive, and wouldthey, on finding their queen absent, proceed to rear a new queenin her place, or what would happen?A. The swarm would return to the hive, in which there arealready a number of young queens in their cells. The first ofthese will emerge from its cell in a little more than a week, generally,and a swarm is likely to issue with her.Q. Clipping queen's wings, as I have repeatedly read in yourjournal, is in vogue among American beekeepers. I would like tomake a trial of it in the spring, but have some misgivings. Canone be sure that the issuing swarm will find and cluster about thequeen, which, perhaps, has fallen upon the ground a few stepsfrom the bee-house? Or can it also happen that the swarm doesnot find the queen, and consequently returns to the hive fromwhich it issued? (Germany.)A. When the swarm issues, of course the clipped queen fallson the ground. If there is no one oil hand to pick up the queenit very rarely happens that the swarm finds her and clustersabout her. Indeed, in all my experience I never knew such a case.Sometimes the queen will be found at a little distance with alittle cluster about her, perhaps as big as a walnut. Generally,however, she will be entirely alone. The swarm will return tothe hive, perhaps in less than five minutes, after circling aroundin the air for a little time, and will pay no attention to the queen,even if she be quite near the hive on the ground, its only desire,apparently, being to hurry back into the hive as soon as possible.Often the swarm will cluster on a tree, just the same as if thequeen were along, and it may remain clustered there S, 10, 15minutes or longer. In most cases the queen will find her wayback into the hive if she is left to herself. The business of thebeekeeper, however, is to pick her up, put her in a cage, movethe old hive away, and put an empty one in its place, and then.