MillerThousand AnswersBeekeepingQuestions.pdf - BioBees

THOUSAND ANSWERS 235A. In the proper sense of the word I doubt that a queen isever superseded in winter. If a queen is lost, they may try to replaceher almost any time. Your queen is a drone-layer, and sowortliless.Q. What causes supersedure when everything apparentlylooks in good condition. September 2 I had a swarm go out, andupon examination of the hive I found that they had supersededtheir queen (which was of this year's stock), and there were alsofour other virgins in the hive. I knew it was too late for a profitableswarm, so I pinched the heads off of all but one queen, destroyedall remaining cells, and then put the swarm back in thesame hive. Was this right? Everything is going along smoothlyat this date (Sept. 5.), and the new queen is laying.A. You ask what causes supersedure when everything apparentlylooks all right. That "apparently" is probably the answer.A queen may be in some way at fault, whether a few days or afew j'ears old, and you may see nothing wrong, but some way thebees know about it. It is not entirely clear, however, from whatyou say, whether this was not a case of regular swarming, ratherthan supersedure. In any case, yovi did well to do as you did.Q. How is it that bees neglect to supersede their old queenwhen there are drones to mate with the young queen, as this hashappened to rhe several times late in the fall?A. If I understand correctly, you have had queens die in latefall or early spring when there were no drones, and your questionis why they didn't supersede them earlier, when plenty of droneswere on hand? I don't know. It is possible that some accidentmay befall a queen, and of course the bees could not foresee this.It would seem that bees recognize the trouble when a queen beginsto fail, and supersede her; and it is possible to conceive acase in which there was no sign of failure while drones were stillpresent, but an unusually rapid failure after they were gone. Thefortunate thing is that such cases are rare; nearly always a queenis superseded with abundance of drones present.Swapping Combs.—Q. Would what is called ''swapping combs,"i. e., taking a frame of comb or foundation from the surplus-box,and exchanging it for a frame of brood, tend to get the bees towork in the su^er and also tend to prevent svi'a'-uUiig:A. It would tend to start the bees to work in the super, butwould not do much to prevent swarming.Swarm-Box.—Q. How can I use a swarm-box as mentioned in"First Lessons in Beekeeping?"