Queenless and Broodless Bees.
Query 905.—If the queen and all the brood of a colony were removed, 1st. Would the bees thus suddenly deprived, stay in the hive, or scatter around? 2. Would they (after the first two or three days of mourning for the queen) go to work and store honey?—Tenn.
I don’t know.—Eugene Secor.
They would speedily be “no more.”—Will M. Barnum.
1. Most of them would scatter around. 2. No, or very little.—Dadant & Son.
1. Scatter more or less. 2. Store some. Not profitable.—P. H. Elwood.
1. Stay in the hive, as a rule. 2. Some, but in a very discouraged way.—J. H. Larrabee.
1. They would be likely to scatter around. 2. It is doubtful if they would.—J. M. Hambaugh.
1. I think they would leave, as I have seen swarms do in early spring that had no queen.—Jas. A. Stone.
They would stay and work until they died of old age. then the worms would destroy the combs.—E. France.
1. They will stay in the hive. 2. They will store honey, but will be robbed in a short time.—H. D. Cutting.
I have never tried this, and can only guess what would happen. Better try it, and report results in the Bee Journal.—C. H. Dibbern.
1. They would not all abandon the hive unless they were robbed or had no honey. 2. They would not be apt to store much honey.—G. L. Tinker.
1. Yes, they would stay at home. 2. Yes, if there was nectar to be gathered, but they would soon dwindle out in the working season.—Mrs. J. N. Heater.
1. They would stay. 2. I was not aware that bees quit their “job,” and went into mourning for a queen. Mine don’t—they keep at work.—A. B. Mason.
1. They would stay in the hive. 2. They would go to work, but not in the brisk condition that they would if the conditions were normal.—J. P. H. Brown.
1. They would stay in the hive. 2. They would store honey tolerably well, and that without devoting even two or three days to mourning.—R. L. Taylor.
1. They would stick to the hive. 2. No, they are hopelessly queenless, and seem to be wholly discouraged. Such a colony will do practically no work.—A. J. Cook.
Bees without a queen, or the means of rearing one, are discouraged, and manifest little interest in life, knowing by instinct that their “time is short.”—Mrs. L. Harrison.
1. Much would depend; they might not, sometimes they do one thing, and sometimes the other. 2. I have known them to do so; ordinarily I do not think they would.—J. E. Pond.
1. Sometimes they would, and sometimes they wouldn’t. 2. If they staid, they would use their opportunities for storing, without waiting two or three days to mourn.—C. C. Miller.
1. I am sure I cannot tell. I can see no reason why any one should treat a colony of bees in this way. 2. I do not think they would. Try it, and then you will know.—Emerson T. Abbott.
1. They would stay in the hive, but would do little work, and would rapidly dwindle away. 2. They would get along much better if allowed some brood, or even a single queen-cell.—J. A. Green.
1. They would run all over the hive and fly around, looking for their queen, or “scatter around,” as you put it. 2. Yes, to a certain extent, but not as much as they would have done had the queen been left with them.—G. M. Doolittle.
1. They would likely stay, especially if they were Italians. 2. Yes, some. All colonies would not act alike. Some will not store much honey even with a young queen in prospect, until they get her; others will work well while rearing a queen.—S. I. Freeborn.
1. They would probably stay. 2. I know a case of this kind. A bee-tree was cut in the early summer, the bees were put into a hive, but the queen was killed. The dead queen was suspended in the hive against the cover. The bees filled the hive one-third full of comb and honey.—M. Mahin.
1. Some irritable bees will swarm out, but they usually return and assume the same attitude of other queenless bees. 2. Yes, they store honey, but probably with not as much vim as with a laying queen, but usually they store more honey, as none is used in brood-rearing. But somehow I never did gain much by caging queens during a harvest.—Mrs. Jennie Atchley.
When treated in this way they show great excitement for several days, but they will generally submit to the inevitable, and in some cases they will store honey rapidly—if nectar is abundant—and in other cases they will do but little good. But if you will give them a bit of comb containing young larvæ to build queen-cells, they will work all right.—G. W. Demaree.
“The Honey-Bee: Its Natural History, Anatomy and Physiology,” is the title of the book written by Thos. Wm. Cowan, editor of the British Bee Journal. It is bound in cloth, beautifully illustrated, and very interesting. Price, $1.00, postpaid; or we club it with the Bee Journal one year for $1.65. We have only three of these books left.
