710 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



to the final awakening of the maturing queen, if not fatal, is highly 

 injurious to the future usefulness of the queen. All are familiar 

 with the indifferent results in the case of the chicks of common 

 fowls should chilling of the eggs occur shortly before the period of 

 hatching. With bees still greater sensitiveness in this particular 

 exists, and it is, therefore, a very mistaken policy to separate the 

 maturing cells during any stage, except that of actual emergence, 

 from the direct and free contact with the clustering bees. 



After emerging, the young queens are to be allowed a period of a 

 week to fifteen days for mating. The impulse to fly and mate will 

 be greater if the colonies are in a thoroughly prosperous condition, 

 that is, are well supplied with honey and pollen in proportion to their 

 numbers. While queens of the European races usually mate in from 

 five to seven days after emerging, those of eastern races more often 

 require nine to fifteen days. It follows from this, as well as from 

 the fact that eastern types are possessed of greater native vitality, 

 that the young unfertile queens of the latter will bear, without 

 injury, longer confinement previous to mating than will those of 

 European types. Twelve to fourteen days may often be admissible 

 for the former, while seven to nine days should usually be the limit 

 for the European races. But, in all cases, the less confinement after 

 four or five days the better, and during this period in any instance 

 it will be preferable, in order not to injure the young queens, which it 

 must be borne in mind are not yet wholly developed, although 

 they have emerged and present the appearance of being perfect 

 queens, to have them caged in wire-cloth pipe-covered cages pressed 

 into the surface of a comb, where abundant supply of food is always 

 at their command. 



It is hardly necessary to add that an examination of each young 

 queen should be made immediately after she has emerged in order 

 to w r aste no time in the preservation of those happening to issue 

 with defective wings or legs or ill-developed or crooked bodies. One 

 may even go farther than this, should the supply of young queens 

 be quite abundant, and reject all that do not present the most prom 

 ising appearance. 



SELECTION OF DRONES. 



Quite the same care should be given in the selection of the drones 

 (or males) as in the selection of queens. It is true that we may not 

 wholly control the mating, since the queens frequently leave our 

 own apiary while flying out on mating excursions, but in case a cer- 

 tain race is bred in its purity and surrounding apiaries are stocked 

 with those of a different type, it will be quite easy to reject any 

 queens that have mated w r ith drones of another race, retaining, for 

 our own breeding purposes at least, only such as have mated with 

 the stock purposely reared in our own breeding yard. It is, there- 

 fore, decidedly advisable to limit drone production to queens which 

 have sprung from colonies coming up to our own idea of what we 

 desire in the shape of workers in our honey-producing colonies. Re- 

 peated experiments in crossing various types have convinced me that 

 the drones have greater influence over the temperament and con- 

 stitution of the workers than have the queens. It follows from this 

 that in these two particulars the general characteristics of the 

 colonies selected as drone-producers must be preeminent. By this 



