RE-QUEENING. 117 



CHAPTER XX. 



RE-QUEENING. 



That is the introduction of a yoimg queen into an established 

 colony. Deterioration of stock is always attributable to the want 

 of new blood. The breeders of horned cattle, whether it be for 

 the butcher or dairying purposes; of horses, for draught, speed, 

 or ornamental use ; of sheep, for various classes of wool ; and also 

 the breedsr of useful and ornamental members of the feathered 

 tride, recognise the introduction of new blood as the chief factor 

 of retaining special types of animals for special purposes. Nor is 

 the introduction of fresh blood a necessity confined to only the 

 animal kingdom, both domestic and wild. Change of seed is as 

 necessary to the agriculturist and the liorticulturist as a change 

 of sires amongst stock-breeders. The very soil itself becomes sick 

 of having to produce a crop of the same class year after year. In 

 the introduction of new breeds and varieties in the foregoing that 

 has been obtained through sports or crosses, how difficult it is to 

 fix and retain an ideal type. Generations after the type is sup- 

 posed to have been permanetly fixed there will appear among the 

 fancied strain a stranger, differing altogether from the paternal or 

 maternal side — a throw-back — a type of generations long gone by 

 • — weedy and of little use. This is not the sole reason why we 

 requeen. As yet we have not arrived at that point of breeding 

 special strains of bees and fixing the type to a permanent ideal 

 with only an occasional throw-back. With bees we cannot con- 

 trol tlie sexes as with other domestic animals or even with mem- 

 bers of the vegetable kingdom. The mating of bees is very much 

 haphazard. That is the reason why dealers in queen bees charge 

 so much more for "tested queens" than for untested. They can- 

 not tell the paternity until the resultant progeny has been ex- 

 amined. Bees, too, like all other organisms, have a very strong 

 tendency to revert to the type from whence they sprang. 



"Change and decay" is a condition written on all things since 

 the days of creation, and it is this change that is so necessary 

 among the hive bees. The inmate of the hive that has the longest 

 life is the queen. Drones are required only for the season, and 



