78 



SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL EEPORT OF THE 



, happens in the strongest and best colonies 

 quite often. What do I do? I go to a 

 weak colony that won't probably gather a 

 pound of honey during the summer. I 

 take out their queen. I introduce her to 

 that strong colony. I find invariably by 

 giving her that strong lot of bees and the 

 enthusiasm of the hive, that she fills that 

 hive with biood, and she is as good a 

 queen as the queen that was in the hive 

 before, unless, of course, old age or acci- 

 dent overtakes her. Once in a while they 

 are crippled, but as a rule I find that that 

 queen is just as productive and as ener- 

 getic and lively, if she is taken from a 

 swarm that only has a handful of bees, 

 in the last of I\Iay, and put into this strong 

 colony, as if she was really from a strong 

 colony. And so I have found by experi- 

 menting for a great many years, that a 

 great deal more depends upon the care 

 which bees give the queen and the condi- 

 tion the queen is placed in, than depends 

 on the breed of the queen. 



Air. Hassinger^I think that all leads 

 back to the queen again, for the reason 

 that the bees were not her own descend- 

 ants, and hpr bees wouldn't have the 

 enthusiasm or whatever you want to call 

 it, to prepare the space for that queen. As 

 long as she wasn't with the other bees to 

 do that, she could lay just as many eggs. 

 but as soon as the other bees were dead 

 her own bee« wouldn't be good enough 

 to do that, and tu keep it up all summer. 



The Secretary — Those bees might last 

 the summer through. 



Mr. Haan— What does IMr. Wheeler 

 think of that? 



Mr. Wheeler — I wouldn't give a snap of 

 my finger for any difference in the breed- 

 ing. 



IMr. Stewart — The question comes up 

 here, does it pay to winter a queen the 

 second winter? 



Mr. Wheeler — I let the bees take care 

 of that. 



^Mt. Stewart — That is the question, does 

 it pay a honey producer to winter a queen 

 the second winter? 



The President — Yes, it does, if a good 

 queen. 



Mr. Gill— Dr. jNliller says it does. 



The President — I want to tell you 

 about an experiment I tried once. I bought 

 a queen from a certain queen breeder, one 

 of the best queens I ever saw. I raised 

 that year about sixty queens from that 

 one. Next year I put these hives in the 

 front rows of the yard. In the remaining 

 hives I had ordinary stock. The result 

 was over one hundred and fifty pounds per 

 colony from my specially bred queens, 



iseve 



while I got less than jfeeventy-five pounds 

 from the others. Now, that shows there 

 is something in breed. It isn't always a 

 queen's fault. There may have been a 

 change in the stores, or the bees may have 

 been badly wintered. Sometimes you can 

 put one of these queens from a poor colony 

 into a good colon j', as Mr. Wheeler says, 

 and they will do well, because it hasn't 

 been the queen's fault in the first place. 



Mr. Wheeler — There are so many things 

 coming up now, and there is a little point 

 that 3'ou might not think of, but those 

 colonies in the front rows were just where 

 they would catch all the stray bees coming 

 into the whole yard. Maybe some of you 

 folks have noticed that the hives on the 

 outside will catch a great many stragglers 

 that come in from the field. They will 

 increase your colony nearly a fourth, and 

 you will find that those bees in the outside 

 row will catch the straggling bees and they 

 will increase and do better, and every 

 quart you add makes them that much 

 stronger. There are so many accidents 

 coming up, and we are quite apt when we 

 get a queen we think a great deal of, to 

 see that they are kept up and in that way 

 you increase the production. 



Mr. Coppin — Mr. President, that theory 

 of the outside row receiving bees that 

 belong to other hives, I don't go much on 

 that. I think that each bee will find his 

 own hive. You take it and put it in 

 another hive, I think it will take wing 

 and fly till it gets to its own hive again. 

 I have found that there is very little dif- 

 ference between that front row and the 

 middle row. I would like to hear from 

 Mr. Bull along that point. 



The Secretary — My experience was just 

 like this, the back row lose no bees, they 

 get what are coming to them. 



Mr. Wheeler — I just happened to think 

 of that when Mr, Miller spoke of it. There 

 are su many little things to be considered, 

 coming up, that j^ou do not ever know 

 what conditions are that would cause a 

 colon}^ to be stronger than another one. 



Mr. Stewart — Then there isn't any cer- 

 tainty in beekeeping. 



The meeting adjourned to 1:30 p. m. 



FRIDAY AFTERNOON. 



November 30, 1917. 



President E. S. Miller, chairman of the 

 meeting. 



Mr. Bull secretary. 



The President — Last year a committee 

 was appointed to consider prices and to 

 recommend a minimum price for selling 





