March 21, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



181 



makes it imperative that the mating should be between 

 queen and drones of different colonies. 



A short flig^ht on the part of both queen and drone 

 would lead to the probable mating of inhabitants of the 

 same hive — brother and sister — and Nature carefully avoids 

 this in all beings. 



The natural, instinctive knowledge of the necessity of 

 having drones in the hive at some seasons, is very strongly 

 markt in the worker-bee. Drones are rarely kept over win- 

 ter in normal conditions — they are usually killed, or driven 

 away at the end of the harvest, yet we all know that if a 

 colony remains queenless, its bees will not only fail to kill 

 their drones at the beginning of winter, but will even 

 accept drones which have been driven out of other hives. 

 This I know from personal experience, for I have seen 

 Italian drones, late in the fall in a queenless hive which 

 contained only black bees. These drones could not have 

 been reared there, but had evidently come to it when driven 

 from their home, and the bees, altho having no possible 

 use for them, had accepted them. It is plain, that realizing 

 the need of a queen, and vainly in hope of securing one, 

 they keep the drones with them in the expectation that 

 they may be needed. It is in part also for this same reason 

 that a queenless colony builds only drone-comb. 



Unless a queen is old, or unhealthy, or unfertilized, 

 she willnot lay drone-eggs until the colony is already well 

 supplied with worker-bees and brood. She will pass over 

 drone-comb, and carefully select only such cells as are 

 suitable for worker-bees. This shows conclusively that she 

 does not like to lay eggs in drone-cells. As her eggs are 

 fertilized in passing out of her oviduct, and only when they 

 are to be worker-bees and are laid in worker-cells, it is 

 quite probable that she finds more pleasure in laying these 

 than in laying the drone-eggs, which microscopists tell us 

 pass out of her body without being fertilized at all. 



This ability on the part of a female insect to lay eggs 

 that will hatch altho unimpregnated, was discovered in the 

 honey-bee by the famous Dzierzon, and has long been dis- 

 puted as incorrect. It is called " parthenogenesis." 



But when she has been laying a great number of 

 worker-eggs, the queen very probably becomes tired of the 

 function, and as the eggs keep coming she seeks rest by 

 hunting for larger cells and laying drone-eggs. This 

 would explain why, at certain times, she will hunt for 

 drone-cells. As a matter of course these likes and dislikes 

 of the queen are all presumptions, but the evidence is very 

 favorable to the views we take, and even slight circumstan- 

 tial evidences lead to the same conclusion. For instance, 

 a young queen that is healthy and vigorous, will lay a much 

 less number of drone-eggs than an old queen. She evi- 

 dently feels well and enjoys it. That a queen can not usu- 

 ally lay worker-eggs in drone-combs was evidenced by an 

 experiment made by a Mr. Drory, of Bordeaux, France, 

 some 20 years ago. A swarm was supplied with nothing 

 but drone-combs. For quite a number of days no eggs 

 were laid except a few drone-eggs, and finally the worker- 

 bees reduced the outer opening of a number of drone-cells 

 so as to narrow them down to the size of worker-cells, and 

 the queen laid a few eggs in them. 



In my next I will consider the reasons which cause 

 worker-bees to build a greater or lesser proportion of drone- 

 comb in the hive. Hancock Co., 111. 

 (To be continued.) 



The Mating of Queens in Confinement. 



BY J. S. DAVITTE. 



REPLYING to an inquiry as to how I got queens mated 

 in confinement, I will say that I built a large tent, 30 

 feet in diameter and 30 feet high, the covering being 

 of mosquito-netting. Colonies of bees well supplied with 

 drones were placed close up against the wall of the tent, on 

 the outside, each colony being allowed two entrances. ( )ne 

 entrance opened outside of the tent, and was contracted so 

 that neither queens nor drones could pass, but allowed the 

 workers to pass out and in, and work in the fields in the 

 usual manner. The other entrance opened into the tent, 

 and was large enough for the passage of a queen or drone ; 

 but it was kept closed or darkened for about a week after 

 the colony was placed in position. This was done for the 

 purpose of educating the workers to use the outside 

 entrance. The drones were not allowed to use the outer 

 entrance at any time, nor to enter the tent except from 11;00 

 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. .\fter the drones had learned the 



bounds of the tent, they seemed contented, and made a very 

 pretty " school " flying in the top of the tent. 



And I wish to say right here that the drones are the 

 main feature of this problem. Once you get them qiiieland 

 reconciled to fly in the top of the tent, the problem is solved. 

 Nine times out of ten the queen will not reach the top of 

 the tent before receiving the most prompt and gushing 

 attention. 



After I got the drones under control I had no difficulty. 

 I simply turned in the queens from the hives they were in, 

 just the same as I turned in the drones. I one year reared 

 about 100 queens and had them mated in this tent. A i|ueen 

 would leave the mouth of the hive, and return in about five 

 minutes, apparently mated ; and in three or four days 

 would be laying ; and the progeny of all queens thus mated 

 showed the same markings as the workers of the colonies 

 from which the drones were taken. 



The workers seem to be more annoyed than the drones 

 when they find themselves confined in the tent ; and I aim 

 to keep them out of the tent as much as possible b3' not 

 opening the tent-entrance until nearly noon, when most of 

 the workers are in the field. As a further precaution, the 

 tent-entrance is kept shaded or darkened. 



The queens are not turned in until the drones appear 

 to be well satisfied with the bounds of the tent ; and when 

 they are in this condition I believe that 500 queens a day 

 might be mated in such a tent. Where queen-rearing is 

 carried on upon a larger scale, I believe that this plan 

 would be preferable to the open air ; as I have seen a young 

 queen leave the hive, in the open air, as many as three 

 times, and be gone IS minutes each trip, returning at last 

 unmated. 



My plan for queen-rearing is as follows : I choose a 

 choice colony from which I wish to rear my queens ; and 

 from this colony I remove the queen, and allow the bees to 

 build queen-cells. At the same time I make queenless such 

 colonies as I wish to break up into nuclei. Two days before 

 the queens will hatch, I form my nuclei, cutting out and 

 destroying all cells, and arranging the nuclei around the 

 bottom of the mating tent. The queen-cells from the 

 choice stock are then cut out and given to the nuclei, the 

 outer entrances contracted so that no queen can pass, and 

 the inner entrances closed entirely. After the young 

 queens are two or three days old, I open the tent entrances 

 at 11:00 a. m., and leave them open until 1:30 p. m., each 

 day, for several days, or until the queens are mated. 



Now for the drones : At the same time that I remove 

 the queen from the choice stock for the purpose of securing 

 queen-cells, I place several hives that are strong with select 

 drones around the walls of my tent, with the outer entrances 

 contracted, as already explained, so that no queens or 

 drones can pass, and, at 11:00 o'clock each day I open the 

 inner entrance and leave it open until 1:30. With this daily 

 exercise in the tent for 16 days, I have my drones tamed, or 

 accustomed to their surroundings, or under control, so to 

 speak ; and it would interest a bee-keeper to take his place 

 inside the tent at noon, and see the ladies meet the gentle- 

 men, who, Barkis-like, are "willin." I have seen the 

 mating take place before the queen could reach the top of 

 the tent. Before thej' separate, the queen and drone fall 

 nearly to the ground, and the queen goes directly to her 

 home that she left not three minutes before. 



If I were to build another mating-tent, I should build it 

 about as follows : I would secure 12 tall poles. I would 

 have them at least 30 feet long — 40 would be better. These 

 I would plant firmly in the ground, 12 feet apart in a circle. 

 From pole to pole, at the top, I would stretch No. 10 wire to 

 keep the poles true and in place. I would also brace the 

 poles from the inside ; and tlie braces would be allowed to 

 go up 20 feet on the inside, as the drones use only the upper 

 part of the tent. At the top of the poles I would also 

 stretch No. 10 wire from each pole to its opposite neighbor, 

 thus strengthening the structure and furnishing support 

 for the covering that goes over the top. I strengthen every 

 seam of my netting by stitching on a strip of bridle-rein 

 stuft' about an inch in width. This allows me to stretch the 

 covering very even and tight without tearing it. Common 

 boards can be used around the bottom to the height of five 

 or six feet. At noon the tent should have the appearance of 

 a sun-palace. — Bee-Keepers' Keview. 



Polk Co., Ga., Jan. 22, 1901. 



I Editor Hutchinson has this comment on the subject of 

 mating queens in confinement. — Ei'ITOk.] 



In taking up this subject, perhaps some of my readers 

 will think that I am foolish, or visionary, or chasing an 



