Jui.v, 1918 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



405 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



knowingly mail an inferior queen. His repu- 

 tation is at stake. "Handsome is that 

 handsome does," and certainly, queens, 

 when in the colonies and nuclei of the queen- 

 breeder, do look and appear beautiful, and 

 give promise (so far as he can judge qual- 

 ity from appearance and indications) of be- 

 ing superior. 



There is one thing apiarists are always 

 pleased to have done, and that is to have 

 the buyer come right to the apiary and make 

 his own selections. Then the queens can be 

 seen in all their glory. Of course all who 

 desire to purchase queens cannot avail them- 

 selves of this pleasure. 



There is one more point that queen-buyers 

 would do well to heed. Do not remove the 

 old queen until the new one is at hand. 

 Many breeders can and do send queens by 

 return mail, but it is not always possible to 

 do this. More often a week may pass with 

 orders for only two or three, and the next 

 mail bring orders for from 50 to 100. This 

 upsets the "by return mail" business. 



Borodino, N. Y. G. M. Doolitttle. 



HOW QUEENS MARK THEIR HIVES 



Proof That "Sense of Dirertion" and Not Color 

 Directs Their Flight 



It is generally believed that a queen has 

 a good eye for color, and that this will en- 

 able her to find her hive when she returns 

 from the wedding flight, if the hive in which 

 she belongs is of different color from those 

 near by. I have done considerable experi- 



menting along that line, and, while I am 

 going against popular belief, my experi- 

 ments have led me to believe that color 

 plays little or no part in aiding the queen 

 to find her way home. 



That color does help the worker bee I 

 have proved to my own satisfaction. Here 

 is a typical experiment: My hives are 

 close together. One hive near the center 

 of the apiary contained a virgin queen. In 

 order to help her identify her home, I took 

 red chalk and colored the front of the hive 

 a bright red. The worker bees came home, 

 but they did not like the looks of that red 

 thing right where their home was. Yes, that 

 was the place all right, but they were posi- 

 tively certain their house was white, so 

 after careful investigation they decided to 

 risk one that had the right color, even if it 

 was not exactly in the right spot. This they 

 did with the result that at least a pint were 

 killed and dragged out. 



So arguing along this line, one would 

 feel safe in assuming that the queen also 

 would closely observe color. But, as stated, 

 they don't do it. In fact, I have laid down 

 many a program that the bees ought to fol- 

 low, but they would not. 



Last season for lack of room, I had my 

 mating nuclei close together, hanging eight 

 on a square stand so that two would face 

 each way. These stands were about six feet 

 apart. In order to help the queen locate her 

 nucleus, I painted part of the fronts differ- 

 ent and distinct colors: bright red, green, 

 white, black, and yellow. I have stood by 

 these and witnessed many queens return, or 

 try to, and I believe they are guided by an 



Where .lay Siiiitli <H,seJ-vod (Queens Alurkiiii; Tlii'ir llivt 



