1890 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



317 



considers one of the great issues before us 

 just now — what shall be done for the aver- 

 age farmer to enable him to malx a living ? 

 My suggestion would be this : He must use 

 his brains in such a way as to enable him to 

 do in one hour what ordinarily takes three or 

 four hours. Here is a farmer who gets his 

 team all ready for work in the field, and 

 then lets the team and several hands stand 

 still and wait, while he puts a point on his 

 plow ! Why, he ought to be ashamed of 

 himself. (I really am ashamed of myself). 

 The plows and every thing else should be 

 in api)le-pie order long before the busy sea- 

 son commences. I presume that that plow 

 of mine stood in the tool-shed without any 

 point all winter — yes, while there have been 

 months of bad weather when we hunted 

 around for work for the different ones to do. 

 What has all this to do with putting start- 

 ers into sections V Why, it has a good deal 

 to do with it. Use your brains ; work intel- 

 ligently ; sit up straight ; look happy, and 

 enjoy being just what God meant you to be 

 —" boss of the universe.'' I was going to 

 say, " lord of creation ; " but then some of 

 you may think that I meant only the men- 

 jfolks ; but I tell you, there are lots of 

 womenkind who can boss bee-keeping, and 

 farming too, as Avell as we men can do it ; 

 and there is a bright, smart little woman 

 over at our house that is just one of that 

 sort. I think Dr. Miller knows one or two 

 such in his neighborhood. How is it, old 

 friend V 



QUEENS; HOW MANY EGGS DO THEY 

 LAY ? 



HOW MANY BEES ARE THERE IN A COI-ONV? ETC. 



In one of our leading- bee-papers I find the follow- 

 ing sentences: "The proper thing for the bee- 

 keeper to do, in order to keep his apiary in good 

 condition, is to renew his queens as often as once in 

 two years." "A queen, whose egg-producing ca- 

 pacity is limited to 2(10,000 eggs, will, if furnished 

 the proper amount of breeding-room, deposit more 

 than one-half of those eggs between May 1st and 

 October 1st." "I know from actual experience 

 that the best of any queen can be realized in the 

 first eighteen months of her life." " I do not be- 

 lieve that one queen in 10,000 would be worth keep- 

 ing the third year." In another paper I find these 

 words: "A f/ood, prolific queen, say one that will 

 lay one hundred thousand eggs in a year, will play 

 out in two years." Now, I am at a loss to know the 

 object of thus writing, and fail to see any good i-ea- 

 son why some of our best apiarists are recommend- 

 ing the supersedure of all queens the second year. 

 It seems to me that they have been and are making 

 a mistake, and one that will work damage to those 

 who are novices in the business. From such as- 

 sertions as the above, the idea seems to be gaining 

 ground that it is an actual necessity to supersede 

 all queens after the honey harvest of the second 

 year. As a queen-breeder I suppose that it would 

 be policy for me to push ahead this idea, instead of 

 opposing it; for the oftener queens are superseded, 

 the better the chances for the queen-breeder to 

 dispose of his product. But as I do nothing from 

 policy, believing in "the greatest good to the great- 

 est number," I wish to go on record as saying that 



good prolific queens do not need superseding in their 

 second year, and that, instead of the queen's ca- 

 pacity being limited to 200,000 eggs, she is capable 

 of laying more than three times that amount dur- 

 ing her existence. To supersede queens at the age 

 of two years is quite a task, even were it necessary; 

 but when we cone to consider that most queens 

 are as good the third year as the second, while 

 very many queens are good the fourth year, we see 

 what a waste of time it is to go through all this 

 work, simply for the reason that some have taught 

 us that we should do so. 



Now, let us look into the matter a little. I use as 

 small a brood-chamber as any one in the world, the 

 same having a capacity of about 800 square inches 

 of brooding comb. This comb is kept filled with 

 brood from the first of June to the middle of Au- 

 gust, or 75 days. As there are about 50 cells to 

 every square inch of comb, the queen must lay 

 about 40,000 every 21 days (that being the time it 

 takes to perfect a bee from the time the egg is laid), 

 or 142,860 in the '75 days. Now, all good colonies 

 generally have brood as early as February; and by 

 taking the average increase of eggs laid from then 

 to June 1st, and from the middle of August to the 

 time of the queen ceasing to lay in the fall, which 

 is about the first of October with us, we have at 

 least 100,000 more, or about 243,000 for the year. If 

 this is the case with the smallest brood-chamber 

 used, it will be seen that still more would be reared 

 in a large brood-chamber of nearly double this ca- 

 pacity, such as is recommended by the Dadants 

 and others. In 1877 I made some large hives on the 

 plan of the Adair " Long-idea " hives, making them 

 four feet long. Into one of these I set a colony 

 early in the season, they having a queen in her sec- 

 ond year. She was worked to the best of my ability 

 till she had ten Gallup frames literally full of 

 brood. I now thought that she would be content, 

 so that she would not brood in those which I put in 

 for honey. In this I was mistaken; for, soon after 

 I had 32 combs in the hive, she had brood in every 

 one of them. We did not have the queen-exclud- 

 ing metal at that time, so I had to allow this two- 

 year-old queen to do about as she pleased in the 

 matter of egg-laying, and imagine my surprise to 

 find, as I kept the honey out of the way of her with 

 the extractor, that she kept brood in those combs 

 for about two months, having at least to the 

 amount of fifteen combs solid full of brood. This 

 would give 86,250 eggs every 21 days, as a Gallup 

 frame has 115 square inches, or thereabout, in it. 

 As this rate was kept up for about 63 days, we have 

 nearly 259,000 as the product of those two months, 

 even after she had laid more that 400,000 while in 

 the small hives the two seasons previous. The bees 

 that worked in and out of the entrance of this hive 

 during the basswood yield were a sight to behold, 

 for it seemed like a surging army, going and com- 

 ing all the while. For the benefit of the readers 

 who did not take Gleanings at that time, I will say 

 that this colony gave me a yield of 566 lbs. of honey 

 that year, while the queen died of old age, or was 

 superseded, during September of that year. 



My queens average good and prolific in my small 

 brood-chambers for three years, some doing good 

 work in their fifth year; but as a few will fail in 

 their third year, we will call it only three years that 

 they will keep up the rate of egg-laying spoken of 

 above. This would give us about 729,000 as the ca- 

 pacity of good queens during their lifetime on an 



