187!) 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



437 



until they have died of old age, and not one of them 

 has lived 4 months. Some of them have been very 

 prolific for the first 6 weeks, and then gradually 

 failed or were superseded, and some of them com- 

 menced failing in 5 weeks. 



"Nine-day queens we have had in any quantity, and 

 ten-day queens also. Our nine-day queens that we 

 kept for experiment have invariably failed towards 

 the latter part of the second season, and our ten-day 

 queens have miserably failed toward the latter part 

 of the third season." 



In A. B. J., Vol. 7, page 101, H. Alley says: "Dur- 

 ing the month of June, when the honey harvest was 

 at its height, 1 removed the queens from two of the 

 fullest colonies 1 had. The result was, 60 odd cells 

 were built, about 20 producing good large queens; 

 from the rest came the smallest queens I ever saw. 

 The large queens were raised from larvae just hatch- 

 ing, whereas, the small queens were reared from 

 larva? just about ready to be sealed up when the eld 

 queens were removed." 



On page 113, same number, John M. Price says: 

 "The result of my experiments with natural as 

 against artificial queens is, that I prefer to raise 

 and keep one natural queen with any two of the 

 best artificial queens that I have as yet been able to 

 raise." 



If we examine a hive before natural swarming, 

 we will find perfectly formed queen cells, in the 

 shape of acorn cups. As swarming time approaches, 

 a tiny white egg will be found beautifully attached 

 to the bottom of each. In due time, this "predes- 

 tinated" queen eg<j hatches, and, from the first 

 moment, the larva never tastes one atom of other 

 than royal jelly. O skillful nature! how beautifully 

 perfect arc all thy works! Let not bungling man 

 presume to equal thee, while disobeying thy law. 



We are rearing queens by the prescribed rules. 

 We deprive a colony of its queen, and provide them 

 with only "very young" larva?, say none more than 

 12 hours old. 



It will take 24 hours more or less for the bees to 

 discover their loss, abandon the fruitless search, 

 become resigned to their fate, and get the royal 

 jelly prepared ready for business. (I have never 

 known cells to be started within 24 hours, but have 

 had them neglect this seemingly disagreeable task 

 until the first lot of larvse was all sealed up.) Our 

 oldest larvae are now 36 hours old, and have made 

 nearly % (just 86-79) of their growth into workers. 

 (See "Bees; How They Grow," in "ABC") They 

 are also swimming in the milky paste on which they 

 are fed, and, if I am correct, this is not removed but 

 simply added to by the royal jelly; so that our 

 queens are only partially developed as such after all. 



I do not say that all queens raised by the rules 

 will be inferior, but I do claim that a large propor- 

 tion of them will not be treated with royal jelly 

 from the egg; and, as it is the characteristic of this 

 substance to develop the ovary, it is plain that any 

 deficiency of it cannot result in the perfect develop- 

 ment of that "chief end" of the queen. As the 

 process is repeated from one generation to the 

 other, by our breeders, the effect soon becomes very 

 marked; our Italians become "Americanized," and 

 we are obliged to get a new importation from Italy, 

 where nature raises her own queens up to within, 

 probably, one or two generations of importation. 



I should say the transposition process is an im- 

 provement, but, even in this case, the jelly in which 

 the larvse are deposited is probably only a mixture 



of royal and worker jelly, and, though the larva? are 

 only a few hours old, they will have been treated 

 during those few hours as workers and cannot pro- 

 duce perfect queens. 



In conclusion, let us find a process by which we 

 can raise queens from the egg. In the meantime, let 

 us have imported queens, and all others designed 

 for breeding purposes, raised from cells produced 

 by natural swarming. 



Until we do this, my word for it, we need expect 

 no improvement in the race of our bees. 



Mt. Vernon, la., Sept. 10, '79. Oliver Foster. 



There is much that is good in the above, 

 friend F., but pardon me for suggesting that 

 there is too much theory and quoting from 

 others, and too little of your own work. All 

 the way through, I watched to find where 

 you had compared natural swarming with 

 artificial swarming, in your own apiary or 

 neighborhood. A great many of our bee- 

 keepers practice natural swarming, and 

 theory would say that their queens should 

 prove better than their neighbors' who raise 

 their queens artificially. Eor years, we have 

 been asked to note if this was the fact. 

 Quinby first said he could see no difference ; 

 and no one has been able since, to contradict 

 him by actual practice. Again; hunt out 

 the most prolific queen in an apiary, and 

 you are just as likely to find a small queen, 

 as you are to find a large one. Eriend F., I 

 fear you have not looked sharp ; our bees 

 mass the royal jelly on worker larvse, in less 

 than twelve' hours after the hive is made 

 queenless. Again; we often raise queen 

 cells by giving a queenless stock nothing 

 but new laid eggs to build them over. In 

 such a case, every egg, a little before it 

 hatches, if I am not mistaken, is covered 

 with the milky food. Could they do any 

 more with an egg that was laid in a queen 

 cell as in natural swarming V Queens raised 

 from larva? just before it is sealed up, we all 

 know, are only about half queens, and the 

 other half workers, and that such only lay 

 eggs for a few weeks. I do not think a good 

 colony of bees often chooses such larva? ; 

 for, by looking at queen cells just started, 

 you can easily see how large they are. Here 

 on the honey farm, we have the whole mat- 

 ter constantly before our eyes, a great part 

 of the year. Grafting cells already filled 

 with royal jelly, certainly gives the young 

 larva a much greater amount of this royal 

 food, but I do not think the queens partic- 

 ularly superior for that reason. 



^ i»i^- 



spring dwindling. 



fN the Sept. No. of Gleanings, after giving Bo- 

 nn's theory of spring dwindling, you say, "What 

 do the rest who have had the dwindling say to 

 it?" As I had a fair share of it last spring, having 

 lost only 50 stocks, I have a few words to offer, and 

 will give the case of one particular stock. It was a 

 fairly strong stock of hybrids, and kept so until af- 

 ter breeding had well started, and in March and 

 early April it was, perhaps, as strong as any I had. 

 I think it was early in April, when I took a frame 

 of capped brood from it and gave it to another, 

 thinking it could well spare the brood without inju- 

 ry; but the latter part of April, I noticed it was 

 dwindling, and before I really knew it, it got very 



