1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



895 



brcKxl -combs, and lifave it a comb that had 

 not been with a queen for more than a week. 

 It had a few cells of sealed brood, and its 

 cells were well polished, ready for imme- 

 diate use. This I called comb h. 



Jul}^ 22d, at 10 a.m., I took from a full 

 colony its queen and all its brood, putting- 

 in the center of the hive combs a and />, and 

 filliug' out the hive with combs contiiining' 

 some honey. A feeder was on top. 



The combs were thus put on equal footing", 

 so far as I could determine, nearly the same 

 ainount of brood being- in each, comb a hav- 

 ing- a little the most. Being- side by side, 

 in the middle of the hive, neither one could 

 have anj" advantag-e in position. 



July 24th, at 10 a.m.. I examined comb a 

 and comb />. (I must confess that I forgot 

 to look at them July 23.) On comb a I found 

 one cell started. On comb /) there were 28, 

 a few of them not yet drawn out, only the 

 cells were enlarg-ed. I may as well say 

 here that no other cells were started later, 

 somewhat to my surprise. Perhaps the 

 bees thought it was enough to start 29. All 

 but one were completed. 



In this case the bees had their choice of 

 brood of all ages from eggs just laid to 

 sealed brood, e.rccpfijii^ larva? between the 

 ages of one and three days. If it were true 

 that they were in such haste for a queen 

 that thej^ w^ould select too old larvae, cer- 

 tainly one would have expected comb a to 

 have greatly the preference, instead of their 

 being content with larvaj so young as 24 

 hours. But their general preference was 

 for something j^ounger than the three-day 

 larva? — not only younger, but very much 

 younger. Just one cell was started with a 

 larva as old as three days. One can not be 

 positive as to the age of that one, but one 

 can be very positive as to the other 28. July 

 24th, when they were inspected, not a larva 

 on the comb could have been more than three 

 days old, so it is not possible that a cell 

 on that comb was at any time started 

 with a larva beyond that age. As thej' 

 were all started before 10 a.m. of that day, 

 it is certain that none of them could have 

 been as much as three daj'sold, and proba- 

 ble that most of them were much younger. 



Some one may ask, "Why are you so per- 

 sistent in trying to show that the universal- 

 ly accepted opinion is wrong"? What differ- 

 ence does it make, an^-way?" The simple 

 desire to have the truth known ought to be 

 incentive enough. But there is something 

 else that makes it seem to me a i"natter of 

 verj' great consequence. 



It is probable that not one in fifty of the 

 bee-keepers of the land takes the pains to 

 use the means that are now taught to be 

 necessary to secure the best queens, using 

 cell-cups and that sort of thing. Nor will 

 they. It looks like too formidable an aftair. 

 So forty-nine out of the fifty might be sup- 

 posed to talk something after this fashion: 



"I am told I otight to breed from my best 

 stock. I can make queenless the colony hav- 

 ing my best queen, and start queen-cells ga- 

 lore, and from these I can have all the queens 



I want. But if I do that the bees will se- 

 lect larva? too good for old queens, and I 

 can't use the complicated plans that queen- 

 breeders use, so all I can do is to go on as 

 I have done." And that means to have his 

 increase and his queens from swarming col- 

 onies instead of honey-gathering colonies. 

 And so the persistence of the fallacy that 

 qvieenless bees prefer too old larvK cheats 

 that man out of the chance of easily im- 

 proving his stock. 



He should be told the truth in something 

 like these words: 



"A queenless colony will rarely, if ever, 

 prefer larvze too old for good queens. None 

 of the most improved methods of modern 

 times will produce queens a whit better 

 than those the bees will rear in a colony 

 j'ou have made queenless, so long as they 

 have young enough larva? to select from. 

 After the larva? have become too old they 

 may still start cells, and these will produce 

 poor queens. If you give to a nucleus or a 

 colony two or three good-looking cells, there 

 is small chance of a poor queen. Or you 

 may give to the queenless colony a fresh 

 frame of brood and eggs five or six days 

 after being made queenless, and then you 

 need have no fear of poor cells on any of 

 the previous friimes." 



Marengo, 111. 



[If I understand you, doctor, this last ex- 

 periment fully confirms the former one you 

 made, and which you related in Glean- 

 ings. Bees, then, if given their choice, do 

 not take larva? too old. Nature's plans are 

 usually not so far faulty that they result in 

 a retrograde of stock. We may, therefore, 

 assume that, even in this case. Nature does 

 not make a mistake, but takes, when she 

 can have them, young larva? — those which, 

 accord in,g to best practice, are the most suit- 

 able for the growing of vigorous full-sized 

 queens. 



Here is something more on the same sub- 

 ject. — Ed.] 



THE CHOICE OF LARV.'E IN OUEEN-REARING ; 

 APPARENT CONTRADICTIONS HAR- 

 MONIZED. 



yi/r. Editor: — Dr. Miller's remarks on the 

 choice of larvze, p. 717, cause me to write of 

 the following observation. I gave, as an 

 index, to a colony I believed to be queen- 

 less, a frame containing brood in all stages, 

 from the &ii,\x. to the sealed cell. Looking at 

 it two daj's later I found that the bees had 

 been distributing royal jelly in the most in- 

 discriminate way. They had started queen- 

 cells in the regular way; but some of the 

 full-grown worker larva? were sloppy with 

 food, and were being sealed up in dome- 

 shaped coverings that made them look like 

 drone brood. There were also all stages 

 between the two extremes. I then gave the 

 frame to a nucleus with a young virgin, 

 when all the cells were destroyed except 

 those of the normal worker brood. If the 

 dome-shaped cells had contained drones 

 (they were certainly on worker comb) they 

 would hardly have been destroyed. Don't 



