.11 I,Y 15, 1915 



573 



CONVEKSATIONS WITH DOOLITTLE 



At Borodino, New York. 



> ?. REARING GOOD QUEKNS 



«*• I am anxious to improve my 

 I)oos by rearing better queens for 

 each of my colonies, so that bet- 

 ter results in honey can be ob- 

 tained. 1 noted last year that 



some of my colonies gave me 

 nearly double the honey that others did. I 

 am going to breed from the two that gave 

 me the highest number of pounds, rearing 

 queens from the one which gave me 179 

 sections of honey, and drones from the 

 one that gave me 172 sections. Will you 

 give me a few pointei-s?" 



As the time for rearing good queens has 

 ai'rived, the subject of rearing the best is 

 one well worth thoughtful attention. But 

 allow me to say that the difference in yield, 

 v.hioh you observed among your colonies 

 last year, might not come altogether from 

 the work of the queen heading each colony. 

 This I say so you need not be altogether 

 disappointed, should the results of your 

 determination to rear the best of queens 

 turn out less perfect than your expecta- 

 tions led you to hope for. 



There are few careful beekeepers but 

 that have noticed the lack of uniformity of 

 yield between their colonies. This may be 

 from two or more reasons, or a combination 

 of them. The colony giving the lesser 

 amount may lack enough bees of the right 

 age for gathering. The difference may lie 

 in the nature of the bee itself. The 

 thorough understanding of the right man- 

 agement of f'olonies to secure the best 

 results has much to do with the yearly 

 product in honey, and the best queens 

 obtainable will never roll up a success where 

 ♦ he management is faulty. A management 

 that has no eye toward the date of blooming 

 of the flowers in the locality will rarely 

 give a satisfactory return for the time and 

 labor expended, even with the best bees the 

 woild atTords. 



Rut let us look at the bee side. From 

 talks with beekeepers during the past 

 thirty years, I am led to think that the 

 variation in yield aveiages nearly if not 

 quite 50 i)er cent between the ten highest 

 colonies and the ten lowest in the same 

 apiary. I am also led to believe that this 

 .same proportion will hold good when 

 ajqdifrl (o dilTerent apiaries in the same 

 rlate. That the slock has much to do with 

 this, there can be no question; and when 

 ;ipiarisls fully realize the difference in 

 -toek, the question of breeding will receive 



fully as much attention as is necessary for 

 a successful management. 



It is hardly neccessary to argue why 

 queens should be scientifically bred. "The 

 sur\ival of the fittest" will hardly develop a 

 better bee than we have now, for she cares 

 for nothing save the perpetuation of the 

 species. Her aims are altogether different 

 from those of man. How often have I 

 heard apiarists say, "If each colony reached 

 (he high standard sometimes reached by a 

 single colony, my honey crop would have 

 been doubled." Careful breeding will do 

 much toward this, and with it reduce in pro- 

 portion the cost of management and equip- 

 ment. This means greater profits. 



There are many points to breed for, but 

 the one most eagerly sought is greater honey 

 production. But in breeding for profit we 

 often run against traits that are almost a 

 part of the bee itself; and to change that 

 means nearly to make over the bee. For 

 example, let us take the swarming impulse 

 or the desire to increase. We can remove 

 many of the conditions that tend to produce 

 swarming, and by persistent breeding 

 reduce this tendency to as low a point as 

 possible. By rearing our queen-cells in 

 colonies whose desire to supersede their 

 queens is the upiDermost thought, quite a 

 gain can be made. 



As the queen is fundamental to the 

 colony we must have better queens. Cheaply 

 reared queens ai'e detrimental. Any plan is 

 bad which keeps a queen just emerging up 

 from one to eight days isolated from the 

 bees in order that she may be cheaply 

 reared and fertilized through a saving in 

 luu'lei. V^irgin queens are cheap but of 

 little value when thus kept away from the 

 bees for iixe to eight days in a nucleus, so 

 (hat they may be let loose as soon as a 

 laying queen is sold, and become laying a 

 day or two later. In this way a laying 

 queen can be obtained every three or four 

 days from every nucleus made by the 

 queen-breeder. 



As long as consumers insist on jiaying a 

 low piice for their stock, and queen-breed- 

 ers advertise queens at $50. a hundred, so 

 long must they be content with the results 

 of queens reare<l without proper care. There 

 IS too much tendency to see how many 

 (jueens can be roared, rather than how many 

 good queens. Would (liat there were more 

 among our numbers like the questioner, who 

 is "anxious to impiove his bees by rearing 

 better queens" right in his own apiary. 



