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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15 



of nectar in the fields. But the honey-flow 

 season is very short, and the queen-dealer 

 must commence to rear queens before there 

 is much natural forage, and continue to 

 rear them long- after the time the bees can 

 collect honey from flowers. 



I will not discuss the question under the 

 first condition, only to say that not so good 

 queens can be reared, even under the swarm- 

 ing impulse, as can be reared at other 

 times, even when feeding has to be resorted 

 to to keep up proper stimulation. I am 

 aware that the old well-read bee-keeper 

 will make some remarks here. Well, let 

 me explain what I mean, and I believe that 

 a good many bee-keepers will agree with me. 



I am on the point that as good queens 

 can not be reared by bees having a laying 

 queen as can be done by queenless bees. 

 Now for the reasons why: 



Except at swarming time bees do not feel 

 the need of more than one queen in the col- 

 ony. Now, if cell cups are given a colony 

 over the brood-nest, does any one believe 

 the bees feel that more queens are needed? 

 If the presiding queen had a chance to de- 

 stroy those cell cups she would surely do 

 so, and the bees would not oppose her in 

 her work. This is not so in natural swarm- 

 ing unless the notion of swarming had been 

 given up; nor is this so when cells are be- 

 ing constructed to supersede an old queen. 



Queenless bees can alwa3's be depended 

 on for rearing queens of the best qualit}-. 

 Of course, all understand that I do not 

 mean bees that have been queenless for a 

 long time. Only bees just made queenless 

 will produce first-class queens, and they 

 will rear only one batch of good queens: 

 so, don't work them too hard. 



I do not believe the best queens can be 

 reared by using artificial cell cups. I 

 think eggs furnished to bees from which 

 they can select the egg will produce much 

 better queens. It is all very nice and very 

 scientific, preparing and fixing up the ar- 

 tificial cell cups ; but I can get bees to 

 build more cell cups than I need; and as 

 they can do it so much quicker and better 

 than I can, they are allowed to do it. 



I am rearing queens by an entirely new 

 method. I now have in my yard some of 

 the largest and finest-developed queens that 

 can be found in the country. No queens 

 are being reared over the brood-nest, nor 

 by any plan that permits a laying queen to 

 be present while cell-building is going on. 

 I am using only nature's ways. Isn't it 

 just as natural for bees to rear queens 

 when deprived of their queen as it is at 

 swarming time or when superseding our 

 old queen? I am using nature's ways only 

 in accordance with common sense, and as 

 long experience dictates. 



Some one has said that more poor queens 

 are reported now than twenty years ago. 

 Well, that statement ought not to surprise 

 any one. Where one queen was reared and 

 sold twenty years ago, there are now over 

 one hundred sold. Just look at the number 

 of queen-dealers rearing them by the thou- 



sands! It will make no difference by what 

 method queens are reared, more or less 

 poor queens will be sent out, and more or 

 less poor queens will be reported. 



By the way, some one has said in these 

 columns that queens are worthless unless 

 fertilized within 21 days from the time they 

 are born. This year I had 9 queens that 

 were 30 days old before they were given a 

 chance to mate. Six of them mated all 

 right. One of them was sent to Arthur C. 

 Miller, of Providence, R. I., to see how she 

 turned out. Right here let me also say that 

 these queens were confined in nursery- 

 cages the entire thirty days. They were 

 not in the least injured by the long confine- 

 ment. The above statement, like many 

 others that get into the bee papers, can 

 easily be shown to be incorrect. Why not 

 have more discussion on queen-rearing? It 

 is a subject that can not be worn out very 

 easily. Better queens can be reared than 

 are now being sent out by a large number 

 of "queen-dealers." In the production of 

 queen-bees, man can outdo nature. I can 

 show that man can beat some of nature's 

 ways in many respects, and yet 'tis only 

 nature's ways used in a practical common- 

 sense way. 



When bees rear queens while they have 

 a fertile queen in the hive they do not act 

 as though they had any interest in their 

 work. 'Tis kind o' do as you please. But 

 when bees have no queen the conditions are 

 quite different. 'Tis a case of compulsion — 

 do it or go out of existence. Bees in such a 

 condition work with a will, and the result 

 is good queens. 



Wenham, Mass., Julj' 24. 



[We have tested all the dift'erent methods 

 of rearing queens ; and the one that we get 

 the best queens from, the longest-lived, is 

 the one having its foundation in Doolittle's 

 book ; and I dare not saj^ or publish in 

 these columns just what is said of them, for 

 it might be construed as a big flaming ad- 

 vertisement for the Root Company. 



But the Doolittle method does not depend 

 on upper stories, and when it does use them 

 it is only under certain conditions. Those 

 conditions are explained in his book. 

 Sometimes we use the drone-cup plan and 

 sometimes the artificial cup ; but with either 

 we graft the cells. By so doing we can, if 

 we choose, rear thousands of queens from 

 the best breeder in the yard. But if we 

 give a frame of eggs from that best queen, 

 and let the bees do their own selecting, as 

 you tell about, only a few of those eggs will 

 be utilized for the queens, while the rest 

 will be used for common bees. By the graft- 

 ing plan we are enabled to use a very large 

 percentage of all the eggs a choice queen 

 may lay for the purpose of rearing queens 

 and not bees. 



Our own experience, and it covers 25 

 years, would not be altogether in line with 

 what you write, although we would agree 

 with you in some of j'our propositions. 

 While we have cells built in upper stories, 



