230 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



April 9, 1903. 



number of nectar-loving insects in Nature are sufficient to 

 do the pollinating work. In our orchards it is different. A 

 hundred trees, and even thousands of bushes and vines, 

 often are crowded on a single acre. Many of these bloom 

 in the early spring-time, when insects are few and far be- 

 tween. Here, then, we must supplement the agencies of 

 pollen dispersion. Bees, fortunately, are just to our hands. 

 Each hive pours forth its thousands of these little flower- 

 lovers. And even in spring-time they crowd the blossoms 

 of shrub and trees. Thus, without artificial crowding of 

 trees and shrubs, we must likewise arrange for supernum- 

 erous agents of pollen dispersion. We find these abettors 

 in our bees, each apiary sending out not infrequently mil- 

 lions of bees to engage in the transfer of pollen from flower 

 to flower. These facts then are settled : 



1. Cross-pollination is usually needed to secure full 

 fruiting. 



2. Occasionally very vigorous trees or plants are fertile 

 to their own pollen. 



3. Seeds can never be produced without pollenization. 



4. Rarely trees will bear fruit (seedless fruit) without 

 pollen. The navel orange is an example. 



5. Insects are necessary to cross-pollinate the bloom. 



6. In the crowding of varieties as we do in orchard cul- 

 ture, we need more than the native insects, and in such case 

 the honey-bee is the only available agent. 



7. The wise orchardist will always mix varieties in his 

 orchard, and will look to it that abundant bees are always 

 near by at time of bloom. Los Angeles Co., Calif. 



Queen-Rearing— Gallup vs. Alley Methods. 



BY ARTHUR C. MULKR. 



"A ^^ ^^^ P°* called the kettle black." Dr. Gallup 

 J^ and Mr. Alley are on the point of coming to blows, 

 and all because each is sure he is right, and that the 

 other is wrong. But they are both right and both wrong. 

 The man who steps bet%vecn two combatants generally gets 

 his own head broken, but even at the risk of that I will step 

 in here and see if I can throw a little light on the subjects 

 discussed— if one can call assertions and counter-assertions 

 discussions — and stop the " scrap." 



I have forgotten who began it, but I think it was Dr. 

 Gallup's article on "umbilical cords." Granting that, I 

 will try first to show the Doctor wherein he is wrong, and 

 ■where he has been taking eff'ect for cause. 



I suppose the Doctor is familar with the metamorphosis 

 of insects, but for the benefit of those who may not be I will 

 state that no such thing as an umbilical cord is known to 

 exist in the insect world. The larval bee during its growth 

 casts its skin several times, and not only its skin but the 

 lining of the alimentary canal. It will be seen from this 

 that any umbilical cord connecting the larva with the food 

 or cell would be cast off on the first moult. Besides this, 

 there is no need for any such 'cord" for assisting the 

 nourishment of the larva, for not only does it take food 

 with its mouth but it likewise absorbs it through that por- 

 tion of the skin lying in the food. After the cell is sealed 

 the larva spins its cocoon, the silk coming from an opening 

 in the lower lip. When the spinning is complete the larva 

 casts its skin for the last time, and it is this last casi with 

 its silken attachments which the venerable Doctor has mis- 

 taken for an umbilical cord. It has nothing, and can have 

 nothing, to do with the nourishment of the larva. 



I am sorry to take this prop from the Doctor, and I fear 

 it will embarrass some gentlemen who have been claiming 

 it as a great virtue of their queens. 



The Doctor quotes from Prof. Cook in support of his 

 contention, that the best queens are reared in strong colo- 

 nies, but neither the Doctor nor the Professor tells us ivhy. 

 To be sure, the Professor does say : " As the quantity and 

 quality of the food and the general activity of the bees are 

 directly connected with the full nourishment of the queeu- 

 larvaj, and these only at the maximum in times of active 

 gathering—Xhe time when queen-rearing is naturally started 

 — we should also conclude that queens reared at such sea- 

 sons are superior." (My italics). Dr. Gallup says that only 

 in big colonies can good queens be reared, and only in such 

 colonies are cells containing the "umbilical cord" pro- 

 duced. Dr. Gallup's description of a big colony conveys 

 the idea of a viinimiiin of 20 Langstroth frames (or the 

 equivalent) covered with bees. Now, Mr. Doolittle, whose 

 queen-rearing colonies at a maximum are equal to but a 

 half of what the Doctor considers safe, says all his queen- 

 cells show the " cord." Surely there is a "missing link" 



hereabouts. But never mind, for it is not the size of the 

 colony that tells the story, nor the " general activity of the 

 bees," to which we must look for an answer to the riddle, 

 but the constitution of the colony, and it is just here where 

 the Doctor's naturally big colonies win. 



The feeding of all larva; is, under normal conditions, 

 attended to by the young bees, and a big (naturally big) 

 colony has an abundance of these. Now if we are to talk of 

 rearing a lot of queen-cells under the supersedure or swarm- 

 ing impluse, simultaneously with care of the worker and 

 drone brood, such a colony will and can do it perfectly. But 

 to assume that such a colony without any brood to care for, 

 is necessary to the production of 10, 20 or 100 cells, is an 

 absurdity. The Doctor has so mixed his subjects that I am 

 unable to decide whether he is talking of rearing queens 

 commercially by his plan, or simply of the ordinary succes- 

 sion of queens in swarming. 



Mr. Alley was writing of commercial queen-rearing, and 

 as I have several times visited his apiary in the height of 

 his queen-rearing season, use his system myself, have tried 

 all known plans, and know the laws governing successful 

 queen-production, and that Mr. Alley's system conforms to 

 those laws, and that I neither rear queens for sale nor am 

 under any obligation to Mr. Alley (though I believe he has 

 given me two queens), I believe I am in a position to make 

 an impartial statement of his side of the case. The " laws " 

 governing the production of queens I have given in a pre- 

 vious article, so in this place I will only try to show why a 

 few bees of proper age are sufficient for " growing " ^pro- 

 portionate number of cells. 



From experiments, which as yet are by no means con- 

 clusive or exhaustive enough to warrant positive state- 

 ments, I believe that one bee (nurse-bee) can and does sup- 

 ply food for several worker-larva:. Now is it " away off " 

 to believe that a pint of nurse-bees (1600, Root's figures) can 

 properly and successfully rear one queen and at the same 

 time feed two or three hundred worker-larva;? These are 

 the conditions under which Mr. Alley's nuclei rear queens 

 when he fails to give them queens. Queens thus reared I 

 have seen at the head of just such colonies as Dr. Gallup 

 describes. But Mr. Alley does not depend on his little 

 nuclei for rearing his queens ; it is only by chance that now 

 and then one has the opportunity to rear a queen. He starts 

 his cells in " full colonies," so far as bees, honey and pollen 

 are concerned, but destitute of brood except for the prepared 

 strips for queen-cells. For cell-building colonies he selects 

 those particularly strong in young bees, and he goes even 

 farther. After the cells are well under way he takes them 

 from the starting colony and gives them to a colony having 

 lots of hatching brood as well as unsealed larva; — one from 

 which the queen was removed twelve hours previously. By 

 this method he gets his cells superabundantly stocked with 

 food, and the resulting queens attest the value of the system. 



To revert to the quotation from Prof. Cook. He lays 

 stress on the conditions of honey-flow, weather, populous- 

 ness of colony, etc., saying that the best queens can be 

 reared then. Certainly, because nurse-bees are then very 

 numerous. Many bee-keepers grasping the conditions only 

 so far as stated by Prof. Cook, have assumed that feeding 

 the cell-building colony will accomplish the desired end. 

 They have entirely missed the point. The feeding must be 

 done in time to cause the rearing of a lot of young bees, and 

 these are to do the work. 



A word in regard to nuclei and I will close : First their 

 size must be governed by temperature ; that is, locality and 

 season of the year. Mr. Pratt succeeds with very small 

 ones ; Mr. Alley who is close to the coast has them twice 

 the size of Mr. Pratt ; and a friend nearer the Canadian 

 line uses them a half larger than Mr. Alley's. 



These diminutive colonies must be regularly fed if their 

 success is to be ensured. For this Mr. Alley uses sugar 

 syrup. Honey must never be used. If a nucleus becomes 

 too populous he exchanges a frame of brood and bees for an 

 empty frame, the removed frame going into one of the stock 

 colonies he uses for making nuclei. Sometimes he accom- 

 plishes the same thing by moving the nucleus to another 

 spot, being careful not to do this when it is likely to cause 

 the loss of a virgin queen. 



If the bee-keeper will take the trouble to learn exactly 

 what Mr. Alley's nucleus system is — its simplicity, its 

 cheapness and its mobility — they will adopt it, only varying 

 the number of combs in the nuclei to fit their climatic condi- 

 tions. 



If all hands will stop mud-throwing and turn to and look 

 for the luhy of things, the apicultural press will be more in- 

 . teresting than ever before, and bee-keeping will fairly jump 

 forward. Providence Co., R. I. 



