May 7, 1903. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



295 



No. 2.— Queen-Rearing— Virtue Not in Cell- 

 Cups ; Only Convenience, Etc. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLK. 



A CORRESPONDENT writes : " Do you claim that there 

 is any virtue in the cell-cups you use in rearing queens, 

 more than what there is in the cell-cups built by the 

 bees during natural swarming or at other times when they 

 rear queens? A neighbor tells me that all your claims are 

 based upon the cell-cups you make. Please tell us some- 

 thing of this matter in the American Bee Journal. " 



Replying to this I would say, that some have been try- 

 ing to make it appear that " Scientific Oueen-Rearing '" was 

 written in the interest of " cell-cups," evidently desiring to 

 divert attention from the plan as given in that book, by 

 which thousands of bee-keepers are rearing queens of the 

 highest order today, to where they were rearing poor or in- 

 ferior queens before they came in possession of the knowl- 

 edge given in the book spoken of above. If the disire was 

 not to divert attention, no such claim could possibly be 

 made, for there is no claim put forth for virtue being in the 

 cell-cups, in "Scientific Queen-Rearing," other than that 

 such cups are a convenience and a help by way of rearing 

 queens, and in handling of the ripened product — queen-cells. 

 Away back in the early seventies, Elisha Gallup told 

 the readers of the American Bee Journal that bees would 

 store as much honey in a nail-keg or barrel, as they would 

 in the best patent hive ever invented, or in the nicest honey- 

 boxes ever put before the public. And no one ever at- 

 tempted to contradict that statement. Surely, that nail- 

 keg honey was just as sweet as any ; none had a better 

 flavor or gave off a nicer perfume, nor is that in section- 

 boxes generally so well ripened or of so good a quality. 

 ■ What use have we then for honey-boxes, or the nice sections 

 of the present, if no more or better honey can be obtained 

 by their use? Why go to the expense of 20 sections and a 

 shipping-case when one of the 20 boxes of our fathers would 

 give as much and as good honey ? I think I see a smile on 

 many faces as they give answers by saying, " These boxes 

 are convenient, and we use them for this very conven- 

 ience ; " " they enable us to put our honey on the market in 

 an attractive and inviting shape;" "in this way we can 

 accommodate the wants of theconsuming public," etc. Just 

 so. We use sections for the sole reason that they are a con- 

 venience for us in putting our honey on the market in the 

 most attractive and marketable shape. They do not add to 

 our crop one iota above what we could secure with the old 

 boxes and barrels of the age of our forefathers. 



And just so with the cell-cups. They are not for the 

 purpose of giving us more or better queens, but for our con- 

 venience, in that they allow us to rear queens so that every 

 maturing cell can be used in any spot and place, just as we 

 may desire ; caging the cells in cell-protectors, pushing 

 them into the combs, put them into our inside shirt pockets 

 to keep warm and carry to the out-apiary or elsewhere ; 

 never have two or more built together, etc.; in short, so that 

 we can handle them as we would so many eggs which we 

 were preparing for shipping to some distant customer, or 

 to put under our old " hawk-colored " hen when she wanted 

 to sit. In this way they are as much ahead of ordinary cells 

 as section-boxes are of barrels and nail-kegs. And this 

 convenient part pays well for the making of the cups, over 

 any of the other plans given to the public. If it were the 

 number of cells we could get built we could go back 

 to the era of cutting holes in the comb, under just-hatched 

 larva;, for by this plan I once obtained 1S7 perfected queen - 

 cells from one comb given to a queenless colony. 



No, it is not the virtue in the cell-cups that gives those 

 extra-nice queens every time, when using the plan given in 

 " Scientific Queen-Rearing," but in the preparation of the 

 colony so that they wish to build queen-cells when the old 

 queen is present with them, the same as in natural swarm- 

 ing ; so that they are in that normal condition under which 

 all good queens have been reared all down through the 

 thousands of the years which have passed since God created 

 the honey-bee, told it to go forth and replenish the earth, 

 and pronounced the bee, with all else He had made, as 

 " good." 



Cells built from strips of comb by the Alley plan, give 

 just as good queens, where the colony building them is in 

 the above normal condition, but the completed cells are so 

 fragile that the greatest of care must be used in handling. 

 If any do not wish to use a twostory hive as recommended 

 in the book, all that is necessary to bring about the same 

 results is to slip a queen-excluding division-board into a 



populous colony, treated the same way as is recommended 

 for the two-stDry hive, tliis division-board shutting the 

 queen away from three or four combs of brood, when queen- 

 cells will be reared equally good as are those reared in an 

 upper story. 



Hundreds and thousands of bee-keepers have proven 

 that the bees behind or over a queen-excluding division- 

 board are brought under just the right conditions to rear 

 perfect queens, as letters all over the world tell me in lan- 

 guage similar to that of a correspondent, whose letter came 

 by the last mail, where he says : 



" The best queens that %ve ever had were reared in that 

 way. The crops harvested since I used the plan as given in 

 ' Scientific Queen-Rearing ' is the evidence in the matter. 

 It would be a waste of time for any one to tell me that my 

 crops of honey were no better than before I used this plan, 

 fori know better. I wish to say to you that the plan you so 

 freely gave to the world is the very best that has yet been 

 devised, so far as my knowledge goes, and I have read 

 everything I can find on the subject." 



I am aware that the claim is now being put forth that 

 the presence of old bees is a detriment where queen-cells are 

 being built, but this can be no more than a fallacious idea, 

 as the bringing of our bees down to us through the thous- 

 ands of the years of the past, in the perfect condition in 

 which they came, abundantly proves, for till within the past 

 half-century, 999 queens out of every 1000 were reared where 

 the colony was in a normal condition, and no colony can be 

 in a normal condition where no old bees are present. Old 

 bees area sine qua non (without which nothing) to successful 

 queen-rearing, unless that sine qua non is supplied by the 

 bee-keeper in the shape of heat, food, etc.; and the old or 

 field-bees are the cheapest of anything which can be used 

 to supply these things. 



Heat and food have as much to do with successful queen- 

 rearing as have bees of the right age, and their being 

 brought under the right conditions, and he or she who 

 ignores any one of these things cannot meet with the best 

 success, or produce perfect queens. The taking of one of 

 the elements of success, and so magnifying it that it hides 

 all of the others— or even one of the essential things — is 

 something which is often done for the time being, only to 

 find out after a lapse of years that the thing pursued was 

 not, after all, the thing over which to shout. Eureka ! 



Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



Our Bee-Heeping Sisters \ 



Conducted bu EMMfl M. WILSON, Marengo, 111. 

 Important Spring- Work in the Apiary. 



One of the very important things to see to just now is 

 that your bees 'h?iwe plettty of stores. Stores disappear rap- 

 idly if nothing is coming in. It sometimes happens that 

 bees may be in danger of starving with plenty of bloom, as 

 a cold or wet spell of weather may prevent their gathering 

 anything for several days at a time, and again it does not 

 always yield nectar even when the weather seems to be all 

 right. Our bees would have starved more than once in 

 June had we not fed them, and with abundance of white 

 clover in bloom, too. Brood-rearing must be kept up if we 

 are to have strong colonies ready for the harvest, and that 

 uses up large supplies of honey, so if brood-rearing is to go 

 on without interruption the bees must have a goodly supply 

 of honey in sight. One might think that if they have 

 enough on hand for one day's supply that would be suffi- 

 cient ; but they seem to have the wisdom to look ahead and 

 plan for the future. Keep their larder well supplied. It 

 pays. 



Another item to be looked after sharply is the queens. 

 See to it that all your colonies have good queens. A colony 

 with a drone-laying queen, or a queenless colony, may just 

 as well be broken up at once, unless you have a good queen 

 to give them, for they will surely dwindle away if left to 

 themselves, as they are in a hopeless condition, and the 

 bees, if used to strengthen up some other colony, may be 

 of use. 



Don't fuss too much with your bees. A pretty good 

 plan, after you have assured yourself that they have 



