Mav 14, 1903. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



311 



classing all queens reared by that plan among those he 

 •called worthless. And I think those who read aiij^'^ht else 

 into what I said on page 56') (l'»()2) will see their mistake by 

 turning to that page and reading the matter over again. 



In fact, I cannot see that all this write-up does Httle 

 more than to emphasize the principles as laid down in the 

 book above referred to, doing this by laying a little stronger 

 claims to these principles than was done in the book, (lal- 

 lup's whole claim is based on queens being reared in rous- 

 ing colonies at a time when the bees are inclined to rear 

 queens, either from the swarming impluse, or from super- 

 sedure of queens. And this is just the ground taken by the 

 writer of " Scientific Qneen-Rearing." So my old teacher, 

 and the author of "Scientific Oueen-Rearing," agree ex- 

 actly. All the author does is to show how queens can be 

 reared by the Dr. Gallup way at the will of the apiarist. 



Mr. Alley claims that the best queens can be reared by 

 giving eggs or larva; to rightly "conditioned " nurse-bees 

 which, with or without the help of other colonies, nurses 

 and care for this brood so given, that the best of long-lived 

 queens are produced. This point is also covered by " Scien- 

 tific Oueen-Re^ring," in that it provides for these same 

 nurse-bees, rightly conditioned to produce perfect success in 

 their manipulation of the little larva; given them to mature 

 into the best of long-lived queens ; and does the same with 

 less eiTort on the part of the apiarist than is necessary 

 where the bees to build the cells must be sought out, "scien- 

 tifically treated," confined in a box for a certain length of 

 time, etc. 



Then it exactly fills the bill of Mr. Riker, in that it pro- 

 vides for a laying mother being present at just the time 

 when bees rear only queens which give those long-lived 

 workers which hold out during the whole honey harvest, that 

 enables the apiarist to secure the full results of the honey- 

 flow, and which could not be obtained by queens giving 

 bees with shortened lives. 



In short, the plan given in " Scientific Queen-Rearing " 

 combines the large hives with rousing colonies under the 

 " swarming or superseding impluse," which " manufacture 

 a large amount of electricity, heat or vitality," of Dr. Gal- 

 lup; the "conditioned" nurse-bees, wanting a queen, of 

 Mr. Alley ; the rearing of queens when the " mother is pre- 

 sent," of Mr. Riker; the selecting of those of the "proper 

 age" for queen-rearing without interference of "older 

 bees," of Messrs. Pratt and Simpson; and the "tempera- 

 ture and humidity," through plenty of nurse-bees and food 

 in abundance, (from feeders when the same was not coming 

 from the fields), of Mr. A. C. Miller ; and is perfectly 

 adapted to the wants of any bee-keeper, from the one hav- 

 ing only two or three colonies, up to the one numbering his 

 colonies by the hundreds or thousands. And there need be 

 no limit as to size of colony used, in the large direction. 

 Dr. Gallup"s biggest colony can be used just as successfully 

 as can one fully occupying a 10-frame hive, or one just 

 ready to swarm in a two-story 8 frame hive. Just slip 

 in a queen-excluding division-board, so as to enclose from 

 three to five frames of young brood in the warmest part of 

 the hive, thus shutting the queen away from them, and you 

 are ready to proceed at once in rearing queens of the high- 

 est grade possible to obtain under any of the conditions 

 named by any of the plans or theories advocated by any one 

 during the past five years ; and those which will be just as 

 long-lived and give just as long-lived workers. 



The principle is the same, whether we use upper stories 

 with a queen-excluder between ; a very strong colony with 

 three or four frames of young brood shut away from the 

 queen, by a queen-excluding partition being slipped down 

 into the hive; or the same number of frames of young 

 brood being shut away from the queen in the center of one 

 of Dr. Gallup's big colonies in his 40 or SO frame hives. 

 And it would take quite a stretch of imagination for one 

 who has carefully read " Scientific Ijueen-Rearing, " to con- 

 ceive the idea that the author claimed that the reason that 

 perfect, long-lived queens were reared by that plan, "was 

 just because cell-cups are used." Yet some are trying to 

 prejudice against the plan on those very grounds. The 

 cell-cups are only a convenience, not a necessity. I have 

 reared just as good queens by this plan with strips of comb 

 having eggs and young larva;- in the cells, killing every 

 other, or two out of every three larvae, a la Alley, and with 

 larva; transferred into every other cell of a strip of drone- 

 comb, as recommended by others ; but, as a whole, tieither 

 of these are nearly so convenient as the cell-cups. 



Some seem to think that nothing has been said or writ- 

 ten about long-lived bees and queens till of late. Tliisis 

 not so. Dr. Gallup does not stand alone in this matter, 

 neither is it a new thing. This part has been emphasized 



during the past, by one of Canada's greatest honey-produc- 

 ers. Mr. J. B. Hall ; also by Mr. Riker, Doolittle and others ; 

 but if I am right, Mr. Hall was the pioneer in calling atten- 

 tion to the matter. There is great advantage in such queens 

 and bees, especially where the latter are reared with an eye 

 on the coming harvest. 



Regarding the many queens purchased by Messrs. 

 (iallup and Alley being worthless, I take it they were speak- 

 ing metaphorically. I cannot think they fully meant what 

 their language would convey. As Dr. Gallup alludes to the 

 matter of an exchange of queens between him and Dr. 

 Hamlin's best and prolific queens proved in the other's 

 hands to be the same worthle.s's degenerates (?), which would 

 not keep two or three frames filled with brood with all the 

 coaking at these Doctors" command, these queens being 

 similar after the exchange to those which have been so 

 roundly and immoderately condemned, it would appear that 

 such language conveyed more than was really intended. 



And as proof of this I will say that I had one of those 

 worthless (?) Hamlin queens sent me as a premium for se- 

 curing the most subscribers to a certain bee-paper in a 

 given time. The queen came in June, and as she was from 

 one of the best breeders of the seventies, I thought to give 

 her the best possible chance, which I did. Imagine my sur- 

 prise to find that with all my extra care and coaxing, I 

 could get her to put eggs in only three Gallup frames, and 

 very scattering at that. I came very near pinching her 

 head off in the fall, but finally concluded to give the colony 

 frames of brood and honey from other colonies, and thus 

 the colony was gotten through the winter. The next season 

 she proved no better than she had the year before, and I 

 have no doubt Dr. Gallup would have called her a " worth- 

 less degenerate," and Mr, Alley would have alluded to her 

 as "worthless as a house-fly." Was she thus ? Well, we 

 shall see. 



I had her in my hand one day, being just about to pinch 

 the life out of her, when the thought arrested me, that Dr. 

 Hamlin would not send me a worthless queen as a premium, 

 and that I would rear a few queens from her, which thing I 

 did, she dying soon afterward, of apparent old age. All of 

 these young queens proved to be extra good ones, and one 

 of them was the mother of the colony which gave me 566 

 pounds of honey in 1877, and was used in laying the founda- 

 tion of my present apiary. 466 pounds of this honey sold 

 at 20 cents-per pound, and 100 at 15 cents, the total cash re- 

 sulting from that colony that year being S108.20. Was her 

 mother worthless? Quite a "house-fly," wasn't she? 

 Stood way up by the side of the best of cows as to value ! 

 The honey sold from this colony during that year amounted 

 to SS 20 more than Mr. Alley prized his SlOO queen at, and 

 lacked only S91.80 of giving as much cash in a single year 

 as the celebrated Root long tongued queen was ever valued 

 at. And yet, if I do not misinterpret Dr. Gallup, he would 

 no more have bred from that Hamlin queen than he would 

 from those two imported, worthless (?), degenerate (?), house- 

 fly (?) queens he got of A. I. Root, which he tells us about 

 on page 423 of the American Bee Journal for 1902. 



Right here is where many purchasing queens make a 

 great mistake : If the purchased queen does not almost im- 

 mediately outstrip anything they have in their apiary, she 

 is condemned at once as a breeder, if her head is not pinched. 

 I have had scores of letters telling of queens purchased 

 from different queen-breeders which did not do well in the 

 pnrchasers' hand, they condemning the breeders for send- 

 ing out poor, worthless queens. I generally write asking 

 if they have reared any young queens from them, and the 

 reply generally is, " No, I killed the queen," or, " She is not 

 worth breeding from." A few have been pursuaded to 

 breed from these seemingly worthless purchased queens, 

 and I have several letters in my posession thanking me for 

 insisting on their breeding from these apparently poor 

 queens, for thereby they have some of the finest queens they 

 ever possessed. 



Too much emphasis cannot be laid on the fact that it is 

 the daughters of the purchased queen which tell of the value 

 of the mother. And this is a subject which is also treated 

 on in " Scientific Queen-Rearing." Had those parties who 

 reported to Dr. Gallup that " Doolittle's queens did not turn 

 out right," bred from them, it is barely possible that they 

 might have found out that they had something similar to 

 what I had in that Hamlin queen. My advice to all is not 

 to condemn a purchased queen till you see what her daugh- 

 ters will do. If such daughters all appear to be poor, then 

 it would be quite reasonable to decide that their mother was 

 truely worthless. 



And now, in closing this already too long article, allow 

 me to repeat that I am in no financial way interested in 



