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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



July 9, 1903. 



queen, which will seldom swarm that season, but store a 

 good crop for extracting in the fall. This method will keep 

 down increase or make increase, whichever preferred. 



This plan is entirely original with me, brought about 

 by circumstances, and which has given me the best results. 

 Colonies treated in this way, taken as a whole, always store 

 more honey for me in the supers than those that did not 

 swarm. 



This is not practical for out-apiaries. 



Sullivan Co., Tenn. 



Queen-Rearing:— Nucleus Queens 

 Topics Discussed. 



Other 



BY HENRY ALI^KY. 



I DON'T think the subject of queen-rearing can ever be 

 worn out. No end is in sight, so far as I can see. 



I have been severely criticised in this Journal by 

 several persons for statements I have made concerning 

 queens reared in nuclei, and queens reared by a small num- 

 ber of bees. I have been criticised by people who merely 

 guessed that I was wrong, not by those who had tried the 

 experiment and noted the results. I stated in my articles 

 that I could back up all that I claimed for nucleus-bred 

 queens. I gave an account of one nucleus-bred queen that 

 lived four years and two months, and could not have laid 

 less than 100,000 eggs each year. Now, this queen was 

 reared this way : 



I fixed up a 3-frame nucleus merely for drones, as I had 

 a few queens that I desired to have fertilized in another 

 yard by a special strain of drones. One frame of worker- 

 brood was put in and about three pints of bees. I did not 

 open the hive for several weeks, and then only to see how 

 many drones there might be left. I found the bees had pro- 

 vided themselves with a large, fine queen. She had such a 

 promising appearance that I concluded to keep her in my 

 own apiary. Now, that queen proved to be one of the finest 

 queens I ever owned, or ever saw. 



This brings the subject to another point : It has been 

 claimed that queens reared from larvK three days old are 

 short-lived and worthless. Does the experiment given 

 above confirm eny such claim ? Mr. Aaron Benedict, who 

 reared and sold queens some 25 years ago, claimed that the 

 best queens were reared from 3-days-old larv;e. I can not 

 think so, yet I hardly know how to get over the fact that I 

 did have one valuable queen reared from a three-day-old 

 larvse. 



By the way, I am of the opinion that when a frame of 

 brood is supplied queenless bees, an old larva is always 

 selected by the bees from which to rear a queen. 



Well, now I come down to nucleus-reared queens again: 

 On the 19th of May (this year) I went into my apiary early 

 in the morning (and the morning was a very warm one), and 

 found no less than half a dozen colonies of bees clustered 

 on the outside. All these hives had the winter-cases on, 

 and several of them had a set of 24 sections on. I removed 

 the out-cases to cool the bees as rpuch as possible. I then 

 looked for markings on the hives to see what kind of queens 

 were in those colonies ; I found marked on each of the hives 

 " Nucleus queens," with the date of introduction. I was 

 really surprised myself, as I had no idea I had introduced so 

 many nucleus-reared queens. 



Now, see here, my friends, I had nothing to do with 

 rearing the above six queens. They were all reared in the 

 small hives, such as I use to keep my queens until they be- 

 come fertile. All these queens " came by chance," and 

 they are good enough for me. Now, if bee-keepers who can 

 do so will visit my yard, I will prove to them that nucleus- 

 bred queens are as good as, if not superior to, natural-bred 

 queens. 



Unfortunately, we are in a bad fix for surplus honey 

 this year. No rain has fallen here of any account since 

 April. The grass and white clover are all dried up, and 

 now, that the fruit-bloom is gone, there is nothing for 

 bees to do but to eat what honey was stored from the fruit- 

 blossoms. Many of my colonies were well under way in 

 the sections, and some of the sections are full. All the 

 brood-chambers are solid full of honey and no feeding will 

 have to be done. 



Last year bees did nothing in June. It was so cold and 

 wet. Now it is dry and there is no honey. So you see we 

 are in a "stew" all the time. Some will claim that it is 

 owing to the breed of bees that they are gathering and 

 storing no honey. Well, it maybe so. I wish I could find 



a strain of bees that would store honey in winter and in 

 summer when the flow is all used up. My past experience, 

 however, makes me think that if I had queens of that sort 

 to sell, somebody could be found that would cry them down. 

 And this reminds me of what Mr. Doolittle said of my 

 queens in a recent article from his pen. He showed that 

 queens from my " hundred-dollar " queen did not compare 

 in honey-gathering in any way with those he reared. Well, 

 they say that comparisons are odious, but I must say one 

 word here about Mr. Doolittle's queens : 



In a letter dated at Riddle, Oregon, May 10, the writer 

 says : " I have a yard of 75 colonies mostly of Doolittle's 

 strain, and I want to change them." It is presumed these 

 bees stored more honey than the writer could take care of, 

 and so a change to something else is needed. 



Three years ago X found a man in Brockton, Mass., 

 who had 20 colonies of bees for sale, as he would be away 

 from home all summer and could not care for them. I took 

 a look at ihem, and could have bought them at my own 

 price, but I refused, as there was not a decent colony of bees 

 in the lot, and I am sorry to say that he had a number of 

 Mr. Doolittle's queens in the lot. I remarked that I wanted 

 bees for business that year, and I could not afl^ord to keep 

 bees 12 months to build up. 



Now, I don't propose to say anything more on this 

 point. I give the above merely to show that Mr. Doolittle 

 rears no better queens than other people do. Neither do I 

 want it understood that I think the strain of bees, nor the 

 method of rearing the queens, had anything to do with the 

 inferiority of the queens mentioned above. 



Better queens than the above can be reared by any sys- 

 tem, and at any time of the year. Mr. Doolittle, like my- 

 self, had been unfortunate in selecting a queen-mother. I 

 have reared queens from a mother whose royal progeny did 

 not all prove first-class. The queens were sent out and 

 fault found with them. I replaced all such queens when 

 notified that they were worthless, or in any way inferior. 



I reared queens 25 years in the good old-fashioned way, 

 and no fault was found with them ; but when I took up 

 rearing queens over an excluder, then complaints began to 

 come in. 



Bee-keepers make a great mistake in purchasing the 

 beautiful yellow-banded bees. Insist upon a darker strain, 

 say bees that occasionally show but one band. A queen 

 that produces such worker-bees is superior to any brilliant 

 yellow-banded strain. I never saw a queen direct from Italy 

 that produced all three-banded bees. 



Where are those fellows who used to advertise 5 banded 

 bees? That strain proved to be worthless, and so did the 

 clover-queens, long-tongue queens, etc. Go back, gentle- 

 men, to the old-fashioned Italians, say such as were bred 

 and sold 30 years ago, when about half of the young queens 

 were striped and others very dark. We can rear such 

 queens as those, and send out good ones — queens whose 

 bees will roll in lots of honey, and winter well any winter. 

 If you purchase queens to please the eye, you can't please 

 the pocket-book at the same time. There's money in what 

 some people call " hybrid bees." There is money in some 

 of the beautiful yellow-banded bees, but 'tis a difScult job 

 to rear those beautiful queens and give perfect satisfaction 

 in all cases. 



I am not advising any one to purchase hybrid bees. 

 The bees above-described are not hybrids, by any means. 

 I am advising you to order a darker strain of bees only. 

 Try them and you will see an improvement in your apiary. 



I have found in my experience that pure Italians bees 

 do not rear nearly as strong, hardy queens as do black 

 bees. I am using black bees in all cases in queen-rearing. 



Mr. Doolittle says the cells built by my method are 

 "frail." How does he know ? To show that they are not, 

 I have sent a batch of empty queen-cells to Editor York for 

 his inspection. Say what you think of them. 



In my statements concerning rearing queens above an 

 excluder, I will say that fair queens can be so reared. But 

 I know, and Mr. Doolittle will find it so sooner or later, 

 that better queens can be reared by just as simple process. 

 I'll soon have Mr. Doolittle saying so, as will all others who 

 rear queens, if they will try the process I have given to the 

 public. Essex Co., Mass., June 11. 



[We have seen queen-cells reared from cell-cups, and in 

 comparison with the samples sent by Mr. Alley we should 

 say there was little if any difference in those we have seen. 



— Editor.] 



The Premiums offered this week are well worth working 

 for. Look at them. 



