iHE BEE-KEh:J^J2.K;:i' RL^viEW. 



95 



the cultivated members of their family 

 (dogs). Dogs, it is true, have been greatly 

 changed in some respects, but not in greater 

 capacity to meet the requirements of nature. 

 It may be argued that the chetah, ferret and 

 others have improved by domestication, but 

 it must be remembered that these animals 

 have been used only in line with their nature 

 as hunters, and no one pretends that these 

 animals have been imi)roved by man in 

 hunting cai)acity. The mole in search of 

 food will force its way through the clay of a 

 compact road bed, demonstrating a power a 

 hundred times greater than the most powsr- 

 ful steam locomotive ever built. What folly 

 to think of improving their capacity ! Now 

 bees are used by man exactly as are the 

 chetah the ferret, falcon and other animals. 

 We take advantage of tlieir instinct for 

 storing nectar (their food) and appropriate 

 their stores to our use, but I hold that bees 

 are in a perfect condition in a wild state to 

 pursue their single line of work and that we 

 have neither need nor power to improve their 

 capacity. 



For the last three years I have been buy- 

 ing golden and five-banded Italians liberally. 

 Recently I examined the bees in the cellar 

 and found four dead colonies and removed 

 the hives. They were new swarms, and the 

 hives dry, free from mould, and heavy with 

 as nice white honey as ever went into a sec- 

 tion. The wintering place was as pure and 

 sweet as a good living room. To each of 

 these hives I successfully introduced a yel- 

 low or five-banded queen early last fall. 

 Who can tell what killed them 'i I do not 

 say that it was the golden bees, but I have 

 had so many similar cases in the last three 

 years that I begin to distrust the "improved" 

 bees, to fear that the Improvement has been 

 at the cost of the very qualities that bees 

 should have — vitality and endurance. 



Anothei thing, for the last two seasons I 

 liave had the crossei-t bees I ever knew. 

 They were not particularly bad when open- 

 ing hives with smoke, but it was nearly im- 

 possible to walk in the yard or near it with- 

 out protection, and I was surprised to find 

 the yellow Italians the aggressors in most 

 cases. From what I see iti the bee journals 

 lately I begin to understand it was a case of 

 ■' improved strain of bees." In looking over 

 the advertising columns of the bee journals 

 I find many tempting reasons given for buy- 

 ing the queens and bees of certain breeders. 

 (»ne's bees " make three or more hundred 



pounds of honey in a season." Another's 

 " works on red clover." Another has a 

 "nou-swiirmin;; straiu." All these claims 

 are misleading, and the only effect they have 

 on me is to influence me to send no orders 

 to such parties. 



Now friends, I can say positively and truth- 

 fully that I had in many ways more satisfac- 

 tory bees ten years ago than now. I shall 

 continue to buy a few Italian queens each 

 year and shall give the Carniolans a trial, but 

 in keeping up my stock I shall resolutely re- 

 turn to the method I have pursued nearly all 

 my life and in the next article I will tell you 

 what that method is. 



FoKESTViLLE, Minn. March 4, 1885. 



Rearing Queens From the Egg. 



CHARLES NOKMAN. 



Tj!. S the time for queen rea'iug draws near, 

 xl it may be of interest to describe a new 

 way of rearing queens— or has the same been 

 tried in this country and given up because 

 another mode seemed to be preferable ? 

 What I mean is the rearing of queens //-ohj 

 the egg instead of from the larvae. Mr. Doo- 

 little, in his "Scientific Queen-Rearing," 

 Mr. Alley in his " Thirty Years Among the 

 Bees," you in your " Advanced Bee-Cul- 

 ture," and so forth, all keep silent "along 

 this line," and likewise our dealers in queens 

 seem, without an exception, to rear queens 

 from the larva? only ; at any rate not one of 

 them intimates that he works on any other 

 plan. So you will allow me to state that 

 Herr Philipp Keidenbach, a teacher at Reh- 

 born, is, as he asserts, rearing •' magnifi-' 

 cent " queens from the egg, and to set before 

 your readers an extract from a speech on 

 this subject Mr. K. has given at a bee-keep- 

 ers' meeting at Heidelberg some time ago. 



Firs', referring in i)art to Mr. Gravenhorst, 

 that excellent German bee-keeper and 

 writer, he speaks " theory." Queens, he 

 says, reared under the swarming impulse are 

 preferable to those reared from worker 

 larv:e. They come from eggs (aid in queen 

 cells which tells the bees from the start that 

 something better than a mere worker bee, 

 that a young mother, is to be brought up. 

 The bees take the hint and treat the larvte 

 from such eggs accordingly, front their very 

 hatching. The greatest care is bestowed 

 upon them and the bees incessantly poke 

 their heads into the cells. From beginning 



