96 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REv. 



to end an abundance of food is given to these 

 larvee. This food is royal jelly at that, 

 ■which, as Dr. von Planta and Dr. Scheenfeld 

 have proven, is more concentrated than the 

 jelly given to the worker larvae, containing 

 more dry substance, especially more fat. 

 Queen larva" develop faster and stronger 

 than worker larvtf from the very moment of 

 their hatching ; queen larvte which are but a 

 day old are larger than worker larva^ of the 

 same age. From all this Mr. K. draws the 

 conclusion that, in order to get "full-blood" 

 queens, we must raise them from the egg. 



Now he speaks " practice." He declares 

 that he has reared a good many queens from 

 the egg. The way he did it, is the follow- 

 ing : A strong colony (an Italian one, I 

 should think, as the black bees are more apt 

 to remove eggs) is made queenless (whether 

 all the eggs as well as the uncapped brood 

 were also removed he does not mention, but 

 he removed them, of course). If eggs were 

 given to the bees directly, they would de- 

 stroy them, therefore one has to wait till they 

 have become quiet, i. e. for two or three 

 days, (Mr. Doolittle would say ''for three 

 full days.") At that time they will have con- 

 structed more or less queen cells (empty 

 ones) which, if built regularly, may all be 

 used (he seems not to have used older cups 

 nor such as had been constructed in other 

 colonies. ) To remove the eggs laid by his 

 best queen in worker cells from the latter he 

 tried many ways till finally he hit upon the 

 idea to use a pin the point of whicn had been 

 bent to a blunt angle. Now he takes a piece 

 of comb with eggs in it (he doesn't speak of 

 their age, but I should prefer older ones), 

 cuts the cells off with a sharp knife just over 

 the eggs, moves the point of the pin under 

 the egg, lifts the latter slightly from the bot- 

 tom of the cell, presses the point of the pm 

 into the deepest place of the queen cell cup 

 and then withdraws the point backwfud 

 from underneath the egg, all the time taking 

 care not to injure the cup. 



This is Mr. Keidenbach's method and that 

 he has raised queens by it has, as far as I 

 know, not been disputed by his (iermstn col- 

 leagues. It is other things that may be put 

 in question. Mr. Doolittle for instance— 

 and whatever he says deserves of being well 

 heeded— claims that larvif from eggs laid in 

 queen cells are, for the first day and a half, 

 not treated any differently than the larvse in 

 worker cells and that queens from the latter, 

 if used when not older than thirty-six hours, 



are in no way inferior to queens from the 

 former. Other authorities however — Dr. 

 Tinker, Mr. Alley, you, and so forth — select 

 the very youngest larvte they can get, for 

 " the younger the better " is what they think 

 and say. 



As I was through queen rearing when Mr. 

 Keidenbach's report came to hand, I did not 

 try his plan. All I tried was to lift and 

 transfer eggs with a bent pin and this is 

 the easiest thing in the world. It seems to 

 me however that his method, if worth follow- 

 ing, could and should be improved. For 

 instance : instead of using cups built by the 

 bees, would it not be advisable to use Doo- 

 little cups 'i Instead of touching the eggs 

 with a pin or some other instrument, would 

 it not perhaps be better to remove and insert 

 a cocoon with the egg in it a la. Willie Atch- 

 ley V Instead of making the colony queen- 

 less, would it not be preferable to do the 

 rearing in the upper story over a queen ex- 

 cluder ? 



In conclusion I remark that Mr Keiden- 

 bach's method is original in so far as he 

 makes a colony queenless and inserts the 

 eggs by the use of a pin in empty cells, but 

 there seems to be some German bee-keepers 

 who practice what is called " Umeiern " 

 (changing eggs) there, that is, the eggs laid 

 by the queen in queen cells are removed and 

 another queen's eggs placed in their stead. 



St. Peteksbukg, Fla. Feb. 15, 189r>. 



Why There is More Profit in Raising Comb 

 Than Extracted Honey. 



MANY things 

 peztaiuing to 

 apiculture we de- 

 sire to know, and 

 except for the 

 luany^ien viro n - 

 in e n t s we soon 

 would know. I 

 have long desired 

 to know the pro- 

 portion of extract- 

 ed honey that we 

 can produce over 

 that of comb ; and I am going to endeavor 

 in this to show some of the difficulties in the 

 way of solving the problem, and at the same 

 time try to prove that comb is the more 



