130 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIJL^. 



the trade at 16 or 17c., in making sales, pro- 

 ducers have a right to learn the price at 

 which we sold it, and that would be the 

 market value. It is customary among com- 

 mission merchants to put upon their goods, 

 consigned or otherwise, a price — a market 

 price to the retail grocery trade. If the job- 

 bers and commission merchants, who pick 

 up odds and ends to fill country orders with, 

 make them a lower price, from Ic. to \}^c. 

 and sometimes 2c. lower, we think it proper 

 to make sales that way. 



However, we will quote you lower prices 

 than we have been doing heretofore, in order 

 to rectify this matter. If you desire, you 

 might change fancy dark honey to 10c. al- 

 though we are getting 12c. for our fancy 

 dark. There is no common dark honey in 

 the market at present. 



Yours very truly, 



J. A. Shea & Co. 



[The figures the bee-keepers want given in 

 quotations are those that they may expect to 

 realize for honey if sent to the market from 

 whence come the quotations. Exceptional 

 prices are not wanted. If from some com- 

 bination of circumstances a lot of honey 

 is sold at a low price, the figure should not 

 be given as the market price. Neither 

 should the price occasionally obtained for 

 an unusually tiue lot of honey be given as 

 the market price. When a man sees fancy 

 white honey quoted in Minneapolis at 17 cts 

 he naturally expects that his honey will bring 

 that price if sent there. Each dealer should 

 give the average price at which he is selling 

 each grade of honey. It will be seen from 

 the date of the above letter that it was re- 

 ceived in March, but it was impossible to 

 make room for it sooner. — Ed.] 



Which Has the Greater Influence, the Queen 



or the Bees, in Determining the Amount 



of Brood ? 



F. L. THOMPSON. 



WAS much interested in the articles of 

 Messrs. Boardman and Doolittle reprint- 

 ed in the March Review. But it does not 

 seem to me to be absolutely, satisfactorily 

 proved, by any writer on the subject, that 

 with proper hives and proper attention, 

 queens will not average more than eight 

 frames of brood before the flow. There is 

 Dr. Tinker, and E. France ; are their local- 



ities (in spring) exceptional ? Messrs. 

 Boardman and Doolittle have brought for- 

 ward very strong arguments, but they do not 

 strike me as being "irrefutable" for the 

 reason that they concern themselves with 

 the queen, and not with the already existing 

 population, which latter may be the more 

 important factor in breeding ; and the fact 

 remains that their experience with hives 

 especially qualified for the greatest possible 

 amount of brood in spring has not been ex- 

 tensive, and they have never seriously set 

 themselves to work to see what could be done 

 in that direction o7i the average. 



Two years ago in April I dug out and 

 transferred a wild swarm from an abandon- 

 ed skunk-hole. The capacity of the hole, 

 which was completely filled with comb, prob- 

 ably exceeded 16 L. frames. They then had 

 an amount of brood equivalent to six solid 

 L. frames, and the colony had to be divided, 

 because it was simply impossible to get all 

 the bees in oneS-frame L. hive, or anywhere 

 near it. This was very nearly the time of 

 year when our colonies are weakest. Ex- 

 ceptional ? yes, but afterwards that same 

 queen would have been taken for a very ordi- 

 nary queen indeed, judging from the amount 

 of her brood. I always think of her behavior 

 in and out of the skunk-hole, when reading 

 arguments for the 8-frame size ; and I agree 

 with Mr. Crane, that this is a legitimate sub- 

 ject for the experiment stations. It has not 

 been proved which has the greater influence 

 the queen, or the bees, in determining the 

 amount of brood. 



Abvada, Colo. March 24, 1895. 



[It is true that the building up of a colony 

 in spring is not entirely dependent upon the 

 queen. The queen may be the best in the 

 world, if the bees are weak in numbers the 

 colony will build up slowly at first. But 

 there really seems to be something needed 

 aside from numbers to enable a colony to 

 produce a large quantity of brood. I have 

 seen many colonies come out of winter quar- 

 ters quite populous yet they would rear only 

 a small amount of brood and be entirely out- 

 stripped by other colonies that were quite 

 weak in numbers in early spring. .Just when 

 it is the queen that is at fault, and when it is 

 the bees, may be a little difficult to decide, 

 but one thing is certain, and that is, here in 

 our Northern States, where the main harvest 

 comes early and is of short duration, the 

 hives must be of such capacity that they will 

 become filled with brood by the opening of 



