1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



491 



VOLITION OF QUEENS; SHAKING BEES, ETC. 



"I should like to have Mr. Doolittle an- 

 swer the following questions through Glean- 

 ings, believing that its readers will be in- 

 terested in the subject. 



"1. Does the queen lay more drone eggs 

 as she grows older? 



"2. Can the queen lay eggs at will? 



"3. What is a worker doing when she 

 shakes her abdomen over the combs with a 

 gyrating movement, doing this on brood- 

 combs over eggs, larva^ and sealed brood? 

 Some bees following after, seem to be doing 

 something with their heads I see that a work- 

 er that comes from the fields with pollen on 

 her legs does this as well as the other bees, 

 and there must be some reason for it. 



"In order to make a thorough investiga- 

 tion of these matters, a one-comb observation 

 hive will be necessary, with squares marked 

 off on the glass, so that certain portions of 

 the comb can be kept track of under all of 

 the development of the brood under or be- 

 yond these squares, a memorandum being 

 kept of the whole. 



"E. A. Newell, Massillon, Ohio." 



In answer to the first question I would 

 say that, during the time between the fertili- 

 zation of the young queen and when the 

 spermatozoa begin to fail, the number of di'one 

 eggs she may lay depends almost wholly up- 

 on the wants of the bees in the colony of 

 which she is considei'ed "mother." I know 

 that this may be considered as heresy among 

 those who have been telling us, during the 

 past, that a young queen never lays eggs in 

 drone-cells for the rearing of drone brood 

 during her first season of laying; but hun- 

 dreds of cases, if not thousands, which have 

 come under my observation, prove to me 

 that a queen which has been laying from two 

 weeks to two months will lay just as many 

 drone eggs under the same circumstances as 

 will the queen which is from three to five 

 years old, unless the spermatozoa she has 

 been carrying have partially or wholly fail- 

 ed. With such failure, any queen will lay 

 eggs which will produce only drones, just 

 the same as will the eggs laid before she has 

 mated. I said "vinder the same circum- 

 stances, " and by that I mean any circum- 

 stances under which the colony wants drones. 

 Such circumstances are generally when a 

 colony is strong enough in bees to begin to 

 think of swarming, with exceptional cases 

 where the bees take it into their heads that 

 they should supersede a queen of the same 

 year's rearing Where I have had early 

 swarms, or made colonies early by the shak- 

 en-swarm plan 1 have, scores of times, found 



all the drone comb in the hive full of drone 

 brood within a month of tne time the young 

 queen ( which the colony had reared, or which 

 had come from the cell I had given) had be- 

 gun to lay where the colonies containing 

 them became populous from the amount of 

 brood the combs contained after swarming. 

 I have thought many times of writing this 

 matter up, when I have seen it stated that a 

 queen of the first season rarely if ever laye 

 any eggs for drones that season, but never 

 got around to it. 



Twenty to thirty years ago, when I used 

 natural swarming for my increase, I saw 

 many times much drone comb built and fill- 

 ed with drone brood by second swarms; but, 

 as a rule, all after-swarms are not strong 

 enough as to number of bees to wish any 

 drone brood. Then I have many times got- 

 ten a young queen at the head of colonies a 

 week or so before the time I expected the 

 honey harvest to commence; and, in order 

 to get a "great big yield" of section honey, 

 I have taken out all the combs not well fill- 

 ed with brood, and those having mostly eggs 

 and larv£B in, filling up the hive with combs 

 from which the brood was just emerging, 

 saying to myself, "Now I have you, for col- 

 onies do not swarm with queens which have 

 been laying only a week or so, enough so 

 that they have gotten fully settled down to 

 business," only to have such colonies fill 

 every drone-cell the hive contained with 

 drone brood, and swarm inside of two weeks, 

 just when the honey harvest had nicely be- 

 gun. From this experience, covering a period 

 of nearly forty years, I am led to say that 

 any and all queens lay drone eggs just in ac- 

 cord with the wants of their colonies, and 

 that the age of the queen has nothing to do 

 with the matter so long as she is capable of 

 laying eggs which will produce worker bees. 

 After she has passed the stage of laying eggs 

 which are fertilized, she becomes what is 

 termed a "drone layer," and can lay no other 

 kind, no matter how much the bees may de- 

 sire it otherwise. 



Regarding the second question, I can see 

 no other answer than yes; as, so far as lay- 

 ing is concerned, the queen is obliged to will 

 to do just as the bees will. In other words, 

 she wills just as the colony wills, every time, 

 when it comes to the egg-laying part. She 

 lays only when the bees feed her prepared 

 food in sufiicient amount, and, quite often, 

 after the bees have fed her so that she has 

 laid a large number of eggs, if the weather 

 turns bad, they will not allow these eggs to 

 hatch, removing many of those which would 

 hatch at once, and keeping others for an in- 

 definite period, then allowing them to hatch, 

 or destroying them, just as the weather seems 

 to justify. These things have come under 

 my observation quite a few times during 

 May and June in very fickle weather. 



But from a portion of our questioner's let- 

 ter which was not for print 1 judge that he 

 wishes to ask if the queen can lay either 

 drone or worker eggs at will, as he speaks of 

 the pitch of the cells having much to do with 

 the queen laying eggs in drone comb. Be- 



