882 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15 



SWISS bee-keepers' CUNFEKKXet. Al 



colony becomes too weak to amount to any thing 

 in the way of storing honey. 



The loss from this cause is far greater than is 

 generally supposed. One whole column in a re- 

 cent number of the America/! Bee Jour/ial was de- 

 voted to quotations from eminent authors to prove 

 that a queen lives from three to five years. 



The writer of the article to which I allude 

 seems to lose sight of the fact that the question is 

 fiot how long does a queen li'vef but /lo-zv long is 

 it profitable to keep a queen? This whole subject 

 is a matter of profit and loss in which dollars and 

 cents are involved. A hen will live from ten to 

 twelve years, and yet the profits from the first 

 year's egg production have been found to be so 

 much greater than any year after, that the up-to- 

 date poultrymen are replacing their hens each 

 year with pullets reared from their best laying 

 strains. A Leghorn pullet, if properly develop*^ 

 ed and rightly handled, will lay almost constant- 

 ly during the first year without becoming broody. 



A queen is like a hen in that, after laying a 

 certain number of eggs (the number varying with 

 different queens), will become broody. In other 

 words, she will begin to dwindle down in laying 

 until her abdomen becomes quite slim. Right 

 at this stage instinct asserts her power for the 

 preservation of the colony, and queen-cells are 

 built, with the result of either a swarm or a case 

 of supersedure, according to the condition of the 

 queen. If it so happens that her powers of egg 

 production are not exhausted, another batch of 

 eggs will quickly develop, and the colony thus 

 thrown into an abnormal condition by having a 



vigorous queen and ciueen-cells at the same time 

 will cast a swarm. On the other hand, if the 

 queen still continues to dwindle, and is exhaust- 

 ed, supersedure is the result. 



A queen seldom arrives at this condition during 

 the first year of her reign, therefore a colony hav- 

 ing a queen of the present season's rearing will 

 seldom cast a swarm. If the above deductions 

 are correct, the idea of requeening each year is 

 not so preposterous as some would have us believe. 



In summing up the advantages of requeening 

 each year we find, first, an improvement in our 

 bees as the result of stocking each colony with a 

 young queen reared by scientific methods from 

 our choicest breeder. Second, young and vigor- 

 ous queens will keep up brood-rearing later in 

 the fall, and begin earlier in the spring, which 

 means a strong force of bees for winter and a 

 strong colony of workers for the coming harvest. 

 Third, the queens being bred from one mother 

 will be uniform, and will be likely to give uni- 

 form results in honey production. Fourth, there 

 will be no weak or queenless colonies, and every 

 colony will be able to gi\e a good account of it- 

 self. Fifth, there will be no swarming — at least, 

 none to speak of. Sixth, those who advocate re- 

 queening the second or third year will have swarm- 

 ing and more weak colonies in the spring. There is 

 a class of bee-keepers who recognize the impor- 

 tance of requeening, but don't like to do the work 

 that is necessary in order to rear the choicest 

 queens, preferring to rear five-cent queens by 

 simply removing the old queen and trusting to 

 luck for the rest, and are laboring under the de- 



