1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1307 



CONVERSATIONS WITH 

 DOOLITTLE 



PLURALITY OF QUEENS; WHEN PROFITABLE AND 

 WHEN NOT. 



" I have been reading Mr. Alexander's article 

 on page 1135 of the September 15th number of 

 Gleanings, and I wish Mr. Doolittle would tell 

 us in his department just what he thinks or knows 

 of this matter. — Subscriber." 



I have tried the plural-queen system extensive- 

 ly, though my experiments have doubtless been 

 fewer than those of some others. All through 

 these discussions of the past I have looked for 

 one thought in that connection which interests 

 those in the white-clover belt above any thing 

 else; and that is, " Can this plurality of queens 

 be made profitable to us who desire all the sur- 

 plus from the white clover possible ?" So far it 

 has been but meagerly touched upon, and that in 

 only an indefinite way, no one having given fig- 

 ures to show that two or more queens in a hive 

 prior to the blossoming of the clover are of profit. 

 In the absence of these I wish to give a little ex- 

 perience of my own in this matter. I have often 

 had a mother and daughter under supersedure 

 circumstances in one hive during the basswood 

 flow or later; but one spring, soon after setting 

 the bees from the cellar, I found two fine queens 

 in one of my strongest colonies. A scientist 

 offered me $25.00 for this colony, but I would 

 not part with it, as I wished to see what I could 

 make from it, believing that these two queens 

 would give me double the bees for the harvest 

 that one could. The next time I looked into 

 the hive I found many cells occupied with two 

 and three eggs, just as we often find in small col- 

 onies having a queen capable of laying more 

 eggs than the bees can cover, or bring to ma- 

 turity early in the year. This convinced me, as 

 have other trials since, that, unless I double up 

 the colonies so as to get bees enough to mature 

 all the eggs two queens can lay early in the sea- 

 son, there is no more advantage with the two 

 queens than with one, so far as securing workers 

 for the early harvest of white clover is concerned; 

 for, as a rule, any one of my queens will produce 

 all the eggs that the bees can mature to be of 

 advantage in the white-clover honey harvest. 

 We must bear in mind that, when any colony is 

 in a normal condition, it takes 37 days from the 

 time the egg is deposited in the cell by the queen 

 before the bee coming from that egg enters the 

 fields as a laborer; and as the white clov^er comes 

 into bloom about June 15 in this locality, the eggs 

 for our laborers in that harvest must be deposited 

 in the cells from May 5 to 12. Now, up to May 

 15 even an average of my queens can and do lay 

 all the eggs that the bees of their colonies can 

 cover and mature; hence, to go through with the 

 work of introducing two or more queens to any 

 colony prior to this date would be altogether un- 

 profitable and useless, to say the least. 



Let us now go back to the two-queen colony. 

 It appears that the queen laid at least one-third 

 more eggs than the bees could mature prior to 

 May 15; but after that time the bees began to 

 cover more and more of the eggs and mature 

 them, so that about June 1 to 10 the hive was 



completely filled with brood. However, as this 

 brood developed into bees during the period of 

 partial or complete dearth which we have upon 

 the waning of the clover, just before the opening 

 of basswood, these bees became consumers of 

 the honey already gathered, rather than produc- 

 ers, and therefore did not add to the crop of clo- 

 ver honey. In other words, it took honey from 

 the colony to produce them, and then again 

 to keep them alive after the honey harvest from 

 clover was past, so they were not a profitable in- 

 vestment with the exception of those that lived 

 only into the basswood bloom. And even then 

 this colony gave no greater yield from basswood 

 than did others which had only one good queen. 

 In looking up the history of the larger share of 

 those who are championing the plural-queen 

 system I find that the majority of them are in- 

 terested in the fall crop of honey more than any 

 other; and to such as these, where a plurality of 

 queens can be successfully worked so as to bring 

 2t. great army of bees on the field of action just 

 when the thousands of acres of buckwheat or 

 other late honey-producing flora are at their per- 

 fection, there can be no doubt about the practic- 

 ability of the plan. But from all of my experi- 

 ence in this matter one good queen will lay all the 

 eggs that the bees can brood so that the bees 

 from these eggs will be of advantage in the 

 ivhite-clo'ver harvest. 



But I hear Dr. Miller saying, " / am all inter- 

 est in this matter because the bees do not sivarm 

 n.vith tiuo or more queens in one colony. " But, 

 doctor, this colony did swarm; and not only this 

 one, but enough of others which were used with 

 two queens, separated with queen-excluding 

 metal, to make me see that the non-swarming 

 part of it can not be depended upon. Over half 

 of the colonies used with two queens have 

 swarmed; but I will acknowledge that swarming 

 seemed to be delayed to quite an extent; and 

 when delayed long enough so that the honey- 

 flow began to wane, such colonies did not swarm, 

 just as colonies having only one queen do not 

 swarm when, for any reason, they are delayed 

 till the honey harvest is nearly over. 



Then I hear another one say, " By the use of 

 perforated metal we can keep two queens over 

 winter in one colony, so that we can have queens 

 to replace any poor ones in the spring, give to 

 queenless colonies, or to sell, so that here is a 

 profitable part of this plural-queen system." I 

 really hope he is right, and that others may prove 

 it so, for this would be something of great value 

 to the queen-breeder in our Northern States; but 

 my experience all points to the fact that, as a 

 rule, only one queen remains in any colony when 

 spring opens up. The colony alluded to, hav- 

 ing the two queen's when set from the cellar, is 

 the only colony which I ever knew that had two 

 good laying queens to begin the season with, no 

 matter whether perforated zinc was used or not. 

 To be sure, two queens can be wintered in one 

 hive, the same having a thin partition of wood 

 or some other thin substance to divide the bees 

 into two separate colonies, but such can hardly be 

 said to be along the line of the plural-queen sys- 

 tem. After finding the two queens in one col- 

 ony I thought I could have two queens in as 

 many colonies as I desired in early spring; but 

 in this I have only failure to record. 



