1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



627 



CX)NVERSATIONS WITH 

 DOOLITTLE 



AT Borodino, New York. 



HOW FAR APART SHOULD BEES BE KEPT TO 

 INSURE PURE MATING? 



"Mr. Doolittle, I have purchased a select 

 strain of bees which I wish to keep pure, and 

 I wish to know how far from other Bees they 

 must be kept in order not to have my queens 

 meet with drones from other apiaries." 



"This is a question which confronts every 

 bee-keeper who wishes to improve his stock 

 by a careful selection of the best out of his 

 own yard, as well as one like you who has 

 something different from the common run of 

 bees. The great majority of our practical 

 apiarists of to-day are ever on the alert for 

 the improvement of stock; and through this 

 it is evident, to even the careless observer, 

 that our bees are very much improved over 

 what they were forty years ago when I com- 

 menced m this business." 



" In looking over an old bee-paper I found 

 this: ' There are some who entertain the idea 

 that a race of bees can not be kept pure un- 

 less they are isolated several miles from all 

 other races. I have tested this matter pretty 

 thoroughly during the last twenty years, and 

 have found that half a mile is as good as a 

 much greater distance. ' Do you believe that 

 to be correct?" 



"I could not accept such a distance as in- 

 suring purity except at certain seasons." 



"I had thought that from a mile to a mile 

 and a half might do, but was hardly ready to 

 endorse this half-mile matter without coming 

 and seeing you about it. If this could be 

 correct it would not be much of a trick to in- 

 sure safe mating." 



"That is so. I do not doubt that many of 

 ©ur breeders of queens would give from §500 

 to $1(X)0 if they were sure that all their queens 

 would be purely mated if all objectionable 

 colonies need not be more than half a mile 

 away. But all honorable breeders of queens 

 will multiply that half-mile by eight, and then 

 not feel sure that a// of their queens will mate 

 with the desired drones." 



"What! You do not wish to convey the 

 idea that all other bees must be four miles 

 away from those I have purchased if I am to 

 secure the pure mating of my queens?" 



"That is what I wish you to understand 

 unless you raise your queens and drones so 

 as to have them flying before the 10th of 

 May or after the first of October." 



"Why do you specify such dates?" 



"Because in all localities north of 40, north 

 latitude, early in the spring or late in the fall 

 drones do not fly very far; but during the 

 summer months I am satisfied, by bemg at 

 the congregating-places of drones, that they 

 fly for miles around to these places, and that 

 the queens come to meet them " 



"Vv'hat do you mean by drones having con- 

 jregating- places?" 



"Just what the term implies. During the 

 summer months, particularly July and Au- 



gust, thousands if not millions of them come 

 together from the many colonies (my expe- 

 rience would say) contained within a circle 

 encompassing eight to ten miles in diameter, 

 coming mostly between the hours of half-past 

 twelve and three o'clock each pleasant after- 

 noon." 



"What put such an idea into your head?" 



"By first hearing a roaring each pleasant 

 afternoon, as of a swarm passing over, when 

 at work in a cornfield in July, cutting the 

 weeds out of the corn. As I could not find 

 any swarm, and as I heard this every pleasant 

 day in the afternoon only, I soon gave up the 

 swarm idea and began studying on the mat- 

 ter. This cornfield was on a hill; and by ly- 

 ing on my back between the rows of corn, 

 and looking steadily up, with the corn part- 

 ly shading things close about me, I could see 

 hundreds of swift-flying objects darting and 

 circling in all directions. A day or two later, 

 a sort of purring object passed my head and 

 alighted on a stalk of corn; but before I got 

 to it one flew away, which looked like a 

 queen-bee, and another fell to the ground. 

 I picked up the one which fell to the ground 

 and found it tobe)a dead drone. This solved 

 the mystery of the humming noise. I have 

 several years since known of the drones col- 

 lecting over this same hill, but many years 

 they do not. Last year their congregating- 

 place was over a little grove which I passed 

 m going to my cottage on the lake. My first 

 thought was that a swarm of bees was pass- 

 ing over, when I was arrested by the great 

 humming noise; but as it kept up right along, 

 I knew what it was. 1 heard it every time 

 I went to the cottage for some four weeks." 



"But how about the early and late raised 

 queens?" 



"The trouble with the early queens, as 

 well as the late ones to some extent, is to 

 rear good ones, though the chances are much 

 better for raising good queens the last week 

 in September than in the spring." 



"But if I succeed in raising good ones?" 



"Then you encounter the next, or what 

 some consider the greater difficulty, that of 

 having early drones, or of coaxing the bees 

 to keep drones till late in the fall." 



"But is there no way of securing the mat- 

 ing of good queens to the drones you wish?" 



"There have been many plans advised 

 and given; but the best thing I know of is to 

 put the last frames of drone brood your 

 drone-breeding queen is likely to have in 

 some queenless colony, prepared with many 

 young bees and much honey, when, the last 

 of September, you will raise a lot of queens 

 from your best queen-breeder; and when 

 they are about old enough to fly to meet the 

 drone, go over your colony ot drones, and 

 pick out all the smaller drones, saving only 

 the largest and best of the lot, when, if all 

 other colonies within half a mile in any di- 

 rection have killed off their drones, you will 

 be likely to get just what you want. This is 

 the way I secure my finest breeding-queens, 

 and I understand that some of the great 

 queen-breeders of the world have adopted 

 the same plan." 



