GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Conversations vs^ith Doolittle 



At Borodino, New York. 



LONGEVITY OF QUEENS. 



" Am I right in thinking that all improve- 

 ment in bees must eome more largely 

 through the queen than otherwise, inasmuch 

 as one can have no certain control of the 

 drone? and in order to be sure of being on 

 the right track when working for long- 

 lived bees, should not the mother of these 

 bees be long-lived also ? " 



" Yes, I think so." 



" But if this is the case, how does it hap- 

 pen that nearly every queen-breeder as well 

 as the majority of our most prominent bee- 

 keepers advocate that no queen be allowed 

 to live more than two years? Many are 

 advocating the supersedure of all queens at 

 the close of the honey-harvest after their 

 first year's work." 



" This is something Avliich has puzzled me 

 as' well as you ; and I never could see how 

 any great improvement of stock wovild result 

 in any apiary where new queens are reared 

 each year or two to supersede all those rear- 

 ed one or two j'ears before. I have noticed 

 many times that such colonies as kept the 

 hive populous during the summer months 

 with brood to the amount of onlj? five or 

 six Langstroth frames full, and stored the 

 most honey, always had queens which lived, 

 when the apiarist allowed them to do so, to 

 a good old age. But the trouble has been 

 that most beekeepers have had prolific 

 queens so drilled into them that no queen 

 that will not produce brood in excess of tlais 

 is not allowed to pass her second winter. 

 And because of this, the goose wliich laid 

 the golden egg has no chance to prove her 

 superiority above the rest. Queens which 

 live to be four or five years old give to us 

 our starting-point when breeding for the 

 bees which make the greatest amount of 

 honey with the least expenditure in bee 

 force and brood-rearing. Much honey is 

 used by scrub colonies in rearing a multi- 

 tude of larv« from queens whose average 

 usefulness does not exceed a year and a 

 lialf or two years. And these long-lived 

 valuable queens, with hardly an average 

 amount of brood, are the ones sure to be 

 killed by the beekeeper who tells v^s that, if 

 we would have the best results in hives full 

 of brood, all queens must be superseded 

 after their first or second year of laying." 



" But would you recommend rearing 

 queens for the improvement of stock from 

 a mother which is four or five years old ? " 



" In regard to rearing queens from such 

 an old queen, I do not claim that a queen 

 is better at that advanced age than she is 



when younger. Only this: I am not sure, 

 at a younger age, that she possesses the de- 

 sired longevity. Where any queen from a 

 long-lived strain of excellent workers has 

 lived to an age of five years I expect that 

 her posterity, both workers and queens, will 

 be remarkable for longevity as well. 



" A good guess can be given regarding 

 what young queens will prove to be as to 

 lengih or shortness of life in two ways. 

 First, if during the first half of the first 

 month of May in which a young queen 

 lays it is found that the colony of a young 

 queen is building up while others are dwin- 

 clling (all colonies, of course, having had 

 the same protection and stores during the 

 winter, and being equally strong at the be- 

 ginning of the season), then one would not 

 be far out of the way if he concluded that 

 tiiose building up have queens and bees with 

 a promise of long life, while the others do 

 not have queens fit to become breeders. 



" Second, after a young queen begins to 

 lay in a full colony, and after the swarming 

 season is over, if a frame is put in such a 

 colony having a starter of worker eoinb 

 foundation in it, then, if the frame is filled 

 with worker comb, I consider this queen 

 worthy of further testing. If drone comb 

 is built I do not expect much from her be- 

 yond the first or second year." 



" But don't you think that there are other 

 influences which tend toward longevity?" 



" Surely I do. But, as I hinted before, 

 the queen mother is the starting-point. The 

 worker larvje as well as the queen larvae 

 must be properly fed. Undoubtedly you 

 have noticed that some larvae as soon as 

 hatched are fed much better in some colo- 

 nies than they are in others. I have seen 

 larvae in the colonies of my best queens 

 which were fed so abundantly that one 

 might supjjose that royal jelly was being 

 given them. They actually floated in their 

 creamy food until almost, if not quite, the 

 foui'th day. Other colonies are fed so spar- 

 ingly that it requires microscopic vision to 

 see that there is any food in the cells for 

 the little six to twenty-hour-old larvae to 

 eat. It is needless for me to say that I do 

 not consider these underfed larvae fit to use 

 under any circumstances for queen-rearing. 

 Queens which will live four or five years 

 can not be reared from such larvfe. Where 

 such are nursed as queens (by a change of 

 bees or difi^erent surroundings), their life 

 is so restricted that from six months to a 

 year is sufficient to find the bees themselves 

 superseding them for sometliing better." 



