AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



17 



1. No. Some are started over drone- 

 larvie, and are of course worthless. 2. 

 There will be quite a difference in 

 queens from the same mother, reared at 

 the same time, and apparently under the 

 same conditions. This is beyond our 

 contract, and holds good in other breed- 

 ing besides that of bees. 8. It is often 

 liable to happen. — S. I. Fkeebork. 



1. All the cells started under the 

 swarming impluse do not turn out 

 equally good queens. 2. The poor ones. 

 3. It " happens " every time, as far as I 

 have had occasion to observe, and that 

 has been often. The queen honey-bee 

 is good or poor according to her devel- 

 opment, while the worker-bee is pro- 

 duced by a fixed law. — G. W. Demaree. 



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How Many Egis Does a Quean Lay? 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Picking up a newspaper not long ago, 

 I ran across this sentence: "A good, 

 proliQc queen — say one that will lay 

 100,000 eggs in a year — will play out 

 in two years." 



In another paper I find these words : 

 " The proper thing for the bee-keeper to 

 do, in order to keep his apiary in good 

 condition, is to renew his queens as 

 often as once in two years. A queen 

 whose egg-producing capacity is limited 

 to 200,000 eggs, will. If furnished the 

 proper amount of breeding-room, deposit 

 more than one-half of those eggs be- 

 tween May 1st and Oct. 1st. I know 

 from actual experience that the best of 

 any queen can be realized in the first 18 

 months of her life. I do not believe 

 that one queen in 10,000 would be 

 worth keeping the third year." 



Now I am at a loss to know the object 

 of thus writing, and fail to see any good 

 reason why some of our best apiarists 

 are recommending the supersedure of 

 all queens the second year. It seems to 



me that they have been, and are, mak- 

 ing a mistake, and one that will work 

 damage to those who are novices in the 

 business. From such assertions as the 

 above the idea seems to be gaining 

 ground that it is an actual necessity to 

 supersede all queens after the honey 

 harvest of the second year. I think this 

 a fallacy, and wish to go on record as 

 saying that good, prolific queens do not 

 need superseding in their second year, 

 and that, instead of the queen's capacity 

 being limited to 200,000 eggs, she is 

 capable of laying more than three times 

 that amount during her existence. 



To supersede queens at the age of two 

 years is quite a task, even were is neces- 

 sary ; but when we come to consider 

 that most queens are as good the third 

 year as the second, while very many 

 queens are good the fourth year, we see 

 what a waste of time it is to go through 

 all this work, simply for the reason that 

 some have taught us that we should do 

 so. Now let us look into the matter a 

 little. 



I use as small a brood-chamber as al- 

 most any one in the world, the same 

 having a capacity of about 800 square 

 inches of breeding-comb. This comb is 

 kept filled with brood from the first of 

 June to the middle of August, or 75 days. 

 As there are about 50 cells to the square 

 inch of comb, the queen must lay about 

 40,000 eggs every 21 days (that being 

 the time it takes to perfect a bee from 

 the time the egg is laid), or 142,860 

 in 75 days. Now, all good colonies 

 generally have brood as early as Feb- 

 ruary, and by taking the average in- 

 crease of eggs laid from then to June 

 first, and from the middle of August to 

 the time the queen ceases to lay in the 

 fall, which is about the first of Otcober 

 with us, we have at least 100,000 more, 

 or about 243,000 for the year. If this 

 is the case with the smallest brood- 

 chamber used, it will be seen that still 

 more would be reared in a large brood- 

 chamber of nearly double this capacity, 

 such as is recommended by the Dadants 

 and others. 



Along in the '70's I made some large 

 hives on the plan of what was known as 

 the Adair "long idea" hive, making 

 them four feet long. Into one of these 

 I put a colony early in the season, they 

 having a queen in her third year. She 

 was worked to the best of my ability 

 until she had ten Gallup frames literally 

 full of brood. I now thought that she 

 would be content, so that she would not 

 breed in those which I put in for honey. 

 In this I was mistaken, for soon after I 



