1896. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



773 



aim to produce some extracted honey. I usually have a few 

 colonies, including nuclei, in which the young queen has gone 

 to laying, that cannot conveniently be made strong enough to 

 go into empty supers by si?nply filling up the brood-chamber 

 with brood and the few adhering bees. So I add an upper 

 story, generally putting a queen-excluder between, and fill it 

 up with these combs. As the bees in this upper story hatch 

 out, the combs are filed with honey, and in time I have a 

 whole set of frames full of honey to extract. I am not always 

 particular when practicing this system to take bees enough 

 along to care for the eggs and unsealed larva;. Bees hatching 

 from such brood are of little or no use usually during the early 

 honey harvest, and only become consumers during the long 

 dearth of summer. 



I said that I did not practice removing the brood to pre- 

 vent swarming very much. In fact, I have usually allowed 

 my bees to swarm, and disposed of the brood and remaining 

 bees in the ways I have described above. For the last three 

 years I have had almost no swarming on account of the poor 

 honey seasons. I expect to try to prevent swarming when a 

 season comes that bees will swarm, but I aim to practice 

 chiefly the shifting device, as described in my article in the 

 American Bee Journal for April t), 1896. 



Sangamon Co., 111. 



Queen Fertilization in Confinement. 



BY JOHN ATKINSON. 



During the year 1878, there appeared in the American 

 Bee Journal seven different articles on " Fertilization in Con- 

 finement," as it was called, some claiming to have succeeded 

 in having queens fertilized by selected drones, and others de- 

 scribing experiments or accidents which seemed to convince 

 them that this much-desired object could be accomplished. 



I quit keeping bees and subscribing for bee-periodicals 

 soon after that time, and have not taken any bee-paper since, 

 until recently, when I again subscribed for the " Old Re- 

 liable." I supposed that this object had been accomplished 

 by some of our progressive apiarists long ago, but when I got 

 Doolittle's book on " Scientific Queen-Rearing " — which I see 

 was published in 1889 — I find that it had not only not been 

 accomplished at that time, but that Mr. Doolittle did not be- 

 lieve that those who claimed to have been successful were 

 really so, but had been mistaken. And Mr. Doolittle shows 

 his appreciation of the great benefits to be derived from it, and 

 also his belief that it can't be done, by saying, " I would will- 

 ingly give $500 for a plan by which I could mate the queens 

 I rear to selected drones as I wish, and do this with the same 

 ease and assurance that our other work about the apiary is 

 carried on." (Page 105, "Scientific Queen-Rearing.") 



Also, Mr. R. M. Argo says (page 02, American Bee Jour- 

 nal for February, 1879) : "But if the thing is possible, the 

 man who discovers a safe and reliable method of controlling 

 the impregnation of queens with select drones will confer as 

 great a benefit to bee-keepers as Langstroth did in the inven- 

 tion of movable frames, and should have a gold medal awarded 

 him, also one dollar by every bee-keeper in the United States, 

 even if there are 50,000 of them." 



Now, it seems to me that the different races of bees can 

 never be kept absolutely pure, nor judicious crosses made, un- 

 less the apiarist can have absolute control of the selection of 

 the male, as well as the female, progenitors of the " coming 

 bee." 



If in any back numbers of the Bee Journal of a later date 

 than March, 1879, there has been any information on this 

 question, I should like to know it; also, I wish to know if any 

 more experiments have been made, on what lines they were 

 conducted, whether they were successful, partially so, or un- 

 successful, as I propose to make some experiments in this 

 direction during the season of 1897. 



I should like to have this question ventilated in the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal during the coming winter months, to see 

 what the "old timers," such as Doolittle, Prof. Cook, Dr. 

 Miller, the Dadants, etc., think of it. 



Crow Wing Co., Minn. 



Sometliing About the Rearing of Queens. 



BY DR. E. GALLUP. 



On page 662, Dr. Miller is puzzled and " dont know." It 

 may be that I don't know. In olden times, when we used to 

 rear queens haphazard, and from larva; several days old, lots 

 and slathers of them would come up missing just in that man- 

 ner. The second season that I was in this State, I received in 



the spring two queens imported late the fall previous. I in- 

 troduced them successfully, and in some 16 or 18 days I went 

 to get eggs for queen-rearing, and found both queens missing. 

 Some six days previous I had taken eggs from both colonies, 

 for queen-rearing purposes. The queens cost $10 each. Both 

 queens were what I call "stubtails ;" that is, queens reared 

 from larvse too far advanced, do not have long, pointed, and 

 tapering abdomens as they ought. Some of my queens re- 

 ceived this season were of that class, and I never expect such 

 queens to be long-lived. If they last until spring I shall 

 supersede them early, as they almost invariably peter out sud- 

 denly, similar to the correspondent's queens. 



Years ago, when Mr. "Wagner edited the American Bee 

 Journal, I had quite a confab with one correspondent on that 

 subject. W. L. does not mention how or under what condi- 

 tions his three queens were reared, but I strongly suspect 

 they were what I call " forced queens," or reared under un- 

 natural conditions. 



When I first began rearing queens, and not understanding 

 the above-mentioned kink, I succeeded in losing over one-half 

 of my queens. They die suddenly, the same as a worker with 

 old age, as it were, and and in many cases the bees make no 

 preparations for supersedure. 



The correspondent says they seemed in a natural condi- 

 tion in early spring, but he does not even seem to know 

 whether they were or not. Now, providing they died in early 

 spring, before there were drones, it would leave the colonies 

 in the condition he mentions, either with unimpregnated 

 queens or laying workers. 



And now, while on the subject of queens, a correspondent 

 asks why 50-cent queens are not as good as higher-priced 

 ones. lean see no earthly reason " why," if a breeder sees 

 fit to rear queens for 50 cents, they should not be just as 

 good, providing they are reared under the proper conditions. 



Another correspondent wants to know what proportion of 

 untested queens will prove satisfactory. Now, if a queen- 

 breeder is thoroughly established in the business, and keeps 

 all impure drones out of his apiary, by far the largest propor- 

 tion will be purely mated. In one dozen received the past 

 season, only one proved impurely impregnated; that is, judg- 

 ing by their worker progeny. Of course, queen-breeders them- 

 selves can afford to pay fancy prices for a superior queen. 

 Yet I cannot see the necessity of us understrappers going to 

 the extra expense, unless to gratify our own fancy. 



Orange Co., Calif., Oct. 19. 



Purity vs. Good Workers in Bees. 



BY Q. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Question. — Is not purity of stock the greatest essential 

 in bees ? 



Answer. — Much has been said in the years that are past 

 about a standard of purity for our bees ; and some of us have 

 often been led to ask ourselves the question, "Can we adopt a 

 standard of purity that will always secure to us the best 

 working qualities in our bees ?" We can see that it would be 

 easy for those who follow nothing but queen-breeding as a 

 business to adopt a standard of purity, or secure something 

 which would be called " thoroughbred," at least ; but for the 

 rank and file of honey-producers to adopt the same standard 

 would be quite another thing. The workers from different 

 queens of the same color and general appearance show a vast 

 difference as to working qualities— at least, such is my ex- 

 perience. 



In the spring of 1877, while changing a colony from one 

 hive to another, I noticed a fine-looking orange-colored queen, 

 with the workers all well marked. A neighbor, who kept 

 several colonies of bees, was present, and remarked that he 

 would prefer a darker-colored queen for business, and I 

 agreed with his decision. No further notice was taken of the 

 colony than of others till about June 25, when the bees were 

 nearly through swarming. This one had not swarmed, but 

 had 60 pounds of section honey nearly ready to come off. 

 July 3 they gave a flue swarm which was hived. Although 

 the parent colony had none of its queen-cells cut, it never 

 offered to swarm again ; and the result, at the end of the sea- 

 son, was 195 founds of section honey from the parent, and 

 114 pounds from the swarm, or 809 pounds from the old col- 

 ony in the spring. The queen reared in the old hive was very 

 much like her mother, and both colonies wintered with the 

 loss of but very few bees, and consumed comparatively little 

 honey, according to many others. 



The next season they showed the same disposition not to 

 swarm till late; and from the colony with the old queen I ob- 

 tained 151 pounds of section honey, while there were but few 



