182 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



March 22, 1900. 



ready to produce comb or other honey. Stock-raiser.s of all 

 .sorts, if they are up in their business, when buying, inves- 

 tigate the pedigree. I think the time will come when we 

 will investigate more closely. 



H. Rauchfuss — It is not all in prolificness. There is 

 more in longevity of the bees. I have noticed many colo- 

 nies with a scarcitj' of brood and an abundance of bees, 

 and others the reverse. We have bred from the former with 

 excellent success. Another item is that they should not be 

 inclined to swarm. I had one colony so weak that the most 

 brood they had could have been put in five frames. That 

 colony was on scales, and outstript any colony in the yard. 

 It has done so for six years. Once it gathered 18 pounds of 

 honey in one day and stored it in extracting-combs. Then, 

 I have found a weak colony in the spring and thought I 

 would kill the queen, but instead have given her to a queen- 

 less strong colony, and it was astonishing how much brood 

 thej' would have. Still, if I had left that queen there, next 

 spring her colony would have been weak again, as the fault 

 was in the wintering of her bees. I have reared queens 

 from that queen, which did not winter well, and then 

 selected again with reference to wintering, with good suc- 

 cess. I don't care whether queens are hybrids or not. I 

 have had big-priced queens that didn't winter well, tho they 

 had lots of brood. 



Mr. Harris — Supposing we have prolific queens of that 

 long-lived stock — are we not on the right track ? 



Mr. Root — We had what we called a red-clover queen. 

 Her colony gave two or three times as much honey as the 

 others. As robbers they excelled all, and were hardy. We 

 kept her four years. Her daughters almost duplicated her, 

 but we haven't found her equal. Mr. Doolittle got one of 

 her queens that he thinks remarkable. Very recently we 

 had an order for a S2S queen, and we had to explain that we 

 did not have such a queen in stock. Then the man wanted 

 a $10 queen, but we had none. I have offered $100 for a 

 queen, and the result of that offer has been that a good 

 many have discovered good points in their queens. We 

 succeeded in getting a queen from Mr. Alley, which he said 

 was remarkable, and in the summer he wanted her again, 

 and we let her go. We found out afterward by her progeny 

 that she was remarkable. The tendency has been to pro- 

 duce flve-banded bees, and it is very easy to do so by select- 

 ing with reference to color. I think now the tendency is 

 toward business qualities. I don't know that bee-keepers 

 would care much for hybrid queens. One difficulty about a 

 $100 queen is that she will be old before she can be found 

 out, and it is hard to get daughters that will turn out in the 

 same way. A good practice is to give drone-comb to a 

 drone-laying queen whose record has been good. We think 

 we have a little fortune when we have such a queen. A 

 great many queens are not good after journeying thru the 

 mails. That is one trouble with imported queens. I would 

 urge bee-keepers to rear their own queens. 



F. Rauchfuss — Is it your experience that the majority 

 of queen-breeders are also honey-producers ? 



Mr. Root — Generally honey is a side-issue with queen- 

 breeders, and often not even a side-issue. 



F. Rauchfuss — I think we should place our orders with 

 those who pay some attention to the honey-producing 

 • qualities of their bees. 



H. Rauchfuss — I would send a queen to a queen-breeder 

 to breed from. 



Mr. Root — Why not requeen your own apiary with 

 queens of your own rearing ? 



H. Rauchfuss — I can make more money producing 

 honey than in rearing queens, as the springs are late, and 

 we need all the bees to build up. 



Mr. Porter — Perhaps the queens reared elsewhere are 

 not used to handling large crops, and it might be better in 

 the long run to rear our own queens partl3' I 



Mr. Cornelius — I wish to ask Mr. Root if he rears queens 

 by the Doolittle method ? . 



Mr. Root — Yes. We take advantage of the swarming- 

 impulse. 



H. Rauchfuss — That is just why we can't rear our own 

 queens in any quantity. The swarms come too late. 



Mr. Root— Feed. 



H. Rauchfuss — We can't feed to bring on the swarm- 

 ing-impulse here. We often have snow in May, and I have 

 seen frost in June. 



Mr. Root — Locality again. What do you consider the 

 best time to requeen ? 



H. Rauchfuss — I like the queen to begin laying at the 

 beginning of the flow. I have reared some queens myself, 

 and find that the best time. 



Mr. Martin — Has any one brought out different quali- 

 ties of capping the combs ? 



H. Rauchfuss — When I raise up the oil-cloth and see 

 wax instead of propolis, I mark that colony a wax-producer. 

 I have a number so markt. That is all the guide I need. 

 Those that produce plenty of wax gather the honey. They 

 need plent)' of honey to produce the wax. As a rule, they 

 also produce whiter comb, because they don't gather much 

 propolis. 



Mr. Cornelius — I think Mr. Martin refers to the fault 

 of bringing the cappings close to the honey. 



H. Rauchfuss — I have one such colony. But usually in 

 rearing queens from such wax-producing colonies, that 

 problem solves itself, as they do not cap their combs that 

 way. 



Pres. Aikin — In the 70's I was located where I got only 

 fall honey, coming the last half of August and in Septem- 

 ber. I had all summer to get the colonies bred up. I almost 

 felt like saying I had a non-swarming strain of bees. But 

 white clover had been increasing, with a little basswood, 

 and then I had lots of trouble with swarming. Swarming 

 depends so upon the conditions, that I have always taken 

 accounts of non-swarming bees with a grain of salt. And 

 so it is with other characteristics. One may have a good 

 queen, and she may have weak progenj'. One may have a 

 good queen, but her hive was subjected to different condi- 

 tions, and consequently her bees did not winter well. She 

 may be the best queen. Many of the best queens are sacri- 

 ficed because of peculiar conditions. I am not combating 

 the ideas advanced. But there is a tendency to drop into a 

 particular line. Select a vigorous queen, and then don't 

 discard a good queen because conditions don't favor her. 

 Ordinarily I prefer to rear my own queens. It is not all in 

 the queen, and not all in the conditions. Don't run wild 

 over the idea you can just get a good queen and then get 

 everything. 



Mr. Martin — I have noticed a few colonies year after 

 year that were not satisfactorj- for comb honey. 



Pres. Aikin — Suppose one queen has laid freely at a 

 time when she will have bees hatcht at the right time to 

 take advantage of the flow, and the colony of another 

 queen has just as many bees at that time, but )-ounger; 

 which queen is better ? Twenty years ago I had a colony 

 whose queen failed in the spring. I introduced a queen- 

 cell and gave brood, but it was hard to get them requeened, 

 and I lost two or three queens before I succeeded. That 

 colony, when the flow was on, was queenless, and had few 

 bees. But it was never hopelesslj- queenless, and the bees 

 were old. They had nothing to do but to gather honey, 

 and they did well. 



Mr. Root — I realize that a queen should be judged by 

 the performance of her daughters under various conditions. 

 Then we get a stock that is ahead. 



H. Rauchfuss — I requeened all of one row of hives with 

 the progeny of one queen. They all wintered well, and not 

 one of them gave less than four supers of honey. Other 

 rows did not do so well. It was because all that row were 

 daughters of a good queen. 



iConcluded next week.) 



The "Old Reliable" seen thru New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. HASTY, Richards, Ohio. 



TWO BAD YEARS TOGETHER SPOIL QUEENS. 



J. W. George, page 76, may be right, that two bad, idle 

 years, with no surplus and no swarming, spoils all the 

 queens, but somehow I doubt it a little. If the queens were 

 kept sufficiently idle, and sufficiently comfortable, they'd 

 last seven years, I believe — and be serviceable to some ex- 

 tent the sixth year. (Don't you risk any money on it.) 



UNCLE FRANK AND HIS "FAITH CURE." 



Uncle Frank, it's a new sort of faith cure that you are 

 treating us to, page 77 — and a real nice kind. You have all 

 the faith, and all the " animiles " get well. Please, Uncle, 

 enlarge your business a little ; and next time I get to peel- 



