812 



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QUEENS. 



Several Criticisms Ansivercd on 

 Rearing Queens. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



I notice by the bee-papers, that Dr. 

 G. L. Tinker and others claim that the 

 plan I gave in my book, of having 

 queens fertilized above a queen-exclud- 

 ing honey-board, is not practical. In 

 regard to this, all I have to say is, that 

 it proves a success with me when used 

 as I have given in the Appendix to the 

 book, and I consider it entirely practi- 

 cal in this locality. 



In oi-der that the reader may judge 

 whether I know what " practical" 

 work is or not, along this line, I will 

 give the working of the plan with one 

 colony, which is only a sample of num- 

 bers worked in the same way : 



When the colony was strong enough 

 to occupy a second stoi-y, the brood in 

 the lower story was contracted by tak- 

 ing out two frames in the egg and 

 larval form, and the other combs of 

 honey and pollen, and putting in two 

 division-boards, or dummies, one on 

 either side, in place of the so taken out 

 combs, thus leaving 7 frames of brood 

 below. The upper story was then put 

 on, after putting on the queen-excluder, 

 and contracted to six combs, two of 

 which were those containing the eggs 

 and larvas taken from below, and the 

 others were the combs partly or en- 

 tirely filled with honey, together with 

 one "empty comb taken from the shop. 

 This gave the colony 13 combs instead 

 of the 12 occupied before. 



The next day they were given a 

 frame of prepared queen-cells between 

 these two frames of brood, and as the 

 honey was coming in quite freely, more 

 combs were given at each side as was 

 needed, so that when it was time for 

 the queen-colls to hatch, the upper 

 story contained all the combs that it 

 would hold, all of which had more or 

 less honey in them, and were well 

 covered with bees. 



At this time, one comb of honey was 

 taken out. so as to make room for the 

 two queen-excluding division-boards, 

 which were slipped down in the 

 grooves made for them. The two 

 combs containing the now sealed brood 

 were placed over behind the excluders, 

 one on either side, with one of the 

 nearly-mature queen-cells on each, 

 wliile a frame of honey still remained 

 in this apartment. At this time the 

 other mature queen-cells were used, 

 two more frames of eggs and larvre put 

 ill the place of two frames of honey 



taken away, and another lot of pre- 

 pared cells placed between them, as at- 

 first, and thus the colony was kept 

 rearing queens all the season in this 

 central apartment. 



The next day there was a queen in 

 each end of the hive where the cells had 

 been placed, while in three or four 

 days more the holes in the side of the 

 hive through which these virgin queens 

 were to pass out to meet the drones, 

 were opened, and left so till the tenth 

 day, when an examination showed 

 two laying queens. These were then 

 taken out and sent oif, and two more 

 nearl3'-mature cells put in their places. 

 Meantime the queen below was keep- 

 ing every available cell occupied with 

 brood, and as I took the two frames 

 of eggs and larvse from the other hives 

 to use above after the first, the colony 

 was rapidly getting stronger. 



About the time the third lot of queens 

 hatched, the colony swarmed, sending 

 out a very large swarm, which was 

 hived in a separate hive. 



The operations with the old hive 

 was continued I'ight along just the 

 same as before, except that for about 

 two weeks I did not place any prepared 

 frames of queen-cells above, on account 

 of there being too few bees in the hive 

 to rear the best of queens. In due 

 time the young queen which hatched 

 from cells left below after swarming, 

 became fertilized, and filled the lower 

 hive with brood, just the same as she 

 would have done had there not been 

 any virgin or laying queens above, as 

 the case might be. If my memory 

 serves me rightly, I sold 14 queens 

 from the upper story of this hive, took 

 much extracted honey, or honey in the 

 frames, and in the fall had 2 good col- 

 onies for winter. 



I relate this, not only to show that 

 the thing is practical, but also to con- 

 tradict the statement which has gone 

 out, that young queens can only be so 

 fertilized where there is an old or fail- 

 ing queen below. The queen that 

 went out with the swarm was one of 

 my best queens, reared the season be- 

 fore, while no one will say that the 

 last one was an old or failing queen. 

 I said in the start, that this one was 

 onlj' a sample of others, but I will 

 modif}^ it by saying that none of the 

 others worked for queens in the above 

 way swarmed, otlierwise the others 

 were the same, and none of them had 

 their queens superseded, thus showing 

 tliat none were " failing." 



Mr. Pratt, and others, seem to think 

 that tliey must make colonies queenless 

 or use queenless bees to start queen-cells 

 for good queens to be reai'ed. After the 

 cells have been in these queenless 

 colonies two or thi'ce days, the partlj-- 

 finished queen-cells are then given to 

 the bees in the upper stories to finish. 



After carefully testing this matter for 

 several years, I consider this a waste 

 of time, and, worse still, for queenless 

 bees will not rear as good queens as 

 will those that rear queens while the 

 old queen is still present in the hive. 



The claim is made that the larva; 

 are neglected when placed above, which 

 may be so when no precaution is used 

 by way of contracting the brood-cham- 

 ber below, or having too much room 

 for the size of the colony, but when 

 fixed a's I have given above, there are 

 as many young bees above, around the 

 the queen-cells, as in any part of the 

 hive. I say "young bees," — by this 

 I mean such bees as feed the larvie, 

 build comb, etc., and not the white, 

 fuzzy ones which are just hatched, and 

 perform no part of these operations, 

 no matter where they are. When 

 honey is not coming in, the colony 

 I'caring queens is always fed, for bees 

 do not rear really good queens, under 

 any circumstances, where no sweets 

 are to be carried from fields or feeder. 



Lastly, I have read Mr. Alley's arti- 

 cle, on page 74-1, and care to notice 

 only two items in it, being perfectly 

 willing to leave the matter to the 

 readers for decision, and for them to 

 adopt whatever plan they desire for 

 rearing queens. 



The items alluded to, are, first, where 

 he refers to the making of the cell-cups 

 as being "fussy," and says that the 

 labor of using his method " can be 

 performed in less than one-half the 

 time required to make the artificial 

 cell-cups." While no one that has used 

 the two methods will believe any such 

 statement (but for the sake of argu- 

 ment, let that be admitted), yet no one 

 of reasonable mind would throw away 

 the cell-cups on that account, for by 

 their use tlie cells can be handled, af- 

 ter they are built, with perfect safety 

 by the most inexperienced ; and can 

 be taken from where they are built, 

 and placed in nuclei, in less than one- 

 half the time than those built out from 

 comb. Thus we gain all the time lost, 

 and handle the cells with a safety 

 which secures success every time, even 

 in the hands of those who have only a 

 few bees, and little or no experience ; 

 the latter being the class for whom my 

 book was intended, as well as for the 

 professional queen-breeder. 



The second item is where Mr. 

 Alley seeks to convey the impression 

 that I rear, or recommend rearing, 

 queens in an upper story where there 

 is " no brood," but where there are 

 " diy combs and old bees." 



On page (52 of my book, these words 

 are found : "I raised two frames of 

 brood (mostly in the larval form) 

 above, so as to get as large a force of 

 nurse-bees about the prepared cells as 

 possible, to properly feed the queen- 



