Vol. XIII 



APRIL, 1903 



No. 4 



Successful Queen=Rearing. 



(Arthur C. Miller). 



IX THE BEE-KEEPER for Febru- 

 ary, Mr. Atwater in referring to 

 the cell cup plan of queen rearing 

 says: "Mr. Alley and 'his armed 

 knight' (A. C. M.) cannot alter the 

 fact that queens properly reared by the 

 cell cup plan are as good as any." Tha,t 

 word "properly" tells the story. In 

 the same issue Mr. Harris says "Queen 

 rearing has not been so generally dis- 

 cussed by the main body of queen 

 breeders as might have been expected." 

 If we may judge from what some of 

 them have said they evidently know lit- 

 tle of the laws governing it. 



It is exceedingly difficult to get into 

 the short space of a magazine article 

 all things appertaining to the writer's 

 view of the subject under consideration 

 and I now see wherein I have led oth- 

 ers astray as to my views on queen 

 rearing. I was writing chiefly for the 

 benefit of the novice and the busy man, 

 not for the professional queen raiser. 

 The latter as a rule keeps his methods 

 out of print and also he sticks to his 

 accustomed way in preference to new 

 ones. I will agree with Mr. Atwater 

 that queens when "properly" reared 

 in cell cups are as good as any. My 

 contention is that a great mass of the 

 bee-keepers have neither the knowl- 

 edge of what is proper nor the ability 

 and patience necessary ,to make a suc- 

 cess of that plan, and that for another 

 large class it calls for too much time 

 and bother. I have used it enough to 

 know, and I have used about every 

 known plan, and for simplicity, econ- 



omy and speed nothing is ahead of the 

 Alley plan. Unfortunately Mr. Alley's 

 firs.t book was not as lucid as desirable 

 and it was to make his system more 

 plain that I undertook writing about 

 it. To be sure of my ground I visited 

 his apiary several times, and this, to- 

 gether with my own experience of 

 many years seems a fair basis for rea- 

 sonably accurate judgment. I have 

 studied bee-keeping bo.th here and on 

 the Pacific slope and from Maine to 

 South Carolina, so I am not entirely 

 ignorant of conditions of different lo- 

 calities. 



In what follows I shall endeavor to 

 show the WHY of things, not simply 

 the methods, and to r.void misunder- 

 standing let it be mted that I am 

 not ?ssailing thr: cell cu]- plan for those 

 who have the skill ano time to use it; 

 ni'- warning ag^in?: it being for those 

 who look upon it as a sure source of 

 ;;"ti\ct queens ;ust because "cell cups" 

 are used. It would perhaps surprise 

 Mr. Atwater to know how many per- 

 sons so view it. Farther let me .say 

 that I am under no obligation to Mr. 

 Alley, nor do I in any Vvay receive 

 compensation from him. 



I believe it is generally conceded 

 that the best queens are ordinarily 

 reared at that season ot the year when 

 increase (swarming) usually occurs, 

 and certainly they are more easily 

 reared then. There must he a reason 

 for this, and if we can find it, it will 

 materially assist us in so shaping our 

 methods when rearing queens "out of 

 season" as to mos,t nearly approach the 

 normal conditions. At "swarming 

 time" colonies are overflowing with 



