94 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



April 



bees; young bees (nurses) are super- 

 abundant; combs are loaded with 

 stores of honey and pollen; field bees 

 are busy bringing in more, and tem- 

 perature and humidity are high. These 

 two latter items should receive special 

 attention, and I cannot do better than 

 quote from Cowan's "Honey Bee." On 

 page 60, quoting Newport, he says 

 "the temperature of the brood nest in 

 the swarming season averages 96 de- 

 grees, while in August it is seldom 

 over 80 degrees or perhaps 86 degrees, 

 even in the middle of the day when out- 

 er temperature is often more than 78 

 degrees. He then proceeds to give the 

 scientific reasons therefor. At swarm- 

 ing time the air of the hive is saturat- 

 ed with moisture, a matter almos,t 

 never alluded to as a requisite for suc- 

 cessful queen rearing, whereas it is one 

 of the essentials. 



It is due to such causes as above 

 that Dr. Gallup's "rousing colonies" 

 produce fine queens, not to any sup- 

 posed "umbilical cord," the latter being 

 merely the last "cast" of the larva 

 with its silken attachments. 



Stating the essentials another way, 

 they are, sufficient nurse bees, eggs or 

 larvae under three days from the egg, 

 and food. Sufficient nurses may be ex- 

 t)lained as enough to fill the chamber 

 in which they are ,to build the cells. 

 These nurses must be young bees and 

 under the customary artificial condi- 

 tions the presence of old bees is a detri- 

 ment, particularlv so during a dearth 

 of natural pasturage, as they are too 

 fond of "pap." 



Young bees are the sine qua non of 

 successful queen rearing, without .them 

 it is impossible to rear good queens. 

 Here is an illustration: Last summer 

 I took a hive containing ten Lang- 

 stroth combs, some four or five of 

 which were filled with honey and pol- 

 len, packed it with field bees from the 

 best cell building stock I had, o-ave 

 them eggs from a queen of the first 

 grade, and to make the conditions still 

 more favorable I kept them supplied 

 with syrup even though nectar was be- 

 ing gathered. They built seven fine 

 great cells, but no,t one queen of the 

 lot was worth the trouble of killing. 

 This is negative evidence. The positive 

 side is well shown by the Alley nuclei. 

 Here are little colonies in hives of 

 about five inches cube; they are over- 



flowing with young bees, few or no 

 old bees are present. They are never 

 without food in the feeder, the open- 

 ing of which is within the hive, and 

 thus aids in maintaining a humid at- 

 mosphere. These colonies are used 

 for caring for young queens until they 

 are laying and sold. Sometimes the 

 replacing of a queen is overlooked 

 and then they proceed to raise one for 

 themselves, building one, two or some- 

 times three cells. The conditions are 

 practically normal, i. e. the hive is 

 packed with bees; they can and do 

 maintain a high temperature and hu- 

 midity; food is plenty and the larvae 

 are well fed. The resulting queens are 

 as good as can be desired. I have seen 

 a queen thus reared the mother of just 

 such a rousing colony as Dr. Gallup 

 claims is necessary to produce a queen 

 capable of making and keeping it big. 



The second essential, i. e. eggs or 

 larvae under three days from the egg, 

 is too well known to need explanation. 



The third condition, i. e. food, is all 

 too often forgotten, particularl)^ ,the 

 pollen part. It should receive special 

 care. 



Given a nurse force of young bees 

 proportionate to size of chamber and 

 season of year (climatic conditions.) 

 with abundance of food, and the tem- 

 perature and humidity will (within cer- 

 tain limits) take care of themselves. 



From experiments I am satisfied that 

 very few bees can feed a comparatively 

 large number of larvae, so that a large 

 nurse force is of value chiefly for its 

 heat producing power. If the law of 

 higher temperature of young animals 

 than old ones applies ,to bees as well 

 as to higher organizations we can read- 

 ily see another advantage of a nurse 

 force of young bees, and also we have 

 further light on the cause of the high- 

 er temperature of the brood nest at 

 swarming time than at others. 



The absolute need of young nurse 

 bees has been decided upon by Mr. 

 Simpson, Mr. Pratt, Mr. Alley and my- 

 self, each independently of the other. 

 But I am of the opinion and Mr. Simp- 

 son concurs with me in it. that the 

 more nearly we approach the normal 

 conditions (i. e. full colony at swarm- 

 ing time) the more vmiformly success- 

 ful we will be in producing serviceable 

 queens. The beginner and small bee- 

 keeper had better depend for cells on 



