T^^ AMERICAN 



4!^^ '^l^ *^^ 

 ^» "^r -^ir 



Apiculturist. 



A Joxirnal Devoted, to Practical Beekeeping 



VOL. IX. 



APRIL, 1891. 



No. 4. 



SOME POINTS IN QUEEN-REAlUN'i. 



Tlie various branches of bee culture 

 require for success in any of them an 

 adaptabiUty. And it seems to me that 

 tlie many delicate operations required 

 in the special pursuit of queen-rearing 

 require a peculiar talent that few pos- 

 sess, and I have fully come to the con- 

 clusion that it is better for the person 

 who makes honey production his spec- 

 ialty to leave the queen-rearing business 

 in the hands of experts in that line, for 

 if the breeder is conscientious in his 

 work the race of bees he is breeding 

 will become better and better. And if 

 we are to have the coming bee it will 

 come through such a breeder instead of 

 through the one who rears queens in con- 

 nection with his other pursuit of honey 

 production. 



It seems to me that the main point 

 to be considered in the rearing of queens 

 is, first, size. A virgin queen, when it 

 first emerges from the cell, has either 

 nobleness or inferiority stamped upon 

 it, and no other than fine large queens 

 should be tolerated. And the special- 

 ist in queen breeding, if he wishes to 

 keep up his reputation, pays much at- 

 tention to this point while others let 

 many inferior queens live, with the re- 

 mark "/ ^i^ucss she will do." 



If every point is well up to the stand- 

 ard (and I wish there was a definite 

 standard as there is in the various races 

 of poultry) the queen, if the weather is 

 favorable, will fly out on a fertilization 

 trip in five days. There are instances 

 where the queen has taken this flight 

 in three days and also many in- 



stances under every beekeeper's obser- 

 vation where the fertilization has been 

 delayed even in fair weather up to ten 

 or more days. The latter queens, 

 as a rule, are the inferior queens, while 

 the earlier the flight, the higher the 

 quality of the queen. 



Another favorable point to notice is 

 the colony that has drones flying earliest 

 in the spring. A first thought might be 

 that the successful wintering of the col- 

 ony was the prime cause of early drones. 

 But behind all we have the alert queen, 

 and we would not except the queen 

 even from the successful wintering, for a 

 perfect queen will rear hardy children. 



Another point of vital interest to the 

 producer of honey is the prolificness 

 of the queen. Up to the time when 

 honey begins to come in rapidly the 

 queen should have unlimited room for 

 egg laying. The more bees the greater 

 number of tongues to lick up the nec- 

 tar ; then with our modern plans, the 

 whole force can be set to honey produc- 

 tion. 



In spite of what others may say, I 

 want a queen of the highest prolific- 

 ness. 



Then I like to observe the point of 

 longevity. A perfect queen will be as 

 prolific the third year as the second, and 

 even to the fourth year, and when a 

 honey producer advocates the re-queen- 

 ing of all his colonies the second year, 

 it seems to be an evidence of the infe- 

 riority of his system of queen-rearing 

 and of his queens. 



The drone question is still another 

 vital point in the rearing of perfect 



(49) 



