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THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



all these queens, especially those from 

 old larvae were very short-lived. It is, 

 of course, not the small cell which causes 

 the small queen, but these small and 

 weak colonies sometimes used for queen 

 rearing build these small and smooth cells 

 and just in these colonies we have not 

 sufficient royal-jelly nor is the tempera- 

 ture high enough to raise good queens. 



In this respect it seems worthy of 

 consideration, as Dr. Dzierzon said, 

 that the kind of honey and pollen used 

 by the bees for royal-jelly is an impor- 

 tant foctor to raise good queens. We 

 know by practical experience that feed- 

 ing a colony, which is raising queen- 

 cells has some good effect, merely by 

 forcing the bees to some excitement 

 and so cause a higher temperature. It 

 will be of more importance, that the 

 bees have fresh and healthy pollen in 

 easy reach and in abundance. Prob- 

 ably some artificial food of albuminous 

 matter, for instance eggs mixed with 

 honey, would be of some value to raise 

 larger and better queens. 



Some other points I leave to discus s 

 at other times. 



L. Stachelhausen. 



Selma^ Texas. 



W. Vogel is wrong in liis stntcment that bees 

 will veniove mii egg IVom a cell-cuii or that the bees 

 will not biiilil acell-cai) aroundan egg. Bees that 

 swarm natiii'allv always buihl a cellca)) around 

 an egg, ami in all cases roar queens iVoni the egg. 



II eggs alone are given to bees just made queen- 

 less, a majority of the eggs will be destroyed. 

 Queens reared in our apiary aie obliged to start 

 the cell Irom an egg.— Ed.] 



TO DR. C. C. MILLER. 



"Larger bees are advocated in the Apt in the 

 belief, that doubling the size of the bee, will double 

 the distance it will travel. Does a crow flv any 

 lurther or laster than a blackbird." C. C. Miller. 



The Doctor seems not \.o"Kakh on'' 

 to my drift. I really was not driving to 

 Nasby's idea of crossing the Italian 

 queen bee with the Plymouth Rock 

 rooster, expecting to get the coming 

 hen, to lay 3000 or more eggs per day, 

 I might as fairly retort on the Doctor 

 by quoting from him on page 59, April 

 Api, viz : "A queen of extra value as an 

 imported queen, etc.," as though the act 

 of importing, improved a queen any : 

 if so send her back, and give her another 



sea voyage, repeat the dose, until we get 

 the queen of the future. If I were breed- 

 ing crows I would try by careful selec- 

 tion of botJi parents, careful attention 

 to their physical wants, etc., to j)roduce 

 young crows (not bumble bees), that 

 could when necessary fly farther, faster 

 and with longer enduring power than 

 their parents {croius) who were bred 

 in a haphazard manner ; should not ex- 

 pect them to fly faster than a flash of 

 the morning light, or even a "blackbird !" 

 Further, I do believe that by care and 

 skill in selecting our queens and close 

 attention to the conditions necessary 

 for the reproduction of young, such as 

 plentiful feeding, and new brood combs 

 made by the bees, and renewed each year, 

 oftener if I could, we shall approach 

 the time, when all the drones will be in 

 pnme physical condition to mate our 

 young queens, and that by following 

 this method we may look for a larger 

 worker bee in the near future. The 

 fact that the present Italian bee travels 

 farther and faster and gathers more 

 honey than the common small black bee, 

 and that their size is what enables them 

 to do so, demonstrates that this is the 

 road to follow. 



Double the size of the worker bee, 

 if we can increase their size by only a 

 trifle, and that trifle, on the end of his 

 proboscis ; then the red clover is at cur 

 command and that means all over New 

 England, more than double our honey 

 crop. 



I have attempted in my crude way to 

 draw attention to the want of a larger, 

 stronger, faster-flying worker bee, one 

 possessed of greater endurance, able to 

 go farther in the hunt for honey, with 

 a longer proboscis, etc., and have given 

 my method of getting at it. Will the 

 Dr. Millers of the queen-breeding fra- 

 ternity, who know more of the ins and 

 outs of bee breeding than I ever expect 

 to know, favor the readers of the Api, 

 with essays upon the subjtct of "how 

 to produce a larger worker bee," and 

 following the matter further than simply 

 buying a large queen bee, tell us how 

 best to treat her. I have noticed that 



