38 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



[Copyright.] 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



Bt Henry Alley. 



QUEEN-REARING. 



\_Continned from page 11, Vol. vii.] 



Advice to beginners in queen- 

 rearing. 



The selection of the mother-bee, etc. 



The inexperienced beekeeper who 

 tries his hand at queen-rearing has but 

 a faint idea of the importance of mak- 

 ing a proper selection of the queen to 

 be used as a mother of the drones, and 

 the young queens. In the selection of 

 the mother bee lies the secret of suc- 

 cess ; and in this respect the person 

 who rears queens cannot exercise too 

 much care. The progeny of a beau- 

 tiful Italian queen may bear all the 

 markings of purity ; yet the most essen- 

 tial, most important and desirable qual- 

 ities may be lacking, namely, hardiness, 

 prolificness and good honey-gathering 

 points. Queens not possess'ng these 

 qualities, or drones and queens incapa- 

 ble of transmitting such good points to 

 their offspring, are unfit to propagate 

 from and should not be tolerated in the 

 apiary. 



How can the beekeeper who has had 

 no experience in queen-rearing decide 

 which are the proper queens to select 

 as suitable mothers from which to rear 

 queens except by actual test? This 

 question not having been fully answered 

 on any previous page, I will try to make 

 it plain, and I am sure it Avill not be amiss 

 if repeated more than once. 



It really seems to me that the novice 

 in bee culture, say one who has kept 

 bees one or two years, should have no 

 trouble in selecting and deciding which 

 are the best honey-gathering colonies in 

 his apiary. The best are known by the 

 great activity about the hive, the large 

 number of bees in any particular col- 

 ony, and by the largest number of sec- 

 tions filled by any given colony. Colo- 



nies having inferior queens, though the 

 hive be crowded with bees, do not al- 

 ways have good queens. Such a queen 

 has the good point of being prolific, yet 

 if her progeny are poor honey-gatherers, 

 she should be rejected as a breeding- 

 queen. 



It seems to me that it would be a 

 waste of time, and money, for any one 

 to rear queens from a mother whose 

 colony gave no surplus honey in a 

 good season, while all the other colo- 

 nies in the same apiary had stored and 

 filled a large number of sections. The 

 best treatment of a non-working colony 

 is to change the queen for a good one 

 as soon as possible. 



By always selecting from the best col- 

 onies for breeding purposes, there can- 

 not be any inferior stocks in the apiary 

 at any season of the year. 



Effect of rearing queens from an inferior 

 mother. 

 Now let us see how it works if an in- 

 ferior queen is used, either for a queen 

 or as a drone mother. We will start with 

 a poor queen, say a queen whose col- 

 ony has never proved to be first-class 

 honey-gatherers and perhaps has never 

 cast a swarm. The offspring from such 

 a mother, either her drones or queens, 

 will be inferior to the original. This is 

 the natural result in all cases in breed- 

 ing bees, where honey-gathering and 

 other desirable qualities are sacrificed 

 to color. Each succeeding generation 

 will be inferior to the previous one, un- 

 til the third or fourth is reached, when 

 a majority of the young queens, though 

 promptly fertilized, will produce dwarfed 

 drones reared in worker-bee cells. The 

 vitality of the queens will have been 



