54 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



Secretary House made some appro- 

 priate remarks and oflered the follow- 

 ing resolution which was unanimously- 

 adopted. 



Besolved, That we, the North East- 

 ern Beekeepers' Association, in con- 

 vention assembled, do hereby adopt 

 the " American AncuLTuniST" as the 

 official organ of this Association. 



Adjourned until Thursday morning. 



THIRD DAY. 



Convention called to order at nine 

 o'clock, President Root occupying the 

 chair. The books were opened for re- 

 ceiving new members. Afterthis, Sec- 

 retary G. W. House addressed the 

 convention on 



Reaiung Queens. 



By Geo. W. House. 



There is no branch of apiculture 

 more interesting or instructive than 

 queen-rearing. When we look into the 

 laws that govern the production of life, 

 we And tiiat like produces like. Then 

 by careful selection of our breeding 

 stock, and a still more careful and sci- 

 entific method of rearing our queens, 

 with ajudicious crossing and recross- 

 ing with the very best drones of our 

 different strains and races, we are en- 

 abled to bring out and combine the 

 desirable qualities found in the several 

 races and oiir various strains of bees; 

 thus accomplishing great improvement. 



That the queen bee is the foundation 

 of successful apiculture none will dis- 

 pute. Then our first aim should l^p 

 the selection of the mother queen or 

 queens. The beekeeper knows well 

 where his best queens are, and is ac- 

 quainted with their various desirable 

 qualities and traits better than I could 

 describe them here. If you have none 

 that meets your views, it is cheaper 

 and far better to purchase such as we 

 want, even at a cost of fifty dollars, 

 rather than to breed from a queen that 

 does not fill the bill. Above all, I 

 would advise against breeding from 

 Italian queens that have become fer- 

 tilized by German or hybrid drones. 

 The worker progeny from such queens 

 may be desirable to a few; but each 

 succeeding generation will deteriorate 

 in value, unless the amount of Italian 



blood be increased with each success- 

 ive crossing. Italians ami Syrians are 

 far different; a cross between these 

 two races produces our very best 

 strains. 



Many writers claim that we should 

 not breed from queens more than two 

 yeai's old ; in this I must disagree with 

 them. I prefer a queen at least three 

 years old, and older, if they retain their 

 vitality. How can we fully test their 

 longevity, endurance and wintering 

 qualities when discarded at the end of 

 two years? Some of the finest queens 

 I ever saw were superseded queens 

 reared to take the place of a five year 

 old mother. 



I will not discuss this point any fur- 

 ther here, but will proceed to give what 

 I claim to be the best, as well as the 

 most simple method of rearing queens 

 I have yet learned. To be better un- 

 derstood I will first describe the hive 

 and its arrangement; on this hinges 

 the entire success of the method I shall 

 describe. 



The hive is constructed for eleven 

 frames Hi X 12.^ inches outside meas- 

 ure; but instead of using eleven 

 frames we use only eight, and two 

 wide frames containing eight 5^ X 5i 

 X 2 inch sections (four in each wide 

 frame), placing one of these wide 

 frames on each side of the eight bi'ood 

 frames. These wide frames are made 

 so that they go inside the hive easily, 

 and on one side of each nail a sheet of 

 " Jones's " perforated metal, covering 

 the entire side of wide frame. 



The colony having our best queen 

 (with her wing clipped) being in such 

 hive, we will proceed with the manip- 

 ulations of the colony for the end in 

 view. After the fruit trees bloom, this 

 colony should be stimulated by feeding 

 a little honey or sugar syrup each day, 

 so as to keep the queen laying in her 

 full capacity. 



The savne end may be accomplished 

 by giving frames of solid brood about 

 to hatch, taken from otiier colonies; 

 the object being to have the hive 

 crowded with bees as early as possible ; 

 thus inducing the swarming fever. As 

 soon as the colony has constructed 

 queen cells that are nearly ready to be 

 sealed over, preparatory to swarming, 

 open the hive and take four of tlie 

 eight frames having the most and the 

 best queen cells thereon, and place 

 them to one side of the hive, after re- 

 moving the two wide frames. Now 

 take the remaining four frames and 

 destroy all queen cells thereon and 

 place to the other extreme side of the 



