THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



experience rather than hearsay, 

 and as I have yet to hear of 

 the first correspondent that men- 

 tioned tlie disadvantages I alluded 

 to above, I think it proper to 

 include them with the advantages 

 of the locality. Since my arrival 

 I have visited the apiaries of 

 Messrs. Lewis, Olsen, Sheldon, 

 Barnet and Bowley, Matthews and 

 Goodwin, McFariane, Hart and 

 others, aggregating nearly eight 

 hundred colonies within four miles 

 of New Smyrna, which I think is 

 conclusive that the immediate lo- 

 calit}' is amply stocked. No doubt 

 good locations could be secured 

 ten or twelve miles farther south, 

 with water communication to either 

 New Smyrna or other towns south. 

 Mr. Darius Barl)er of De Kalb 

 Junction, N. Y., has been passing 

 a few weeks at this place. I find 

 him agreeable and well posted, as 

 he and his brother are among the 

 most prominent of the apiarists of 

 northern New York. 



J. Y. Detwiler. 



New Smyrna, Volusia Co., Fla., 

 Jan. 28, 1884. 



Editor of the Am. Apiculturist : 

 Dear Sir, 



It has almost become an axiom 

 with apiarists that the queen has 

 entire control of the amount of 

 brood reared. 



I do not wish to be understood 

 as ignoring the fact that the season 

 of the year, flow of honey, presence 

 of pollen and similar conditions 

 have an effect on the brood-rearing, 

 but the point we are aiming at is 

 the queen versus the workers. 



How often we hear the remark, 

 " this queen is a poor layer, or 

 that one is very prolific, hive run- 

 ning over with bees* and brood, 

 etc." 



10 



I believe many a queen has been 

 condemned as worthless when the 

 fault lay with the colony to which 

 she was given. 



In the early part of last sum- 

 mer, being desirous of testing the 

 newer races, I purchased a Cyprian 

 queen and reared several daughters 

 from her. I put the young queens 

 into three-framed nuclei and by 

 the time the honey season closed 

 they were fair colonies but had de- 

 veloped some traits of character, 

 to me not desirable, and on the 

 whole I concluded they were in no 

 way superior to my Italians ; so I 

 removed them and introduced 

 tested Italians about Oct. 1, at 

 which time there was but little dif- 

 ference in the amount of brood in 

 Italian or Cyprian colonies of equal 

 strength ; the most in the Cyprian 

 colonies if either. 



Early in December, I gave my 

 bees a final looking over, to see if 

 the}^ were all right for winter, find- 

 ing no cap[)ed brood, except one 

 stock recently fed, until I came to 

 my Cyprian colony ; this one had 

 my Cyprian queen, and contained 

 two frames well filled with brood. 

 Next, I looked at the Cyprian 

 stocks where I had introduced the 

 tested Italian queens, and to my 

 great surprise found from two to 

 three frauies of brood in each, with 

 plenty of bees hatching. Now I 

 have in my yard own sisters to. 

 these very queens and within a day 

 or two of the same age, that were 

 not breeding at all. I think the 

 reason is obvious : the Italians do 

 not care to breed late, the Cyprians 

 do ; consequently the Italian queens 

 having Italian workers stopped 

 breeding, while the same class of 

 queens with Cyprian colonies grat- 

 ified the desires, if I may so speak,, 

 of their workers and bred late. 

 This I think shows that the queen 

 will at times shape her work to 

 suit the workers. At any rate, I 

 shall be slow in the future to con- 



