THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



95 



at any time before the first of May to 

 severe frosts, aud should a colony be 

 ui'gcd to rear more brood than they can 

 cover, it will be chilled and conse- 

 quently die. Bees love their brood and 

 will cling to it with great tenacity, 

 but love of life is stronger, and on the 

 approach of severe cold weather, they 

 will cluster together for warmth, to se- 

 cure their own safety, and allow the 

 brood to do as best they can. The 

 actual condition of each colony must 

 determine the matter of stimulation, 

 but as a rule it is better to go slowly. 

 All we desire is to have a force of fo- 

 ragers on hand to gather the first honey 

 yield, and to do this we need not urge 

 brood-rearing very early, as it only re- 

 quires about thirty-five days to raise 

 bees from the egg, that can attend to 

 all tlie housework, and allow their elder 

 sisters to forage as much as they 

 choose. 



3. Is it advisable to unite weak col- 

 onies in the spring? 



If any queenless colonies are found 

 it will be well to unite them with 

 others that are weak; if not, I should 

 advise building them np, by giving 

 them frames of brood from such colo- 

 nies as are strong enough to spare 

 them. Colonies, in spring, consist 

 mostly of old bees, and if united they 

 will live no longer than if kept sepa- 

 rate ; it is no trouble to build them up, 

 and one will be astonished to see how 

 easily a very small colony can be so 

 built up. Mr. Doolittle once had a 

 colony in spring that consisted of a 

 queen and less than one hundred bees 

 by actual count. This colony he built 

 up so that it not only gathered honey 

 enough to winter on, but gave him a 

 surplus beside. I, myself, had a colony 

 with only bees enough to cover a small 

 part of an L. frame. I built it up so 

 that it proved a first-rate colony, and 

 was selected in the fall by a purchaser 

 in preference to any other colony in my 

 apiary. 



4. Can I raise pure bees from an 

 Italian queen, mated with a drone 

 from a hybridized Italian? 



This is a mooted question. Dzierzon, 

 the great German authority and the 

 father of the theory of parthenogene- 

 sis, claims that the drones of mismated 

 queens are pure. I may be bold in so 

 asserting, but I do not agree with 

 him. I do not believe that it is pos- 



sible to keep blood pure after it has 

 once been mixed; but discussion on 

 this matter will be of no use. One 

 thing is certain, viz. : We know that 

 drones from purely mated queens are 

 safe to breed from. All others may be 

 unsafe ; so that we can easily keep on 

 the safe side by breeding only from 

 purely mated stock. 



5. How old must a queen become to 

 be unable to mate with a drone? 



No one can give a positive answer 

 to the above question. I once had a 

 queen mate successfully on the twenty- 

 eighth ilay after she emerged from the 

 cell. I think, however, thej' should 

 mate, if the weather is favorable, be- 

 tween the fifth and twentieth day 

 after leaving the cell; and, unless as a 

 matter of experiment, I should wait no 

 longer for her. 



Foxboro, Mass., Feb. 18, 1884. 



To the Editor of Am. Apiculturist : 



Permit us to answer the question of 

 Mr. L. C. Root, of Mohawk, N. Y., in 

 Dec. No. of your Journal, in regard to 

 the fertilization of queens in confine- 

 ment. 



We farmed a tent from " dairy cloth " 

 six feet square, covered it with f ceil- 

 ing lumber with about an 8 in. fascia 

 around the upper part. We then formed 

 a number of nuclei out of capped brood 

 and young bees,i/iaf had w^ver been ont- 

 side of a hive. In one-third of the nn in- 

 ber we had an excess of drone brood. 

 After we noticed the drones commenced 

 to fly in the tent, we inserted queen 

 cells in those that had no drone brood. 

 We placed feed in tent, also some flower 

 pots, etc., in amanner tochange the mo- 

 notony. The bees and drones were all 

 at home flying out and around in tent 

 returning home to their respective 

 hives, and when the queens came out 

 they were also at home. 



We had the pleasure of seeing queens 

 fertilized, and examining them as they 

 returned to their respective hives. 

 We allowed the queens to remain in 

 the hives long enough to fill with eggs, 

 but those that had drone brood, we 



