For the American Bee Journal. 



About Queen Rearing, &c. 



BY W. P. HENDERSON. 



Several years since there was some 

 controversy in the Journal, in regard 

 to short lived and unprofitable queens. 

 If I remember correctly ( I have not 

 the riles before me now), E. Gallup, 

 called them eight day queens, mean- 

 ing I suppose queens that were 

 reared or produced in eight days. He 

 contended that queens were produced 

 in eight days, and being at that day 

 good authority on many bee questions, 

 it was taken for granted by many who 

 had not thoroughly tested the matter. 



With an experience running through 

 a decade or more of years in queen 

 rearing, and in which thousands have 

 been reared, I do not believe a queen 

 from the egg, or grub however ad van ced , 

 can be or nas been produced in eight 

 days. It can't be done in Tennessee. 



For the purpose of procuring cells, 

 I have, in May, deprived a populous 

 colony of their queen and on opening 

 the hive on the ninth day, to remove 

 queen cells, was surprised to find a 

 young queen out on the war path, des- 

 troying cells, but am satisfied from 

 numerous experiments, that the colony 

 had began to rear a queen, with the in- 

 tention of swarming or to supersede 

 the old queen, and these cells containing 

 grubs intended for royalty, were two, 

 three or four days advanced in the in- 

 tended course before I removed the 

 mother queen. 



On one occasion I remember opening 

 a hive on the ninth or tenth day after 

 removing the queen and found some of 

 the queen cells torn completely down — 

 others slightly mutilated, while an 

 entrance had been effected in the end of 

 one cell, and the young queen was there 

 with a number of worker bees all 

 intently at work, gnawing and pulling 

 at the queen within. I removed the 

 cell and found that the queen, a nice 

 large one, was almost ready, if not 

 quite so, to make her own way out of 

 the cell, but she was minus one of her 

 feelers, and about half of one of her 

 fore legs. I immediately introduced 

 her to a queenless nucleus, but being 

 so young and weak and on account of 

 the loss of one foot, she did not stick to 

 the combs well, and the bees, although, 

 they did not try to kill her and ball up 

 on her as I have seen them behave 

 towards old queens, seemed to regard 

 her as an unfit occupant of the hive and 

 tried to remove her. I caged her for 24 

 hours and then released her, but the 



bees were still not disposed to let her 

 remain undisturbed amongst them. 

 After caging her again for 48 hours, she 

 appeared quite lively, and the workers 

 then treated her with the honors of one 

 of the household. In time she took her 

 marital flight, and afterwards proved 

 herself a prolific and valuable queen, 

 filling her hive two consecutive seasons 

 with brood. Her wings being perfect, 

 the other mutilations did not seem to 

 affect her in the least. And after she 

 commenced to lay, I am satisfied if her 

 wings had been clipped, it would not 

 have affected her future usefulness. 

 Murfreesboro, Term. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Are these Queens Pure? 



BY S. D. M'LEAN. 



On page 314, November number of 

 Bee Journal, Mr. Alley speaks of the 

 progeny of Italian queens and remarks : 

 u The color seems to run all one way, 

 either to the drones, or to the workers 

 and queens." After giving an example 

 of a queen that produced drones as 

 black as any common drones he ever 

 saw, he asks : tw Was such a queen im- 

 pure V" He answers, "by no means, 

 for all her young queens that were fer- 

 tilized by handsome drones, were as pure 

 as their mother." Now, if the color 

 runs all one way, as Mr. A. says, had 

 the queen produced black workers and 

 queens and light colored drones, then 

 according to the above reasoning, she 

 would have been pure. But would any 

 adept in the science of bee culture have 

 recognized her as such ? Certainly not. 



But all her young queens that were 

 fertilized by handsome drones were as 

 pure as their mother, and (a priori) 

 those mating with unhandsome drones 

 were impure. Why impure V For if 

 the color runs all one way, and the gen- 

 erally-received Dzierzon theory of 

 parthenogenesis, or agamistical repro- 

 duction, be true, then those queens 

 having mated witli unhandsome drones 

 (the drones having no sire, would cer- 

 tainly be pure if the queen was pure) 

 should be pure, and should produce as 

 pure bees as those having mated with 

 handsome drones. The whole subject 

 seems to be inexplicable ! 



But our friend is certainly right when 

 he says, " In rearing queens, those 

 mothers that produce the handsomest 

 workers should be used, and only hand- 

 some drones to fertilize them ; then can 

 the standard of purity be maintained." 

 But should notour queens, that produce 



