THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



133 



Somethins about Queen Bees. 



Prol).il)Iy one tlioiiMuul ciistonuTs to 

 whom I liMve sent (iiu'ciis during- ihc pMst 

 thirty yeius liave said, "tiie qnoen came 

 all riiiht, but is rather small." Well, so 

 they are. There is no reason why a bee, 

 especially a qneeii bee, should not look 

 small after ijeini;- conlined iu a liltlu box 

 and knocked about (rom cue week to ten 

 days in a mail \y.\\x.. 



Wlieii I remove a queen from a colony, 

 that has been layinii from one to four 

 weeks, they are hirue and handsome and 

 in appearance are like tlio one illustrated 

 in tii:-. 1. But after they have been in a 

 mail bag, or, in fact, have been front the 



Fig. 1. Fertile queen. Fig. 2. Unfertile queen, 



colony a week, they look and resemble the 

 queen illustrated in fig. 2. The cuts not 

 only show the great ditterence in the size 

 of the queens as between a laying and a 

 fertile (jueen, but tiie bright color as well. 

 The golden color of an unfertile queen is 

 liot very sti iking or marked, t)Ut when a 

 fairly yellow virgin queen becomes lerlil- 

 ized and has commenced to lay, then her 

 be:iuty develops and what was not a re- 

 markably Hue colored queeu is now one 

 of the most beautiful. 



The Age at which Queens Mate. 

 I have spent nearly thirty years of my 

 life iu rearing and shipping queen bees, 

 j'et I never knew a young queen to make 

 a flight until she was live days old, though 

 I have I'ead many reports of their doing 

 so, when they were from three to four 

 days old. Such reports I do not credit as 

 it is cmitrar}' to nature as well as actual 

 exiierience. 1 never could succeed in forc- 

 ing a young queen to fly by feeding until 

 she was live or more days old. During 

 my exiierieuce I probably have seen 2000 

 young queens take a flight, yet I never 

 saw even one mate. Sometimes I have 

 waited by a hive for them to come back, 

 and in the course of ten minutes they 

 would return bearing all the evidence of 

 being fertilized-. 



If the weather is pleasant on the day a 

 queen is five days old, she will surely 

 make Irom one to seven or eight flights 

 the same afternoon, in order to meet the 



drone. No queen in my opinion is (;ver 

 fertilized more than once. The thing can- 

 not be done, though I have kncnvn of 

 many instances where queens have met 

 tiie dione more than one time. This, of 

 course, would not occur if fertilizaliou 

 had i)een accomplished at the lirst mating. 

 These remarks are not wholly new to 

 some of the old bee men, yet they are new 

 and will most likely interest the novice 

 and those who have just begun in the bee 

 business. I notice we have a few old fo- 

 gies who "know it all," and such have no 

 use for bee-papers. 



Dr. A. B. Mason has favored the Api 

 with a list of premiums to be awarded 

 at the l)ee ami honey show to be held at 

 Columbus, Ohio, from September 4 to Oc- 

 tober 19, 1888. 



The premium list is a most lil)eral one, 

 and those beekeepers whose apiaries are 

 near Colural)Us should make a grand dis- 

 play of apiarian implements, also bees, 

 queens and honey. 



x\s the premium list and other particu- 

 lars hive been published in several pa- 

 pers, I tiiink space in the Ari need not be 

 taken to further advertise the ^natter. 



The old reader will not fail to notice 

 the change in the form and make-up of 

 this issue of the Api. It was our inten- 

 tion to use but sixteen pages, but our 

 friends have so crowded us with adver- 

 tisements that it was necessary to add 

 four extra pages, and so a cover, as iu the 

 past, will be used, for a while, at least. 

 Our columns are wider and smaller type 

 is U'^ed, and by so doing the Api contains 

 about the same amount of reading matter 

 as formerly. You will not fail to notice 

 that there is no great display of large 

 head lines. All space that can be utilized 

 has reading matter crowded into it. As 

 advertisements "run out" the space will 

 be fliled with good articles from our best 

 correspondents. 



A flue article from Amateur Expert 

 could not be used as was intended in this 

 issue, as the numerous cuts to illustrate 

 it had not come to hand, even after wait- 

 ing several days lor them. The article is 

 in type and will appear in the July issue. 

 All should read it. 



I do not know how it is with other peo- 

 ple who rear queens, but I do know that 

 the weather here in New England up to 

 May 20 has prevented any one from doing 

 anything at all in the apiary. A few 

 cherry and peach blossoms have appeared 



