1900 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



17 



Gleanings has been too long in 

 the field to i-equir? any suggestions 

 from this quarter in regard to the 

 purely "fake" schemes existing in 

 the queen business; and we there- 

 fore beg to suggest that Mr. Root 

 consider a view of the question 

 from our point of vantage, and let 

 us know if the obvious necessity for 

 a different yardstick with which to 

 measure the value of our stock does 

 not appear. 



QUEENS FROM THE MAILS. 



One of the most interesting dis- 

 cussions at the National Convention 

 was that which followed the paper 

 of Mrs. H. G. Acklin, on the sub- 

 ject of "Queen-rearing by the Doo- 

 little M-thod." Whether or not it 

 is injurious to queens to be con- 

 lined in a small mailing cage and 

 thus transported, is a question 

 which elicited particular attention. 



Dr. Mason had reason to believe 

 that it was injurious. H. F. Moore 

 thought that where the mail sack 

 is taken from a crane by a flying 

 train, going at the rate of forty 

 miles an hour, the queens would 

 not be worth much after such an 

 ordeal had been passed through. E. 

 Kritchmer knew of one instance 

 where every bee in the cage had 

 been killed by throwing the mail 

 pouch from a fast train. Mr. Pop- 

 pleton stated that he had quit 

 ofdering queens by mail entirely. 

 The inference was, of course, that 

 this resolution of Mr. Poppleton's 

 was a result of the injured condition 

 of the queens he had received in 

 this way; but in personal conversa- 

 tion with him. later, the editor of 

 The Bee-keeper learned that such 

 was not the case; and Mr. Popple- 

 ton expressed regret that his state- 

 ment had not been followed by an 

 explanation setting forth the real 

 cause; which, said he, "is the 

 chance one takes of importing dis- 



ease." Mr. Hutchinson's experi- 

 ence hid been that there was some- 

 thing about the close confinement 

 of a queen during the laying season 

 which tended to weaken her laying 

 powers. Mr. N. E. France had 

 noticed throughout the state of 

 Wisconsin that the complaint was 

 generally charged against especi- 

 ally tested queeiis, and it was his 

 opinion that sending a laying 

 queen by mail was injurious to her. 

 Frank Coverdale had received a 

 batch of fifty queens from Texas, 

 which turned out just as satisfac- 

 tory as if he had reared them him- 

 self. Mr. E. T. Abbott had been 

 getting queens through the mails 

 for thirteen or fourteen years and 

 had never had an instance of a 

 queen's being injured, excepting in 

 one instance where the bees and 

 queen were all dead. Some which 

 Mr. Abbott had received from Jeru- 

 salem were in every way as good as 

 those reared in his own yard. 



To take a queen from active egg- 

 laying and confine her in a mailing 

 cage for several days is such a very 

 abrupt change, resulting in a sus- 

 pension of her natural function, 

 that even a casual thought of it 

 impressses one with the probability 

 of its detrimental effect; and, in- 

 deed, it may be that very prolific 

 queens are sometimes injured in 

 this way. We believe, however, 

 that it will rai'ely be found that the 

 injury is permanent. Some of the 

 best queens that we have ever 

 owned have come to us through 

 the mails, during the honey season. 

 Some very inferior ones have like- 

 wise been received. We might be 

 prone to charge this inferiority to 

 the above cause, but the most in- 

 ferior lot of queens that we have 

 ever bought were confined only 

 about twenty-four hours; and then, 

 upon three full frames of brood and 

 bees. There were fifty of them in 



