12 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[July, 



[Fur Ibe American Bee Journal.] 



Queen Breeding. 



Mn. Editor : — As it is some time since I con- 

 tributed aujilit to the columns of the American 

 Bee Journal on tlie subject of bee-culture, may 

 I be allowed a short space for a few remarks, on 

 ilie very important and interesting question of 

 the relative value of naturally and artificially 

 raised queens. 



Generally, naturally raised queens, or queens 

 reared when the bees are preparing to swarm, 

 are more prolific and longer lived than forced 

 queens. In searching for a cause for this, we 

 find that when a queen is forcibly abstracted, at 

 an unnatural time, the bees, in order perhaps to 

 shorten the cessation in breeding as much as 

 possible, hasten the process of queen construc- 

 tion by taking a larva several days old. By 

 this means they are enabled to secure a queen in 

 from ten to twelve days, which is from four to 

 six days of again on their natural period of in- 

 cubation. Other things being equal, the hive 

 lias a properly developed female bee, every way 

 qualified to perform the maternal duties of the 

 colony, several days sooner than if started from 

 the egg, as is the case in natural swarming. 



Now, the fact that such queens are generally 

 shorter lived than those that are longer in 

 maturing, needs no explanation to those who 

 are familiar with the principle in nature, that 

 the life of a being is in the ratio of the time in- 

 tervening between birth and puberty. Our 

 domestic fowls, for example, will arrive at 

 puberty in one year's time, and their ordinary 

 life time is five or six years. The same is true 

 of the ewe, while the cow and the horse that are 

 two and three years in maturing are two and 

 three times longer lived. Man himself is no ex- 

 ception to this rule. The same principle liolds 

 good in the vegetable kingdom. The quince, or 

 the pear on quince root, will bear fruit in three 

 or four years, and will decay and die in from 

 fifteen to twenty years ; whereas the pear on its 

 own root will require from eight to ten years to 

 arrive at bearing condition, and its life will be 

 prolonged accordingly. The apple is subject to 

 the same law ; some varieties bearing much 

 sooner than others, while their lives are pro]3or- 

 tionately shortened. 



From the foregoing facts it will appear natural 

 enough why a young queen sixteen days in pro- 

 cess of development should live much longer, 

 and be eveiy way more profitable, than those 

 forced into premature maturity, to fill the unex- 

 pected interregnum. We have succeeded in 

 rearing queens from the egg, by a plan which we 

 have not seen developed elsewhere, which enables 

 us to determine the very day that the young 

 queens are ready to emerge from the cells. The 

 importance of securing the proper development 

 of the queens from the egg, at a time when they 

 can be taken from the hive all at once, is 

 certainly an item of some moment, if we con- 

 sider only economy of time and labor. The 

 plan is simply this : We deprive a full colony 

 of its queen at a time when forage is abundant. 

 In four or five days afterwards, we take and 



destroy all the queen cells that have been con- 

 structed. We then introduce a pure queen from 

 which we wish to breed, and allow her to remain 

 in the hive two or three days. Then we abstract 

 her a second time. The previously deposited 

 eggs being too far advanced to be available for 

 queens, the recently deposited eggs are used by 

 the bees for that purpose ; and, as these cannot 

 vary in iheor// more than two or three days in 

 the time of their issuing, we find that i7i practice 

 there is not even a dcty^s difference. If we allow 

 sixteen days for the natural period of develop- 

 ment, since the eggs have subsisted for at least 

 two days in the hive, the queens must issue in 

 fourteen days, nor need we exjiect them any 

 sooner. A practical example of this method 

 last fall demonstrated the truth of this theory, 

 where we took thirteen queens from a hive, 

 barely giving us time to cage them, as they con- 

 secutively cut themselves loose from their cells. 



The honey season proper set in here on the 

 23d instant (May), by the blooming of the 

 locust, and it gives promise of a prolusion of 

 honey. Out of four days' bloom our bees have 

 had three and a half, and the promise of three 

 or four more. It is impossible for an apiarian 

 to estimate the bloom of the locust too highly. 

 We count one day properly employed, in this 

 extraordinary forage, equivalent to three in 

 white clover bloom. If we were not favored 

 with this remarkable tree in our vicinity, we 

 would unhesitatingly pull up stakes and pitch 

 our tent in a region wliere the atmosphere is 

 perfumed by its delicious fragi-ance. 



John L. McLean. 



Richmond, OJiio, May, 1871. 



[For the iVmerican Bee Journal.] 



Gallup's New Style of Hive- 



Mr. Editor :— Gallup has been foolish enough 

 to get up a bee-hive. Now, I am not going to 

 find any fault with a two-story Lang.stroth hive 

 for the extractor, yet I did not like the idea of 

 having to take ofl:" the upper story in order to 

 get at the lower one, so in the hive I got up, I 

 have obviated that difficulty. I wish to say to 

 all who use my old style hive, that I use the 

 same kind of frame in my new one. I have 

 made seven and put bees in them all. One con- 

 tains thirty-two frames, and the others twenty- 

 six each. 



We find out as well as others, that in order to 

 have the full benefit of the extractor, we must 

 have a large quantity of comb ready built, and 

 we do not wish to vary our style of frame in the 

 least. We wish to get our most jDrolific queens 

 into the large hives, and want to set them to 

 work to the best advantage. And if we desire 

 to manage the queen on the non-swarming plan, 

 we want a hive that we can do it in. We fre- 

 quently want to exchange a swarm of bees from 

 a large hive to a small one ; and a small swarm 

 can be accommodated in our large hive. 



In running a large apiary, we consider it an 

 advantage at present to have different forms of 

 hive, but all with the same frame. In fact the 



