146 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Jan., 



ternal appenrlatjes (even the amnion) ; so that, 

 without further knowledge of the ciicuinstances, 

 the egg had to be regarded as normally endowed 

 with life. And all the rest of the eggs were just 

 like the first one examined, so far as their shriv- 

 elled state allowed me to form a judgment — 

 most of them, however, being so shrunken that 

 the embryo, as such, could not be exhibited. 



Tlie "addlenes^" of tliese eggs was conse- 

 quently merely apjiarent. Their failure to hatch 

 did not result from lack of inherent power of 

 development, but from the simjjle fact that the 

 embryo, formed entirely as all such embryos are, 

 had not power 1o emerge from the egg. Neither 

 the egg shell nor the amniotic sac showed any 

 abnormal thickening, and tlie embryo itself was 

 entirely normal. There was consequently no 

 physical or mechanical obstacle to prevent hatch- 

 ing ; and there remains hence on\y the assump- 

 tion that the seeming addleness of the eggs 

 resulted from the premature death of the em- 

 bryonal germ. 



What I hase here stated respecting the Dorr 

 case holds goo 1 also as regards two others, which 

 were presented to me almost simultaneously for 

 investigation. Here also the apparently addle 

 eggs contained normally developed embryos. 

 One of these cases, however, was of special in- 

 terest, because by it was furnished the experi- 

 mental proof that the embryos do not hatch, even 

 when the eggs containing them are placed in 

 other hives. This fact was communicated to 

 me by Mr. E. Bottger, teachci-, of Weissenberg, 

 in Saxony, in a note, as follows : — "Last summer 

 I had two cases presented to me, in which young 

 queens laid eggs incapable of producing living 

 larvje. The first of these queens was found in a 

 colony belonging to Mr. Schmidt, of Zworsty. 

 She was killed and cast out by the bees two 

 months later. The second occurred in a colony 

 belonging to Mr. Fanghiihnel, of Hartingsdorff. 

 She laid a vast number of eggs, in perfectly regu- 

 lar order, in thirteen dift'erent colonies in which 

 we successively introduced her, and all of which 

 proved to be lifeless. Eggs from other hives, 

 and even drone eggs, were regularly hatched 

 when inserted in any of the hivr-s containing this 

 queen. By repeatedly inserting brood combs 

 containing eggs from other queens the population 

 was kept up in the colonies with this defective 

 queen." 



As this case shows evidently', the cause of the 

 premature death of the embryo germs must be 

 sought for in the eggs, or rather in the mother 

 which produces those eggs. But whether it will 

 ever happen that the cause shall be discovered, 

 is extremely doubtful. We know of analogous 

 cases in human subjects, though not even plau- 

 sible explanations of the occurrence have yet 

 been furnished ; and queen bees producing so- 

 called addle eggs may be clas.sed in the same 

 category. Eggs truly addle — that is, eggs con- 

 taining no embryonal germ susceptible of de- 

 velopment, have not yet been found among 

 those laid by queen bees. 



Leuckart. 



[For the American Bee Jouinal.] 



Eearing Artificial Queens, and their Value. 



When I commenced Italianizing my bees, I 

 laid down certain rules under which I would 

 proceed the following spring. One of these was, 

 to raise drones and queens so early in the season 

 that the young queens would have no chance to 

 mate with black drones. To get drones early, I 

 wintered in nuclei and full hives, twelve virgin 

 queens. All of these were got through the win- 

 ter safely, but I lost seven of them the first few 

 days after wintering out. From the five which 

 were saved I succeeded in raising, at the lowest 

 estimate, three thousand drones, that were flj'ing 

 as early as the 20th of April. I had succeeded 

 also in raising more than a dozen queens hatched 

 between the 10th and 15th of .\pril. Every day 

 that was warm enough for bees to fly, the queens 

 as well as the drones aiDpe.ared to be just as 

 lively and active in their excursion.s, as in sum- 

 mer weather; and I, of course, expected that 

 the queens would speedily become fertile. But 

 I was doomed to disappointment. None of those 

 queens became fertile until the 7th of May, 

 when three of them commenced laying drone 

 eggs, and soon appeared to be regularly fertile. 

 At that time, however, drones had made their 

 appearance from common stocks also. 



Most of the queens that I reared so early, were 

 small, did not prove to be very prolific, and were 

 superseded the same season by the workers. 

 When the queen cells in which they were hatched 

 were built, no young workers had yet been 

 hatched, to my knowledge ; and bees could not 

 yet gather pollen in the fields. I tried once or 

 twice more to raise early queens, but always 

 with poor success. I am now fully satisfied 

 that, to raise prolific and large queen.s, a colony 

 must have a large immber of young workers, 

 and must be supplied with plenty of honey and 

 fresh pollen newly gathered in the fields. The 

 colony must also be closely watched ; all queen 

 cells sealed before the third day after making the 

 colony queenless, and all cells built after the 

 seventh day, should be destroyed. If sealed too 

 early, the young queens hatched from them will 

 nearly always be small ; if too late, such queens 

 proved to be very unprolific with me, and were 

 sometimes superseded very shortly after becom- 

 ing fertile. 



In my location it is early enough to commence 

 breeding queens between the first and the fifth 

 of ]\Iay. During the months of May, June, July 

 and August, good queens can be artificially 

 raised, if the proper stocks are selected, well 

 treated, and properly watched. No stock should 

 be compelled to raise two sets of queen cells in 

 succession. 1 always found the second lot infe- 

 rior to the first ; and as bees nurse a smaller 

 number of r(-)yal grubs better than a larger one, 

 they should not be allowed to build more than 

 eight or ten cells. Queens reared at a time when 

 little or no pollen is gathered, are usually smaller 

 and less prolific than those reared with plenty of 

 pasturage. Therefore, queens reared in the 

 month of Septemljer are not near so valuable as 

 queens reared in the preceding mouth. Queens 



