1872.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



147 



artificially reared are, in most instances, as good 

 as natural ones ; but not all of them. I will not 

 deny that I think more highly of natural queens 

 than of artificial ones ; but we cannot always 

 get them, when we want them, and many a stock 

 would be lost if we depended exclusively on a 

 Bupply of natural queens. Those queens, too, 

 greatly vary in prolificness and longevity ; and 

 1 must concede that I have, and have had, many 

 an artificial queen that I preferred to natural 

 ones. 



•s**** * * * 



I had written the foregoing article about ten 

 days before the arrival of the last (December) 

 number of the Journal, thinking it would be in 

 time yet after receiving that number, I retained 

 it ; and I am now really glad that I did so, as 

 this gives me a chance to comply witl\ the re- 

 quest of Novice and say how I get my queen 

 cells. But to satisfy Novice and other readers 

 of the Journal that I have been breeding my 

 queens in the same way for a number of years, I 

 send you, Mr. Editor, one of my circulars for 

 1868, with the request to insert here what I said 

 in it about queen raising : 



RAISING QUEENS. 



When I first commenced raising queens, I raised 

 tliein on pieces of brood comb with ejius and little 

 wm-ms, which I had inserted into a little liivc (nucleus) 

 with three small frames 6 inches wide and .5 deep that 

 were tilled with comb and honey and a small lot of 

 Wurker bees. This I found was a poor way. I now 

 deprive a good colony of liees of their queen, let them 

 build queen cells, aud on the 9tli and 10th day I cut 

 out all of them but one and divide aud insert into as 

 many nuclei as I have queen cells, and then I either 

 take bees enough from the hive I cut out the queen 

 cells to start the nuclei, or take mostly youns bees 

 from another colony and keep tliem shut up until the 

 young queen hatches, and then open them in the eve- 

 ning; a little while before sun down, when scarcely 

 ever any bees will return to tlie parent hive. In this 

 part of the country it is useless to commence raising: 

 queens before the 1st of May. Scarcely ever any 

 queens will get fertile before the middle of May. If 

 they are fertile they may be introduced into large 

 colonies. 



To this I have to add that, during swarming 

 time. I stock all my nuclei with queen cells built 

 in hives that swarmed naturally ; and that, in 

 nearly every instance, 1 take the tested queens 

 sent off, from full colonies that have natural 

 queens. The twenty-five queens sent to Novice 

 September 15th and 22d, 1870, were artificial 

 untested queens that had Just commenced laying 

 and were not more than l^ourteen days old. They 

 were, consequently bred at the end of August 

 or beginning of September, or at a time when 

 the best breeding season was over, and they 

 could mate only with old drones artificially pro- 

 duced. If only three out of those twenty-five 

 queens ceased laying before they became one 

 year old. Novice had better luck with them than 

 I expected. He might have had the very best of 

 artificial or natural queens, and not fared better. 

 It is ray opinion that Novice and many other 

 beekeepers should not delay ordering queens to 

 a time when the best queens cannot be raised. 

 Whether he will do better by ordering queens of 



Mr. Langstroth or not, if he should order twen- 

 ty-five untested queens so late as September 12th, 

 I am unable to say ; and I will not even report 

 my own experience for fenr that I might preju- 

 dice anybody against Mr. Langstroth. 



If several of Novice's dark hybrid queens were 

 more prolific than the pui'e ones obtained from 

 me in the extra good season of 1870, it is not yet 

 proved that they would have been the same in 

 the poorer season of 1871. But I will concede 

 that they were, and if so, he only experienced 

 what numerous other correspondents of the Jour- 

 nal reported. I cannot think that Novice wrote 

 his remarks about the twenty-five queens ob- 

 tained from me, in a fault-finding spii'it, as I 

 have received a number of letters this summer, 

 stating that the writers ordered queens from me, 

 because Mr. Root recommended me to them. 

 Only for fear that some of tlie readers might get 

 a wrong impression have I written this explana- 

 tion. I will only add that among the forty-three 

 queens imported direct from Italy by myself, 

 and successfully introduced in my own stock, 

 were a small number that were very little pro- 

 lific ; and that all of tliem, save one, died in their 

 second or third year, and that one onlj^ lived 

 until this summer — having been only a very 

 moderate layer for the first two summers. 



A. Gkimm. 



Jefferson, Wis., 1871. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Queen Mothers and Improvement of Stock. 



Deak Journal: — Much is said among bee- 

 keepers about queen fertilization in confinement, 

 about providing pasturage, and about the rela- 

 tive merits of Italian and black bees, etc. ;— all 

 looking, we take it, to the increase of the honey 

 crop, while comparatively little is said upon the 

 topic which heads this article. 



The fertilization of queens by selected drones, 

 seems at best to make very slow progress ; while 

 some are ready to pronounce it a miserable fail- 

 ure'. However desirable it might be, if practi- 

 cable, we consider the wise selection of queen 

 mothers, as of far greater importance. Any 

 tyro can constrain bees to rear queens, but 

 not every "Novice" can tell whether such 

 queens possess real value, or not. Possibly 

 every apiarian of experience has obseived that 

 there is a vast difference in the yield of different 

 colonies in the same apiary, under the same con- 

 ditions of management, pasturage, age of queens, 

 form of hive, and strength of colony. Another 

 fact, too plain, to escape the notice of the ob- 

 serving beemaster, that, in wintering, some colo- 

 nies consume twice the amount of stores that 

 other colonies of the same working force do, 

 whether wintered in special depositories or on 

 their summer stands. Hence we conclude there 

 is a difterence in diiferent colonies of the same 

 variety of the hive bee. There are desirable 

 or objectionable qualities observable in every 

 colony. It should be the aim of the breeders 



