1872.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



227 



island. They sliowed signs of swarming on the 

 8th of June : two rainy days intervened, and on 

 the 11th, with a little sunshine and cool north- 

 wind, the old queen led out a swarm, or was led 

 out by the swarm, and was lost, tlie swarm re- 

 turning, after scattering around on fences and 

 bushes awhile ; in nine days, June 20th, a 

 daughter led out a swarm, and next day, 31st, 

 another swarm, both between 8 and 9 a. M. I 

 cut out queen cells to prevent a third swarm 

 next day, as they kept on piping after I had 

 removed the old stocks to a new place, and 

 given one comb to second swarm on old stand. 

 These three gave me 173 pounds of honey, while 

 a yearling queen with one swarm gave 100 

 pounds extracted honey in 1870, making 73 

 pounds, or at least $24 in one season, in favor of 

 the three year old queen over her own daughters 

 one year old. 



The old queen by the mi'ldle of May had 

 26,000, the yearling '15,000 cells of brood ; both 

 had been fed. The first week in June, 1870, 

 the yearling had 31.000, and the three year old 

 39,000 cells of bi-ood, 8,000 ahead ; so nuich for 

 age. The nuclei queens never gave me a 

 swarm, or a box full of honey. I believe the 

 one from Mr. Quinby did give me two boxes 

 part full, in 1868, of liasswood honey, while the 

 queen that came in full hive gave me one swarm 

 and five boxes of honey, forty pounds. 



A queen raised by me in 1869 in a nucleus 

 from a cell capped over in a swarming-hive, 

 sent in a small box, one was introduced in my 

 brother's apiary in Illinois. In 1870 his son 

 wrote me, "that hive swarmed twice, besides 

 making an unusual amount of box honey. 

 Now the secret of long lived natural queens ap- 

 peared plain, but in 1871 he wrote me that 

 " the hive swarmed and the first swarm made 3 

 or 4 caps and swarmed, but I think that queen 

 was superseded in the spring as the hive run 

 into black bees ; " so I conclude that queens 

 which have been boxed and caged do not stand 

 on an equal chance of long life with those never 

 deprived of liberty. I have a queen now in her 

 third year, introduced in 1869, in place of a 

 daughter of a nucleus queen by taking a capped 

 cell from a swarming hive and fastening it 

 with a pin to a central comb, after leaving 

 them queenless one night. 



H. D. Miner. 



Wash. Earhor, Wis., Jan, 23, 1872. 



[From the London Journal of Horticulture.] 



Are Artificial Queens inferior to Natural Queens? 



Mr. .1. M. PmcE, writing in the American 

 " Bee Journal," asserts that he has proved, be- 

 yond doubt, that queens raised artificially are 

 worthless in comparison with those raised natu- 

 rally. From my own experience I am led to 

 differ from him most decidedly. Out of twenty- 

 five stocks, the largest number of colonies I ever 

 possessed at one time, I had not a single queen 

 that was not either artificially I'aised in a small 

 nucleus box, or was not the descendant of one 



who was so raised, but I could never discover 

 that my queens were deficient in breeding powers, 

 or, barring accidents, in longevity. In fact, the 

 fecundity of some of these was frequently a 

 subject of surprise and remark ; one queen, in 

 particular, seems to stand pre-eminent in these 

 respects. 



Soon after the first introduction of Ligurian 

 queens into this country, my own doubts venture 

 havine: proved unpropitious, my friend, the late 

 Mr. Woodbury, gave me a royal cell, which he 

 cut out of a small nucleus box, from brood of 

 his best yellow queen. This cell I inserted in a 

 brood comb in a nucleus box, with a few adult 

 bees. In a few days she was hatched out, and I 

 was struck 'with her size and beautifid color. 

 8oon after she had commenced breeding, I trans- 

 ferred them into an eight frame Langstroth box, 

 and gave the bees another sealed brood comb. 

 The stock was not particularly stror^g at the 

 close of the autumn, and barely managed to hold 

 its own through the winter ; but by the end of 

 April it had become so populous as to present the 

 appearance of being ready even then to send oft' a 

 swarm. A large super was given to the bees, 

 into which they at once ascended, and were so 

 crowded as to make it seem almost impossible 

 for them to vvork at comb-building. In about 

 three weeks from that time, considerable progress 

 having been made in that respect, and the bees 

 again crowding outside the entrance, a second 

 super was slipped in between the first and the 

 honey-board of the stock-box, which also became 

 at once crammed with bees. Early in July, I 

 removed the doubled super, containing 54 lbs. of 

 honey comb. 



The following year this stock also distinguished 

 itself in spring and early summer by the pos- 

 session of a teeming population, and gave a 

 splendid glass box super of 75 lbs. weight. The 

 next season seemed equally propitious ; a super 

 of 50 lbs. was taken, and an immense swarm 

 thrown off, which also, the same summer, gave 

 me a super of 26 lbs. weight. The following- 

 spring I examined the queen which had come otf 

 with this swarm, and was convinced, in my own 

 mind, from her peculiar markings and appear- 

 ance, that she was the same queen which had 

 been raised in the nucleus box. That season 

 this swarm became excessively crowded, and I 

 put on a larger super than I ever used before, 

 and it contained, when full, the large quantity 

 of H6 lbs. of the finest possible honey-comb. 



The following spring the old queen showed 

 symptoms of having become almost worn out, 

 and was, I believe, soon afterwards superseded by 

 the bees, as I discovered a queen of a very dif- 

 ferent character at my next inspection of the 

 interior. At the time of the old queen's death, 

 she must have been at least four years and a half 

 of age. 



I mention but this one instance out of many 

 which have come before my notice, but it is 

 quite sufficient, in my mind, to establish the 

 truth of the assertion, that artificial queens 

 may and do prove equal in every respect to tlie 

 best of those raised by the bees for the purposes 

 of natural swarming. 



S. Bevan Fox. 



