(Entered at the Post-Offlce at Chicago as Second-Class Mall-Matter.) 

 Published Weekly at $1.00 a Year, by George W. York & Co., 334 Dearborn St. 



QEORQE W. YORK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL, FEBRUARY 22, 1906 



VoL XLVI— No. 8 



(Sbitorial ZXotes 

 attb Comments 



j 



Government Bulletin on Queen-Rearing 



"The Rearing of Queen-Bees " is the title of Bulletin 

 No. 55, issued by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 Bureau of Entomology, Washington, D. C. (Price 5 cents.) 

 It is written by E. F. Phillips, Ph. D., the man whose de- 

 lightful personality made him so many friends at the late 

 convention of the National at Chicago. It is gotten up in 

 the usual excellent style of present-day Government docu- 

 ments, and is illustrated by 17 fine photo-engravings, all of 

 them original. 



In the nature of the case there is no great chance for 

 originality, but it is a convenience to have given in com- 

 pact form in these 32 pages, witten in easy style, the steps 

 necessary to rear queens according to the latest methods, 

 including the Doolittle and Alley plan, cell-cups, nuclei, etc. 



In the preface the author expresses the hope that the 

 simplicity of the methods described will induce bee-keepers 

 who have not already done so to adopt in the future the I 

 plan of replacing all queens annually, saying : " It is held 

 by the best bee-keepers that it is necessary to restock all 

 colonies with new queens every year." That leaves out of 

 the list of best bee-keepers such a man as G. M. Doolittle, 

 who not only does not interfere]to change queens each year, 

 but goes so far as to think it not worth his while to do so at 

 all. Nor is Mr. Doolittle without company. Of those who 

 think it best not to leave the work of superseding entirely 

 to the bees, by far the larger part probably do so only every 

 other year, and certainly some of them are successful men. 



Under the head of swarming, it is said, page 9, " When 

 the queens are about ready to emerge from the cells, the 

 old queen and part of the colony leave to establish a new 

 one." Which puts something of a strain on the word 

 *' about," as it is generally " about " a week from the issu- 

 ing of the swarm till the emergence of the first queen. 



The correctness of the work, 'however, is proven by the 

 fact that these two points are perhaps the only ones in the 

 whole work likely to be challenged by the reader. 



There is just a possibility, however, that tradition has 

 been held in too great veneration when under the head of 

 superseding it is said, page 10, that when the first young 

 queen emerges " an encounter ensues between the young 



queen and the old one, and almost invariably the latter is 

 killed." The old belief was that no queen would ever tol- 

 erate a rival, but of late years it has been found a not un- 

 common thing for mother and daughter to be found lay- 

 ing side by side. If a young queen may indulge her mother 

 in a longer lease of life while that mother is still active 

 enough to lay, is it not likely that cases are still more com- 

 mon in which the failing mother is tolerated after she is 

 past service ? Some might even have the temerity to ask, 

 "Is there anything beyond tradition to support the belief 

 that a queen ever kills her own mother?" 



Those who have felt anxious for the character of queens 

 where a large number are started, as by Cyprians and some 

 others, will be reassured by the following on page 15 : 



"No fear need be entertained by the queen-breeder that 

 races producing large numbers of queens necessarily pro- 

 duce poorer ones. Any one familiar with the prolificness of 

 the queens of these races could not hold such an idea. There 

 is no evidence that under these circumstances the larva? are 

 less well fed." 



With regard to the second mating of queens, the follow- 

 ing on page 28 is interesting : 



" Frequent cases have been reported of queens which 

 have mated more than once, and this probably accounts for 

 irregularity in the markings of the offspring of some 

 queens. It is claimed by some that obviously the first mat- 

 ing must have been unsuccessful, but there seems to be no 

 ground for that view, and there is no reason to believe that 

 both matings were not complete. There is no reason, what- 

 ever, so far as is known, why a queen can not receive a sup- 

 ply of spermatozoa from two drones, and some of the argu- 

 ments to the contrary, with no basis of observation or 

 knowledge of the anatomy, are not worthy of consideration." 



The following nugget of wisdom from page 30 should 

 be heeded by every bee-keeper who desires to increase his 

 take of honey : 



" The mere fact that mating takes place in the air, out 

 of the control of the bee-keeper, is no reason why care 

 should not be taken in the selection of drones which are 

 allowed to fly in the yard. When breeding any race — Ital- 

 ians for example — it is not enough that all the drones be 

 Italians, they should be selected as to honey-production of 

 the workers, prolificness of the queen, or any other quality 

 which is considered in choosing a breeding queen." 



Pear-Blight and Bees 



In some parts of the country a rather vigorous warfare 

 has taken place between fruit-men and bee-men because the 

 former accuse the bees of spreading that foe — pear-blight — 

 which causes such havoc in pear-orchards. Indeed, the hor- 

 ticulturist looks upon pear-blight much the same as the bee- 

 keeper looks upon foul brood. There is little doubt, at least 

 in the minds of bee-keepers, that the bee is not so guilty in 



