May 24, 1906 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



445 



never knew such a state of things to exist as Mr. Ferris 

 mentions in his article. The idea of brood starving when 

 bees had plenty of stores, and in a normal condition, is 

 amazing, if true. 



Mr. Ferris presents some good things in his article, 

 but they are not new to the readers of the American Bee 

 Journal, as all these things can be found in back numbers 

 many, many years ago, and written by the person whose 

 method of queen-rearing he criticises. 



Mr. Ferris gives his experience in rearing queens by 

 two methods. One of the methods employed was that of 

 rearing them by queenless bees. He says he failed to save 

 even i queen out of 35 cells he gave to as many queenless 

 colonies; and that the queen-cells reared by another method 

 were all accepted. 



What does this show? There is nothing to indicate that 

 the destruction of the cells was caused by the way they 

 were built. If anything is proven, it is the fact that Mr. 

 F. does not understand the queenless method of producing 

 queen-cells. His failure to rear good queens should not be 

 attributed to the method used. Up to within 10 years, all the 

 queens reared the world over were reared by queenless bees, 

 and such queens were always satisfactory. We can give 

 accounts of hundreds of queens whose bees stored as much 

 honey as queens reared by any process known to experienced 

 bee-keepers. We have had queens reared by queenless bees 

 that filled many combs with brood, but none ever filled 14 

 Langstroth frames, as Mr. F. says his queens will do. Such 

 queens can not be found in my yard. 



I want to inform the bee-keepers of the world that no 

 bees, queenless or otherwise, ever destroy, or tear down 

 queen-cells that contain live queens. A colony having a 

 queen (either a virgin or fertile one) will not destroy a 

 queen-cell until a queen first stings the imprisoned or em- 

 bryo queen ; then the worker-bees complete the destruction 

 of the cell. The 35 cells, which Mr. F. says were not ac- 

 cepted, did not contain one live queen when given to the 

 bees. There must have been something decidedly wrong 

 in the way that those cells were built, or were handled when 

 introduced to bees. 



Can't rear good queens by queenless bees ! They can be 

 so reared. Mr. Doolittle will say the same ; and any prac- 

 tical bee-keeper on earth will say that the best of queens are 

 reared by queenless bees. 



By the way, what is the Doolittle system of rearing 

 queens? A few years ago when writing E. R. Root, I re- 

 marked that I could not get such good and satisfactory 

 queens as Mr. D. does by rearing them in or over a colony 

 while a queen is present. The next time I heard from 

 Mr. Root, he said Mr. D. did not rear queens in that way. 

 Now, Mr. F. says he uses the Doolittle plan, as he does not 

 like the queenless method. Well, where are we? It really 

 seems to me that bees must be used to rear queens by any 

 method. 



I said in this Journal a long time ago that good queens 



can be reared in a colony while a fertile queen is present, 



only when the bees are gathering honey from natural sources, 



. but at no other time, can as good queens be reared as by the 



queenless process. 



As a matter of fact, I first gave to the public through 

 the columns of this paper a method for rearing queens in a 

 colonv having a laying queen. After I had made it public, 

 I found that G. M. Doolittle, of New York, and Dr. G. L. 

 Tinker, of Ohio, had been experimenting along the same 

 lines. 



I have stated in these columns how queens can be 

 reared in the brood-chamber while a queen was present and 

 the cells unprotected from the attack of the queen. I have 

 also shown how the same thing can be done by protecting 

 the cells from being attacked and destroyed by the queen 

 while the bees were completing them. All of these things, 

 and many others, I have published in years past and given 

 to the public. But not till Mr. Ferris' article appeared had 

 I ever seen the queenless method of rearing queens criti- 

 cised by any one. 



It seems that Mr. F. did have some queens reared by 

 the queenless or cell-cup process; even though the 35 cells 

 were destroyed, and that queens reared by the Alley plan 

 and the Doolittle plan, all in the same hive, when shown 

 strangers to bees they saw the difference. 



Let me tell Mr. F. what some experts with bees have 

 said of queens they have seen when visiting my apiary. A. C. 

 Miller, of Rhode Island, has made an annual visit to my 

 apiary for many years. I always show him queen-cells in 

 all stages, and processes of construction, as I do all who 



come here. Mr. Miller always says that the virgin queens 

 are very large, and as fine as he ever saw. F. H. Farmer, 

 one of the largest bee-owners in Massachusetts, is another 

 caller here who admires the size and beauty of the queens 

 shown him. and says that my virgin queens are as large as 

 most of the laying queens sent out by some dealers. 



When queenless bees are used for cell-building they 

 should be supplied with eggs within 6 or 8 hours there- 

 after. My method for rearing queens by queenless bees, or 

 rather for having queen-cells built from cell-cups, is this : 



I select the strongest colony in the yard — one having a 

 prolific queen and at least 8 frames of brood. (A colony 

 having an old queen is always preferred, as bees from such 

 a queen build (he finest cells.) Ibis colony is taken into 

 the operating roc 'in. and 1 then treat the bees to tobacco- 

 smoke in small doses, and drum on the hives to cause the 

 bees to fill their honey-sacs, and when they have done so, 

 and show that the tobacco has completely subdued them, 

 I remove the cover from the hive; then take out each frame 

 separately, brushing the bees from the combs into a box 

 having plenty of ventilation. The queen is found and caged, 

 and the bees left queenless for 6 or 8 hours. The combs 

 are replaced in the hive they were taken from, and other 

 bees (queenless ones, if at hand) are put into the hive and a 

 fertile queen introduced. 



The colony just made queenless has from 60,000 to 

 75,000 bees, mostly young ones. Twelve days after the eggs 

 are given the bees, I have as fine a batch of large, golden 

 queens as Mr. F. could desire to see. The eggs given the 

 bees from which to construct cell-cups had been deposited 

 in drawn foundation 3 days, or 72 hours before the colony 

 was made queenless. If Mr. Ferris had proceeded in the 

 above way, he would have had completed queen-cells that 

 can not be equalled by any other method of rearing queens. 



The one point I wish to emphasize, is, that bees, long 

 in a queenless condition, will not rear good queens. This 

 seems to have been the trouble with Mr. F.'s cells. The 

 right thing must be done at the right moment. It is also 

 evident that Mr. F. failed by not strictly following the 

 method which I have given for rearing queens. 



Permit me to give just one illustration as to whether 

 queens reared by queenless bees are of any value or not. 

 In 1901, Mrs. M. M. Ball, of New York, purchased a queen 

 from me. The queen was shipped as hundreds of others are 

 sent, and I never expected to hear anything from the 

 transaction. The next year Mrs. B. wrote me this: 



"I owe you a debt of gratitude for the fine queen you 

 sent me. Had it not been for that queen I would have had 

 no honey. This one colony stored 125 pounds in sections, 

 while no other bees in town stored any surplus at all." 



Now here comes the best part of that testimonial: In 

 trying to purchase that queen from Mrs. B. we got pretty 

 well acquainted, and the result was that Mrs. Ball is now 

 Mrs. Alley. Now, was not that a good queen? I leave it to 

 Mr. Ferris to say. 



Finally, I must say that Mr. Ferris has not made out a 

 good case. Considering the fact that we all have had nearly 

 as good queens as Mr. Ferris has described, I must say 

 that the question, "How to rear better queens," is still 

 unsolved, so far as Mr. F. is concerned. I have claimed 

 that I can rear better queens by the queenless process than 

 can be reared by natural swarming. 



Editor Hutchinson says just as good queens can be 

 reared by queenless bees as natural ones, but he hardly thinks 

 better queens can be so reared. 



I still assert that I can rear better queens by queenless 

 bees than can be obtained by the natural process. At any 

 rate, I shall continue to rear queens in the same way that 

 I have since the year i860, so long as I have good suc- 

 cess. 



Mr. F. asserts that he can rear queens that will fill 

 14 Langstroth frames with brood! Did Mr. F. stop to con- 

 sider this statement before he made it? Let us see what 

 a queen must do in order to fill the combs in 14 Langstroth 

 frames in 21 days. 



A Langstroth frame 9x17 inches, inside measurement, 

 contains 153 inches. There are 5 J cells to the inch of comb. 

 In 14 frames there would be 111,384 cells. Sixty thousand 

 to 75,000 bees is considered a very large colony. To fill 

 14 frames, a queen must deposit 5,304 eggs each 24 hours 

 for 21 days. Does any one suppose that a queen can be 

 found that will lay so many eggs in one day? 



I will pay $25 for a pure Italian queen that will fill 

 onlv 12 frames with brood in 21 days, and give an order for 



