Aug. 30, 1906 



735 



American T*ee Journal 



Queens— How Many Eggs Do 

 They Lay ? 



BY G. M. DOOtlTTLE 



A correspondent wishes me to tell, 

 through the columns of the American 

 Bee Journal, about how many eggs the 

 ordinary queen of the honey-bee will 

 lay. He says he has a neighbor bee- 

 keeper who claims that a queen will 

 lay about 100,000 eggs in a year, and 

 when laying that many she will be- 

 come worthless at the end of the sec- 

 ond year. And in his giving the name 

 of his neighbor, I recognize the same 

 as one of our men who is often seen at 

 bee-conventions, and who takes an 

 active part therein, so that it may be 

 well to say a few words on this sub- 

 ject, for in such sayings as these harm 

 may come to those not used to thinking 

 and experimenting for themselves in 

 these matters. From such ideas as 

 this, there is little doubt but that the 

 notion has prevailed — which has been 

 so common during the late past — that 

 all queens should be superseded when 

 they are 2 years old. 



Now, the superseding of all queens 

 as soon as they are 2 years old is quite 

 a task, even if it were necessary, but 

 when we come to consider that, with 

 the rank and file of bee-keepers, most 

 queens are as good the third year as 

 the second, while very many queens 

 prove good the fourth year, unless the 

 apiarist uses such strenuous plans that 

 they are over-worked, we see the waste 

 of time it is to go through all this 

 work simply for the reason that some 

 unthinking person (unthinking along 

 this line) has recommended such a 

 course. To be sure, each person should 

 think and act for himself, but most be- 

 ginners in bee-keeping think what they 

 read and hear on apicultural subjects 

 must be right, or very nearly so, at 

 least. Therefore, it is always well to 

 use due caution in writing and speak- 

 ing, so that we do not give voice to 

 that which is misleading. 



Now let us look into the matter a 

 little. I have used during the past as 

 small a brood-chamber as any one in 

 the United States, the same holding 

 only 9 Gallup frames, and having a 

 capacity of about 800 square inches of 

 brood-comb space. This comb is kept 

 pretty well filled from the first of June 

 to the middle of August, or for about 

 75 days. As there are about SO cells of 

 worker-size to every square inch of 

 comb, the queen must lay about 40,000 

 eggs every 21 days (that being the 

 time it takes to perfect a worker-bee 

 from the time the egg is laid by the 

 queen), or about 142,000 bees in the 75 

 days. 



Now all good colonies, when wintered 

 on the summer stands, will begin rear- 

 ing brood during the month of Jan- 

 uary, and by taking the average in- 

 crease of eggs laid from then to the 

 first of June, and the decrease from the 

 middle of August till the end of the 

 breeding season, which is about Oct. 1 

 with us, we have about 100,000 more, 

 or about 242,000 for the year. If this 

 is the case with a small brood-chamber, 

 it will be seen that still more bees 

 would be reared in a large brood-cham- 

 ber of nearly double this capacity, such 

 as is used and recommended by the 

 Dadants and others ; and how any one 

 can come to the conclusion that 100,000 

 is the number of eggs a queen will lay 

 in one year, and that she will be worth- 

 less at the end of 2 years when laying 

 at that rate, is something that I can 

 not understand, only by way of con- 

 cluding that he is not a close experi- 

 menter, or else does not stop to weigh 

 what he says. 



With my small brood-chambers 

 queens average good and prolific for 3 

 years, some doing good work even in 

 their fifth year ; but as a few will fail 

 in their third year we will call it only 

 3 years that they will keep up this rate 

 of laying. This would give 726,000 

 eggs as the number laid by the queen 

 during her lifetime, on an average, 

 and with only average queens, instead 

 of 200,000 as was given by the bee- 

 keeper to our correspondent. 



If I am correct, and I believe I am, 

 from many experiments I have con- 

 ducted, it will be seen that if a queen 

 laid only 100,000 eggs a year, she would 

 be good for 7 years. And if this is so, 

 then we can see the extreme folly in 

 the recommendation to supersede all 

 queens during the fall of the second 

 year of their life. 



If we are using a system of strenu- 

 ous work for the queen, as is the one 

 who uses a 10-frame I,angstroth hive, 

 and coaxes the queen to fill every avail- 

 able cell with brood, then there is some 

 propriety in the argument that a queen 

 may not prove good longer than 2 

 years. With the plan I am now using 

 for the production of comb honey with- 

 out swarming, using 10-frame Eang- 

 stroth hives to accomplish such results, 

 the queens in these hives lay nearly as 

 many eggs in 2 years as they will in 4 

 years in the small brood-chambers of 

 only 9 Gallup frames. But even in 

 this case, the bees take care of the 

 queen-matter very largely, for the Ital- 

 ian bees will usually supersede their 

 queen during August, when she has 

 begun failing, or seems likely to fail 

 before the end of another honey season 

 arrives. 



Where any bee-keeper lives in a 

 locality in which the bees are liable to 



hold on to their queens after their use- 

 fulness is past, as to the production of 

 eggs, then it would be advisable for 

 him to take this matter in his own 

 hands, and supersede all failing, or 

 those liable to fail, at the proper time. 

 But let each one be sure of the inside 

 workings of the hive, knowing what is 

 going on there, so that he can work as 

 intelligently along this line as he does 

 with his stock of poultry, sheep, cattle, 

 or any other thing with which he is 

 familiar. 



It is a strange thing that possesses 

 the heads and minds of most beginners 

 in bee-keeping, that they need not be 

 as familiar with the bees as they are 

 with other stock and things. Let us 

 get away from such ideas. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



No. 



17— Dadant Methods of 

 Honey-Production 



IIV C. P. DADANT 



In connection with the question of 

 hive-ventilation, which I mentioned in 

 a previous number, it may be well to 

 consider the matter of artificial shade 

 or shelter for the hives. In this, as in 

 ventilation, the question of latitude is 

 of some importance. In countries like 

 France, England, Germany or Canada, 

 above the 45th degree of latitude, the 

 sun shines at an angle which renders 

 it much less dangerous in hot summer 

 days than it is in the Mississippi Val- 

 ley, for I must acknowledge that, 

 although we are living in one of the 

 most fertile countries in the world, yet 

 we find here, so to speak, the heat of 

 Africa during the summer, and the 

 cold of Sibera during the winter. 



I have kept bees in large numbers 

 in about IS different spots, some in the 

 shade of thick timber, some under ap- 

 ple-trees, under grapevines, in the open 

 fields, and under artificial sheds. We 

 have had hives without any shelter 

 whatever, others with a thin board-roof, 

 and others with very substantial rain- 

 and-sun shelters. The first hives we 

 used were unpainted, and there was 

 only the thickness of 2 ordinary ps-inch 

 boards between the combs and the sun 

 exposure. We soon tired of this. The 

 sun warps the boards, checks them, 

 and allows the rain to beat in when a 

 sudden storm comes. A hive-top made 

 of ordinary lumber, even though clear 

 of knots, will last but a few years. 

 Painting helps it, but the careful man 

 who wishes to preserve things in good 

 order soon gets tired of seeing his hive- 

 tops defaced by the changes from sun 

 to rain and snow. 



Some leading apiarists use tin tops 

 for the hives. This is the only thing 

 that will retain the hive's good shape, 

 and will keep out moisture. But it 

 must be placed over some heavy felt 

 paper or other non-conducting mate- 

 rial, or the tin would increase the dan- 

 ger from heat to the frail combs when 

 they are loaded with honey. 



My brother-in-law, Mr. E. J. Baxter, 

 who has followed our methods for some 

 30 years, has roofs made after the pat- 

 tern formerly contrived by my father. 

 (See cut.) These roofs are graceful, 

 and change the looks of a hive from a 

 box to a diminutive dwelling. But 



