60 



THE AMKRICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Sept., 



of qnocn eel's are secured, and it is desirable to 

 t-till breed from the same queen, se(3ure her and 

 introduce her to a colony that lias not swarmed, 

 and proceed as before. Or, better still, intro- 

 duce her to a colony making preparations to 

 swarm. Before introducinsr her, destroy all 

 queen cells that have eggs or larva in them ; 

 then cell building w'ill proceed as before. A 

 swarm under the swarming impulse will commu- 

 nicate it to a strange cxueeu introduced to them ; 

 or a queen under the .swarming imjnilse, "and 

 not satisfied," will communicate it to any popu- 

 lous colony to which she may be introduced. 



John M. Phice. 

 Buffalo Oi'ove, loioa. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Natural and prolific hardy Queens. 



We are all more or less disposed to regard our 

 own ideas as indisiiutable. 



Mr. Quinby for example, pi-aises his new hive, 

 and his queen yard. I have experimented with 

 both, and both are now in my barn, waiting to 

 be split up for kindling wood. 



Mr. .John M. Price, in the July number of the 

 Bee Journal, condemns all artificially raised 

 queens. But rassurez vous, friend queen- 

 breeders, I come to prove to friend Price, that 

 he has misconceived the reason of his bad luck 

 in raising artificial queens. 



AVhen I commenced to introduce Italian bees 

 in my apiary, six years ago, I received from one 

 of our best queen-breeders a very nice looking 

 queen. She was very yellow from the waist to 

 the tip of the abdomen. Well, I raised a num- 

 ber of queens to get drones, and next season I 

 raised some more, from the .'^ame queen, to 

 replace the misallied queens. Butlo, one-fourth 

 of my young queens were either crippled, or 

 drone laying, or laying non-hatcliing eggs. Yet 

 these queens were as yellow as their mother, and 

 it seemed as if the brighter they looked, the 

 poorer they were. 



Then my first imported queens came. They 

 were not yellow, but dark. The first rings of the 

 abdomen were leather-colored, the last were en- 

 tirely black or nearly so. I wrote to Dr. Blum- 

 hof, reproaching him for having sent me so dark 

 queens. He replied that all the healthier queens 

 in Italy are dark, and that it was well ascer- 

 tained there, that the light-colored queens were 

 not so good as the dark. The liglit-colored 

 queens, added tlie Doctor, seem to have the 

 chlorosis. Prof. Mona told the same tiling to 

 jVIr. A. Gi-imm, when he was in Italy. See 

 America n Bee Journal, vol. III. From this^we can 

 guess that the selecting of the brightest yellow 

 queens for breeders, is one of the causes of the 

 failure of the queens raised. But in-and-in 

 breeding is another, and according to my experi- 

 ence, a main cause of weakness. 



As soon as my first imported queens were on 

 hand, I commenced raising queens from them, 

 and from that time forward I raised artificial 

 queens every year from newly imiiorted queens. 

 Those queens mate with drones from queens of 



the preceding year's importation, and so on. I 

 do not care for the color of these queens, but not 

 one of them is crip^iled or proves to be a poor 

 layer. 



My five best stocks this yeai", all have artificial 

 queens Three of these queens are with swarms 

 of last year. I hived them in one of friend 

 Pi ice's hives. These sw.irms are better than 

 tlie three original stocks tliey came from, though 

 these latter have raised natural queens in the 

 height of the swarming season, as friend Price 

 prefers they should. The five stocks referred to 

 gave me from seventy to one hundred pounds 

 each, of bo.x honey. I suppose I should be 

 thought very exigennt if I were not content with 

 such results, in so dry a season as this. 



Why does friend Price imagine that artificially 

 raised queens are not so good as natural ones ? 

 Probably, because the bees, in order to oljtain 

 queens sooner, chose grul)s already several dnys 

 old, instead of selecting newly laid eggs, from 

 which to raise queens. I have w^atched that 

 very closely, and could see no appreciable differ- 

 ence. A stock rendered queeuless will raise 

 queens maturing at different periods, some 

 hatching in from nine to twelve or fourteen 

 days, and sometimes not till sixteen days after. 

 If the above theory were correct, the earlier 

 hatching queens sliould be the poorer, for they 

 come from grubs tlirce or four daj's old. Yet 

 such is not the case — those queens are as good 

 as any. 



If that theory proved to be true, it would still 

 be an easy matter to prevent the evil results ap- 

 prehended. We-could destroy the two or three 

 first-capped queen cells ; or force the bees to 

 raise queens from the egg, by a method far more 

 easy than friend Price's. Insert in your chosen 

 stock a frame, containing emi>ty worker comb, 

 placing it between tv,'o frames containing brood. 

 In three days, if the bees find honey in the fields, 

 the cells of the worker comb will be supplied 

 with eggs. Then remove the queen and all the 

 brood combs, except the one containing the 

 eggs. The bees will thus have eggs only from 

 which to raise queens, and all your young queens 

 will necessarily be started ab ovo. I guess this 

 method is as good as, and more simple than, that 

 of friend Price. 



I am not a queen-breeder. That business 

 does not suit me, for it is a source of too much 

 vexation. I have repeatedly imported queens, 

 but I lost money and suffered so much in that 

 business, that I think my sufferings will pay for 

 all my sins in, the other world. I am tlius 

 altogether disinterested in this matter of breed- 

 ing queens. 



On this topic, my advice to apiarians is — 



l.st. Do not look for yellow queens, for they 

 are not as good as dark ones. 



2d. Take care to avoid too close in-and-in 

 breeding. 



Let us also remark, that many bee-keepers find 

 that tlie half-blood Italian b'?es, are better than 

 the pure ones. Why? Simply because the in- 

 and-in bleeding the race of their queens was 

 subject to for some generations, was broken 

 by the alliance witli black drones. But the 

 alliance of the Italian queens with Italian drones 

 remotely bred, would doubtless give as good 



