1870.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



61 



progeny, while preserving the purity of the 

 stock. 



Let US remark also, that Nature in ordering 

 for the queens the wedding flight, obviously had 

 in view the avoidance of in-and-in breeding. 



3d. Choose the colony having the purest 

 queen, and the most fertile, from which to pro- 

 vide the queens cells, and distribute in small 

 nuclei when sealed No matti'r if the queen is 

 dark. In good seasons the queens raised in 

 small nuclei are as good as those raised in full 

 stocks. Ch. Dadakt. 



Hamilton, Ills., July 24, 1870. 



[For the Ameiicau Bee Journal.] 



Artificial Queens. 



In the July No. of the Journal. Mr. John M. 

 Price contributed an article on '" Natural, Hardy 

 and Prolific Queens," which was no doubt his 

 conviction of the truth of the matter at the 

 time ; but as it does not agree with my experi- 

 ence, I will give the other side of the ques- 

 tion. 



If I under.stand his theory, it is that queens 

 reared in stocks deprived of their queen when 

 not under the "swarming impulse," are smaller, 

 less proliiic and shorter lived than vvhat are 

 termed natural queens. I am fully aware that 

 Mr. Price do^s not stand alone on said theory, 

 and yet I believe it to be an error. 



For the sake of distinguishing, we will state 

 that queens bred in full stocks from wliicli the 

 mother queen led forth a swawn, or queens 

 which were started while the old queen remained 

 in the hive, are natural queens, and all others 

 artificial. I have both kinds in my apiary, and 

 have had for several years, and can see no dif- 

 ference in their size, beauty, fertility or longev- 

 ity. I have repeatedly kept artificial queens 

 until they were three years old, and had one 

 very pi-olific queen which died in Marcii last, 

 being then three years and nine months old. I 

 left iier as an experiment, to see what age she 

 would attain ; but my practice is to remove 

 queens in their second or third year. Of course 

 a few die before they are two years old, for 

 they are not exempt from the ills that bee 

 "flesh is heir to." But that four or live in 

 succession should pass ofl" the stage of action in 

 a single stock in one season, is something be- 

 fore unheard of. I do not know wluit effect 

 brother P.'s revolvable, reversible, double-cased 

 hive might have upon the tender life of a young 

 queen ; but it seems to have been most dis- 

 astrous, for we have no such work here in the 

 old Keystone State. 



It is a matter of very great importance in the 

 success of an apiary, that our stocks are supplied 

 with the right kind of queens, and in order to 

 effect this desirable result, something more is 

 necessax'y to a full understanding of the subject, 

 than simply to know that bees, when deprived 

 of their queen, will attempt to supply her plac •. 

 1 find little difficulty in rearing fine queens, 

 with the following conditions : 1st. a suitable 

 queen mother ; 2d. fair weather and good 

 pasturage ; 3d a full stock, in which honey and 



pollen are abundant (not a nucleus where starva- 

 tion stares them in the face). It is a settled 

 point with me, that the production of queens is 

 a matter wholly imder the control of the worker 

 bees ; and we lack evidence that a queen ever 

 lays an egg in a royal cell. If the bee is guided 

 by instinct alone, and the production of a queen 

 depended on the depositing of a peculiar egg by 

 the queen in a royal cell (an egg, differing from 

 the worker or drone eggs), it would follow that, 

 on the loss or removal of the queen when no 

 such eggs existed in the hive, no young queens 

 could be produced. 



Small queens may be produced in nuclei where 

 the requisite food is limited, and where from 

 want of bees the larva is exposed to repeated 

 changes of temperature, which is detrimental. 

 When reared in full stocks in times of great 

 scarcity, nearly the same results follow. 



There is another important point, namely the 

 proper age f(>r the mother bee. In breeding all 

 our domestic animals, regard is always had (and 

 wisely we think) to the age of the parents. It 

 may be thought that the life of the bee is so 

 short that it v.ould allow but little latitude in 

 tills direction ; but it should not be forgotten 

 that the queen usually lives three and sometimes 

 four years, during which tini'^ there is doubtless 

 a period of fertility and hardiness, or power of 

 endurance, not common to the whole of her life. 

 Just what that period is, I am not prepared to 

 say ; but the rapid advancement of apiarian 

 science will doubtless solve the problem. I am 

 satisfied, however, that queens bred from j.,oung 

 queens are not equal, in several desirable points, 

 to those bred froni mothers a year old. In ex- 

 perimenting with black bees, I became satisfied 

 on this point several years ago. I have never 

 known a young black queen, after becoming fer- 

 tile, to lead out a swarm, no matter how popu- 

 lous the stock might be ; and indeed apiarians 

 have considered it the best method of prevent- 

 ing swarming, in order to secure surplus honey, 

 to remove the old queen and install one of the 

 current year. (It is ahead of Quinby's queen 

 yard). We reason from this, that their instinct 

 teaches them that they are xmfit for queen 

 mothers. This would not, perhaps, hold good 

 in the high temperature of southern latitudes, 

 which tends to the earlier maturity of all animal 

 life. With the Italian bees it is somewhat dif- 

 ferent, for young queens produce drone eggs, 

 and they do sometimes lead out swarms, yet 

 they are not so liable to do so as older queens. 



Mr. Aaron Benedict tells us he produced six 

 generations of queens in a single season, but 

 does not give us the result, further than that he 

 thought he improved his bees in color. 



I am not surprised that the men who raise 

 queens from March to October, have ciieap 

 queens and sell them by the hundred. But I 

 am one to say that no genuine lover of our pets 

 who duly considers consequences, would proceed 

 thus. And now, Mr. Editor, I wish to say in 

 conclusion, that of my 125 queens about one- 

 fourth are natural and the balance artificial 

 queens, and if Mr. Price, or " any other man " 

 will, upon examination, decide correctly, by 

 size or fertility (amount of brood), which are of 

 the former and which of the latter class, he may 



