1870.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



101 



out of awry one, — some by artificial fertilization 

 experiments ; and the rest wouldn't lay and 

 finally died their "own selves." 



Well, (we have considerable patience,) we tried 

 again ; removed queen from No. 16, August 28, 

 and cut out twenty-one (21) cells ten days after. 

 Of these we did raise five laying queens ; and 

 most of the other cells were destroyed by laying 

 them on the tojj of the frames when the weather 

 was too cool. In fact we have had more cells 

 destroyed this fall than ever before, and only 

 saved five by inserting them carefully in place of 

 one cut out. Now, Mr. Editor, we should have 

 felt somewhat better at this result, had we not 

 discovered that the original queen removed from 

 No. 10 had been killed, and only a miserable, 

 small, black queen reared in her place. She was 

 put in a hive in which we had a caged, unfertile 

 queen, and we neglected to look whether they 

 had raised any more. Inexcusable carelessness, 

 we call it. 



To shorten the matter, we sent Mr. Grimm 

 fifty dollars on Monday morning, and received 

 twenty-five nice queens (or a part of them at 

 least) on Saturday afternoon. Is not that i^retty 

 prompt ? 



Now, Mr. Editor, we are going to take this 

 queen raising business uj) next spring just where 

 we left off; and if we can't do better, and at 

 least raise enough for our own apiary, we shall 

 call ourself something worse than 



October 10, 1870. Novice. 



[For the Amei-ican Bee Jourual.] 



Ifatural, prolific, and hardy Queens. 

 Part 3. 



Answer to Charles Dadant and Willard J- 

 Davis, in September number of the American 

 Bee Journal, pages 60 and 61. 



To commence with Mr. Dadant. He says, 

 first, that ' ' we are all disposed to regard our own 

 ideas as indisputable." 



Ansioer. Prove all things ; then hold fast to the 

 true. Do xuit condemn before trial. I have been 

 several years experimenting and am satisfied 

 with my method, as a means of procuring natu- 

 ral, prolific, hardy and long-lived queens — far, 

 far ahead of any yet given to the public. It 

 having relieved me from the disappointment and 

 losses heretofore experienced in artificial swarm- 

 ing, with forced or artificial queens, I liave freely 

 given my mode to the public, for adoption or 

 rejection, as they see fit. Those who are set in 

 their way, are under no obligation to either adopt 

 or even try my mode ; but there are those who 

 are not satisfied with their i^resent light, and 

 who will be benefited by the knowledge of an 

 improved process, and to them my communica- 

 tions are addressed. 



He says, second, that I "condemn all artificially 

 raised queens." 



Ansioer. I do : as against nature, reason, and 

 common sense. I see a difference in a provision 

 of nature, by means of which a swarm, acci- 

 dentally dei^rived of its queen, can temporarily 

 replace her, till one can be raised in a more 



natural way, and the way men in their wisdom are 

 running the race out. You yourself prove my 

 position by almost every line of your article, if 

 you would only place your trials, troubles, vexa- 

 tions, and losses to their right account— /orce^f or 

 artificiiilly raised qtisens. New brood may seem- 

 ingly save you for a time ; but when all breeders 

 have the cholorosis stamped on the product of 

 their apiaries, like will beget like. 



He says, in the third place — "why does friend 

 Price imagine that artificial queens are not as 

 good as natural ones?" 



Answer. Because convinced by years of experi- 

 ment and careful comparison (not hard to see, I 

 assure you) of natural with forced queens raised 

 hy the means you have mentioned in your article, 

 and by others not mentioned. Even now I am 

 trying the experiment of raising forced queens 

 from the brood of a pure Italian queen received 

 last spring from a celebrated breeder. But so 

 far I have only succeeded in raising cripjjles, 

 drone layers, and non-egg-hatching queens. Most 

 of them play out before commencing to lay ; yet 

 I have raised them from the egg — not one of them 

 hatching before the sixteenth day. 



He says, fourth, after giving away or getting 

 queens from the egg, " I guess this method is as 

 good as, and more simple than, that of friend 

 Price." 



Answer. You would go through everj^ motion 

 that I do, and get two or three queens, worthless 

 in comijarison witli natural ones ; while I would 

 secure from ten to sixty natural ones. If you 

 followed your own method, you would have to 

 divide almost every hive in your apiary, if you 

 got through svi'arming in any season ; w]nle by 

 my method" one hive would furnish all the 

 natural queen cells that would be wanted in the 

 largest apiary in the time of natural swarming. 



He says, fifth, "a queen hatched from grubs 

 three or four days old is just as good as any." 



Answer. To sell I 



Sixth, he says, "many bee-keepers find the 

 half-blood Italian bees are better tlian pure 

 ones"— his reason being that in and in breeding 

 is broken up. 



Answer. Those that receive them, let them 

 swarm naturally ; thus the forcing is at an end, 

 and nature again asserts her superiority. 



Ho says, seventh, " In good seasons the queens 

 raised in small nuclei are as good as those raised 

 in full stocks." 



Answer. He admits that they cannot at all 

 times raise good ones. He had better have 

 attributed it to the lack of a natural instinct to 

 raise good ones. A swarm on the eve of swarm- 

 ing, broken up into nuclei, would probably raise 

 pretty fair queens — say half as good as natural 

 ones. As well might you hire a rough wood 

 chopper or ditcher to make a watch, as to set a 

 nucleus of bees not having the swarming instinct, 

 to raise a first rate chronometer balanced queen. 



Mr. W. J. Davis says that he does not know 

 what effect my Revolvable, Reversible, Double- 

 cased, Sectional Bee-hive may have had on the 

 tender life of a young queen, forced or artificial. 



As I have only u.sed my old Langstroth hives 



* My method and the use of Dr. Davis' Queen NcrsSEKr. 



