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For the American Bee Journal. 



The Dollar Queen Business. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



What is the trouble, that we hear so 

 many complaints of the queens which 

 are sent out by those selling dollar 

 queens, being so short lived '? Eight 

 here we wish to say that the queen is of 

 more consequence to the apiarist, than 

 all other subjects connected with bee- 

 culture, because the queen is all there 

 is of bee-culture; for without the queen 

 we could have no bees, and if we had 

 no bees, of what consequence would 

 articles on wintering bees, hives, sur- 

 plus honey, etc., be to us ? So, then, if 

 we fail to have good queens, or by our 

 mode of rearing them we are producing 

 queens that are deteriorating, instead of 

 growing better, we are in just that pro- 

 portion making a failure of bee-keeping. 

 But to return. A correspondent writes 

 thus (which is only the substance of 

 many letters we get) : " Last week I 

 found 3 dollar queens dead in front of 

 their hives. This leaves but 2 out of 6 

 introduced in November. The season 

 before, out of 3 introduced in Novem- 

 ber, I had 1 left in the spring, and she 

 failed in June. That season the 3 

 cheap queens cost me 2 good colonies of 

 bees, and the other did no good." Here 

 we have a report of 7 out of 9 queens 

 which did not live a year from the time 

 they were hatched, while those in our 

 apiary live to an average of 3 years, and 

 we have now and then one that lives 5 

 years. 



How are these queens reared that do 

 not live a year on an average ? The 

 plan, as given by the main instigator of 

 the dollar queen business, is this : Take 

 a frame of comb containing eggs, and 

 place in a hive that has been previously 

 filled, or partially so, as the case may be, 

 with empty combs, and place it on the 

 stand of a colony after having moved 

 the colony to a new stand. Thus we see 

 that the bees that are to rear these 

 bees are all old, or field bees, and are 

 wholly unfit to feed and nurse the em- 

 bryo queens ; at least this is our expe- 

 rience. When a colony is in a normal 

 condition, these old bees do not feed the 

 young brood, but it devolves on the bees 

 that are from 1 to 12 days old, to do the 

 work of preparing the food for the lar- 

 vae. By the plan above given the old 

 bees, with their wings all worn with the 

 toil of the fields, are obliged to become 

 young again as it were, and try to pre- 



pare the royal jelly for the queen they 

 must have or perish. Is it any wonder 

 that such queens do not average to live 

 a year? Dear reader, such queens are 

 reared for the dollar they will bring,and 

 for nothing else, by the majority of 

 those rearing them. To illustrate : Last 

 summer I wrote to a prominent queen- 

 breeder for some dollar queens, and re- 

 ceived a reply like this : " We are ship- 

 ping dollar queens all the time, but as 

 we are desirous of your good opinion, 

 we would like to rear some for you when 

 we rear our own, which our partner is 

 now preparing to do. If you can wait, 

 Ave should be happy to have you do so." 

 Of course we waited, and in due time 

 the queens came. The point we wish to 

 get at is this : If the queens that are 

 sold for a dollar each are just as good as 

 those reared by natural swarming, or 

 are all good queens, why rear those for 

 their own use, or for the good opinion of 

 a select few, in a different manner V 



I venture the assertion, that if a queen 

 reared under the swarming impulse is 

 worth $3.00. one reared from the same 

 mother as dollar queens are generally 

 reared, is not worth over one-third as 

 much, and the chances are that they 

 will turn out as did the 9 our correspon- 

 dent purchased. Thus, under the dollar 

 queen system of queen-rearing, we are 

 not improving our bees, but, on the con- 

 trary, are retrograding. 



Our plan of rearing queens is this 

 (and after the results of the past 7 years 

 we have no reason to discard it) : In the 

 spring we select the colonies having the 

 queens giving us the best results the 

 season previous, and as early as possible 

 get them strong in numbers. If we can 

 do this in no other way, we give them 

 brood from other colonies ; but by a 

 judicious spreading of the brood the ob- 

 ject can generally be attained without 

 help from other colonies. So we get 

 them to swarm in advance of the rest, 

 thus getting our cells or queens reared 

 just as the bees used to rear them when 

 they first came from the hand of the 

 great Creator, and He pronounced them 

 good. These cells we give to nuclei, 

 which are formed to suit the require- 

 ments of the cells, and by the time we 

 wish to use queens in the spring, we 

 have queens that are just as good as 

 those reared by any other method, and. 

 we think, a little better. If we wish a 

 further lot of cells from the. same 

 mother, we put the colony containing 

 her in a hive filled with empty combs, 

 and in two or three days, when she gets 

 well to laying, we take away one-halt' "1 

 the empty combs, and put in place 

 thereof frames of mostly sealed brood, 

 from other hives, and in about 15 days 



