130 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Much complaint is made that the wliole colony 

 is apt to go out fi om a nucleus hive when the 

 queen leaves for impregnation, and does not 

 return; thus queen and all are lost. There is a 

 sure remedy for this. Bees never desert a hive, 

 large or small, while there is brood in it. If, 

 then, a frame containing eggs nnd larva? be 

 given to the small colony from another hive, 

 about the time the queen will hatch, the bees 

 will not desert it. Some have trouble in making 

 iio bees build more than one or tv/o cells in 

 iiese little hives. That is because they do not 

 nave a large proportion oi young bees in them. 

 The young bees of the current year arc the ones 

 that work the wax and Imild queen cells. They 

 may be seen Ijefore they are twentj^-four hours 

 old at Avork on them. Keep plenty of bee-bread 

 and lioney in the small hive, and supply it Avith 

 water and young and hatching bees, and you 

 will have numerous cells. 



Be always sure that, in the hives where you 

 are rearing queens, there arc no eggs except 

 from a queen of undoubted purity. It has been 

 declared impossible for bees to remove their eggs 

 from one cell to another, but I now knoAV that 

 they do so. Last year I put into nucleus hives, 

 each, a frame containing eggs, while the other 

 combs, full of honey and bee-bread, were those 

 preserved from hives from which the bees had 

 been taken, and which had been all Avinter in 

 a cold room. By no probability could an egg 

 have been in these, yet repeatedly wei'c queen 

 cells built in them, and perfect queens hatched 

 from them. I do not pretend to say hoAV the 

 bees remoA^e so delicate a thing as one of those 

 little eggs Avithout injury; but is it really any 

 more wonderful than some of their other 

 operations ? 



I have reared queeiis every week from the 1st 

 of April to the last of October, and could per- 

 ceive no difference in size or coloring at the 

 different seasons; but out of eighteen reared in 

 April last only two became fertile; and of twen- 

 Ly-two reared in October, all but four were lost, 

 Avhile nearly all those reared In May, June, and 

 July were impregnated. 



I do not find the pure Italian queens larger in 

 size than the common ones; but queens reared 

 from a pure Italian mother, fertilized by a com- 

 mon drone, are often very large and handsome. 

 The colonies of such queens are, in every 

 respect, equal to the pure. All such queens 

 mvkj b(?safely preserved, as tJieir drones are pure. 

 But no queens should be raised from them, and 

 if swarms issue from their hives, the queens 

 should be taken from them and pure ones given 

 them, for nothing pure comes from a queen 

 reared from such queens. 



IS[o one should be contented to stop short of 

 giving a queen Avhich Avill produce pure drones 

 the first season to every hive he has, Avhether it 

 be one or one hundred. This accomplished, 

 your work is more than half done. The im- 

 portance of this is manifest, for you will then 

 iiaA'e no common drones in your apiary the 

 second season. When this is the case, you can 

 keep your OAvn colonies strong, "swarm" 

 tliem early, and have little to fear from out- 

 siders. 



So long as you have common drones, a large 



proportion of your queens will meet them. I 

 raised one hundred and forty-three queens the 

 first season, which became fertile, and though 

 I had many Italian drones in a dozen hives, 

 and suppressed the common drones as much as 

 possible, only twenty-six of my young queens 

 were fertilized by Italians. 



It is said, and I doubt not with truth, that in 

 all Italian stock brought to this country, there 

 is a taint of impurity. This is of little conse 

 quence if Ave keep our slock pure. By exercis- 

 ing proper care, Ave can not only keep them as 

 good as the original, l)ut also do much to im- 

 prove them. I have several young queens CA'en 

 more beautiful than those I bought, and queens 

 reared from them are as fine as any I have ever 

 seen. Every one which does not produce pure 

 drones should be replaced as soon as this is 

 discovered, and those which are only hybrid 

 may be changed before SAvarms are taken from 

 them. All this requires care and patience, but 

 it pays Avell to take this care. 



In no Avay can the yield of honey be so 

 sensibly increased as by introducing the Italian 

 bee into different localities. As it replaces the 

 old A'ariety a great change Avill be observed. -- 



I cannot think it wise for those rearing queens 

 to sell to send out any but those attested and 

 proved pure. The practice of selling hybrid 

 cjueens, or of sending those not tested, to those 

 who are commencing in the business, promising 

 to replace them if not pure, is a bad one. The 

 beginner (avIio, perhaps, has never seen an 

 Italian bee) cannot himself be a judge of purity, 

 and in nine cases out often will l)e satisfied Avitli 

 what he gets, and rear from it. Though he will 

 find any mixture of the Italian blood an im- 

 proA^ement on his old stock, yet, in the second 

 generation, he will have nothing pure, and be 

 disappointed and discouraged. One had better 

 pay a large price for a queen Avarranted pure by 

 one Avhosc reputation is at stake in the matter 

 than to get a hybrid cheap, and find, in a year 

 or two, that he has all his trouble for little or 

 nothing. I Avould advise every one purcliasing 

 a queen to clip her wings before putting her in 

 a new home. It not only prevents her leaving 

 the hive Avith a swarm at any time, but you are 

 ahvays sure that she is the one you bought, for 

 bees often destroy a queen for no apparent 

 reason. 



Singular as it may appear, there is no tribe 

 of insects which — like the ox, or sheep, or other 

 hoofed animals— can be termed absolutely do- 

 mestic, or capable of administering, in a direct 

 way, to the Avants of man. ' And yet a little 

 consideration Avill show us there are many 

 strong points of analogy between the ruminat- 

 ing quadrupeds and the bees. Both are the 

 most gregarious of their respective classes — the 

 elephantln one, and the hive-bee in theother, 

 show us the highest development of instinct in 

 the animal creation; and if the latter does not 

 spontaneously yield us its honey, it will yet in- 

 habit those artificial mansions Ave prepare for 

 securing its sweets, so that, in some degree, it 

 may be said to be not only a social, but a some- 

 what domesticated insect. 



