106 



THE AMERICAN BEE KEEPER. 



April 



and were it not for the adulterator, 

 would continue to be generally used 

 not only upon our tables, but by the 

 bakers, confectioners and many other 

 uses. Many locations are well suited 

 to the production of extracted honey 

 of a low grade, suitable only for bak- 

 eries, that would not produce an arti- 

 cle of comb honey that would be sala- 

 ble in any market. 



In many localities quite a flow of 

 heney coraes in early and fills up the 

 brood chamber of our hives, which 

 can only be utilized by using the ex- 

 tractor in preparing the brood combs 

 for the reception of brood, to keep up 

 an army of workers for the flow of a 

 higher grade of honey later in the 

 season. 



The question of over production can 

 be guarded somewhet by producing 

 large quantities of extracted honey to 

 be used by manufacturers, but unless 

 we can stop adulteration the bee keep- 

 er who produces the extracted article 

 will soon be adulterated out of exist- 

 ence. 



Santa Paula, Cal. 



(From Progressive Bee Keeper). 



LENGTH OF TIME REQUIRED POR 

 HATCHING QUEEN BEES' EGGS. 



BY J. W. ROUSE. 



I have noticed the discussion in a 

 bee journal of how long it takes to 

 hatch a queen from the egg, and am 

 much surprised at the difference of 

 opinion. That is to say, I do not 

 know why othei's' experience should 

 be different from my own in doing 

 the same thing, and these, people of 

 large experience. 



One thinks it sometimes takes sev- 

 enteen days to hatch a queen from the 



egg, and others think it only takes 

 fifteen days, instead of the good old 

 sixteen days as laid down in the bee 

 books by their authors. 



I wish to speak of chicken eggs in 

 hatching. Since the incubator has 

 come into use it has been found that 

 in some cases chicken eggs may be 

 hatched in a little over eighteen days, 

 and then again the time may be 

 lengthened to twenty-four days, when 

 it is well known that the usual time 

 is twenty-one days, and that is the 

 time it takes a hen to hatch the eggs. 

 This time may be shortened a little, 

 and may be lengthened a day or two. 

 In an incubator, with a good, vigor- 

 ous embryo in the egg, if the heat in 

 the incubator is kept too high, the egg 

 will hatch too soon, that is, too soon to 

 get the best chicks. Then, again, if 

 the embryo does not have good vitali- 

 ty, and the incubator is run with the 

 heat very low, it sometimes takes 

 twenty three or twenty-four days to 

 hatch, bnt the chick is not likely to 

 be of any account. 



There is a great difference in the 

 vitality of eggs as procured from 

 chickens, from causes that I do not 

 wish to discuss now. As there is so 

 varied a difference in chicken eggs 

 hatching I do not see but there may 

 be a difference in bees, or, rather, in 

 a queen bee's ^gg in hatching. I 

 think it not likely that there would 

 be the difference in the vitality of a 

 queen bee's eggs as there is in the 

 chicken's eggs because the cause does 

 not exist to so great an extent in bees 

 as it exists in chickens, but I think 

 the time may be varied by the care of 

 the bees in hatching the queens out. 

 In my own experience I do not re- 

 member of getting queens to hatch 



