THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



337 



own opinion is that the style of the sep- 

 arator has precious Uttle to do with the 

 ventilation of the super. I think that 

 the difference is in the freer communica- 

 tion allowed the bees. 



POOR OUEKNS ARE THE RESULT OF SIM- 

 PLY REMOVING A OUEEN FROM A 

 COLONY. 



Dr. Miller, in a recent issue of Glea- 

 nings, uses a page or more to prove that 

 when a queen is removed from a colony of 

 bees, the latter, if left to themselves, do 

 not choose too old larvte for the rearing of 

 queens. Mr. Taylor in this issue of the 

 Review uses about the same amount of 

 space in showing that the doctor is wrong. 

 I shall leave my readers to say which is 

 more correct in his theorizing, but niv 

 own experience in the matter has showed 

 very clearly that poor queens usually re- 

 sult from simply removing a queen and 

 allowing the bees to make their own se- 

 lection of larvae for queen Tearing. As 

 most of you know, I was, for several 

 years, engaged in the rearing of queens 

 for the market. When I first began 

 queen rearing I followed the plan of sim- 

 ply removing the queen and allowing the 

 bees to go on and construct queen cells, 

 exercising their own choice of larv:e. 



I was not long in noticing the inferior- 

 ity of the queens that resulted from such 

 practice. Mr. Taylor has well described 

 their peculiarities. Such queens were 

 also short lived; usually being superseded 

 the second season. After a colony had 

 been deprived of its queen, and allowed 

 to build one batch of cells in this man- 

 ner, it was given a comb of just hatched 

 larviTi, holes being cut in the comb just 

 at the line where the larvae were begin- 

 ning to hatch. The cells (Vere almost in- 

 variably built where these holes were cut, 

 and it was a surprise to me, at first, to see 

 what fine queens were thus obtained, as 

 compared with the first batch. 



I think there are no experienced queen 

 breeders who now rear queens by simply 

 removing the queen and allowing the 



bees to make their own selection of larvae 

 for queen rearing. Experience has taught 

 them that such a course results in infe- 

 rior queens. 



Of all the things that Dr. Miller has 

 written, I think none have surprised me 

 more than the following that I take from 

 his recent article in Gleanings. 



"I know it is a quite commonly accept- 

 ed belief that bees left to themselves sel- 

 ect larvae too old for the best queens; but 

 it is high time to lay such beliefs aside. 

 The truth is, they don't make such mis- 

 choice." 



I am a little at a loss to know what 

 could have led the doctor to make such 

 an assertion. If bees are left entirely to 

 themselves in this matter of queen rear- 

 ing, left to swarm and to supersede their 

 queens as they see fit, no mistakes of 

 this kind occur, but when man puts in 

 his clumsy finger and takes a laying queen 

 in her full prime from a flourishing col- 

 ony, the bees are placed in a position in 

 which Ni..ure never has placed them; and 

 that they, in their inexperience with this 

 particular condition, should make a mis- 

 take is not surprising. 



NO OCCASION FOR JEALOUSY AMONG THE 

 BEE JOURNALS. 



Perhaps some of us have never thought 

 of it, but there is no occasion for jealousy 

 among us bee-keeping journalists. In a 

 certain cit\^ or territory, only about so 

 many groceries or dry goods can be sold ; 

 there is a somewhat sharply defined limit 

 to the demand. If new stores come in, 

 the amount of goods sold by each store 

 will be lessened. With literature it is 

 somewhat different; especially is this true 

 in regard to journals devoted to some 

 special subject or industry. If a man 

 reads one good bee-journal, the benefit he 

 derives from it is so apparent that he is 

 inclined to subscribe for another. It is 

 one of those cases in which the appetite 

 grows upon what it feeds npon. I have 

 never hesitated to say a good word fo- 

 another journal when I though it deserv 

 ed it; and I feel certain that I never lost 



