July 24, 1902 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



471 



season as the first. I then sold out and did not keep track 

 of them any further. 



In article No.l, pafje .^42, I left out something of impor- 

 tance. After sayinff, " we should not be disai)pointc(l," I 

 should have added, " providing we succeed in f,'^ettinff them 

 reared under the superscdinj,' or swarming; impulse, one can 

 rear very fairciueens in a very stron)^^ colony from egffs or 

 larva' from worker-cells. lUit they will lack the missing link, 

 therefore they fail the second season." I was in the same 

 boat with the rest of the queen-breeders, but I jumped out 

 and allowed my bees to swarm naturally, was not satisfied 

 with forced or unnatural f|Ueens, and am not yet. They are 

 ■only a makeshift for the bees in case of emergency, or un- 

 til they can do better. I cannot see the propriety of confin- 

 ing a queen that will fully occupy lo Langstroth combs to 

 an >S comb or frame hive. Some say if you breed her up to 

 her full capacity she will fail so much the sooner, but I 

 have not found it so, where the queens are properly reared. 

 With your degenerate queens 1 think possibly it may be 

 so, but I am not positive, as they fail the second season. 

 Why need we care, as we do not want them anyhow ? A 

 large proportion fail the first season, especially the first 

 winter. Now we will suppose you start in on the fad of 

 rearing extra-yellow bees, e.xtra-golden-colored, extra-five- 

 banders, Adels, albinos, etc. You rear them by the hun- 

 <3reds, all on the nucleus plan, as I call it ; and you keep it 

 up for a good many generations. What kind of queens did 

 you finally send out ? Why, some queens that will not lay 

 an egg after they are received, some that only occupy a 

 piece of comb as large as your hand, some that will occupy 

 2, 3 or perhaps 4 combs, in a scattering manner ; that is, all 

 among the brood there are cells filled with pollen or honey, 

 no regularity about her laying at all, and if there comes a 

 flush of honey-gathering we will find every cell filled with 

 honey. The queen is so slow about her laying that the 

 bees keep ahead of her. We have tried to remedy this by 

 extracting, putting in foundation, and even empty frames, 

 but it was no go. Then by the first of March in all these 

 colonies, even the best of them, the bees have dwindled un- 

 til the colonies cannot be brought up to take advantage of 

 •the orange-blossom honey, which this season was extra-fine 

 here. 



The queens are short on laying, there workers have no 



longevity, etc. ; finally, they are short on every good quality. 



Now, I have not exaggerated the facts one particle ; in 



fact, it is rather a hard matter to picture the facts as bad as 



they are. 



Do naturally-reared queens get driven out of their 

 brood-nest in the above manner ? Do their bees die off with 

 old age, and leave the queen destitute of subjects before 

 spring ? Why, the queen is in a condition to compel the 

 bees to take possession of the super and store orange- 

 blossom honey. Orange blossoming commences here the 

 first of March, and continues up to the 1st or ISth of June. 

 While in bloom the whole atmosphere is scented with per- 

 fume, which accounts for the hundreds of tramp swarms 

 flockng into the vicinity of orange-orchards this season ; 

 outside there was nothing for them to gather. 



By the way, I was up to the orange-packing house one 

 day when they had just loaded a car, and a swarm fiew in- 

 side, and the agent closed up the car ; the engine hooked on, 

 and they started on the road for Chicago. 



The valley here would be an ideal place to rear queens. 

 If it were not for the difficulty of getting them purely mated, 

 one could rear the very best of queens for business. The 

 first good yield is orange-blossom, the next is alfalfa, then 

 comes the Lima beans, all three extra-good, with any quan- 

 tity of other blossoms switched in between. One hundred 

 acres of alfalfa in blossom now for seed, two miles south. 

 June 18, Italians storing, but blacks not quite holding their 

 own. 



The very best conditions for rearing first-class queens 

 are at natural swarming time. The bees are active, and 

 keep a loud hum at night while evaporating the nectar they 

 gather through the day, and there is a moist heat in the 

 hive, instead of dry. Moisture and heat are promotive of 

 growth — why not in bees as well as vegetables? Of course 

 we can stimulate with diluted sweet to promote natural 

 swarming, but we can hardly come up to the natural gath- 

 ering. When bees are gathering stores they manufacture 

 a larger amount of electricity or magnetism, which is life 

 itself. This is all lacking in your siaall nucleus. There- 

 fore, do not transfer your cells as soon as sealed to a 

 nucleus ; keep them in the strong colony as long as possible. 

 This accounts for the fact that queens reared in extraordi- 

 narily large hives and extra-strong colonies are so long- 

 lived, extra prolific, and have such extra vitality, and rear 



extra-long-lived workers. On the other hand, an opposite 

 extreme accounts for the fact that by rearing our queens in 

 such an unnatural condition, and contrary to nature, we 

 have deteriorated or degenerated our queens and their 

 progeny to the very lowest stage of vitality, longevity, 

 productiveness, etc. Who knows but many of our new dis- 

 eases of bees are generated through this low type of vital- 

 ity, caused by bad breeding ? 



A number of years ago Mr. Aaron Benedict, of Ohio, 

 sent out a circular, and advertised extensively that he was 

 going to supply the demand, and warrant his rjueens to be 

 purely mated, etc. He moved on Kelly's Island in Lake 

 Krie, with an imported queen and about 100 small nucleus 

 boxes stocked with bees, and went into the business on a 

 wholesale plan, but he made an entire failure, and published 

 in the American Bee Journal that his queen was not pure, 

 the queens reared from her were as black as crows, etc. You 

 can readily see that he failed on account of the worst kind 

 of nianagement. The climate was cold and windy ; every- 

 thing about the management was contrary to nature. I 

 wrote to him and told him that he was the one to blame, 

 and he afterward acknowledged that the queen turned out all 

 right. 



When I first began the nucleus plan I reared them 

 small, inferior, and as Mr. Benedict said, as black as crows, 

 but I jumped out of that boat long ago. 



Well, I think I would better submit the above argument 

 to the jury. Now, gentlemen of the jury, what are you go- 

 ing to do about it ? Let us hear your side of the story. 



Orange Co., Calif. 



\ Convention Proceedings. I 



The Colorado State Bee-Keepers' Association. 



Its Moral, Social, Scientific, Business and Finan- 

 cial Interests. 



Head at thi' Caiweutiuu held in Deiirer, in Xun'mber. HlOt. 

 BY R. C. AIKIN. 



Every man owes to every other man duties. The greater 

 part of the things we know, and the blessings and privi- 

 leges we enjoy, are obtained from others. There is a great 

 debt hanging upon us — a debt we owe to others because by 

 and through them we are made to enjoy many things. We 

 have government, the comforts and enjoyments of inven- 

 tions, business relations, and all social privileges. Not 

 only because of being recipients from others, but as well 

 because of divine commands, do we have obligations upon 

 us to do for others. Cain said to God, '" Am I my brother's 

 keeper?" and at the same time he had but recently proved 

 by his act of murder that he at least was trying to be his 

 brother's keeper, when he forcibly came between him and 

 the enjoyments and privileges of life. If men are to live in 

 social relations, then they iiius/, of necessity, aid and foster 

 each other's interests. A pauper is no help to the com- 

 munity in general, therefore we must not make paupers of 

 our brethren. Neither are the vicious, the immoral, and 

 criminally inclined, a help to you and me or to the social 

 compact; hence, to make a brother such is to injure our- 

 selves. In no way can we so surely protect and promote 

 our own interests as by promoting the interests of our 

 brethren. To shirk or avoid the duties we owe to each 

 other is to injure self more than him toward whom we fail 

 to perform obligations. 



It follows, then, that we as brethren and members of 

 this Association, should strive to build up each other in 

 every moral relation. Morality pertains to our duties to 

 one another — of man to man. If a brother is weak, 

 strengthen him. If he is down, help him up. Let not a 

 member of this Association do anything that is against the 

 interests of a brother. We can rejoice that in all the his- 

 tory of our Association there has never been anything 

 degrading in its conduct, though we may have come short 

 of our whole duty, not doing all we might have done. 

 Members have not always been as brotherly as they should 

 be — it is human to err ; but, with all our weakness there has 

 been a spirit of brotherly love that surely must have made 



