Aug. 28, 1902. 



AMEPICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



555 



after replacing all the frames, I found a bunch of bees on a 

 piece of board on the (ground, and on examination found u 

 small, black queen, so .small was she that I would never luivi- 

 found her amoiiff all the other bees. I removed her and sent 

 for another (jueen at once, but as the breeder was out of his 

 own ciueens I put in a frame of brood and egffs from No. .i, 

 on .July 16. Now this colony. No. 1, had been practically 

 queenless for 21 days, up to July lli. Ten days later (the 

 2f)th), I found a big. yellow c|ueen, one frame full of eg^s, 

 and some larv;i.' lloating around in the milky food in several 

 frames. 



Now, then, isn't this a record-breaker for queen-rearill^,' 

 in 10 days time from brood to laying? and some of the 

 brood from tlie new queen was surely several days old : it 

 lay in the bottom of the cells curled up so as almost to com- 

 plete the circle. What do you think of it ? I clipped her 

 wings at the same time. New Yokk. 



Answkk. — Your supposition is that from brood given 

 July li> a queen was reared which July 2f) had brood several 

 days old. Suppose the larvic were only two days old ; then 

 the (jueen must have laid the eggs five days earlier, July 21. 

 That leaves five days from the starting of a queen-cell to 

 the laying of eggs. You are most surely mistaken in your 

 supposition. Noqueen could possibly be reared in five days 

 from the starting of the cell, to say nothing of an interval 

 between hatching and fecundation, and another interval be- 

 tween fecundation and laying. It is a week from the time 

 the cell is sealed till the young queen emerges, and if the 

 queen emerges five days after the starting of the cell, the 

 cell must have been started two days after it was sealed I 

 You will probably ask me where that nice, laying queen 

 came from. I don't know, but there are more ways than 

 one to account for her presence, one way being that she was 

 the same queen that was introduced : for you saw her in the 

 hive eight days after she was introduced ; for if the bees 

 would tolerate her for eight days they might have kept her 

 along till after the rearing and rejecting of the little black 

 queen. It is also possible that the black queen was an in- 

 terloper from outside, and that the yellow queen was reared 

 in that properly opened cell that you found July 12, the egg 

 having been laid by the introduced queen when she was 

 first introduced. 



Bees Turning Black. 



Can you explain the following (to me) funny happen- 

 ing ? Our bees last 3ear were all Italians but this year they 

 are, except a couple of colonies, black. Now there has been 

 no black queen given them. Xo. 1 had, last year, a beautiful 

 Italian queen. She superseded last summer and now still 

 has that queen, but all the bees have turned black. We had 

 two swarms from three colonies, a beautiful swarm of Ital- 

 ians, and they have turned black. Nearly every colony in 

 the yard has turned to blacks. Some are bright Italian and 

 some are blackish, but they all came from Italian mothers 

 of our own, and the bees turn black whether the queen is 

 bright or dark. We got a couple of queens this year — bright, 

 golden-colored ones— and their bees are black too. Our 

 beautiful, large Italians, which every one admired, are 

 slowly but surely getting smaller and blacker every day. 

 Will you kindly explain this.' Illinois. 



Answer. — If there were not internal evidences that 

 your letter is from one of the gentler sex, I should be in- 

 clined to say, "My dear sir, you are quite mistaken in some 

 of your views. Bees don't gradually become darker day Ijy 

 day. You must be more careful in your observations." But 

 to get into controversey with a lady— never. 



" I don't know why your bees have changed as they 

 have," is the only answer I happen to have that will meet 

 all the requirements of the case. I'll tell you, however, a 

 little of my own experience, and then you may not feel that 

 the bees are treating you so much worse than they do 

 others. 



Longer ago than you probably know anything about I 

 got Italian blood, but I found it was changed to something 

 a good deal darker, and in spite of obtaining from time to 



time yellow blood by means of imported Italians, I found a 

 constant tendency toward black. At the »amc time there 

 seems to be a tendency on the part of the queens toward 

 lighter color, and I think there must be something in this 

 climate that makes the queens lighter than in Italy. As 

 long as I did not clip queens, there was a chance to 

 be mistaken in some things. A certain colony would have 

 an Italian queen and threc-bandcd workers. In a year or 

 two the workers would average very much darker, although 

 the (jueen would be just as light as ever— prehaps a little 

 lighter. As a matter of fact, there had been a change of 

 queens, and the new queen having met a black drone, her 

 progeny resembled blacks as much as Italians. When this 

 queen was again superseded (remember that every queen as 

 a rule is superseded), the workers were darker still, and so 

 long as black drones were in the majority in the surrounding 

 vicinity this blackening process went on. Only by con- 

 stant weeding out of queens with darker workers could the 

 bees be kept respectably yellow, and yet the vexatious thing 

 about it was that some of the very best harvests were made 

 by those colonies that lack somewhat in color, and today I 

 am breeding from a queen that is not pure yellow, just be- 

 cause I want honey more than color. 



So I can only give you the doubtful comfort of saying 

 that you may expect a continuance of a tendency toward 

 darker color in the future as in the past. 



Fastening the Queen on Foundation. 



In your first answer in the first column of page 475. you 

 seem to think it noteworthy, if not strange, that "Califor- 

 nia " didn't make a success of fastening queens on founda- 

 tion in lower stories. 



Why, how can it seem even noteworthy ? I don't see 

 how anyone could make a success of it. I am quite sure (al- 

 though I never tried iti that the poor things would soon die, 

 whether in the lower or upper stories, and no matter 

 whether you fastened them with glue, melted wax or pins, 

 on foundation or combs. 



Don't you think you should be careful 'now you try to 

 induce bee-keepers to try such risky practices ? 



Skeptic. 



Answer. — I do not for a moment suppose it would be a 

 success to fasten queens on foundation either " with glue, 

 meUed wax or pins." Indeed, it is reasonable to believe 

 that no queen fastened in such a way could live more than 

 eight or ten years. But has " Skeptic " the right to assume 

 that I had any of these plans in mind ? Before he is too 

 hasty in condemning a thing which he himself admits he 

 has not tried, let him try fastening the queen by some 

 humane plan. Has he ever tried fastening one with a 

 string 1 



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