696 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Oct. 30, 1902. 



through the mails, after testing, did not turn out prolific 

 afterwards. Dr. Hamlin, of Tennessee, and myself, were 

 having a friendly correspondence, so we came to an agree- 

 ment to test the matter. I was to ship him a very prolific 

 queen, and he was to return one that he knew was prolific. 

 Well, we exchanged four queens each — not all at once, but 

 at different times — and not a single one of the eight proved 

 prolific. All, without an exception, were very unsatisfactory 

 as to prolificness. I then lived in the extreme north end of 

 Iowa, and the Doctor lived within 6 miles of the capital of 

 Tennessee. Since then nearly all of the queens I have re- 

 ceived have been untested. 



Of 16 queens last season, only two proved to be impurely 

 mated. I have an impression that a prolific queen, suddenly 

 stopped from laying, even when caged or shipped while 

 breeding up to her full capacity, is injured ever afterwards, 

 for prolificness. But I have not fully tested the above 

 theory to my own satisfaction. Now you can understand my 

 reason for preferring untested queens. 



I have received two queens from Florida, three from 

 Louisana, sixteen from Texas, and all were good except two 

 from Texas. Some may say, "All those worthless queens 

 you have received were injured in the mail." Not a bit of 

 it ; I know better. It is quite an easy matter for a thor- 

 oughly experienced person to distinguish the difference on 

 sight. A number of years ago I jumped at the conclusion 

 that I might as well do up all ray swarming in a couple of 

 days as to wait and watch for natural swarming ; so I 

 divided and nearly doubled my number. The result was I 

 had 36 queenless colonies in September, and 15 more in the 

 spring. I jumped at another conclusion, and that was that 

 rearing queens in the above manner was thoroughly unnat- 

 ural, and unscientific. 



I have lived long enough to know that some people can 

 learn as much by their mistakes as by their successes. A 

 near neighbor of mine, last spring, had some IS colonies ; 

 he was away at work through the day, and no one at home, 

 so he made his swarms by dividing. This fall he had four 

 queenless colonies, and was wondering to me why he lost so 

 many queens. He said he would look through the hives, 

 and saw that all had laying queens, and shortly afterwards 

 found four of them queenless. He then gave them queen- 

 cells and then more " came up missing." I explained to 

 him that they might as well come up missing, as they were 

 worthless any way he could fix it, and gave him my rea- 

 sons. Still he has kept bees and ran quite an apiary for 

 several years. 



Please carefully read the letter on pages 494 and 495, by 

 Edwin Bevins. 



Now, I do not wish to be understood as saying that all 

 queens reared under the swarming or superseding impulse 

 are perfect, as there are exceptions to all rules in bee-keep- 

 ing as well as in some other occupations. I will say to Mr. 

 Greiner, that I watched that feeble quean and her colony 

 very closely, both inside and outside the hive. The queen 

 was quite feeble, and the bees were so feeble and were dying 

 rapidly both night and day, and the workers were so feeble 

 that they could only drag a dead bee out of the hive and 

 drop on the ground with it ; they could never fly off with it 

 as bees from other colonies do. 



They reared two superseding cells, and I cut them out 

 and saved them, and they have both turned out fairly well 

 so far, but not extra, for I could not expect the best kind 

 of stock from such a feeble queen. I cut them out hop- 

 ing that they wbuld rear more, and they did rear more in a 

 manner that I never saw before. They lengthened out 

 worker-cells to about twice the usual length, and did not in- 

 crease the size one particle. On examining them, the 

 embryo lay clear outside of the worker-cell, behind the 

 nymph, and not one particle of royal jelly in the cell behind. 

 I cut off about a dozen and examined them thoroughly ; the 

 queen failed entirely, and I allowed two of them to mature, 

 and both hatched out at the same time, and both were the 

 smallest queens I ever saw, not even as large as a common 

 worker. They both lived together for three days on the 

 same comb they hatched on. I then had to move my bees 

 on account of starting to dry fruit near me, and I have not 

 seen them since. Now, you might say, "I told you so ; 

 queens under the superseding impulse are no better than 

 others ;" but I call them freaks, nothing natural about them. 

 I informed the Editor, when I commenced these articles, 

 that I expected to stir up a hornet's-nest, and I have not 

 been disappointed ; yet I think when the crisis is passed, 

 good will result. Orange Co., Calif. 

 ■ .#-•-♦ 



The Premiums offered this week are well worth working 

 for. Look at them. 



Long- Lived Queens and Bees. 



BY E. F. ATWATEK. 



HURRAH for Dr. Gallup's new fad ! Long-lived bees are 

 what we need, and such men as J. B. Hall, of Ontario, 

 E- A. Morgan, of Wisconsin, and many others, are 

 working along that line. But as to the difference between 

 the artificially-reared queens, and naturally-reared queens, 

 many will be sure to differ from Dr. Gallup, and I am one 

 of the many, though my experience does not cover half a 

 century. 



When located in South Dakota, operating but few colo- 

 nies, we had "native " stock, and these artificially reared 

 queens produced colonies that excelled the natives almost 

 every time, in pounds of honey produced. 



In addition to this, the hardy (?) natives were seriously 

 weakened by " pickled brood," while the Italians were prac- 

 tically immune. 



In the several years that I have tried them, the queens 

 reared by Atc'hley, Doolittle or Alley plans proved their 

 right to replace the hybrids and blacks, and this in spite of 

 the awful (?) handicap — artificial cell-cups, " fuss and feath- 

 ers." 



Upon my removal to Idaho I sold my bees, buying more 

 upon my arrival here, starting with 150 colonies of Italians 

 with naturally reared queens. All these queens of various 

 ages were clipped in April and May of 1901. Upon examin- 

 ing the colonies in April, 1902, I found that fully half of 

 these queens had been superseded by the bees, making it 

 appear that the average life of these naturally reared queens 

 was about two years, although I admit that an occasional 

 queen may live four or five years. Some (inexperienced 

 amateurs) may say that clipping caused the queens to be 

 superseded at this age, but I will say that in South Dakota, 

 having two races, and being able to tell the age of the 

 queens by mating (queens from abroad mated purely, 

 queens reared at home mated with blacks or hybrids), I 

 found the average life of the queen to be about two years. 



Now, the larger part of our bees are run for extracted 

 honey, with little or no swarming, and I find, like Mr. 

 Chapman, of Michigan, that it takes a very good queen to 

 live two years, or more, when given an abundance of room 

 for egg-laying. 



In May, 1901, I received several queens from different 

 breeders ; two soon died, but the others have equalled the 

 naturally reared stock as honey-getters, although it is yet 

 too early to judge of the longevity of thequeens themselves. 

 We have the testimony of such practical men as Alley, 

 Doolittle, Hutchinson, and Heddon, that the artificially 

 reared queens are equal, or superior, to the natural ones ; 

 and among other observers I may mention F. L. Thompson, 

 A. I. Root, and the Dadants, who have touched on this mat- 

 ter in their writings. 



If such men as these, eminently practical, have found 

 no difference in results between queens reared from an egg 

 laid (presumably) in a natural queen-cell, and those care- 

 fully reared from worker-eggs or larvaj, then, in spite of 

 the arguments of Dr. Gallup, the great majority of practical 

 honey-producers will continue to rear and purchase queens 

 reared by these artificial methods. 



If bees will, in time, rear queens to suit the capacity of 

 the hive, how shall we explain the fact that the Dadants 

 have so little swarming with their large hives ? 



We have apiaries here where the queens have for years 

 been confined to an 8-frame brood-nest. Surely, these 

 queens " bred to suit the capacity of the hive" can never 

 fill two 8-frame bodies with brood ! But, astonishing to say, 

 when given the opportunity, they respond nobly, with 10, 12 

 or 15 frames of brood. 



If the bees will rear a queen to suit the capacity of the 

 hive, where will the limit be found ? 



More light, please. I am willing to learn. 



Ada Co., Idaho, Aug. 16. 



Queen-Rearing of 1859 vs. 1902. 



BY HENRY ALLEY. 



IN the spring of 1859 I first saw a queen-bee. To me it was 

 a big thing. Before the summer was over I had reared my 

 first queen-bees. In those days we knew only about 

 black bees; later on the Italian bees came in, and then 

 queen-rearing grew to a big business. 



Well, the first queens I reared, though they were black, 

 proved to be first-class in all respects, and they were nucleus- 



