May 30, 1907 



American ^ee Journal 



of wliat Mr. Taylor said, that the rela- 

 tive worl<er and queen time is 4 days 

 and 5, [ don't know wliat tliat means, 

 but 1 do l<novv tliat he says tliat he had 

 queens emerge 10 days after the time 

 that the bees selected llie larva:. Do 

 I understand that, Mr. Taylor? 



Mr. Taylor — After they were made 

 quecnless. 



Dr. Miller — Now if tliey chose the 

 larva immediately upon being made 

 qucenlcss — I do not think they do ; I 

 think they must take a little time, but 

 they do not take a great deal of time to 

 find out that they, are queenless; but 

 if they do, there is 10 days that is taken 

 from the time. I don't know how many 

 days Mr. Taylor will say that the queen 

 takes from the time of the laying of the 



Mr. Taylor — It varies from 15 to 17 

 days. 



Dr. Miller — It was 17 days when I 

 was a boy ; it was 16 days some 20 

 years later, and now the latest authority 

 gives it IS, although it varies, as Mr. 

 Taylor says. I think 15 is what Mr. 

 Cowan says. I saw that very thing last 

 week in the British Bee Journal. Take 

 10 from 15 leaves s; and take 3 days in 

 the egg state, leaves us 2 days for the 

 larva state. But I don't think it will 

 figure down as close as that. Now I 

 will give you some experiences on that 

 same line : For a number of years I 

 have been rearing queens by allowing 

 a colony of best stock to start a frame 

 of brood, and then I would take that 

 frame having eggs and larvse of all 

 ages up to that which is nearly ready 

 to be sealed over, or perhaps ready to 

 be sealed over, and put it into a colony 

 which I had made queenless. I reared 

 hundreds of queens in that way, and 

 I never had one of them emerge until 

 12 days after the colony was made 

 queenless and that frame put in there. 

 That is the way it is in my locality, 

 and that same rule holds over in Ger- 

 many, I find by the authorities over 

 there. In cases where bees are allowed 

 to select for themselves the larvse they 

 want, they in every case select what 

 will be 12 days in hatching out. I 

 don't know just how Mr. Taylor's and 

 my experience have been so different. 

 One thing I think has helped to create 

 the impression that the bees select lar- 

 vae too old : Make a colony queenless. 

 and if you just take the pains to lift 

 out a frame and look at it^ Mr. Hutch- 

 inson says that the bees will select lar- 

 vae too old. I will ask him to say what 

 they do nowadays. Bees have improved. 

 They may have done other things when 

 he was young, but what do they do 

 nowadays? Have you tried that, Mr. 

 Hutchinson? 



Mr. Hutchinson — No; I have been too 

 busy. 



Dr. Miller — You will always be too 

 busy. 



Mr. Hutchinson — I tried it years ago. 



Dr. Miller — They didn't do it years 

 ago. 



Mr. Hutchinson — They did just the 

 same with you years ago. 



Dr. Miller — You refer to the first 

 volume of the American Bee Journal, 

 and you will find that the time for rear- 

 ing a queen is 17 days. Now it is 15 

 days. 



Mr. Hutchinson — Not always. 



Dr. Miller— To go back: I said to 

 make a colony queenless, and lift out 

 the frame and luok at the size of the 

 larva' — and I don't believe there is a 

 man here, or woman either, that would 

 say that the larvae were older than 2 

 day.s, if they are at all familiar with 

 the size of larv:c at certain ages; let 

 ihat colony go on for a week or so, and 

 they arc not s.ilisfied with the queens 

 they start; the\- will keep on starting 

 them, and after the time comes that 

 there are no larvae young enough to 

 make proper queens they will still keep 

 on starting, and will then start queens 

 from larvre that are too old. 



Mr. Taylor — That is all I claim. 

 [Laughter]. 



Dr. Miller — Will you put in words 

 what you claim ? 



Mr. Taylor — I claim simply that they 

 do not always use larvae young enough. 



Dr. Miller — Then we are exactly to- 

 gether. 



Mr. Taylor. — Yes. 



Dr. Miller — They don't always, be- 

 cause they don't always have tHe stufT 

 before them. When they have their 

 choice of the ' right and wrong kind 

 of material they will always use the 

 young, never the old. 



Mr. Taylor — That is not material at 

 all. I have got the queens from too 

 old larvse. You admit that now. 



Dr. Miller — No, not necessarily. If 

 you take all the cells that they will 

 start, old and young, then you will gei 

 some that are too old. Leave them to 

 themselves to rear the queens and they 

 will never have any that are wrong, 

 because the ones they first start will 

 mature ahead of the bad ones. But 

 you meddle with it, and take out all 

 the cells, and you will get the bad cells 

 as well as the others. 'The point is this : 

 Bees allowed to select, given free choice 

 of brood of all ages, will never select a 

 larva that is too old for a good queen ; 

 and if they did do that, then some of 

 those should have matured and emerged 

 before the period of 12 days, and they 

 never do. 



Mr. Hutchinson — When I take away a 

 queen from a colony and leave the brood 

 of all ages, I almost invariably get some 

 poor queens; but if I allow all that 

 brood in the hive to mature, and then 

 give them a frame of just hatching 

 brood — just put in a comb filled with 

 eggs nearly all of the same age — I don't 

 know that I ever got any poor queens. 

 Where they had larvse of different ages 

 to choose from, sometimes they chose 

 too sold larv^, but wher^ they had 

 nothing except the young larvs to 

 choose from, had no larvae that were 

 too old, then the queens were always 

 good. I have found in rearing 

 thousands of queens that it is not safe 

 to allow a colony more than 10 days for 

 the hatching of the queen. If you wait 

 more than 10 days, when you go to the 

 hive you will quite likely find some of 

 the larvje hatched. 



Mr. Taylor — It is so invariably in 

 Michigan. 



Mr. Wheeler — At one time I lived 

 about 50 miles .south of where Dr. Mil- 

 ler lives, and my experience was the 

 same as in Michigan — 10 days from the 



larva. It may be different now. I 

 have not tried it for a few years. 

 Dr. Miller— I tritd it last year. 



DiscRi.\riNATiNa ACAIN.ST Certain 

 Members for Officers. 



"Should the constitution of any bee- 

 keepers' association bar any of its mem- 

 bers from holding an official position 

 in the association?" 



Mr. Taylor— Using the words of a 

 noted author, "I don't know." 



Mr. Wilco.x— I do not think any of 

 us know the constitutions of all the 

 various bee-keepers' associations. That 

 question was evidently asked in refer- 

 ence to some association other than this. 

 Pres. York— No. The question is: 

 Should the constitution bar any of its 

 members from holding an ofiicial posi- 

 tion—should the constitution be made 

 in that way? 



Mr. Wilcox— Whoever wrote that 

 question was thinking of some other 

 association than this, probably the Na- 

 tional. 



Pres. York— Not necessarily. 

 Dr. Miller— He might be thinking of 

 this association, whether the constitu- 

 tion ought ot to be chans-pri in that 

 way for this association. You can't tell 

 what the questioner was thinking about. 

 If you will allow me to say so, I think 

 he was thinking of the National, and 

 what was done at San Antonio. 



Dr. Bohrer— I wrote the question, and 

 I will tell you what I was getting at. 

 I know there was proposed an amena- 

 ment to the constitution of the National, 

 to bar certain members of that Associa- 

 tion from holding official positions be- 

 cause they were dealers in bee-keepers' 

 supplies, or editors of bee-papers. There 

 was an effort of that kind made, it is 

 true, at San Antonio. I opposed it and 

 declared then that if that kind of an 

 amendment were added to the National 

 Association I would not be a member 

 of it any longer. I took the position, 

 and Mr. Kimmey here took the same, 

 and the constitution of the United States 

 takes the same view of it, and all the 

 States of the United states, that there 

 is only one class of people barred from 

 being eligible to the presidency of the 

 United States, and that is foreign born-, 

 and the constitution of any organization 

 must apply to all its members. If not, 

 it IS un-American and unjust. It places 

 the members in a state of alienship be- 

 fore that association, and I was opposea 

 to it, and I believe it is our duty to 

 discuss that question here. I am a 

 member of the Kansas State Bee- 

 Keepers' Association— President of that 

 organization— and a member of the Na- 

 tional, and I do not want an amend- 

 ment so un-American as that, and so un- 

 just as that, to become a part of the 

 organic law of our National organiza- 

 tion or of any State organization. I 

 took the broad stand, and made the 

 sweeping declaration, and I repeat it 

 that if it became a part of our organic- 

 law I would not be a member of the 

 organization any longer. While it may 

 not be at all times policy upon the part 

 of the members of the organization to 

 elect a dealer in bee-supplies to an of- 

 ficial position in that organization it 

 is simply the duty of every individual 



