1888 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



525 



SHALL AATE SUPE3KSEDE OLD QUEENS 

 OURSELVES? 



FRIEND POPPLETON TEl.l.S US WHY WE SHOULD. 



Y attention has been callod to the replies 

 g-iven some time ag-o to this question in the 

 Question-Box department of one of our 

 bee -journals. Seven out of twenty who 

 furnished replies gave no decided opinion 

 either way, while the other thirteen all replied in 

 the neg-ative. The principal reason griven, when 

 any was g'iven for the opinions, was that the bees 

 knew when to do this work better than we did, 

 while one said it cost less to let the bees do the 

 work themselves; and another said that supersed- 

 ing: by rule would often depose (jueens of great 

 value. As my opinions and practice have been di- 

 rectly opposite to those g-iven by the thirteen, I will 

 try to give my reasons for the same, as the time of 

 year is near at hand when such work should be 

 done, if done at all. 



The assertion, that bees know better when to do 

 this work than we do, is in a certain sense true, and 

 in other ways not true; for while they frequently 

 supersede their queens before the apiarist can pos- 

 sibly detect any failure of the queen, or, at least, 

 before he would detect it in the ordinary routine of 

 work, they frequently retain failing queens, if al- 

 lowed to do so, for months after they are nearly 

 worthless; but all are agreed that such queens 

 should be replaced by the bee-keeper. The fact 

 that, in following any rule of superseding on ac- 

 count of age, we will sometimes destroy queens 

 good for yet another season, is also true; but this 

 is ouly one item to be considered in making a deci- 

 sion of what is best to do, and not the conclusive 

 reason that the one who made it seemed to consid- 

 er it was. 



The entire question is one simply of profit and 

 loss; that is, a question of which way costs the 

 least. On the one hand we have the expense of 

 furnishing the colonies with the young queens, 

 which any one can easily determine for himself, 

 and to this must be added the value of an occasion- 

 al queen that would be destroyed that would be 

 useful for yet another season. This last item is 

 much less than many suppose it to be, and less than 

 1 supposed it was until after I had closely observed 

 the matter for several years. On the other hand, 

 we have a material reduction of our honey crop, re- 

 sulting from the failure of many old queens at a 

 critical time of year. In our Northern States the 

 time of year when such failure will lessen the 

 amount of honey stored by the colony extends 

 from late in the fall until about July 1st next; and 

 it is practically impossible to detect this failure in 

 time to entirely prevent the loss of honey. The 

 bees do very little superseding of their own accord 

 at this season of the year; in fact, practically none 

 at all of queens that are commencing to fail, liut 

 not yet entirely so. At least nine-tenths of the super- 

 seding in my apiary in Northern Iowa was done in 

 the months of July and August. 



To aid me in getting at the real facts in this mat- 

 ter as well as in others, I have always kept a coni- 

 plete record of all my queens, and have practiced 

 clipping their wings. This last enabled me to keep 

 a correct record of each queen, without any guess- 

 work. I soon noticed that those colonies whose 

 queen was in her fourth season nearly always gave 

 me less than the average amount of honey, and 



enough less, too, to much more than pay for the ex- 

 penses of having given them young queens the fall 

 before, and allow largely for the value of such 

 good queens as might be killed while doing bo. I 

 never killed all of my third-season queens, although 

 I think it would have paid to do so; but I always 

 kept a few of the best ones, so I have had both 

 kinds of queens to compare results from for a num- 

 ber of years. 



A colony which is very strong at the commence- 

 ment of the honey-flow, Avill store more honey ac- 

 cording to its numbers than will a medium strong 

 one, and only queens in prime vigor can get their 

 colonies strong by the time white clover com- 

 mences to yield; and even if old and yet good, they 

 are rarely ever as vigorous as are younger ones; 

 and my main reliance for surplus honey was always 

 on those colonies having queens in their second or 

 third seasons. 



It is quite a long while from the time brood-rear- 

 ing ceases in the fall and the tirst of July follow- 

 ing; and any failure of the queen during this time, 

 even if only partial, seriously diminishes the num- 

 ber of mature bees the hive will contain during the 

 honej'-harvest, and no failure of a queen can take 

 place during this time that can be noticed by the 

 apiarist, soon enough to prevent a serious reduc- 

 tion of the amount of brood that will be raised in 

 time for the harvest. 



A much larger production of colonies having old 

 queens will be weak in the spring than of those 

 having younger queens; and as requeening can be 

 done so much cheaper and better in the fall than in 

 the spring, 1 prefer to do It then, even if half the 

 queens I destroy would be good for yet another 

 year. 



Many of our best apiarists— Doolittle, Hutchinson, 

 and others, recommend the contraction system dur- 

 swarming; but all seem to agree that swarms hav- 

 ing old queens seem much more inclined to build 

 drone comb than do others. 



In speaking of old queens, I mean those that have 

 done duty for three seasons, including the one in 

 which they were raised. In rare cases I have known 

 queens to do duty the fifth season; but a very large 

 proportion will not do satisfactory work during 

 their fourth season, a much larger proportion than 

 many sujipose is the case, unless they have special- 

 ly observed this point for a number of years. 



As already said, the question is one of relative 

 profit and loss. On one hand we have the expense 

 of the young- queens, and the value of the few good 

 queens that will be destroyed; on the other, we 

 have the very material shrinkage of the honesj' 

 ci'op, the probable loss of some colonies, etc., and 

 thei'e is no question in my mind that the last items 

 exceed the first ones many times over. 



O. O. POPPtiETON. 



Apartado 278, Havana, Cuba, June 6, 1888. 



Friend P., 1 have no doubt but that better 

 results may be obUiined by removing any 

 queen not up to the standard, and giving 

 the hive anotlier. Jiut how many of us have 

 judgment enough to avoid making a bad 

 matter worse? A great many times I have 

 succeeded in improving matters by requeen- 

 ing ; at otlier times I have damaged a col- 

 o»y a good deal, and failed in getting u 

 queen much better than the old one. One 

 important point is to have surplus queens 

 on hand which we are sure of, which is u 



