Vol. XTI. 



OCT. 1, 1888. 



Vo. W. 



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QUEENS INJURED IN SHIPPING. 



IS HER FERTILITY PERMANENTLY OR TEMPORARI- 

 LY IMPAIRED BY SHIPPING? 



eN pag-e (i8.5 of Gleanings I flad these words: 

 "No, the confinement of a queen during a 

 shipment of six or eight days rarely if ever 

 affects her fertility. * * * We can speak 

 positively when we say that shipment eitlier 

 by mail or express does not deteriorate the laying 

 qualities of a queen." Now, I suppose, as a breed- 

 er of queens, if I would consult my own interests I j 

 should let this pass unchallenged; but I feel that 

 duty and truth require me to protest a little from 

 such a decision, when the facts along the line of 

 injury to queens in shipment are so plainly to be 

 seen, as I and others have often seen them. Proba- 

 bly no man in the U. S. has any more flattering 

 testimonials according to the number of queens 

 shipped than I have; yet this does not prove that 

 none of the queens I have sent out have never 

 been injured by shipment. By shipment I include 

 all of the necessary evils attending the removal of 

 a queen from her hive and home, and sending her 

 to another hive and home where she is obliged to 

 suddenly stop a profuse egg-laying, and continue 

 in this condition for from three days to three weeks. 

 If I am not mistaken, it was Mr. James Heddon who 

 first called attention to this injury, attributing it at 

 that time to the rough usage the queens received 

 in the mails, saying that under no consideration 

 would he have a valuable queen sent in any way 

 but by express. When J read this, which was sev- 

 eral years ago, I said this accounts for the unsatis- 

 factory results I have obtained from queens which 



I have purchased that were sent me I)j' mail, so f r 

 some time after that I ordered all of the choice 

 queens wliicli I purchased sent me by express. 

 However, as I saw little difference in favor of those 

 which came by express over those which came by 

 mail, I concluded that I must look elsewhere for 

 the trouble. In looking over the past to see where 

 the difficulty lay, 1 saw that such a queen sent me 

 by a noted breeder had not laid eggs enough during 

 two years to amount to as much as one of mj' ordi- 

 nary queens would lay in two months, so I wrote to 

 him asking if he remembered whether the queen 

 was prolific with him or not. His reply was that 

 she was unusually so, and that at the time he took 

 her out of the hive she was keeping ten L. frames 

 full of brood. Later on I received another queen 

 of another noted breeder, for which I paid $13, 

 thinking to get the best there was in the country; 

 but while she lived she was about the poorest layer 

 lever had, yet I was assured that she was "just 

 perfection before she was shipped." Soon after 

 this I commenced to send out queens myself; and 

 during my experience as a breeder and shipper of 

 queens, some five or six instances have come under 



' my notice, of queens which proved of no special 

 value as to proliflcuess after they were received by 

 the purchasing party, while I know they were 

 among the best, if not the best queens as to pro- 

 liflcness I ever had in my yard. While studying on 

 these things, and looking for a cause, my eye 

 chanced to rest on a few sentences regarding the 



\ shipping of queens, written by Bro. Hutchinson or 

 Hayhurst, if I mistake not, in which he said 'that 

 the removing of a queen from a full colony during 

 tlie height of her egg-laying, and immediately send- 



