1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



427 



he could secure them when he returned. He 

 thought he could. 



While he was here I took pains to instruct 

 him in regard to Apis melhfica, how to han- 

 dle them, and when he left for India we sent 

 with him a shipment of hives in which to hive 

 Apis dorsata and Apis Indica. Mr. Rambo 

 had been unsuccessful in finding these bees up 

 till within a very short time; but now it ap- 

 pears that success in a measure has crowned 

 his efforts at last. Even if he did not get all 

 the bees, he has learned something of their 

 habits; that they are not particularly cross, 

 can be handled, as is evident from the fact 

 that he says nothing about their being enrag- 

 ed or of his being stung. Situated as he was 

 they could have made it very uncomfortable 

 for him, to say the least. 



The negative that he refeis to, I am sorry to 

 say, came smashed in pieces; so if a print off 

 this negative comes to hand I shall have it en- 

 larged and present it to our readers at the 

 earliest opportunity. 



There are many of us who would have liked 

 to have the sight of these bees that Mr. Ram- 

 bo had; and now that he has become a little 

 better acquainted with them, I feel sure he 

 will succted in giving us a close photographic 

 view of a colony; and if we can get a photo- 

 graph once in our hands we will show them 

 just as they are in their natural habitat, in all 

 their native beauty and glory. 



I shall watch eagerly the next mail from In- 

 dia in hopes that Mr. Rambo has the half with 

 the queen; if not, I anr in hopes that he can 

 make that half raise one, and thus place us in 

 position to know whether they can be confined 

 in a hive in their own climate. — Ed.] 



QUEENS FROM OLD LARV.-E. 



Queens Reared by Nature vs. Queens Reared by the 



Doolittle Method : some Misconceptions 



Corrected. 



BY DR. C. C. MILLER. 



On page 725 of Gleanings for 1898 I said, 

 " I know it is a quite commonly accepted be- 

 lief that bees left to themselves select larvae 

 too old for the best queens; but it is high 

 time to lay such beliefs aside. The truth is, 

 they don't make such mischoice; and if they 

 did, such old larvae would emerge as queens 

 later than their younger sisters. A larva 

 chosen at the time of weaning, at three days 

 (Id, will emerge a perfect queen at an earlier 

 date than any other larva either older or 

 younger." 



So many have taken me to task for saying 

 that, and it has withal been done in so kindly 

 a spirit, that it would be a real pleasure to say, 

 if I could say it honestly, " Brethren, I was 

 all wrong from top to bottom; didn't know a 

 thing I was talking about, and I take it all 

 back." Now, suppose we talk it all over in a 

 dispassionate manner and see if you can't let 

 me off without making me take back every 

 thing I said, for I am sure I can rely on your 

 goodness of heart not to want to humiliate me 

 more than is absolutely necessary. 



In the first place, haven't some if not all of 

 you been reading into my article beliefs I never 

 held? If some one who had never read what 

 I had written should read the replies that have 

 been made, I think he would be likely to un- 

 derstand that I had said something like this: 



" If you take away a queen from a strong 

 colony, and the bees start 20 queen-cells, and 

 you let the 20 queens therein contained come 

 to maturity, and give them to 20 colonies, the 

 results will be as good as if you had reared 

 the 20 queens strictly after the most approved 

 style recommended by Doolittle." Now, 

 friends, please, friends, I never said any thing 

 of that kind — never thought any thing of that 

 kind. If you had asked me what would be 

 the comparison between such two lots of 

 queens, I would have said, " Doolittle's 20 

 will be worth ever so much more than the 

 other 20, and you couldn't get me to put the 

 latter in 20 colonies if you'd pay me £20.00." 

 Don't you think I'm as orthodox as you are 

 on that point? And I think you'll not find 

 any thing I said to conflict with such view. 



Being satisfied on that point, I suppose you 

 would like me to say that I indorse the vener- 

 able tradition that, when bees are suddenly 

 deprived of a mother, they are in such haste to 

 rear a successor that they select larvae too old 

 to make a good queen. In some cases I am 

 glad to rise up before the hoary head, but not 

 in this. That venerable tradition is a libel on 

 the bees. I believe that in all cases a queen- 

 less colony when starting a queen-cell will 

 choose the best material it has on hand. If it 

 has nothing better it will try to make a queen 

 out of a drone larva, but I don't think you'll ev- 

 er find it trying to make a queen out of a drone 

 larva when it has larvae of the other kind. If 

 it has nothing better on hand, it will use 

 worker larvae too old to be good, but I think 

 you will never find it choosing such if it has 

 younger on hand. I think I need not repeat 

 what I said on page 725 to show that, if larvae 

 mure or less than three days old should be 

 chosen, they would be later emerging from 

 their cells than those only three days old. 



Some of you will now say to me, " But I 

 have seen with my own eyes bees taking 

 larvae almost ready to be capped over, and 

 trying to make queens out of them, and you 

 have just said yourself that you wouldn't use 

 the 20 queens selected by the bees if you were 

 paid $20.00." That's all very true, my friend, 

 but that doesn't militate against the fact that, 

 when bees make the selection, they select the 

 best they have on hand. The trouble on your 

 part is that you have lost sight of another fact 

 that plays an important part. Nature is prod- 

 igal in her provisions. She is not satisfied 

 with a single blossom for each intended apple, 

 but millions of blossoms bloom without fruit. 

 For every drone needed, thousands are reared. 

 When a queen is needed, a number are reared. 

 Not content with what cells are started in the 

 first place, the bees start others later on. In 

 this latter case, if they have nothing better on 

 hand, they must perforce use larvae too old. 



Years ago, impressed with the importance 

 of having larvae not too old, I thought I'd 

 make a sure thing of it by taking away evtry 



