836 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 15. 



the queenless bees till larvae of proper age are 

 no longer present, they will build cells over 

 too old larvae — what Bro. Hutchinson calls 

 "fool-cells." 

 Marengo, 111., Sept. 29. 



[This discussion started originally from my 

 saying, or from someone else saying, that Doo- 

 little-reared queens were to be preferred, be- 

 cause, if the bees were left to themselves, they 

 would take larvae too old ; and hence queens 

 reared by nature's method would not average 

 as well as those reared by the Doolittle plan. 

 While I still believe the statement is correct, 

 yet the main prop to support it has been 

 knocked out. 



I am always open to conviction ; and when 

 any one produces evidence of this kind right 

 from the hive I can not see it is any weakness 

 or lowering of dignity to acknowledge my er- 

 ror. It appears, then, that, if bees have a 

 choice between old and young larvae, they 

 will select, not those which are three days old, 

 as is generally supposed, but those which are 

 just hatched out, or somewhere about 24 hours 

 old. By the Doolittle method it has been our 

 custom generally to select just-hatched larvae; 

 and in so doing we have been in exact accord 

 with nature; for the bees seem to say, if their 

 preference is any gauge, that the one-day lim- 

 it is the best. 



I have read over the experiments very care- 

 fully, and if the doctor conducted them ex- 

 actly as he says (and we have no reason for 

 doubting his statement), then he has a pretty 

 strong clincher on his opponents. Until I re- 

 ceived this communication I was inclined to 

 believe he was worsted in the argument ; but, 

 thanks to his persistency (a quality that seems 

 to be very marked in his make-up), he has not 

 only proved himself right, but has given 

 queen- breeders a valuable pointer as to the 

 proper age of larvae to be preferred for queen - 

 rearing. 



But I said that I still believe that the bees 

 left to themselves would not rear for the queen- 

 breeder as good queens as when reared by the 

 Doolittle method. By the latter a decided 

 preference is given by Doolittle and his fol- 

 lowers for the rearing of cells under the swarm- 

 ing or supersedure impulse. Under such cir- 

 cumstances the cells are more lavishly sup- 

 plied with the royal food than queens reared 

 from the cells made by the bees. 



Referring to Mr. Hutchinson's statement 

 that bees build most of their cells within 48 

 hours' time, my experience says there is a 

 great difference in bees. Holy Lands and 

 Syrians will start 25 to 30 cells within a few 

 hours; and after once being started they seem 

 disinclined to start other cells on succeeding 

 days. Black bees will do most of their cell- 

 starting within 48 hours, and Italians and hy- 

 brids, especially the former, will extend the 

 period almost up to the limit of available lar- 

 vae that can be possibly used for the rearing 

 of queens. 



There will be very marked exceptions to the 

 statement above; but when I was doing all the 

 queen-rearing myself I was impressed over 

 and over with the general truth of it. — Ed.] 



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ANSWERS TO , 



seasonable! 



QUESTIONS 



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DR. C. C. MIDLER ANSWERED. 



On page 710 I see that Dr. Miller is not sat- 

 isfied with my answer to his yellow- band ques- 

 tion, as I gave it on page 648 of Gleanings 

 for Sept. 15. In his footnote, p. 710, the edi- 

 tor says, " Perhaps he (Doolittle) will be mag- 

 nanimous enough to drop the matter where it 

 is." This was what I intended to do ; but on 

 p. 745 the doctor still insists that I answer, so 

 I will try to do so as briefly as possible. 



The doctor accuses me, p. 710, of entirely 

 leaving the original subject. Just say to him 

 that he did that thing himself. The original 

 question was the purity and color of worker 

 bees from imported queens — those imported 

 from Italy, not Italians. But I did answer the 

 original question, and the good doctor or any 

 one else can find that answer on page 684, sec- 

 ond column, beginning with the seventh line 

 from the top, in these words : "And so it 

 went on, I always standing out against a puri- 

 ty which could not be told without such a 

 minute scrutiny, and a color that could not be 

 told as yellow, only as a full sac of honey and 

 the golden sunshine from beyond the window 

 must turn the maroon into gold." I have put 

 two of the words in this quotation in italics so 

 that Dr. M. need not overlook them in reading 

 this time, as he evidently did in his former 

 readings. I think this should satisfy him 

 without his giving me a "walloping" if he 

 ever catches me "out alone." I wish all 

 might be satisfied with a good working bee, 

 regardless of color; but in looking over my 

 order-book for queens during the past three 

 years I find that three out of every five have 

 specified "golden bands " in their order. This 

 and other things tell me that the color " rage " 

 is a "fever" which is not so easily cured as 

 some seem to think. 



EXTRACTED AND COMB HONEY AT THE SAME 

 TIME FROM ONE HIVE. 



Question. — My bees do not seem to work in 

 the sections as well as it seems they should, 

 and I am thinking of buying an extractor for 

 next season so that I can extract the honey 

 out of the brood-combs when I put on the sec- 

 tions, as I am led to believe that the trouble 

 comes from too much honey in the brood- 

 combs. What would you advise ? 



Answer. — Well, I would advise every bee- 

 keeper having five or more colonies to procure 

 an extractor, for I can hardly conceive of a 

 fully equipped apiary without an extractor ; 

 but I would not advise buying an extractor 

 for the purpose proposed, for I believe such a 

 fallacy. Many seem to suppose that some- 

 thing must be done in times of section honey 

 to clear the brood-combs of honey to give the 

 queen room to lay, so as to keep up the popu- 

 lation of the colony, apparently reasoning 

 thus: "When bees are working in sections, 

 as a necessity, the brood-combs must be crowd- 



