1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



215 



into the cave, and suppose, as soon as I set 

 them out in the spring, I weighed them ; for 

 I would always set them out when soft maple 

 commenced to bloom, and that is from the 

 middle of March to the 10th or 15th of April. 

 They were all in 8-frame hives. I suppose 

 there is not another as good a cave in the State 

 as the one I wintered them in. It was 33 ft. 

 long in the clear from back end to end under 

 the stairs ; over 6 ft. wide and over G ft. high, 

 all walled with brick, and arched over, then 

 all cemented, and a thick cement floor. It 

 had two doors, one at outside and one at foot 

 of stairs. It had two ventilators and a drain. 

 The dirt on the roof was not ridged up, but 

 was level with the surrounding ground, and 

 yet there was over three feet of dirt over the 

 shallowest part of the cave roof. The floor 

 was 10 ft. below the surface, and big changes 

 in temperature outside had no effect inside — a 

 perfect place for bees to sleep all winter. 

 Flagler, Iowa, Dec. 11. 



[These experiments in cellar-wintering agree 

 very closely with a similar table showing re- 

 corded observations as made by Dr. Mason. 

 There is no question but that indoor bees, un- 

 der favorable conditions^ consume less stores 

 by a third than those wintered outdoors. But 

 not every one has either the means or the 

 skill to bring about these conditions. — Ed.] 



WHAT ARE THE BEST QUEENS WORTH? 



Three and Four Hundred Dollar Queens ; the Rev- 

 enue a good Queen May Bring in 

 from Honey Sold. 



BY W. A. H. GILSTRAP. 



The recent talk about $100 queens has been 

 a genuine surprise to me on account of writers 

 in Gleanings and elsewhere considering the 

 price so very high. Why so? The A. 1. Root 

 Co. wanted the best queen in the United States, 

 or at least one of the very btst. They have 

 some good bees with which to compare her. 

 She must produce workers which are good 

 comb-builders, gentle, hardy, pure stock, de- 

 cidedly ahead of their associates in storing 

 honey. The queen is supposed to transmit 

 her desirable qualities to her royal daughters. 

 That is one of the main advantages, if not the 

 principal one, that pure stock offers. Now, 

 what can a honey producer afford to sell such 

 a queen for that is one or two years old ? Per- 

 haps she is two years old before her owner has 

 all the desirable qualities fully established. 



Of course, frame and hive manipulation can 

 be made much easier with such bees. Aside 

 from the real pleasure and comfort derived 

 from handling such stock, there is a direct 

 saving of time, which is worth enough to go 

 a long way toward requeening. If you have 

 ordinary Italians, this point alone would not 

 pay for requeening ; but with cross bees it 

 would. 



But the main ad van I age to be gained is in 

 filling cans and sections so much faster. Ac- 

 cording to page 829, Nov. 15, Mr. Wright has 

 a queen whose colony leads all others in his 



possession by over 90 lbs. in 1899 and 1898. 

 Leading poultry authorities say that, in scor- 

 ing a breeding-pen of chickens, half the 

 points should go to the cock. But the apia- 

 rist can pit, not one male against six or eight 

 females, but he can divide desirable qualities 

 between one female and a practically unlimited 

 number of males. I see no reason why Mr. 

 Wright could not raise his average per colony 

 over 40 lbs. in sections, by requeening from 

 Mrs. Sweetheart. Let the reader decide how 

 much that would be worth in his locality for 

 100 colonies. What value would that amount 

 pay interest on at three per cent? Doesn't 

 that make $200 look small ? 



Some may object to the above on the ground 

 that such a queen is a freak, and will not trans- 

 mit her desirable qualities to the extent indi- 

 cated. Let's see. Perhaps Messenger was 

 the greatest desirable freak among horses. 

 His desirable qualities have been intensified 

 by judicious breeding until all the world won- 

 ders at the result. 



The writer's experience along the same line 

 might be of some interest. For years I have 

 been trying different strains of Italians, with 

 various degrees of success. My best workers 

 were never vindictive except in one case, and 

 they were evidently badly mixed with Cyp- 

 rians. The leather-colored bees proving more 

 desirable than any I had found, convinced me 

 that a colony I had occasion to examine fre- 

 quently last winter was about what I wanted. 

 These bees were in an old leaky hive, were 

 quite strong, a trifle lighter than some Italians 

 I have imported, very uniformly marked, and 

 very gentle. I bought the queen, and was 

 told that, of about 100 colonies in that lot in 

 1898, all were moved to another range because 

 they were " starving out " except the one in 

 question. They were not moved, as it was not 

 considered safe to move so much fresh honey 

 on unwired combs in hot weather. Being so 

 strong caused fear of swarming, and the api- 

 arist divided the colony. 



After I bought the queen I put her in a more 

 desirable hive. In due time the cells were all 

 removed but one, which produced a fine queen, 

 and evidently mated with a drone from the 

 same colony. She is little if any inferior to 

 her mother. I do not remember being stung 

 by bees from that hive except when they were 

 pinched in handling frames ; but frequently 

 they would have stung if a little smoke had 

 not been used. Her daughters were mostly 

 mated to Italians or high-grade mongrels, but 

 they had colonies inferior to their parent 

 stock. I think my average yield from these 

 colonies was between one and two dollars bet- 

 ter than from others in the same kind of hives, 

 at least. 



The point that interests me now is to deter- 

 mine how much in-and-in breeding can be 

 done without detriment to vitality of the stock. 

 Those who are determined to raise very yellow 

 bees without much reference to any thing else 

 need not worry about vitality. So far as my 

 experience goes, there is little danger in that 

 line. Can some of the veterans give more 

 light ? 



Some months ago I was on the point of 



