754 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1 



aside from the honey they bear, and we can 

 grow them by the acre or hundreds of acres 

 without any fear that the project will be a 

 failure. Our catalog of honey- plant seeds 

 gives a pretty full list of the plants that 

 may be safely grown for honey, because 

 they have a market value for other purposes. 

 —A. I. R.] 



THE QUESTION OF THE SECOND MATING OP 

 QUEENS. 



BY FRANK BENTON, M. S. 



(Apicultural Investigator, United States Department 

 of Agriculture). 



I did not state distinctly in my article en- 

 titled " Oueens Mating Twice," published 

 in Gleanings for April 15, 1904, page 385, 

 that the queens whose records were there 

 given did not lay any eggs between the 

 first and second matings, yet I thought that 

 matter was rather understood. However, 

 in the number for June 1, page 551, Mr. W. 

 M. Whitney questions this. Not only were 

 no eggs laid previous to the second mating, 

 but the queens, after their return from the 

 first mating, with the drone appendages at- 

 tached to their bodies, presented no other 

 sign of having mated. That is to say, 

 when these appendages had dried up and 

 disappeared the normil size of the virgin 

 queen was preserved until after the second 

 mating, and no eggs were deposited. This 

 argues that the first mating was wholly in- 

 eflfective. 



The question of whether a queen that has 

 mated and begun laying normally can still 

 mate again is quite another matter. I 

 think, however, the fact now well establish- 

 ed that a queen does meet the drone and 

 copulate a second time is an indication 

 which we are warranted in taking as point- 

 ing to a possibility of such an occurrence 

 after the effect of the first mating has dis- 

 appeared, or even the bare possibility that 

 a queen taking a flight from the hive dur- 

 ing an interval when her body is not heavy 

 with eggs, might copulate a second time. 

 I have no positive evidence of this, but there 

 are some things which occur which point to 

 the possibility of it. All will recollect that 

 the point has often been mentioned in the 

 bee-journals of the frequent disappearance 

 from the hive of clipped queens, it having 

 been claimed that they were more likely to 

 be replaced than those which had not been 

 clipped. May it not be that they leave the 

 hive for the purpose of mating a second 

 time? Again, many complaints have been 

 made that queens which experienced breed- 

 ers had sent out as producing bees of pure 

 blood had really been mismated. I can not 

 now recall the year, nor do I think any 

 mention has been made in print of a little 

 occurrence dating back to the time when I 

 was located in Carniola, Austria, breeding 

 queens of the Carniolan race, but I have a 

 very distinct recoUect'on that several queens 

 were sent to the A. I. Root Company, from 

 my apiary, and could have been no other 



than pure Carniolans, since there were no 

 other bees in the province. Some months 

 later the statement was made in a personal 

 letter from the A. I. Root firm, that these 

 queens, which had apparently first pro- 

 duced good Carniolans, were breeding bees 

 showing Italian blood. Mrs. Benton sug- 

 gested that, by the following year, very 

 likely they might produce pure Carniolans 

 again ! Observations of a similar character 

 have cropped out in apiarian literature re- 

 peatedly for many years back. The ques- 

 tion here arises, Might not this also be 

 another case of second mating? 



Whatever the text-books may say to the 

 contrary, there is one point on which I am 

 quite decided; namely: That queens which 

 have mated and begun laying do, in after- 

 life, leave the hive and fly about when un- 

 accompanied by a swarm, and, in the lit- 

 ter case, are disposed to return, and nearly 

 always do return. But should the hive con- 

 tain a small nucleus only, all of the bees in 

 the excitement sometimes accompany the 

 queen, and then they are likely to cluster 

 as a natural swarm. All will recollect the 

 fact that small nuclei sometimes desert 

 their hives, even though all the conditions 

 seem to be favorable for their remaining. 

 Of course, these are exceptional cases, 

 yet they show possibilities. It will gener- 

 ally be found to occur after the queen has 

 got the combs well stocked with brood, so 

 that, being in a very small hive and very 

 prolific, she is obliged to check her laying, 

 and finally, being light- bodied, seems to 

 take pleasure in outside excursions. The 

 bees, noting her excitement, go out and 

 probably accompany her accidentally, as 

 it were, leaving brood, honey, and a well- 

 ventilated nucleus-hive behind. Have we 

 not heie another indication cf the possibili- 

 ty of second mating, each one of which 

 might be effective for a time? For my own 

 part I am prepared to believe in the strong 

 possibility of its occurrence under excep- 

 tional circumstances — rarely, of course, but 

 that it may on occasion occur. I do not be- 

 lieve, however, that a queen failing, because 

 of age, to lay fecundated eggs, would mate 

 again. 



Bureau of Entomologj', July 12. 



[The following may be a case in point. — 

 Ed.] 



daughters from a pure italian oueen 

 producing black bees. 

 I have an imported queen which I used 

 last year as a breeder, and nearly all 

 queens reared from her produced bees as 

 finely marked as I ever saw. During the 

 honey- flow this season those queens proved 

 to be so prolific, and the bees from them 

 were such hustlers, I concluded to stock 

 most of my apiary from her (the imported 

 one). I set to work, and by the time I got 

 some 25 to laying, the bees from the first 

 ones had begun to hatch. As I had noth- 

 ing but Italians, and there are very few 

 black bees in my vicinity, my apiary being 

 in a roar with Italian drones, right when 



