50 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



General Correspondence 



THE ECONOMICS OF THE NEW METHODS OF 

 REQUEENING 



BY ARTHUR C. MILLER 



The editor's kind remarks aiDpended to 

 my article on " Requeening without De- 

 queening," p. 851, Dee. 1, are encouraging 

 and at the same time suggestive. They sug- 

 gested to me the fact that the economic 

 importance of this new method as well as 

 that of direct introduction by the smoke 

 plan is being overlooked. Furthermore, the 

 economics of honey production are being 

 sadly neglected. To be sure, a stray item 

 now and then alludes to cost of some pro- 

 cess or suggests some saving, but they most- 

 ly have to do with the price of supplies, not 

 with the labor, the operative cost. 



From the best figures I have been able to 

 obtain, the direct loss of queens put in by 

 the cage plan is about forty per cent, to say 

 nothing of the subsequent loss of maimed 

 and injured queens which occurs later. But 

 not a word is said as to the loss in labor in 

 the several inspections of the colony, nor is 

 m.ore than a passing remark given to the 

 loss from having the colony queenless for 

 three to six or often more days. Then there 

 are those colonies which persistently refuse 

 to accept a queen, sometimes dwindling 

 until they are of no value save to unite with 

 some other colony. By the smoke method 

 of introduction such loss is cut out, nearly 

 one hundred per cent of the queens being 

 accepted, and that immediately on the re- 

 moval of the old queen. So certain are the 

 results that it is unnecessary to inspect the 

 colony afterward to see if the queen is safe. 

 The aggTegate saving throughout the coun- 

 try in cost of queens alone is immense; and 

 if the labor item could be figured it would 

 astound us. 



By " Requeening Without Dequeening " 

 we save the labor (costly time) of finding 

 the old queen. If we raise our own queens 

 and raise as many of them as we had to 

 when introducing by the cage method, we 

 can save almost all of that time and thus be 

 far ahead of the cage plan. All that is 

 necessary is to run in the new queen at the 

 proper tim.e, and the next morning look for 

 a dead queen in front of the hive. Occasion- 

 ally it is the second day before she is thrown 

 out, and now and then longer; but even so, 

 it takes very little time to walk along before 

 the hives and look for a dead queen. They, 

 are readily seen, usually having a few work- 

 ers " nosing " them over. If a system of 

 clipjjing queens reared one year one way, 



say (for example) the left wings, and those 

 of the next year having the right wing's 

 clipped, there is never any question as to 

 which queen is thrown out. The veteran 

 can readily distingaysh between an old 

 and a young queen ; but sometimes the bees 

 have been doing a little superseding unbe- 

 known to the beekeeper, and a young laying 

 queen is thrown out. Clipped wing's make 

 identity positive. 



I have said, " If we raise as many queens 

 as we had to when using the cage method of 

 introduction." By that method we lost about 

 forty per cent outright, which meant that^ 

 out of 100 queens, only 60 are accepted; 

 hence 40 more must be reared to take their 

 place; and if about 40 per cent of those 

 forty are lost twenty or twenty-five more 

 are needed. In other words, under the cage 

 system about twice as many queens had to be 

 raised as were needed, and I have known 

 beekeepers to raise over three times as many, 

 because of the loss of virgins both in intro- 

 duction and in mating. Just stop and figure 

 the cost of that ! Divide it by the number 

 of your colonies and see how much it adds 

 to the cost of your honey per colony and 

 thence per pound. 



The reason I said raise as many queens as 

 when operating by the cage method is be- 

 cause my loss when requeening without de- 

 queening is about the same as by the cage 

 method. But I save the expense and annoy- 

 ance of looking for the old queen and re- 

 moving her, and all of the queens accepted 

 are " sound in wind and limb," which is not 

 the case by the cage plan. 



In the article above alluded to I said (p. 

 851) that where the queens Avere supposedly 

 equally matched the bees sometimes took a 

 hand. So far as I have been able to find 

 out, the bees never meddle with either queen 

 uidess one runs — and perhaps " pipes " — 

 then balling usually follows. Either queen 

 may do the running. 



One item in running queens into colonies 

 having a queen may be an important factor 

 in the results, and it may not ; and that is 

 where she is imn in, whether at one or the 

 other side or in the middle of the entrance. 

 Suppose she is put in at one side and the 

 old queen is at the opposite side, and they 

 do not meet for several days, as may occur; 

 then the new queen has filled up with eggs, 

 and has not the advantage over the old queen 

 which we desire. Also, the old queen may 

 have cut down egg-laying either from age, 

 for a resting-spell, or preparatory to swarm- 

 ing, and tluis have a still further advantage 

 over the new comer. These are some of the 



