APRIL 1, 1914 



261 



with Italians I'roiii the old Xo. 1 stock. I 

 concluded to rear queens for the market, 

 and bought some good Italian queens for 

 my poorer colonies; got a Doolittle breeder, 

 and in 1891 offered queens for sale. 



In 1894 T bought a breeder from Elmer 

 Hutchinson that was a dandy. 1 sold Harry 

 Mitchel, Hawks Park, Fla., 17 queens. The 

 next year was the " banner year " for this 

 part of Florida for honey. Mr. Mitchel 

 reported that all the queens were good, and 

 helped greatly to give him his large yield 

 — an average of 380 lbs., I believe — but one 

 had, by actual weight, given over 600 lbs. 

 These queens Avere I'eared as carefully as J 

 knew how, and the bees were managed by 

 one of the best beekeepers of that or prob- 

 ably any other day. Why the difference? 



A few years ago I sent one of the most 

 prominent beekeepers of Texas six queens 

 — untested. The next year he wrote me that 

 one of the queens he bought of me was one 

 of the best he had ever owned, and was so 

 valuable that she ought to be used for a 

 !)ieeder; that she was extraordinarily pro- 

 lific, and that her colony had made a sur- 

 prising amount of honey. 1 arranged to 

 have her sent to me. Slie was medium in 

 size, but was the best all-around breeder I 

 ever owned, as she transmitted her good 

 qualities in a large measure to her daugh- 

 ters. Were all her eggs capable of )>roduc- 

 ing good queens'? 



The six queens mentioned above were all 

 reared from the same mother, within a few 

 days, and under the same conditions as 

 nearly as 1 could give them. There was no 

 complaint about the other five; but what 

 accounts for this one being so far superior 

 to the others? Queens reared fi'om the 

 above queen, just before she died of old 

 age, seemed to be just as good as those 

 leared when she Avas in her prime. While 

 an extra-good queen can not be told from 

 her looks, vet the most satisfactory breed- 



ers I have had have been of good appear- 

 ance, and medium to rather large. How- 

 ever, one " fancy " breeder that I paid a 

 high price for was one of the poorest breed- 

 ers or queens that I ever owned; but she 

 was a beauty to look at. 



A heavy honey-flow, when bees store 

 honey around and on the cells, is not a 

 good time to rear queens. Some of the poor- 

 est queens I have reared were reared during 

 a heavy flow of honey. Some very large 

 queens are worthless, while some very small 

 ones are prolific; therefore size does not 

 mark a queen's value. 



From some cause some virgins — fine ones 

 too — are very slow to mate when all condi- 

 tions seem to be favorable. I think the 

 slow ones account for most of the drone- 

 layers. Perhaps poor drones are the cause 

 frequently. Virgins delayed from mating 

 on account of the weather are not so likely 

 to be drone-layers as those that ai'e slow 

 from no ap]iarent reason. Is the fault in 

 the egg, feeding, or method ? 



r believe the following points are essen- 

 tial in order to rear good queens : 



1. Use the best breeder available. 



2. Use the best cell-builders in the yard. 



3. Make the conditions, just as nearly as 

 possible, to conform to the natural condi- 

 tions when bees are contented and prosper- 

 ing, somewhere near the comb-building 

 point, when bees are feeding their young 

 lavishly, but not swamping them with hon- 

 ey- 



4. Never use a larva that has been starved 

 at some time in her existence, or that has 

 not had an abundance of food of the right 

 consistency, and destroy all larvae not well 

 fed, or that have had honey stored around 

 the cell. 



Briefly, I consider these to be important 

 points in rearing the best queens. I don't 

 know it all. Who does? 



Port Orange, Fla. 



THE VALUE OF CAREFULLY KEPT RECORDS IN BREEDING 



BY C. F. BENDER 



I think that the breeding of bees is one 

 of the most important matters connected 

 with our pursuit. " Pick the best colony 

 and raise all your queens from that" sounds 

 very simple, yet I don't remember a season 

 when T ever did just that — partly because 

 I could never be sure which was the best 

 colony, and partly because I feared the 

 effect of in-breeding if T stuck too closely 

 to one family. While it is not easy to choose 

 the best colony, all things considered, it is 



not difficult, out of a hundred or Iavo hun- 

 dred colonies, to select a dozen or more that 

 are far above the average. It is quite a 

 help to have a large numbei- to select from. 

 When the bees are hauled to the outyards 

 in the spring, all the best are left for the 

 home apiary, as T expect to rear all my 

 queens there; and those colonies that are 

 not used for queens Avill furnish drones of 

 the best quality. 



In selecting a queen mother the amount 



