NOVEMBER 1, 1914 



841 



CONVEMSATIONS 'WITH DOOLITTLE 



QUEEN INCUBATION. 



" Did you notice Dr. Miller's statement, 

 Sept. 15, regarding the incubation of queens 

 in six hours and ten minutes less than fif- 

 teen days? How are we to reconcile such 

 with Quinby's sixteen days?" 



I must say that Dr. Miller's figures give a 

 shorter time of incubation than I have ever 

 noticed, and, so far as I am conversant, the 

 shortest ever noted by any one when calcu- 

 lating from the laying of the egg to the 

 fully developed queen. That bees perfect 

 (jueens where b"ood of all ages is given 

 them, so that some will emerge in as little 

 time as nine days from the time such eggs 

 and larvae are given to a " broody " colony 

 is a thing that many close observers have 

 proven ; but with Dr. Miller's experiment it 

 will be noted that his is from the time the 

 egg was laid, or ^ery nearly so. It used to 

 be calculated that where bees had brood in 

 all stages, they would select such as would 

 give the best of queens, if such selection were 

 left to them entirely. It looked quite rea- 

 sonable that they should; but experiments 

 have proved the contrary. Perhaps I should 

 modify that a little. Bees raising queens 

 under the swarming influence, or where a 

 supersedure of queen is planned, do this 

 while the old queen is present with them; 

 consequently begin with the egg as Dr. 

 Miller's bees did; but where the queen is 

 taken from a colony, or queenless bees are 

 made to start queen-cells from brood given, 

 the case is altogether different. The trouble 

 is that, through their eagnerness to get a 

 queen, they generally err by selecting one 

 or more larvae for the purpose that are too 

 old to produce the best queens; while, later, 

 after this eagerness subsides a little they 

 will take larvte young enough to give good 

 queens. But through older larvae being 

 taken first, the queens from such emerge 

 first, so that the later and better ones are 

 destroyed. The remedy is to destroy all 

 queen-cells sealed over, which are found 

 four or five days after the brood was given. 

 Such will give queens that are much more 

 satisfactory than those raised by the usual 

 mode of procedure — enough more than to 

 pay for the extra time used in this woi'k. 



But this is not to the " reconciling " of 

 Dr. Miller's time with that given by Quinby 

 and others. I think that Editor Root's 

 footnote on page 705, Sept. 15, goes a long 

 way toward reconciling matters. It will be 

 noticed that Mr. Miller began his experi- 

 ment on July 6, 11 :10 a. m., probably when 

 the weather was very warm, as Editor Root 



infers. But this is not all. It was also at a 

 time of the greatest activity of the bees, and 

 this activity had more to do with the short- 

 ening of the usual time than did the hot 

 weather. Whether Editor Root included the 

 activity of the colony in his " particular 

 environment " or not I cannot say ; but 

 right here is a point not generally taken 

 into consideration by the most of us when 

 rearing queens. In central New York the 

 best of queens cannot be reared without 

 great vigilance on the part of the apiarist, 

 except from May 20 to August 25 in tlie 

 ordinary season. Especially does this ai^ply 

 for the six weeks following the latter date. 

 As the harvest from buckwheat begins to 

 wane, a natural "drowsiness" seems to come 

 over the bees preparatory to the winter 

 " nap," and queens reared under ordinary 

 circumstances by queenless colonies con- 

 sume 16, 17, 18, and sometimes as many 

 as 21 to 22 days for their period of incuba- 

 tion; and I have known 20 days to be used 

 in April and the first half of May. How- 

 ever, bees are much more active inside the 

 cluster during spring than they are during 

 the fall months. And the size of the colony 

 does not play so important a part as many 

 suppose during the time between June 15 

 and August 1. A two-frame nucleus will 

 raise far better queens at that time than 

 will a full colony in September where such 

 colony is not looked after by the apiarist 

 further than taking away the queen. I 

 have had queens incubated in full colonies 

 during the last half of September, where, 

 through sickness or some oversight, said 

 colonies were not " spurred on " by proper 

 stimulating, that were very little larger than 

 an ordinary worker's, though jierfect in 

 shape and form, and that did not emerge 

 earlier than the 21st day after the eggs 

 were laid from which they were produced. 

 To raise good queens in September, shake 

 fiueenless bees into a box in the morning 

 and feed them in confinement till four p. 

 M. ; then run them into a hive on their old 

 stand, prepared as follows: A feeder next 

 the side of the hive, then a frame of nearly 

 empty comb, then a frame of comb partly 

 filled with honey, and a hundred or so cells 

 of sealed brood (preferably i^art drone) ; 

 then the frame of prepared cell-cups ; an- 

 other frame of honey, and another nearly 

 empty comb, with a dummy drawn up be- 

 side the latter. In such colonies, with a 

 good feed given near sunset each night for 

 the next ten days, as good queens can be 

 reared as at any time of the year. 



