GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



January, 1917 



JANrAEV, 1917 



The greenhouse ap 



TTbmS'r CAN THistoE DONE? 



The Most ^^ 

 ^een-Rearin^ (/^ 



Can queens be sue 

 cessfully reared under 

 cover, and mating con- 

 trolled? An attempt is 

 now being made to ans- 

 wer that question, finally 

 and for all time, by experimenting under favorii,, 

 conditions and on a scale never before possible, 



iyili, 



\e Experiment in 

 Coyer Ever Tried 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



story of this experiment 

 will b€ recorded in 

 Gleanings from month 

 to month as it proceeds 

 — either to success or to 

 final proof that the world 

 hasn't yet -an enclosure 

 big enough and condi- 



niis ri°ht enough for indoor queen-rearing. 



ft is needless to say that no-queen breeder could 



The largest glass building in America, a gigaui ee j to erect a $50,000 building such as is the great 

 greenhouse, nearly 600 feet long, 60 feet wi(l(* ."enhouse where this experiment is being tried. 

 30 feet high at the peak of the roof (the exaf''i?i'g picture at the" foot of this page (only part of 

 location of which the owners at present ask to have' 1 ieh could be got within the camera's field) gives 

 remain unpublished) is availed of for this very in. " me idea of its size. On the next page will be 

 teresting and most important experiment whici] j^ '£„.,,](] a picture of the interior of the greenhouse, 



(but which shows a view only from the center to one 

 tend of the building and along only one of the six 

 Itrack paths beneath its roof. The small picture 

 on the left of this page shows a part of the apiary 

 '.attached to this greenhouse business and which has 

 Hn important function to perform in pollinating the 



now in the first stages of a try-out. At this time 

 is impossible to predict the result. We can mereh 

 say that the conditions for this trial are the nearesi 

 ideal of any yet found. A strong colony has been 

 installed on a jjlatform 15 feet high among (lie 

 steel supports of the upper center of the huge 



building (as shown in the small picture at the rigln ^phmts raised there. As before noted, the smaller 

 of this page) provided with a queen whose tendeiicv picture on the right of this page shows the location 

 has been to lay a very large excess of drone eggs, of the colony on a platform 15 feet above the floor 

 This colony is one that during the last fall tookeaif of the greenhouse, which is expected to furnish the 

 of its drones as late as October. The interestins drones that will (perhaps) mate with the virgins. 



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