GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Febeuaby, 1920 



that bad becu isolated in the orchard at the 

 Central Experimental Farm, but probably 

 drones are not mature enough for successful 

 mating until they have been able to fly for 

 several days. 



Another possible explanation of the acci- 

 dent is that the drones had been injured in 

 some way. The drones were put' into the 

 nuclei singly by hand, and it is possible that 

 thus handling them while immature, which 

 it was noticed caused most of them to de- 

 fecate, may have injured them. 



The fact that the queens were eight days 

 old before they were allowed to fly may be 

 considered as a third possible cause, or a 

 contributing factor. This however, is ex- 

 tremely improbable because the writer for- 

 merly mailed to beekeepers a great number 

 of virgin queens, most of which were not 

 introduced until several days old, but they 

 were never reported as becoming drone- 

 breeders; indeed many of them became 

 mothers of very productive colonies. 



The large twin nucleus boxes, containing 

 on each side two well-secured Langstroth 

 frames and a space for another, with four 

 ventilation holes, that were designed for this 

 year's work and used this year, have proved 

 far more satisfactory than the twin ' ' baby ' ' 

 nucleus boxes containing on each side two 

 combs one-third Langstroth size, used in 

 1918 at Kapuskasing in northern Ontario. 

 The extensive swarming out at Kapuskasing 

 and the overheating on the return journey 

 from there that caused much loss last year 

 with the "baby" boxes, did not occur at 

 all this year, but the steadier temperatui-e 

 on Duck Island helped to prevent swarming 

 out. The present form of nucleus box can 

 hardly be improved upon. 



The experiment was planned and carried 

 out by the writer, who is also responsible 

 for the figures and conclusions given. 



Ottawa, Can. 



[There are times when some of our young 

 queens are found laying eggs, part of which 

 are drone eggs; yet, at the same time, the 

 conditions are such that we would expect 

 them to be laying worker eggs only. I had 

 supposed that such queens were not com- 

 pletely fertilized but did not know the rea- 

 son for it. 



Mr. Sladen's finding regarding the mating 



of queens to immature drones would seem to 

 be a plausible reason. 



It would be valuable to know just how old 

 these drones were at the time the virgin 

 queens were ready to take their mating 

 flight, which would have been about July 23. 

 The drone comb was given to a colony on 

 June 16, and if eggs were laid in it within 

 a day, they should have hatched about July 

 10 and would have been 13 days old; yet 

 they were still hatching on July 21. We 

 are taught that the worker bees are about 

 17 days old when they begin going to the 

 fields. The drones are slower at maturing 

 while in the larval stage than the workers, 

 and they may require a longer time to 

 reach full maturity after emerging from 

 their cells than do the workers. 



There are many problems which can only 

 be solved by experimental work conducted 

 on an isolated location such as Prof. Sladen 

 has chosen; and we know of no one better 

 qualified for this work, as he has that rare 

 gift of observing the thing that the rest of 

 us overlook.- — Mell Pritchard.] 



[While the experiments recorded here by 

 Professor Sladen are somewhat inconclusive 

 from the fact that we are not able to prove 

 whether the trouble was wholly with the 

 queens or drones, or with both, there are 

 enough data furnished to make it appear 

 that, in order to function properly, the 

 drones should be much older than most of 

 us have believed. We hope that the experi- 

 ments may be repeated next year. This is 

 the first time, if we are correct, that really 

 scientific experiments like this have been 

 conducted on an island where there are no 

 bees. While D. A. Jones of Beeton, On- 

 tario, Canada, in 1883 and '84, had three 

 islands for mating queens of three different 

 races, up in Georgian Bay, his only object 

 was to get queens in their purity for com- 

 mercial purposes only. The project at the 

 time was too expensive to make it a paying 

 one. There was no honey to be gathered by 

 the bees on the islands, and the bees had to 

 be fed sugar syrup. 



Mr. Sladen is an expert queen-breeder; 

 and if he can bring his experiments to a 

 definite final conclusion, the beekeeping 

 world will owe him and his station a tre- 

 mendous debt of gratitude. — E. R. Eoot.] 



Scene along' the Diu-k Island shore. 



