G I. K A N I N G 8 J \ H K K C V L T l^ K E 



Skptknii'.ior, 19^20 



SINCE the. ap- 

 pearance o f 

 the August 

 Sideline, 1 have 

 decided to say a 

 word or two 

 about the little 

 requeening job 

 referred to on 

 page 474. At the 



time of writing the August copy, my mind 

 was more especially on the swarm witli its 

 several queens, and the sight of those other 

 queens running out of the cells as fast as 

 we cut them out. So, tho I thought more 

 about going into detail about the system, or 

 lack of it as you will, used in the requeen- 

 ing experiment, I didn 't do it at that time. 

 Subsequent comment has decided me to tell 

 how we came to do just what we did. First, 

 tho, let me quote briefly from last month 's 

 account of the swarm: "Fourteen days be- 

 fore (the swarm issued), we had found some 

 fine cells in a good colony. Interested to see 

 what success we would have by such a short- 

 cut method of requeening, we dequeened six 

 poor colonies, giving each one comb with a 

 sealed cell, instead of giving the cell in a 

 eell-protector as we should have done. Per- 

 sonal matters and a few daj^s of rain kept 

 me from examining them later. This Sun- 

 day a swarm came from one of these. As 

 might have been expected, we found they 

 had torn down the cell given them, and built 

 a multitude of their own." 



I might add here that I did not examine 

 the five remaining colonies until too late to 

 know positively whether the cells given 

 them were accepted or torn down, but from 

 the quantity of brood found in two of them, 

 I felt it likely, or at least probable, that the 

 new laying queen had emerged from the cell 

 given them. At any rate, I really regret 

 the words, "as might have been expected," 

 for while the result is exactly what my own 

 judgment did expect and what I think had 

 happened in my more beginner days and 

 what I know Mr. Edward Hassinger, Jr., of 

 Greenville, Wise, would have expected, it 

 is not, if I properly read and interpret page 

 279, of May Gleanings, what that eminent 

 queen-breeder, Mr. Mell Pritchard, would 

 have expected, or what he has usuallj' had 

 hapj>en to him. And I have such respect for 

 Mr. Pritchard 's experience and such con- 

 fidence in his judgment that I'm just a little 

 sorry that the verdict, "as might have been 

 expected, ' ' was thus tossed out on my Side- 

 line page. 



Briefly reviewing pages 278-9, May Glean- 

 ings, here are the Hassinger and Pritchard 

 judgments on the matter of requeening with 

 a cell of brood and bees and an unprotected 

 cell. About a week before the end of his 

 main flow Mr. Hassinger kills all queens that 

 are mismated or poor honey-gatherers, and 

 also all two-year-old queens, altho they're 

 good queens or they'd have been killed the 

 year before. They are disposed of for age 

 onlv. Then after eight or nine davs, he de- 



troys all queen - 

 cells in the in- 

 ferior colonies, 

 icqueening each 

 one with a comb 

 of brood contain- 

 i n g a sealed 

 (jueen-cell, a n d 

 adhering bees, 

 fro m these 

 queenless good colonies. Mr. Pritchard, 

 commenting, commends Mr. Hassinger 's 

 weeding-out custom, but objects to the 

 long period of queenlessness brought about 

 by allowing the poor colonies to build 

 cells to be destroyed before being requeened. 

 He urges that these queens should not be 

 killed until the cells are ready for them in 

 the good colonies, adding, "Mr. Hassinger 

 says, however, that if he were to kill 'the 

 queens in the other colonies and at the same 

 time give them a frame with unprotected 

 cells, 50 per cent of his colonies would de- 

 stroy all such cells and raise cells from their 

 own brood. His experience does not agree 

 with mine. ' ' 



While this surprised me, I have, as men- 

 tioned above, such great respect for Mi-. 

 Pritchard 's experience and judgment that 

 when one day we found those fine-looking 

 cells in a particularly good colony, I re- 

 membered his advice and followed it, a bit 

 against my own judgment, to be sure, but 

 knowing how much more he knew than I 

 did, and ardently hoping that my experi- 

 ence might agree with his. It did not. It 

 agreed with Mr. Hassinger 's. But if my 

 Sideline comment sounds saucy, Mr. Pritch- 

 ard — well, I was surprised myself when I 

 lead it in print, and sorry, too — "as might 

 have been expected!" 



But there 's another point brought out in 

 that same Hassinger-Pritchard requeening 

 discussion that interests me. This time I 'm 

 taking issue from theory only, not from 

 even the slightest first-hand knowledge. And 

 I'm wondering if anyone else has experi 

 mented or observed enough to speak from 

 experience. Mr. Pritchard objects (and of 

 course he is not alone in the view) to queens 

 reared under the queenless impulse. Let me 

 (|Uote again: " It is well known that colonies 

 that have been made queenless, iu their haste 

 to improve the time in which queen-cells can 

 be started, often start some of their cells 

 with larvae two or three days old, this be- 

 ing fully half of the feeding period of the 

 larvae. Queens reared in this way could not 

 be expected to equal those which have been 

 fed as queens for the entire time. Yet these 

 cells, started from two- or three-day-old 

 larvae having l!0 or 40 hours start of the oth 

 ers, are the first to hatch. And since the 

 first queen out destroys all the others, the 

 queen remaining in the hive is likely to be 

 lacking in quality. ' ' 



I realize this is a common belief, resting 

 on the assumption that for its first two or 

 three days the larva will have been fed as 

 a worker instead of as a queen larva. Yet 



