May, 1922 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



297 



established in this country. In an excellent 

 article in the "Bee World" for November, 

 1921, Arthur M. Sturges states: "After deal- 

 ing with a considerable number, both of im- 

 ported American queens and daughters of 

 these, the evidence shows that they build 

 up in the spring with greater rapidity than 

 do the Italian strains from Italy direct." 



Fig. 1. — Chilian hives, 13x13x6 inches. The 



struggle for existence in such small hives tends 



to increase the vigor of the race. 



It is the writer's opinion in view of the 

 above and of what he has done along the 

 lines of selection in South America and Cali- 

 fornia that further importations are unnec- 

 essary at the present time. 



Reasons for Requeening. 

 We requeen in order to maintain purity 

 of race, replacing (1) raismated queens. The 

 writer cannot see the wisdom of this prac- 

 tice in commercial honey production. 

 Through actual experimental work com- 

 pleted at the University of California over 

 a period of two years and conducted among 

 several hundred colonies, it was found that 

 the progeny of an Italian queen mated to a 

 black drone alwavs stored more honev than 



either the pure Italian or black race. Since 

 that time we have found the same to hold 

 true in our yards. In fact we are pleased 

 when our Italians mismate- — -pleased at the 

 big crops and are now quite callous to the 

 few extra stings that have been thrown in. 

 Another common cause for requeening is 

 (2) inferiority — the colony was not up to 

 the average. Better to do the dequeening 

 when scattered brood is first noticed, even 

 if the queen be only two or three months 

 old, than to wait till the season is over be- 

 fore discovering her uselessness. The big 

 question in requeening, however, associates 

 itself with (3) failing queens. The ortho- 

 dox way is to requeen every year. At all 

 events this subject permits of discussion, as 

 the large majority of California beekeepers 

 do not requeen every year. The longevity 

 of tlie queen is dependent upon her inher- 

 ent qualities and upon the amount of work 

 which she performs. In tropical and semi- 

 tropical countries queens wear out fast. 

 Parts of California are semi-tropical and 

 many of our regions have periods of long 

 brood-rearing. In the great valleys of the 

 state there is active brood-rearing for nine 

 to ten months of the year. In other parts 

 of the state there is but half this amount of 

 brood-rearing. Where there are long sea- 

 sons and when migratory beekeeping is en- 

 gaged in, it pays to requeen every year. Re- 

 queening is unquestionably better than wait- 

 ing for supersedure. But when the season 

 is short and fast with only one main flow 

 during spring, how about it? Let it be un- 

 derstood that the queen must reach her 

 peak at the proper time and that she must 

 be responsible for her quota of young bees 

 reared during September or October. Sup- 

 posing a queen is raised just after the peak 

 has been reached this year, will she be able 

 to produce in May, 1924, her 75,000 or 100,- 

 000 workers? For several years we thought 

 our queens would do it— many of them will. 

 We have found that the extra cost of annual 



-Stock taken from small hives like those in Fig. 1. Hundreds of colonit 

 great help in studying the principles of breeding. 



to work with are a 



