THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



1-21 



her appearance and action were that of 

 a virgin queen. The next morning, 

 tweh'e hours after exposure to the sem- 

 inal fluid, her' abdomen was distended 

 and her appearance and action in all 

 respects was that common to fertile, 

 laying queens. She was moving about 

 slowly ovQi the combs and peering into 

 the cells, and in twenty-four hours af- 

 terward she had 400 or 500 eggs in 

 worker cells. We watched the devel- 

 opment of larv?e from those eggs. In 

 due time worker larvae appeared, and 

 at this date, November 13, worker bees 

 in considerable numbers are being 

 hatched. We then reared two queens 

 from the eggs laid by this artificial fe- 

 cundated queen, in queenless colonies, 

 and as soon as they were hatclied I 

 clipped tlieir wings, and when orgasm 

 appeared they were treated as before 

 desciibed, and in three days one laid a 

 few eggs in worker cells. The other has 

 the appearance and action of a fertile 

 queen, but has laid no eggs and the late- 

 ness of the season forbids advantageous 



continuance of the experiments 



We can confidently assert that fecunda- 

 tion by the natural method did uoi take 

 place." 



Not seeing anything of the kind men- 

 tioned in A. I. Root's A B C the ques- 

 tion arises (for myself— as well as for 

 others, no doubt) : Have further tests 

 been made in said direction? If so, have 

 they been a success or not? If not, do 

 not "failures precede successes" and 

 should the trials not be continued? For, 

 if success could be secured, I hardly 

 need explain why and how this would be 

 a great thing for the beekeeping frater- 

 nity. 



The "Hallarashire Bee Keeper", in a 

 letter to Gleanings, remarks that, in 

 order to produce purely mated Punic 

 queens, he is '-also arranging for the ex- 

 clusive use of an iskand in the AUantic" 

 — he could spare himself this trouble if 

 virgin queens could be artificially ferti- 

 lized. 



In the Apr, on page 83, I notice 

 the following : "The plans of these bee- 

 keepers who expected to rear large bees 



by cross-mating the smaller races with 

 the Apis dorsata are upset as it is under- 

 stootl that the queens of this '-coming 

 bee" mate with their drones in the even- 

 ing." Well, if the latter Idc so, (but the 

 mating could be done artificially), those 

 plans would not be upset by any means 

 and we could look forward for quite a 

 number of highly interesting experi- 

 ments. 



By the way, the "Hallamshire Bee- 

 Kecper" speaks ofthe "Kohler system" 

 of having virgins fecundated. Can you 

 tell us what this is ? 



Chas. Norman. 



St. Petersburg, Fla. 



The Kohler system of fertilization was 

 to confine both queens and drones in the 

 hive till after all other drones were done 

 flyin.c;. Snch a plan cannot be considered 

 practical.— Ed.]. 



ARTIFICIAL QUEEX-REA.RING. 



I see a great deal said in the various 

 bee journals in favor of queens reared 

 during the swarming impulse, and va- 

 rious admonitions to let nature take its 

 course. Now, I am an entlnisiastic 

 lover of nature, but I am well aware 

 that if [ allow my bees to follow nature 

 or their instinct, that I should have very 

 few bees left and should have to go to the 

 woods for honey. Now, I much ])refer 

 to rear all my queens by the artificial 

 method, then I know exactly the pedi- 

 gree and can control the line of descent 

 of iier royal highness the queen, if I 

 cannot of her consort, the drone. I 

 have over one hundred colonies and of 

 that number only three come up to the 

 standard from which I would like to 

 rear my queens. I rear all my queens 

 after the method described by H. Alley 

 in Gleanings, if I am not mistaken, some 

 years ago. I rear about one hundred 

 a year to re-queen my apiary, as I do 

 not find that it pays to keep queens over 

 the second winter as they rear too many 

 drones, and I do not think that they 

 winter as well as bees from vigorous 

 young queens. Now, if I attempt to 



