126 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



A man by the name of Trego wrote 

 a friend of ours that he soon intends 

 to say something '-that will make that 

 Punic Man squirm." Well, this man 

 Trego is one of those fellows who has 

 had a hand in a sympathetic way, if in 

 no other, in trying to drive that man Al- 

 ley out the bee business. Let me say 

 to tliose fellows, that Alley was first in 

 the field as a queen rearer, and he may 

 be one of the last, as in my long experi- 

 ence, I have seen hundretls start in the 

 queen rearing business, run a year or so, 

 and then disappear. Lots of you croak- 

 ers will be laid away on the shelf for 

 want of business, before the writer is. 

 Where are most of those chaps who 

 two years ago commenced to call me a 

 fraud and humbug? 



Gone from the pubhc eye as supply 

 and queen dealers. This giving away a 

 bushel of potatoes worth 50 cents in or- 

 der to sell a man a queen worth 25 cents 

 has played out. 



In Doolittle's plan of having artificial 

 queen cells accepted in an upper story 

 ■oith a layina; queen in the lower siory, 

 see that the cells are well supplied with 

 royal jelly (taken from other queen cells) 

 before the larrsB are transferred, that 

 there is a comb of unsealed larvae each 

 side of the cell cnps and that the bees are 

 fed liberally if no honey is coming;. Doo- 

 little gives these cautions in, Glcaninijs. 



It seems to me this is pretty fussy. 

 Why not rear queens by a method that 

 does not require one to pay any atten- 

 tion to "royal jelly?" Just as good 

 queens can l)e reared without so much 

 useless fuss, as with it. 



Years ago I was foolish enough to think 

 I knew all there was worth knowing a- 

 bout queen rearing. I have found, that 

 tliough I have been working in one spec- 

 ial branch of Apiculture more than thirty 

 years, I am yet in the novice department 

 so far as knowing the best methods for 

 rearing queens. 



Within a month I have discovered by 

 actual experiment methods far superior 



to all the ways now practised by our 

 leading queen dealers. 



By the old methods of queen-rearing 

 used by me, bees have been made queen- 

 less and confined several hours in a box 

 before eggs were siiven them irom which 

 they were to build cells. By such a 

 plan many colonies were so tlamaged, 

 especially late in the summer, tiiat they 

 were unfit to stand the rigors of a hard 

 winter. This has been the most serious 

 drawback to "artificial" queen rearing. 



Now, by new and improved methods 

 no bees are removed from the hives, nor 

 are the colonies used in rearing queens 

 at any season in the least injured. In 

 fact, after the nucleus colonies are 

 formed, the expense for bees is merely 

 nothing so fir as building the cells is 

 concerned ; colonies can be u-ed all the 

 season in queen rearing, and when fall 

 comes, they will be found in far better 

 condition then they would have been 

 had they not been used for such a pur- 

 pose. 



I am not yet ready to give th ; public 

 the details of this new method of queen 

 rearing. 



Should I do so, no doubt some half 

 dozen enterprising feilowsv would jump 

 up and say "Oh ! we have practised the 

 same thing for years." Don't forget, 

 friends, that we have all your plans and 

 methods recorded in yourworks, pamph- 

 lets, etc. You can't get back of the re- 

 cords you have made. Up to date no 

 one has in any way intimated that my 

 new method is known to anyone, nor do 

 I think it is. I am sure there will be a 

 saving of hundreds of dollars to me in 

 bees and time each season. 



Although this seems the most import- 

 ant discovery yet made in queen rearing, 

 I shall continue to experinient as usual. 



I b'-lieve Mr. Doolitile claims that 

 first-class queens can be reareil in a 

 brood chamber with plenty of brood 

 ])laced over bees having a fertile queen. 

 So they can. I have thought that such 

 a method was the best, and it was till a 

 much better one was discovered. I am 

 now knowing to the fact that better , 

 queens can be reared in hives that have 



