THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



137 



those parties veferrod to by Mr. "VVilkiiis. 

 Ii won't do todotooiiuicli h'ee advertising, 

 will it I5ro. Y. ? 



I am im.iljlo; to say who was the orii>i- 

 iiator of tlve-baiided bees. Tlie first I ever 

 heard of ihesf Itees vvas more than 20 years 

 ago, when Mr. J. E. Pond visited my ;ipi- 

 ary and was sliown them. I was rear- 

 ing Italians only at tli;it time and Mr. Fond 

 then said that miinv of tho?*e he examined 

 had tiuve, four and some live bands. 



I do know that nearly all who have ad- 

 vertised five-bandfd bees liave been sup- 

 plied with qneens from the Bay State 

 Apiary. —Ed.] 



(From American Bee Journal, Aug. 11.) 

 THE MATING OF QUEEN-BEES. 



Qtieries 819 and S20 (pages 668 and 

 698) are such that may never be ac- 

 curately answered ; nevertheless they 

 are questions of vital hnportance, and 

 we shotild do our best to arrive at some- 

 thing as near the facts as possible. 



Let us put the question in this shape : 

 If I have only Italian drones, and a 

 neighbor within i^ miles of my apiary 

 keeps black bees, may I expect to have 

 the greater part of my Italian queens to 

 be purely mated ? The best we can do 

 in this matter is only conjecture, and 

 varies, in the minds of leading lights in 

 bee-culture, from one to four miles. 



Many believe that drones congregate 

 in great numbers, and that the queens 

 fly among them and find a mate. For 

 my part, I am inclined to believe that 

 the loud noise overhead, that is taken 

 to be a congregation of drones, is noth- 

 ing more than the workers going to and 

 from a certain field. But admitting that 

 drones do congregate, let me ask what 

 there is m the instinct or nature of a 

 drone that would take him three or four 

 miles from the apiary to meet his com- 

 rades ; and how does he knowjust where 

 this "convention" is going to be held, 

 so far from his home? (Have they a 

 "secretary?") Is it not more reasonable 

 to suppose (for supposition is all that we 



have to go by) that the drones would 

 congregate within a short distance of the 

 apiary, where each drone, after making 

 a few circles about the apiary, will come 

 within hearing of the "officers," and first 

 members of the convention that have 

 arrived, and join them ? 



But let us imagine that the conven- 

 tion is called to order. The next thing 

 on docket is to make a loud noise to at- 

 tract tiie attention of queens that may 

 be out in search of a mate. Now let us 

 go to a hive where there is a virgin queen 

 about five days old. She comes out of 

 the hive, and in all probability this is the 

 first time that she has seen the outside of 

 the hive. Does instinct teach her that in 

 one certain direction some three or four 

 miles away, a great number of drones 

 are congregated awaiting her arrival? 

 How does she know in which direction 

 to go? 



Have we any reason to believe that the 

 all-wise Creator should so arrange it 

 that this most important inmate of the 

 hive should endanger her life among ra- 

 pacious birds and insects by flying so 

 long a distance ? Would it not be more 

 reasonable to believe tliat a queen, when 

 she leaves the hive, makes a series of 

 circles, each time making a larger circle 

 until she comes within hearing of the 

 drones? or, what is more reasonable, 

 meets a drone that is circling about the 

 apiary in a similar manner? Which 

 theory looks the more reasonable ? A 

 queen and drone mating two or more 

 miles from any apiary is no evidence to 

 the contrary, as both may be from a tree, 

 or trees, in the woods. 



Early in May, in passing through the 

 apiary, I noticed a commotion among 

 the bees in front of a nucleus hive hav- 

 ing a queen about five days old. I sat 

 down to watch, and soon saw the queen 

 appear, but could not tell whether she 

 came out of the hive or returned from a 

 flight : I think the former. She took 

 wing, I looked at my watch, and when 

 she returned she had been gone five 

 minutes. She remained a minute or 

 more, and flew away again, and this time 

 was gone only about one minute. This 



