AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



465 



CONDUCTED BY 



Beeville. Texas. 

 "Worker, Drone, and Queen Origin. 



Mrs. Atchley : — Does the shape of 

 the cell and the food of the larva make 

 one a worker, one a drone, and another 

 a queen ? P. G. Carter. 



Friend Carter, the size and shape of 

 the cell together with more food causes 

 a worker larva to develop into a full- 

 developed mother, or gives the bee the 

 power to become mated and take up the 

 duty of egg-laying; while the workers 

 being confined in a smaller cell, and only 

 has food to barely put her through, 

 causes her to be more compact in build, 

 and hardy, and capable of doing a great 

 deal of flying, but cannot become a 

 mother of females, though she may lay 

 at times when the hive is hopelessly 

 queenless, but drones always result. 



All eggs laid for worker-bees, or that 

 will produce worker - bees, would or 

 could be turned into queens if they were 

 placed in queen-cell cups, and cared for 

 by the bees ; but an egg laid for a drone 

 will make nothing but a drone, no dif- 

 ference where reared, or what kind of 

 food is used, or how much, in his pro- 

 duction. A drone is a male, and has no 

 part of a female in his make-up. There- 

 fore, he can never be anything but a 

 drone. Jennie Atchley. 



Working- Two or More Queens in One 

 Hive, Etc. 



I see on page 705 of Oleanings for 

 Sept. 15, 1893, that Mr. B. Taylor, of 

 Minnesota, claims to be the originator 

 of keeping two or more queens in a sin- 

 gle hive. Now, Mr. Taylor will please 

 take no oifense, when I tell him that we 

 have done this thing for more than ten 

 years, or a long time, at least ; and if I 

 am not mistaken, I published it in 188-1-, 



and have since become so used to it that 

 we think it only a common thing down 

 here in Texas. 



This year, Willie has reared queens on 

 the Doolittle plan, by placing queen- 

 excluding division-boards in a long or 

 wide hive, and when I scolded him for 

 fooling with such hives, he assured me 

 that it was one of the best plans to rear 

 queens, as he has four departments and 

 two laying queens in the same hive all 

 the time. He moves the frames contain- 

 ing queens and brood first to each of the 

 two outside boxes or partitions of the 

 one box, rears a batch of cells in the 

 middle two, then turns the queens into 

 the middle ones, and starts cells in the 

 two outside ones, and so on. The bees 

 all mix and work together as one colony, 

 and of course the queens are accepted 

 anywhere in the hive. 



We also work hives every year with 

 two laying queens together in the same 

 hive, and this year we sent to Mr. A. I. 

 Robt four laying queens (vigorous young 

 ones) in one cage, and two died or were 

 killed, or perhaps died as do workers in 

 shipment. Mr. Root mailed them back 

 just as received, and the two queens ar- 

 rived back to Texas all right, and oc- 

 cupied the same hive until we prepared 

 them to move, and as they had too many 

 bees together to move successfully in hot 

 weather, we made a division, and now 

 they have a colony each. 



Now, I would just like to save Mr. 

 Taylor's next year's work, as he says he 

 will demonstrate by another season's 

 labors whether he is successful in dis- 

 covering a non-swarming method. I 

 can tell him right now, that it will never 

 do in this country, for we have tried it. 



Now, I believe when the seasons, etc., 

 are right, bees will swarm because Ood 

 said so, and I believe Him. Mr. Taylor 

 will please not think that I have 

 jumped up as a critic, for such is not the 

 case. I tried his plans years ago, and 

 the bees sivanned, both old queens com- 

 ing out with the swarm, and have been 

 hived together and worked together, 

 and large yields have been the result; 

 and while I nearly discovered this alone, 

 I will tell where I caught the idea. If 

 you remember, some years ago, Chas. 

 Dadant reported that he had by mistake 

 left two queens in a hive all winter, by 

 forgetting one that he had placed in the 

 hive caged, and the next spring he found 

 both queens alive and O. K., but the 

 caged one was still in the cage. But 

 from this I caught the idea of two 

 queens in a hive. 



Now, as Mr. Taylor gave a warning 

 note at the close of his article in Glean- 



