1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1439 



THE RESULT AFTER INTRODUCING A DRONE-LAYING QUEEN. 



find from ten to twenty pounds of seed on 

 our canvas. We sift it twice and put it in a 

 sack. Our work with the clover stretches 

 over a week or more, and we have no very 

 large quantity then, but enough to supply 

 many bee-keepers who want only a little to 

 try it. 



If one wants a clover- field to be good year 

 after year as I do, I consider it very impor- 

 tant to remove the greater part of the seed. 

 If this is not done it sows itself too thickly. 

 In harvesting as we do, there is always 

 enough left to seed the ground nicely for 

 another year. 



Comstock, Neb. 



[While this may savor of free advertising 

 we are glad to give the space, as it is difli- 

 cult to get nice yellow-sweet-clover seed. As 

 many desire it, here is a chance to get some 

 of it.— Ed.] 



A TESTED BREEDER THAT PROVED 

 TO BE A DRONE LAYING QUEEN. 



BY W. A. PRYAL. 



I have recently had a very interesting study 

 in queens, which came about in this way: I 

 wanted a tested Caucasian queen which I 

 could use as a breeder, as I wished to raise 

 a few queens for my own use. I therefore 

 sent to a breeder who had an established rep- 

 utation, and in the first week of August I re- 

 ceived the queen. She was to be one of " last 

 season's crop," and fully guaranteed. 



After introducing her 1 noticed that she 

 was a poor layer; but this I attributed to her 

 shyness, and the further fact that the bees 

 had not yet ' ' taken to her, " as I found evi- 

 dence of an inclination on the part of the 

 bees to build queen- cells. When I found 

 some drone-brood doing nicely in cells to 

 their liking, I did not think any thing more 

 of the matter than that I was fortunate in 



getting a batch of Caucasian drones at a time 

 when all other drones in the apiary were be- 

 ing banished for the remainder of the year, 

 and I removed this comb to a hive where I 

 believed the forthcoming Caucasian drones 

 would be cared for. There was now no comb 

 in the hive with the queen I am writing about, 

 the frames being tilled with new foundation. 

 I did not open the hive again for several 

 weeks, as I thought it was about time that 

 some of her workers should be hatching out, 

 and I wanted to see what they were like. 



At this point I got a rather '"bad jolt." 

 There were no young workers, but plenty of 

 drone brood and some queen-cells. I thought 

 she might have been superseded, but she was 

 not, for I found her with one wing clipped. 

 There were some eggs in the combs. She 

 was laying at random in two of them. I 

 concluded that the fine tested queen I pur- 

 chased was a first-class drone-layer. But 

 how did she become such? There was the 

 rub! 



I studied the matter over, backward and 

 forward, but to no purpose. I thought she 

 might have been injured in the mails; that 

 she might be an ancient one, and that her 

 days of fertile prolificness were spent. Then 

 I thought that perhaps the breeder clipped 

 her wings before she was fertilized. This 

 latter could not be so, inasmuch as she was 

 sold to me as a tested breeder of "last year's 

 ci'op." 



Well, I took a photograph of one of the 

 two combs she was laying in. I never saw 

 one sheet of comb that contained at one time 

 so many stages of comb-building. Here we 

 have the undrawn foundation— as may be 

 seen about the outer edges, the cells in all 

 stages of development; the beautifully cap- 

 ped honey, the capped brood, two completed 

 queen-cells, and one unfinished one. The 

 most I'emarkable feature is where the bees 

 have started to convert worker-cells into 

 drone-cells, and have even been fashioning 



