550 



Tmm mm.mmicmn mmm joumf^mi^. 



'•■■**"-*-^*-^*'^*-«^^-^*^ 



Do Queens 



m 



Lay Eggs in Royal 

 Cells? 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



Query 569.— 1. Does the queen ever de- 

 posit an eg'g in the royal cell ? '-i. In what kind 

 of a cell must an ejrg" be laid to produce a 

 female ? 3. Are ej^gs ever put Into tl^e royal 

 cell? 4. At what ape should the larvte be to 

 produce a perfect female or queen ?— G. 



1. I think not. 2. In a worker or 

 queen cell. 3. Yes, of course. 4. Not 

 over three days.— Dadant & Son. 



]. Yes. 2. In a royal cell to produce 

 a perfect female (queen), and in a 

 worker-cell for an imperfect female 

 (worker-bee). 3. Probably so. 4. From 

 1 to 3 days.— P. L. Viallon. 



1. I do not know. 2. It makes no 

 difference, so that it is hatched in a 

 queen-cell. 3. Yes, by the bees. 4. 

 Not more than 3 or 4 days' old.— C. H. 



DlBBEBN. 



1. Yes. 2. All impregnated eggs 

 produce females, no matter in what 

 kind of cells laid. 3. Yes, by the 

 queen, and sometimes carried there by 

 the workers, but not often. 4. From 1 

 to 36 hours' old.— G. M. Doolittle. 



1. I never saw her do it. 2. If the 

 queen controls the fertilization of the 

 eggs, the kind of cell has nothing to 

 do with the sex. 3. Certainly, or there 

 would be no royal bees. I have known 

 eggs to be put into royal cells by the 

 workers.— A. B. Mason. 



1. The queen deposits the egg, and 

 workers construct the royal cell. 2. If 

 by " female " you mean queen, it is the 

 food upon which the embryo bee is fed, 

 which causes it to become better de- 

 veloped and become a perfect female. 

 4. See Langstroth's book.— Mrs. L. 

 Harrison. 



1. Yes. 2. The cell has nothing to 

 do with sexuality. 3. Evidence proves 

 that they have. 4. As early as pos 

 sible after being hatched, and not over 

 3 days.— J. P. H. Brown. 



1. Yes, undoubtedly. 2. An egg that 

 would produce a female in one kind of 

 a cell, would produce a female if de- 

 posited and nourished in any other- 

 kind of a cell. 3. Yes, by the queen ; 

 not otherwise. 4. The younger the 

 larva is when devoted to the purpose 

 of pi oducing a queen, the more perfect 

 will the queen be, other things being 

 equal.— il. L. Taylor. 



1. I suppose that she does. 2. If by 

 " female " you mean a queen, it may be 

 laid in any kind of a cell, although 

 nearly always an egg laid in a drone- 

 cell will produce only a drone. 3, Cer- 

 tainly. 4. I should rather have them 

 more than a day or so old.— C. C. 

 Miller. 



1. I do not know. 2. It is my opin- 

 ion that the cell must be worker size. 

 3. They must be "put there " or they 

 would not be found there. 4. The books 

 say not to exceed 3 days. — Eugene 

 Secor. 



1. I do not think that I ever saw one 

 do it. 3. Yes, always. 4. It is best to 

 produce from the egg; an egg just 

 hatched will do.— H. D. Cutting. 



1. Yes, I have seen it done. 2. I 

 have seen them in all cells of the hive 

 except royal cells. 3. I think they are. 

 4. O, 2 or 3 days. I would risk them 

 over 4 days old.— J. M. Shuck. 



1. I think she does. 2. A queen can 

 lay an egg in any kind of a cell that 

 will produce a female. 3. It is doubt- 

 ful. 4. The younger the better. I 

 have had good queens produced from 

 larvae three days old from the time the 

 eggs hatched, but only a few. — M. 

 Mahin. 



1. Authority says they do ; yet I have 

 doubts. Who has seen the queen in 

 the act '{ 2. I have never known work- 

 ers to be produced from drone-cells, 

 however such a thing might be dem- 

 onstrated on scientific investigation. 

 3 I think not, though it may be. 4. 

 Four to six days.— J. M. Hambaugh. 



1. This is a mooted question. I my- 

 self do not know. 2. I do not under- 

 stand the question. Workers are fe- 

 males, and are reared in worker cells 

 Queens are reared in queen-ceils. ' 3. 

 See No. 1. 4. Not over 3 days old.— J. 

 E. Pond. 



1. She does. 2. The cell is imma- 

 terial, though it is usually in a worker 

 or queen cell. 3. Yes. 4. This ques- 

 tion is indeBnite. If the larva is fed 4 

 days as a worker larva, it will usually 

 produce a drone-laying queen, and 

 always a very poor one. — A. J. Cook. 



1. Yes, but I never knew any but 

 very old queens to do so. Very old 

 queens instinctively fall into the plans 

 of the workers, or at least submit to 

 what is best for the future good of the 

 colony. 2. It makes no difference 

 about the kind of cells, a female is a 

 female any day. 3. Sometimes by very 

 old queens. 4. From 1 to 2 days old. 

 I once had two queens reared from 

 larvse three days old, that made tirst- 

 rate queens. On one occasion I trans- 

 ferred a 4-days' old larviB to a pro- 

 visioned queen-cell, and it came out a 

 good, strong queen.— G. W. Demaree. 



1. I think that she does, but 1 do not 

 know positively. 2. To develop the 

 perfect female, the egg must hatch in 

 the queen-cell. 3. I fully believe that 

 eggs are often carried by the bees and 

 placed in the royal cells, and fed with 

 such food that they bring forth perfect 

 queens instead of workers, as they 

 otherwise would have done. 4. I sup- 

 pose it might reach 43^ or 5 days of 

 age, and then be changed ; but I make 

 a rule of ?<% days in my queen-rearing. 

 —James Heddon. 



1. Yes. 2. The only per/fc/ female in 

 the hive is the queen. An impregnated 

 egg, iio matter where it may he de- 

 posited, will produce a female if allowed 

 to mature. 3. Yes. 4. Not over 3 days 

 to produce a good queen.— The Editor. 



BEE-NOTES. 



Various Items Relating to the 

 Management of Bees. 



TFritten for the American Bee Jowmal 

 BY REV. J. D. GEHRING. 



"We-»vill Prt'seiit a Pocket Dictionary 

 for two subscribers with S3.00. Jt is always 

 useful to have a dictionary at hand to dfciile 

 as to the spelling of words, aud to determine 

 their meaning. 



This is my fifth year in bee-keeping. 



1 began by transferring 3 colonies from 

 box hives and 1 from a sugar barrel. 

 The latter 1 transferred in December, 

 the work being done in a dark cellar by 

 lamp-light. It was a very populous 

 colony, with plenty of nice comb in 

 large pieces, but without any stores. I 

 put them into an Armstrong hive, 

 using ten frames, and fed them 20 

 pounds of granulated sugar syrup, 

 within five days after transferring, and 

 left them in the cellar until about Feb. 

 18, when I put them out for a flight. 

 That season (1884) this colony gave me 



2 good swarms, and 34 pounds of fine 

 comb honey in sections. 



This experience, when I was a 

 "greeny," convinced me that trans- 

 ferring can be done almost any time 

 when there is but little brood, if the 

 work is carefully done, and the colony 

 properly taken care of afterward. 



Packiug Bees— Extracting Craze. 



I now have 34 colonies, mostly in new 

 hives, which are cool in summer and 

 warm in winter, like the log house of 

 our fathers. This is equivalent to say- 

 ing that I winter my bees by packing, 

 and tucking them carefully in before 

 freezing weather has come, and then 

 leaving them thus until warm weather 

 is a settled fact. I have never lost a 

 colony on account of cold or starvation 

 (V !). (The interrogation and exclama- 

 tion points are intended to express my 

 doubt that' bees freeze to death it they 

 have available food, and my astonish- 

 ment that any intelligent beekeeper 

 will allow a colony to starve.) I think 

 the extracting craze is much to blame 

 for the latter, as many bee-keepers— 

 notably those who love bees because 

 they love money— extract too closely 

 early in the fall, hoping and expecting 

 that the bees will fill up the hives (with 

 what V) before winter. 



I think that such conduct is not only 

 foolish, from a business staud-poiift, 

 but it is absolutely wrong- wicked. 

 What right has any man to rob— yes, 

 roh is the word— a family of bees which 

 has worked for him all" summer, and 

 made seven or twelve dollars for him ? 

 What (moral) right has he to take well- 

 filled frames from the brood-chamber 

 late in the season, extract the honey, 

 and give them back the empty combs ? 

 I say again, it is foolish and wrong ! If 

 they do not need all the honey they 

 have stored in the brood-chamber, it i» 

 *ot lost by remaining there through 

 the winter. Besides, I am very much 

 misled by observations that I have re- 

 peatedly made, if a well-filled frame of 

 honey on two sides of a brood-nest are 

 not worth several times more than a 



