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THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



ed. For instance, one writes : " I can't agree 

 with you in your review of Doolittle's book. 

 There is something in good (jueeiis and I 

 know it.'' ^ Another says: " I think your re- 

 view of ' Doolittle on Queen Rearing ' is 

 just No. 1." And so it goes ; while articles 

 upon the subject have already come to hand. 

 Now while the subject is fresh in the minds 

 of our readers, and they are interested, we 

 may as well devote the July Review to its 

 discussion. From the tone of the communi- 

 cations received it is evident that we have 

 been misunderstood. We feared it would lie 

 so. We said that when so much " fuss " had 

 been made over queens, we had sometimes 

 fett like exclaiming : " Other things being 

 equal, one queen is as good as another." 

 But we did not so assert, and attempted 

 briefly, to define our position; still many have 

 jumped at the conclusion that we thought 

 one queen as good as another. As we look 

 upon the matter, in the light in which we are 

 discussing it, the queen is simply the vehicle 

 of transmission from one generation to 

 another. It is the qualities that are to be 

 transmitted, rather than the vehicle of 

 transmission, that should receive our atten- 

 tions. To illustrate : A man has a strain of 

 bees that are of little value as honey gather- 

 ers. Can he, by any sort of "jugglery" at 

 queeii rearing, transform them into energet- 

 ic workers ? Some have written saying how 

 much better the bees from such a breeder's 

 queen, and the bees from the daughters of 

 this queen, have done than the descendants 

 of some other breeder's queen ; and have 

 argued from this that the queens, and the 

 manner in which they were reared, caused 

 the difference in results. We say no. The 

 difference is in the strain of bees, and not in 

 the manner in which the queens were reared. 

 That there are circumstances in which much 

 depends upon the queen, it is idle to dispute. 

 Many of our best bee keepers have argued 

 against extra prolificness in queens, some of 

 them even going so far as to assert that pro- 

 lificness in the queen is at the expense of 

 quality in the bees; but that prolificness is 

 all-important to the user of hives with large 

 brood-nests cannot be dodged. He must 

 have prolific queens, else one-half of his 

 brood chamber is transformed into a store 

 chamber. This extra prolificness is not se- 

 cured by some peculiar method of queen 

 rearing, but by seleetion — by rearing (lueens 

 from the colonies whose queens are the most 

 piolific. Here, again, the queen is simply 



the vehicle for transmitting the quality of 

 prolificness from one generation to another. 

 The age of (lueens may also have some bear- 

 ing upon success. Where the harvest ends 

 with white clover, more surplus will be se- 

 cured if the bees do not swarm ; and colo- 

 nies with young queens are far less likely to 

 swarm. Then again, young ijueens lay much 

 later in the fall, and this has a bearing upon 

 the subject of wintering, as also does the 

 time when they begin laying in the spring. 

 Old queens sometimes fail to keep their 

 combs filled with brood, but this would be 

 the same whether the queen had seen two 

 years or four. Still, if these failures in egg- 

 production are undesirable, and it certainly 

 seems to us that they are, then the less fre- 

 quently they occur the better. 



As we have said before, we need queens 

 sufficiently prolific to fill the brood-nest with 

 eggs at the season of the year when this is 

 desirable, and possessed of a reasonable 

 amount of longevity. This secured, and 

 nothing more needs consideration except the 

 stork from which they come. Naturally, 

 when a man liuj/s a queen he expects to get 

 the worth of his money. If he buys her to 

 breed from, he expects her to be able to 

 endow her royal offspring with the qualities 

 and characteristics of her ancestors ; and if 

 she does this, he need not mourn if she 

 lives only long enough to allow him to secure 

 a goodly number of her daughters. If he 

 buys queens in large quantities to re-queen 

 an apiary, he has a right to feel that he has 

 been cheated if the queens live only a few 

 short mouths. That queens can be reared 

 artificially equally as good as those reared 

 under the swarming im])ulse, needs no dis- 

 cussion ; most certainly tliey can ; hoic it 

 can be done has been repeatedly published. 



" Good (jueens are at the foundation of 

 bee keeping." " Bee keeping all centers 

 upon the queen." "As the queen lays all 

 the eggs, of course success depends upon 

 her." It is to combat such ideas as these 

 that we have written as we have. The queen 

 is of no more importance than the hives, 

 the combs, or the location. By importance, 

 we mean, in this case, that which can by 

 some decision, or management, of the bee- 

 keeper, be made to contribute to his success. 



Friends, we have tried to honestly and 

 fairly start tlie discussion upon this subject, 

 and it is with i)leasure that we now turn it 

 over to you, feeling sure that justice will be 

 done. 



