THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



245 



from one to two cents a pound above 

 market price, and send cash with the or- 

 der, because they know that no finer 

 honey can be produced, and that it is 

 worth what you asi< for it? The whole 

 thing can be told in a few words: Pro- 

 duce honey of superior quality, and then 

 let consumers know about it- the latter 

 is fully as important as the first. 



Re-Queening An Apiary. 



There is one quite important matter in 

 regard to bee-keeping upon which I have 

 not yet reached a decision; and that is 

 as to whether it is profitable for the bee- 

 keeper to requeen his colonies each year, 

 or once in two years, or if he shall leave 

 this matter entirely to the bees. Person- 

 ally. I have not had the experience that 

 will enable me to decide. Until the last 

 two or three years, I have been more or 

 less engaged in the queen trade, and tha 

 demand for tested queens has resulted in 

 the requeening of the majority of my col- 

 onies. Lately I have begun keeping bees 

 in larger numbers, and turning my at- 

 tention wholly to honey production; that 

 is. not selling any queens. Last spring 

 there were quite a number of queens that 

 died; and others failed to come up to the 

 desired standard. A year ago the latter 

 failing was also noticed. Last spring we 

 would go through the apiary and examine 

 each colony to see if it had a laying queen, 

 or was short of stores. A week or ten 

 days days later a similar examination 

 would reveal perhaps four or five colonies 

 out of 100 that had become queenless. 

 A still later examination would show more 

 colonies that had become queenless, or 

 queens that were failing. 



The question arises, would it be profit- 

 able to requeen colonies having queens 

 two years old ? If this could be accom- 

 plished with no expense or labor, if it 

 were simply a matter of choice between 

 young queens or those two years, or more, 

 old, I think the decision would be in favor 

 of the young queens. Of course, there 



are methods of requeening that do not 

 require very much labor; for instance, 

 Mr. S. D. Chapman simply removes the 

 queens and allows the colonies to requeen 

 themselves. Mr. Chapman's sole object 

 is not to requeen, but to prevent swarm- 

 ing and increase his crop by curtailing 

 brood rearing. 



I believe Mr. France also favors re- 

 queening. but I think that the majority of 

 bee-keepers favor leaving the matter of 

 queen supersedure entirely with the bees. 

 Mr. Townsand argues that he keeps bees 

 enough in each apiary to secure all of the 

 honey in that locality, even if some of the 

 queens do play out in the spring. Still 

 further, he favors using his time in keep- 

 ing more bees, establishing another apiary 

 if necessary, rather than employ it in re- 

 queening colonies each year. I can see 

 only one weak point in his argument: Is 

 he always sure that each location is fully 

 stocked? Last year we had 150 colonies 

 in one location, this year there were 200 

 during the height of the harvest, and the 

 yield per colony was greater than that of 

 last year. This matter of overstocking is 

 not yet fully settled, or understood. Mr. 

 E. W, Alexander recently said, in 

 Gleanings, that the time would come 

 when we would realize that what is com- 

 monly called the "season," which is the 

 condition of the ground as to proper mois- 

 ture and the temperature, and the elec- 

 trical condition of the atmosphere at the 

 time the flowers are in bloom, will have a 

 thousand times m.ore bearing on our sur- 

 plus than the amount of bloom or the 

 number of colonies we may have in one 

 apiary. 



1 would like to hear from miy subscrib- 

 ers on this subject. Shall we requeen, if 

 so, why, and when, and how? If not, 

 why not? 



Get Good Prices for Your Honey; Don't 

 Fool It Away. 



Last winter and spring were terribly 

 hard on bees; the mortality was great. 



