ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS ASSOCIATION 



159 



using simply the advantage that Mr. 

 Abbott speaks of, of allowing that there 

 is just a little advantage in having the 

 new queen get acquainted while the old 

 queen is in the hive. When you take 

 away the old queen you are throwing 

 them into an abnormal condition and 

 they are likely to show fight. When 

 she is put in the hive beforehand, 

 they are indifferent to the new queen. 

 I don't know if it is because she gets 

 the scent of the hive, or for any other 

 reason, but I do know that a virgin 

 queen, or any other queen that has been 

 been imprisoned in the hive for some 

 time while the old queen is present, will 

 be accepted kindly if freed by the bees 

 a short time after the old queen is re- 

 moved. 



Requeening or Superseding Queens. 



"Shall we requeen colonies having old 

 queens, or let the bees do the work 

 of superseding?" 



Dr. Bohrer — It is questionable when 

 a queen may be considered old. I have 

 had queens 4 years old that were very 

 prolific and laid as many eggs as any 

 queen I have, and I think it would be 

 policy for a bee-keeper to watch his 

 queens and see what they are doing. 

 If, for any cause they do not seem to 

 lay the requisite amount of eggs at any 

 age, I would supersede them ; but as 

 long as the queen is fertile and in good 

 condition, keeping the colony up, I 

 would not molest her, even to 3 or 4 

 years old, because from my observation 

 they will lay eggs until they are that 

 old; so that there is no fixed rule about 

 that, perhaps. 



Mr. Whitney — I suppose that when 

 one discovers drone-larvae in worker- 

 cells it is a pretty good indication that 

 the queen ought to be superseded, 

 whether she is old or young. Usually 

 you may find those in a colony where 

 there are old queens, but I have a case 

 which I have written up twice, and some 

 people questioned my accuracy. I had a 

 queen that I found in the spring laying 

 drone-eggs in worker-cells. She was 

 only a year old. I thought very much 

 of her. She was the daughter of the 

 old queen that so much has been said 

 about, and she looked very poor. She 

 came out poor in the spring. I com- 

 menced feeding her bees with good, rich 

 honey, _ a _ little at a time, each night, 

 and within 2 weeks she was laying 

 worker-eggs in worker-cells, and dur- 



ing that summer I made 4 colonies of 

 bees from that queen. 



Dr. Miller — Does Mr. Whitney think 

 that an exceptional or a usual case? 



Mr. Whitney — It was the first I ever 

 knew, or ever heard of. 



Dr. Miller — It is the last you will ever 

 know of. 



Mr. Whitney — =Some say, "You must 

 have been mistaken; it must have been 

 a young queen that superseded the old 

 one, and you thought it was the same 

 old queen." The fact is that queen was 

 clipped soon after she commenced lay- 

 ing, and I watched her from that time 

 until she died, and it was the same old 

 clipped queen. A doctor in Switzer- 

 land has taken the question up and 

 asked me whether I was certain it was 

 that queen. He said it was a very un- 

 usual thing, and something he never 

 heard of. But 2 of my old bee-keeper 

 friends were there when I took the 

 frames out of that hive, and showed the 

 worker-comb full, or two-thirds full, of 

 drones, and they said, "Isn't that too 

 bad?" Well, I thought so. I expected 

 to have to supersede the queen, but I 

 did not. I kept her that summer and 

 made 4 good colonies of bees from that 

 queen by feeding. She was a young 

 queen, though. I would say that an old 

 queen should be superseded, but the 

 question is. What is an old queen? Some 

 queens are old at a month, and others 

 not old at 2% years. It depends upon 

 how hard the queen has been worked. 

 A good queen you might keep 2 or 3 

 years, and with a poor honey-flow she 

 would not exhaust herself for 3 or 4 

 years. 



Mr. Hutchinson — What I want to 

 know is, shall we do this work, or shall 

 we leave it to the bees to do it? Who 

 has been at work superseding the queens 

 themselves? Mr. France, do you super- 

 sede the queens or let the bees do it? 



Mr. France — As a rule, I supersede 

 them. 



Dr. Miller — Does a queen do better 

 work, as a rule, in her first or her sec- 

 ond year? That will help us a little 

 in deciding, if we can get some testi- 

 mony about that. 



A Member — The best queen I had last 

 year was 3 years old. She made the 

 record of the yard. 



Mr. Taylor — My object in keeping 

 bees is to make something out of them. 

 I want to make the largest percent on 

 my labor, efforts, and expense, that I 



