120 



EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



Mr. Wilcox: You said there would 

 be no laying for about ten days after 

 the removal of the old queen. Of 

 course, you know. 



Dr. Miller: Would there be? 



Mr. Wilcox: There would not be 

 for twenty days, and if you have no 

 queen for twenty days you will lose 

 more bees than a swarm. 



Dr. Miller: If you have conditions 

 such that there will be no laying for 

 ten days — for instance, if you take 

 away the old queen and introduce a 

 virgin, I think that would make the 

 thing safe enough. In that case you 

 w^ould have no laying for about ten 

 days. I know a little about bees, and 

 .''ome times my figures get wrong. 



Mr. Baxter: Would not that depend 

 a great deal upon circumstances and 

 conditions? That will apply very well 

 to producing extracted honey, but not 

 so well to producing comb honey, and 

 especially in producing comb honey 

 if the season happens to be a prosper- 

 ous one, a liberal flow and a long flow. 

 It depends upon conditions. 



Dr. Miller: I am talking altogether 

 about comb honey. 



Mr. "Wheeler: I have been through 

 a good deal in that way. Some years 

 I have found that introducing a young 

 queen would work finely. Next year it 

 would work just the opposite way — 

 would not have any effect at all. I 

 think the season and the condition of 

 the bees has everything to do wnth it. 

 I am afraid that when some of you 

 start In next spring, take out your 

 old queens and put in young ones, 

 you will rue the day you ever heard 

 anything said a.bout it. It might work 

 all right next year. It seems to me it 

 is a dangerous thing to do. 



Mr. Dadant: I would like to ask 

 Dr. Miller a question. Isn't it a fact 

 that if , you rear a young queen about 

 the beginning of the . swarm season, 

 and take the old queen out, and rear a 

 young queen in the hive when the 

 bees might make preparations for 

 swarming, it will insure their swarm- 

 ing instead of preventing it? 



Dr. Miller: In other words, this: 

 Take a strong colony that perhaps 

 ihave no notion of swarming at all, 

 and would have no notion of swarm- 

 ing if you let it alone, take its queen 

 away, and you are practically certain 

 it will swarm. 



Mr. Dadant: I think that, in con- 

 sidering this matter of young queens 



and what will prevent swarming when 

 we have young queens, we should find 

 out the reason why colonies with 

 young queens will not swarm; what is 

 the reason they will be less inclined 

 to swarm with young queens than 

 with old ones. There are, in my 

 rnind, two reasons. One of them is 

 that an old queen is likely to be su- 

 perseded, and as it is at the time of 

 the heaviest work, so that in trying to 

 replace that queen toy a young one at 

 , the time of swarming, they are in- 

 duced to swarm. Another reason 

 which causes the bees to swarm 

 when thiey have an old queen is that 

 an old queen lays drone-eggs more 

 readily than a young queen. All those 

 who -have experience in the matter 

 will acknowledge that a young queen 

 is much more ready to lay all worker- 

 eggs than an old queen. She enjoys 

 laying, and enjoys laying worker- 

 eggs. The queen that lays drone-eggs 

 is tired of laying, or when the drone- 

 cells are in her way she cannot avoid 

 it. The presence of drones is a great 

 incentive to swarming. They are 

 bulkj', lazy, and keep the hive too 

 warm, and all those things tend to 

 swarming. For that reason, I believe, 

 the young queens, if in the ihive early 

 in the season, will tend to prevent 

 swarming, while the old queens will 

 tend to incite swarming. But there 

 are other causes. If your hive is too 

 much crowded, but your queen is 

 young, the bees will have a tendency 

 to swarm. If your hive is in the sun; 

 if your hive is too full; all those 

 causes will make your bees swarm. It 

 does not make any difference if you 

 have a young queen, if the conditions 

 are such as to incite swarming, you 

 probably will have swarms anyway, 

 and I think the main thing is, in se- 

 curing non-swarming bees with a 

 young queen, to have all things favor- 

 able—plenty of room, plenty of ven- 

 tilation, and plenty of shade. 



Dr. Miller: In corroboration of that 

 view, let me give you one instance. 

 I had a colony, but I cannot recall 

 now — for it was years ago — whether 

 they had swarmed or not, but I think 

 they had swarmed. At any rate, they 

 had made full preparations for swarm- 

 ing, and I took away their old queen 

 and introduced a young queen that 

 had been laying not more than three 

 or four days, and within two days the 

 colony swarmed with that young 

 queen. 



