184 DR. miller's 



A. Yes. 



Q. If a queen is never allowed to mate with a drone, would 

 she lay fertile eggs? 



A. If she lays eggs at all, they will produce only drones. 



Q. How many times does a queen mate? 



A. Once for life; but some cases have been reported in which 

 a queen mated the second time. She may, however, make sev- 

 eral flights before mating. 



Q. How long will it take after a queen is hatched for her to 

 mate? 



A. Five days or longer. 



Q. Do you agree that a queen is never mated after she is two 

 or three weeks old? Last March I had a colony of bees super- 

 sede its queen, and this colony contained just a small patch of 

 drone-brood which did not hatch till the queen was about 10 days 

 old, and there was no other drone-brood in the yard. The queen 

 commenced to lay when she was about two months old, and now 

 she is the mother of one of the strongest colonies. I give this 

 simply for what it is worth. I examined this colony once every 

 two days, till the queen started to lay, and so these figures are 

 accurate. 



A. As a general rule a queen is never mated after she is 10 

 days old — perhaps not after she is a week old. But there are ex- 

 ceptions, and how far those exceptions extend I don't know. If 

 your queen did not lay till two months old, she may have been 

 fertilized only three days before she began to lay, and she may 

 have been fertilized sooner, but likely she was at least a month 

 old when fertilized. This is exceptional. 



Q. Do you think queens would mate with drones a mile away? 

 There is a big woods between us. 



A. Yes, a distance greater than that would not prevent 

 mating. 



Q. How far away from other bees would we have to place 

 a colony to insure pure mating? 



A. You might be safe at two miles, but to be entirely safe 

 you might have to be five miles or more. Xo one knows exactly 

 how far. 



Q. Please say how queen-breeders mate queens purely while 

 bees of other "nationalities" are present. 



A. They don't; at least not always. For if it is desired to keep 

 a certain kind pure, they do not have any other kind in the apiary. 

 Put something may be done toward getting what you want in' 

 this way : 



