ADVANCED BEE CULTURE. 161 



the tent except from 11:00 a. m. to 1:30 p. m. After the drones have 

 learned the bounds of the tent they seem contented, and make a 

 pretty school flying in the top of the tent. Mr. Davitte says that the 

 management of the drones is the main feature of the problem; once 

 they become quiet, and reconciled to fly in the top of the tent, the 

 problem is solved. Nine times out of ten, the queen will not reach 

 the top of the tent before receiving the most prompt and gushing 

 attention. The queens are not turned into the tent until the drones 

 appear well-satisfied with the bounds of the tent, and, when in that 

 condition, Mr. Davitte believes 500 queens in a day might be mated 

 in such a tent. One year he had about 100 queens mated in the tent. 

 A queen would leave the mouth of the hive, and return in about five 

 minutes, apparently mated, and, in three or four days, would be 

 laying; and the progeny of all of the queens thus mated showed the 

 same markings as the* workers of the colonies from which the drones 

 were taken. 



When Mr. Davitte starts his queen cells, he places his colonies 

 with selected drones around the tent, and allows them to fly in the 

 tent a short time in the middle of each day, as has been explained, 

 and, by the time the queens are old enough to be mated, the drones 

 have become tamed, and so accustomed to their surroundings, or 

 under control, so to speak, that, to quote from Mr. Davitte, "It would 

 interest a bee-keeper to take his place inside the tent at noon, and 

 see the ladies meet the gentlemen, who, Barkis-like are 'willin.' I 

 have seen the mating take place before the queen could reach the 

 top of the tent. Before they separate, the queen and drone fall 

 nearly to the ground, and the queen goes directly to her home that 

 she left not three minutes before." 



As I look at the matter, the principal trouble with experiments 

 in this line is that the drones have not been brought under control. 

 When a drone has been accustomed to soar away in the blue ether 

 for miles and miles, he is not going to be shut up in a 30-foot tent and 

 be contented. For a long time, at least, he is going to spend most 

 of his time in trying to get .out. As I have already said, he is in no 

 mood to pay his addresses to a queen. Catch two wild birds at 

 mating time, and shut them up in a cage. Do you suppose that they 

 would mate ? Canaries have been kept in captivity for many years. 

 They are hatched and grow up in a cage. They know no other free- 

 dom or life; and they mate in a cage. Mr. Davitte had his drones 

 flying for days in his tent before any queens were released in 

 the tent. Perhaps many of those drones had never flown in 

 the outside air — knew nothing of it. Having flown several days 

 in the tent they became accustomed to that kind of flight, were 



