418 Beekeeping 



time saved the honey-producer in not rearing them. This 

 should not be interpreted as an intimation that American 

 queen breeders charge excessive prices, for such is emphati- 

 cally not the case, as is shown by the fact that so many queen 

 breeders are compelled to abandon the work in a year or 

 two as financially unprofitable. From data furnished the 

 author by numerous commercial breeders, it is evident that 

 many of them would make more money if they devoted 

 their time to honey-production. However, each queen 

 costs relatively much less in time and honey in requeening 

 perhaps half the colonies in an apiary in a season than it does 

 when one rears a large number of queens in making a busi- 

 ness of rearing queens for sale. 



Systematic requeening. 



The giving of a young queen to each colony at stated times 

 is coming to be the approved practice of some of the best 

 commercial honey-producers. After two seasons in a large 

 colony in temperate regions (about one year in the tropics), 

 the majority of queens are incapable of laying the large num- 

 ber of eggs per day that were laid earlier. There are many 

 individual exceptions, and if a beekeeper can give each colony 

 considerable attention he may get good results from a large 

 per cent of his older queens. The extensive commercial 

 honey-producer cannot spend much time on each colony and 

 he must work by averages. If, therefore, older queens are less 

 prolific and if the cost of requeening does not exceed the 

 increased profits due to the giving of young queens, he is 

 prudent to requeen. Before deciding this he should count 

 the cost and should especially see to it that he is reducing 

 his queen-rearing to a system so that no time is wasted in 

 this work. As honey-production becomes more intensive 

 and as queen-rearing methods become more economical of 

 time, an increasing number of extensive beekeepers are 

 finding it profitable to requeen each colony once in two years 

 systematically and, of course, to replace queens earher if any 

 prove defective. 



