76 
ARTIFICIAL FERTILIZATION 
of Aragon, Ga., put up a tent of mosquito 
netting', 30 feet tall and 30 feet in diam¬ 
eter. Hives of bees containing select 
drones were placed around the bottom edge 
of the tent, each hive having two entrances 
—one opening into the inclosure and the 
other into the outer air. The latter was 
covered with perforated zinc in order to 
compel the queen and drones, when seek¬ 
ing flight, to pass out of the other entrance 
into the enclosure. This inside entrance 
was kept closed for about a week; then on 
some favorable day, from II A. M. to 1:30 
p. M., it was opened and the drones and 
queens were allowed to go into the tent. 
Mr. Davitt reported that a very pretty 
school of drones would be found flying at 
the top, and that he was successful in 
mating many queens. It will be noticed 
that worker bees, accustomed as they are 
to the outside entrance, which is always 
open, do not go into the inside of the tent 
during the mating hours, so that the drones 
and the queens are largely by themselves. 
Unfortunately, this general plan has been 
tried by only one or two others, but with¬ 
out success. So far no one else has had the 
nerve to try it. 
MATING IN A GREENHOUSE. 
Still another plan is to have queens 
mated in some of those mammoth cucum¬ 
ber greenhouses found in various parts of 
the country. An experiment of this kind 
was conducted on a very large scale in one 
of the largest greenhouses in the United 
States at Ashtabula, Ohio, in 1918 and 
1919. Inasmuch as bees would fly out 
and pollinate the cucumber blossoms, it 
was thought that queens and drones could 
be induced to mate in the same environ¬ 
ment. After repeated attempts to effect 
artificial fertilization, without success, 
the attempt was finally given up. While 
the bees became accustomed to the glass 
and visited cucumber blossoms, it seemed 
impossible to keep the queens and drones 
from bumping against the glass. Mating 
under normal conditions permits of un¬ 
limited flight. When drones and queens 
sally forth in their mating excursions they 
appear to desire to fly around consider¬ 
ably before they find their mates. The lim¬ 
itations of the greenhouses, even the largest 
of them, make this impossible. 
MATING ARTIFICIALLY. 
One enthusiastic beekeeper reported hav¬ 
ing tried taking a drone of mating age and 
pressing him until the drone organs were 
distended. The spermatozoa were then in¬ 
jected into the body of a queen of mating 
age. He stated that, altho the wings of the 
queen had been clipped when she was one 
day old, she began to lay and the eggs de- 
vehrped into worker brood. The experi¬ 
ment is worth trying, and the author sug¬ 
gests that some of the ABC scholars 
try it out and report results. 
MATING ON DESERTS OR SMALL ISLANDS. 
Some beekeepers in the West are located 
near large tracts of desert country, with 
nothing but sagebrush and the jack-rabbit. 
Such a place would be ideal for the mating 
of queens. Of course, the bees would 
have to be fed. There would be no other 
bees, and it would be possible to secure 
perfect mating from a hive or hives con¬ 
taining a large number- of select drones. 
There are occasional islands so situated 
that there would be no bees on them, and 
where one could locate a mating yard con¬ 
taining a hive of good drones. If the 
island is of any size, and there is a honey 
flow of any sort, there are likely to be 
wild bees there. The island for special 
queen-mating purposes should be small, 
and at least 10 miles from any other yard 
or from the mainland. Near the irrigated 
regions of the West there are many desert 
areas where perfect mating to select 
drones could be arranged for. Since 
islands exactly suited for the purpose are 
rather rare, it would seem that the desert 
would be more feasible for mating than 
the islands. 
EXCLUDING UNDESIRABLE DRONES FOR 
MATING. 
So far, for most beekeepers the only 
feasible plan for mating with select 
drones is to put perforated zinc over the 
entrances of all colonies not having choice 
drones, leaving only select drones to have 
the freedom of the air. If there are no 
other bees in the locality except from hives 
having screened entrances, the chances will 
be largely in favor of having the queens 
mated to the drones of the colonies se- 
