_New Bedford, Mass._, Sept. 18, 1870.
[Translated from the Bienenzeitung,
For the American Bee Journal.]
Queen Breeding.
To obtain not only purely fertilized queens, but fine, bright yellow
ones, I have for some years proceeded thus:
As all Italian queens do not produce equally fine drones, I mark those
stocks in the course of the summer which contain queens producing the
choicest of these. Then, in the following spring, when I desire to have
a plentiful supply of prime Italian drones early, and before common
drones make their appearance in neighboring apiaries, insert in the
hives thus selected and marked, combs of worker brood taken from other
colonies. I do this in order to make those colonies very populous, so as
to induce drone-egg-laying; for a queen will always be disposed to
commence doing so, if she is in a strong colony well supplied with
honey, or is well fed. As soon as I find that those colonies are
becoming populous under this management, I insert some empty drone comb
in the centre of the brooding space. These the queen, stimulated by
liberal feeding, will speedily supply with eggs; and when the drone
brood so produced is nearly mature, I subdivide these combs and insert
pieces in nuclei previously furnished with young bees, worker brood, and
eggs, taken from the colonies containing the choice queens from which I
design to breed, and which are known to produce the largest, most
active, and best marked workers.
As the drones form the brood thus introduced mature several days sooner,
than the young queens bred in the same nuclei, there is a strong
probability that the latter will be fertilized by them and consequently
produce fully marked choice progeny, as it is certain that queens will
almost invariably be fertilized early if they and the drones are bred in
the same hive or nucleus, since that secures the simultaneous flight of
both and obviates the necessity of a wide range in their excursions. I
adopt this process also, because if the Italian drones of the colonies,
which contain the young queens, are poorly marked and dark yellow in
color, we cannot reasonably look for bright and handsomely marked
progeny.
At about ten o’clock in the morning of a calm, clear day, when the young
queen is at least two days old, I feed the bees of the nucleus with
diluted honey. Drones and queens will then almost invariably issue at
the same time, and before common drones from other colonies or
neighboring apiaries are on the wing. Thus both disappointment and delay
are in a great measure precluded. I do not stimulate the bees of the
nucleus by feeding either on the first or the second day after a young
queen has left her cell, because she is then yet too feeble to make an
excursion with safety. But I have frequently succeeded in having
fertilization effected on the third or fourth day, in favorable weather,
when the nucleus thus stimulated contained both drones and queen; and in
many cases the queens began to lay on the third or fourth day
thereafter. In this way, I not only obtain many (I do not say all)
purely fertilized queens; but also very superior ones, large, vigorous,
and prolific, producing both workers and drones well marked and brightly
colored.
I do not indeed claim that this process gives us absolute certainty, but
only a very great probability, that the queens we rear will be purely
fertilized. Other bee-keepers too, who employed it long before the
Kœhler method was promulgated, regard it as furnishing the most likely
means of assuring success. Thus, for instance, the President of the
Bee-keeper’s Union of Moravia, Dr. Ziwanski, who is not a blind imitator
of others, but a careful and indefatigable inquirer, never recommending
aught for adoption till he has himself tested it with success, found my
method worthy of adoption five years ago already, for his annual report
for 1865 contains the following passage:--
“I made five nuclei this year, with fresh brood from pure original
Italians. When fitting them up, I recollected a suggestion of the Rev.
Mr. Stahala, and inserted both drone and worker brood in four of them,
omitting the drone brood in the fifth. The queens of the first four
mentioned were purely fertilized, while the one in the fifth nucleus
mated with a common drone. This result induces me to invite your
attention to the fact, for it is reasonable to presume that queens
making their excursions will be more likely to mate with drones from
their own hives flying simultaneously, than with drones from other and
distant hives. The queen usually makes such excursions only at periods
when drones are flying, and there is then generally great commotion in
the hive, as though there was much eagerness to get abroad and enjoy the
genial air. Still, too much must not be expected from this suggestion
and its adoption. It is not supposed that any preliminary arrangements
or appointments are made by drones or queens, before the excursion is
undertaken; but merely that there is a much greater probability that
parties flying at the same time and necessarily in close proximity, will
mate, than those starting from remoter points. Hence since it can do no
possible harm to supply our nuclei with drone and drone-brood in this
manner, the plan should by no means be disregarded when preparing to
Italianize an apiary.”
By means of this process, having selection to a great degree in my
power, I frequently obtain queens nearly entirely yellow, having black
only at the extremity of the abdomen. I have procured queens for
breeding from both Dzierzon and Mona. The young queens breed from
Dzierzon’s stock were at first handsomer than those bred from Mona’s.
But in later years, since using the method I now recommend, I obtain
equally fine queens from the latter’s stock. The drones from Mona’s
queens were, from the start yellower than those from Dzierzon’s, which
were only faintly tinged with yellow on the sides, and had dark orange
bands. Observing this, I then took worker brood and queen cells from the
Dzierzon’s queens, with drones and drone-brood from the Mona queens, to
furnish the same nucleus, and thus obtained regularly very handsome
queens, bright workers, and very fine drones.
J. STAHALA, _Pastor_.
_Dolein, near Olmutz_, Feb. 5., 1870.
[For the American Bee Journal.]
Purity of Italian Queens.
Your correspondent, E. L. Briggs, in the August number of the Journal,
has stirred up the bee-keepers a little; and for fear they will not
discuss the point which most interests me, I drop you a line, hoping
that those who have had more experience may be able to settle the
question.
It is a fact which I think no one will deny, that it would be for the
interest of every one selling queens, to send only such as are purely
fertilized. It being as easy to rear queens from pure eggs as from any
other, we may look to some other cause than selfishness or cheapness of
the price for the difficulty. I have managed my apiary under the
impression that the Dzierzon theory is correct, that the drones from a
pure queen which had mated with a black drone, were pure.
I have failed in keeping my stock pure enough to breed from; and in my
opinion, other bee-keepers who have reared queens in the same way, are
as badly off as myself. If we wish to improve the Italian bee, we may do
so by selecting the best of its race, both male and female, to breed
from; not by crossing with the black bee. The type of the Italian bee
should be so fixed, that the bees all show the same marking. We may fix
the type of any admixture of the German and Italian bees, so that they
will have similar markings. The crossing has been so recent in many
cases, that there is no uniformity of color. Breeders of choice stock
look as much to the quality and purity of the male as the female parent.
It is my present belief that bees are as much subject to the rule, as
the animal creation are.
I look for higher results than any yet attained, when we control (as we
soon shall) the mating of our queens; and the low priced ones have given
me the most satisfaction so far.