_Buffalo Grove, Iowa._
* * * * *
[For the American Bee Journal.]
Natural and prolific hardy Queens.
We are all more or less disposed to regard our own ideas as
indisputable.
Mr. Quinby for example, praises his new hive, and his queen yard. I have
experimented with both, and both are now in my barn, waiting to be split
up for kindling wood.
Mr. John M. Price, in the July number of the Bee Journal, condemns all
artificially raised queens. But _rassurez vous_, friend queen-breeders,
I come to prove to friend Price, that he has misconceived the reason of
his bad luck in raising artificial queens.
When I commenced to introduce Italian bees in my apiary, six years ago,
I received from one of our best queen-breeders a very nice looking
queen. She was very yellow from the waist to the tip of the abdomen.
Well, I raised a number of queens to get drones, and next season I
raised some more, from the same queen, to replace the misallied queens.
But lo, one-fourth of my young queens were either crippled, or drone
laying, or laying non-hatching eggs. Yet these queens were as yellow as
their mother, and it seemed as if the brighter they looked, the poorer
they were.
Then my first imported queens came. They were not yellow, but dark. The
first rings of the abdomen were leather-colored, the last were entirely
black or nearly so. I wrote to Dr. Blumhof, reproaching him for having
sent me so dark queens. He replied that all the healthier queens in
Italy are dark, and that it was well ascertained there, that the
light-colored queens were not so good as the dark. The light-colored
queens, added the Doctor, seem to have the chlorosis. Prof. Mona told
the same thing to Mr. A. Grimm, when he was in Italy. See _American Bee
Journal_, vol. III. From this we can guess that the selecting of the
brightest yellow queens for breeders, is one of the causes of the
failure of the queens raised. But in-and-in breeding is another, and
according to my experience, a main cause of weakness.
As soon as my first imported queens were on hand, I commenced raising
queens from them, and from that time forward I raised artificial queens
every year from newly imported queens. Those queens mate with drones
from queens of the preceding year’s importation, and so on. I do not
care for the color of these queens, but not one of them is crippled or
proves to be a poor layer.
My five best stocks this year, all have artificial queens. Three of
these queens are with swarms of last year. I hived them in one of friend
Price’s hives. These swarms are better than the three original stocks
they came from, though these latter have raised natural queens in the
height of the swarming season, as friend Price prefers they should. The
five stocks referred to gave me from seventy to one hundred pounds each,
of box honey. I suppose I should be thought very _exigeant_ if I were
not content with such results, in so dry a season as this.
Why does friend Price imagine that artificially raised queens are not so
good as natural ones? Probably, because the bees, in order to obtain
queens sooner, chose grubs already several days old, instead of
selecting newly laid eggs, from which to raise queens. I have watched
that very closely, and could see no appreciable difference. A stock
rendered queenless will raise queens maturing at different periods, some
hatching in from nine to twelve or fourteen days, and sometimes not till
sixteen days after. If the above theory were correct, the earlier
hatching queens should be the poorer, for they come from grubs three or
four days old. Yet such is not the case--those queens are as good as
any.
If that theory proved to be true, it would still be an easy matter to
prevent the evil results apprehended. We could destroy the two or three
first-capped queen cells; or force the bees to raise queens from the
egg, by a method far more easy than friend Price’s. Insert in your
chosen stock a frame, containing empty worker comb, placing it between
two frames containing brood. In three days, if the bees find honey in
the fields, the cells of the worker comb will be supplied with eggs.
Then remove the queen and all the brood combs, except the one containing
the eggs. The bees will thus have eggs only from which to raise queens,
and _all_ your young queens will necessarily be started _ab ovo_. I
guess this method is as good as, and more simple than, that of friend
Price.
I am not a queen-breeder. That business does not suit me, for it is a
source of too much vexation. I have repeatedly imported queens, but I
lost money and suffered so much in that business, that I think my
sufferings will pay for all my sins in the other world. I am thus
altogether disinterested in this matter of breeding queens.