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 Koehler 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.]