In the July No. of the Journal. Mr. John M. Price contributed an article on “Natural, Hardy and Prolific Queens,” which was no doubt his conviction of the truth of the matter at the time; but as it does not agree with my experience, I will give the other side of the question.

If I understand his theory, it is that queens reared in stocks deprived of their queen when not under the “swarming impulse,” are smaller, less prolific and shorter lived than what are termed natural queens. I am fully aware that Mr. Price does not stand alone on said theory, and yet I believe it to be an error.

For the sake of distinguishing, we will state that queens bred in full stocks from which the mother queen led forth a swarm, or queens which were started while the old queen remained in the hive, are natural queens, and all others artificial. I have both kinds in my apiary, and have had for several years, and can see no difference in their size, beauty, fertility or longevity. I have repeatedly kept artificial queens until they were three years old, and had one very prolific queen which died in March last, being then three years and nine months old. I left her as an experiment, to see what age she would attain; but my practice is to remove queens in their second or third year. Of course a few die before they are two years old, for they are not exempt from the ills that bee “flesh is heir to.” But that four or five in succession should pass off the stage of action in a single stock in one season, is something before unheard of. I do not know what effect brother P.’s revolvable, reversible, double-cased hive might have upon the tender life of a young queen; but it seems to have been most disastrous, for we have no such work here in the old Keystone State.

It is a matter of very great importance in the success of an apiary, that our stocks are supplied with the right kind of queens, and in order to effect this desirable result, something more is necessary to a full understanding of the subject, than simply to know that bees, when deprived of their queen, will attempt to supply her place. I find little difficulty in rearing fine queens, with the following conditions: 1st. a suitable queen mother; 2d. fair weather and good pasturage; 3d. a full stock, in which honey and pollen are abundant (not a nucleus where starvation stares them in the face). It is a settled point with me, that the production of queens is a matter wholly under the control of the worker bees; and we lack evidence that a queen ever lays an egg in a royal cell. If the bee is guided by instinct alone, and the production of a queen depended on the depositing of a peculiar egg by the queen in a royal cell (an egg, differing from the worker or drone eggs), it would follow that, on the loss or removal of the queen when no such eggs existed in the hive, no young queens could be produced.

Small queens may be produced in nuclei where the requisite food is limited, and where from want of bees the larva is exposed to repeated changes of temperature, which is detrimental. When reared in full stocks in times of great scarcity, nearly the same results follow.

There is another important point, namely the proper age for the mother bee. In breeding all our domestic animals, regard is always had (and wisely we think) to the age of the parents. It may be thought that the life of the bee is so short that it would allow but little latitude in this direction; but it should not be forgotten that the queen usually lives three and sometimes four years, during which time there is doubtless a period of fertility and hardiness, or power of endurance, not common to the whole of her life. Just what that period is, I am not prepared to say; but the rapid advancement of apiarian science will doubtless solve the problem. I am satisfied, however, that queens bred from young queens are not equal, in several desirable points, to those bred from mothers a year old. In experimenting with black bees, I became satisfied on this point several years ago. I have never known a young black queen, after becoming fertile, to lead out a swarm, no matter how populous the stock might be; and indeed apiarians have considered it the best method of preventing swarming, in order to secure surplus honey, to remove the old queen and install one of the current year. (It is ahead of Quinby’s queen yard). We reason from this, that their instinct teaches them that they are unfit for queen mothers. This would not, perhaps, hold good in the high temperature of southern latitudes, which tends to the earlier maturity of all animal life. With the Italian bees it is somewhat different, for young queens produce drone eggs, and they do sometimes lead out swarms, yet they are not so liable to do so as older queens.

Mr. Aaron Benedict tells us he produced six generations of queens in a single season, but does not give us the result, further than that he thought he improved his bees in color.

I am not surprised that the men who raise queens from March to October, have cheap queens and sell them by the hundred. But I am one to say that no genuine lover of our pets who duly considers consequences, would proceed thus. And now, Mr. Editor, I wish to say in conclusion, that of my 125 queens about one-fourth are natural and the balance artificial queens, and if Mr. Price, or “any other man” will, upon examination, decide correctly, by size or fertility (amount of brood), which are of the former and which of the latter class, he may pick out ten as large and yellow queens as he ever saw, and I will make him a present of the same, and will warrant that, if artificial, they shall be as productive as he wishes them.

NB.—I have no cheap queens for sale.

Willard J. Davis.

Youngsville, Pa., Aug. 8, 1870.

[For the American Bee Journal.]