Answer. To sell!
Sixth, he says, “many bee-keepers find the half-blood Italian bees are better than pure ones”—his reason being that in and in breeding is broken up.
Answer. Those that receive them, let them swarm naturally; thus the forcing is at an end, and nature again asserts her superiority.
He says, seventh, “In good seasons the queens raised in small nuclei are as good as those raised in full stocks.”
Answer. He admits that they cannot at all times raise good ones. He had better have attributed it to the lack of a natural instinct to raise good ones. A swarm on the eve of swarming, broken up into nuclei, would probably raise pretty fair queens—say half as good as natural ones. As well might you hire a rough wood chopper or ditcher to make a watch, as to set a nucleus of bees not having the swarming instinct, to raise a first rate chronometer balanced queen.
Mr. W. J. Davis says that he does not know what effect my Revolvable, Reversible, Double-cased, Sectional Bee-hive may have had on the tender life of a young queen, forced or artificial.
As I have only used my old Langstroth hives for nuclei; my hive has of course not had any influence on them, for good or evil. But my twenty young natural queens, raised by my method, are without exception hardy, prolific, and have every promise of being long-lived. Had they been forced queens two-thirds of them would have been played out before this time. They are as prolific as any of my old “natural” queens which I bought of those who practice natural swarming only. My R. R. D. C. S. B. Hive has a good effect on the life of natural queens; and as Mr. Dadant says his bees in my hive have done better than in any other, and he has of several patents, and as he says he has only raised forced queens, my R. R. D. C. S. Bee-hive most probably saved him.
Secondly, after reading all his conditions of age, weather, season, stock, nuclei, time, and egg, that have to be consulted to insure a good queen by the forcing process, I have an idea that his queens are natural ones. Do you not bring your bees up to swarming and then secure their cells Gallup fashion? Gallup calls such natural queens. I should. Otherwise why not have good queens from March to October?
Thirdly, Mr. Davis says that “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 are 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.”
Answer. I have only one artificial queen laying, my pure prolific Italian. I will guarantee any of my black, “young or old,” or other natural queens, to fill five frames with brood quicker than she can fill one; and if you, or “any other man,” cannot see any difference between my forced queens[2] and my natural ones, you must be deficient in the organs of size and weight, and would not be able to tell a Shetland pony from an elephant.