Coleraine, Mass.
Translated from Bienen-Zeitung by Greiner Bros.
Fertilization a Crippled Queen.
DR. DZIERZON.
In looking over a nucleus the past season, I found a young Italian queen just hatched. She was very large and beautiful, but in trying to make her flight she fell to the ground, because of her left wing being considerably shorter, and she could not rise, although she made every effort. If I had possessed a surplus queen, or even a queen-cell, I should have disposed of her; but as I had not, I left her in the hive, hoping that she might gain strength enough to enable her to make her wedding trip. Two days after I looked again and found my queen there still, and my experiments with her proved that she was as unable to fly as before. It occurred to me to shorten her long wing to produce equilibrium. She could then fly some, but dropped to the ground again. After I had trimmed her long wing down to the size of the crippled one, she succeeded in keeping herself up in the air for quite a while, although it seemed very hard work for her, and she finally reached her hive. I let her run in, then fixed an alighting-board, that she might have a chance to run from the ground up to her hive, if compelled.
On one of the following days I was in the apiary again at noon, and on looking about I noticed great excitement in one of the neighboring hives near said nucleus. When I opened the hive I found the short-winged queen in there balled, but not yet injured. Undoubtedly she came out to meet a drone, and on returning entered the wrong hive, which, when we consider her clumsiness, could not be wondered at. I picked her out of the ball, and took her back to her own hive. A few days after I found her depositing eggs, and she proved to be fertile; but whether she was fertilized on that trip, or whether she made another, is not certain.
Read before the N. E. Convention.
Best Method of Marketing Honey.
GEO. W. HOUSE.
In writing upon this subject I fully realize the difficulties of the task before me, and also the differences of opinion that exist on this interesting subject, and one that is of such vast importance to the honey producer of to-day. We are yet in the infancy of this enterprise, and time will doubtless reveal many changes and improvements where now we think we have attained perfection. Of course practical bee-keepers will employ all their energies to keep up with the times, and give their patrons the benefit of new developments as soon as they are proved to be improvements. We should ascertain what the market demands and then diligently apply ourselves to the work, in order to reap the reward.