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Most ViewedAn Experiment 2An Experiment Burying Bees Expense Of Renewing Combs Time Of Greatest Irritability Remedial Experiments Bee Pasturage Bees Do Not Increase If Full After The First Year In Same Hive One Like Common Hive Preferred Not Properly Understood Least ViewedAn Experiment 2An Experiment Burying Bees Expense Of Renewing Combs Time Of Greatest Irritability Remedial Experiments Bee Pasturage Bees Do Not Increase If Full After The First Year In Same Hive One Like Common Hive Preferred Not Properly Understood |
Is The Age Of The Queen Important?Category: PRUNING. There is another object effected in this way, considered by some apiarians as very important. It is the change of the queens in the old stock. A young queen is thought to be "much more prolific than an old one." They even recommend keeping none "over two or three years old," and give directions how they may be renewed. But as I have been unable to discover any difference in relation to the age in this respect, I shall not at present take much time to discuss it. It is well enough, when we can take our choice without trouble, to preserve a young queen. When we consider that there are but few queens but what will deposit three times as many eggs in a season as are matured, it looks as if it would hardly pay to take much trouble to change them. At what time the queen becomes barren from old age, I presume has never yet been fully determined. A friend of mine has had a stock in a large room eight years, that has never swarmed, and is still prosperous! I think it very probable that this queen will gradually decay, and possibly become barren, some weeks before she dies; if so, this stock will soon die off. A few such cases will probably occur in swarming hives, perhaps one in fifty, but generally such old and feeble queens are lost when they leave with the swarm, especially in windy weather. As long as they are able to go with the swarm, and sometimes when they are not, I have found them sufficiently prolific for all purposes. I would rather risk their fecundity, and hive the swarm, than to allow the bees to return to the parent stock, and wait eight or nine days for a young queen to mature. A great many will remain idle, even if there is room to work in the boxes. Next: Different Opinions As To Time Previous: Natural And Artificial Swarms Equally Prosperous
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