156 REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST OF 



EXPERIMENTS IN BREEDING BEES. 



Our second point — breeding a special race by crossing the best known 

 races, and carefully selecting and breeding from the best of these hybrids — 

 will only prove valuable after several years, if at all. Already we are pleased, 

 however. We have crossed the Syrian and the Carniolans. Our bees have 

 now, in some degree, the activity and prolificness of the Syrians and the 

 amiability of the Carniolans. We wish still further to heighten their good 

 qualities and to render fixed those already secured. We hope to continue 

 this experiment for several years. 



TESTING HONEY. 



We are still making collections of different kinds of honey, or of honey 

 from different known sources. Owing to the varied sources from which 

 honey is derived, it seems very probable that its composition is very varied. 

 It is also well known that honey is digested nectar. I have reason to 

 believe that in case honey is produced very rapidly, as when bees are collect- 

 ing nectar from linden, the digestion is somewhat imperfect, and so the 

 honey will contain more cane sugar and less reducible sugar. On the other 

 hand, when the honey is stored more slowly, as from the mints and clover, 

 the digestion is more perfect. Thus we are securing honey from all sources ; 

 that collected rapidly and that more slowly stored. We shall also feed cane 

 sugar as rapidly as the bees can store it, and also slowly, to see if we can 

 notice any difference in the degree of transformation from cane to reducible 

 sugar. It is hoped that we shall have sufficient material to investigate this 

 matter thoroughly the coming season, when I believe we shall show that 

 neither the chemical test — reduction of the copper salts — or the polari- 

 acopic test — deflection of the polarized ray — are reliable in testing honey. 

 When we find that we need a better test, then we may expect that it will be 

 forthcoming. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH CHLOROFORM. 



It is very desirable that the bee-keeper should be able to introduce easily, 

 quickly and safely, any queen at any time, whether virgin or mated. We 

 experimented quite extensively in this direction the past season. We 

 often took virgin queens, three and four days from their so-called hatching 

 — their emergence from the queen cells. We first removed the old queen ; 

 then with a common bee smoker, in the fire tube of which were three 

 sponges, the lower and upper tight fitting, and the middle wet with ether 

 or chloroform, we forced the quieting fumes into the hive. This was done 

 till the bees would fall freely to the bottom of the hive. The new queen, 

 old or young, virgin or mated, was then allowed to enter. In no case do we 

 know that the queen was destroyed. In nearly every case the queen was 

 found upon subsequent examination, safe and busy in the hive. Iu a few 

 cases where virgin queens were introduced, they had disappeared two days 

 later. It is probable that these were lost in mating. We lost, a year ago, a 

 much larger number that were not removed at all from the nuclei. In our 

 new apiary we have no trees ; only hives on a smoothly kept lawn. In our old 

 apiary, with an evergreen at each hive, we rarely lost a queen in mating. 



