I>ROXE.S. 



149 



DYSEXTKKY. 



get w'orker-bnxxl under gfxxl headway, and 

 then, if we put a drone-comb right in the 

 center of the brood-nest, the queen will, if 

 all things are favorable, begin at once to fill 

 it with eggs. The feeding mu.st be kept up, 

 however, for bees are very easily discour- 

 aged: and if a sto^jpage occurs in the daily 

 supplies, they will not hesitate to pull the 

 young drones out of their cells and sacrifice 

 them without mercy. 



A queen w ill seldom produce drones until 

 she is nearly or quite a year old. even 

 though drone comb may be placed in the 

 very center of the brood-chamber. 



VKOSE< ¥H<jyi DKOXE-LAYEKs. 



(^ueeu-breeders find that one or more 

 drone-layers of good stock rearing fuUy 

 developed drones, if supplied with plenty of 

 worker brood, will furnish a fine lot of nice 

 drones in and out of season : l.ut drones 

 from laying workers, or from queens that 

 liave never been fertilized, are to ]je avoided. 

 Drones from queens that have once laid 

 worker eggs, and then failed, are as good as 

 the drones from any queen. 



DESTKUCTIOX OF DROXES IX TIUE FALL. 



This does not necessarily occur in the fall, 

 but may take place at any time in the sum- 

 mer : and we have several times known the 

 drones killed off between apple-bloom and 

 white clover, only because supplies ceased, 

 c:iusing the bees to become discouraged and 

 give up swarming for the time being. We 

 know of no way in wiiich one can tell Sj 

 well that the yield of honey has ceased, as by 

 the behavior of the l^ees toward their drones. 

 When, in the midst of the honey sea-son, we 

 see a worker buzzing along en the back of a 

 drone that seems to h* doing hia best to get 

 away from the hive, we may take warning 

 that the yield of honey is failing, and that 

 we had better stop making artificial swarms, 

 ^id prepare for feeding, if it is our inten- i 

 tion so to do. We do not know that we ever | 

 saw bees sting drones, but they Hometimes 

 pretend to do =o. It is j»robable that it is only 

 a feint to drive them away. The poor drone. 

 at such times, after vainly trying to go back , 

 into the hive. wUl sijmetimes take wing and 

 sojir away off in the air. only to return after 

 a time to be repulsed again, until, through 

 weakness perhaps, and want of food, he 

 flutters hopeles-sly in the dxist. and so sub- 1 

 inits to the fate that seems to be a part of • 

 the inexorable law of nature and of his being. 



To preserve drones for late queen-rearing, 

 we liave been in the habit of carrying all I 

 frames containing drone-br.x)d to some I 



queenless hive, knowing they would IjC safe 

 there as long as wanted, even if it were all 

 winter. We l>elieve drones ha veljeen, under 

 such circum.stances. wintered over: but 

 whether they are of any value in the spring 

 or not. we are unable to say. We should 

 fear they would not l>e by the time queens 

 could be reared. We usually have drones 

 in some of our colonies as soon as April, and 

 that is as early as we should care to under- 

 take to rear queens, in ordinary seasons. 

 We have several seasons reared queens and 

 had them successfully fertilized, even after 

 all the drones had been gone some time, so 

 far as we could discover: and as they proved 

 to be purely fertilized, we have Ijeen not a 

 little perx>lexed. 



DROXES WITH J:RIGHTLV COLTjRKD HKAI>S 

 OF 1»IFFEREXT COLOR>. 



This is a queer feature in natural history. 

 Almost every summer s<»me one writes or 

 sends us .<pf-cimens of drones with heads of 

 different colors. The matter has t^eeu u- 

 ported and commented on at different times 

 in Ghaniwj*. Xot only do we occasionally 

 find drones with white heads, but we find 

 them with heads of a cherrj-red color: again, 

 of a bright green, and at other times yellow. 

 We confess there Is something very wonder- 

 ful and my.sterious to us in this matter. 

 Why queer old dame nature should decide 

 to single out the heads of drones to sj,ort 

 with in this way will, it seems to us, Ije a 

 pretty difficult matter to explain. Why 

 shjuld this ijeculiarity show itself in the 

 drones more than in the queens and workersy 

 Again, why should h(:od$ be the subject of 

 thcse bright rainbow colors? Is there really 

 any purpose or design in it? or is it just Ije- 

 caiL-;e it happ^: md so? We presume there are 

 ver}' few among our readers but will .say 

 there is a purpose and a design in it; and the 

 next thing is to decide why it should Ije »>. 

 Here is a conundrum. 



DTSZdPT'TEB.Y'. When we see our 



bees covering ine «-jiirances to their hives 

 with a brownish yellow, disigreeable-smell- 

 ing excrement or .stain, we may say they 

 have the dysentery, or what is asually known 

 as such . If the weather becomes very wurui 

 and pleasant, they will usually get over it 

 after they have had a full flight. If, on tin- 

 contrary, the 5ym;>t^.»ms show themselves 

 before warm weather, and no oppo::tunity is 

 given them to fly. they may get yj Ijad as to 

 cover their combs with this substance, and 

 fijoaUy die in a damp filthy-looking ma.ss. 



