July 18, 1865. ] 



JOUBNAi OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENEB. 



61 



20 lbs. nett weight eacli before winter sets in, at a cost of about 

 10s. to 12s. a-piecc for sugar. Any portions of worker comb 

 which are found empty and in good condition may, probably, 

 be purchased for a trillo if not given to you, and will be a great 

 assistance to the bei's if attaclied to tlie bars in the way de- 

 scribed in page 18, of the fifth edition of " liee-lioopiug for tlie 

 Many" (price id., or free by post from this ollice for five 

 stamps). If the combs be new, all artificial supports may be 

 removed within two days ; if old, a day or two longer will be 

 required. The best bce-houso for one who wishes to study the 

 subject deeply, is either a verandah or a similar construction 

 built against a wall, eitlier perfectly open or merely closed 

 with pheasant wire (in which is a good-si?.t«l a]>erture opposite 

 the entrance to each hivc|, in ti'onl, and with sufficient height 

 and room to operate behind ; whilst the best liives are those 

 which have been named after Mr. Woodbury, and which are 

 fully described in page 11 of the same edition, of " Bee-keeping 

 for the Many." Wo prefer them made of straw, in which 

 material Messrs. Neighbour, 149, Regent Street, and 127, Hol- 

 bora, tLu:n them out in first-rate style. These gentlemen will 

 also supply you with Mr. liaugstroth's book, which is the best 

 work we are acquainted with for the purpose you require.] 



FERTILE WORKERS. 



YocB correspondent Mr. AVm. Carr need not be at all scep- 

 tical as to the existence of fertUe workers, neither do I believe 

 are they of such rare occurrence as our Editors would seem to 

 suppose, having met with three separate instances this summer, 

 and had them under my observation at the same time. I 

 must say I rather entertain the idea that at certain seasons, and 

 luider particular circumstances, workers may be induced to 

 become fertile as a matter of course, and I have no doubt that 

 many cases of drone -production ascribed to vu'gin queens are 

 all the while due to fertile workers. 



The first case was that of a queenless stock presented me by 

 a fi-icnd, and, on brealdng it up, I discovered di'one brood in 

 worker cells, and in all stages of development, and which I 

 have not a doubt was produced by workers. The other instances 

 occurred in two of my earliest batch of nuclei — these failed to 

 raise royal cells. In tlie one instance within a fortnight, 

 before a queen could have been raised, or indeed ere the latest 

 brood were much more than half matured, I was struck at 

 noticing a good many eggs deposited in the cells, and rather 

 hastily concluded that my assistant, to whom I had entrusted 

 the peopling of the bo.'c, had stupidly run off the queen along 

 with the workers at the out-lying apiary. A thorough search 

 failed to show her, while a subsequent examination of the 

 stock afforded ample proof of her most productive jiresence — 

 whence the eggs ? A subsequent minute examination not 

 only revealed eggs in the cells, but many, even up to six, 

 deposited in a single cell. By way of experiment I allowed 

 matters to take their course, and the other day along with a 

 most experienced apiarian friend, took a survey of the box — 

 foimd egg-lajnng going on and a good many di'ones at liberty ; 

 it was most interesting to note, that both the older blacks, as 

 well as their more youthful Italian sisters, had alike the power 

 to produce the males of their distinct varieties. 



The brood in the other nucleus, above referred to, was all 

 hatched out and yet no fertile workers. Feeling confident 

 from what I had seen in the other case, that I had merely to 

 withhold the material to raise another monarch, and I could as 

 it were compel them to become fertile, it was even so, and the 

 drones have since been duly hatched. 



I may here relate, as not altogether foreign to the subject, a 

 ciurious coincidence which I met with in the early part of the 

 present season — viz., the simultaneous issue in every flight of 

 young bees from a stock possessing a black queen, not only 

 attendance of her sable progeny, but a goodly proportion of 

 splendidly marked Italians. Tliere was no mistaking it, there 

 they were rotating side by side on the landing-board, and com- 

 mingling in theii' merry gambols, marking the site on their 

 first flight of their common home. How could this be ? I put 

 forth my riddle to many apiarian friends, and was not a 

 little tickled at the many "guesses at truth" which came to 

 hand. 



To appreciate my riddle, I must go more into detaO. The 

 hive was a common straw one. a " second " of last season, from 

 which I had expeUed the black bees to make way for my old 

 Devon queen and her train, after having been pui'ified from 

 foul brood through the double " purgatorial process." What 



black brood existed in the hive at the transference was duly 

 hatched, followed by lota of young Italians. Winter came ; it 

 was half over, when one day I had the mortification to find my 

 valued monarch lying dead upon the laudiug-board. It was 

 the 8th of March before I met with a spare black ([ueen to take 

 her place. In the interim, during raild days, when airing, the 

 bees got into no agitation, as I had auticipated, on missiug their 

 queen. Pollen was carried liberally, and young Italians issued 

 till I at last began to suppose, like Jonas Jackson, that I had 

 taken a distended defunct worker for n\y valued monarch ; this 

 could not be, I knew lier too well. By-and-by the offspring of 

 the black queen emerged in abundance, invariably escorted iu 

 eveiy instance by their glittering ItaUan sisters. I was non- 

 plussed and sought advice. 



A valued contributor of this Journal suggested a strain of 

 Ligm-ian blood iu the black queen. This could not be : her pro- 

 geny in the stranger hive from which I removed her were, 

 equally with her more youthful offspring, free from the slightest 

 tinge, indeed as thoroughly lilaok bees as I had ever seen. The 

 " old-fashioned bee master" from whom I procured her prided 

 himself on tl"' blackness of his stock; besides, these fine- 

 marked yello , jackets were emerging regularly before she was 

 introduced. /. .ither correspondent suggested they were late- 

 bred bees, wkuc I was sure they were fresh from the ceU; 

 and another was confident they were young ItaUans from an 

 adjoining stock, or eggs carried from such — I know I saw them 

 take their first flight ; besides, unfortunately for me , I had no 

 stock in my apiary capable of producing young bees at all up to 

 the brilliancy of my old queens. I puzzled my correspon- 

 dents — I equally puzzled myself. 



Latterly, every other explanation failing, could it be possible 

 they owed theii' origin to the existence of fertile workers? but 

 then I was reminded tJtey only produce males. Natui'e had 

 endowed them with this power surely as a preliminary to a 

 higher end, otherwise their drone-production could in no wise 

 save their extinction. Might it not be that the long confine- 

 ment of their queen had induced some of her progeny, as 

 in the above cases, to become fertile, and on a par with virgin 

 queens ? that the performance of the maternal duties so far 

 might incite the desire to go forth to seek the di-ones, who at 

 that period abounded, thereby becoming converted into worker 

 queens and save stocks so situated from impending ruin ? In a 

 spirit of rivalry might they not have risen in rebellion and 

 destroyed the old queen, their new powers satisfactorily 

 accounting for their strange quiesence ? My pretty Uttle theory 

 was gradually abandoned with the decreasing numbers of the 

 young Itahaiis, till the new hypothesis was forced upon me as 

 the only solution of the mystery, that the extreme fertUity of 

 my old queen had so far overshot the number of her followers, 

 that she had dropped eggs into cells far in advance of their 

 ability to attend to, that these had been preserved from chi l l 

 by the genial warmth of the hive, and with the increasing 

 temperature of the advancing season were gradually overtaken 

 and hatched out. 



Possibly some reader may be able to afford a clue to the 

 better elucidation of what for many weeks proved to be one of 

 the most singular and striking phenomena ever met with by — 

 A EENFBEWsniKE Bee-keepeb. 



EXPERIMENTING WITH LIGURIANS. 



The following is extracted from the apiarian joirrnal of a 

 clergyman in one of the northern counties of England : — 



June 3rd. — Received a stock of Ligurians from the apiary of 

 Mr. Woodbury. Took out all the frames in order to remove 

 the strips of wood. Succeeded well until I came to the last 

 frame, \vhicli slipped to the gi-ound ; soon re-adjusted without 

 much damage ; did not get a sting worth mentioning, and sav7 

 the queen. Saw a Ligurian on the aUghting-lioard of unicomb 

 hive dressing a yoimg bee ; both went into the hive quite 

 pleasantly. 



June 14th. — Beautiful hot day. Examined my Ligurian 

 hive, and was much pleased to find that the bees had filled the 

 two empty frames in a few days. Found the queen on the first 

 fi-ame I lifted out, and at once resolved to form an artificial 

 swarm. I did so by putting two frames from the middle of the 

 hive into the nucleus box. Removed Ligmian hive for fifteen 

 minutes and put nucleus box in its place. At night placed 

 nucleus box in apiary next to the Ligm-ian stock. They had 

 been in the dark several hoiu's. Supplied empty space iu 

 Ligmian by a brood comb from a Taylor's bar hive. It did not 



