18S2 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



291 



universally tested; but it is proved to be our great- 

 est honey-plant. B. F. Johnson, Sen. 

 Spring Lalic, Utah, April IT, 1883. 



Since reading tlie above, I have pnlled 

 some of the rank hixnrhint foUage of the 

 sweet clover that grows over one of onr un- 

 derdrains, and given it to the horses, and 

 they eat it without any hesitation whatever. 

 Now I would like to know, what is the rea- 

 son sweet clover has never been used as a 

 forage plant. The question is one of great- 

 est moment to bee-keepers, for if it can be so 

 managed astolte a forage plant and a honey- 

 plant too. we can, without fear, sow large 

 tracts of it. On our grounds is an old road- 

 way, so hard and yellow that for years not 

 even the hardiest weeds have grown on it. 

 Well, to reclaim it we put an underdrain 

 right in the center of this old roadway, and 

 sowed on sweet clover, three years ago. The 

 clover has all disappeared now, except right 

 alongside of this underdrain, and now we 

 have, right in tliis hard and yellow clay, a 

 bed of great luxuriance, six or eight feet 

 Avide, but none further than that. Well, if 

 these underdrains were only about a rod 

 apart, we should have, in tnat poorest of 

 poor soils, a perfect lield of verdure. In 

 building our new house, we dug through tliis 

 underdrain, and the sight of those sweet- 

 clover roots, going down three feet, all 

 around the tile, was a sight that will make 

 me feel happy every time I think of it ; for 

 I feel sure now that i have learned how to 

 bring the worst spot of ground on our pos- 

 sessions into good condition. I am sure I 

 do not know what these roots would in time 

 do to the underdrains ; but if they should lill 

 them up in after years, I would dig new 

 ones. Terhaps some of you can tell us about 

 it. No doubt lucerne would thrive in under- 

 drained ground in the same way. 



THE QUEEN DETEnitllNES THE SEX 

 OF HER OVA. 



ANOTHER NEW FACT IN THE MATTER, FROM FRIEND 

 PETERS. 



OCCASIONALLY there happens some event 

 ! which establishes or destroys previous theo- 

 ries and conjectures. I have been forcibly 

 impressed recently by a circumstance which clearly 

 establishes, in my miiicl,a. theory of Dzierzon, in- 

 dorsed by, I believe, the weight of Langstroth's 

 name; to wit, that queen bees determine the sex of 

 their ova in the act of deposition, either by control- 

 ling the escape of sperm from the spermatheea dur- 

 ing her laying, or in some other manner unlinown 

 to us. la this bottom we have recentlj' gone 

 through a terrible ordeal — the most disastrous over- 

 flow of the Mississippi Kiver that has occurred for a 

 century, and perhaps exceeds any thing of the kind 

 since the waters that now thunder over Niagara 

 ceased to wend their way to the Gulf by this great 

 watercourse. 



Duiing the high water there was a sudden accu- 

 mulation of twenty inches in twentj'-four hours, 

 accompanied by a storm of wind which blew every 

 thing movable into the flood. Away went the rem- 

 nant of my apiary, blown from the scaffolding, and, 

 of course, I gave them up as lost, having been car- 

 ried off In the currents sweeping through the forest. 



In a few weeks I passed in a skiff by an Immense 

 drift of logs and brush, a mile from the house at the 

 back side of the farm. The day being pleasant, I 

 was attracted by the sound of bees. Examining the 

 source, 1 found most of my colonies impacted in the 

 drift, the lower stories submerged, but the upper 

 ones in part above the water. I alwaj's leave the 

 sections on during winter, with such stores as are 

 collected late in the fall. The bees had found an ex- 

 it from the hives, as most of the tops were more or 

 less displaced; some were still alive, without get- 

 ting out. All the bees, having been driven into the 

 upper stories by the water in the lower part of the 

 hive, went to work in the sections; such as made an 

 exit were in good condition. The brood-combs in 

 lower stories were flooded, and not fit for use for 

 several weeks. That night I carrried them in bat- 

 teaus back to the house, and in due time all the 

 combs wore utilized by the bees. 



But, we will go back to the subject, " the power of 

 selection and distribution " by the queen, of her ova. 

 My sections for surplus are of such a size that three 

 completely All a Langstroth frame, and consequent- 

 ly reach nearly to the top of the upper story. To 

 this circumstance is the safety of the bees attributa- 

 ble. I had used drone foundation for starters in 

 these sections. Well, they were all filled last fall 

 with combs. Now, nearly all these sections with 

 drone combs were filled with worker brood — a very 

 small per cent being drone brood. I watched the 

 development of these worker broods to determine 

 whether a larger cell would produce a larger bee. 

 They were genuine workers, and I at first thought 

 they were a shade larger than other workers; but 

 upon closely comparing, there is not a particle of 

 difference from others reared in ordinary brood 

 combs. I think the offspring of the Arkansas 

 brown bee and the Italian are without a doubt larger 

 than the original bees of the country; and to the 

 improved blood I attribute the improvement of 

 race— not to the drone-cells. 



In the above instances the queen had no other 

 place to deposit worker ova but in drone-cells, and 

 their progeny are pure workers; hence the fact, 

 that qvieens do determine the sex of their ova is un- 

 questionable; but in what manner she does so re- 

 mains among the unsettled problems of apiculture. 



Geo. B. Peters. 



Council Bend, Arkansas, April 28, 1882. 



We are certainly greatly indebted to you, 

 friend Peters, for the valuable facts you 

 have given us ; and while I am very sorry 

 for your loss of bees, I could hardly help 

 havin<5 a good laugli, to think of the way the 

 poor little fellows made the most of a sad 

 mishap. This is a deep question that lies 

 before us ; but. granting you are right, it 

 seems to me tlie bees have, after all, the 

 power of making worker eggs produce 

 drones, when they wish, as the recent facts 

 brought to light seem to show. And here is 

 another idea : How can you prove that all 

 the eggs laid by a fertile (lueen would not 

 produce workers if they were not tampered 

 with by the nursing bees? If 1 am correct, 

 no egg can ever produce any kind of a bee 

 unless the nurse-bees" can have a cliance to 

 lick and sop it with their pabulum? Here is 

 a held for our boys and girls? Can you 

 make a worker egg hatch by keeping it warm 

 and giving it the milky food taken from oth- 

 er cells containing larvse? 



