1882 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULT LIKE. 



397 



of your sex, from old Adam down, you are ready to 

 proclaim it if a woman commits an error; but if she 

 does any thing deserving of praise, you keep silent, 

 or say you don't believe she did it— "may b'; bcr 

 husband diil it, and she gets the credit of it." 



Idon'tthiuk anybody is entitlcfl to much honor 

 for the manner in which my bees have been man- 

 aged; but if any is duo, my husband is not entitled 

 to it. He is so much afraid of bees he will hardly 

 come home to ilinner when they are out, and has 

 tried in various ways to discourage me from keep- 

 ing them. Because I feil them a few pounds of 

 sugar last winter he declared each bee had cost ten 

 cents. I have over one hundred standard and nu- 

 cleus colonies that 1 have managed without an as- 

 sistant. Sometimes I lind the work very laborious; 

 nf)thing but an indomitable determiation to succeed 

 In the business has sustained me. I have the igno- 

 rance and prejudice of some of my neighbors to con- 

 tend with. They are constantly bringing in their 

 complaints that my bees "suck their flowers to 

 death;" they "eat the grapes and peaches." One 

 man complains that my bees work on his watermel- 

 on-blooms so much he won't be able to raise any 

 fruit. Mrs. B. H. Lowe. 



Hawkinsville, Ga., June 13, 18S3. 



Why, my ptood friend, I only suggested 

 that your husband might deserve some of 

 the credit, because some one else might 

 think so ; and now it has brought out the fact, 

 that you raised the queens all your own self, 

 and that he only carried them to the post- 

 office on days when the bees didn't Uy much. 

 I believe that is the statement he made, or 

 something similar. — Tell your watermelon 

 friend that he could not raise watermelons 

 at all if it were not for the bees, and, if he 

 will read it, show him the cucumber story 

 that we gave in the June number, p. 300. 



ilt^ ''imikm^ 



This department was suggested by one of the clerks, as an oji- 

 position to the Growlcry. 1 think 1 i^hall venture to give names 

 in full here. 



MERE is a dollar to renew my subscription to 

 Gleanings, and here is my report: Com" 



■ menced in the north-east corner of Blasted 



Hopes in the spring of 1881 with two very weak col- 

 onies; increased by artificial swarming (too poor 

 and too spunky to buy more) to 9; wintered all nice- 

 Ij-, and now at tliis date have increased (by " natu- 

 ral," aided with a little " artiflcial," to give them 

 "vim") to Si, and have put back at least i or 5 

 swarms. The swarming fever is subsiding now, and 

 they are settling down to business nicely. I have 

 commenced taking off sections. Hoping the " sweet 

 by and by" is close at hand, [ remain yours with a 

 broad grin. 



P. .S.— Why, my gracious! frieml G. W. White, of 

 Georgia, needn't blow about a swarm in April swarm- 

 ing in May. I ha\e had as many as three queens 

 this season that led out two swarms each, inside of 

 a month; that is, all in the month of May. We 

 seldom have swarms here in April. 



J.VCOB COPELAND. 



Allendale, Wabash Co., 111., June 14, 1882. 

 Friend C, we can imagine vou bending 



over a hive, lifting out the white filled sec- 

 tions, thinking of the hours you liave spent 

 ill anticipation of this very harvest time of 

 all your fond hopes, and " grinning " all the 

 time. 



^ •Bi ^ 



A NEW DISCIPLE OF THi: " <'0.1IPKES- 

 SION THEORY." 



HOW THE BEES CONTROL THE SEX Ol' THE OVA. 



Mi. 



BOUT three years ago, being short of worker 

 jr'\. comb, I used some sheets of drone comb to 

 furnish a nucleus containing a virgin queen; 

 this was intended as a temporary arrangement; but, 

 like many such, was forgotten as soon as made. In 

 due time this queen became fertile, and filled the 

 drone comb with eggs, which developed into per- 

 fect worker bees of ordinary appearance. After 

 reading friend Peters' letter on page 291, June num- 

 ber, I think I am safe in making this statement. 



nO\V THE BEES MANAGE IT, 



to enable their queen to lay fertile eggs. The 

 bees drew in the edges of the drone-cells in such a 

 manner as to reduce the size of the openings to that 

 of worker comb. Mr. Langstroth tells us, in that 

 most excellent of all bee-books, that we need take 

 nothing that he says, on trust, but prove to our own 

 satisfaction every statement that he makes in regard 

 to the natural history of the bees, by personal in- 

 vestigation made easy by the use of movable frames. 

 I have no doubt that any one of us who has the pa- 

 tience and skill to conduct the experiments proper- 

 ly, can satisfy himself that the abdomen of the 

 queen mu.st be compressed to fertilize the ova, or, 

 rather, that unimpregnated eggs o)ilij produce the 

 drones. I have seen drones produced under circum- 

 stances similar to the one mentioned by friend E. A. 

 Morgan, page 293, June number, but they were from 

 eggs laid by fertile workers after the combs of brood 

 were given to the queonless colonies. 



E. M. Hayhithst. 

 Kansas City, Mo., June 5, 1883. 



I believe, friend II., this matter has been 

 before mentioned, altliough no one suggest- 

 ed, if I am right, that the drawing-iu of the 

 cells is for the purpose of making the queen 

 lay worker-eggs. Will friend I'eters please 

 tell us if the drone-cells in his hives were 

 thus drawn in at their upper edges? I have 

 observed it for many years, and in almost 

 every hive we can "lind patches of drone 

 comb thus drawn in by widening the walls 

 at their outer edges, e'v'idently because the 

 bees at some time wislied to use them for 

 rearing worker-bees. If this is invariahhj 

 the case where workers are reared in drone 

 comb, it will be a powerful argument in fa- 

 vor of the old compression theory. The 

 heaviest proof against this tlieory is the fact 

 that the queen often lays eggs in cells so 

 shallow there is little else than fdn., and you 

 have all noticed, by this time, I suppose, 

 eggs laid in fdn. where the cells are raised 

 not more than an eighth of an inch. Thanks 

 for your suggestion of a possible explana- 

 tion of tlie turning of worker- eggs into 

 drones, friend II.; but under the circum- 

 stances you mention, the drones would be 

 the small kind, and, if I am correct, they 

 were good full-sized drones. There is evi- 

 dently much need of more careful observa- 

 tion. 



