554 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 



CANDY FOR SHIPPING-CAGES. 



^] TOP, stop, Mr. Root ! Don't pay any one S5.00 to 

 ^Vh help fix any other cage or candy. There can 

 ' be no better candy than the Viallon, if prop- 

 erly used. I have shipped queens all summer to all 

 parts of the U. S. and Canada, and, if I have lost a 

 single Queen in shipping, I have never heard of it. I 

 attribute my success to the fact, that I moistened 

 the candy just before I put the queen in the cage; 

 put about two drops of water on the candy, and it 

 will quickly run in; make it a little stiffer than com- 

 mon, and it will hold more water than you think. 



WHERE THE DRONE EGGS COME FROM THAT ARE 

 HATCHED AROUND QUEEN - CELLS. 



Any worker bee can, if situated under the proper 

 circumstances, lay drone eggs. "Tut, tut! that will 

 not do." Well, say so if you please, but things 

 have transpired under my observations of late, that 

 tend so much to make me believe it, I can not but 

 suggest the idea, anyhow. 



WORKERS EATING QUEEN'S EGGS. 



If you feed worker bees on eggs from a fertile 

 queen, they will almost always lay drone eggs. But 

 you say, " How do you know? " I found it out by 

 placing a caged queen over about two dozen caged 

 workers, with wire cloth between, the cage contain- 

 ing the workers having two pieces of comb in it. 

 The queen being very fertile, the bees subsisted al- 

 most wholly upon her eggs for three days. Now, 

 you must understand that I tried this experiment to 

 And out whether the bees would carry her eggs, and 

 place them in the comb. 



FERTILE WORKERS; CAUSE OF SUGGESTED. 



At the end of the three days I examined the comb, 

 but there were no eggs; I then removed the queen, 

 leaving the cage of workers a day longer; then 

 I found a few eggs in the comb; this aroused my 

 curiosity, and I watched them very closely. The 

 next day I found nearly every worker laying eggs; 

 I saw them at it. It does seem that the bees eat the 

 eggs around these grafted cells, and lay more in 

 their place. One proof of it is this: If you graft a 

 pure Italian cell with eggs, into a hive of blacks, the 

 drones hatched around the cell will be black, there- 

 fore could not be the eggs that were in the comb 

 Avhcn grafted. 



Now, friends, I do not say what I have written are 

 true theories, but only the result of one series of ex- 

 periments. Chas. Kingsley. 



Greeneville, Tenn., Sept. 7, 1883. 



We are glad of the result of your experi- 

 ment, frieucl K.; but I fear some of your 

 conclusions axe wrong. For instance, Ave 

 have fertile workers when a colony has been 

 a long time queenless, where they have had 

 no eggs to eat at all. 1 think your experiment 

 of inducing the bees to carry the eggs to the 

 cells would have succeeded better if you had 

 placed the caged queen over a whole colony; 



but as tliis would have been the way we used 

 to do in introducing, it woukl have been 

 done already. Perhaps the reason why they 

 don't do it is, that they have a queen so near 

 they do not feel the great anxiety they do 

 when entirely (jueenless. The matter about 

 bees moving worker eggs is as yet a little 

 mysterious.— I have moistened the candy in 

 the way you suggest; and if we are careful 

 not to put on too many drops, it seems to do 

 very well. Your last observation does not 

 agree in result with friend True's experi- 

 ment, narrated on page 4'Jl, Oct. number. 



RYE MEAL FOR POLLEN IN THE FALL. 



1 had a (luccn in a large colony that all at once 

 stopped laying, allhough considerable honey was be- 

 ing gathered from goldenrod. At tirst I thought she 

 must be playing out; but as she was only a year old, 

 and had been very prolific during the whole summer, 

 I looked further for a possible cause. On examining 

 the combs I found but little pollen, and by watch- 

 ing the bees as they came in from the fields I found 

 they brought but little with them. Arguing from 

 these premises, that lack of pollen was the cause of 

 no eggs being laid, I took some granulated sugar, 

 wet it up with honey, and stirred in enough rye meal 

 to make a soft paste. This I spread with a honey- 

 knife over a frame of comb, and crowded it some- 

 what into the cells. The bees at once went to work 

 on it, removed the sugar and honej', leaving the 

 meal in the cells. I fed thus for three or four days, 

 and found that the queen began laj'ing on the second 

 day after I began using this f>^ed, and continued lay- 

 ing to the present time, the bees meanwhile having 

 used up all the rye-meal p illen I had thus given 

 them. I am of the opinion, that lack of pollen, even 

 when honey is coming in quite freelj', is a cause of 

 the production of brood being slopped; and in fu- 

 ture 1 shall watch as carefully to see that my bees 

 are bringing in pollen, as I do to see that they are 

 bringing in honey. It ii possible that bees may for 

 a short time raise brood without pollen; but my ex- 

 perience has been, that brood is reared in the largest 

 numbers when pollen is the most plentiful. 



J. E. Pond, Jr. 



Fo.xbo:o, Norfolk Co., Mass., Sept. 25, 1883. 



I believe it is rather an unusual thing for 

 bees to be short of pollen in the fall, friend 

 P.; but as you found they used it, and it 

 started brood-rearing, no doubt it would be 

 a good thing, under such circumstances, 

 where rapid increase is desired. In my 

 greenhouse experiments, I induced them to 

 use it after they had been some little time 

 clear out of pollen. 



condemning queens HASTILY. 



Please excuse me for having so much to say about 

 my queen, but I know you will bear with mo when 

 you take into consideration that I am at the very 

 foot of the ABC class, and that she is the only Ital- 

 ian queen 1 ever saw. I stated in my last that 

 she was cuite dark, and smaller than ray black 

 queens. I looked at her last week, and could hardly 

 believe she was the same queen — so large, and such 

 a beauty ! Her bees are very yellow, and are pret- 

 tier than my neighbors' best, which are produced by 

 a tested queen. I have two young black queens 

 which are producing hybrid bees — thanks to my 

 neighbors' Italian drones. Harvey C. Ware. 



Port Byron, N. Y., Sept. 18, 1883. 



