604 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUilE. 



Dec. 



hive, I shall be glad to buy a book, even if I have to 

 pay a good price for the same. 



G. M. DOOLITTLK. 



Borodino, N. Y., Nov , 1882. 



1 can indorse about all yon recommend in 

 regard to getting good queen-cells, friend D., 

 and also what you say about getting them as 

 you want them ; but'l wish to consider a lit- 

 tle the matter of friend Alley's invention. 

 The paper you allude to was sent me before 

 it appeared in the Kansas Bee -Keeper, but I 

 at once wrote friend Fond why I could not 

 consistently publisli it. In the first place, it 

 described in glowing terms an invention 

 friend Alley has made, without telling what 

 the invention is. The spirit of modern bee 

 culture, and the greater part of our journals, 

 has been, I believe, to im])art knowledge. 

 To write up a thing and describe its good 

 points, and tiien coolly inform your readers 

 that it is a secret, savors too much of the pa- 

 pers that commence some startling romance, 

 and then, just when the great plot fairly 

 opens, cooliy inform the readers they must 

 buy a hool\ to know the rest of it ! I know 

 that friend Pond in his description did not 

 intend this, for I, of all others, have had rea- 

 son to know him as one who wishes to be 

 fair and honorable to all. If friend Alley 

 gives us a book such as you mention, detail- 

 ing his large experience, it will form a valu- 

 able addition to our stock of bee literature ; 

 but if it is to be but a small pamphlet de- 

 voted principally to giving the matter in 

 question, and sold for a dollar, or such a 

 matter, and enjoining secrcsy on each pur- 

 chaser, I fear it' will meet with small patron- 

 age from our bee-keepers. At the conven- 

 tion in Cincinnati, some one suggested that 

 there was a man who would cure any case 

 of foul brood for a certain sum. but refused 

 to make known the process. The decision 

 was at once almost unanimous, that no good 

 thing ever comes in that way. Prof. Cook 

 and J)r. Miller both declared it had been the 

 universal experience in horticulture, as well 

 as bee culture, that the man who has some- 

 thing valuable to commmiicate, but who de- 

 mands adollar or some othersum before mak- 

 ing it known, always turns out to be either 

 ignorant or bad ; and my experience lias been 

 that he is generally both. All that is valuable 

 in any science is to be found in our books 

 and papers very soon after its discovery, and 

 I would caution our readers against sending 

 Mr. Alley, or anybody else, money for any 

 book until it has" been reviewed and recom- 

 mended by our leading journals. 



DRONES FROM WORKER EGGS. 



THE VEXED QUESTION AGAIN. 



^^jlNCEI wrote last, I have been experimenting 

 ^|» somewhat relative to that narrated on page 

 ' 551, Nov. No., and I find that things do not 

 work the same way under all circumstances. In the 

 first place I have, I am cirtain, seen black drones 

 hatch out around grafted queen-cellfi,wh>^n the eggs 

 were originally pure Italian. But in my last experi- 

 ments above mentioned, instead of having black 

 drones to hatch, I had no drones at all, though there 

 were not less than a dozen drone-cells sealed around 

 the grafted queen-cell, and every one of these colls 



hatched perfect workers. This, however, is some- 

 thing that never passed my observation before, and 

 I do believe that a great many of u3 would have 

 witnessed this before had we been a little closer in 

 our observation of these unnatural drone-cells. 

 Now, in my article above referred to I suggested 

 that these drones were the result of fertile workers. 

 But fi'iend True (see p. 491) seems to have " bu'^ted " 

 this theory completely; yet it is possible that friend 

 True is not true — that is (begging his pardon), he 

 might be mistaken. He says, " These eggs will pro- 

 duce pure drones." Well, I doubt not that he has 

 seen pure drones in blacK colonies, and thought they 

 got therein that way; but to illustrate how he might 

 possiDlybe mistaken,! will relate this: I once bought 

 a Cyprian queen of friend Pianagan; and one day 

 in her colony of bees I noticed more black drones 

 than Cyprians. It "stumped" me a little at first, 

 but I soon understood matters; the Cyprian queen 

 being the only one of her race on the grounds, I 

 soon found drones of her progeny in several other 

 hives; proving that the drones of the apiary mix up 

 among the different hives more than I thought of. 

 Now, I want to say here, that I mean to try again 

 and again, until I do get drones to hatch around a 

 grafted cell. I intend to watch them hatch too, and 

 see just what kind of drones they loill be. 



Now allow me to make a suggestion: When thei-e 

 are drones hatched around grafted cells, it is the 

 work of a fertile worker, and friend True's drones 

 were either from an Italian fertile worker, or else 

 they were from some other hive. When the bees at- 

 tempt to raise drones from the original eggs around 

 the grafted cells, they hatch out workers, just as 

 they would have hatched. Now let me appeal to the 

 memory of a few of you, and yours especially, Mr. 

 Root: Have you not grafted cells, and, on looking 

 at them a day or two afterward, found all the eggs 

 and larvaj gone except that in the queen-cells start- 

 ed? have you not also seen drones hatched around 

 these queens? I have followed the plan of grafting 

 cells altogether in raising queens, and I have noticed 

 this very fact repeatedly. Chas. Kingsley. 



Greene ville, Tenn., Nov., 1883. 



I can certify to your last point, friend K. 

 I have a great many times wondered to find 

 the eggs and larvee near the queen-cells rniss- 

 ing; but yet I can hardly see how it is we 

 did not notice fresh eggs, and that they were 

 so much behind the rest of the brood. By 

 the way, do you not mean inserted queen-cells 

 where you use the term *•' grafted " so much? 

 The matter is not ended yet, however, as you 

 wall see by the following letters : — 



THE chain of evidence, AND THAT WEAK SPOT 

 REPAIRED. 



In the center of a large barren waste, a tiny acorn 

 dropped, perhaps by Providence ; it was lifted 

 up from mother Earth, the germ of a mighty 

 oak, and the sun in his burning glory for a time was 

 hid from view by a dark ff reboding cloud, and the 

 earth around the oakling was deluged with water. 

 But by and by the cloud disappeared, and the sun's 

 cheering rays shone forth once more. As time 

 swept on, the little oakling grew to a small tree, and 

 the mighty winds from the four corners of the 

 heavens congregated together here, and blew a blast 

 that made the earth fairly shiver in . her warm 

 winter robe; but the oak stood firm, and the tempest 

 only caused it to strike its roots deeper into the 

 earth, and spread its branches wider in the heavens. 

 As it grew to be larger, it bore fruit of its kind. 



