3i8 



THB BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



the queen (given meanwnile) began to 

 lay. It was twenty-one days later before 

 any young bees appeared, and fully 

 another week before they were hatching 

 rapidly. About a week before the first 

 brood began to hatch I gave the colony 

 some broken combs to repair, but much 

 to my surprise almost nothing was done 

 towards such work, and what little was 

 done, was done with old wax — no new 

 wax appearing — and during this time the 

 queen was laying in these combs, one of 

 which was broken from the top bar and 

 was loose and shaky. Honey and pollen 

 were coming in slowly and they had a 

 good supply stored. Now note: When 

 the young bees become fairly abundant 

 these combs were quickly repaired and 

 with new new wax, and this with a de- 

 creasing honey flow, in fact almost none. 



It will be noticed that when the broken 

 combs were given, the youngest bees in 

 1 he colony were at least thiity days old. 

 Prof. Cook and others have shown that 

 old bees do secrete wax, and when forced 

 do build comb, but I believe that it is the 

 young bees that usually do the wax secre- 

 ting and comb building, and on whom we 

 must depend for comb in sections, Mr. 

 J. H. Martin (Rambler), in a recent let- 

 ter, corroborates in a measure my opin- 

 ion. I have had several similar experi- 

 ences, but none so conclusive, as none 

 were so long without brood. 



May not some of the differing results 

 obtained in large and small hives and at- 

 tributed to the size of the hive, have been 

 due more to the greater proportion of 

 young bees than to the size of the hive ? 

 May not also "watery" cappings be due 

 to a scarcity of young bees ? It is too 

 late in the season for me to follow this 

 up by experiments, but perhaps some of 

 the Southern bee-keepers can throw 

 some light upon it before next spring. 

 Providp:nce, R. I. Sept. i8, 1900. 



[Since the foregoing was put it type - 

 the following from Mr. Miller has come 

 to hand. — I'^D.] 



In Gleanings for October ist. in their 

 department of "Pickings," you will find 



an article of Mr. Greiner's relating to the 

 characteristics of various races of bees, 

 and the comments thereon. I think this 

 goes to prove the theory which I set forth 

 in a recent communication to j'ou. It 

 would be interesting to know the size of 

 hive and system of management used by 

 Mr. Greiner, as well as the honey resour- 

 ces of his locality. From some experi- 

 ments that I have had with the Carnio- 

 lans I believe they need a very large hive, 

 and that then the swarming tendency is 

 the least and the effect of a large quan- 

 tity of young bees is most strongly felt. 

 Perhaps we are on the right track to a 

 solution of some of the puzzles of the 

 trade. What do you think? 



In your editorial of some months ago, 

 relating to my experiments on the dev'-el- 

 opment of laying workers, you used the 

 expression that if we "were sure that no 

 effort had been made to rear queens," the 

 evidence there would seem to be conclu- 

 sive. I wish to inform you that the col- 

 ony I selected for that purpose had a 

 young and vigorous queen of the previous 

 season's raising, and had made no effort 

 towards rearing a queen prior to the time 

 of the experiment. 



Yours very truly, 



■ Arthur C. Miller. 



OVING A CARLOAD OF 

 BEES IN NOVEMBER. 

 BY JOHN D. BIXBY. 



Noticing an inquiry in one of 

 the bee-journals in regard to moving 

 bees in cold weather, I submit the fol- 

 lowing experience. 



1 n Noveniber last I moved 46 colonies 

 from northern Iowa to Saratoga Co., N 

 Y.; a distance of over 11 00 miles. We 

 began loading the car Nov. iSth. and fin- 

 ished unloading Nov. 28th, after a three- 

 mile haul by .vagon, making 11 days dur- 

 ing which the bees were more or less 

 disturbed; the actual time occupied in 

 transit by rail being 4>^ days. 



