108 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Feb. 15 



a distance through a tin conductor, a strain- 

 er is innispensable. Many producers, to 

 save handling, do use such a conductor from 

 the stiainer to the settling-tank. You will 

 remember that Mr. Alexander conveyed his 

 honey from the extraciing-house ihrou^ih a 

 tin pipe on a slight downward grade to a 

 large tank some distance away. As he pro- 

 duced mainly buckwheat honey, or buck- 

 wheat mixed with aster, a aark honej like 

 this does not need a settling-tank neaily to 

 the extent that a light honey dot s. 



Queens reared late in the summer or early 

 fall may not be the equal of thooe reared 

 early in the season; but there is no reason 

 why they may not be just as gi od, providing 

 the ctll-buiJdmg colonies are fed liberally 

 during the time when the cells are bemg 

 supplied with royal jelly. But this is not alL 

 Liberal feeding alone will not produce strong 

 vigorous queens. A colony must be put into 

 condition where it will be queeniess and 

 broodless — that is, fairly crj^* for a queen be- 

 fore it will do its best work in cell- starting 

 and cell-building. An up-to-da^e queen- 

 breeder who knows these tricks of the trade 

 can, if he chooses, furnisli just as good 

 >queens in late summer as during the early 

 part of the season; but the probabilities are 

 that the average queen-breeder does noc fur- 

 nish late-summer stock that is equal in ev- 

 ery respect to that which is reared earlier 

 when conditions naturally are more iavora- 

 ble. It is too much work. — Ed.] 



DO BEES STEAL EGGS? 



Laying Queens that Developed from Stol- 

 en tggs. 



BY E. C. FRAZIER. 



On page 780, Dec. 15, 1 find some assertions 

 made by Mr. Samuel Simmins, with which 

 very few practical bee-keepers of America 

 will agree. I am very certain that at one 

 time I Knew of bees stealing eggs. Of course 

 I did not see the act accompKshed, but I will 

 explain. 



In the year 1879 I lived at Sacramento, 

 McLean Co., Ky., the first time I tried to use 

 movable frame hives. I first bought a farm 

 right to make and use the N. C. Mitchell 

 "Long-idea" movable frames. I made mv 

 own hives and frames, and, what a fit! and, 

 of course, being green, for I had never seen 

 a comb transfeired, I mashed bees, combs, 

 and a queen. I transferred five hives for 

 myself that season. I killed one queen in 

 transferring, and knew when I did it. In 

 handling the comb I mashed her accidentally; 

 and when I ran the bees into the hew hive 1 

 dropped the dead queen down between the 



* By this we mean put up a roar of distress — distress 

 for wnat seems to be a hopeless condition. When a 

 bar of freshly grafted celis is given, their chyle-^e- 

 creting glands being surcharged because there has 

 been no brood to feed, they inimediately jam the cells 

 with chyle food. A well-fed baby has an immense ad- 

 vantage over one that was poorly fed at the start, 

 whether it be an insect or animal. 



frames of comb. The next morning she was 

 pulled out on the alighting-board Those 

 were the brown German bees. 



Mr. Mitchell taught in his books that, if 

 there were eggs or very young brood, the 

 bees would raise a queen; but these bees did 

 not do it. I left the colony alo e for some 

 time, as it was very strong. In the mean- 

 time I had sent for two pure Italian queens. 

 When these came I clipped them ana intro- 

 duced them in two of the hives, and in due 

 time I had Italian bees flying from both hives; 

 and now comes the strange part to me. The 

 colony whose queen I mashed was dwindling. 

 I examined it and found all the brood hatch- 

 ed with the exception of some drone brood 

 in worker cells. I closed the hive after look- 

 ing through it, and examined the rest of the 

 hives that day; but in a few days I went back 

 to the queeniess hive and opened it again; 

 and, imagine my surprise when, on the edge 

 of a comb, I found a fresh queen cell about 

 half-finished with royal jelly in the bottom, 

 and a young larva floating in the jelly. I 

 hastily closed the hive and beat a retreat in 

 double-quick time, as I had no veil or gloves. 



Surprise No. 2 came in about three weeks. 

 My father was at my house, and we were out 

 looking at the bees, when he sa d: " Ras, you 

 have a fine queen in that hive; look! Isn't 

 she a beauty?" And she was as pretty an 

 Italian queen as one would wish to see. She 

 had come out to mate. In about 20 minutes 

 she alighted on the ahghting-board and went 

 into the hive with a white-looking thiead at- 

 tached to her. 



About a month after that time, father and I 

 looked into the hive where we saw the young 

 queen enter, and there were several young 

 Italian bees crawling over the combs, and a 

 nice lot of brood, capped and uncapped, and 

 eggs in the hive. I told father about the hive 

 being queeniess, and he said, "Oh! they stole 

 an egg from one of the other hives; they some- 

 times do that." 



The two Italian queens I bought were the 

 first and only ones brought into that country 

 at that time and for some time after. 



I wish to ask Mr. Simmins and other bee- 

 keepers some questions: 



Did you or any other practical bee-keeper 

 ever know or hear of the eggs of a la>ing 

 worker hatching any thing but a drone? Mr. 

 Simmins says, "lean see no other possible 

 explanation than that laying workers are re- 

 sponsible." Now, I have taken ihe young 

 larvae from as many as half a dozen queen- 

 cells, and replaced them with eggs of the 

 laying worker, and all from one cell, and 

 drones developed in them every time. The 

 experiment was tried on a hive that had cast 

 a prime swarm two days before, while I 

 have tried the same experiment three or 

 four times with the same results. A bird or 

 fowl of the female sex can and does lay eggs 

 without the male; but all know the eggs will 

 not hatch; but the laying-woiker bee can 

 and does lay eggs that natch drones; which, 

 however, are useless because they can not 

 fertilize a queen-bee. If any one thinks they 

 can, let him winter a hive or two of them 



