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CILEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Dec. 15 



Honey is always sea^onalile,and. If properly kept, 

 never deteriorates in quality. Get in with the 

 crowd who use it every day. 



about 20 cents a pound for butter if you want that 

 which you know Is good, and use it right along ev- 

 ery day because yoii like it. 



You probably like honey too, but have an idea it 

 is too expensive to use every day. You can buy 

 the best honey on the market for 10 cents a pound. 

 That's not very expensive, is it? Get a can. 



REDUCE EXPENSES 



never so little, and you will soon find your " cash 

 balance" increasing. One of the most expensive 

 articles of food that everybody uses every day is 

 butter. Good butter costs 20 cents a pound. You 

 won't want much butter if you eat honey with your 

 bread. Good honey costs 10 cents a pound — ju.st 

 half the price of butter. 



There are many other phases of the honey 

 question that can he dealt with in this same 

 way: for instance, the proper care of honey; 

 the difference between good and inferior 

 grades; and why the difYerence exists; hon- 

 ey from different flowers; how nectar is 

 gathered, stored, and ripened in the hives; 

 how it is extracted, etc., interspersed with 

 little items of natural history of the bee, 

 and such subjects. It is an easy matter to 

 get out one advertisement a week for a j'ear, 

 or almost indefinitely, for that matter, once 

 the idea is grasped, and the interest they 

 will arouse in your business, and the extent 

 to which lliey will increase the demand for 

 your honey will keep on growing so long as 

 the advertisements are run, provided your 

 honey is of the quality it should be before 

 you should think of advertising it. And 

 you can command a price for your honey 

 from one to three cents a pound above that 

 obtained by any tramp honey which may 

 be on your local market at the same time. 

 Your educational campaign will, to a cer- 

 tain extent, stimulate the demand for this 

 latter grade too, which, however, is no det- 

 riment to you, but rather the reverse. The 

 main object is to get the public started us- 

 ing honey. They will then soon learn to 

 demand the be!»t. 



Cobalt, Ontario. 



DO THE BEES' LARV^ CAP THEIR OWN 

 CELLS? 



BY E. M'CIJLLOUGIT. 



I should like to take issue with the seem- 

 ingly undisputed statement that the bees 

 cap their brood, by stating that 1 think the 

 larvae do the capping themselves; that is, 

 that the capping is a part of the cocoon it- 

 self. I say "1 think," for I have never seen 

 the larva in the act, although I have en- 

 deavored for two years to do so, and, for that 

 matter, I have not seen the bees in the act 

 of building the cappings, except in one in- 

 stance — that of building the wax tip on a 

 queen-cell, which was already capped with 

 that fibrous material peculiar to cell-cap- 

 ping before the waxwork began. My theo- 

 ry is, therefore, based on circumstantial evi- 

 dence, if I may use the term, and will try to 

 prove my point by the following: 



1. It is unreasonable to prestime that the 

 bee larva would depart from the ordinary 

 procedure of insect larva in spinning a co- 

 coon open at one end, to be completed from 

 without. 



2. The texture of the capping is the same 

 as that of the cocoon in the sides and bot- 

 tom of the cell. I doubt if the mature bee 

 can produce this material. 



3. The capping is an integral part of the 

 cocoon. I have proved this by being able 

 to remove the entire cocoon from a cell by 

 grasping the ragged edge of the capping of 

 a cell from which a young bee had just 

 emerged, and pulling it out. 



4. I read in the ABC book that "Bees, 

 like other folks, sometimes make mistakes; 

 for they do not seem to know any better 

 than to use a drone larva for rearing a queen 

 if such happens to be present." 



This indicates to me that bees do not 

 know the sex of their larvae. If this is true, 

 why do they treat a drone larva in a queen- 

 cell as a queen larva, but treat a drone larva 

 in a worker-cell as a drone larva by building 

 the raised cap over it? ISIy answer is, that 

 the larva does the capping' itself, and with 

 a cap peculiar to its kind. 



That the -queen larva caps itself, I am 

 pretty certain, the bees building on the wax 

 tip afterward. Why should the worker and 

 drone larva not do the same? 



I further notice in the ABC book that 

 bees sometimes leave their young uncapped; 

 but Dr. Miller, in a note, says, "I have ob- 

 served somewhat closely for years, and I 

 think these bees are .bareheaded because 

 worms have eaten the cappings." So this 

 proves nothing against my theory. 



While I have this idea pretty well fixed in 

 my mind, I am ojien to conviction. 



Pittsburg, Pa. 



[We are afraid that your conclusions are 

 not entirely correct, although partially so. 

 Cheshire {Bees and Bee-keeping, Vol. I., 

 pp, 174, 175) explains that the cappings over 

 the brood are made of debris, including pol- 

 len grains, etc., bound together with shreds 

 of wax (all this showing under the micro- 

 scope). On the inner side of this complex 

 capping, the cocoon threads, forming a net- 

 work, catch on the prominences of the wax 

 shreds or pollen grains. The bees, then, do 

 the capping, but the larvae spin the ends of 

 the cocoons inside. Your observation in re- 

 gard to the queen larva is substantially cor- 

 rect, and very much the same is true, ap- 

 parently, in the case of worker larvae. — Ed.] 



How to Keep Royal Jelly Fresh. 



How long will royal jelly stay fresh or keep good 

 in a ciueen-cell for the purpose of transferring to a 

 Queen-cell cup? Does it have to be kept warm, and 

 used the same da.v, or can it be kept for a tew days 

 and used when it is cold? 



Fruitvale, Cal. L,. R. Green. 



[Royal jelly should be used as soon as possible 

 after being taken from the hive, for it turns rancid 

 very quickly. "We have known of queen-breeders 

 who kept cells of royal jelly over night by sticking 

 the end of each cell together to keep out the air and 

 then placing them in a warm room. We can not rec- 

 ommend this practice, however, as it stands to rea- 

 son that th'? fresh food would be better. — Ed.] 



