18913 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



13 



ed ? And as to size, can not a small pony be 

 crossed with the largest race of horses'? or our 

 common hen with a China rooster? To be sure, 

 Apis dorsata does not build its comb as our 

 bees do. It makes only one large wheel-shaped 

 comb which it attaches to the branch of a 

 tree, or below some projecting rock. It also 

 leaves its home and migrates when nectar is 

 missing; but all this hardly excludes the possi- 

 bility of a crossing. Therefore Mr Graven- 

 horst thinks that the thing should be tried, as 

 the result might be of great practical as well as 

 scientific importance. 



DOES THE FOOD AFFECT THE TEMPER OF BEES ? 



It is a mooted question among bee-keepers, 

 as to whether the food which is given to the 

 larvfeof a colony determines their character; 

 or, in other words, whether the larvaj from a 

 gentle queen, when placed in and fed by a 

 vicious colony, will become less gentle, and 

 vice versa. Mr. Bertrand formerly believed in 

 this kind of so-called " heredity," but he takes 

 it all back now, after experimenting in this line 

 with his gray Caucasian queen. He selected a 

 very bad and vindictive colony of his, killed 

 their queen, and replaced her by the Caucasian 

 queen on the 24th of August, 1894. She laid 

 splendidly, and her colony was the strongest 

 and most advanced of all in April, 1895. And 

 her bees? well, they were remarkably gentle; 

 and, although Mr. Bertrand never used any 

 smoke or veil when he worked wiih them, yet 

 he never received a solitary sling from them. 

 The experiment, of course, is only a single in- 

 stance, and " one swallow does not make a 

 summer;" yet Mr. Bertrand's prior opinion is 

 thoroughly shaken by it. The force of the 

 argument, I might add, is increased by the fact 

 that these foreign races, when transferred to 

 other countries, often Jose their gentleness. 

 The Egyptian bee, for instance, hardly ever 

 uses its sting " at home," while, when taken to 

 Europe, it becomes very bad (Revue, 1894, page 

 311). 



NOMENCLATURE OF QUEEN-CELLS 



The other day, when rambling through some 

 back numbers of Gleanings my eye struck, 

 and I reread, quite a thorough article from Dr. 

 Miller's pen on "Queen-cells of two Kinds;" 

 viz., such as are constructed before the eggs are 

 laid in them, and such as are constructed into 

 queen-cells after the eggs are laid. The for- 

 mer are built as queen-cells by the bees from the 

 start, and called pre- constructed cells by the 

 doctor. The latter are worker cells which are 

 changed, widened, transformed into queen- 

 cells, and called post constructed cells by him. 

 It is important for the bee-keeper to know and 

 notice the difference; and, in this particular, 

 you, in a foot-note of some length, fully agree 

 with the doctor; but you object to the terms 

 " pre-constructed " and post-constructed," as 

 you are "rather opposed to the use of Latin 



prefixes in the coinage of new words that could 

 not be understood by the general reading pub- 

 lic." Now, leaving out the questionableness or 

 non-questionableness of this argument of yours 

 there might be some other reason or reasons 

 that could be preferred against said terms. 

 One of them seems to be their length. Ameri- 

 cans like short words and expressions, and 

 those two terms are decidedly too long, provid- 

 ed shorter ones can be given in their stead. At 

 first I thought whether it might not do to say 

 " pre-cells " and post-cells." But then your 

 objecting to the use of Latin prefixes! When 

 thinking the thing over, all at once two words 

 rose before my mind — the words "forenoon 

 and "afternoon," and then came the words 

 "forethought," "afterthought;" "forepart," 

 ■■ afterpart," etc. So I ask you. as well as the 

 doctor. Shall we not name said cells "fore- 

 cells " and " aftercells " ? 

 [Tills would be better.— Ed.] 



AN " INFALLIBLE " METHOD OF INTRODUCING 

 QUEENS. 



Do you want to learn an infallible method of 

 introducing queens? Well, according to the No- 

 vember issue of the Leipzlger Bienenzeitumj, 

 Dr. Metelli, that well-known Italian bee-mas- 

 ter, pretends lo know and practice one. First he 

 prepares the colony which is to receive the 

 queen. If they have neither queen nor brood, 

 the bees are contracted in the brood-nest on as 

 few combs as possible, the upper story is emp- 

 tied of its honey frames, and the two stories 

 are separated by a bee-tight wire net, such as 

 can be removed without difficulty. If they have 

 any brood (even unripe queen -cells) it is not 

 removed, but they are likewise contracted in 

 the brood-nest. If they have a queen, the 

 same is laken away, and care had lest another 

 laying or virgin queen be present; then con- 

 traction as above takes place. Second: Now 

 two or three brood-combs, with the queen and 

 all the adhering bees — the more the better — are 

 removed from another colony and hung in the 

 upper story, with the addition of two empty 

 combs (containing, if needs be, a little pollen 

 and honey), one on either side of them. After 

 48 hours, the wire net is removed. After 48 

 hours more, the frames from the upper 

 story are hung down in the brood-nest, the 

 queen having descended quite often ere this. 

 The upper brood-frames, without the queen, of 

 course, may afterward be returned to their 

 former hive. If the colony is a drone-laying 

 one, more care is required. All the combs must 

 be removed so that no eggs can be laid, and the 

 colony be jiut in "swarming condition." Then 

 when the queen, etc., are put in the upper 

 story, the lower colony clings to the wire net in 

 the shape of a swarm. After 48 hours the net is 

 removed, and, after two days more, the frames 

 are taken down to the brood-room. In all of 

 these cases the queen is never hindered in lay- 



