232 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



my guess as to who was trying hardest to 

 push up the quality of his strain of bees. 

 You may guess whether I guessed right. I 

 believe Nellis sent the prettiest bees, Foster 

 the grandest looking queen, and Hutchinson 

 a good second. 



We have as yet much uncertainty and 

 misinformation as to what is needed to 

 build up and keep up a superior strain of 

 bees; but the man who honestly tries to ac- 

 complish something is the man to encour- 

 age. The man whose method begins and 

 ends with "Get an imported queen, and 

 keep the black drones killed off." isn't the 

 fellow — providing I am to be judge. 



And how about those new races of bees 

 that come hum-buzzing around so frequently 

 — at ten dollars a buzz? As in the case of a 

 worthless new strawberry or apple, the ven- 

 der can describe a new bee so that it seems 

 as if there was none like it in all the earth, 

 and without telling any absolute fibs, either. 

 On general principles it is wiser not to buy 

 unless one has plenty of cash to pay for ex- 

 perience. If you wish to exercise discrim- 

 ination, and buy just once in a while, let me 

 whisper in your ear a little secret. When a 

 new bee is trumpeted, that builds 50, or 100, 

 or 300 queen cells at a single batch, give the 

 critter as wide a berth as you would an 

 oriental plague. When the bee comes over 

 that can hardly be coaxed to build more than 

 four or five, and builds them extra well in- 

 dented and large, take that one. If I am 

 right the restriction of motherhood to one 

 individual in a colony is one of the last and 

 most precious of insect developments. This 

 specially valuable development appears to 

 be among the first to backslide and degen- 

 erate, when degeneracy comes on. In other 

 words, the voluntary building of an extra 

 number of queen cells, with an accompany- 

 ing increase of the fertile worker nuisance, 

 is a tolerably sure sign of a degenerate bee — 

 an atavism— a slipping back toward the 

 primeval condition when as many perfect 

 females were produced as perfect males. I 

 believe this rule of judgment also holds 

 good in deciding between different strains 

 of the same race, and between different 

 families in the same apiary. Encourage the 

 ones that build only a very few fine cells, if 

 improvement is what you are after. 



•' Sept. 10th. Proof that workers stinp drones. 

 At 5-7, where slaughter is going on, I found a 

 worker fastened by the sting to a drone. The 

 spot penetrated was the front of the thorax 

 near the head. On being taken up the worker 

 pulled so hard as to tear out its viscera, as in 

 stingmg the hand. 



What creatures we all are, to be sure ! 

 On seeing a pile of dead and dying drones 

 we say the cruel females have stung them to 

 death. On discovery that drones are usually 

 killed without being stung, then it is never, 

 never — " Workers never sting a drone." 

 Same of queens stinging workers, and work- 

 ers stinging queens. O for a little more of 

 the celestial grace that enables people to 

 pronounce the difficult word "sometimes." 



Sept. 11th. Experiment at feeding to get 

 partly finished sections completed. Placing 

 some such over the colony 1-4 1 set 3 or 4 pounds 

 of honey, mostly uncapped, outside the entrance. 

 The sun was perhaps 3-4 of an hour high, but the 

 bees were not flying, except a few coming home. 

 Very quickly they began to take wing and to 

 rob the weak colony that stood beside them. 

 Tliey made such a stir that other bees were 

 aroused and adjacent hives had to be covered 

 up." 



I believe I modified my style of feeding to 

 make it quieter and safer, and continued to 

 feed for several days. All the honey I fed 

 them they either wasted or stored below, 

 and I soon discontinued the experiment as 

 a failure. This part of my experimental 

 education is still defective. Quite possibly 

 I might have succeeded had I kept trying; 

 but of late I have been so happy as to have 

 but few uncapped sections at the close of the 

 season. It's nice to succeed in overcoming 

 a difficulty— but nicer yet not to have the 

 difficulty to overcome. Feeding just outside 

 the entrance seems to be almost always a 

 failure with me. The little Yankees want 

 to "annex" the plunder instead of carrying 

 it off, and will frequently move but little of 

 it; and a smoker battle is required to make 

 them go back into the hive where they be- 

 long. 



I think this was the first I knew this 

 strong colony had been robbing its weak 

 neighbor. When bees loaded with honey 

 begin to come in many of the outgoing ones 

 entirely ignore their eyesight in favor of a 

 mental conclusion that a successful attack 

 must have been made at the place where 

 they knew some pilfering had been going 

 on. It is curious to observe so high a degree 

 of mental power joined with so flagrant a 

 lack of common observation. Bees are al- 

 ways doing this — rushing where they got 

 honey last, and neglecting the obvious pres- 

 ent supply. This trait can be turned to 

 good account. It is a good plan to establish 

 at some conspicuous stand a Robbers' Ex- 

 change, to wit, an empty hive with a very 

 small entrance, in which a little waste honey 

 is put from time to time. Then if any mis- 

 chief is going on anywhere it will be made 



