216 



THF BEE-KEEFERS' REPi£.W, 



the road these ingredients are plentifully 

 mixed with the secretion of the glands men- 

 tioned. Very decided results follow. The 

 dross is left behind somehow ; and lo, there 

 is regurgitated royal jelly fit for use — white, 

 wonderful and peculiar. 



There is another theory possible, however, 

 which would allow for the presence of the 

 charcoal in that royal jelly: and at the risk 

 of being ground to death betwee • the upper 

 and nether millstones of Cook and Cheshire, 

 I will give it. We might suppose that mat- 

 ters proceed "thusly ": (1) A chyme some- 

 what resembling larval food always being 

 produced for the bee's own nutriment, and 

 capable of being regurgitated. (2) A much 

 richer food secreted by these glands, or not 

 secreted, as the conditions of the hive re- 

 quire. (3) Mixture of these two foods (not 

 always in the same proportion) taking place 

 while the first is being passed up for use. 

 But as the richest food of all, the royal jelly, 

 has some of the ordinary chyme mixed in it, 

 some particles of charcoal will appear when 

 such are fed. I think some microscopist has 

 informed us that in the food of the oldest 

 larvae some broken pollen shells can be 

 seen. That is, food preparation is hurried, 

 and the process which corresponds to filter- 

 ing is partly omitted. Into this bulkiest 

 food we may suppose that very little gland 

 secretion is mixed. And I have a sneaking 

 notion that the glands have an attachment, 

 quite small in relative size, which the anat- 

 omists have not found yet ; this attachment 

 bearing somewhat the same relation to the 

 main gland that the spermatheca does to the 

 ovaiy; that the bee has similar voluntary 

 control over it; that it secretes small quan- 

 tities of a tremendously powerful stimulant: 

 and that this stimulant is voluntarily turned 

 on when queen rearing is in progress, and 

 withheld at other times. 



Woodchopper affirms that bees will bite 

 open cappings when there are unsealed cells 

 within a half inch of them. Gleanings l!t4. 

 This rubs my notions the wrong way, and I 

 wish 1 knew more about it. Perhaps he 

 viewed the comb after the bees were all off 

 it, without considering the circumstances 

 under which it was done. 'Spect the spot 

 was jammed solid with bees at the time, 

 driven down by smoke, and the bees that 

 tore the holes totally unable to go that half 

 inch. He notes also that the year nfler a wet 

 season is usually a good honey year, and the 

 year after a dry season usually a poor honey 



year, apart from the character of the year 

 itself. Something in it, quite possibly. 



George Z. Vinal says he does not guess at 

 all but, keeping full records of every hive, 

 he knows that late reared queens are better 

 than early reared ones. Gleanings 233. 



C. Davenport did a good thing when he 

 made a profit out of honey lemonade at a 

 celebration when others selling sugar lemon- 

 ade hardly paid expenses. Gleanings 234. 

 The usual circus and celebration lemonade 

 is not very hard to beat. He who finds an 

 outlet for a pound of honey where none went 

 before deserves well of our craft. 



F. A. Salisbury fed an apiary $9.5.00 worth 

 of sugar by stimulative feeding to have them 

 better prepared for the honey harvest. The 

 result was that an apiary near by which was 

 not so fed did better — stronger in bees, 

 earlier in swarming, and stored more honey. 

 Gleanings 23S. He also reports that syrup 

 made by the cold process does not granulate 

 either in the comb or out, as does that made 

 by boiling. 



Not so near to success in sending queens 

 to Australia as I thought. H. L. .Jones re- 

 ports on fourteen queens from the Roots, 

 eight dead and six living: on eleven queens 

 from several other breeders, ten dead and 

 one living. (Cleanings 'X\'>. 



C. H. Dibbern gives tongue, in Gleanings 

 32.'), to remark that a strange silence has 

 settled on the self-hiver of late. Yes, that's 

 go. Most of the boys must have got tired 

 fussing with it. The best approximation to 

 the self-hiver is to hive them yourself. 



On page 322 of Gleanings Prof. Cook and 

 Ernest Root wrestle with the problem of 

 fixing a case of comb honey so that ants and 

 all insects big and small will be positively 

 excluded. This is a problem pretty well up 

 iu importance. The hopeful idea finally 

 reached is that paraffine paper can be so cut 

 and so folded that a properly heated flat iron 

 will seal it. 



G. F. Merriam, Gleanings 323, has raised 

 raisins by the carload and honey in thirty- 

 ton lots the same year: consequently he is a 

 rare individual to talk on the bee versus 

 grape question. According to him the loss 

 to the raisin grower is not very serious. 

 (The man who didn't own the bees would 

 say he lost half his crop.) A cloud of bees 

 like a small swarm follows the pickers all 

 day and goes for each newly picked box. 

 But as soon as the juice which rough 

 handling has started around the stems is 



