298 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



September 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT 



First Nat'I Bank Bldg., Hamilton, III. 



Entered as second-class matter at the 

 Hamilton, Illinois, PostofHce. 



C. P. Dadant, Editor. 



Dr. C. C. Miller, Associate Editor. 



Frank C. Pellett, Staff Correspondent. 



IMPORTANT NOTICE 



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THE WRAPPER LABEL DATE indicates 

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 1917. 



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(Copyright: 1917, by C. P. Dadant.) 



THE EDITOR*S VIEWPOINT 



Our Front Cover 



The picture on our front cover rep- 

 resents a modern apiary in the 

 province of Kutais, on the south 

 slope of the Caucasus mountains. It 

 is one of the photos kindly sent to 

 us by the Caucasian Beekeepers' As- 

 sociation. 



It may interest our readers to learn 

 that the province of Kutais is the 

 Colchis of ancient history. Those 

 who are acquainted with the stories 

 of mythology will remember Jason 

 and the Argonauts invading Colchis 

 for the conquest of the Golden 

 Fleece, so famed among the poets, 

 and their return with the magician 

 beauty, Medea. 



According to the legends, Colchis 

 was not only a very rich country 

 from which the ancients secured 

 wheat, wine, cattle, horses, flax and 

 honey, but it was also the center of 

 an immense commerce. The rich 

 cloths of India and of Persia, the 

 silks of China, the iron and pelts of 



Siberia, came through the Caspian 

 sea (Hyrcanian sea) up the Cyrus 

 (Kour) river, into Colchis and were 

 from there shipped to the European 

 •countries through the Black sea 

 (Pontus Euxinus). So these rich 

 lands have a history that goes far 

 back of the Christian era. Since the 

 Russian revolution, they are coming 

 to the front again. 



The dark skin of the inhabitants 

 of a part of Kutais is said, according 

 to Herodotus, to be due to the im- 

 migration into that country, under 

 Sesostris, of a body of troops, from 

 lower Asia. 



The latitude of Kutais is about that 

 of Northern Illinois. 



Bibliography — Recognition Among 

 Insects — By Dr. N. E. Mclndoo 



This is publication No. 2443 of the 

 Smithsonian Collections. It is writ- 

 ten by Dr. Mclndoo, whom our read- 

 ers will remember by his remarkable 

 studies of the "scent organs" of the 



HIVES .MADE OF TREE TRUNKS AND BARK; GOURI, KUTAIS, RUSSIA. 



honeybees. (American Bee Journal, 

 June and July, 1916.) In this paper 

 Dr. Mclndoo gives an account of his 

 experiments proving the existence of 

 special odors among insects and spe- 

 cifically among the bees. His experi- 

 ments establish that "each hive of 

 bees has its own particular odor, and 

 when a colony is divided each por- 

 tion forms a hive odor different from 

 that of the other portion and also 

 different from the hive odor of any 

 other hive and probably diilerent 

 from that of the original hive, and 

 the new hive odor is formed gradu- 

 ally and is sufficiently different at 

 the end of the third day from that of 

 any other hive to cause total hostil- 

 ity." 



He holds, from his experiments, 

 what practical apiarists have long 

 claimed, "that the odors emitted by 

 the honeybee are the chief means of 

 recognition." 



This is therefore a confirmation of 

 the views held by non-scientific bee- 

 keepers based upon daily practice in 

 the apiary. If the question is asked: 

 How can bees change the odor of the 

 hive? we will reply: How could it be 

 otherwise? As soon as a swarm is 

 cast or a colony divided, there is a 

 change of conditions. The one hive 

 will have more honey, or more new 

 combs, or more old combs, or more 

 pollen, or perhaps it will have more 

 field workers bringing fresh odors, or 

 they may work upon a slightly differ- 

 ent harvest. Again, the hive or the 

 box itself may be of different struc- 

 ture, made of slightly different lum- 

 ber. We remember having had a 

 colony which emitted a very peculiar 

 smell when opening it and we won- 

 dered what caused this odor, until we 

 noticed that a very dark pine knot 

 produced it. A few more drones in 

 one colony, an older queen, a larger 

 quantity of pollen or pollen from 

 different blossoms, and numerous 

 other circumstances, added to the 

 combination of the bees' own odor 

 are sure to produce a different hive 

 odor, which is sometimes so percep- 

 tible that it is noted even by the api- 

 arist. Yet our perception of odors is 

 very much more blunt than that of 

 the bees. Everyone who has been a 

 producer of honey knows how quick- 

 ly they notice all odors which re- 

 semble those of the hive. 



We have long ago been convinced 

 that the presence of the queen in the 

 hive is constantly evidenced by the 

 queen-odor, which must be very plain 

 to them, for usually they recognize 



