1880 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



73 



heard of you a good many times, and your 

 customers all seem to write just that way. 

 Perhaps it has never occurred to you at all, 

 that patience and faithfulness iii business 

 will get out in time, but it has to me; and 

 now, if this little bit of praise should make 

 you proud and any the less faithful, 1 shall 

 be just a little mistaken in my estimate of 

 you; that is all. 



DOES A QUEEN LAY DRONE AND WORKER EGGS 

 ALTERNATELY? AND HOW? 



I have a few questions to ask you, as some of my 

 neighbors and myself cannot agree. Has tbe queeu, 

 in laying eg-g-s on a comb that has both drone and 

 worker cells, the power to lay a worker egg- in one 

 cell and pass on to a drone cell and there lay a drone 

 egg? or does she lay worker eggs until done, and 

 then drone eggs? As it is admitted by nearly all, 

 that a fertile worker lays drone eggs only, and an 

 unfertile queen also, the unfertile queen is about on 

 the same footing with a fertile worker. Now, the 

 question we want explained fully is, does a fertile 

 queen lay drone eggs at all? Did you ever see a 

 queen lay drone eggs? I opened a hive to-day, Jan. 

 9th, and found 3 nicely capped queen cells, and a 

 number of drone cells all cupped over, but no other 

 eggs or br.>od. The colony is very strong in bees, 

 but I found no queen, and don't know whet her there 

 is one or not. H. Bkkneman. 



East Uennantown, Wayne Co., Ind.,.Jan. 6, 1880. 



A queen does lay both drone and worker 

 eggs, and she lays one and then the other, 

 just as she happens to find cells. The ques- 

 tion as to how she should go right along with- 

 out seeming to bestow a thought on what she 

 is doing, and have one egg produce an insect 

 so widely different from all those produced 

 by the eggs she layed just before and just af- 

 ter it, is a puzzling one. Wagner, to account 

 for it, supposed that the size of the cells 

 might govern the matter by compressing her 

 body, and that she did not really know 

 whether she layed a fertilized egg or not; 

 but, since queens often lay eggs on comb 

 that is but little more than the base, as we 

 often see them on sheets of fdn., this com- 

 pression theory has been mostly abandoned. 

 Again, if she stops to think every time she 

 comes to a larger cell, why does she not of- 

 tener make mistakes? I am inclined to 

 think she decides the matter by a sort of in- 

 stinct, and without a thought, or anything 

 that could properly be called a thought. 

 Such operations are not uncommon, if I am 

 correct, in the animal and insect world. 



Sealed queen cells, in the winter, are al- 

 most positi ve evidence of queen lessness. As 

 it would hardly be possible for a queen to be 

 fertilized in winter, it will be of no use to 

 raise one now, but be sure to give them 

 some eggs in March, and again at intervals 

 of 111 days, until they can rear a fertile queen, 

 destroying any that prove to be drone layers. 

 It might be more profitable to purchase a 

 queen for them, if you choose. 



FREQUENT HANDLING: ; IS IT DETRIMENTAL? 



After reading, in the daily Tribune, a wonderful 

 account of how some one had made quite a huge 

 sum of money by keeping bees two years, I thought 

 I would see what I could do. So, last Bpring, I got 

 5 stands of bees for $.")U, ami new hives, fdn., books, 

 &o., to the amount of &57, the full cost of my start 

 thus being $-(7. Out of my 5 stands, 1 made ti new 

 ones, so that now I have 11 strong colonies, which, 

 thus far, have wintered very nicely. During the 

 summer and fall, I sold $64.50 worth of honey, both 

 Strained and comb. I think I should have had more 

 honey for market, if I had not kept bothering them 

 so much. I think I have been quite successful thus 



far, and hope I shall do better next year. My bees 

 are hybrids, and some are almost black. 



Dell Carver. 

 Denver, Col., Jan. 5, 18S0. 



And I am inclined to think, my friend, the 

 bothering was just why you did "do so well ; 

 for your report is an extremely good one for 

 a beginner. 



INTRODUCING CAGE FOR COLD WEATHER. 



I send you a cage for cold weather, or for any 

 other time. With the little wire and stick, you can 

 suspend it at any place you please in ihe hive, and 

 thus insure to a queen safety from chilling, by pla- 

 cing her among the brood, just where a casred queen 

 should alwa\s be when eaged in a hive. The hollow 

 wooden stopper is to be filled with candy, and kept 

 in its plaee by a tack. When an ordinary vial is 

 used. 1 put in a wooden stopper or cork with a 

 notch in one side; but with ihc <>ne I send >ou, no 

 cork is needed. Now I have still another casre 

 which I like batter. It consists simply of one vial 

 of wat r and one of honey, a stopper tilled with can- 

 dy, and a rectangular wire cage. The cage might 

 be soldered together M. G. Keeney. 



Vevay, Ind., Jan. 8, 1880. 



The ca^e is certainly an improvement over 

 the one I gave in the I)ec. No. The hollow 

 wooden stopper is neatly turned, and the 

 substitute for the bottle looks like the bulb 

 of a thermometer tube, only it is much larg- 

 er. This suggests the idea that a vial with 

 a mouth sufficiently small will require no 

 cork, and the bees "would then always have 

 the most perfect access to the water. But, 

 friend K, how are we to get the water or 

 honey into these small mouthed vials o: 

 glass balls? I do not know that I should 

 think it neee-sary to have the introducing 

 cages contain both water and honey, but, for 

 a shipping cage to goto all climates, subject 

 to all contingencies, I would use water, hon- 

 ey, and candy. 



EXPENSIVE HONEY. 



T have spent about $15.00, and all T have for it yet 

 is about 40 It.s. of honey; but I don't want to stop 

 taking Gleanings. I have some notion of moving 

 into the country, where 1 can cultivate honey 

 plants. 



SPIDER PLANT NOT ALWAYS A SUCCESS. 



I cultivated a plant here last summer, called spi- 

 der flower; but bees took no notice ot it. The de- 

 scription of yours is just like it, but it must be dif- 

 ferent. Mrs. J. E. Short. 



New Richmond, O , Dec. 25, 1879. 



More than a dollar a pound for honey is 

 enough to discourage almost anybody, and 

 it is on account of these "blasted hopes"' 

 that I so strongly advise beginners to com- 

 mence with one or two colonies. I am afraid, 

 my friend, if you invest money in raising 

 honey plants, with a hope to make it i ay fi- 

 nancially, you will be destined to more dis- 

 appointment. It is quite likely that the 

 spider plant, in common with most other 

 honey plants, will entirely fail of yielding 

 honey in some seasons. Some very good hon- 

 ey plants do not give a full yield of honey 

 of tener than one year in four; and it would 

 be nothing strange if they should yield no 

 honey at all two seasons out of the four. 



FROM FRIEND TAYLOR AFTER HE OOT WELL. 



Many, many thanks for your kindness. 1 have 

 been very sick, but am now convalescent, thank 

 God. <> tnv friend, how little do we appreciate the 

 great blesali «• of (/<""' Health till we are stricken 

 down. My wife joins me in best wishes to "Novice" 

 and his, and a mi rry happy Christmas to little "Blue 

 Eyes" and the baby. It. C. Taylor. 



Wilmiugtou, N. C, Dec. 33, 1879. 



