November, 1910. 



T^^\ American Hee Journal I 



blanket furnishes gond covering. I 

 know of no better protection for out- 

 doors than forest leaves, and I am 

 using with much satisfaction cheap 

 boxes, about '4 or ji inch larger than 

 the hive, filled with leaves, setitng down 

 over the hives. These boxes should be 

 made about 3 inches deeper than the 

 hive, and filled with leaves, and with a 

 follower — a board that will easily go 

 into the box — placed upon the leaves; 

 when I stand upon it to pack the leaves 

 down in the bottom, about 3 to 4 

 inches deep of packed leaves. Care 

 should be taken that the leaves are 

 spread evenly, and that enough are 

 used so that the leaves rest solidly on 

 the frames, and hold the lower edge of 

 the box from the bottom-board. 



If the leaves are properly packed 

 they will remain in the box when it is 

 inverted and thus placed over the hive. 

 A honey-board or blanket, a sheet of 

 paper, or nothing at all, may be placed 

 over the frames ; the main point is to 

 have 3 or 4 inches of well-packed 

 leaves rest tightly upon the top of the 

 hive with a stone on the cover. For 

 my part, I leave on the zinc board, 

 which is tightly sealed all around, 

 which leaves a nice bee-passage. 



Now, it is not the cellar, it is not the 

 chaff hives, nor packing, nor fixing, 

 that gives as a result successful win- 

 tering. It is something else. I have 

 been surprised, many times, to see bees 

 in old box-hives split from top to bot- 

 tom so that the bees could fly out any- 

 where in the crack, resting on some 

 kind of platform, exposed to all kinds 

 of weather, with no protection what- 

 ever, and come out in the spring in 

 fine condition. What does it mean ? 

 They had abundant stores and no ma- 

 nipulation ; everything in the hive was 

 arranged to suit the bees. 



Of late years I make all preparations 

 for wintering in July and August, see- 

 ing that all colonies have queens and 

 abundant stores. Seldom do I loosen 

 a frame in the hive to be wintered, 

 from July until the next May or June, 

 when the packing of leaves is removed. 



For the suggestion of leaves for 

 packing I am much indebted to Mr. S. 

 D. House, of this State. 



In my next I will tell some experi- 

 ences in spring stimulating on the let- 

 alone plan, or Nature's way. 



Oswego, N. Y. 



Something About the Bumble 

 or Humble Bees 



BY G. M. UOOLITTLK. 



"Papa says that what I call bumble-bees 

 are properly humble bees. Is this right. Mr. 

 Doolittle?" 



" Yes. my boy. your father is right. " 

 "Why do they call them humble bees? 

 Are they so much more meek than the 

 honey-bees that they are called humble f 



The above is a little conversation 

 had with a neighbor's boy not long 

 ago, and it set me to thinking whether 

 I could please the readers of the 

 .■\merican Bee Journal any better than 

 to tell them something about those 

 bees which have interested me all my 

 life from my earliest boyhood recollec- 

 tions up to my 64 years of age. While 

 my 40 years of bee-keeping life has 

 been one of extreme interest with the 



honey-bee, yet I do not know that 

 aside from the dollar-and-cent point of 

 view, they have taken hold of my life 

 to a greater degree than have the bum- 

 ble bees. And I liriuly believe that if 

 any father will spend a little time with 

 his boys in helping them to be inter- 

 ested in the humble bees, the wasps, 

 hornets, and other insects which sur- 

 round all who live in the country, these 

 same boys will be less inclined to de- 

 sire some place other than the farm 

 when they are grown up; and will find 

 these things far more interesting than 

 the street-corner, the saloon, or that 

 which brings them to jail. 



Nothing is easier than to have a col- 

 ony of bumble-bees right where you 

 want it. Simply take up some forsaken 

 mouse-nest so that the nest remains 

 intact, place the same in any bo.x that 

 will hold a peck or such a matter, when 

 a cover is to be put on the box and a 

 hole bored through the bo.x leading to 

 the hole in the nest, where the mouse 

 went in and out. Then along about 

 the time the apple-trees bloom, when 

 you see large bumble-bees looking into 

 all holes and secluded places, this hole 

 in the box will be spied out by one of 

 these large bees, the nest taken posses- 

 sion of as a " home," and in a few weeks 

 the worker bumble-bees will be seen 

 going in and out, caring for the family, 

 in a similar way to what the honey- 

 bees do it, only as there are rarely more 

 than from 50 to 200 bees in such a 

 home, they do not go or come to such 

 an extent as do the bees from a colony 

 of those we keep for financial gain. 



The only bumble-bee which lives 

 over the winter is the queen or perfect 

 female of this species. In this I am re- 

 minded how colonies of bees often 

 dwindle down until only a few hundred 

 remain in May and June; many times 

 until only 5 or 10 bees and the queen, 

 while in two cases which have come to 

 my notice, the queen only was left 

 alive; while in my queen-business I 

 have often received through the mail 

 cages, where every bee but the queen 

 was dead, and she became as good a 

 mother as those which had been cared 

 for by good colonies. 



But you may ask, " Does the bumble- 

 bee queen have a colony with her at 

 the commencement of winter, and such 

 colony all die oflf so that only the queen 

 is left ?" No, every bee but the queens 

 of a bumble-bee colony is allowed to 

 die soon after the first frosts, she alone 

 surviving. 



"Well, how does she survive the 

 winter, then ?" This was one of the 

 long-time puzzles to me, until one day 

 in May I chanced to see a queen bum- 

 ble-bee come up through a small hole 

 out of the ground, when I believed they 

 wintered over by going down into the 

 loose soil where such could be found, 

 going so deeply that they were below 

 frost, and, when spring returned the 

 warmth of the same brought them out 

 of the hibernating state and the ground. 

 But I was not positive of this till the 

 spring of 1877. 



In the late fall of 1876 I built my shop 

 and honey-house combined over a 

 piece of muck and sandy loam, one- 

 fourth of the space covered by the 

 building on the ground floor, being 

 left open for the purpose of setting the 

 steam engine there, while all the rest 



had the usual flooring over it. When 

 "bumble-bee" time arrived, one warm 

 day I was surprised to find 3 queen 

 bumble-bees on the winclow where the 

 engine was, and just then I heard an- 

 other trying to fly, and on looking 

 down near the engine I saw her just 

 leaving the hole she had come from. 

 I now went looking for the holes where 

 the other three came from, and after 

 finding two, and looking for the third I 

 saw a little movement in the soil, when 

 soon the head and then the body of 

 another queen came out and flew to the 

 window. I opened the window and 

 left it open the rest of the day, know- 

 ing now for certain where the queen of 

 the bumble-bees wintered. After find- 

 ing some mouse-nest, a collection of 

 moss, cotton batting or something of 

 the kind suitable for a nest or home, 

 this queen bumble-bee goes out and 

 collects pollen in her pollen-baskets, 

 the same as the workers of the honey- 

 bees do, and in packing it away on the 

 bottom of the nest she deposits an egg 

 therein, then goes for more pollen, 

 packs this on the first, and lays another 

 egg in the mass. In this way she pro- 

 ceeds until she has laid from o to 8 of 

 her eggs, this period of her laying often 

 covering 2 or 3 days, according to the 

 weather; although a bumble-bee can 

 work in a lower temperature than a 

 honey-bee can, as I have often proven 

 by hearing them at work on apple- 

 bloom when the mercury stood only 4 

 degrees above the freezing point on 

 cool mornings. 



After laying from o to 8 eggs, gen- 

 erally 6 or 7, she stays about this mass 

 of pollen except to go out and collect 

 some nectar for her existence and that 

 of the young workers before they are 

 old enough to forage for the whole 

 family until within 3 or 4 days before 

 they emerge from their cells, which 

 they have made by spinning cocoons 

 about themselves when changing from 

 the larval to the pupa form. This nec- 

 tar is put in a cup-shaped sort of a 

 bowl made by the queen from pollen 

 and a sort of fibrous material she pro- 

 cures from some source not known to 

 the writer, which are mingled together 

 until the bowl stands upright, and large 

 enough to contain (J or 8 drops to 

 nearly a teaspoonful, according to the 

 species to which the queen belongs. 



About 4 or .5 days before the 5 to 8 

 workers emerge, she goes out again 

 after pollen, which she spreads about 

 the base of the cells containing the 

 workers, and lays from 15 to 25 eggs 

 along the base of these cells covering 

 the eggs, using little if any more pollen 

 for these 25 than she did for the first 8. 



The workers, after emerging, partake 

 of the stored nectar from the " honey- 

 bowl," when in a day or two they are 

 strong enough to go after the necessi- 

 ties of the home," which is mostly pol- 

 len to further store around the 25 eggs, 

 so that when they hatch into larvae 

 they have plenty to feed upon. When 

 the necessary amount for this is gath- 

 ered and these larvs begin to spin 

 their cocoon cells more pollen is gath- 

 ered, and the queen lays from 50 to 200 

 eggs for the third lot of workers, the 

 number laid being according to the 

 suitableness of their home and the sea- 

 son, a dry, warm season causing a 



