596 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 



be BO exhaustive. He will love his home much 

 more when he takes an active part in its manage- 

 ment. Mrs. L. Harrison. 



Peoria, 111., Aug., 1885. 



Thanks, my good friend Mrs. II., for what 

 you say about lawn-mowers, and also direc- 

 tions for making home - made hammocks. 

 No doubt they are nice things for invalids, 

 but I do not quite like to see them occupied 

 by well people in the middle of the day.— 

 Our lawn-mower is remarkably easy run- 

 ning—in fact, the most so of any one we 

 have ever got hold of ; and I have chosen 

 one that cuts only ten inches wide, for the 

 very reason you niention, that all the mow- 

 ing that needs to be done may be done by the 

 children. 



I one tell whether a queen has met Carniolan 

 drones or native dronesV It seems to me 

 rather unlikely. Our young Carniolan bees 

 will be out in about a week, and then we 

 will investigate the matter more thoroughly. 



CARNIOLAN BEES. 



HOW ML'CH THEY DIFFER FROM OUR NATIVE BEES. 



N the last issue I stated that the bees which ac- 

 companied the Carniolan queen from Germany 

 were pitch black, fifteen of which were dead; 

 and their bodies, as well as those of two living 

 yet, were so contracted as to hide the bands of 

 down, and give them a pitch-black appearance. 

 Since then, however, some of this queens progeny 

 have come to light, and I now state that they are 

 just as friend Benton described them — of a steel 

 gray, with very marked bands of down, and they 

 are truly fine looking. They can be distinguished 

 at a distance from our common blacks. The queen 

 is the best layer I have seen yet, for the short time 

 she has been here. Friend D. A. Jones says, on 

 page 374, Vol. 11. that black and hybrid bees are 

 found in France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, 

 and parts of Italy, and just across the Adriatic Sea, 

 along the Dalmatian coast; and on both sides of 

 the Dalmatian range of mountains there are the 

 finest, and, he believes, the best blacks in the world. 

 Now, Carniola lies northwest of the Adriatic sea, 

 right north of Dalmatia, and perhaps friend Jones 

 had reference to the black bees, called Carniolans. 

 Would friend Jones be kind enough to reply? 



Another instance of two (jueens in one hive. 

 About three weeks ago I looked over my queen 

 record to ascertain which required requeening (I 

 clip all queens' wings in the spring, and then if any 

 are superseded during the summer I can readily 

 tell upon finding an undipped one). In o})ening 

 one hive to remove the old queen 1 found, on the 

 first comb I took out, a young queen, and that a 

 most splendid-looking one too. The frame was re- 

 placed, and no attention paid until the other day 

 when my bee-neighbor, Theo. Stellwagner, was 

 taken into my bee-yard to see the fine prolific 

 queen received from Frank Benton. After show- 

 ing him the queen, 1 called his attention to this fine 

 superseded queen in the hive standing alongside 

 my imported queen. On the first frame 1 took out, 

 we found the old clipped (jueen. Well, this was 

 naturally a surprise. 1 took out a second frame, 

 and there was the young queen, and laying too. 

 They were both in the hive over three weeks. 1 

 removed the old queen. E. K. Blanck, M. D. 



Hatfield, Pa., Aug. t>, 1885. 



Very likely you are correct, friend IJ., in 

 thinking that there will be no trouble in dis- 

 tinguishing the Carniolan from our native 

 [tees ; but, how a-bout t)ie pfpsspsV Can any 



TOADS, FROOS, AND TADPOLES, OR 

 POLLIMTOGS. 



SOME INTERESTING FACTS IN NATURAL HISTORY. 



T^Or wish to know about toads, etc. When I 

 i^M ^^as a boy there were shallow ponds of water 

 ^^^ in some old stone-quarries close to our house, 



■*' and every spring there were millions of toads 

 raised there if the water did not dry up be- 

 fore their legs grew. This used to happen some- 

 times, and then there were a great many deaths in 

 a small space. 1 have observed a great many of their 

 habits. First, the toads' eggs are laid in long lines 

 about as large as a clay pipestem, and they are 

 strung around the pond in every direction until 

 the whole surface is covered. This made the 

 scum you saw on your carp pond; but if you had 

 tried to skim it off you would have found it to be 

 like the rolls our mothers used to spin the yarn, 

 from which our stocking were made; viz., all in a 

 bunch, but all separate pieces, only the difference 

 would be that the rolls were about 2 ft. long, and 

 the strings of eggs are perhaps 300 ft. long, with an 

 egg about every I4 inch. After they hatch they 

 remain in and around the lines for a little time, 

 and then go to the edge of the pond, where they 

 soon grow some very small legs, and soon after 

 lose their tails, and come out of the water small 

 toads, and hid farewell to water, until in time they 

 return to lay their eggs (for the toad is not a water- 

 bird). 



Frogs are somewhat different. If you had looked 

 closely you would have seen a large bunch of some- 

 thing that looked like jelly, about as large as 

 your head, and (luivering in the water about like a 

 lump of jelly. It is usually attached to some old 

 dry grass or rushes if there are any in the pond; if 

 not, then floating in the water. It is not like the 

 toads' eggs, however, as it is all in a mass, and can't 

 be separated like them; they are also laid some 

 days earlier in the season; and instead of getting 

 out and hopping off as the toads do when they are 

 small, the young frogs remain in the water in the 

 polliwog form until the next season. They are then 

 about 2 inches long, and these were the ones you 

 saw, but they were last years' ones, and not those 

 coming out of the same batch of eggs from which 

 the toads came. E. M. Johnson. 



Mentor, O. 



Friend J., with your explanation 1 can 

 now understand the matter readily. Early 

 in the spring I saw those long threads of 

 eggs, and there were such quantities of 

 them that I thought once about raking them 

 off from the surface of the water and de- 

 stroying them. In fact, there was a perfect 

 network of these strings all around on the 

 outside of the pond. We also saw the eggs 

 of frogs as you describe them ; and so when 

 they hatched out we had toads and frogs 

 mixed up together : and when they got legs, 

 the toad portion of the crowd hopped off and 

 went away to the woods, as I have told you, 

 while the frogs, most of them, stayed ip tbe 



