1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



443 



had little or no brood. They had been con- 

 fined just about five months. During all this 

 time they were very quiet, and the number of 

 dead bees on the cellar bottom was the small- 

 est I ever saw. Well, now for the results : 



Our Mr. Wardell says that those colonies 

 are away ahead of the outdoor-wintered ones 

 of the same strength last fall. The large 

 force of bees has enabled them to take care of 

 large quantities of brood, now that they are 

 outdoors ; and the probabilities are that, when 

 the honey-flow comes on, they will be worth 

 nearly two of the colonies wintered outdoors. 

 We estimate that our outdoor bees lost very 

 heavily during the great storm of April 20 — a 

 storm that was a record-breaker, and which 

 will go down in history as one of the heaviest 

 ever known. While the weather was not very 

 cold, yet after the snow had fallen the bees 

 flew out on the warm days following, dropped 

 on the snow, and never got back. Thousands 

 and thousands of bees were lost that way; but 

 the other bees were housed during this big 

 storm, and were not put on their summer 

 stands till about ten days later. 



Ira Barber, in our last issue, recommends 

 putting more bees in the cellar and raising the 

 temperature. Our cellared bees we e kept in 

 a higher temperature than any bees we ever 

 wintered indoors ; and they wintered the best, 

 irrespective of the noise above in the machine- 

 shop. But I am afraid that, if the tempera- 

 ture had been as high as Mr. Barber recom- 

 mends, they would not have fared as well as 

 they did. Nevertheless, we shall test his ideas 

 on a small scale next winter. 



PROF, cook's review of the a B C of BEE 

 CULTURE REVIEWED, AGAIN. 



In the third and last instalment of Professor 

 Cook's review of the ABC, published in the 

 American Bee Journal^ he has a word more to 

 say about bees dying because they have lost 

 their stings. He does not claim that they die 

 in less than a day or two, the time varying. 

 Bees that had lost their stings from use were 

 put into a cage, and died within a day or two, 

 while others uninjured were also caged, and 

 lived for weeks. With such testimony it cer- 

 tainly seems that it might be well to give the 

 subject further consideration. If bees thus in- 

 jured were put in the same cage with uninjur- 

 ed bees, it ought not to be difficult to come to 

 a decision. 



" I am a little skeptical," says Prof. Cook, 

 " as regards the queen leading out the bees. I 

 would not be sure that Mr. Root was right in 

 his conclusion." The reading of that, with- 

 out referring to the ABC, might induce one 

 to think that the book taught that it is a com- 

 mon thing for queens to lead out swarms. Of 

 course, that would be incorrect, and it is not 

 taught in the book. The thing that Prof. 

 Cook has reference to is the statement that in 

 one particular case a queen from several miles 

 away was put in a nucleus, and after a day or 

 two the queen led the nucleus back to the 

 hive from which she was taken. Prof. Cook 

 may be right in thinking that, even in this 

 case, the queen was in no sense a leader. 



Prof. Cook agrees with the book that swaim- 

 ing depends upon conditions or causes, rather 

 than with Mr. Doolittle, who says the real 

 cause of swarming is the fiat of the Creator, 

 " Go forth, multiply, and replenish the 

 earth." 



"I was surprised," says Prof. Cook, "to 

 note that Dr. Miller also gives his authority in 

 favor of bees not clustering in case the queen 

 does not go forth with the swarm. ... In 

 such cases they will always return to the hive; 

 but in my long experience and observation it 

 will be decidedly the exception and not the 

 rule that they return to the hive without 

 forming at least a partial cluster." Dr. Mil- 

 ler has probably had as long an experience as 

 Prof. Cook, with probably a larger number of 

 colonies, and he is by no means a careless ob- 

 server. Both men agree that, with clipped 

 queens, some swarms return to the hive with- 

 out clustering, and that some cluster first. Is 

 it not just possible that the majority of Prof. 

 Cook's swarms clustered, and that the major- 

 ity of Dr. Miller's did not ? But Prof. Cook is 

 certainly wrong in saying, "In such cases 

 they vsill always return to the hive," for in a 

 large apiary it is unfortunately true that in 

 too many cases the swarm will enter another 

 hive where swarming has lately occurred. 



The reviewer notes the error of the A B C in 

 saying "soiling" instead of "green-manur- 

 ing " when speaking of plowing under a grow- 

 ing crop of turnips. He also thinks turnips 

 are of little value for green-manuring as com- 

 pared with leguminous crops. 



When a colony is suiTocated because the 

 hive is too tightly closed, the ABC says the 

 bees are wet by the honey involuntarily dis- 

 charged. Prof. Cook thinks much of this 

 moisture is caused by perspiration, and he 

 may be right. He says : " In such cases bees 

 try hard to cool off. The only possible way 

 they can do it is by the evaporation of water." 

 That sounds as though evaporation, which is 

 entirely involuntary on the part of man, is 

 voluntary on the part of the bee. Can that be 

 possible? 



"Here again," says Prof. Cook, "our au- 

 thor refers to bees separating water from hon- 

 ey while ^n the wing. I believe this is physi- 

 cally impossible. I have never as yet seen 

 this ' mist ' fall from the bees while flying in 

 the air." No doubt there are many who have 

 not seen it, but that does not invalidate the 

 testimony of those who liave seen it. " If 

 such mist does fall from the bees," he contin- 

 ues, " it certainly must be the water of evapo- 

 ration in the air- tubes, or else excreta from 

 the intestines." One can hardly imagine that 

 water evaporating from so small a creature 

 could immediately condense into drops that 

 would fall like water ; but that it falls as ex- 

 creta from the intestines is exactly what one 

 would understand from the book when it 

 says, "I distinctly saw them discharge from 

 their bodies what seemed to be only pure 

 water." 



The ABC says : " There are also known in 

 commerce such as Japanese and Chinese wax, 

 both of which may or may not be 'the product 

 of insects or plants." Prof. Cook says the 



