386 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURES 



May 



one or more bees came out, and the super was im- 

 mediately shut down. But the horse began to 

 plunge, and knocked the pile of supers over, when 

 the bees poured out upon the horse. By the time I 

 got there he was rearing and plunging, the bees all 

 over him. Failing to untie him I took out my 

 knife and cut him loose, when he threw himself 

 Hat on his side, fortunatelj breaking nothing, and 

 refused to stir for my kicking. I stuck my sharp- 

 pointed knife into his side, which perhaps he took 

 for an unusually bad sting. At any rate, he sprang 

 to bis feet and started for a lively trip around the 

 orchard, I hanging on by the bits, ardently wishing 

 something might stop us, but pretty soon we stop- 

 ped ourselves, pretty well tired out; and while I 

 hung on, the others unhitched him from the wagon 

 and I let him make a few circuits of the orchard, 

 when I caught him and led him into the barn, very 

 tired, very wet, and probably very sore, his head 

 hanging down as if meditating on the uncertainties 

 of piles of empty supers. 1 was in my bare head, 

 and got one of the worst stingiugs I ever had. All 

 this is told to try to make you careful about bees 

 and horses. C. C. Miller. 



Marengo, 111. 



I am real glad that you have touched 

 upon this matter of what to do with horses 

 when they are stung by bees.. I do not 

 know but that I am wicked enough to feel 

 glad that you got pulled around the orchard 

 bareheaded, devoutly wishing that some- 

 thing might t- stop us." It never occurred 

 to me before that a horse, when stung by a 

 bee, wants to rub his head against some- 

 thing ; but since you mention it, I have over 

 and over again seen horses act in just that 

 way. Poor fellows ! They have not any 

 hands to grab the vicious bee, and all they 

 can do is to rub their heads against some- 

 thing to keep the bee off. Yesterday I got 

 quite vexed with old Charlie because he 

 pushed his collar against the limbs of the 

 apple-trees when he was cultivating. I 

 liually surmised that his neck was warm 

 and sweaty, and very likely he wanted to 

 scratch, and he reasoned with horse sense 

 that the limbs of our young apple-trees 

 would do the scratching about as cheap as 

 anybody. Poor fellows ! I often feel a great 

 deal of sympathy for them. They are har- 

 nessed up and made to go. They can not 

 tell when they feel bad and uncomfortable. 

 In fact, if they should undertake to tell, in 

 any of the ways that dumb folks talk, they 

 would get a sharp scolding, and may be a 

 whipping. I shall certainly try to rub a 

 horse's "head whenever 1 see one stung 

 again. In fact, I have often seen Meg, 

 when a vicious fly got on her head, stop 

 light in the road and turn around, and by 

 means of vigorous nods fairly beg to have 

 somebody get out of the buggy and kill the 

 fly. I don't think it would make the sting 

 hurt any worse on a horse to rub it. I have 

 often felt impatient with drivers of horses 

 because I could not get them to move lively 

 when bees were in dangerous proximity. 

 ( )nce while harrowing close to the apiary 

 a swarm of bees acted very much as if they 

 were going to settle somewhere on the $400 

 team. I yelled out to the driver to get his 

 team out of the way with all possible dis- 

 patch. He first stopped to ask two or three 



times what I wanted. Then he began lei- 

 surely to move the lever so as to lift the Ac- 

 me harrow on to the wheels. By that time I 

 got pretty much in earnest. I yelled out to 

 him to start up his team and make tracks if 

 he knew what was good for him. One 

 second more, and there would have been 

 trouble. The bees followed the team a little 

 way; but when he got under way, the horses 

 took him to a place of safety pretty rapidly. 

 I have sometimes wished we had some ar- 

 rangement to let the horses entirely loose 

 from the vehicle by pulling a single lever. 

 If we could get the horse loose from the wag- 

 on, there is not much trouble in getting him 

 away from the bees, usually. Ernest here 

 informs me that our friend A. E. Manum is 

 a harness- maker, and that he already has 

 something touching on this very matter, 

 forthcoming shortly. Yes, friend M., we 

 are all going to try to be more careful when 

 we have horses among the bees. We thank 

 you for your timely warning. 



PARTHENOGENESIS. 



PROF. COOK TELLS US HOW WE KNOW IT IS TRUE. 



SEAR MR. EDITOR:— I have long known of 

 Ulivi's views in regard to parthenogenesis, 

 as stated by your correspondent, F. C. An- 

 drew; and as he and you request, I will glad- 

 ly give my reasons for thinking him mistaken. 

 First, for the younger bee-keepers, let me say 

 that parthenogenesis, or agamic reproduction, 

 means genesis or reproduction without males. 

 That is, a female that has never met a male can 

 produce young. This is illustrated in coral ani- 

 mals, where each alternate generation produces 

 without males, and we call it then alternation of 

 generations. Among insects it prevails in all the 

 summer broods of apbidi s, or plant-lice. This any 

 one can easily demonstrate. We have only to take 

 a young louse, as soon as it is born— the eggs hatch 

 within the mother-louse— and isolate it— that is, put 

 it on a plant all alone. It will grow, mature, and 

 produce many young lice. This louse has never 

 seen any other louse, male or female, except its 

 own mother, and that only for a brief natal mo- 

 ment. It would have been the same had we left it 

 on its food plant undisturbed; for at this season- 

 midsummer— there are no males at all. The sep- 

 aration was simply to demonstrate that partheno- 

 genesis is a truth. Incase of bees, parthenogene- 

 sis extends only to the produclion of the males, or 

 drones; that is, if an unmated queen lays an egg, 

 or if any queen lays an unimpregnated egg, that 

 egg hatches, and a drone is the invariable result. 



Now, I am sure that this is true science, and not 

 mere theory. First, because such noted bee-keep- 

 ers as Dzierzon and Berlepsch, and such able scien- 

 tists as Siebold and Leuckart, in Germany, and 

 such Americans as Langstroth and Leidy proved it. 

 Again. I have also proved it. T have several times 

 clipped a queen's wing so she could not fly, as soon 

 as she came from the cell, and in no case but one 

 did I ever secure any thing but a drone-laying 

 queen. In many cases these queens were in hives 

 or nuclei with no drones, and so guarded that the 

 drones could not enter or the queens go forth. So 

 Ulivi's statement, that they were impregnated in 

 the hive, could not be true. But I have stronger 



