1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



959 



THE COMPOSITION OF ROYAL JELLY. 



I see it has been said in one of the back numbers 

 of Gleanings, that royal jelly is but an accumula- 

 tion of chyme, such as is fed to ordinary young 

 brood. Inclosed 1 send you some information, from 

 the Eoglista Daily News, that may throw some light 

 on this interesting subject. This seems to support 

 Mr. F. Cheshire's remark in "Bees and Bee-keep- 

 ing," Vol. I., page 83; namely, that the " food fed 

 to the very young grubs is extremely rich in nitro- 

 genous substances, and this alone is the secret of 

 the future development of the grub." It would be 

 interesting to know if the experiment has been 

 tried, of injecting, by means of a minute glass syr- 

 inge, the further allowance of fully digested or 

 young-brood food at the right time, so as to cause 

 the queen to develop artificially, as it were. This 

 would prove once for all in a most unmistakable 

 manner how a queen is produced, and possibly start 

 a new era in the queen-rearing business. 



Nashvilie, Ore.. Nov. 18, 1889. J. T. Sibree. 



The clipping referred to is as follows : 



One of the strangest facts in the social economy 

 of a bee-hive is the way in which the development 

 of the larvte is directed by the workers. If the 

 queen is removed, a new sovereign is promptly 

 raised by the simple expedient of enlarging the cell 

 and altering the food of a working larva. The food 

 supplied to the grubs has now been carefully stud- 

 ied by Herr A. von Planta, whose results are ex- 

 tremely curious. The larval queen, he says, is fed 

 during the whole of her time on fully digested ma- 

 terial very rich in nitrogenous substances. Those 

 which are to turn into drones are supplied for the 

 first four days of their existence with a similar diet, 

 but one which is even richer in nitrogen, and for 

 the rest of the time this digested food is diluted by 

 the addition of pollen grains and honey. The 

 worker grubs are treated in much the same way. 

 They receive for ihe first four days a food interme- 

 diate in composition between that of a queen and 

 that for a drone. Then comes a change, and the 

 food is diluted with a large quantity of honey with- 

 out any admixture of pollen. This alteration is the 

 determining point in the life-history of the insect : 

 for if, at the fourth day, the cell is enlarged and 

 queen food supplied, a queen will result; but if 

 once the inferior diet has been begun it is impos- 

 sible or very difficult to effect the change. 



THE JAPANESE BEATS EVERY THING ; A SPLENDID 

 REPORT. 



If you wish to know how the Japanese buckwheat 

 has done, I would say it gave good satisfaction to 

 all parties concerned, ft was ordered for four dif- 

 ferent men. 2 pecks each. One man hasn't told me 

 yet how much he raised from his, but he says it is 

 the best in the world. He sowed half a bushel of 

 silverhull buckwheat alongside of the Japanese. It 

 wasn't worth any thing; and the report of the old 

 buckwheat, so far as I have heard, is about the 

 same in substance. The man who hasn't told how 

 much he raised, took 1% bushels to the mill on the 

 16th inst., and got it ground, and had 53 lbs. of flour. 

 The IX bushels that were sown on my own farm 

 yielded 69 bushels. 1 came pretty near having to 

 buy a new mill to clean the Japanese on. It took 

 an extra hand to rub it through the fine riddle, and 

 even then some grains wouldn't go through. The 

 Japanese buckwheat made a splendid yield in 

 grain, a big turnout of flour, and good griddle 

 cakes; but it bloomed so nice, and smelled so good, 

 that nearly all the bees in the neighborhood worried 

 themselves to death flying from blossom to blos- 

 som in search of nectar. Well, honey is scarce, and 

 so are bees. H. T. Sewell. 



Plea8anton,0., Nov. 19, 1889. 



THE FIRE AT THE ST. JOSEPH EXPOSITION. 



In preparing exhibits for fairs or exposi- 

 tions, especially where property of great 

 value is carried on to the grounds, it were 

 well to consider the chances of fire. One of 

 our bee-friends has had a sad loss in that di- 

 rection. See what he says : 



All the books and things I got of you went with 

 the rest. It seems like hard luck, as this was all we 

 had laid up to do business with; but we are trying 

 to make the best of it, and hope to be able to re- 

 sume business in the spring. We had no insurance, 

 and so it was all a clear loss. We had set up a very 

 fine display of comb and extracted honey, and one 

 of implements and bees. Emerson T. Abbott. 



St. Joseph, Mo., Sept. 23, 1889. 



As such things are not very common, 

 most of us have perhaps overlooked the 

 matter of getting insurance on such proper- 

 ty. We deeply sympathize with friend Ab- 

 bott ; and if any of the brethren feel like 

 doing a little more than extending sympa- 

 thy they might do so by consulting his ad- 

 vertisement, which appears on page 766, 

 Oct. 1. 



THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEE-PLANT SEED. 



I send by this mail 5 lbs. of cleome (Rocky Mount- 

 ain bee-plant). I sold the seed to Mr. Samuel Wil- 

 son, that he made the extravagant puff about. The 

 party that speaks of sowing the cleomes in a box 

 with damp earth in it, and letting it freeze till 

 spring, then putting it where you want it to grow, 

 has the proper idea, as it will not germinate with- 

 out freezing, according to my experience. I have 

 on hand about 100 lbs. of Rocky Mountain bee- 

 plant seed, which I will sell in bulk, for $1.00 per lb., 

 or 10 cts. per oz., postage paid. 



Jewett, N. M., Oct. 25, 1889. W. S. Mitchell. 



A VISIT TO FATHER LANGSTROTH AND OTHER BEE- 

 KEEPERS. 



Friend Root:— As I have just returned from Day- 

 ton, after a visit to father Langstroth, I feel sure 

 that our brothers of the hive will be glad to get re- 

 ports from headquarters. I came hither from Cin- 

 cinnati, O., where I left my esteemed friend, Chas. 

 Muth, hale and interesting as usual. I am glad to 

 say that I found the veteran bee-keeper had been 

 enjoying better health of late, and we had quite a 

 pleasant talk about bee-keeping and bee-men, past 

 and present. Among those of whom we compared 

 mutual reminiscences we spoke of the late lamented 

 Joseph Woodbury, of Mount Stud lord, Exeter, Eng- 

 land, whose name will ever be remembered among 

 British apiarists as the inventor of the improved 

 box-frame hive. This hive, which was rathe small- 

 er than the standard Langstroth, was practically a 

 square box about 10 inches deep, consisting of two 

 wood frames connected by corner posts, the sides 

 being filled out with lengths of straw tightly com- 

 pressed between tin uprights attached to each 

 corner post. The top was a wooden frame, similar- 

 ly fitted, and the whole was protected from weather 

 by an outer wooden case. The whole hive, though 

 more expensive than wood, was found to be ex- 

 ceedingly durable; and from the non-conducting 

 properties of straw, it combined all the advantages 

 of the present chaff hive with the minimum of 

 weight. Mr. Woodbury was the first to export the 

 Italian and Egyptian bees into England; and at the 

 time of his death he was making arrangements for 



