304 



Oatobw, 1S:2. 



American V^e Journal 



W)^=^^^^3 



to some extent dilapidation tlirough 

 neglect on the part of their owners. 

 This ought not to be. This picture 

 also shows to what extent the industry 

 can be carried on here, and that very 

 large apiaries can be established in 

 certain sections. We do not have to 

 go to California or some other great 

 bee-country to find large and well 

 cared for apiaries, for we have them in 

 our own limits. 

 The scrubby, thick bushes in the 



background are spring titi, which is 

 our first honey-plant of any conse- 

 quence in early spring, begins yielding 

 in February and lasts until our great 

 honey-plants commence blooming. The 

 titi is indeed a great honey-plant. 



Mr. J. R. Hunter is a young man of 

 sterling qualities, and will surely be 

 heard of from time to time. He is 

 very enthusiastic over bee-keeping, and 

 is now making it his main line of 

 business. 



.■\piARv OF J. R. Hunter, or Florida. 



How Bees Feed One Another 



BY C. M. liOOLITTLE. 



"I have a puzzle on hand and wonid like 

 to have an answer to it. I have been iisins 

 what is called a queen nursery. These are 

 caues made of wcxid and wirecloih fur the 

 purpose of holdini; queen-cells away from 

 the bees until the yoiinj; queens emerge 

 froni the cells. And as these younir queens 

 need not be taken out of these cages just as 

 soon as they emerge, a hole is bored in the 

 wood which is tilled with a sponge having 

 honey in it. In this way the young queens 

 can get feed until the bee-keeper wishes to 

 use them as necessity requires. At least, 

 such is the theory put forth for the advan- 

 tages of this way of keeiiing queens. 



"Hut I find that in use more than half of 

 these young queens die before they get to 

 be from < to 5 days old. They seu-ii to be 

 unable to help themselves to this honey in 

 the little sponges sufficiently to sustain life. 



".Mow for the puzzle: All know that a 

 young queen, when hrst emerging at matur- 

 ity, is a weak, white, downy thing, often 

 hardly able to cling to the combs; but with 

 each hour getting stronger until, when 

 about 2 days old. she seems to reach her 

 normal strength, and where there are rival 

 queens in other queen-cells, which are held 

 back in these cells by the bees, this queen, 

 at liberty, utters shrill peeps as she goes 

 about in the hive. This is called the'pip- 

 ing' of the queen. If bad weather keeps the 

 colony from sending out an ifterswarm at 

 this stage, other young queens still held in 

 the qii-encells by tlie bees, answer this 

 liiping. but in a mullled sound, as I suppose 

 the walls to the cells holding them keep 

 them from making so loud a noise as does 

 the one at liberty. 



"Now, what I wish you to tell the readers 

 of the American liec .lournal is this: 1-Iow 

 do those queens in the cells live after arriv- 

 ing at inaturity ? If many of the queens in 



the nursery-cages, with plenty of honey 

 within easy reach die. how can these queens, 

 k. pt within the walls of their cells, a space 

 scarci ly one-tweniielh as large as that in 

 the nursery-cage, with no provision for their 

 food live ^ Last swarming time 1 cut out 17 

 queen cells from a colony where the second 

 swarm had been kept back 5 days by bad 

 weather, and before 1 had set the last frame 

 back in the hive for the returning of the 

 sv\-arm. i4or the 17 cells had hatched and 

 the young queens flown awav." 



Thus writes a correspondent about 

 something which has puzzled hundreds, 

 if not thousands, of bee-keepers all 

 through tlie past, and I was equally 

 puzzled for several of the first years of 

 my bee-keeping life. One year I had a 

 colony where I heard the first young 

 queen piping on the evening of the 

 eighth day after the prime swarm had 

 issued from it. On going to the house 

 I told Mrs. Doolittle that this colony 

 would swarm the next day, as I had 

 heard the queen piping therein. With 

 the next morning a steady rain set in, 

 which lasted for three days, when it 

 became cool and cloudy fortwo days 

 more. 



On listening at the side of the hive 

 near nightfall, at the end of the fifth 

 day after I hail heard the lirst queen 

 piping, I was amazed at the turmoil 1 

 heard. The first queen would pipe, 

 when immediately there was a chorus 

 of niufiled " voices," some of them be- 

 ing kept up until the queen, at liberty, 

 would pipe again, when the whole 

 "band" would strike up once more, so 



that there was hardly a second of time 

 that there was not " music " for the 

 whole force of worker-bees to " dance 

 by." I resolved that in the morning I 

 would open this hive and see what 

 I could find. 



As the morning proved fine, 6:30 

 o'clock found me with the hive open 

 and a frame with the bees and two 

 queen-cells in my hands. With a little 

 smoke I dispersed the bees from these 

 cells, which were near together, when, 

 presently, I saw a tongue poked out 

 through a slit in the capping to the 

 cell where the capping is usually cut 

 out when a queen emerges. Thistongue 

 was stretched out as far as it could 

 reach, when, at that moment, a bee re- 

 turning from being driven away with 

 the smoke, put its mouth down to the 

 tongue, and, in the morning sunshine, 

 I could see the honey sparkle on the 

 tongue of the young queen, as "she 

 took her breakfast." Soon the queen 

 in the other cell put out her tongue and 

 was fed in the same way. I then shook 

 the bees off of this comb a little way in 

 front of the entrance, spreading them 

 along so it would take some time for 

 them to crawl in, and watched for 

 further developments from the queen- 

 cells. 



The tongues came out again, this 

 time apparently as "feelers," to see if 

 there was the usual knot of bees over 

 the cell to keep them in, but finding 

 nothing, a little clipping noise was at 

 once heard, and in less than a minute 

 the cover on one of the cells was raised 

 and a fully matured queen stuck her 

 head out, the cover to the cell having 

 been nearly cut before thi-, as the 

 whole cutting, except the little slit 

 where the tongue came out, could 

 hardly have been done so quickly. 

 The head was drawn back again, as if 

 fearing it might be unallowable for the 

 body to go out just yet. Then out it 

 came again, drew back once more, 

 when, with the next move, the queen 

 was fully t)ut, ran about on the comb 

 for a second or two, and apparently 

 hearing the humming of the bees going 

 in at the entrance, which I had shaken 

 from the comb, she took flight, sailed 

 around three or four times, alighted 

 down with the bees and ran into the 

 hive. I still held the comb in my hand, 

 only to see the same thing done by the 

 other (jueen. As I wished no second 

 swarm from this hive, I shook the bees 

 from all the frames, destroyed every 

 queen-cell found, and closed the hive. 

 The next morning I found two dead 

 queens in front of this hive, showing 

 that a " mortal combat " had taken place 

 between the queens at some time dur- 

 ing the 24 hours. All swarming for 

 the season was given up. 



This proved to me that the bees 

 could keep queens in confinement, 

 even in so cramped a place as the walls 

 of a queen-cell, much better than we 

 bee-keepers could with all our knowl- 

 edge, and in the larger apartments 

 of a nursery-cage. It also proved to 

 me that bees were ever on the alert to 

 provide for any and all queens which 

 they were desirous of preserving, feed- 

 ing them as much a.s was retiuired for 

 their posterity; while, it they did not 

 wish queens that were 'hrust in their 

 midst in such a way that they could not 

 get at the. 11 to kill them, they could, by 



