42 



GLEANLNGS LN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 



to center. Besides this, the entrances are 

 turned to all points of the compass. Yet we 

 find that bees in early spring and late in the 

 fall are very often confused as to the exact 

 location of their hives. 



BUMBLE-BEES. 



SOME OF THEIR PECULIARITIES. 



fS^ HE question of E. D. Howell, in Gleanings 

 I)"- for January 1, page 26, brought to my mind 

 < the fact that we have in Hilliard, 0., an in- 

 telligent young man who, about seven years 

 ago, during one season, had several colonies 

 of bumble-bees. His first colony was secured early 

 in the spring, and consisted of a queen and one oth- 

 er bee, seemingly just hatched, and a small bit of 

 comb, not more than three cells, and these contain- 

 ed no eggs or brood, as he now remembers. The 

 nest, bees and all, was placed in a box about eight 

 by twelve inches, turned upside down on a board 

 about two feet from the ground. The entrance was 

 about one-half by two inches. He knew nothing of 

 the inside of this nest-box until late in the fall; and 

 when he opened it, he found neither honey, brood, 

 nor bees, either dead or alive, but one beautiful 

 comb, nearly round, and measuring about seven 

 inches in diameter. The queen was long and yellow, 

 while the workers were much smaller and quite 

 dark. There was a middle class, which seemed idle, 

 and he thinks they were drones. The other colonies 

 were secured later, and seemed to be more or less 

 demoralized all the season, doing their work in an 

 Inferior manner, though this may have been their 

 normal conduct and skill, as they were a different 

 bee from the others, being much smaller and much 

 more inclined to sting. Their nests were also empty 

 when opened in the fall. 



My young friend gave me many interesting facts 

 about his bumble-bees and about bumble-bees in 

 general. He has never detected the least symptom 

 that they have the swarming habit, and gives it as 

 his opinion that they never swarm. In early spring- 

 he usually finds each colony composed of a single 

 bee— the queen— and usually about a dozen eggs, 

 the eggs being something smaller than hemp seed. 

 His colonies kept their houses very clean and tidy; 

 and the fact that they would invariably walk to the 

 edge of the bottom-board, and, with a quick right- 

 about movement, dump their excrement beyond 

 the board on the ground, was a very prominent 

 characteristic; and the queen was no exception in 

 this particular. They also appreciated kind treat- 

 ment, for while they never molested him in the 

 least, they would not allow his younger brother, 

 who would tease them by throwing chips at them, 

 to stay in the neighborhood of their box homes; 

 they would follow him for rods, that they might 

 sting him, and they sometimes got in good work on 

 the young rogue. They always kept a guard at the 

 door, and in the evening this guard would close up, 

 with grass, the entire entrance, except one little 

 place, where she would sit and look out. In the 

 morning this grass would ail be taken away, but 

 was replaced again each night. In very hot weath- 

 er the queen and many of the bees, perhaps all of 

 them, would sit on the bottom-board, outside of the 

 hive. In his first colony he counted at one time as 

 high as nineteen sitting outside at one time; but he 

 had no means of knowing whether they were all the 



colony. One day be moved one of the boxes about 

 eight inches to one sido, and a bee that came in from 

 the fields tried for about fifteen minutes to find its 

 home, but could not, so he helped it into the hive. 

 Hilliard, O., Jan. 8, 1887. J. S. Ricketts. 



Many thanks for the interesting facts you 

 have given us in regard to these bees. We 

 have frequently had them under old bottom- 

 boards in our apiary ; and while we pursued 

 our regular work, minding our own business, 

 they gave ns no trouble ; and, as you may 

 have read in October 1st issue, we could han- 

 dle them, or pull apart their nest, without 

 their making even a show of resistance or 

 attack. Not so did they behave toward the 

 small boy. equipped with a paddle and a 

 pole to poke their nest up. 



MAKING EGGS HATCH WHEN TAKEN 

 FROM THE BEES. 



transformation from the egg to the larva. 



jn^DITOR GLEANINGS:— When first reading 

 "^^j your ABC, when I came to that part relat- 

 iKr ing to " Bees," you say that you have " never 

 ■^™ been able to get eggs to hatch when taken 

 away from the bees," although the tempera- 

 ture was carefully preserved. At that time I had 

 had but little expeineuce in matters of that kind; 

 but being of an inquisitive turn of mind I decided 

 to make some experiments in this direction. How- 

 ever, I put the matter oft' from year to year until 

 the summer of 1884, when the following experiment 

 was carefully conducted: I placed a sheet of foun- 

 dation in the center of the brood-nest, and left it 

 there until it was filled with eggs, and a small area of 

 larvse had appeared on either side. I then removed 

 the comb, and with the point of a pin I drew a line 

 carefully dividing the larvaj from the surrounding 

 eggs; the comb was then placed in the nursery, and 

 left over night. An examination the next morning 

 showed that no additional larvse had been hatched. 

 I then marked half a dozen cells containing eggs 

 next to or joining the little patch of larvas. With a 

 little spoon I dipped out the milky food from the 

 cells containing larva". I placed this food over and 

 around the half-dozen eggs that were marked. I 

 then replaced the comb in the nursery. Two hours 

 later I made an examination with a gla^s, and 

 found that, in each of the cells thus treated, larvae 

 were present, but no development was discovered 

 in cells not treated with the milky food. These ex- 

 periments were successfully carried on immediately 

 ai-ound the patch of larvte previously formed, for a 

 period of 48 hours, after which no development 

 could be had. I then treated a like number of cells 

 near the outside limit of the field occupied by eggs, 

 and had the satisfaction of seeing perfect larvre in 

 80 minutes after supplying the milky food. 



Another point worthy of note was the disappear- 

 ance of the tissue inclosing the larvae after the ac- 

 tion of the milky fluid. From these experiments 

 it would seem, first, that bees' eggs do not hatch, 

 but are liberated by the action of the acid contained 

 iu the food for young bees, the larvas having no 

 means of biting or breaking his way out of the pris- 

 ou wall that surrounds him. Second, the disappear- 

 ance of these tissues results from the neutralizing 

 or destructive action of the acid upon the same. 

 Third, that larvfe will stand 48 hours of confine- 



