1887 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



181 



the brood becoming' chilled; but I do not believe it 

 possible tor the disease to oritrinsite that way. So 

 far as loan see, there is not a hee-keeper in the 

 land, especially if his ai)iary is within bee- tii.ifht, 

 or, perhaps, within half bee-liisht. of where there is 

 or has been foul brood, that is not liable to have his 

 bees attacked. 



As to the Heddon hive, I readily admit that, under 

 other circumstances —say in a <iifferent locality, 

 with a different race or strain of bees, a different 

 season, or a different system of manajicnient, I 

 might have found my brood-chambers full of brood 

 and empty of honey at the close of the honey-tiow. 

 1 should have said of the screws, too, that I boiled 

 a number in paraftine, and that these worked better 

 than the others, though it is not a week since I twist- 

 ed the head of one of these into splinters in trying- 

 to unscrew it, using- flat pliers to twist with. Your 

 sug-g-estion of galvanized screws is a good one. 



1, too, can say amen most heartily to the growing 

 interest in outdoor sports, not only for children, 

 ,but among people of all ages. Tobogganing is one 

 of the most healthful of the popular-amusement 

 crazes; and if 1 had ever had any objections to it 1 

 think they would have vanished with my first slide, 

 which was before 1 had written the article in ques- 

 tion. You see, I write from experience. 



Dayton, 111., Jan. 3.5, 18sT. .1. A. Green. 



Thanks for the correction, friend G. 

 When I said a bee-lteeper has no business 

 having foul brood, 1 meant, of course, hav- 

 ing it remain ; and I do think, tliat, if he 

 has his eyes about him. as lie ouglit to have, 

 he should get notice of it at the very outset. 

 My apiarisi; admitted that lie knew of its 

 existence a week or two before lie called our 

 attention to the matter at all. Now. had we 

 commenced at the very first glimpse of it. I 

 feel quite sure it might have been stopped 

 before it got into more than one colony, for 

 we would have promptly burned up every 

 comb in the hive at tlie outset ; and [ would 

 do this, even if I found something that look- 

 ed even suspicions. 



BUMBLE-BEES. 



PROF. COOK TELLS US A OOOD DEAL .\BOUT THESE 

 FRIENDS OF OUHS. 



fOUR request, dear Mr. Editor, in Jan. 1st 

 Gleanings, that 1 give the biology, or life- 

 history, of our good friends the bumble (or 

 humble) bees was not overlooked, but until 

 now not a moment could 1 spare to speak a 

 good word for these little philanthropists, whose 

 kind offices are hardly appreciated. 



It has been no uncommon thing for our students 

 to keep hives of these bees. Frank IJenton had sev- 

 eral colonies on our college lawn when he was here 

 as a student. My little Bertie has often had hives 

 of bumble-bees on our back-chamber porch, and has 

 enjoj'ed watching them nud studying their habits, 

 very greatly. Mr. Editor, would it not be a wise re- 

 form to encourage our childrL-ii to look on insects, 

 frogs, etc., with interest and adiiiirati(>n, and not 

 with abhorrence? I believe T am doing my children 

 a substantial benefit in encouraging them to study 

 insects, birds, and even bumblebees. I speiu all of 

 lastweek in lecturing beiorethe Wisconsin Farmers' 

 Institutes, and I urged everywhere that parents en- 

 courage their children to rear insects and watch 



their wonderful transformations. How easy this is ! 

 The child has but to put a cabbage caterpillar, the 

 so-called "cabbage worm," under a common glass 

 tumbler, with a little of its lood-plant, and all the 

 life-changes can be easily watched. What an easy 

 way to awaken the interest and inquiry of our chil- 

 dren, and to keep them from the street-corner, the 

 saloon, and the jail ! 



The only bumble-bee that lives over the winter, in 

 our northern latitudes, at least, is the queen. Bee- 

 keepers are not surprised at this. The apiarist (jften 

 finds his bees all dead but a handful in spring, and 

 among the survivors he Is almost sure to find the 

 queen. Oeciisionally she is the only bee that sur- 

 vives a long juL:riie.\ . 8o. too, with bumble-bees, 

 the queen possesses the ma.ximum of vital force and 

 endurance. I do not know whether the old bumble- 

 bee queens that have done duty the previous season 

 live over winter or not. Very likely some of them 

 may. However this may be, the young ones cer- 

 tainly do. 



In spring these large queens commence opera- 

 tions. As the workers have all succumbed to the 

 rigors of winter, we can easily understand why we 

 see so few bumble-bees in early spring, and whj- 

 those that work so merrily upon the lilacs, dressed 

 in their shining robes of yellow and black, are all so 

 large. The (jueen finds an old mouse-nest, or some 

 other conv^enient miniature cave under stone, 

 board, or clod, and there stores a mass of pollen on 

 which she lays her eggs. The larv.e develop much 

 as do the immature hive-bees. Whenready to trans- 

 form to pup-.e, they coat their cells as do the hive- 

 bees, with aglne-like fluid which serves as a close 

 cocoon. These cells serve afterward as honey-cells; 

 and though big and clumsj', even more so than are 

 the queen-cells of the honey-bee, yet in truth they 

 are really much like thera ; that is, they are strength- 

 ened with wax exteriorly, and lined with a glue-like 

 cocoon interiorly. This style of a cocoon is well 

 shown in melting wax by use of the solar wax-ex- 

 tractor, as with the honey-bee's coct>on it contains 

 very little silk, but is largely composed of a harden- 

 ed glue-like substance such as lines the cocoons of 

 most moths. 



Soon the queen has several companions, the work- 

 ers, which now do the outside labor, so that the 

 queen remains mostly at the nest. In July the 

 queens and drones begin to appear. Some of the 

 older writers tell of two kinds of workers in the 

 bumble-bees' nests— the large and small. It is like- 

 ly that their large workers were these young 

 queens. The drones are longer than the workers, 

 and smaller than the queens. SVe often see these 

 drones in late summer. As a boy, I called them 

 stingless bees. No wonder. In August the bees 

 pair. I once saw a drone and queen bumble-bee 

 in coijuhi. They fell in the path before me, and the 

 queen pulled away from the carcass of the drone, 

 which surely had sacrificed its life in the perform- 

 ance of its duty. These young queens are the 

 survivors of winter, and are the perpetuators of 

 tlie s|)ecies. The bumble-bees do not swarm, so 

 that byjul.\-and August the nests are large and 

 populous, and so the red clover, wliifh depends for 

 the most part upon bumble-bees to insure its fer- 

 tilizMtidU and seeding, is fairly swarming with 

 these valuable assistants of the farmer, upon 

 which he de|>en<is for the seeding of one of his 

 most valuable field crops. 



Darwin was the first to show by elaborate ex- 



