March 2ti, 1903. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



197 



WlLTi HONKY-BBKS. 



" Are there any wild honey-bees in the United States ?" 



Dr. Miller — Lots of them. 



Mr. Wilcox — I am curious to know what the gentleman 

 means by wild honey-bees. I came to Wisconsin as much 

 as 50 years ago, and went off into the woods many miles 

 from any settlement, and found the woods full of bees. 

 Were they wild, or were they tame ? 



Dr. Miller — If you find a colony of bees in a tree that 

 somebody doesn't own, those are wild bees. Take them 

 and put them in a house, and they are tame bees ; then they 

 swarm the next year and go back in the same tree, and they 

 are wild bees. 



Mr. Moore — If the one who asked this question wants a 

 straight up-and-down, flat-footed answer without shirking, 

 I will say all the bees are wild bees, so recognized in the 

 law. If not, how does it come they swarm to the woods ? 

 Tiiey don't know j'ou as the cow or horse. It is perfectly 

 plain that all bees, anywhere and everywhere, are wild bees. 

 They don't even have a love for home. 



Dr. Miller — That's all right ; Mr. Moore is a lawyer. I 

 am a bee-keeper. I am right, too. 



Mr. France — On the point of law, why is it then that 

 they tax bees in the State of Iowa ? 



Dr. Miller — Don't they in Wisconsin ? They do in 

 Illinois. 



(Continued next week.) 



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i Contributed Articles. , 



Age Of Bees— Longevity and Energy. 



BY T- A. GREEN. 



THAT bees under ordinary circumstances live but a short 

 time is well known to all who have taken the trouble to 

 experiment during working season. The changing of 

 the queen, as in giving an Italian queen to a colony of black 

 bees, gives an opportunity for the careful observer to 

 demonstrate this fact beyond doubt. As this test is made 

 only during the working season, and as we know that bees 

 live a much longer time during the winter months, we as- 

 sume, and no doubt with correctness, that nearly all bees 

 work themselves to death, their days being greatly short- 

 ened by the fatigues and accidents of their busy lives. It 

 has been noted that queenless bees usually do but little work 

 and consequently live longer. I once had a striking illus- 

 tration of this fact. 



One spring I found a small colony of bees queenless 

 early in the spring. A queen for them was not to be had 

 except at a high price, and it was too early for them to rear a 

 queen with any likelihood of developing into a good colony. 

 I had learned long before this that it was unprofitable to 

 unite such a colony with another at that season. So I sim- 

 ply let them alone. For some reason they did not waste 

 their energies in developing laying workers, their combs, 

 whenever I looked at them, being entirely free from brood or 

 eggs. I opened the hive several times during the season 

 and often noticed the bees guarding the entrance and occa- 

 sionally flying in or out. The last time these were noticed 

 was on Sept. 5. Several days after, not seeing any bees at 

 the entrance, I opened the hive and found them all gone. 

 But they had lived through nearly the whole of the work- 

 ing season in addition to the winter. I think those bees 

 were hatched not later than October IS, or perhaps Nov. 1, 

 though there is a chance that they came from brood started 

 much later than usual. The probability, though, is that 

 brood-rearing stopped at the usual time in the fall, which 

 would make them at least ten months old. 



I wish that I might have had some queens from the 

 mother of those bees, in order that I might have determined 

 whether their exceptional longevity was accidental, or a 

 family trait that might have been transmitted. It is dtiubt- 

 ful if a more valuable trait could be secured, unless it be 

 that of a greatly increased working energy, than the vigor 

 and strength of constitution that would enable bees to with- 

 stand for even a few days longer the hardships of the work- 

 ing season. As the part of the bee's life that is s|i.nt in 

 honey-gathering is so very short, it is evident that exery 

 day added to the average life of the working force ■ ould 



mean a very substantial increase in the amount of the honey 

 gathered by the colony. It is a matter of common obser- 

 vation that there will be a great difference in the amount of 

 honey stored by two colonies that to all appearances are 

 exactly alike at the beginning of the honey-tlow. We gen- 

 erally ascribe this difference to the greater working energy 

 possessed by one. Very likely in many cases at least, this 

 is the true solution, but I think that many times the supe- 

 riority of the winning colony lies only in the ability of each 

 of its bees to put in a few more days' work than their com- 

 petitors. 



Again, most of us have noticed that there is a remark- 

 able difference in the way colonies breed up in the spring. 

 Of two colonies apparently alike on April 1, one may be 

 twice the size of the other three months later. We usually 

 lay this to the greater prolificness of the queen in the larger 

 colony. This may often be true, but I think that in most 

 cases the bees of the larger colony have lived to a greater 

 age. This would keep a larger force of bees in the hive all 

 the while, even if no more eggs were laid, but, further than 

 this, it is the presence of this greater number of bees that 

 permits more eggs to be laid and reared into brood. 



There is nothing unreasonable in the supposition that 

 the bees of one queen live longer than those of another. We 

 are all familiar with the fact that some families in the 

 human race are much longer-lived than others, and that 

 this quality is transmitted from generation to generation. 

 There is a field here for the scientific queen-breeder that it 

 seems to me has been all but untouched. Of course, those 

 who have selected their breeding stock according to the 

 amount of honey gathered, and the way they have bred up 

 in the spring, have included this factor, perhaps without 

 knowing it, but, if so, it has been largely a groping in the 

 dark that could not yield tlie results that a more definite 

 knowledge of the ends to be aimed at might have secured. 

 If any breeder has paid special attention to this point, I have 

 never heard of it. 



Whether or not there be anything in Dr. Gallup's theory 

 in regard to the " missing link," and however much of 

 exaggeration there may be in his wholesale condemnation of 

 modern methods (or perhaps I might say a// methods) of 

 queen-rearing, he deserves credit for calling attention to 

 the value of long life in workers as well as in queens. It 

 is a subject for the deepest thought and the most careful 

 experimentation. Mesa Co., Colo. 



Foul Brood in the Province of Ontario. 



BY INSPECTOR WM. M'EVOY. 



FOUL, BROOD will soon be a thing of the past in Onta- 

 rio. The Province of Ontario had at one time more 

 foul-broody apiaries than any other Province or State in 

 the world, and now has less diseased ones than any coun- 

 try, barring none. Ontario has today more sound and very 

 choice apiaries for the number kept than any other country 

 in the world, and what has brought about such great re- 

 sults as these is a thing that I will here explain. 



In 1890 Mr. Gemmill (one of the best all-round bee- 

 keepers that any country ever produced) saw very plainly 

 that the whole bee-industry of our Province was going to 

 be wiped out by the very rapid way that foul brood was 

 then being spread all over the country, with no law to 

 check it or prohibit'the sales of the many diseased colonies 

 that were being shipped into very many localities. Mr. 

 Gemmill knowing all this to be a fact, took hold and spared 

 neither time nor expense until he got the foul brood Act 

 passed, which has proved to be the best thing ever done for 

 the bee-industry of Ontario. 



Just as soon as the Act was passed I was appointed in- 

 spector for the Province by the directors of the Ontario 

 Bee-Keepers' Association, on account of it being widely 

 known that I had been curing diseased apiaries for years 

 before that, and had been a success at the business, and for 

 this reason was considered a suitable man for the position. 

 I knew that I had a big job before me at that time, and 

 wanted a few thousand pamphlets published with my 

 method of treatment in to be sent to every bee-keeper in the 

 Province. This was complied with, and 10,000 of these lit- 

 tle books were ordered to be printed at once. A little later 

 I wrote asking to have .^00 printed in German. This was 

 also granted, and in a short time after that the 10,000 foul 

 brood pamphlets were sent direct from the Minister of Agri- 

 culture to the bee-keepers. These were a great help to me 

 in getting the many diseased apiaries cured. 



The directors of the Ontario Bee-Keepers' Association 



