278 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



April 30, 1903. 



coming to the prairie, half a mile wide, covered with oak 

 and wild plums, choke, black and red cherries, wild crab 

 apple and thorn-apples, etc. — all one mass of bloom in their 

 season. On the west side was heavy timber consisting of 

 rock and white maple, three varieties of elm, willows on a 

 small creek, lowland and upland basswood ; so the blos- 

 soming was prolonged for four week; different kinds of 

 oak, black walnuts, etc., four different kinds of goldenrod, 

 all right in the timber, and no wind at all as the bee-forage 

 was perfectly protected by the timber on all sides. 



My white clover patch was so perfectly manured and 

 protected that it produced large quantities of nectar. There 

 was no forage of any kind to induce the bees on the open 

 prairie. My hybrid colony swarmed some time the first 

 week in May ; I killed the queen in the swarm, and intro- 

 duced a natural queen-cell, cut out 8 queen-cells from the 

 old stand, examined everyone and found the umbilical cord 

 attachment. After seeing the umbilical cord, the first one I 

 ever saw from the basswood log, I had examined over 100 

 cells and found none, and began to think I must be mis- 

 taken when I saw my first one. In dividing colonies and 

 compelling one-half to rear cells there is no cord ; in rear- 

 ing queens in nuclei there is none. But in natural swarm- 

 ing we find them, and in natural superseding. 



Now comes a question, and I am like Dr. Miller, " don't 

 know," because I never have examined to see. Is there an 

 umbilical cord attached to the nymph or embryo where we 

 take away the queen from a populous colony and compel 

 them to rear a queen ? That is the question before the 

 house. Now, my observation goes to show that the cord is 

 placed there for a purpose, and that purpose has something 

 to do with the longevity of the queen. We may not be able 

 to discover any material difference in the first two or three 

 generations, where no other requirements are lacking for 

 rearing first-class queens, but in the end it will tell. It 

 tells at once to the observing person, where we divide our 

 bees and compel one-half to rear queens. 



Now, Mr. Dadant, as I have told you just where to look 

 for that umbilical cord, look for yourself, and you will be a 

 great sight better satisfied than you will be to have some 

 professor to tell you. You will have no trouble in seeing 

 or finding it at all ; anyone can see it or find it when he 

 looks in the right place, and at the right time, without a 

 microscope or magnifying glass ; and if you are as aston- 

 ished as I was when I saw my first one, it will pay you to 

 investigate. 



Now I will get back to that hybrid colonj'. They were 

 peculiarly marked, so that I could not possibly be mistaken 

 in them ; they were quite numerous up to the last half of 

 August, and quite a number showed up on the first week in 

 September, but they were very old looking, hair all gone, 

 and almost coal-black. Remember, they were perfectly 

 sheltered, and had no winds to contend with. The bees 

 from Mr. Alley's two queens that he sent me were all gone 

 by the first week in February. There was no disease about 

 them, they simply died with old age. The queens were 

 both alive, one had barely a few bees, but not enough to 

 occupy two sides of a comb; the other had probably a trifle 

 over a gill of bees, all gone in the winter in just three 

 months. Here was short life with a vengeance. Those bees 

 did not die in the hive but flew away themselves, to die. 

 Orange Co., Calif., Dec. 28. 



How Bees Feed Each Other— Stimulative 

 Feeding. 



BY ARTHUR C. MILLER. 



MR. DADANT has an interesting article on stimulative 

 feeding, on page 231, but unfortunately fpr the value 

 of his deductions 'they are based on erroneous prem- 

 ises. 



It is not pleasant to charge so careful and usually pains- 

 taking a man as is Mr. Dadant with ignorance of ordinary 

 bee-life, but feeling that he is as anxious as anybody for 

 the truth, and that he will accept my correction in the 

 kindly spirit in which it is intended, I will without further 

 apology show wherein he is wrong. 



1st. He says bees returning from the field instead of 

 depositing the load in the cells often hand it over to a young 

 bee so as to get oft' to the fields again. 



Possibly bees sometimes do this, but I have never seen 

 it, and I have watched bees pretty closely. Further, such 

 an operation would delay rather than speed the bees' move- 

 ments, because it is a very short operation for a bee to 



empty the contents of her honey-sac into a cell, but it is a 

 slow operation for another bee to suck up a load with her 

 proboscis. 



2d. Whenever one of the young bees with one of these 

 transferred loads " meets a queen she respectfully and de- 

 ferentially holds out her proboscis towards her and offers 

 her a taste." 



Food is never given on or by the tongtie of the giving 

 bee, but is taken from that bee's nioutlt by the tongue of the 

 receiving bee. The disgorging of food is done with the 

 proboscis folded back. Further more, bees, except in feed- 

 ing brood, never voluntarily give food ; it always has to be 

 asked for, and sometimes almost taken by force. Also, it is 

 not fresh nectar which is given to the queen, but digested 

 pollen and honey, i. e., chyle. I have never seen food offered 

 to a queen, the "show of tongues " when she is taking food 

 merely being an attempt on the part of the bees to get a 

 taste of the coveted " pap." 



As to the bees' deferential treatment of the queen, it is 

 all a mistaken idea. Except during a peculiar operation 

 which I have termed " grooming," bees never show any- 

 thing which approaches respect or deference for their 

 mother. I know these things from my own oft-repeated ob- 

 servations, and have shown them to others. 



3d. When bees are not harvesting they are quiet. "If 

 the bees are fed sparingly and often, they are stirred up and 

 create more heat." (My italics.) 



That is a clue to the increase in the queen's laying, 

 the increased activity with its resultant increase of heat. 

 Having kept bees chiefly as a pastime I have probably de- 

 voted much more time to experimenting than persons who 

 keeps bees for a business. JBut as a hobby which pays its 

 own way is always more pleasant to ride than one calling 

 for cash, I have always tried to make the bees pay their 

 way, and have succeeded. Among other experiments were 

 many on stimulative feeding in the spring. All sorts of 

 food, fed in all sorts of ways, and to all conditions of colo- 

 nies, at last forced the conviction that " stimulative feed- 

 ing " was always done at a loss ; that the best time to feed 

 the colonies was in the fall, and that colonies worth winter- 

 ing when given sufficient food then were in the best of 

 condition in the spring, and for the harvest. 



4th. In the example cited by Mr. Dadant, where a col- 

 ony kept up a business of slow robbing, he attributes its 

 great increase to the acquisition of the food. If the results 

 were the same in the majority of cases such a conclusion 

 might be drawn, but I have not been able to obtain even a 

 fair number of colonies that responded thus to slow feeding. 

 But it should be noted that when the unintentional feeding 

 was progressing, the weather was such that the bees could 

 fly out daily, and that they, to all intents and purposes, 

 were getting a natural supply of food. It is not possible 

 thus to feed a whole apiary, nor can we pick out the needy 

 and set them at sly feeding. Feeding in the hive or at the 

 entrance is entirely different. If a colony at that season 

 can double itself in a month we may be confident that there 

 was behind that growth some far more potent cause than a 

 "one bee at a time" food-supply. 



Providence Co., R. I. 



No. 1.— Queen-Rearing^Are We Advancing 

 or Retrograding? 



BV G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



A YEAR or two ago, much stress was laid on our rearing 

 better queens than we had been doing during the past, 

 and many new thoughts were e'xpressed along this line, 

 looking toward an advance. Then the matter seemed to 

 wane somewhat, and lately I notice some thoughts expressed 

 which seem quite contrary to those of two years ago. I find 

 some arguing that a pint of bees, if of the right age, will 

 start queen-cells and rear better queens, than will a large 

 number of bees without any special reference to their age; 

 and that "nearly every bee-keeper nowadays " starts his 

 cells by taking a pint or so of young bees to do it with. This 

 pint of bees is to be taken and caged in such a way as to 

 cause them to be very sorrowful or like children having lost 

 their parents, and that they have been kept thus till they 

 mourn themselves almost to death, then these young bees, 

 even if there is only a pint of them, will rear better queens 

 than will a whole colony in a normal condition. Is this 

 correct ? Can this be an advancement ? 



It is claimed by some that the queen-breeders of the 

 past did not know that " young bees were the chief es^en- 



