360 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURISAL. 



June 4, 1903. 



down near the ground," he explains, " so that a queen once 

 out couldn't g-et back without help if she is clipped. Be- 

 sides these and several other reasons, I oppose the practice 

 of queen-clipping because I believe bee-keeping is being 

 run away from the path of Nature marked out for bees by 

 the Creator himself. In other words, I believe it's a viola- 

 tion of the law of Nature, and of bee-nature in particular, to 

 deny them the right and the inborn inclination to swarm 

 in their own way. Now," he concludes, " I don't want any- 

 body to think I'm saying this because I am proprietor of 

 the best, the tip-topest swarm-catcher in the world, but 

 simply because I'm a friend of Nature, and of bee-nature in 

 particular." 



" Now, let me tell you, Mr. Bond," I continued, 

 " there is more truth than poetry in at least one of the rea- 

 sons given by the objector for not clipping his queens. I 

 think myself, that, when bee-keeping — or the keeping of 

 bees, rather — is only one of the many irons he keeps in the 

 fire, for business reasons queen-clipping would hardly be 

 the right thing for him. Especially not if he objects to 

 spending reasonable wages for a reliable person to take his 

 place at watching for clipped queens during the swarming 

 season. 



" But the matter really has its serious aspects. In your 

 case, for instance, you have told me that you are a farmer 

 for business, and a keeper of bees for what pleasure there 

 may be in it, with all the honey you and family want to use. 

 Very well, then I would advise you not to clip your queens 

 as long as you limit yourself to two or three colonies. For 

 it's just about as the objector says about clipped queens get- 

 ting lost or devoured by birds when some one isn't promptly 

 on hand to pick her up when she comes out with a swarm. 

 In a case of that kind I think it would be best to let your 

 bees swarm in their own way, and run the risk of losing 

 your swarm, and take the labor and the sweat, and some- 

 times the stings, incident to the catching of it. 



" This piece of advice is all the more sensible and practi- 

 cal in face of the fact that it is known to be extremely un- 

 usual for a swarm to issue and cut a bee-line for parts un- 

 known (to the bee-keeper) without first clustering and wait- 

 ing a while somewhere within your reach." 



Douglas Co., Kans. 



Feeding Bees in the Spring. 



BY A. C. F. BARTZ. 



ON page 278 appears a criticism by Mr. Arthur C. Miller, 

 of Mr. Dadant's article on page 231. In it he charges 



Mr. Dadant with ignorance of ordinary bee-life, but 

 makes a much greater error when he says, in part, "All 

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

 of colonies." Now, this is a very sweeping statement 

 which, if taken as it reads, leaves no room for any questions 

 whatever, and, I suppose, is taken for granted by a good 

 many who have had no further experience in feeding for 

 stimulating purposes than Mr. Miller seems to have, for if 

 he had gone through the experience I went through about 

 seven years ago, and Mr. Dadant undoubtedly had a similar 

 experience, Mr. Miller would not have made such a sweep- 

 ing statement as he did. There are conditions here in which 

 stimulative feeding is of great value and indispensable, 

 and his own Italics — " they are stirred up and create more 

 heat " — are in question, because not only the welfare, but 

 in some cases the existence of the colony depends upon 

 them. 



Now, for the benefit of the readers of the American Bee 

 Journal, I will mention the conditions under which stimula- 

 tive feeding is absolutely necessary, and I am pretty sure' 

 if Mr. Miller ever meets with those conditions, he will ap- 

 prove of my statement. The conditions are as follows : 



The bees, having been out of the cellar in the spring 

 for a month or more, have had some fine weather, and 

 brood-rearing has been progressing. Four or more combs 

 are being filled with brood. Young bees are hatching by 

 the hundreds every minute. Thus, the unsealed honey is 

 being consumed very rapidly within the brood-nest. 



Now, at once, comes a cold spell — a spell like we are 

 just having — which may last two weeks. During this time 

 the bees are forced to contract into a solid winter cluster, to 

 say nothing of their being able to leave the hive, for that 

 would be altogether out of the question, for a bee, leaving 

 the hive at such spells, would never return. 



The hatching bees within the cluster, on not finding 

 enough honey to satisfy them, are just the first ones to feed 

 upon the jelly fed to the larvae, and, after that is gone, drop 



off from the comb ; not yet upon the bottom-board, but 

 within the cluster, and the bee-keeper does not know what 

 is going on until the cluster breaks and the adult bees move 

 slowly to combs containing honey. 



The queen stops laying, and either part of the whole 

 brood-nest is left unprotected. But if at such times a little 

 food is given, the queen will keep on laying, the larva; are 

 fed, the hatching bees will remain alive, and the colony suf- 

 fers but little. The bee-keeper, upon the arrival of warm 

 weather, is delighted on seeing so many young bees taking 

 their first flight, and, on opening the hive, finds the brood- 

 nest still full of brood, where, on the other hand, if he had 

 not fed, would likely find the brood-nest empty, even if the 

 bees had reached enough honey to sustain their own life. 



I am not an advocate of early spring feeding, nor at 

 any time when bees can fly. I never found it practical, nor 

 did I see any gain in it. ii'/;/ / a/zfaji'5 feed in such cold 

 spells after the bees have large quantities of brood, and have 

 found it the best investment. 



I also discovered a very practical way of feeding during 

 such cold spells. Take some extracted honey, which is 

 candied solid ; stir it and punch it until it becomes soft like 

 dough. Then take manill a wrapping-paper or fibre, cut it 

 into pieces about eight or ten inches square, take the honey- 

 knife and on it paste or smear about half a pound of this 

 extracted honey. Raise up the hive in front and push the 

 paper under the cluster, or if the cluster does not reach the 

 bottom-board, paste it right under the cluster on the frames. 

 In this way you do not have to open the hive and let any 

 heat escape, for it is done almost instantly, and the bees 

 will take the feed up without breaking cluster. 



Chippwa Co., Wis. 



Bees and Cross-Pollination in Flowers. 



BY H. D. SCHWKINHAGKN. 



LITTLE was known about fertilization of plants before 

 Darwin wrote his work on the fertilization of orchids, 

 and his work on the origin of species. He wrote much 

 on cross-pollination in flowers and gave us a universal 

 knowledge on all living things, plants and animals. On 

 his great work all scientific men and other observers base 

 their investigations. 



The unparalleled success of Charles Darwin is well 

 known. It shows him at the close of his century, to have 

 been, if not the greatest, at least the most effective of its 

 distinguished scientists. The question of cross-pollination, 

 I think, is well settled through his work and the observers 

 of to-day. Under this class I feel that all successful bee- 

 keepers must be classed. 



But the question whether bees are beneficial to orchards 

 is somewhat problematical. Bee-men, who usually are quite 

 accurate observers, are positive about it, and are, of course, 

 in favor of the bees' usefulness to horticulture. Fruit- 

 growers on the other hand, often claim to find crops just as 

 good, or even better, without the aid of the bees. 



But if we observe how the plant is depi^ndent upon the 

 insects, the question becomes a very interesting one. 

 Many of us, however, have never seen the actual process. 

 Insects move so rapidly, and many of them are so very 

 small that we are wont to despair of seeing this miracle per- 

 formed. 



There are many interesting things in Nature that we 

 can observe in our daily life without bothering with the dry 

 problems that confront scientists, and this is one: Flowers 

 live by insects and insects live by the flowers. Nature's 

 provision in flowers is wonderful. Their hoods contain nec- 

 tar, which emits a strong odor, effectively advertising it. 

 This odor is very pleasing to the bee's sense of smell and 

 will attract her. The bee, clinging to the flower, as it 

 gathers nectar, catches its foot in slits between the nectar- 

 cups or hoods; as it leaves the flower a foot is released by 

 drawing it up through the slit, dragging with it two club- 

 shaped masses of pollen. It flies to another flower and, 

 while continuing the process of gathering nectar, draws a 

 pollen-mass into the same sort of slit that caught its foot 

 before, whereby some of the pollen will break off and is left 

 where it can effect cross-fertilizition. 



We can see from this observation that the plant was 

 assisted, to a great extent, by the bee, but the plant uses 

 Nature's gift, the nectar, to attract the bees. For, the bee, 

 to get the nectar, alights on the flower and thrusts it pro- 

 boscis down into the nectar-cup for a sip. 



There are certain flowers that open at certain time of the 

 day, and others open only at night. Now this is not the re- 



