IHE BEE-KEErEim law lEU 



243 



down wore nu after-swarui or uot. Real af- 

 ler-hwarnis can usually be recoyuized by 

 their size. 



In friend 15. Taylor's arlide, Review, ISMi, 

 I find auiusLinent in noliii^x that lie reaclit s 

 my results in such tliflerent ways. Fre- 

 Queiilly has eight or more swarms under dis- 

 cipline in his cellar at one lime, SDme of 

 them for 48 hours. As his sjsieni is sonu- 

 what less grotesque ihan mine very liktly it 

 will secure more general adoption, ai dso do 

 more good. In swarm fever limes, depend 

 upon it, so-iio method whereby the boss of 

 the ranch easily and peremptorily runaiu 

 boss is of decided importance. Just think 

 of 20 or ;5it pounds of bees all in an angry 

 mess — and how it simi)lities matters to i)ut 

 them in baskets of six or seven pounds each 

 and chuck them where they can't do any- 

 thing whatever but wait your sovereign 

 pleasure. 



In A. B. J., 82(), Mr. Doolittie expresses 

 the opinion that a nucleus, with a frame of 

 brood and one of honey, and a ripe queen 

 cell, and tlie overflow bees supplied through 

 a hole from a strong colonj, would prevei't 

 said colony from swarming. I dout)t it 

 greatly. Why should it V Of course if tiet s 

 were reasoning creatures, and reasoned that 

 they already had anew colony in process of 

 construction, they would not swarm ; Imt we 

 know tliey do not reason to that extent, ;\iid 

 in that way. There is little about tlie plan 

 to delay the building of tpieen caps, it si tn s 

 to me. (I may be wrong.) Nothing about 

 it promises to keep the queen from lajinyr 

 in the cups : there is little to induce ilie 

 workers that choose to remain in the old 

 hive to let tlie eggs perish ; very little to in- 

 duce the workers, that have come to have a 

 gleam of personal affection for their prin- 

 cess baby, to consent to its murder byqiini u 

 Herodias — and you may bet your boUom 

 dollar the okl queen will raise all the rumpus 

 she ever does if they don't let lier butclici ii. 

 Of course in so imi)ortant a matter as tin- a 

 trial of the plan would bo desirable ; but 

 don't build very much on success till yon g< t 

 it. 



It just pops into my liead to remark. Sup- 

 pose we stoi) awhile racking our brains with 

 the question, Why do l)ees swarrn ? and in- 

 vestigate the question, Why bees f/'OjV 

 swarm ? in the different actual cases where 

 they actually do not. The material out of 

 which to build an answer will in the latter 

 question be more within our reach. 



W. H. Moore, of Florence, Nebraska, a 

 man with large experience in tree planting, 

 sajs that in planting basswoods the stems 

 need to be i)rotected with sacking, else they 

 will sun scald, and a half dead tree is the re- 

 sult. Yet in some localities and latitudes 

 the sunshine does not prove so destructive. 

 A. B. J., ;527. Some trouble and expense if 

 the trees-es all have to have " trouses." For 

 la-go plantations 1 should incline to stait 

 Willi little fellows, and to make them spread 

 enough to keep their own trunks shaded. 



Dr. Brown thinkK drones no good after 

 they have taken a journey by mail. A. B. 

 J., 330. 



The eccentricities of the honey flow are 

 known to be very great, even in quite reli- 

 able honey plants. Dr. Brown adds anoth- 

 er. The sourwood tree or a shrub is esteem- 

 ed one of the very best sources of honey'in 

 most of the territory where it grows ; but he 

 has never yet seen a single bee on it, although 

 hundreds of trees grow near him. A. B J., 

 3;i0. 



The Ainfvicaii. Bee Journal of May 23rd 

 has a picture and sketch of the distinguished 

 Swiss Dr. DePlanta, who^e loss apicultural 

 science m urns. He gave ten winters and 

 much other time to subjt-cts connected with 

 bees — i)ollen, nectar, honey, wax, larval food 

 — striving to get the actual bottom facts 

 about these things. How much easier it is 

 to do, as our folks often 'do, draw on your 

 inner consciousness for an answer at once, 

 and then siiend the ten years in converting 

 the ignorant balance of the world with 

 rhetorical Are and sword. Much of this 

 work was to fitul what part pollen played in 

 producing honey, and how much in produc- 

 ing wax. (Vastly cheaper to say, "Itdon'i. 

 play any part.") He actually was not satis- 

 tied with the dictum, "Bees gather and 

 store li'Uiey ; they don't make it," and did 

 pri>longed, tedious work at gathering nectar 

 with a pi|iette, tiiidiutroul what il rcallj was, 

 and what the bees really did to it to make it 

 lioney. The boiled down result of ihis faith- 

 ful work was mainly to estal)lisli the great 

 importance of th" fluids flurni.-lied by the 

 glands in the bee's head, both in the pro- 

 duction of wax and honey. The word saliva 

 is used for these fluids. I feel quite im- 

 pressed with the tiiought that we ought to 

 have a less misleading word, even if it has 

 to be made out of whole cloth. 



RicHAUDs, Lucas Co., Ohio, July 24, '!);">. 



