492 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 15 



lieving that is what he wishes me to express 

 myself about, I will again answer yes. I 

 have every reason to believe that the queen 

 knows whether she is laying eggs which are 

 to produce drones or those which are to pro- 

 duce workers. Those who read the conver- 

 sation on drone comb in Gleanings for 

 Feb. 1, 1908, will see how I allow in most of 

 my hives drone comb in only one frame, and 

 keep this f raaie at the side of the hive so that 

 it may be kept unoccupied by drone brood 

 as long as possible. Well, I have often had 

 colonies start brood-rearing in spring on the 

 side of the hive furthest from this comb, and 

 as the season advanced, and the bees desired 

 drones, and before worker brood had come 

 within three combs of this outside comb with 

 drone-cells, the queen would travel clear 

 around those three unoccupied combs and 

 lay in all of the drone-cells, without putting 

 a single egg in any worker-cells all about the 

 margin of this drone comb. Further, in 

 some cases, all along the edges of the drone 

 comb there may be drone and worker cells 

 mixed, when every drone-cell would be picked 

 out and eggs deposited, without a single egg 

 in even one worker-cell. As soon as all the 

 drone-cells were occupied with eggs the queen 

 would return to the brood-nest and go to 

 laying worker eggs as she was doing before. 

 I know that there is now and then a case 

 where a queen will deposit eggs in drone 

 comb, a part of which will produce workers, 

 and the other part drones; but in this case I 

 am inclined to the svipposition that the 

 "queen wills it," rather than that the size, 

 depth, or pitch of the cell has any thing to 

 do with it. Of one thing I am certain from 

 many observations; and that is, where the 

 bees desire drones every cell of this drone 

 comb will contain only drones, no matter 

 whether the cells are a shade smaller, a little 

 deeper or a little shallower, or whether the 

 pitch is different. The only thing whi6h con- 

 fronts us, then, is, whether there may be 

 times when the bees and queen want work- 

 er brood but are prevented because of the 

 size of the cell. To this I should say no, for 

 I have often confined a nucleus, which had a 

 queen just commencing to lay, to cells wholly 

 of the drone size, and had nothing produced 

 from these cells but worker bees. From 

 these observations, I conclude that, where 

 both drone and worker brood are found in 

 drone comb at certain times, the bees and 

 queen are willing to have some drones as 

 well as workers in the hive. 



Regarding the third question, I will frank- 

 ly say that 1 do not know; nor have I ever 

 found anybody who does. I have asked a 

 great many bee-keepers about this, and the 

 mo->t of them seem willing to acknowledge 

 that they do not know why this shaking pro- 

 cess is gone through with by certain bees in 

 certain colonies any more than they know 

 why certain bees from certain colonies will 

 arrange themselves in rows all up and down 

 on the outside of the front of the hive, and 

 s^and there and scrape away, up and down, 

 with n swinei' g ni"rHin of the l<ody, for 

 houi-t and d:i-\s;.i ii t in*- S >n e bavf claim- 



ed that, when this scraping act was begun, 

 the bees intended to swarm soon; but scores 

 of colonies, keeping it up oflE and on for a 

 month without swarming, have shown the 

 falsity of any such conclusion; and, so far as 

 I know, all are alike ignorant as to what the 

 bees are thus exercising for I have been 

 told many times that this shaking motion of 

 the bees ^s to loosen the pollen from the pol- 

 len-baskets, so that it would slip off easily 

 into the cells when the bee wished to leave 

 the loads; but this will not account for the 

 matter, for, as our questioner tells us, the 

 majority of the bees which go through this 

 gyrating exercise do not have pollen in their 

 pollen-baskets. Then this "gyrating" is 

 confined, as is the scraping, to certain colo- 

 onies, so that it can not be of universal ne- 

 cessity in the economy of the hive, and for 

 this reason it will be more difficult to come 

 to any direct conclusion in the matter, even 

 if it were possible to do otherwise. I have 

 stood, sat, and lain beside a single-comb ob- 

 servation hive for hours that have lengthen- 

 ed into days and weeks, but I never saw a 

 bee so gyrating in a one-comb observation 

 hive; and until I do find one, the "marked- 

 off squares " will not be needed. Like our 

 questioner, I believe that all are interested 

 in these things, even though it may be of no 

 money value to us, and, like him, I "should 

 like to know what the bees are doing it for, ' ' 

 and what the scraping motions are for; but 

 so far I do not know, nor have 1 found any 

 one able to tell me. 



Dr. Miller says, page 7, Jan. 1. that bees 

 when taken from a cellar can be placed with- 

 out reference to former location. True; and, 

 more, they can be moved at almost any Sea- 

 son if a board or other obstruction is placed 

 in front of the hive for a few days. 



Page 8 the doctor wonders if there is not a 

 larger proportion of Prohibitionists among 

 bee- keepers than any other class. I believe 

 he is quite right. I remember attending a 

 large convention of bee-keepers some years 

 ago, when it seemed as if nearly all were of 

 this persuasion: and, more, a large number 

 were in favor of a party for carrying their 

 principles into effect. 



On page 84 Stenog gives some rules from 

 C. J. H. Gravenhorst, republished in the 

 Bee-keepers^ Review, as to why some colonies 

 do so much better than other!^. Now, it 

 seems well to know why it is; but can we 

 not, while aiming a.t this as an ideal comli- 



