1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



59 



drone uses its upper jaws as scissors 

 in making a circular cut at the top 

 of its cocoon (which is not quite as 

 tough as the queen's). Every bee- 

 keeper, early in the morning in May 

 and June, has seen on the flight- 

 board a number of those round little 

 cappings when many drones have 

 slipped out the night before. The 

 hairs on the upper jaw of the drone 

 are longer and lighter than those on 

 the queen and worker. 



The upper jaw of the worker (Fig. 

 5, C, and Fig. (i) is so different that 

 one would think that it belongs to 

 another insect. It is a tool shaped 

 like a shovp|, not of much use as a 

 weapon, but constructed for various 

 purposes. For instance, the upper 

 jaws are used for comb-building, 

 for removing pollen from cells, and 

 perhaps for packing it in, as well, 

 and for gnawing, etc. By means of 

 them the worker opens its cocoon, 

 not by shearing it, but by slowly 

 fearing it to pieces. The jaws take 

 the place of hands, for with them 

 the bees carry out of the hi\e pieces 

 of wax, crystals of sugar, dead bees, 

 wax-worms, and all foreign parti- 

 cles; and with them the workers 

 seize robbers, pull at the wings of 

 strange queens, and battle with the 

 defenseless drones. 



Considering the organs of the 

 mouth of the three kinds of bees, 

 we may admit that the tongue and accessories, 

 as well as the upper jaws of the drone and queen, 

 belong to a lower stage of development; and it 

 is most interesting to see that those parts of the 

 worker-bee have been improving, while the same 

 parts have been stable in the drone and queen. 

 Only the worker needs re- fined tools, and there- 

 fore only the worker has them. Evidently the 

 mouth parts of the queen and drone are prim- 

 itive forms, and those of the worker have im- 

 proved from age to age 



The contrary takes place with the wings of the 

 ants. Doubtless the workers also possessed wings 

 at one time; but after a while the wing became 

 superfluous, and even hindered, so that they 

 finally disappeared. 



Ottenbach, Switzerland. 



FIG. 6. — H 



FEEDING SYRUP IN COLD WEATH- 

 ER UNDER THE CLUSTER. 



Bees Carrying 



Honey 

 Story. 



into the Upper 



BY FRANK C. PELLETT. 



The proper time to feed is in the fall, before 

 the weather gets cold; but it sometimes happens 

 that one must feed colonies purchased late in or- 

 der to save them, or for other reasons. I prefer 

 an empty super with a pan of syrup covered over 

 with a light cloth to any of the feeders on the 

 market for use at any season of the year, for, when 

 placed over the bees, there is less danger from 



EAD OF WORKER, SHOWING UPPER JAWS OR MAN- 

 DIBLES, MAGNIFIED 22 TIMES. 



robbing than from an entrance-feeder. For cold- 

 weather feeding we simply reverse the thing and 

 set the empty super, in which is placed the pan 

 of syrup, under the hive. With this plan the 

 hive maybe covered with the usual tar-paper cov- 

 ering. Of course, this plan or any other, for 

 that matter, will not work in extremely cold 

 weather; but in this latitude we get warm days 

 occasionally throughout the winter, in which the 

 bees may be fed if the syrup is ready, so that 

 they need not be lost for want of stores. The 

 advantage of this plan over the overhead method 

 is that the cluster will form over the pan and the 

 bees will hang right down to the cloth cover and 

 take the syrup when it is much too cold for them 

 to break the cluster and go upstairs after it. I 

 have had the bees take syrup in this manner when 

 it was too cold for them to fly. I think that 

 much less heat is lost by lifting the hive off the 

 bottom-board and placing over a super as above 

 described than from any other way. The lifting 

 of the cover in winter is especially bad, as the 

 heat naturally rises to the top. 



Perhaps a little unusual experience that we had 

 in uniting this fall may be of interest. We had a 

 swarm that was rather light, so we decided to 

 strengthen it by adding more bees. A neighbor 

 offered us his bees, from which he wished to take 

 the honey, if we would take the job. His bees 

 were in a chaff hive in which we wished to winter 

 them, so we took an ordinary eight-frame hive full 

 of empty combs in which to drive the others. We 

 paid no attention to the queen, as there was no 

 difference in the two so far as we knew, so we 

 left the choice to] the bees. On bringing them 



