(Entered as second-class matter at the Post-office at Hamilton, 111., under Act of March 3. i87g.) 



Published Monthly at $1.00 a Year, by American Bee Journal, First Nationai Bank Building 



C. p. DADANT, Editor. 



DR. C. C. MILLER. Associate Editor. 



HAMILTON, ILL., JUNE, 1914 



Vol. LIV.— No. 6 



Editorial 



Comments 



■ ' ■ I ' ' II- 1 : M ;: ; treat his 

 views. See his article in this number. 



Wisoonsiu Inspector Report 



We are in receipt of the 16th annual 

 report of t^e State Inspector of .Api- 

 aries of Wisconsin. Mr. N. E. France 

 shows 285 apiaries inspected containing 

 9070 colonies. Of these 3117 colonies 

 were diseased in 151 apiaries. 



Another great advantage derived 

 from the inspection management in 

 Wisconsin, is the information bureau 

 for beekeepers wanting to either buy 

 or sell bees, queens, honey or bee-sup- 

 plies. Every State might have such a 

 bureau of information. Mr. France is 

 doing splendid work for the beekeep- 

 ers of Wisconsin. 



l>r. 3Icln«loo on the Organs of 

 Smell 



.\11 who care to be informed as to 

 the natural history of the honey-bee— 

 and every beekeeper should be of that 

 number — will be interested in Dr. Mc- 

 Indoo's investigations regarding the 

 smelling organs of the honey-bee. His 

 conclusions, however, are so radically 

 different from anything passing cur- 

 rent heretofore, that they are not likely 

 to find ready acceptance. Something 

 like this is likely to be said: "That's 

 all very interesting, but not at all con- 

 vincing. As stated in the article, ' Both 

 scientists and beekeepers are now gen- 

 erally agreed that the honey-bee has an 

 acute sense of smell, and that its olfac- 

 tory organs are located in the an- 

 tenna.' Is the generally accepted be- 

 lief to be lightly set aside without the 

 fullest proof? Dr. Mclndoo objects 

 that 'all the antennal organs are cov- 



ered with a hard membrane through 

 which odors must pass in order to 

 stimulate these organs.' But one gets 

 a rather different impression in reading 

 Cheshire, Vol. I, page 101^ when the 

 ' smell hollows ' of the antenn.e are 

 mentioned as 'covered by a thin layer 

 lying over a goblet-formed cavity be- 

 neath, into which passes a nerve-end 

 cell.' The idea that the bee smells with 

 its sting, an organ nearly always inside 

 the bee, seems a little like a man smell- 

 ing with his liver. We know the queen 

 is accepted or rejected according to its 

 smell, and when a bee is smelling at a 

 queen, or at other bees, we can see it 

 use its antenn;e." 



However, although it is the general 

 belief that tlie organs of smell are in the 

 antennx, it never has been considered 

 a matter of certainty, Cheshire, on the 

 page already quoted, speaks of certain 

 parts of the antenns as " almost cer- 

 tainly olfactory." That " almost " means 

 that we are still on the lookout to learn 

 whether the organs of smell are in the 

 antenn;e or elsewhere, and if elsewhere, 

 where ? Dr. Mclndoo says he has dis- 

 covered the true organs of smell, and 

 says it with positiveness. No doubt 

 some will ask, " Who is this man, that 

 we should believe such a startling 

 statement from him ?" Mr. Mclndoo 

 is one of that small band of earnest in- 

 vestigators that Dr. E. F. Phillips has 

 gathered about him at Washington. 

 That position entitles to serious con- 

 sideration any statement he may make, 

 and it becomes us to have at least an 

 open mind, watching in the meantime 



Alfalfa Seed Produced Without 

 the Help of Bees 



We are in receipt, from the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, of a circular let- 

 ter explaining how seed may be pro- 

 duced in alfalfa without the help of 

 bees, by the artificial or accidental 

 "tripping "of the flower. This is the 

 "snapping back of a part of the flower 

 to deposit pollen on the stigma." 



However, the cross mating of flowers 

 by the fertilization of one blossom with 

 the pollen of another cannot take place 

 without the action of bees. It appears 

 from this letter that the honey-bee is 

 less efficient in this than some of the 

 wild bees. But as the honey-bees are 

 more numerous than the others, where 

 they exist at all, it necessarily follows 

 that the most flowers are fertilized 

 through their agency. Cross fertiliza- 

 tion ensures seed production in about 

 twice as many instances as when the 

 flower is fertilized by its own pollen. 



The reader will find in this number 

 an article from the pen of our learned 

 correspondent, Mr. John H. Lovell, 

 with illustrations, showing a few of the 

 numerous kinds of bees in existence 

 on the American continent. Pollen- 

 gathering bees are to be found even in 

 the northern mountains, where the 

 summer is less than three months du- 

 ration. Nature evidently provides well 

 for the needs of all its productions. 

 But where flowers are grown arti- 

 ficially in immense fields, as with our 

 alfalfa-covered plains, an artificial pro- 

 duction of pollen-gathering insects is 

 necessary, and our honey-bee proves 

 its usefulness. 



Bulletin No, 75, of the Department of 

 Agriculture, entitled, " Alfalfa Seed 



