^American ^ee Joarnal 



June, 1914. 



and they were then stained with dyes. 

 Looking at one of these stained sec- 

 tions under the microscope, one or 

 more of the olfactory organs split open 

 is always observed. From Fig. 5 it is 

 seen that one of these organs is an in- 

 verted flask in the chitin (Ch). It has 

 a wide neck (NkFl)and a flaring mouth 

 (MFl), and its bottom is two-thirds 

 filled with a hollow chitinous cone 

 (Con). A sense cell (SC) lies just be- 

 neath the flask. Its outer end (SF) 

 runs all the way to the opening (PorAp) 

 in the chitin, and its inner end (NF) 

 runs to the main nerve in the appen- 

 dage. It is thus seen that the sub- 

 stance (Cyt) in the sense cell comes in 

 direct contact with the air containing 

 the odor, and odors do not have to 

 pass through a hard membrane in or- 

 der to stimulate the sense cells in the 

 antenna;. 



To determine the function of these 

 organs the wings, legs and stings of 

 many workers were mutilated. The 

 behavior of the mutilated bees was 

 carefully studied, and they were tested 

 with odors in the same manner as 

 already described. The stings of 100 

 workers were pulled out. These bees 

 lived 30 hours on an average. Twenty 

 of them were tested with odors. They 



SCf\/dc/ 



Fig 5.— Cross section of a typical olfactory 



organ from group lo.showingthe internal 



anatomy, highly magnified. 



responded only slightly, more slowly 

 than unmutilated bees. The wings of 

 28 workers were pulled ofT. When 

 tested with odors, these bees responded 

 one-eighth as rapidly as normal bees. 

 The bases of the wings of 20 workers 

 were covered with glue. When tested, 

 these bees responded also one-eighth as 

 rapidly as normal bees. The organs on 

 the legs of 20 workers were covered 

 with a mi.xture of beeswax and vase- 

 line. When tested, these bees re- 

 sponded two-fifths as rapidly as un- 

 mutilated workers. The wings were 

 pulled off and the organs on the legs 

 of 20 workers were covered with the 

 beeswax-vaseline mixture. When tested 

 with odors these workers responded 

 one-tweUth as rapidly as unmutilated 

 workers. All of the workers with mu- 

 tilated wings and legs lived just as long 

 in the observation cases as did unmu- 

 tilated workers, and they were abso- 

 lutely normal in all respects except 

 they reacted to odors more slowly. 



Judging from the anatomy of these 

 organs, and from the preceding ex- 

 periments it is only reasonable to re- 

 gard these structures as the olfactory 



organs in the honey-bee. The writer 

 has also made a special study of these 

 organs in ants, wasps and hornets, and 

 the conclusions obtained from this 

 study confirm the above view. These 

 organs are common to all insects, 

 while the antennal organs differ much 

 in structure, and no one kind of them 

 is common to all insects. 



The view that the antenna; carry the 

 olfactory organs held so long by bee- 

 keepers and scientists must, therefore, 

 be abandoned judging from these in- 

 vestigations. 



Washington, D. C. 



The Marking of the Queens 



BY DR. BKUNNICH. 



ABOUT 10 years ago I marked my 

 queens with a mixture of glue of 

 isinglass and color, but I was not 

 contented with the results. The odor 

 of this glue was very disagreeable, and 

 the bees certainly detested it as well 

 as I. It required several minutes for 

 the glue to dry, and it was not possible 

 to give a nice mark to a queen. Hold- 

 ing the marking of queens a very val- 

 uable thing, I was therefore glad, when, 

 in a convention of the Swiss bee-breed- 

 ers, a friend of mine gave us a better 

 method, which I will describe at once. 

 In a cup of porcelain I grind some 

 color pocuder (a teaspoonful), adding 

 by little and little some good lacquer 

 until the consistency is half liquid. It 

 is a matter of experience to get the 

 best consistency; at all events the lac- 

 quer must not be too thick, because then 

 the marking is impossible and does not 

 remain. 



To give the mark of color to a queen, 

 I always hold her by the wings in my 

 left hand and let her take hold on a 

 table. With a little instrument, which 

 consists of a thread-like wire which is 

 bent one-sixteenth inch at the point at 

 an angle of about 45 degrees, I make 

 my marks on the thorax. With this 

 little instrument I am able to make a 

 great number of very different marks. 

 Sometimes I give one Point, ivto, three, 

 or four points, a longitudinal ba?-, a 

 transversal one or oblique one, or I 

 combine those bars with one or two 

 points; sometimes I make a cross in 

 two different positions; sometimes a 

 H or a U, etc. With the colors / I'ary 

 every year ; u'hile (not very good), red 

 and r<'7/o?£' (excellent colors), .^^cfn. I 

 never tried blue, silver, or golden 

 bronze. Every four years the same 

 colors come again. If the marks are 

 well made, they may remain clearly for 

 four years. 



The advantages of the markings are 

 various and considerable. How easily 

 a queen with a bright mark may be 

 recognized from a great distance, and 

 how agreeable it is to seek such a 

 queen ! It is a very valuable thing, if a 

 queen has to be superseded by a young 

 one; only if a queen is well marked 

 may I be absolutely surethatthe super- 

 seding has succeded. 



I know from a large experience that 

 many a beekeeper believes the super- 

 seding a success, while it was another 

 young queen bred from the bees of the 

 hive which deceived the beekeeper. 

 Even clipping is not sure, because it 



may happen that the wings are injured 

 in a manner that it may seem as if the 

 wing had been clipped. I am very 

 mistrustful when the excellent results 

 of any new method of superseding are 

 praised by the beekeepers. I think I 

 have tried all methods (always with 

 colored queens), and have seen that 

 every method gives a failure under cer- 

 tain circumstances, even if performed 

 with all precautions. Often the hive 

 will not be looked after in three or 

 four weeks, and of course a young 

 queen will have brood in all stages, 

 and the happy bee-man is proud of his 

 success. 



The marking of queens, bees and 

 drones has given me a great manyvery 

 interesting experiences. Often I saw, 

 at my mating stations, that a queen 

 was not in her own nucleus, but in a 

 strange one; she had flown into the 

 false hole and had been kindly ac- 

 cepted. Once I had an excess of queen- 

 cells in a dequeened colony in my bee- 

 house. When I came to take the cells 

 they had disappeared; but instead of 

 them I saw a young fertile queen. 

 Noticing the colored mark on her 

 back, I immediately recognized a queen 

 which had been before in a not very 

 distant nucleus, where now she was no 

 longer to be found. Similar examples 

 I have often seen. It is a nice thing, 

 which I have often observed, to see in 

 a hive an old queen with her mark, and 

 not far from her her daughter with a 

 different colored mark. For knowing 

 exactly the age of a queen there is no 

 other means than a good marking. I 

 have sometimes read of queens 6 years 

 old. I, for my part, am distrustful of 

 such statements, having never seen a 

 queen older than 4 years. 



Sometimes nice things may be ob- 

 served by marking young bees. We 

 may then exactly know their age, when 

 they fetch pollen, honey or water. 

 Once I saw a bee which fetched wax 

 from a little lump lying aside; quickly 

 I marked it with yellow color, and 

 could then observe for some days the 

 same bee fetch from that wa.x. My 

 son and I have marked quite differently 

 a number of water-carrying bees and 

 then noted the time of their sucking 

 and the time they needed to bring the 

 water home, etc. For the exploration 

 of certain scientific questions the 

 marking of the bee is quite an indis- 

 pensable matter. 

 Zug, Switzerland. 



European Foulbrood at Dr. 

 Miller's 



BY DR. C. C MILLER. 



IN the season of I!)i:!, I had 24 cases 

 of European foulbrood in my apiary. 

 Almost all of them were very light; 

 I think none would be called very bad ; 

 but if a single diseased cell was found 

 in a colony, that colony was called a 

 "case." As there were 83 colonies, 

 spring count, that made 29 percent of 

 them affected. 



The first case was spotted April 22; 

 15 cases were found at diflferent times 

 in May; and the balance in June, the 

 last being June 18. Whenever a case 

 was found, it was marked in red ink in 

 the regular record-book, and any en- 



