AMERICAN BEE JOaRNAL. 



?11 



Two Queens in a, Hive.— We have 

 received from several of our good friends 

 and subscribers a clipping which was origi- 

 nally published in a London newspaper, 

 giving an account of two queen-bees keep- 

 ing house togetJier during an apiarian exhi- 

 bition in Vienna, Austria. It seems that 

 Bro. Root's attention has also been called 

 to the statement about the two queens, for 

 in " Gleanings " we find this about it: 



The statement is going the rounds of the 

 press, as though it were something posi- 

 tively wonderful, and never before heard 

 of, to the effect that two queens were 

 actually living together in harmony, in an 

 observatory hive on exhibition at an api- 

 cultural show in Vienna, and that thou- 

 sands of visitors can attest the proof of it. 

 We don't doubt it at all. This same clip- 

 ping desires bee-journals to take particular 

 notice of it. Of course, our readers know 

 that it is not an extraordinary thing to find- 

 two queens in a hive, both performing 

 their regular duties. 



But it's not surprising that the uninitiated 

 public should be surprised about such 

 things. Why, just a few weeks ago, a city 

 gentleman called on us, and wanted to get 

 some one-pound sections, saying that a bee- 

 keeping friend of his in the country wanted 

 to take off some honey and put it into the 

 " little boxes !" He thought that the honey 

 was cut out of the hive and then put into 

 the sections! When we explained how 

 things are done by the practical bee-keeper, 

 he said: "Well, that shows how little I 

 know about bees!'' 



The St. Joseph, Mo., "Herald" also 

 copied the wonderful ( !) article in ques- 

 tion, and it came under the notice of Em- 

 erson T. Abbott, the President of the North 

 American Bee-Keepers' Association, who, 

 as all know, lives in St. Joseph. He took 

 the trouble to reply to it in the same paper, 

 on Nov. 16, and here is a portion of his 

 remarks : 



The discovery is that Prof. Gatter, of 

 Simmering, exhibited a •• thriving hive the 

 members of which are governed conjointly 

 by two queens," and that the "two mon- 

 archs get along most satisfactorilj-." 



The writer further states that the " mem- 

 bers of the Vienna Apicultural Society are 

 proud to think that no such extraordinary 

 spectacle as this was ever witnessed ( '.) or 

 recorded in the history of bees." And to 

 ruake the matter more sensational, and to 

 give color to the statement, we are told 

 that the eminent apiarist. Dr. Dzierzon, 

 "sat for hours at a stretch watching the 

 two queens." 



It is too bad to make the old man spend 



so much time watching a very ordinarv 

 affair. » j j 



As the article is credited to a London 

 paper, it is to be assumed that this would- 

 be sensational scribbler lives under a mon- 

 archial government, and on this ground 

 may be excused for dealing so lavishly in 

 phrases which are peculiar to such a govern- 

 ment. 



There is no such government, however, 

 in a bee-hive. The queen, so-called, is not 

 a queen at all in the sense that she rules 

 the hive. She is simply the mother-bee, 

 and her principal duty is to lay eggs. She 

 does this work to perfection, as she some- 

 times lays 2.000 or 3.000 eggs a day during 

 the time honey is coming in rapidly. 



Every man who has any practical knowl- 

 edge of the economy of the bee-hive knows 

 there is no such thing as government in it. 

 The truth of the matter is, the bees do not 

 need any boss, as every bee has a mind to 

 work, and each bee knows her business, and 

 does it without any whining. Men might 

 learn a lesson from the bees in this respect. 

 There is more reason for believing that the 

 so-called " queen " is subject to the will of 

 the worker-bees than there is for thinking 

 that she has anything to do with the gov- 

 ernment of the colony. A monarchist will 

 find no support for his theory in a bee-hive. 

 Neither is there anything strange about 

 finding two queens in a hive, as this fre- 

 quently occurs under certain conditions, 

 and the fact has been witnessed and stated 

 a great many times before this fruitful 

 writer with a very vivid imagination 

 spread it broadcast in the world. 



I hope you will excuse me for taking so 

 much of your space. My only excuse for 

 so doing is, that I think "it better for those 

 who may not have the opportunity of 

 knowing the truth to have the facts plainly 

 stated by one who from actual experience 

 should know them. 



Emerson T. Abbott. 



|^= The food fed to all larvse, up to the 

 time they are 36 hours old, is exactly the 

 same, whether the larvae are designated for 

 drones, queens, or workers.— Z>oo?«»?e. 



Reniarknhle Fall for ISees Mr. 



B. Taylor, of Porestville, Minn., who con- 

 ducts the apiarian department in the 

 " Farm, Stock and Home," had the follow- 

 ing in the number of that paper for Nov. 15 : 



In our 39 years of bee-keeping in Minne- 

 sota, we have never known a year in which 

 the bees worked so late in the fall as this. 

 One fall, 20 years or more ago, the bees 

 gathered considerable honey in the first 

 week of October. We had taken all the 

 supers for surplus off, except on a few 

 hives, and we were called from home a 

 week, and on returning was surprised to 

 find that there had been a nice lot of honey 

 stored in the few supers that remained 



