Gleanings in Bee Culture 



things are not just to their liking they will 

 leave them for days or until conditions are 

 just right to suit their fancy; and if condi- 

 tions remain unfavorable, they will, within 

 a reasonable time, remove the eggs and eat 

 them. The mere fact that Mr. Couper re- 

 moved these frames to another hive does 

 not in any way prove to me that there was 

 any thing wrong with the eggs, but that 

 the conditions in the second hive were sim- 

 ilar to those in the first, and therefore the 

 bees would not hatch them. I have tried 

 some interesting experiments along this 

 line. I will give the result of one. 



As there was no honey coming in from 

 the natural flow I placed a division-board 

 feeder in the fourth section of the hive, giv- 

 ing a pint of syrup at a feed. After the 

 queen had filled the first comb full of 

 eggs she moved to the second frame. The 

 bees, meanwhile, had been at work draw- 

 ing this comb down and storing syrup. 

 After the queen had deposited a large num- 

 ber of eggs in this comb I stopped feeding, 

 and watched results. The bees ceased to 

 draw down comb, and commenced to remove 

 the eggs laid by the queen. They would de- 

 stroy them as fast as the queen laid them. 

 After they had destroyed all the eggs but 

 about as many as would go in a 2>^-inch 

 circle I again commenced feeding. These 

 eggs had Iain in the cells between four and 

 seven days. The bees now began to take 

 care of them and hatched them. Now, Mr. 

 Editor, if I had not tried feeding again, 

 these eggs would not have hatched, but 

 would have been destroyed; but when the 

 conditions were right 1o suit them they 

 hatched them, and not before. A queen 

 will lay sometimes whether coiiditions are 

 right or wrong. The bees seem to deter- 

 mine these conditions to a great extent. 

 This hive was not short of supplies in the 

 comb, having plenty of sealed honey. 



BEES TRANSFERRING THE EGGS OP THE 

 QUEEN. 



Can or do the bees sometimes carry eggs 

 and place them in the cells? Yes. I caged 

 a queen for four days in a hive that I had 

 prepared with starters before shaking again 

 on full sheets of foundation — a case of Amer- 

 ican foul brood. The bees drew down the 

 starters and carried theeggsfrom the queen- 

 cage, taking them from the wire where the 

 queen had deposited them in bunches, and 

 distributed them as nicely as the queen 

 would have done. This can not be disputed. 



WHY BEES SLEEP IN CELLS CONTAINING 

 EGGS. 



Mr. Arthur C. Miller, page 663, Nov. 1, 

 says, "Bees sleep, and do a lot of it." Let 

 us grant it. Does it follow tluit they crawl 

 into a cell simply to sleep? I doubt this 

 statement. And, again, "Their presence 

 has nothing to do with the hatching of the 

 egg." Is this true? I wonder, Mr. Editor, 

 that they persist in sleeping in the cells that 

 contain eggs. AVhy not sleep in cells that 

 have no eggs? Has locality any thing to 

 do with this? I have watched this very 



closely, and I have failed to note an egg 

 hatching in a cell that a bee had not spent 

 considerable time in, and I also note that 

 they do not spend any time sleeping in a 

 cell of new comb unless there are eggs in it. 

 As to whether a bee's head ever touches an 

 egg in the cell I can not say. I have made 

 my observations with a powerful magnify- 

 ing-glass, and the sun shining through the 

 comb; but I have invariably found that 

 there was a bee in the cell on the opposite 

 side. I have never been able to look through 

 a comb and tell how close a bee's head was 

 to an egg. If I could look between the head 

 and the egg I might be able to determine 

 this point; but I know of no way that one 

 can look through a bee in a cell to determine 

 how close its head is to an egg, nor to re- 

 verse it and look through the bottom of an 

 empty cell so as to see how close the egg on 

 the other side is to the head of the bee. 



PACKING POLLEN IN THE CELLS. 



Let me add to what Mr. Miller has to say 

 about bees packing pollen in the cells, that 

 never, so far as my observation has gone, 

 do the bees that bring the jiollen into the 

 hive, pack it into the cells, although they 

 put the little pellets in the cells direct from 

 their pollen-baskets. Other bees do the 

 packing of the pellets. 



I should like to have Mr. Miller explain to 

 me why the pollen-bearers go through the 

 crazy antics that they perform before and 

 after depositing their load of pollen in the 

 cell. 



ECONOMY IN USE OF FOUNDATION WHEN 

 THE SUPPLY IS LIMITED. 



I have a scheme for nice straight all-work- 

 er comb when I am short of foundation, and 

 can not give a whole sheet. I wire all my 

 frames, then cut four strips as wide as I can 

 afford to give, fastening to the top bar and 

 sealing two of them to the end bars, divid- 

 ing the distance between these with the 

 other two. I then fill in with short pieces 

 of starters on the top bar. The bees will 

 draw down from the top starters and con- 

 nect with the upright strips, bringing the 

 whole together in a beautiful straight work- 

 er comb, and they will not build drone-stor- 

 age comb between these strips. 



Seattle, Wash. 



The Bee. 



BY N. W. SAUNDERS. 



God, our precious loving savior, 



Sendeth down the rain and shower. 

 Then the flower; then the honey-bee 



That flies from flower to flower. 



And hangs around the leaf and bower. 

 Seems like God's precious promises 



He ofl'ers without price 



If we will but accept. 

 Yet we selfish creatures sell the honey 

 For the sake of sordid money. 



But, thanks to God for all we see. 



Especially the honey-bee. 



