THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



197 



For the American Bee Juurnal. 



Some Interesting Experiments. 



16— O. M. DOOLITTLE, (40—80). 



On piige 743 of the Bee Journal 

 for 1.SS4, 1 descril)etl how I had pre- 

 pared my bees for winter, by a thor- 

 ough examination of all the colonies, 

 tlie condition of which was noted 

 upon a piece of a honey-section. On 

 this piece was given the quantity of 

 lioney in the hive, tlie amount of 

 sugar syrup fed, and a careful state- 

 ment regarding the pollen whicli the 

 combs contained. This piece was 

 now tacked to the covering, or quilt 

 over the bees, and left for future ref- 

 erence, so that by lifting the cover to 

 each hive, I can easily tell the condi- 

 tion of each when they went into 

 winter quarters. As we have had for 

 the past three months the most steady 

 cold weather on record, 1 have had a 

 very favorable opportmiity to learn 

 much never known by me regarding 

 the wintering of bees, and the kind 

 of food best adapted to their use. 



Among the different colonies in my 

 apiary, was one of about the average 

 strength (not the largest, neither was 

 it tlie smallest), which bad a very 

 choice queen ttiat I had obtained by 

 an exchange with a noted breeder of 

 Italian bees. As this qiieen gave 

 promise of being an improvement on 

 my stock by way of ciossiiig, I was 

 anxioiis that the coloiiy coiitaining 

 her should be given the best possible 

 chance to pass the wjuter in safety. 

 Accordingly about the middle of Sejs- 

 tember, lfS.s4, I took their combs from 

 them and gave them live clean, empty 

 combs whicli were thoioughly ex- 

 amiiied before placing them in the 

 hive, and as far as the unaided eye 

 could see, they were free from eitlier 

 lioney or pollen. At night I coin- 

 menced to feed them syrup made 

 from gi'anulated sugar and water, 

 feeding about 2^ pounds each night 

 for 10 liights; all of which was noted 

 down on the piece of section. About 

 Oct. 2.5, when tucking them up in 

 their cliaff hive and cushions, I looked 

 the combs over to see if there was any 

 brood or pollen in this hive, but found 

 Tioiie. My reason for looking at them 

 at this time, was, that a part of my 

 colonies had gathered pollen during 

 the latter part of October, and reared 

 biood qiiite plentifully, as I wrote on 

 page .5. 



After the last of October, none of 

 the colonies were again disturbed till 

 I began tiying my experiments to 

 ascertain the temperatiire of the in- 

 side of a colony of bees in cold 

 weather. At about this time I peeped 

 into this colony haviiig tlie choice 

 queen, and to my surprise found them 

 qiiite uneasy. Extremely cold weather 

 with much snow and high winds pre- 

 veiited my lookiii^ at them again 

 uiilil about the middle of February, 

 when I found tliat they had become 



so reduced in numbers that there 

 were only bees in two .spaces between 

 the combs, while the sight and odor 

 of disease proved to me that 1 had in 

 this eoloiiy (having oiily graiiiilated 

 sugar syriip for stores) a case of the 

 worst kiiid of bee-diarrhea. 



Knowing that I must lose the col- 

 ony, I thoiiglit to test the tempera- 

 tiire, so I immediately placed a self- 

 registering thermometer in their 

 midst; the next morning, while the 

 mercury outside stood at zero, I found 

 that even so few bees as above stated 

 (less than one quart), bad kept the 

 temperature at 70° and above for 

 nearly '2i hours. The colony ceased 

 to exist on Feb. 24, at 3 p. m., by my 

 taking about 200 wretched looking, 

 daubed bees, with the queen, into my 

 shop, where 1 caged the queen, after 

 which I shook the bees on the snow 

 in the zero air, and placed the queen 

 over another colony of bees. 



An examination of the combs 

 showed brood in one comb covering a 

 space about the size of a silver dollar, 

 which brood had been kept by the 

 bees some days previous on account 

 of the cluster getting so small that it 

 was obliged to move higher on the 

 combs to get food. On either side of 

 this tirood, in the opposite comb, the 

 cells were partially tilled with a whit- 

 ish substance resembling the chyme 

 fed to larval bees, in a somewhat 

 dried state. There was also about 

 200 young, fuzzy bees among the dead 

 bees at the bottom of the hive. As 

 far as pollen was concerned, I could 

 detect none — not any more than I 

 could last fall. I now fell to reason- 

 ing : What of the pollen theory V If 

 bees died with diarrhea with abso- 

 lutely nothing for food but sugar 

 syrup, why should Mr. Ileddon lay 

 the cause of the disease to pollen V 

 Thus I had unintentionally proven 

 that bees did have the diarrhea with 

 no pollen or honey present ; while 

 heretofore we had been told that bees 

 did not even spot the .snow on their 

 tirst flight, when wintered on sugar. 

 Again, what of the " no pollen, no 

 bi'ood " theory V I had just said in 

 " Queries and Replies," that I be- 

 lieved where the bees had only stores 

 of sugar, no brood would be reared ; 

 while Frof. Cook and Mr. A. I. Root 

 have been positive for years that 

 brood could only be reared when the 

 bees had access to pollen. 



Just at this time it entered my 

 head that Frof. Cook had been re- 

 ported, on page 7, as saying at the 

 Michigan Convention, " It is folly to 

 say that mature bees do not eat pol- 

 len unless they are breeding. I have 

 dissected bee after bee at a time when 

 no brood-rearing was going on, and 

 found their intestines loaded with 

 grains of pollen;" and how I had 

 wondered, when reading it, if he had 

 searched for pollen in the intestines 

 of bees which had no pollen in their 

 hives during a time of year when no 

 brood-rearing was going on, and 

 found no pollen then. If he had done 

 so. then he had positive evidence that 

 my belief, founded on experiments, 

 that old bees do not eat pollen, only 

 in the shape of chyme, was a mistake 

 or " foolishness." But if pollen could 



be found in the intestines of bees 

 which were confined to stores of 

 honey or sugar only, then it proved 

 that bees might carry jjollen in their 

 intestines when none was present in 

 the hive, and had not been for some 

 weeks previous. 



As I was anxious to gain all the 

 knowledge 1 could on this as well as 

 other points, I at once gathered up 8 

 or 10 bees from the snow before they 

 had ceased to exist, and sent tliem by 

 the next mail to Frof. Cook, request- 

 ing him to tell me what he found in 

 their intestines. Here is his reply, 

 dated Feb. 27, 18S.5 : " I have found 

 almost no pollen in the fieces, and yet 

 the characteristic odor of serious 

 dianhea. 1 find hosts of bacteria, 

 and a great many oval bodies which 

 look like blood corpuscles in the 

 higher animals. I do not know what 

 these latter are ; they may be spores. 

 I have given some to Dr. Beal, who 

 will try, by cultivation, to find out the 

 precise nature of these oval bodies. 

 I will tell you of any 

 farther results of investiga'tion." He 

 again wrote me as follows on March 

 3 : " Two of the bees had an abund- 

 ance of pollen. The others seemed to 

 have none. Dr. Beal thinks that the 

 abundant oval bodies are spores of 

 some fungus. Ferliaps bees collect 

 spores as well as pollen. They may 

 not be spores. I shall examine the 

 matter fully." 



As soon as I received the last com- 

 munication, I thought that I would 

 send him more bees, and also ^oiue of 

 the comb which I spoke of as having 

 the whitish substance in the cells op- 

 posite the brood, asking him to make 

 a thorough examination of both. He 

 replied on JVIarcli 10 as follows: "I 

 find that the white substance at the 

 bottom of the cells is the web or 

 cocoon of once larval bees. To this I 

 find pollen grains attached. I find a 

 little pollen at the bottom of the cells, 

 which, to the unaided eye, seem en- 

 tirely empty; also some under the 

 honey on the side of the comb which 

 you cut off. I find pollen, which the 

 microscope reveals, in almost every 

 cell. The bees differ much. Some 

 have no pollen, others considerable. 

 The oval bodies of which I wrote, are 

 undoubtedly blood-discs ; I find them 

 in my bees "which have wintered re- 

 markably well. Your bees which are 

 the fullest, or the most turgid— are 

 bloated like — have pollen in almost 

 every case. The smaller ones seem 

 to be without pollen, yet in these 

 latter the odor of the disease seems 

 present." 



From the above I feel that I know 

 less regarding the wintering of bees 

 than I ever did before ; in fact I feel 

 that when we know all there is to be 

 learned in this matter, we shall see 

 how erroneous the many views of the 

 past have been. Four things, how- 

 ever, are clearly brought to light, viz : 

 1. Follen can be found in combs by 

 the use of the microscope, which the 

 unaided eye knows nothing of. 2. 

 Pollen can be found in the intestines 

 of the bee which has been confined to 

 a diet for several months, which all 

 ordinary apiarists would suppose con- 

 tained no pollen. 3. Brood can be 



