232 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



per story of the hive is high enough 

 to cover them. 



Honey being so scarce last fall, I 

 wintered several of my colonies prin- 

 cipally on sugar syrup, and I find 

 them ,now among my best colonies. 

 I have often wintered my bees in 

 that way, sometimes having no honey 

 in the hive, and I have always had 

 them to winter well. I have never 

 put anything into the syrup to keep it 

 from granulating. If it is sealed up 

 in the combs, it will not granulate ; 

 at least it never has for me. I prefer 

 the pure syrup, without any mixture, 

 and I think that the bees do also. 



New Castle,o+ Ind. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Bees Apparently Dead, etc. 



I. p. WILSON. 



I put about 30 colonies of bees into 

 my cellar early in last December, and 

 left 12 colonies on the summer stands. 

 One-half of those in the cellar are 

 dead, and only one of those left out- 

 doors has survived the winter. None 

 died from starvation, as an abundance 

 ot honey was left with nearly all the 

 colonies that died. I should not have 

 called it honey, for it does not deserve 

 that name. I did not use or sell a 



Eound of the honey gathered at my 

 ome apiary, last summer. The bees 

 in this locality worked on honey-dew 

 the greater part of the time, and it 

 was entirely unfit for use. 



I had 12 colonies in the country 

 where white clover and basswood 

 were abundant, and where honey- 

 dew was scarcely noticed, and these 

 gathered most luscious honey. These 

 bees wintered well, and have come 

 out in good condition ; while those 

 supplied with honey-dew nearly all 

 died with the diarrhea, leaving the 

 hives in a sickening condition. 



For years I have wintered my bees 

 in a cellar especially made for that 

 purpose, and have rarely if ever lost a 

 colony, and so the depleted condition 

 of my apiary, this spring, is an unusal 

 thing with me, and is quite disheart- 

 ening. 



My bees were taken out of the cel- 

 lar about the middle of March, and 

 on the day following it turned cold, 

 the mercury fell to -5^ below zero, and 

 a strong, cold wind prevailed for sev- 

 eral days. At length a mild day 

 came, and I passed around hastily to 

 peep at my 16 remaining colonies, 

 when, to my sorrow, I found two of 

 them apparently dead, and one of 

 these contained my choicest queen — 

 one which $20 would not tempt me to 

 part with. I carried the hive into my 

 kitchen, and looked carefully for the 

 beautiful queen, so as to take one 

 more lingering look at her. I at length 

 found her and held her my warm 

 hand for perhaps 1.5 minutes, when, 

 to my surprise, I saw her quiver, and 

 a moment later she commenced to 

 move, I put her into a cage, which I 

 then placed into my vest pocket, and 

 carried her all day, and by night she 

 was perfectly restored. In my haste 

 I had left the apparently dead colony 

 in the kitchen near the stove, saying. 



as I left home, " Let them stay there 

 until noon, and perhaps they, too, will 

 revive." Sure enough, they did re- 

 vive, and when I went home at night 

 I liberated the queen, and after keep- 

 ing them in a warm place for 3 or 4 

 days, I again placed them on the sum- 

 mer stand where they are now doing 

 well ; and thus my valued queen is 

 saved. 



The colony had become quite weak, 

 and the hive was by mistake left open 

 in front and at the honey-board, or, 

 perhaps, they would not have become 

 chilled as they did. After restoring 

 this colony, I tried the experiment on 

 the other one that seemed to be dead, 

 and to my surprise I succeeded in re- 

 storing its valuable queen to life, but 

 I could only revive a very few of the 

 bees. I found another colony which 

 was queenless. into which I intro- 

 duced this queen, and she is likewise 

 doing well. How long they had been 

 in this torpid condition, I do not 

 know ; but one of them, I am sure, 

 had been so for 24 hours. 



Burlington, o, Iowa. 



For tbe American Bee Jourcil. 



Is Pollen Fed to Larval Beesi 



J. RUTHERFORD. 



On page 134, Mr. G. M. Doolittle 

 makes a feeble reply to my " Hard 

 Nut to Crack," on page 60 ; in fact, 

 the one statement coututes the other. 

 The question at issue is, " Do bees in 

 the larval state eat pollen V" On page 

 •5, in the second paragraph, Mr. Doo- 

 little says : " Right here I wish to 

 say that whenever I use the word 

 pollen, I use it in the sense of bee- 

 bread which is stored in a solid mass 

 in the cells." I want no better defi- 

 nition of the word pollen, and I ac- 

 cept it without further explanation. 

 He then says : " The first fact to 

 which I wish to call the reader's at- 

 tention, as bearing on this winter 

 question, is, that the intestines of the 

 newly hatched bee are filled with pol- 

 len when it emerges from the cell ; in 

 fact this pollen can be easily seen by 

 the naked eye, in the iarva, before it 

 is sealed over in the cell." Such a 

 statement is simply imaginary, and, 

 no doubt, the whole article was built 

 upon a wrong foundation ; because 

 bees do not eat pollen in the larval 

 state. 



Again, in the second paragraph, on 

 page 134, he says : " From many care- 

 ful observations regarding the food of 

 larval bees, I have been led to believe 

 that such food was composed of about 

 two parts honey or saccharine matter, 

 four parts pollen, or flour when used 

 in early spring for a substitute,' and 

 one part of water, the whole being 

 taken into the stomach of the bee 

 and formed into chyme, after which 

 it was given to the larval bees in the 

 cream-like form as we see it in the 

 cells." There is quite a difference in 

 his two statements, and I am glad 

 that he is coming nearer the truth, 

 and I hope that after he has read this 

 article he will not only recede from 

 his former statement, but will be- 

 come a convert to scientific truth. 



Allow me to analyze the food of 

 larval bees, and see if we can trace 

 any of Mr. D's detailed ingredients 

 which he supposed form the food of 

 the larval bees. 



I now propose to show that his last 

 statement is as imaginary as the first, 

 and that no trace ot his different in- 

 gredients, and especially pollen, can 

 be found. Dr. DonhofE, an eminent 

 German authority, says that nine- 

 tenths of the larval food contains 

 animal albumen and flbrine, and 

 makes the following tests in support 

 of this statement : 



1. "If the jelly be treated with 

 ether and water, the pure substance 

 alone will remain ; this is whitish, 

 translucent and elastic, having all the 

 appearances of coagulated albumen 

 and fibrine. 



2. " If the jelly dries up in a royal 

 cell (as is the case particularly in 

 queenless and drone-producing colo- 

 nies, where the l)ees undertake to 

 rear a queen from a drone larva, 

 which invariably perishes in the pro- 

 cess), it becomes transformed into a 

 tough, j'ellow, transparent mass like 

 that into which proteine substances 

 are converted. 



3. " If the wax and sugar be ex- 

 tracted from tlie jelly, by ether and 

 water, and a solution of sulphate of 

 copper be added to the residuum, ox- 

 ide of copper will be precipitated by 

 caustic potash ; but the solution will 

 retain the blue color of the salt. 



4. " The mass remaining, after 

 treating the jelly with ether and 

 water, will be completely dissolved by 

 a solution of caustic potash, assuming 

 a faint yellow tinge, and on the addi- 

 tion of muriatic acid, will emit an 

 odor resembling that of sulphureted 

 hydrogen. 



" Ingredients present in minute 

 quantities only, are : 1. Wax. When 

 I treated the jelly with ether and 

 water, there remained an evaporation 

 by heat — a white mass having an 

 unctuous feel, and which, when 

 warmed, rendered paper transparent 

 and glossy. 2. Sugar. When the 

 jelly was digested in water holding 

 sulphate of copper in the solution, the 

 addition of caustic potash produced 

 yellow precipitate. 3. No trace of 

 pollen or starch could be detected by 

 employing the usual re-agent ; the 

 presence of albumen and fibrine 

 shows that the jelly is an animal 

 secretion, and should be designated 

 by some more appropriate name. It 

 seems probable that the secretion is 

 effected by a glaud in the gullet, or 

 oesophagus, since jelly is never found 

 in the stomach of the bee." 



I may also add the names of Dzier- 

 zon and Prof. Von Siebold as holding 

 the same view, that the food of the 

 larva is an animal secretion, and that 

 pollen enters in no way into the food 

 of the larvse. I would also add that 

 it is impossible for the young bees in 

 the larval state to eat pollen, because 

 the digestive organs are not complete; 

 consequently all the food taken by the 

 larval bees must be higher concen- 

 trated food, and not fed as some of 

 our scientific bee-keepers would have 

 us to understand, but they simply ab- 

 sorb the food placed within the cell. 



