THE AMERICAJM BEE JOURNAL. 



391 



cast out the diones when necessary, and 

 defend tlie colony from enemies without 

 or witliin. Tlu'y also, as already noticed, 

 destroy old, nuprolitic <iueens and rear 

 young ones to take their places, and some- 

 limes lead out in swarminK, as the queen 

 doi'S not always take the lead in swarm- 

 inf;. And although very young bees are 

 ordinarily very reluctant to leave the 

 hive, I have seen sucli rush out under the 

 swarmin{» impulse so young that tliey 

 could not fly more than a foot or two, if at 

 all. They usually crawl back lionie again 

 in apparent disgust with the outside 

 world, and doubtless with more wisdom 

 and less conceit. 



The third and last rightful denizen of a 

 perfect colony of the bees is the un.sophis- 

 ticated, stingless, but much abused drone 

 —the male bee. He is well named, how- 

 ever, being a very liberal feeder with ex- 

 cellent digestive organs for honey, and 

 with no duties whatever within the hive 

 further than the incidental one of con- 

 tributing by the presence of his cumbrous 

 corporation to the animal heat of the hive. 

 As to Ills natural longevity, nobody from 

 Virgil to Huber, Lang^troth, Quinby, 

 Newman, Cook, .Jones, et alii, seems to 

 know much about it. The matter not 

 being invested with any importance, no 

 investigator seems to have bothered his 

 head much with it. So far as I could ever 

 see, the drone seems to live and thrive 

 admirably until he is either killed off by 

 the workers, starved to death, or gallantly 

 yields up his life in performing his sole 

 function, which he invariably does in the 

 performance of this fimctlon in the act of 

 copulation. The drone, as Dr. Dzierzon 

 established, comes from an un impregnated 

 egg— the virgin tpieen, and sometimes 

 even workers, being able to lay eggs 

 which will produce drones. As a rule, 

 drones are found in colonies whenever 

 they are needed, or likely to be needed to 

 impregnate the young queens, which is 

 usually during the swarming season and 

 honey harvest. Tliough they are promptly 

 ejected from strong colonies when not 

 needed, and the honey-How fails, they are 

 tolerated in queenless colonies, and are 

 sometimes wintered over. The drone is 

 much larger than the worker, and his cell 

 is very protuberant, and in it he spends 

 24 days from the egg before he emerges. 



As remarked at the outset, bee-culture 

 made but little progress on scientific prin- 

 ciples for thousands of years. It is only 

 within the last half century or so that it 

 has, under the magic talisman of science, 

 fairly leaped forward like every other pur- 

 suit. The first great achievement was the 

 application of tlie centrifugal force in the 

 construction of the honey-extractor, thus 

 enabling us to get the honey in its purity 

 out of the comb without injuring the lat- 

 ter, when it can be returned to the bees to 

 be refilled. A German (Herr Von Hruseli- 

 ka) accomplished this, and thereby gave a 

 great impetus to bee-cnlture. Indeed, the 

 invention of the movable frame and the 

 honey extractor completely revolutionized 

 the modus operandi of bee-keeping. As 

 to who is really entitled to the credit of 

 inventing the movable frame, there is 

 some uncertainty, and a conflict of claims. 

 The truth seems to be that some three or 

 four different persons are fairly entitled 

 to credit— each, it would appear, having 

 conceived and developed the idea, more 

 or less Inde])endentlv of the others. 

 Huber and Schmidt in Germany, Munn in 

 England, M. de Beauvovs in France, and 

 Langstroth in the United States, are all 

 fairly, though not equally entitled to 

 credit, and each has placed progressive 

 bee-culture under tribute. Mr. Langs- 

 troth, however, seems entitled to muclj 

 more credit than any of the others, for his 

 hive had more practical va'ue than the 

 whole of the others together. In carrying 

 out the common principle, Langstroth' was 

 undoubtedly far ahead. 



The next stride in advance was the in- 

 vention of the manufacture of "comb 

 foundation," which was a gre.it desidera- 

 tum, as the honey season in the temperate 

 zone is comparatively short, and a new 

 cohmy of bees supplied with the "comb 

 foimdation " will do as iiuich in two or 

 three days as one alongside of it, without 

 the foundation, will do in eight or ten 

 days, as the writer has repeatedly proved. 

 Foundation comb is made by pressing 

 sheets of pure beeswax between metal 

 rollers or plates so constructed as to give 

 to the wax the exact impressions of the 

 cells in the basal wall of the natural 

 comb. This saves the worker bees just 

 that much labor and time, and they pro- 

 ceed at once to rapidly draw out and de- 

 velop the incipient cells. The merit of 

 this invention is ahso somewhat in dispute. 

 Upward of 20 years ago the late eminent 

 apiarist, S. Wagner, patented comb foun- 

 dation in the United States ; but it soon 

 transpired that Herr Meliring, in Ger- 

 many, lia<l previously made fouiulation, 

 and that the Germans had been using it 

 for three or four years. As it is the accu- 

 mulated wit and experience of the age, 

 rather than the man, that produces the 

 invention, it is quite likely that Mr. Wag- 

 ner arrived at the idea without the aid of 

 the other German (for Mr. Wagner was 

 himself a German). Montaigne said that 

 he " had as clear a right to think Plato's 

 thoughts as Plato himself had;" and the 

 American German had not only as good 

 a right as the home Teuton to tliink out 

 this invention, but he was just as likely to 

 do so, and more likely, for the inspiriting 

 and inventive Yankee atmosphere would 

 soon quicken his blood and sharpen his 

 wits. 



Recent bee-culture has been also greatly 

 promoted and extended by the specialty 

 of queen-rearing, wliicli has been imnmht 

 to great perfection on scientific priuciph's. 

 I). A. .lones, in Canada, and Henry Alley 

 in the United States, liave developed the 

 depai-tment of apiculture to an extent leav- 

 ing, one would think, little to be further 

 achieved or desired. As, however, under 

 the i)rogressive laws (rf e\()luti(]n, we 

 have ceased to set hounds to ini)irovement 

 ill anything not fixed mathematically, we 

 will not say that any department of practi- 

 cal apiculture is yet fully wrouglit out to 

 perfection. 



In order to secure absolute purity of 

 fertilization in the different varieties and 

 sub-varieties in crossing, D. A. Jones, of 

 Beetoii, Out., has estatlished queen-nur- 

 series on some islands in the Georgian Bay, 

 so tar from shore and from each other so 

 as to secure entire purity of blood in copu- 

 lation. Queens and drones bred and mated 

 under such circumstances, from pure im- 

 liorted stock, cannot be othenvise than 

 pure. 



Henry Alley also, of Wenham, Mass., 

 has, through a long series of experiments 

 during many \X'ars, successfully applied 

 science to the modus operandi of queen- 

 rcarint;. and lias icceiitly given tlie world 

 tlic fruits lit' lii.-. hiliiirs ;iiiil n'scarrlies in a 

 work entitled " The Bee-Keeper's Handy- 

 Book ; or, Twenty-Two Years' Experience 

 in Queen-Rearing," 



Another feature of present bee-culture, 

 which is at (Hire both largrly the cau.se of 

 its ]ir<>sent advanced condition in this 

 country, and the best proof of its wide ex- 

 tension, is its periodical literature. De- 

 voted wholly, or partially to apiculture, we 

 now have no less than three or four papers 

 in Canada, and nearly a dozen in the 

 United States. Among the latter is one 

 weekly devoted exclusively to bee-culture. 

 Tills is the A.MEKiCAN Bee .Journal, 

 published in Chicago by Thos. G. Newman. 

 Among the former is the "Canadian Bee 

 .lournal," a weekly, just commenced un- 

 der the most favorable and promising 

 auspices. It is edited and publi-shed by D. 

 A. Jones, of Beeton, Out. 



Since the hitherto great difficulty of suc- 

 cessfully wintering bees in these climate.s 

 has lieeii nearly overcome by the applica- 

 ti<ni of scii'iice, bee-culture must, in the 

 near future, become a great and prolitable 

 national industry in Canada and the United 

 States. 



[The foregoing article by Mr. Allen 

 Pringle, copied from the " Popular Si-ience 

 Monthly," is quite interesting (as are all of 

 Mr. P's articles), but the paragraph con- 

 cerning bee-literature has created some- 

 thing of a breeze among our cotemporaries. 

 A full explanation of that will be found 

 on page 387.— Ed.] 



Tor tbe American Bee JoumaL 



Bee-Keeping Classes— Wintering. 



J. W. BAYAUI). 



Every bee-master in the land is 

 inclined to select from his own stand- 

 point, the methods that look best 

 suited for himself and his surround- 

 ings ; and whilst many fail, many 

 more will succeed, clearly demon- 

 strating that we always have some 

 master spirit among us. After all, 

 we are more or less governed by the 

 rigors of the climate into which civi- 

 lization has forced the honey-bee, and 

 we are compelled to provide for its 

 comfort and safety, in doing which 

 we naturally divide into classes, as 

 follows : 



1. Those who winter bees in reposi- 

 tories or in-doors. 



2. Those who winter bees in open 

 fields with ample protection. 



3. Those who winter bees on the 

 summer stands without protection. 



4. The slipshod ones who dump 

 their colonies into the fence-corners, 

 among the briers, jimson and bur- 

 dock, invoking the goddess of hick to 

 help them out. Notwithstanding 

 their reprehensible methods, they 

 will always have a few bees, for the 

 simple reason that nature has certain 

 immutable laws that never perish. It 

 is not entirely clear that those who 

 clioose the " ragged edge," by winter- 

 ing their bees unprotected from year 

 to year, on the summer stands, are in 

 the true line of economy, though they 

 have precedents historically running 

 back to the days of Samson, who 

 obtained his honey from the carcass 

 of a dead lion. 



Scoffers have always regarded this 

 simple bit of biblical history as mythi- 

 cal or impractical, when a simple 

 illustration should settle the whole 

 question. Imagine, if you please, 

 the grand old monarch of all the ani- 

 mals of both field and forest, march- 

 ing with stately tread in pursuit of 

 mutton; being very hungry and 

 thirsty, and finding it not, he takes 

 an overdose of pollen, falls mortally 

 sick, and in due time becomes a royal 

 palace for the honey-bee. 



Mark Twain, or some other traveler, 

 tells us that in a country with high 

 temperature and arid climate, like 

 that of Palestine, dead animals are 

 slow to decompose; whilst certain 

 enterprising insects speedily excavate 

 the carcass, leaving the' hide and 

 skeleton intact. Now, Mrs. Samson's 



