614 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Explanatory.— The figures before the 

 names indicate the number of years that the 

 person has Isept bees. Those after, show 

 the number of colonies the writer had in the 

 previous spring and fall, or fall and spring, 

 as the time of the year may require. 



This mark © indicates that the apiarist is 

 located near the centre of the State named: 

 6 north of the centre ; 9 south ; 0+ east ; 

 ♦Owest; and this 6 northeast; Xi northwest; 

 •^southeast; and P southwest of the centre 

 of the State mentioned. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



Observations upon Drones. 



EEV. L. L. LANG.STROTH. 



Bevan say.s that the drone hatches 

 on the 24th or '25th day after the egg 

 is laid. I knew of nothing more defi- 

 nite on this point. 



To get more precisely the facts, on 

 the Kith day of last July, a drone- 

 comb was put, at 7 a. m., centrally in 

 a strong colony, which had been fed 

 for several days, as the drones were 

 being expelled from many hives. At 

 9 a. m. the queen was found on that 

 comb, having laid three eggs. She 

 had just begun laying. At 9 a. m., on 

 July 17, it was removed to a strong 

 colony, without queen, eggs or larvaj. 

 On July 27, many cells were capped, 

 and on July 28, at 2 p. m., some 200 

 were capped, many eggs having, for 

 some cause, disappeared. On Aug. 9, 

 none had hatched. On Aug. 10 ex- 

 aminations were made every hour. 

 At5:30p. m. none had crawled out ; 

 at 6:30 two had hatched, and a third 

 was hatching. If these drones came 

 from the tirst eggs laid, they took 

 about 2.5 days and H^ hours to develop. 



At (i a. m., on Aug. 11, many more 

 had hatched, and at 6 a. m., on Aug. 

 12, all but 17 had hatched. At 6:.S0 

 p. m. all but 2 had hatched, and at 

 6:.30 a. m. of Aug. 13, the last one was 

 found with the cap off, trying to crawl 

 out ; it was strong and jjerfect. Now 

 if the egg producing this drone was 

 laid just before the comb was re- 

 moved, then it took nearly 27 days to 

 mature. 



During the whole time of these ob- 

 servations, tlie weather was of the 

 most favorable kind— the thermome- 

 ter ranging nearly every day above 

 80" Fahr., and beiiig only once as low 

 as 62^. The colony was kept in good 

 heart by daily feeding, and I can think 

 of nothing which could have retarded 

 in the least the development of these 

 drones, unless possibly the fact that 

 from so many of the eggs having dis- 

 appeared, they were not as compact 

 in the comb as they otherwise would 

 have been. In this observation, al- 

 though there could not possibly have 

 been more than 24 hours difference 

 between the laying of the first and 

 the last egg, there was about two days 

 and a half between the hatching of 

 the first and the .as arone. 



It is quite interesting to watch the 

 different actions of just hatched 

 workers and drones. The worker, 

 true to her name and ollice, begins to 

 crawl over the combs as if to feel her 

 legs, stops occasionally to clean her- 

 self up, and before long helps herself 

 to honey from an open. cell. The 

 drone, on the contrary, is a born de- 

 pendent. The first act is to touch the 

 nearest worker he can reach with his 

 flexible antenna;, and, begging to be 

 fed, he is at once supplied with honey 

 disgorged from the proboscis of his 

 attentive nurse. And so he goes on 

 all his life, seeming to prefer to be 

 fed, although perfectly able, if needs 

 be, to help himself. 



A very bad name has always been 

 given the drone. Virgil has his fling 

 at him, stigmatizing him as having 

 no proper office in the economy of the 

 hive— seeking only to devour the 

 stores which he had no share in col- 

 lecting. I wonder what the poet 

 thought he was made for ! or as he 

 says tliat the bees collected their 

 young from the flowers, being too 

 chaste to breed them, what motive he 

 could have thought they had to gather 

 in such useless consumers ! And yet 

 without any special pleading how 

 much can be said in his defense. It 

 is only too evident that his proboscis 

 is too short to suck honey from the 

 flowers ; that his legs have no pollen 

 baskets ; and that he can secrete no 

 wax. Great as his bulk is, he has no 

 sting, and can do nothing for the de- 

 fense of the commonwealth ; but 

 then, without him that commonwealth 

 could have no existence. The sole 

 object of his life seems to be, at the 

 proper time, to fertilize the young 

 queen— and this he is always ready 

 to do. Xow why should we blame 

 any creature which fulfills the special 

 object of its creation ? And yet I 

 fear that in spite of all that can so 

 justly be said in his favor, our poor 

 drone will always be cited as an in- 

 corrigibly idle reprobate, wiio meets 

 with only his just deserts when after 

 a life of pleasure he is killed without 

 mercy by the industrious workers. 

 He will always be known as Shakes- 

 peare's " lazy, yawning drone." 



O.xford,? Ohio. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



That " Hint," the Season, etc. 



.JNO. A. EMISON. 



The most timely editorial hint to 

 correspondents, on page .547, needs to 

 be republished. It is as follows : "Do 

 not write any more on subjects so 

 stale and 'worn out' as are 'pollen,' 

 'diarrhea,' and the like.", "So be 

 it," saith one of the attentive and in- 

 terested readers of the Bee Jouunal. 



At the date of my last report, on 

 page 347, we had a most flattering 

 prospect for a very heavy yield of 

 honey. Though two weeks later than 

 usual, the bloom of the horse-mint 

 was most profuse, and thousands of 

 acres of it surrounded my apiary, but 

 alas ! just as my bees began their 

 busy work, we had a cold, wet spell of 

 two weeks duration. The colonies in 



my apiary were much weaker the last 

 of May than thev wei'e the first, and 

 with their stores consumed. How- 

 ever, when the warm, spring-like 

 weather came again they went to 

 work with a will. Their time of work 

 on the mint was shortened by a 

 drouth following the wet spell. 



I have extracted some 1,600 pounds 

 of honey, and have taken 200 pounds 

 of comb honey.' I work my apiary 

 for extracted honey alone. I will 

 have more to extract soon. I have 

 increased my number of colonies to 

 103— all in fine condition. 



Tlie position assumed by one of the 

 correspondents of the Bee Journal, 

 in one of the May numbers, although 

 running contrary to the seemingly 

 universal theory as taught in all iny 

 bee-books, I accept it as most plausi- 

 ble. The position assumed was,. 

 that the queen was not fertilized for 

 life, but subject to re-mating. This 

 is not the exact language, but the sub- 

 stance of that used by the correspond- 

 ent. I have witnessed time and again 

 the flight of mature queens. I was 

 rather astonished, for I had been 

 taught that the queen never leaves 

 the hive except for fertilization and 

 swarming, and here were fully de- 

 veloped queens leaving the hive. 

 WhyV I now have colonies deeply 

 Italianized that were in the spring as 

 black as night. Were these queens 

 re-mating or superseding V 



I am much interested in the dis- 

 cussion of deep and shallow frames. 

 From my short experience I am in- 

 clined to the deep frames, especially 

 in the brood-chamber. Why 'i' Because 

 I find that my colonies in hives framed 

 with the Quinby frame are much 

 stronger than those with the Lang- 

 stroth, and the yield of honey is much 

 greater. With me that is the test of 

 superiority. 



Mission Valley, ? Texas. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



An Electric Entrance-Regulator. 



FRED C. SMITH. 



During the time that I have been 

 keeping bees, I have often thought 

 that if I could keep them during the 

 winter on the summer stands, below a 

 certain temperature, I would not need 

 to fear loss of bees from starvation 

 with plenty of honey in the hive, or 

 from bee-diarrhea. In the summer 

 of 18S4, 1 completed my instrument, 

 and fixed it to a hive having eight 

 frames, not making any choice what- 

 ever, for it was the experiment I was 

 after, and it does me good to think 

 how well this colony came through 

 the last terrible winter, while the rest 

 on all sides suffered. I lost 3 colonies 

 by starvation with plenty of honey in 

 their hives. 



This instrument is nothing more 

 than a thermometer with an iron wire 

 blown into the bulb, reaching through 

 the glass so that it will come in con- 

 tact with the mercury ; and a longer 

 iron wire is to be used to reach 

 through an air- tight stopper in the 

 top of the tube. The thermometer is 

 to be mounted upon a slat of wood 



