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inclined to be very liberal, and give 

 the utmost liberty to others ; yet it 

 seems to rue that no man can study 

 carefully the part the bee plays in 

 Nature, and kindred facts, without 

 being forced to the conclusion that 

 there is a "Power not ourselves " be- 

 hind Nature " which makes for right- 

 eousness." whether he agrees with me 

 and call that power God or, not. To 

 me all this is the manifestation of an 

 Infinite Father, and I would it might 

 be to all men. 

 St. Joseph, Mo. 



MINNESOTA. 



Tlie Poorest Season in 21 Years 

 — Xeclar Secretion. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BY C. THEILMANN. 



So far this has been the poorest sea- 

 son for honey that I have experienced 

 in 21 years of my bee-keeping. I have 

 as yet not one pound of surplus honey, 

 and only one swarm (which I hived 

 for an experiment), though I had a 

 number of swarms which I put back, 

 as they could not make their living 

 without being fed. 



I had to feed all of my bees (225 

 colonies) up to the forepart of July, 

 when linden came into bloom ; they 

 got a little more than their living on 

 it, and have gained but little in stores 

 up to the present, but most of the 

 hives are full of bees and brood. They 

 have all the way from almost none to 

 15 pounds of honey in the brood- 

 chamber. 



Buckwheat and many fall flowers 

 are in bloom, but there seems to be 

 but a slow gain of honey in the hives, 

 while the bees, seemingly, are hard at 

 work, with apparently the best of 

 weather for honey-secretion for the 

 past two weeks, in which time we had 

 a number of nice rains ; the ground is 

 now thoroughlj' soaked, and if frost 

 keeps oft' for three or four weeks, we 

 may have a honey-flow yet ; but it is 

 quite cool. This forenoon the ther- 

 mometer showed 3t)0 above zero ; yes- 

 terday 40^, and at noon the bees 

 dropped down before the hives, stif- 

 fened with cold, and many perished. 



Almost all the bee-keepers that I 

 have met would gladly sacrifice their 

 surplus if their Ijees would only get 

 enough for winter stores. Last year 

 this county produced about 150,000 

 pounds of surplus honey, and this jear 

 I do not think that there will be 500 

 pounds, as I have heard of only one 

 man who has one case of finished 

 honey in the whole county ! 



This county has never failed hereto- 

 fore to yield a surplus crop ; but we 



have never had such extreme weather. 

 The continued cold and wet weather 

 in June, and the high floods, followed 

 by the big storm which capsized the 

 Sea Wing, in Lake Pepin, have done 

 great damage to the fields and honey- 

 producing plants .and trees. Small 

 grain was badly blown down, and in 

 some streaks it was totally destroyed 

 by h.ail. Many of the honey-plants 

 looked as if the fire went through 

 them, and were crippled and stunted. 

 That storm, more than any one that 

 1 have ever noticed, .has shown the 

 fatality to the production of nectar. 

 The electricity in the atmosphere, 

 when exploded in connection with 

 heavy rain, seems to destroy the nec- 

 tar-giving properties, as honey-secre- 

 tion stopped after the storm almost 

 entirely for a number of days. It is 

 clear that the atmospheric conditions 

 have more to do with a honey-crop than 

 the flora itself. 



This brings to mind another ques- 

 tion, namely : Do not these verj' same 

 conditions bring forth bark or plant 

 lice — and vice versa ? Or is it that 

 thej' bring forth lioney-dew, and the 

 lice follow ? 



One thing is shown plainly by this 

 season's observation, namely : We 

 have not seen or heard of any honej'- 

 dew, nor bark or plant lice in any of 

 the localities where there is no honey, 

 or where the non-producing atmos- 

 pheric conditions were absent. This 

 clearly shows that these conditions and 

 real honey, honey-dew, and plant-lice 

 are in close proximity, which science 

 has not j'ct unveiled. 



Theilmanton, Minn., Aug. 22, 1890. 



AGE OF BEES. 



How Lonji; Queens, Drones 

 ^Vorkcr-Bees Live. 



and 



Written for the American Rural Home 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Nothing in the bee-business has 

 given me more pleasure in the past 

 than experimenting to ascertain the 

 difterent ages of bees, and the difterent 

 oflices they perform at certain ages, 

 when in a normal condition. 



When these conditions are not com- 

 plied with, the colony is thrown out of 

 balance, and in that unbalanced con- 

 dition we find that bees will feebly 

 perform any ofiice of the hive till they 

 can arrange matters normally again. 

 Then it is that we find very young 

 bees going to the fields, when they will 

 bring less than one-half the load that 

 the bee over 16 days old will carry ; 

 old bees will rear queens which are 

 not half the value of those reared by 

 the younger or nurse bees, and some 



will even lay eggs, while this office is 

 usually restricted to the queen. 



In these experiments, I have found 

 that queens reared under the most 

 favorable circumstances attain the 

 average age of four years, even under 

 the "forcing process" now used to 

 get all the bees possible in the hive at 

 all times, which is recommended bj- 

 nearly all bee-keepers of the present 

 day. 



On one occasion I had one queen 

 that lived and did good work till she 

 was nearly six years old, laying pro- 

 lifically until within about three 

 months of the time of her supersedure ; 

 while several have lived to be about 

 five years old. 



The worker-bee rarely attains to a 

 longer life than 45 days, during the 

 months of June, Jul}', August and Sep- 

 tember, while those hatched in Sep- 

 tember live until the next May and 

 June, if not injured by our winters, 

 their life being prolonged above the 

 45 days, just in proportion to the work 

 they do, or the amount of hardship 

 they are required to undergo. In no 

 instance can a worker-bee survive a 

 full year. 



The life of the drone is about the 

 same as that of the worker, under fa- 

 vorable conditions, but a very pre- 

 carious life he lives ; for, if a scarcity 

 of honey prevails, and the bees are not 

 fed by the apiarist, the drones are un- 

 mercifully driven from the hives, or 

 killed by the workers. I have seen it 

 stated that the drones do not live one- 

 half the time the workers do, the proof 

 of which was the writer's experiments 

 with a nucleus colony. This individ- 

 ual should know that drones have the 

 privilege of entering, unmolested, anj- 

 hive that allows its own drones to re- 

 main, and that if they are driven from 

 one hive, they are allowed to enter 

 another which is retaining its drones, 

 ^uch has been my experience for 

 years. 



A nucleus having a queen just fer- 

 tilized has no more need of drones, 

 iind persecutes them until they leave ; 

 or if they persist in staying, kills them. 

 With an isolated hive, my position, 

 that drones live about 45 days during 

 the working season, can be proven. 



Many seem to think that drones 

 never live over the winter, which is 

 the rule, though not always the case, 

 for at two diflerent times my hives 

 h.ave been so well supplied with honey 

 during the fall and winter, that the 

 bees did not seem to realize any need 

 of retrenching, so kept their drones, 

 which were flying every tine day dur- 

 ing the fall and winter, the excess of 

 honey causing the bees to allow them 

 to live as long as life held out. It was 

 really amusing to hear their merry 

 hum from many hives on warm days 



