AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



733 



I think that the drones from an un- 

 fertile queen are all right, as this seems 

 to be one of Nature's ways to protect the 

 race; (.. c, a queen has the power to 

 rear drones for her own fertilization, 

 when there is no other way. But some- 

 how I imagine something says, "Do not 

 use them, if you can help it." — Mrs. 

 Jennie Atchley. 



Science says " yes," but all my experi- 

 ments to prove science correct say "no." 

 In ray locality I often rear young queens 

 in the month of March to save queenless 

 colonies, and this has given me the 

 opportunity to test the potency of drones 

 from unfertilized queens, and I have not 

 succeeded .in getting a single queen 

 mated by such drones. — G. W. Demaree. 



The case is hardly probable. Worker 

 brood would be necessary to have a 

 " hive full " of any kind of bees. Such 

 drones are said to be virile, but we have 

 some doubts as to their potency. — 

 Editors. 



German Visitors to the World's 

 Fair in 1893 will have a good oppor- 

 tunity to come and see something of 

 America, as an association kas been 

 formed in Germany to organize excur- 

 sion parties to visit the World's Fair 

 and incidentally Niagara Falls, and a 

 number of the larger cities. It is pro- 

 posed to accomplish this within a period 

 of sixty days, and an expense of between 

 $250 and .$300 for each person. 



J. E. Snider, an apiarist of Utah, 

 says the principal pasturage for bees in 

 Utah is sweQt clover, and consequently 

 their main honey crop comes in the Fall. 

 The quality of the honey is excellent, 

 and the quantity is almost unlimited — 

 thousands of acres of sweet clover go to 

 waste every year because there are not 

 enough bees to gather the nectar. 



Keep Honey in a warm, dry 

 room, and have it thoroughly ripened 

 before taking it from the hive. Honey 

 is certainly deliquescent — seems to have 

 the property of taking up any moisture 

 there may be in the air. For that rea- 

 son it should be put as near as possible 

 where there is no moisture. — Exchange. 



Topics of Interest. 



Worms Destroylni tlie Bees. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Picking up a paper the other day, I 

 found an article telling of the writer's 

 ups and downs in apiculture. He told 

 how some of his boos died of starvation, 

 some winter-killed, and how others were 

 destroyed by worms. It is nothing new 

 to read of bees being destroyed by 

 worms, for we very often hear of numer- 

 ous losses from this source. As a good 

 colony of bees is never destroyed by 

 worms, such expressions are not only 

 fallacious, but misleaiing, and as such 

 statements tend to make the beginner 

 fearful of loss of bees from the ravages 

 of moth-worms, I will explain the work- 

 ings of the larv;i} of the bee-moth, and 

 the only fear we need have of it. 



If a colony of bees becomes very weak 

 and ready to die from loss of its queen 

 or other causes, so the combs are not 

 occupied with bees, and have not been 

 exposed to a degree of cold as low as 

 12'^ above zero, when warm weather 

 comes to stay we always rind the larva 

 of the wax-moth upon them, and more 

 abundant in those that have pollen in 

 them, and have been used for breeding 

 purposes. When once under headway, 

 it takes but a short time to reduce the 

 combs in a whole hive to a mass of webs. 



Now, the worms cannot come into full 

 possession of the combs so long as there 

 are bees upon them, although we find 

 here and there a worm that has eluded 

 their vigilance for a time. The Italians 

 keep thein out much better than either 

 the hybrids or blacks, a handful fully 

 protecting a whole hive of combs, the 

 worms being kept in submission as long 

 as a few score remain. 



If from any cause a colony becomes 

 hopelessly queenless, and the bees die of 

 old age in from 50 to 60 days from the 

 time the last bee hatches, which they 

 will do if in summer, then the combs are 

 left so there is no restraint on the 

 worms, thus giving them full sway, so 

 that in a short time the combs are 

 ruined. 



The careless bee-keeper comes along, 

 and seeing no bees issuing from the hive, 

 tips it up to find nothing but a lot of 

 webs and disgusting worms, when he at 

 once concludes that the worms destroyed 

 his bees. Did the worms destroy the 

 colony ? Certainly not ; the colony was 



