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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Aug. 31, 1905 



®ur ^^^Hccpiwi} Sisters 



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Conducted by Emma M. Wilson, Marengo, 111. 



Stings and Honey 



We don't like the bee-lady who stings with 

 sharp words and then offers the honey of a 

 smile. — Chicago Record-Herald. 



The Weather and Swarming 



It must be nice to keep bees where there is 

 no "weather." Out in Colorado or Califor- 

 nia, it seems, they can count on sunshine day 

 after day, and plan their work accordingly. 

 Here in Northern lUinoiE the weather must 

 always be taken into account. No matter 

 how pressing the work may be, there may 

 come a day— yes, 3 or 3 days of wet, cool 

 weather, when in all decency no one should 

 go near the bees. If the work of the bees 

 would stop when the work of the bee-keeper 

 is stopped by the weather it would be less 

 matter. To be sure, their work afield stops 

 their storing, but their troublesome work at 

 building queen-cells goes right on, rain or 

 shine. That's where the natural-swarming 

 bee-keepers have the advantage. 



Inconsistent as bees are in considering the 

 convenience of the bee-keeper, they do have 

 enough consistency to put off swarming when 

 the weather is not appropriate. At least that 

 is true as to prime swarms, and it isn't so hard 

 to prevent afterswarms. But then, if swarm- 

 ing is allowed, either natural or shaken, it 

 " cuts in " on the honey crop. 



The Sister Bee-Keeper 



A prominent writer in the British Bee Jour- 

 nal, D. M. Macdonald, quotes in a compli- 

 mentary manner from the letter in this de- 

 partment by Mrs. Honaker, on bee-keeping 

 for women, and adds; 



" I should like to see our ladies figure out 

 more prominently than they do. We have it 

 on the high authority of our Junior Editor 

 that they make excellent manipulators, and I 

 believe some of the best ' passes ' he ever re- 

 corded in his examinations were given to sis- 

 ters in the craft." 



A Summer Drink 



Put 1}.4 ounces of bruised ginger into a pan. 

 Add 3 quarts of water for half an hour, then 

 add 31. gallons of water, 2 desertspoonfuls of 

 lemon-juice, 2 ounces of honey, and 2h: 

 pounds of sugar. Mix and strain and when 

 quite cold add half a beaten egg and one tea- 

 spoonful of lemon extract. Allow to remain 

 4 days, then bottle.— National Daily Review. 



Honey-Cake 



Half cup butter, '.1 cup sugar K cup honey 

 one pint of flour, o'ne teaspoonful of yeast 

 powder, two eggs and one teaspoonful cara- 

 way seeds. Mix honey and sugar, add the 

 butter melted, the eggs well beaten, the flour 

 sifted with the yeast powder and seeds. Mix 

 into a smooth batter and bake in a fairly hot 

 oven 35 minutes.— Chicago Record-Herald. 



Building Queen-Cells 



I trust that I am privileged to ask a ques- 

 tion, although I am not a " sister," and if you 

 will enlighten me a little on a certain point 

 through the columns of the American Bee 

 Journal, the courtesy will be appreciated. 



You say (page 424) that no such thing hap- 

 pens as "destroying the partitions" when 

 a queen-cell is commenced. In case the 



queen-cell is started right among worker-cells 

 I do not understand how there can be found 

 a " cell which needs no enlarging." Kindly 

 explain. 



This is written in no controversal spirit. I 

 have kept a few bees 3 years and have not yet 

 seen a queen-cell in my own hives. 



I read your articles with pleasure and profit 

 each week. J. A. Smith. 



Hartford Co., Conn. 



Two kinds of queen-cells must be recog- 

 nized : pre-constructed and post-constructed. 

 When a colony contemplates swarming, or su- 

 perseding its queen, the queen-cells started 

 are cups having a diameter of about ^3 of an 

 inch. These are called pre-constructed be- 

 cause the queen-cells are prepared as such be- 

 fore there is any egg in them. When a colony 

 becomes queenless by any means, the work- 

 ers select a worker-cell containing a young 

 larva (very rarely it may contain an egg) and 

 change it into a queen-cell, which is called 

 ^)o.s<-eonstructed because made into a queen- 

 cell after it has an occupant. 



Queens are " usually " reared in pre-con- 

 structed cells, " which need no enlarging," 

 but when a worker-cell is turned into a queen- 

 cell it needs a good deal of enlarging. The 

 enlarging is done chiefly outside the worker- 

 cell proper. There is a slight enlarging of 

 the original worker-cell, the cell-walls seem- 

 ing to be crowded apart, but not to any great 

 extent, and not to any great depth. That de- 

 struction of partitions and making 3 cells 

 into one is all a pipe-dream, as you can easily 

 satisfy yourself by pulling off a post-con- 

 structed cell, when you will find the worker- 

 cell still there, with its original walls intact. 



Now to your question: You want it ex- 

 plained how, when a queen-cell is started 

 right among worker-cells, there can be found 

 a cell which needs no enlarging. No such 

 cell can be found. But pre-constructed cells 

 are not found in such a place. They are found 

 on the edges of combs, or where some ine- 

 quality occurs in the central parts of combs. 

 It by any means the bees could be forced to 

 start a pre-constructed cell " right among the 

 worker-cells," it would be built outside those 

 cells without doubt, and thus would need no 

 enlarging. Post-constructed cells, however, 

 may be found right among worker-cells, and 

 these must be enlarged, as already explained. 

 The answer to the puzzle, therefore, is that 

 queens are " usually " reared in pre-construc- 

 ted cells which need no enlarging, but pre- 

 constructed cells are not found right among 

 the worker-cells. 



/T 



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lTli\ Qasty s (Iftertl^ougl^ts 



The " Old Reliable " seen through New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. Hastt, Sta. B. Rural, Toledo, Ohio, 



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BOTTOM-STARTERS- LOCK-CORNEK UP OR 



DOWN 



No, Dr. Miller, I don't use bottom starters, 

 although I confess the advantages they se- 

 cure. Bottom starters call for a big piece of 

 foundation above, and I use only small start- 

 ers. Two knife-edges of comb built past each 

 other instead of being joined— and the sec- 

 tion spoiled — would occur pretty often with a 

 narrow strip at both top and bottom, I think. 

 But then, I have'nt tried it to any great ex- 

 tent; and I'll be meek if you tell me you have 

 tried it many times, and never a spoiled sec- 

 tion. As to the mere look of the section 

 looked at from above, extremes meet, it seems, 

 in our two cases. You put lock down and 

 case it the same way. I put lock up and re- 

 verse it in casing. You keep it carefully right 

 side up lest the honey from a few unsealed 

 cells run out. And I— I hardly know whether 

 it's best to tell the lazy man's way I some- 

 times practice. Hist, while I just whisper it I 

 Leave it on the hive so long that the bees 

 empty all scattering unsealed cells. Page 487. 



BEES ROARING OR FANNING IN THE CELLAR. 



On page 489 the Northwestern folks start a 

 query which is not worn out yet ; but they 

 seem to have abandoned it rather prema- 

 turely. Can you tell by the sound of bees 

 that are roaring in the cellar whether they 

 are roaring because they are too warm or roar- 

 ing because they are too cold? On one side it 

 can be said that wrong temperature, or sottie 

 resulln vf wrony tonperature, makes them 

 worry, and the worrying sounds nearly the 

 same in both cases. On the other side it can 

 be said that ordcrhf fanning with wings, to 

 make a current of air and cool the hive, is 

 likely to differ perceptibly from the miscella- 

 neous shaking of wings and members when 

 they are stirring around to warm thmgs up. 

 How is it? I don't know. (Sentence stolen 



from Herodotus') If I were driven to a 



guess I might guess that bees never fan to 

 cool the hive till the temperature gets quite a 

 bit above 90°— and that a wide open hive sit- 

 ting in the cellar never gets so high as that. 



CHILLED QUEENS- DO QDEEN3 FREEZE? 



Mr. Ernest R. Root contributes an import- 

 ant experiment, and also an interesting ob- 



servation. A dozen queens were chilled stiff 

 on ice, and kept so for periods from 2 hours 

 to 48 to see about the truth of a certain claim 

 that has been made. It has been claimed that 

 drone-layers arise by reison of chilling the 

 organs of egg-production — usually in the 

 mails. After this severe test the queens laid 

 all right, and no drone-layers developed. 

 Claim seems about busted. 



The observation is one open to the most of 

 us at one time or another. A dead winter- 

 cluster is nearly spherical in form — same as a 

 live one. If there is honey above them (as is 

 the case sometimes) there is always a space — 

 2 inches, more or less — between the cluster 

 and the honey. This was contributed to help 

 peel the dreary old chestnut, Do bees ever 

 freeze in winter! Pages 489 and 490. 



AN EXPERIMENT IN DROWNING BEES IN 

 WINTER. 



I think the experience of Mr. Wilcox (when 

 he was in heathenish darkness) is worth a 

 good deal of thinking over. Wishing to "take 

 up " a colony he took a notion to drown the 

 bees instead of the usual killing of them with 

 sulphur smoke. (Water damages sealed 

 honey, and dissolves out the honey of what 

 cells the bees have unsealed — but he did'nt 

 reflect much on that. ) The hive was water- 

 tight and the weather was very cold— far 

 below zero. He turned the hive over and 

 illed it full of water. (Of all things!) The 

 day wore away and notwithstanding the fierce 

 cold the water didn't freeze much, and so he 

 left it over night. When about 24 hours had 

 passed there was quite a bit of ice but still 

 some open water showing that the heat of 

 honey and bees was still effective somehow 

 after a whole day of exposure to zero temper- 

 ature. Most astounding ! The fact was that 

 the bees were still alive down in there. But 

 when we know that, it is still just as astound- 

 ing that they could keep on furnishing the 

 amount of heat the above seems to call for. I 

 don't believe the cluster was soaked through 

 with water and then dried out under the 

 stove. It is barely possible that a very com- 

 pact winter cluster will repel water and not 

 be soaked through— but I doubt that also. 

 The way I imagine it was, is this : Inside the 



