THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



185 



Other parts of the country do not show as 

 grntifying a return, from the fact that 18G9, 

 taking the whole country together, was perhaps 

 the poorest for honey that has been witnessed in 

 many years. Illinois was an exception, and the 

 yieids reported show us what we can do in good 

 j-ears with the same intelligent management. 



The '"Melextractor," it will be seen, aided 

 largely in securing this result. 



D. L. Adair. 



HcncesviUe, Ky., Jan., 1870. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Preventing Bees from Killing their Young 

 Virgin Queens. 



It very often happens that young queens are 

 attacked by the workers and killed before they 

 commence laying. One of these cases occurred 

 last May in a colony that had been queenless 

 during the winter. Being supplied with a comb 

 of brood it raised a young queen, which hatched 

 about the beginning of May. This queen had 

 not yet been fertilized when she was fourteen 

 days old. Passing the colony one day about 

 noon, I noticed great excitement among the 

 worker-bees on the alighting board at the en- 

 trance of the hive. Suspecting there was some 

 trouble inside, I immediately undertook an ex- 

 amination. On taking off the honey -board it was 

 apparent that the queen was enclosed by the 

 workers, and would be killed. I took out several 

 combs, and succeeded in finding the queen. A 

 good whitf of tobacco smoke sufiSced to disperse 

 the enraged workers and liberate the queen, and 

 in a short time all apparently became quiet. Two 

 hours later, however, passing that way again, I 

 observed a renewed commotion. I once more 

 opened the hive, found the queen enclustered 

 again, and became convinced that the workers 

 were bent on destroying their queen. In such 

 cases I formerly caged the queen and kept her 

 thus confined for two or three days alter rescuing 

 her from the angry workers, and in most instances 

 they were not attacked again when set free. But 

 here I resolved to try a new experiment. I 

 took out a comb, shook off the bees, went 

 to another hive and got a brood comb with 

 unsealed brood, which I inserted. The work- 

 ers immediately resorted to this comb, and 

 raised a contented hum. Replacing the honey- 

 board, I remained watching the colony a shoi-t 

 time. All appeared right now, and the work- 

 ers seemed perfectly content. On examination, 

 only two days later, I found that the queen 

 had begun to lay eggs, and she was attacked no 

 more. Hence I would advise bee-keepers to 

 insert a comb with unsealed brood and eggs 

 into such colonies as have raised a queen after 

 having been without brood for a long time, as in 

 such cases the bees seem to become impatient for 

 brood. Adam Grimm. 



Jefferson, Wis. 



The excursions of the bees to collect honey are 

 variously estimated at from one to three miles 

 each, and they are supposed to make each about 

 ten trips a day. 



[For the American Bee Journal] 



Queens Mating with Different Drones. 



Mr. Editor : — I have been a reader of your 

 ])aper for some time, but have written very little 

 for it so far. As I see it contains a number of 

 articles on the above subject from different 

 sources, I will give your readers some portion of 

 my experience. 



In June last, I had a small batch of queens— 

 from ten to fifteen in number — hatched, and 

 mostly in one night. On the third day I saw 

 nearly every one of them passing out and in re- 

 peatedly. On the following day I saw them go- 

 ing out and in every ten or fifteen minutes, for 

 some twc^ or three hours, and several of tliem 

 showed evidence that they had met with the 

 drones. Again, on the next day also, they 

 liassed out and in as l)efore, and several of them 

 came in apparently filled full from the drones. 

 On the second or third day, I am not certain 

 which, but think on the third, I was standing in 

 front of my nucleii and something struck on the 

 brim of my hat, and a queen and a drone fell on 

 the ground fifteen or twenty inches before my 

 shoe-toes. They lay there two or three seconds, 

 evidently endeavoring to separate, then rose from 

 the ground, turning around in the manner of a 

 winding blade, striving to separate, till they went 

 seventy or eighty feet ; then, they flew up in the 

 air, finally parted from each other, and I lost 

 sight of them. The eff'ort to separate was con- 

 tinuous from the time they fell to the ground till 

 it was successful. On the morning of the eighth 

 day every one of these queens was laying eggs. 



i watched the queens several times this sum- 

 mer, and in good Aveather they would generally 

 pass out and in for three days before they would 

 stop ; and I suppose they would meet with a 

 drone or drones every time they would come out. 

 I have no doubt that, in good weather, queens 

 copulate repeatedly with drones, for it appears 

 that they continue in heat for two or three days. 

 In bad weather they get out very seldom, and 

 they can meet a drone in such weather when 

 passing out but once or twice, is it not natural 

 that they will not fail to meet one when passing 

 out so frequently in good weather ? 



Turn to the Bee Jotjbi\ al for September, 1869, 

 page 57, for a succinct account of observations in 

 this regard, made by Mr. Thomas C. Hill, and it 

 will be seen that the three circumstances there 

 stated are nearly the same as those that came un- 

 der my own observation — the queen coming out 

 for three days in succession, and in all probabil- 

 ity she would have been seen passing out several 

 times each day if she had been closely watched. 

 Now, if queens mate with several drones on 

 these repeated excursions, will not the fact ac- 

 count for the production of variously marked 

 workers — some three and some two banded— from 

 the eggs of a hybrid queen ? I would think the 

 progeny of a queen mating with a common black 

 drone, a hybrid drone, and a full-bred Italian 

 drone, would partake of the nature, severally, 

 of these, which would undoubtedly make some 

 two-banded and some three-banded. 



I am of opinion that if a full-blood queen mate 

 with a common drone, her drones are afifected by 



