1907. 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



85 



E. H. DEWEY'S DOINGS. 



Great Barrington, Mass, Jan. 7, 1907. 



Editor American Bee-Keeper: 



The mysterious disease that every- 

 body knows all about and which no 

 one knows how to cure has caused 

 me no little annoyance, to put it mild- 

 ly. Last season I did not dare to 

 rear a queen for shipment but raised 

 some fine ones for my own use. The 

 season before, I had a few pictures 

 taken by a friend of mine and they 



IN DEWEY S DEN. 



may help start a fire down where you 

 live — you and the deacon don't need 

 as much as we when the mercury says 

 15 below for a week at a time. Can't 

 help but preach a little after spend- 

 ing a Sabbath reading home talks. 

 But to return to the photos. 



Number i represents a portion of 

 the den, No. 2, a corner of the bee- 

 yard, and No. 3, an easy method of 

 securing bees for the nucleus hives 

 when supers are removed. Little box- 

 es are slipped over the cones and the 

 bees are trapped and removed from 

 the supers at the same time. 



Do not waste a stamp on these, sim- 



ply burn them up if they are not avail- 

 able — do so any way. . 

 Yours truly, 



E. H. Dewey. 



ABORTIVE INSTINCT. 



ALLEN LATHAM. 



AS FEW DENY, bees do most 

 if not all of their work through 

 instinct, impelled by an im- 

 pulse that is I'ke a ferment action 

 on the nervous system. Remove this 

 ferment so to speak, and you have an 

 inert object, not an active, eager bee. 

 When colonies act as a unit the 

 ferment is not acting on every bee, 

 but only on a few individuals. Just 

 as a mob of human beings will do 

 things which as individuals they 

 would not do, so bees in a swarm 

 are impelled by those few which take 

 the lead. Take away a few, possibly 

 one, leading spirit from the mob and 

 it will disperse quietly homeward. 

 Take away a few bees from a colony, 

 if those few are the right ones, and 

 that colony will then no longer con- 

 tinue along the lines it was previous- 

 ly following. 



It will sometimes be discovered, I 

 doubt not, that queen-cell building, 

 drone-comb building, pollen-gather- 

 ing, and in fact every phenomenon of 

 the bee-hive is brought about by im- 

 pulse in the individual bee. Possibly, 

 not necessarily, only one bee feels 

 the impulse at first. This bee then 

 becomes an incitant to similar ac- 

 tion on the part of other bees. 



Especially is this true in swarming 

 and all swarm action. There is not 

 a question in my mind that swarm- 

 ing is brought on by a few excited, 

 discontented bees. Every one who 

 has studied this matter knows that 

 previous to the issuance of a swarm 

 there is much preliminary work done 



