174 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



[August. 



cells just the same. If the old queen 

 is removed so that she cannot get out 

 with the swarm, swarming can be pre- 

 vented by cutting out the cells. We 

 should keep in mind that there is a 

 difference between prime and after- 

 swarms. Prime swarms are always ac- 

 companied with old or fertile queens, 

 and after-swarms by virgin queens. 

 Prime swarms always leave queen cells 

 or brood in the old hive by which the 

 colony can be perpetuated, and it does 

 not seem to make much difference as 

 to whether this means of perpetuation 

 is in the shape of queen cells or only 

 in brood from which queens can be 

 reared. By the time a virgin queen 

 is hatched, after the issuance of a 

 prime swarm, the brood is too old 

 to produce queens, and it is easy to 

 prevent after-swarming by cuttmg out 

 all the cells but one. 



Elbert Hubbard, in the Philistine, 

 as reported in the Industrious Hen 

 of February, 1907, says: "Bees are 

 very orderly and cleanly. They have 

 inspectors that stay at the door ol 

 the hive and see that no bee comes 

 in from the field without a good load 

 of honey. Often if the bee has only 

 a little honey, the inspector will turn 

 him back and give him what is coming 

 to him." 



This to the old guard is a new idea. 

 We all know that in the working sea- 

 son bees have guards at the entrance 

 to their hives, but we have understood 

 that these guards were to prevent the 

 intrusion of robber bees from other 

 hives, and to ward off enemies in gen- 

 eral, and it is news to us that they 

 act as taskmasters, and that when a 

 bee returns to the hive without the 

 regulation load of honey it is pounced 

 upon and its ears boxed like it was 

 a slave or an erring child: The most 

 of us will take this statement with 

 a great deal of allowance, and go on 

 believing that bees from instinct are 

 so industrious that they need no pun- 

 ishment to induce them to perform 

 any duty, and that the guards at the 

 door of the hive are only guards and 

 not inspectors in the sense used by 

 our friend. 



A NEW STRAIN OF HONEY 

 BEES. (?) 



Reynoldsville, Pa., June 20. 

 Reynoldsville is troubled by the little 

 busy bee. For the last month, ever 

 since bees have begun to swarm, they 



generally migrate to some neighbor's 

 back yard, and if a line full of nice 

 vyhite clothes are handy, in a short 

 time they need washing. Members of 

 the town council have been interviewed 

 on the matter, and the council perhaps 

 will be induced to take steps toward 

 stopping it, as it is very annoying to 

 the ones afflicted by the industrious 

 bee. — Reynoldsville correspondent 

 Punxsutawney Spirit. 



The ordinary bees on their first 

 cleansing flight after long confinement 

 in winter or early spring, are liable 

 to soil objects within fifty or a hun- 

 dred feet of their hives, and without 

 regard to color, but at other times, 

 and especially in the swarming season, 

 they will not do this; and a swarm 

 may be wrapped up for hours in the 

 daintiest linen without it being soiled. 



But the bees referred to in the above 

 clipping are an entirely different strain 

 of iDces and are procured by a cross 

 between a would be reporter and a 

 virgin daily newspaper. They will be 

 known as the Polkadots. This new 

 strain of bees promises to revolution- 

 ize bee-keeping; more than half of the 

 bees in town have already been pur- 

 chased by enterprising bee men with- 

 in a week. With these new bees you 

 can throw away your swarm catcher, 

 discard all your non-swarming devices. 

 Abandon your idea of sometime de- 

 veloping a strain of non-swarming bees 

 (for bees will swarm whenever con- 

 ditions are favorable), but if you will 

 get in possession of these new bees, 

 save your old linen and window cur- 

 tains. Place your empty hives in some 

 desirable place, hang up some white 

 clothes around them. These bees have 

 such a mania for dotting white clothes 

 that the absconding swarms will be 

 attracted by the white clothes, and 

 finding a new home there waiting for 

 them, they will enter it and go to 

 work, and you have escaped the most 

 perplexing part of bee-keeping. This 

 seems almost too gqod to be true. 

 It may only be another case of a 

 daily paper in a small town being 

 driven to desperation for want of 

 manuscript; or it might be that the 

 editor was so busy guarding the rest 

 of the capitol building that he over- 

 looked the above article. For although 

 some pretty "big ones" appear in the 

 Spirit at times, they are generally 

 labeled in some way. However, it is 

 claimed by those who have had ex- 



