THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



153 



sou that no honey was at hand to feed the 

 bees the same as was already stored in 

 the partly tilled sections. It is a fact 

 known to the observiii"; beekeeper that 

 bees will not mix honey in the cells. They 

 will store bnckwhoat honey in one cell 

 and in an atljoinini; cell may be found 

 clover or basswooti honey, but never two 

 kinds of honey in the same cell. Well, 

 the boxes placed on the hives to be (in- 

 ished were nearly full and needed but a 

 few ounces of honey to finish them, so the 

 honey fed the bees was all placed in the 

 brood-chamber. After feeding a while 

 with no apparent gain in the sections, the 

 hive was opened and nearly every comb 

 in the brood-nest was solid full of honey. 

 The experiment was given up and never 

 has been attempted again iu the Bay State 

 apiary. 



Some queer things about bees. 



I have a number of queens in cages that 

 are used in the yard as decoy queens. 

 These queens I do not feed nor take any 

 care of except to shelter from the hot sun 

 and cover up when it rains. The cages 

 are phiced on a hive, or upon the handi- 

 est object, when I am done with them for 

 the time. As soon as left, the bees find 

 tliem and furnish the food and take all the 

 needed care. Some of the queens have 

 been used in this way for nearly a month, 

 and tliey are very bright and lively and will 

 stand it for a month yet. 



Bees do not seem to notice a virgin 

 queen; yet if they are deprived of one, 

 they seem to miss her and feel as bad as 

 though she had been a fertile queen. 



I have watched the worker, queen and 

 drone bees when tliey seemed to be strug- 

 gling to emerge from the cell, and though 

 they had hard work to crawl out, the bees 

 would not ofier the slightest assistance 

 nor would they take any notice of them ; 

 but should one of those bees die in its at- 

 tempt to leave the cell the bees would at 

 once remove it. Rather poor judgment 

 in the bees. 



Should a bee be born with defective 

 wings he is at once invited to go outside 

 the hive, as his room is more valuable 

 than his company. This seems heartless; 

 yet a bee without wings is of no account. 

 "The survival of the fittest" seems to be 

 the motto of the bee. 



When ^ bee goes and finds some honey 

 after the general harvest is over, on his 

 return home he makes known the fact to 

 his companions that he has it by shaking 

 his whole body as though trying to re- 

 move some dirt from his wings. If more 

 stolen sweets are to be had at the same 

 place, the bee quickly unloads and starts 

 for more plunder, and at the same time 



several other bees will follow. By the 

 time three or more bees have loaded and 

 returned, the whole colony begins to be- 

 come excited and in a very short time 

 the roar of the bees indicates that some- 

 thing is wrong in the apiary. By follow- 

 ing the hum of the bees the apiarist can 

 easily find the mischief the bees are about. 

 I should have said in the beginning that 

 when the first bee i-eturns loaded the oth- 

 er bees seem to detain it at the entrance 

 and try to make him tell where he ob- 

 tained the stolen property. 



Excessive swarming how prevented. 



This query was answered in a bee-pa- 

 per not long since. Not one of those who 

 answered had or seemed to know of any 

 definite plan or method to prevent it; and, 

 as is usual in answering questions in some 

 of the bee- papers, there was not one par- 

 ticle of information to be derived from 

 the replies given. 



Our method of preventing excessive 

 swarming is this: First use a queen-trap 

 on the hive, let the bees swarm as much 

 as they please and there will be no special 

 need of troubling them except to take the 

 trap away and put another on in its place. 

 Three days after the swarm issues open 

 the hive and remove all the queen cells 

 and at the same time let the queen that 

 led off" the swarm run in the hive again. 

 This has been practised in every case but 

 one where a swarm has issued in the Bay 

 State Apiary this year, and not one has 

 come out the second time. It is a success 

 and as practical as any method given. 



The idea that giving bees a large amount 

 of room prevented swarming was explod- 

 ed years ago. The swarming impulse, 

 or fever as it is called, must be satisfied 

 before the bees will give up the idea 

 and settle down to business. The only 

 prevention of swarming is to let the bees 

 swarm and fix the matter with them after- 

 wards. Non-swarming hives have not 

 been found, and Simmins' non-swarming 

 system has not proved a success, and no 

 arrangement devised by man has prevent- 

 ed bees from swarming. For controlling 

 swarming, there are some practical 

 methods in use. 



Bee-veils. 



Do those who wear bee-veils know that 

 sooner or later the eyes will be badly 

 damaged thereby? The constant strain- 

 ing to the eyes looking through the fuzzy 

 meshes of a cloth bee-veil is very trying. 

 Throw away the veil and use a good 

 smoker and no one will get stung while 

 handling the largest colony. 



