238 



THE AMERICAN APICUL TURIS T. 



they alone can perform, but again 

 the law of evolution teaches us 

 that if the young bees have been 

 the nurses for thousands of genera- 

 tions the}' are at this time best fit- 

 ted for til at purpose. 



ANSAVER BY G. W. DEMAREE. 



I frequently winter colonies of 

 bees without queens and make 

 them rear queens in March. The 

 old bees of course rear their own 

 queen and then care for the brood 

 till young bees are hatched out. 

 This answers your question as to 

 whether "• old bees" are capable of 

 .rearing brood or not. 



If fertile layers are developed in 

 a hive it is done before the bees 

 •" get old ;" never afterwards. So 

 far as my experience goes, I have 

 inever seen a fertile layer in a hive 

 where the colony was wintered 

 without a queen. But when tlie 

 queen dies and leaves brood in the 

 latter part of winter I have had 

 fertile layers to appear. 



ANSWER BY J. E. POND. 



I don't know what bee journals 

 "querist" read, but it is news to 

 me that any apiarist of experience 

 has ever said "•old bees cannot rear 

 brood." It has been often stated, 

 that the young bees for some fif- 

 teen days after they emerge from 

 their cell "attend to the housework 

 ■of the hive, and act as nurses." 

 As a matter of fact this is so, and 

 that old bees act onlj' as foragers 

 when there are young bees in the 

 ■colony. My experience, however, 

 teaches me that old bees can and 

 do rear brood when occasion re- 

 quires, but that they do not do 

 this as well as their younger sisters. 

 This is the reason why queens 

 sliould only be reared in colonies 

 containing a large number of young 

 bees. 



A House for the Apiary. 



Please give yoiii- opinion ol Prof. Cook's 

 "House for the Apiary." Manager. 



A house for the apiary such as 

 Professor Cook describes, would be 

 a great convenience and well worth 

 the cost to a large beekeeper. 



DR. G. L. TINKER. 



Bee houses are not favorites with 

 myself. I consider the bees much 

 better off when sitting in the open 

 field, with such shading either nat- 

 ural or artificial as ma}^ be needed. 

 Prof. Cook's model is perhaps as 

 handy as an}', and to follow it will 

 save the time and bother of getting 

 up another that might be no more 

 if as handy. 



J. E. POND. 



There might be some improve- 

 ments in Prof. Cook's house for 

 the Apiary. I would prefer to 

 have it built upon a side hill, so as 

 to have a drop of three feet from 

 the extracting room to the honey 

 room, also a convenient door for 

 rolling out barrels ; and it seems 

 to me the cistern is too large. The 

 house, I have no doubt, would an- 

 swer the wants of beekeeping on a 

 limited scale for comb honey. 



J. H. MARTIN. 



In the first place, I neither prac- 

 tise nor approve of indoor winter- 

 ing. A simple storage building is 

 all that is necessary and should 

 not cost over fifty dollars. It should 

 have two rooms. It is absurd to 

 think of a man having from five to 

 ten apiaries and furnishing each 

 with a house costing $500.00. I 

 believe in a hive so constructed as 

 to winter without loss and with less 

 consumption of honey than when 

 wintered in a cellar. Bees win- 

 tered thus will have more vitality, 

 be in better condition and build up 

 more quickly for honey gathering. 



HILAS D. DAVIS. 



