1873.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



151 



with liquid sweets, they were generally rendered 

 amiable. In one instance he had, for six succes- 

 sive days, handled a colony of bees repeatedly 

 without their showing the least resentment. On 

 the seventh day he opened them with the usual 

 care and precaution, and they became terribly 

 excited. All of them flew at him, and yet he 

 was not aware of doing anything unusual or that 

 should have irritated them. 



Dr. Geo. L. Lucas, of Peoria, 111., differed 

 from Dr. Bohrer ; had seen one Brooks, of 

 McLean Co., Illinois, exhibit bees at fairs that 

 he was satisfied were tamed. He carried them 

 about for weeks and handled them with impu- 

 nity. On one occasion Dr .L. handled them him- 

 self, when Brooks was disabled from doing so, 

 and found them to be as gentle as could be 

 wished. He tried his own uneducated bees and 

 failed. Thought they could be taught to recog- 

 nize their keeper by scents. 



Dr. Bohrer. Were they not fed on liquid 

 sweets? 



Dr. Lucas. They were not fed at all. Brooks 

 used no sweets. It was in his opinion a matter 

 of education. 



Mr. R. A. Southioorth, of Odell, 111., thought 

 with Dr. L. that bees could be tamed. After 

 handling bees from four to six days he was ena- 

 bled to open them without taking the usual pre- 

 caution of alarming them first. 



Mrs. E. 8. Tupper, of Des Moines, Iowa, 

 thought that the members misunderstood Mr. 

 Quinby's question. She understood the ques- 

 tion to apply to the permanent improvement of 

 the race, by careful breeding and selection, and 

 not to the management of single colonies. Bees 

 at fairs are not in a normal condition, and con- 

 sequently do not act normally. To teach bees 

 in an apiary to know their owners would require 

 constant teaching, as the lifetime of a bee is 

 short, and young bees were constantly taking 

 the place of the old ones, so that every day new 

 acquaintances would have to be formed ; thought 

 that they did not know the way they were han- 

 dled and managed, and only responded with 

 gentleness to gentle and proper handling, such 

 as a good becmaster knew how to give ; that 

 they did not know strangers, but that strangers 

 were ignorant how to act with them, and sup- 

 posed in consequence, Dr. Bohrer no doubt acted 

 carelessly on the seventh day, having too much 

 confidence in the amiableuess of his colony of 

 bees. Some bees are cross while others are the 

 opposite under apparently the same conditions. 

 If we would pay more attention to the selection 

 of queens to breed from, whose progeny had the 

 desirable qualities in the greatest perfection, 

 great improvements might be permanently made. 



Dr. Lucas asked how far from a normal condi- 

 tion are the bees at fairs, when they were set 

 down and opened and went to work carrying in 

 honey and pollen? 



Mrs. Tupper. The moving and stirring of the 

 crowd around them kept them in continual 

 alarm, so that they were always filled with 

 honey, and consequently in a peaceful, normal 

 condition. Hives that are continually disturbed 

 every day are always more easily managed, for 

 they are kept in an abnormal condition. 



Mr. G. W. Zimmerman, of Urbana. O., ayked, 

 Does opening a hive often make the bees more 

 quiet ? 



Mrs. Tupper. It does. 



Mr. W. li. King, of Franklin, Ky., asked, 

 Did not Dr. Bohrer kill some of the bees, and 

 thus cause irritation ? 



Dr. Bohrer. Did not kill any. 



Mr. W. B. King, thought that the scent of 

 crushed bees would induce anger. 



Aaron Benedict, Bennington, O. Bees are in- 

 fluenced by the condition of the atmosphere and 

 weather, and are more easily roused to anger in 

 damp or rainy weather. 



Mr. A. J. Pope, Indianapolis, Ind. Had a hive 

 that he opened five or six times a day for some 

 time and always found the colony peaceable, but 

 after letting them alone for several days they 

 showed rage when he attempted to open it. 



A. F. Moon, Indianapolis, Ind. Bees could be 

 domesticated only on the principle advocated by 

 Mrs. Tupper. The progeny of different queens 

 differed in temper and other qualities, just as 

 with man and the brute creation, and by a care- 

 ful selection we may make the desired qualities 

 regular and permanent. 



Mr. Seth Roagland, Mercer, Pa. Bees taken 

 to a strange place were generally peaceable 

 when opened. They become cowed. A "rooster" 

 fights best on his own dunghill. Thought bees 

 susceptible of education, but that they could be 

 improved by selection and breeding as advocated 

 by Mrs. Tupper and Mr. Moon. 



Mr. McFl tridge, of Carthage, Indiana, did not 

 believe that moving bees tamed them. He prac- 

 ticed moving his bees to pasturage twenty to 

 thirty miles every year to take advantage of the 

 poplar, linden, and other flowers that were lo- 

 cated apart in different groves, and found many, 

 that on opening them, "gave him fits." 



Mr. Hoagland did not mean that moving in 

 all cases tamed bees, but that was its tendency. 



A- F. Moon. No bees were so docile but what 

 they could be excited to anger, but as a rule, if 

 you will deal gently with bees they will deal 

 gently with you. Moving bees did make a dif- 

 ference, but while some would be subjugated by 

 it others seemed to be more belligerent. 



B,v. II. A. King of N. Y. If bees are tho- 

 roughly subdued there would he no show of an- 

 ger. It should be thorough when undertaken. 



I. 8. Merrill, Fortville, Indiana. Breathing 

 on bees will irritate them. Had known instances 

 where the breath of strangers, six or eight feet 

 off, to the windward of the bees, had enraged 

 them. 



A, Pillcn, Beverly, Illinois, sawed and bored 

 holes in the top of a hive to put honey boxes on, 

 without exciting the anger of the bees. 



I. W. Hosmer, Janesville, Minnesota. Bees 

 can be domesticated. He had some bees set by 

 a path that became so accustomed to passers 

 that they never tried to sting. Believed" that 

 they could be so familiarized and accustomed to 

 being handled, that they would be perfectly 

 peaceable. 



Dr. T. B. Hamlin, Edgefield Junction, Tenn., 

 gave experience with bees placed on a path near 

 a gate that was used and slammed repeatedly 



