156 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Jan, 



flicted. On examining her, he said, that it was 

 a " Scmtunntatovy case," which caused the 

 head to go "tizzerrizzen." The old woman 

 said that he described tlie disease exactly, and 

 he thought it was pretty much the same with 

 this discussion. He could throw no light on the 

 cause of last winter's mortality among the bees, 

 but gave his experience. Out of sixteen stocks 

 he put fifteen in the cellar, where they had 

 always wintered well. In the spring, five of 

 them were dead, and the other ten were in bad 

 condition, so that two died afterwards. The 

 other stock he left on the summer stand, took 

 off the honey board and substituted for it two 

 thicknesses of old woollen carpet. He examined 

 them and disturbed them often during the win- 

 ter, and always found them in good order, and 

 they came out in good condition in the spring. 



Dr. Lucas of Illinois. Bought three dozen 

 colonies of an old German, last spring, that were 

 wintered out dooi's. When he went after them, 

 found all that had holes in the top of the hives 

 were alive. Those that had solid tops were all 

 dead. 



Without coming to any definite conclusion, 

 the subject, on motion, was laid on the table. 



The business committee made a report of pro- 

 gramme for to-morrow, which was received and 

 adopti d, and the society adjourned. 



THURSDAY'S PROCEEDINGS. 



Morning Session. 



The society met, President Clarke in the 

 chair. 



Dr. Bo7irer, from the committee to settle with 

 the treasurer, made a report, showing that the 

 treasurer's receipts at the three former meet- 

 ings had been $296, and that he had paid out 

 $ 295.27, leaving a balance of 73 cents due the 

 society. On motion, the report was received 

 and adopted. 



Dr. Bohrer proposed to petition for some plan 

 of registration, by which the security of queens 

 sent by mail may be guaranteed. 



Mr. King of New York, said, that the P. M. 

 General had lately decided that bees were not 

 mailable matter. 



D. L. Adair of Ilawesville, Ky., read the fol- 

 lowing paper, entitled : 



What is the ultimate capacity of a colony of bees 

 for producing honey? 



Mr. Langstroth in his book "the Hive and 

 Honey bee," says: "A good swarm ought to 

 contain at least 20,000 workers, and in large 

 hives, strong colonies which are not reduced by 

 swarming, frequently number two or three times 

 as many during the height of the breeding sea- 

 son." While Reaumer, Dzierzon and others, 

 who have made careful observations, do not vary 

 materially from this estimate, and it seems to be" 

 generally conceded, that a colony of bees as 

 generally managed, in hives of the ordinary size 

 of 2,000 cubic inches, which seems to be their 

 standard, contains on an average about 20,000 

 workers, except for a few days at swarming time, 

 which excess causes swarming to take place, 



and the population is reduced for a time below 

 this number, so that the effective working force 

 is about that number. 



Now it would appear self evident, that if the 

 average population of the hive could be increased 

 and maintained at a greater number, the pro- 

 duction of honey would be increased in the same 

 ratio. The question then comes up, what is the 

 extent to which the population can be increased? 



I state as admitted facts, that during the period 

 of active honey gathering, all of the worker bees 

 in the hive die inside of 50 clays, and that the 

 population of a colony can at no time exceed the 

 number of eggs the queen can lay during that 

 time. 



The Baron of Berlepsch in his work on " Bees 

 and bee-culture" gives the result of four experi- 

 ments that he tried to ascertain the productive- 

 ness of the queen. 



In the first, made in 1846, the queen laid 1604 

 eggs in 24 hours. In 1850 he counted all the 

 brood in a large and populous hive and found 

 38,619. Assuming 20 days as the average time 

 for their development, the queen had laid at the 

 rate of 1,913 on an average daily. In 1856 he 

 made the third examination and found 48,000 

 cells stored with brood, which gave an average 

 of 2400 daily. The fourth experiment was made 

 in the same year. 



He placed an empty sheet of comb in a hive 

 and put the queen on it. He waited until the 

 queen commenced to lay and then closed the 

 hive. At the end of precisely 24 hours he took 

 the comb out and found 3,021 eggs in it. He 

 had no means of ascertaining whether she laid 

 in any other comb. He saw her lay six eggs in 

 a minute, which was at the rate of 360 in an 

 hour, or if she had continued at that rate she 

 would have laid 8,640 eggs in 24 hours, or would 

 have laid the 3,021 in about 8£ hours, leaving 

 15i hours for rest. 



Dzierzon counted the number of cells in a 

 populous hive, that contained brood and eggs, 

 and found 60,000, which, divided by 20, the 

 number of days required for the bees to mature, 

 showed that the queen had laid at the rate of 

 3,000 eggs per d»y. 



Mr. Rood stated at the late meeting of the 

 Michigan Beekeepers' Assocation, that Mr. Otis 

 had found that a queen had laid 3,500 eggs in a 

 single day. 



During the past season, which was a poor one 

 for honey in Kentucky, and consequently unfa- 

 vorable to extreme production, I was observing 

 the difference in the productiveness in different 

 forms of hives, and in the best hive of the stand- 

 ard size of 2,000 cubic inches, I found 31,200 

 cells filled with brood, which required that the 

 queen should have laid 1485 eggs on an average 

 each day for 21 days, which I find is the average 

 time required for the maturity of the worker bee. 



In the other form of hive, in which brooding 

 space was nominally unlimited, I found 75,168 

 cells filled with brood, and allowing 21 days for 

 the queen to lay the eggs, she had laid at the 

 rate of 3.5 > 9 eggs daily, or assuming them all 

 to be laid in 20 days, as Berlepsch and Dzierzon 

 did, she had laid at the rate of 3,758 each day. 

 This last was not an extreme instance among 



