386 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



May 3, 1906 



ship-shape before he left ; but, then, he wasn't being stung. 



After cutting out the queen-cells we waited until night, 

 and, putting some long wires around the queen-cage, we 

 spread two brood-frames and lowered the cage down among 

 the brood This was the night of the sixth day since we 

 started to " introduce " her. We waited two days more, 

 and then attacked the fort again to see what had been done. 



On drawing out the cage we found it covered with and 

 as full of bees as it could stick ; and after brushing off, 

 there was the queen yet in the cage ! 



Is she a hoodoo? I almost believe so. I advised my 

 long-suffering husband to pry off the screen and let the 

 poor thing out, even if they ate her up. He did so, and she 

 flew against tBe inside of the hive and hopped on a partly- 

 empty foundation and hid from our view. Only two or 

 three bees took after her, and none acted as if they meant 

 to hurt her. Can it be she is finally introduced ? or is there 

 more agony in store for her ? 



My husband said she looked larger, and thicker and 

 yellower. But isn't " introducing," as practised by us, ex- 

 citing work ? 



When I get my colony (we have engaged 2 swarms from 

 a neighbor) I think I will buy a nice, young 3-banded Ital- 

 ian (if there are any warranted to feed out of my hand, and 

 her bees never bite, here's a sale), pick out the old queen, 

 wait half an hour, and then just open the hive and let my 

 new queen run out of her cage into the hive. If they ball 

 her, I'll put them to soak in a tub of water ; and if they let 

 her alone, well and good. It is not so harrowing on the 

 nerves. 



My husband disapproves of my frivolous attitude re- 

 garding bee-keeping ; but when one is such a favorite with 

 them as I, I must have some fun to repay me for a stiff 

 neck (worse than rheumatism), and a large, aggressive jaw 

 that causes my most intimate friends to look apprehensively 

 at me, and the good man himself to keep a wary eye on me. 

 My appearance is fierce with it, and, all together, I am a 

 very swell affair. 



I've written this yard or two of letter merely to ask if 

 some kind bee-keeper won't tell me how old larva? can be 

 and the bees yet create a queen from it. I'd like to know, 

 for our warriors may yet have a queen of their own making 

 up their sleeve. Nothing would surprise me in these bees. 

 They even enthusiastically fly indoors for one nip more at 

 me. 



In three days more, if I am nerved up to it, I will hint 

 to " my wayward pardner " that we take a still hunt for the 

 Dago. I think I'll get more nibbles, but it's all in a life- 

 time. (Mrs.) W. M. Burke. 



[When younger larva: are not available the bees may 

 take anything unsealed and try to make a queen out of it. — 

 Editor ]— Gleanings in Bee Culture. 



Keeping Bees With Poultry 



As said in a previous article, it is possible to keep both 

 bees and poultry and make both return a handsome profit. 

 But to do this, a little extra and unusual management must 

 be resorted to. I have done this for a number of years, and 

 do not find my bees any in the way of my poultry operations. 

 Many women who are succeeding moderately well with 

 poultry are loth to give it up, while the same time alive to 

 the greater profits possible from bee-keeping. To such I 

 would say, " You have advanced far enough with poultry to 

 put you into position to run that business for special rather 

 than for general results, which, if you can do so, you will 

 still have time at the right season for your bee-work." For 

 the benefit of those I will tell how I manage both enterprises. 



From the middle of January to the middle of February, 

 according to the season, I prepare to start the poultry busi- 

 ness by putting an incubator into operation. This gives 

 me the first lot of chicks early in February to early in 

 March. With good outdoor, center-heat brooders I manage 

 to rear a large percent of these early-hatched chicks. After 

 the third week they are much less work to care for than at 

 first. By this time I then have another hatch out, and by 

 the time I have taken off the third hatch I have about all 

 the early chicks I want. 



When 10 weeks old I sort out the cockerels and less de- 

 sirable pullets and push them off on the broiler market, 

 realizing for these from the first two hatches from $5 to $6 

 per dozen. The pullets I push along as rapidly as possible, 

 and by the first of June, when swarming begins, my young 

 poultry requires very little exacting work. 



During the active season in the apiary my principal 



poultry work consists of filling orders for eggs and in car- 

 ing for my breeding pens. By July 10 the shipping season 

 is over, as is also the rush in the apiary. Then for the next 

 summer's breeders I usually take off an extra hatch. The 

 cockerels from these, together with the choicest from the 

 last of the early hatches, are sufficient to supply my fall and 

 winter trade for breeding stock, while the early pullets 

 make my winter layers. But it will be noted that I do not 

 sell in the general market anything except culls and broil- 

 ers, and these bring me an extra price. Managed in this 

 way my poultry yields me an income far ahead of that esti- 

 mated for the general poultry keeper, and my bees fall 

 nothing short of that obtained by others. 



Such a combination of these two industries would be 

 particularly suitable for the woman without a family, and 

 for the man who desires to make a living from rural pur- 

 suits without incumbering himself with the management of 

 a large farm. For one with 10 to 20 acres of land on the 

 outskirts of some lively city, there would be no better com- 

 bination than bees and poultry. Of course, a woman, to do 

 all this, and do it with profit, must have some help now and 

 then, but with the income from her enterprises at her com- 

 mand she can well afford to hire such help as she needs, 

 either outdoors or indoors, if she can get it. 



Viroqua, Wis. Mrs. Millie Honaker. 



Southern 

 * 33eebom * 



Conducted by Lotus H. Scholi- New Braunfels, Tex. 



J 



Nourishment of Bees 



Some years ago Schoenfeld explained, by many micro- 

 scopic researches and careful experiments, the way in 

 which the different bees and parts of the colony are nour- 

 ished, and Dr. von Planta has assisted him by his difficult 

 chemical analyses. 



What these two scientists have found is so peculiar to 

 the bees, and so important that we can truly say no dis- 

 covery has been made, since the proof of the parthenogene- 

 tic procreation of the drones, of more importance to bee-cul- 

 ture. Nevertheless, this is nearly all neglected by the bee- 

 keepers of our country ; and the worst of all is, bee-keepers 

 generally dislike to read scientific articles. No doubt prog- 

 ress in bee-culture can take place only as we understand the 

 nature of the bee, and base our manipulations on this 

 knowledge. As in other industries, a bee-keeper may gain 

 practical results by following advice which is given like 

 recipes in a cook-book ; but he can never make progress if 

 he does not know why, and for what purpose, he manipu- 

 lates in this and no other way. In searching for new ways 

 he will be entirely in the dark, and will wander in many 

 paths leading in the wrong direction. Good luck only may 

 bring him success ; but with the light of proper knowledge 

 at our disposal we shall easily see the proper way to attain 

 success. 



I will now give the most important parts of Schoen- 

 feld's discoveries. The nitrogenous food of the bees is 

 pollen. By the young bees pollen and water are taken into 

 the true stomach, in which digestion takes place. When 

 the digestion is finished the indigestible parts of the food, 

 such as pollen-shells, etc., are squeezed out of the true 

 stomach by its own peculiar movement into the small intes- 

 tine ; and in the true stomach remains the fully digested 

 food— the chyle. This chyle has a white, milky appearance 

 which is caused by a great number of small cells that origi- 

 nate from the inner skin of the stomach, called " intima," 

 and are identical with the blood-corpuscles of other animals. 

 This chyle has now two ways for assimilation : It either 

 passes the wall of the true stomach by diffusion, and is 

 mixed with the blood, which, in the body of the bee, flows 

 around all organs, nourishing the same, and from which 

 every organ can take just those parts that are needed ; or it 

 is regurgitated and fed to larva?, queen, drones, and even to 

 older sisters under certain circumstances, and is assimi- 

 lated in the same way in their body. The blood and the 

 chyle are fully identical— the only difference is that blood 

 surrounds the true stomach, and chyle is inside of it. So 



