May 10, 19(6 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



407 



digested any more, and chyme is fed. With the larva; the 

 young bee is growing older, too. From a chyle-producing 

 bee it has changed to a chyme-producing one ; and now, 

 when the larva; are old enough, the bee secretes wax and 

 builds cappings over the cells. It becomes a building-bee 

 now, and may find employment in building combs outside 

 of the brood-nest, or for transporting and ripening honey 

 until it is old enough for gathering water, pollen and nectar. 

 As we have seen, the young bee is held back at first to 

 the place of its birth, till, with the larva;, it grows older ; 

 and if these larva; do not need it any more it strives to come 

 to the surface of the cluster, at first working as comb- 

 builder, etc. In about 3 or 4 weeks it dies, worn out by 

 hard work, when another bee is found on the alighting- 

 board ready to take its place. As the material for nourish- 

 ment flows from the outside to the center, going from one 

 bee's body to another till it is consumed by the queen or by 

 the larva;, so the young bees, not necessary in the brood- 

 nest, are striving to get to the surface or to the outside to 

 find other employment, generation after generation, till 

 they find an honorable death in the fields. 



Chyle and Impulses. 



We know that the different organs of the bee will take 

 different parts from the blood for nourishment. In this 

 way all the organs get their proper nourishment, and the 

 blood is used up. The products of this process are either 

 breathed out by the trachea; or removed from the blood by 

 the malpighian vessels. 



A certain organ may especially need fat ; then the re- 

 maining blood will be richer in albumen and sugar-like 

 substances; if not, other organs will use up this surplus. 

 In this way the composition of the blood of the bee may 

 vary according to circumstances. 



As long as the bees are close together in the winter 

 cluster, and feed themselves on the winter stores of honey, 

 and probably very little pollen, all the blood produced is 

 used up to preserve the life of the colony and to produce the 

 necessary heat. 



As soon as a great activity takes place, probably caused 

 by the first flight in spring, induced by a warm day (1), 

 every member of the colony will produce more chyle or 

 blood than is necessary for the preservation of its own 

 body, and hereby the progressing impulses are incited. The 

 young bees especially are the producers of heat, and for this 

 purpose fat and sugar in the blood are used up in larger 

 quantities than albumen ; consequently the blood will get 

 richer in albumen. According to the laws of diffusion, the 

 blood will now take more sugar and fat from the chyle in 

 the stomach than albumen, because the tendency is to 

 equalize the two fluids. So the chyle, too, will get richer in 

 albumen, and this rich chyle, if fed to the queen, will excite 

 the ovaries, and egg-laying will commence soon afterward. 

 In this way the breeding impulse is aroused in the whole 

 colony. The queen needs more nitrogenous food to produce 

 the necessary chyle ; the few young bees will have plenty 

 of consumers for the produced chyle, and the queen will lay 

 a small patch of eggs only in the first brood-period, and all 

 the produced chyle is consumed by the larva; and the queen. 



As soon as young bees gnaw out of the cells they will 

 produce chyle, too, if pollen is present or gathered by the 

 field bees ; but a single bee can feed perhaps 5 or 10 larva;, 

 and may be more. The first 3 weeks we may have 100 young 

 or nurse-bees ; and then it will be easy for the queen to lay 

 1000 eggs during these 3 weeks, which will be afierward, as 

 larvae, consumers of the chyle produced by the 100 young 

 nurse-bees. Inside of the next 3 weeks we shall have 10i0 

 nurse-bees, and they need 10,(00 eggs. In the third brood- 

 period 100,000 eggs or larva; would be necessary ; and as we 

 know that no queen is able to lay so many eggs, necessarily 

 an increase of the blood takes place. The young bees get 

 surcharged with blood ; and we can observe this, as we see 

 their abdomen generally more distended than with field-bees 

 of the same colony. 



The next result of this condition is that the wax-glands 

 are excited. It is proven by Schoenfeld that much blood is 

 necessary for the secretion of wax, and this is one of the 

 reasons why bees can not and do not always build combs. 

 As for wax secretion and comb-building, if fat and sugar 

 are used, albumen will get to be still more diffused through 

 the blood, and hereby another impulse is aroused — the drone 

 impulse. We can always observe whether comb-building 

 is going on in connection with a surplus of albumen, for 

 then drone-combs will be built by the colony. This is the 

 explanation why swarms will build worker-combs as long 

 as the queen can lay a sufficient number of eggs for the 

 young bees accompanying the swarm ; and why the same 



swarm commences to build drone-cells where the queen can 

 not lay enough eggs, or when young queens are gnawing 

 out of the cells. It is the explanation why small colonies 

 or nuclei generally build worker-combs. They do not have 

 enough young bees so that a surplus of albumen can be 

 present in the blood. 



As the chyle has always the same composition as the 

 blood, or nearly so, the queen, too, receives a chyle very 

 rich in albumen, and so the same impulse is aroused in her 

 body, and she will lay drone-eggs in the drone-cells, which, 

 if other conditions prevailed, she would neglect entirely (2). 



The young drone-larva: need a food very rich in albu- 

 men, and so the increase of blood is diminished for some 

 time by comb-building and by rearing drones. 



Further, we know that a drone needs 24 days for devel- 

 opment, and in the last 2 weeks the cell is capped and will 

 need no food at all. Meantime the number of young bees 

 has increased every day, and the increase of blood will be 

 greater and stronger. 



As in early spring, the surplus of albumen was trans- 

 ferred to the ovaries, so this surplus causes at that time, 

 and at that state of development, a desire for more ovaries, 

 as the old queen and the larva- are yet unable to consume 

 all the chyle produced by the many young nurse-bees. 

 Quite a number of queen-cells are built, and the youug 

 larva; in them are good customers for the albuminous chyle. 

 So we see the abundance of food causes an ever increasing 

 number of food-producers. The contradiction between the 

 multiplied supply of nourishment and the limit of egg-lay- 

 ing power of the queen is finally solved by the swarming 



By this theory we can explain many mysteries in bees. 

 This theory explains why and how swarming can be pre- 

 vented, if we in some way avoid a surplus of albumen, or, 

 as we said, the increase of the blood. The more a theory 

 can explain the facts we have observed, the greater will be 

 the probability of its correctness. This theory does more : 

 By reasoning from it we can incite and retain certain im- 

 pulses to our liking by certain manipulations; and if we 

 make use of them correctly we shall succeed. This fact 

 makes it nearly certain that the theory is correct. 



Many problems remain to be solved as yet ; and in some 

 points later investigations and closer observations may cor- 

 rect some parts of the theory ; but that it is correct in the 

 main points I am fully convinced, if I consider in what an 

 easy way it gives us an insight into the very life of the 

 honey-bee to such an extent as we never had before. 



Cibolo, Tex. L. Stachelhausen. 



fl 1 Other circumstances, too. may cause a larger consumption ; for in- 

 stance if the colon "is much disturbed or exposed to cold. Under such circnm- 

 staSceVl found in strong colonies large patches of brood, even in January, in a 



""'If' This winded a correction or completion as it does not explain why a 

 queen will lay a few eggs in drone-cells, and right from them go over to the 

 next worker cell and lav an impregnated egg in it. It is not probable that the 

 tamilBeschanie s,, quickly. Possil.ly the size of the cell has something to do. 

 after all, in fertilizing or not fertilizing the egg. 



(Dur* Sister 

 Beekeepers 



Conducted by Emma M. Wilson, Marengo, 111. 



Weak and Queenless Colonies In Spring 



By this time it ought to be an easy thing to tell which 

 colonies have normal queens and which have not. If combs 

 of good worker-brood are not present a colony is doomed. 

 To be sure, a queen might be sent for and given to it, but 

 that is not what the average sister will do, especially if she 

 is a beginner. The first thing she most likely will think of 

 doing is to give it some brood to let it rear a queen of its 

 own, and it will probably take her years to learn that that 

 is just the thing she ought not to do. It is a bad thing to 

 do for more than one reason. 



One thing that is enough to condemn it, if there were 

 nothing else, is that the queen reared in such a case will be 

 very poor ; generally so poor that she is not only worthless, 

 but worse than worthless, because she will keep a lot of 

 bees dancing attendance upon her only to fail in the end. 



Another thing just about as bad is the real damage to 

 the colony from which the brood is taken. To this the re- 

 ply is likely to be, " Taking one frame of brood from a col- 



