564 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



winter was owing to the disturbance of 

 his bees caused by this railroad. 



While there one day, about train time, 

 he invited me tc go into his bee-cave, or 

 special underground repository in which 

 he wintered his bees, to see what I 

 thought about the matter. The reposi- 

 tory was a nice one, in fact the nicest I 

 ever saw, as the sides and bottom were 

 of a clean white sand, and kept at a 

 uniform temperature of from 42° to 46°. 

 When we went into the cave the bees 

 were very quiet, as much so as they ever 

 are in my own cellar. We struck no 

 light, as he wished me to note the effect 

 of the train on the bees, the same as it 

 would be every time a train passed. 



Soon we began to feel a slight jar of 

 the ground, and in a moment more the 

 bees began to buzz, or show signs of 

 being disturbed, which increased as the 

 train neared ; and as it went by, the 

 trembling of the earth in this dark place 

 was so great that it was anything but 

 pleasant to me, and I did not wonder 

 that the bees became so awakened that 

 they came to the entrance of their hives 

 to see what the trouble was. 



He told me that this disquietude con- 

 tinued from ten to fifteen minutes after 

 the passing of every train, while toward 

 spring they hardly became quiet be- 

 tween the passing of the trains. For- 

 tunately, on this road there were few 

 trains run, still he was never successful 

 in wintering bees in this cellar, and soon 

 moved to a different locality. Since 

 then, I have felt as though I should pre- 

 fer some other place for cellar-wintering 

 of bees, besides near a railroad. 



WORKING-QUALITIES OF BEES. 



Another correspondent writes that he 

 thinks that tlje Italian bees work best 

 on basswood and thistle, and the black 

 bees on raspberry and buckwheat; and 

 asks if I have found such to be the case. 



After very close watching of these 

 bees for a long term of years, I have 

 failed to find a single instance where the 

 blacks exceeded the Italians as to honey- 

 gathering, no matter on what plant or 

 tree they were working, while at many 

 times the Italians were actually making 

 a gain when the blacks were consuming 

 their stores. For this reason I discarded 

 the blacks for several years. 



Later on I saw an advertisement tel- 

 ling of a large brown bee which would 

 bring in honey when no other bee could ; 

 and of an ndustrious gray bee that was 

 away ahead of most of the bees in the 

 country ; and not wishing to be behind, 

 I sent for some of these. After a thor- 

 ough trial of both they only proved, as I 



had expected, that each was not differ- 

 ent from the black bee of our fathers' 

 time. 



Next I tried the much-praised hybrids, 

 said to be the coming Apis Americana, 

 and I found them not a whit ahead of 

 the hybrids which I had had for years ; 

 at least the profits made from the sales 

 of honey from the Italians were ahead 

 of those, from any of the others, so I 

 parted company with all the rest. 



I know that black bees will store more 

 dark or buckwheat honey than the Ital- 

 ians, but my experience is, that at the 

 same time this is being done, the Ital- 

 ians are storing more white honey from 

 red clover, white-weed and selendine, 

 than the others secure from buckwheat. 

 When this white honey is not obtainable, 

 then the Italians store of dark honey an 

 equal amount with the blacks. 



QUEENS CRAMPING. 



Another writes, "When clipping my 

 queens' wings some of them go into 

 spasms, or have cramps which double 

 them all up. What is the cause ? " 



When queens are caught by the wings 

 they often double up and appear to have 

 a cramp, some having reported that 

 death was the result. For a long time I 

 supposed this doubling up was caused 

 by a real cramp, but after a close obser- 

 vation I learned what the trouble was, 

 w-ith my queens, at least. 



I caught a queen to clip her wings, 

 when she doubled up as has been des- 

 cribed. I thought to let her go as I had 

 always done before when they had thus 

 cramped, but I hesitated as she was 

 very shy and I did not like the thought 

 of hunting for her again, so I concluded 

 to clip her though she died. I lowered 

 my hands very close to the top of the 

 frames, and clipped off all four of the 

 wings as I usually do. She lay on the 

 top-bar of a frame apparently lifeless, 

 so it gave me a good opportunity to ex- 

 amine her closely, when I soon saw that 

 she had one of her front feet tightly 

 clamped in the opening frem which the 

 sting extrudes. In a moment more she 

 began to kick about (as the bees hov- 

 ered around her, so she saw she was in 

 her own home), when the foot was 

 loosed by the opening parting, and she 

 crawled down among the bees unharmed. 



Since then I have seen other queens 

 doubled up in this same way, and always 

 found the case the same as above. As 

 the queen is lifted by the wings she 

 struggles to get hold of something, to 

 liberate herself if possible, and in these 

 struggles curves her abdomen and partly 

 thrusts out her sting. While in thli 



