AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



599 



dividing colonies ; I can do better to let 

 them swarm naturally ; so in whatever 

 method a man can succeed best, let him 

 stick to that. It is necessary to have 

 system in bee-keeping, the same as in 

 all other occupations, in order to suc- 

 ceed. 



Mr. Chas. White, on page 471, tells 

 how to catch swarms of bees. When I 

 read it I was inclined to laugh at it, as 

 being somewhat whimsical, like the old 

 mullen-stalk for catchers, which I tried 

 years ago without success; but after 

 thinking the matter over, I concluded 

 as there is a scarcity of trees here for 

 bees to cluster, on, I would try Mr. 

 White's plan this season, and if I am 

 successful I will report through the Bee 

 JouKNAi., and thank Mr. White for giv- 

 ing the information. 



Keeville, Minn., Apr. 20, 1893. 



P. S. — The storm still continues. This 

 is the third day — April 21st. School 

 closed to-day on account of the blizzard. 



IXXXXXXXXZXX) 



♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦•♦♦♦♦♦♦•♦"♦■■♦♦♦♦♦ 



The Lmed ofBzierzoe 



conducted by 

 Oldenburg, Grossherzogthum, Germany. 



The Queen is a Hermaphrodite. 



Mr. Metzger published another sur- 

 prising statement. He says : 



There Is no parthenogenesis, as the 

 queen is a hermaphrodite. Those cells 

 without nucleus referred to in our re- 

 port on page 330, which are to be found 

 in the seminal vesicle of the queen, have 

 the destination to fecundate the drone- 

 eggs. Some of these cells will always be 

 found on the surface of drone-eggs. 

 They are too thin to be detected with 

 the microscope ; if wanted to be seen 

 they have first to be washed oflf. There- 

 fore, all eggs are fecundated. If the 

 receptaculum seminis could be castrated, 

 a queen could lay deaf or sterile eggs 

 only, from which neither drones nor 

 worker-bees could develop. 



Mr. C. J. Robinson is partly compan- 

 ion of Mr. Metzger, when saying, "It 

 is the sum of ignorance, that a queen 

 can receive into her ' sac ' sufficient 

 spermatic fluid for six or more years." 

 But we recommend the book by Cowan, 

 "The Honey-Bee," to this gentleman, in 

 order to know what is meant by par- 



thenogenesis now-a-days. The definition 

 given by him in the American Bee 

 JouKNAL is " the sum of ignorance." 



If Metzger is right, we cannot speak 

 any more of parthenogenesis, but I am 

 deadly sure he is not right, as a kind of 

 castration of the "sac" has already 

 been made by Dr. Donhoff (1851-54) 

 and by Cowan, and the fecundated 

 queen could lay drone-eggs only after 

 this. This proves that Metzger is wrong. 



Is Honey-Dew Aphidian Honey, or a 

 Secretion of the Leaves ? 



Dzierzon says : Honey-dew is nothing 

 but a product of the aphis ; but nearly 

 all other bee-masters in Germany pre- 

 tend it is sometimes only a secretion of 

 the tree-lice, and sometimes an exuda- 

 tion or perspiration of the leaves. 



Rain of Honey-Dew. 



There was simply a rain of honey-dew 

 last season in the Black Forests and in 

 the Vosges Mountains. One prime 

 swarm of Mr. Veirling, of Hiederhas- 

 lach, gave the following results : 



June 16, 30 pounds of honey-dew. 

 July 



Aug, 



Dr. C. C. Miller, in his incomparable 

 "Stray Straws," took notice of three 

 cases of fecundations of the queen in the 

 hive as reported in the German Central- 

 blatt. These three cases are only obser- 

 vations (?) without scientific value. 



The general belief is, that the fecun- 

 dation takes place high up in the air, 

 but during the last season some three or 

 four cases have been reported, showing 

 that copulation will take place close to 

 the hive ; even when bees are swarming, 

 the young queen will be fecundated 

 amidst the swarm. 



I am the happy owner of a couple 

 which was found in the bee-yard when a 

 colony had just cast a second swarm. 

 As the swarm was going back to the 



