30 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



the cellar and close daytimes. I have 

 never given m}^ opinion as to the 

 cause of the disease, for I had none. 

 I noticed Bees which were housed early 

 escaped the disease. 



I will now give what I suppose to be 

 the cause of the disease, and if there are 

 any exceptions we shall be pleased to 

 hear them. 



All Bees which have died of the dis- 

 ease have been exposed to a week or 

 more of cold weather, during which 

 time they go?'ge themselves with honey, 

 if then they are moved into cellars or 

 Bee houses, or are kept confined by 

 cold weather so that they are unable to 

 empt}^ themselves, dysentery will be 

 the effect every time. 



Will " Novice," or others who have 

 fed sugar syrup, try an experiment as 

 follows? Leave a hive out during a 

 week or more of cold weather, then, 

 without allowing them to discharge, 

 take them in a Bee house or cellar, and 

 report the result. 



To-day I set the four ill-fated hives 

 out and let them fly. 



D. D. Palmer. 



Eliza, Mercer Co., 111. 



Bee Notes from Darwin. 



Bees have solved a recondite problem. 

 They have made their cells of a proper 

 shape to hold the greatest possible 

 amount of honey, with the least possible 

 consumption of precious wax, in their 

 construction. ^ 



No human workman is skilful enough 

 to do what a crowd of Bees can do — 

 working in a dark hive — make cells of 

 wax of the true form. 



The number of humble Bees in the 

 country will depend upon the number of 

 cats! How can that be? Because the num- 

 ber of Bees is dependent upon the num- 

 ber of field mice, which eat the Bees. 

 Hence the more cats, the fewer mice; and 

 the fewer mice, the more Bees. 



If the whole germs of Humble-Bees be- 

 came extinct, or very rare, the heart's 

 ease and red clover would become rare 

 or wholly disappear. How is that? Be- 

 cause Bees promote the growth of those 

 flowers. The visits of Bees are necessary 

 to the fertilization of some kinds of 



clover, and almost indispensable to the 

 fertilization of the heart's ease, for these 

 Bees do not visit this flower. Humble- 

 Bees alone visit red clover as other Bees 

 cannot reach the nectar. 



In a word — no Bees, no seed; no seedy 

 no increase of the flower.. The more 

 visits from Bees, the more seeds from the 

 flower; the more seeds from the flower,. 

 the more flowers from the seeds. 



Nearly all our orchidaceous plants ab- 

 solutely require the visits of insects to re- 

 move their pollen-masses and thus to fer- 

 tilize them. 



Twenty heads of unprotected Dutch 

 clover yields 2,990 seeds. The same 

 number protected frorai Bees produced 

 not one seed; 100 heads of unprotected 

 red clover yielded 2,700, and the same 

 number protected from Bees not a seed. 



Pruning Broods. 



Pruning brood combs is generally 

 quite unnecessary, in fact is more often 

 injurious than otherwise. If they ever 

 require excision, it can only be when 

 they are so overcharged with pollen as 

 to render breeding impossible, in which 

 case the operation should be performed 

 in the Spring. Pruning them after the 

 Bees have swarmed and cast, is very un- 

 wise for several reasons.. First, there is a 

 possibility that during a glut of honey,, 

 the Bees would build an excess of drone- 

 comb, or supposing their queen to be 

 lost, that they would build drone comb 

 exclusively, if any; second., that having 

 to replace the excised comb, they would 

 be less likely to yield a surplus in their 

 super; and, third, there is the undoubted 

 fact that Bees winter much better in old 

 combs than in new ones,, because being 

 coated with so much silky fibre, they are 

 the warmer of the two, and again there 

 is the chance that in an unfavorable sea- 

 son they may be unable to build any 

 comb at all. — British Bee Journal. 



A person who has familiarized himself 

 to Bees, can by means of the passion of 

 fear impressed upon them, and by that 

 dexterity in the management of them,, 

 which can only be acquired, by practice,, 

 manage Bees as he pleases. — Wiidman. 



