THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



141 



paid him very well, out of the money he 

 had invested in bees, and said that he 

 made 100 per cent. He did not keep bees 

 for honey, but had sold $000 worth of 

 queens during the past year; he also sold 

 some honey, but kept no account. 



Messrs. S. G. Garber, Elias Hershey, 

 and Leonard Fleckenstein, spoke in favor 

 of bee raising, and said that they were 

 all well paid for tlie interest and labor 

 bestowed upon the bees. 



Peter S. Reist thought bee-keeping, if 

 understood rightly, would pay better than 

 any other kind of business, if only fifty 

 per cent, would be made on the amount 

 invested, it would be paying very well. 



Tlie next question discussed was, 

 " Which is best— the Italian or the black 

 bee?" 



Elias Hershey favored the Italian bee, 

 on account of its swarming qualities, and 

 that it could gather more honey than the 

 black bee. 



J. F. Hershey also favored the Italian 

 bee; they work better and protect the 

 hive from moth much belter than the 

 black bee. He preferred crossed bees for 

 making honey. 



Leonard Fleckenstein was very much 

 in favor of the Italian bees, but as regards 

 the gathering of honey, he had a colony 

 of black bees that would gather more 

 than the Italians. 



" Do bees injure fruit? " was next dis- 

 cussed. 



J. F. Hershey did not believe bees 

 would destroy grapes, unless the grape 

 was already partly destroyed by some 

 other insect; they never toucli or harm a 

 sound grape. A great many people blame 

 the bees for injuring grapes, but he thinks 

 it is the wasp tliat does the mischief. As 

 regards the destruction of apples, he has 

 had as high as tifty swarms in his orchard 

 at a time, and nevor noticed any destruc- 

 tion or diminution in his crop. His 

 clover crop was greatly benefitted by the 

 presence of bees. 



D. H. Lintner had often heard that 

 bees would destroj^ grapes, but after ex- 

 perimenting, he found that it was not so. 

 He put several bunches of grapes, dipped 

 in sugar syr.up, in trout of the hive; when 

 he took the grapes away, after the bees 

 had eaten all the syrup oflF, they were as 

 .sound as when he put them there. 



A. H. Shock said that the people in his 

 neighborhood were very much opposed 

 to the Italian bee, as they believed it 

 stung their grapes. 



Peter S. Keist believed the bees were a 

 great benefit to flowers, as they carried 

 the pollen of one to that of another, thus 

 propagating, as it were, the flowers. 



The fourth question, — " How long can 

 brood remain exposed witliout being cov- 

 ered by the bees, and still be used for 

 queen raising?" was then introduced. 

 Leonard Fleckenstein opened the dis- 



cussion on this subject, and said that he 

 had a piece of comb lying exposed for 

 twenty-four hours, in a cool cliilly air, 

 from which he raised a prolific queen. 

 He did not know whether the egg was 

 used or not. 



J. F. Hershey said that where there are 

 eggs in the comb, they can be of use for 

 raising for a long time. Combs with eggs 

 can be shipped by mail, and kept for five 

 or six days, and then have a young queen 

 hatched out of them. When the brood 

 is over four days old, they cannot raise a 

 queen. Some have been raised in this 

 lime, but they are not perfect, and, as a 

 matter of course, are entirely worthless. 

 The question, "What is the reason that 

 a queen's sting is curved and a worker's 

 sting is straight, and yet hatched from the 

 same kind of an egg?" was proposed by 

 S. G. Garber, who wanted a little informa- 

 tion on the subject. 



A. B. Herr thought it was the nature of 

 the bee, or the formation of the cell. 



J. F. Hershey believed nature had made 

 it so, in order to attack its rivals. 



" Why is a fertile worker produced, 

 and how ?" was the next question brought 

 before the meeting. 



D. H. Lintner supposed it was produced 

 in order lo take the place of a queen. It 

 is not quite as large as a queen, and looks 

 like an ordinary worker bee. It lays eggs 

 the same as a queen, sometimes two and 

 three in a cell, but they never amount to 

 anything. He could not tell how the fer- 

 tile worker was formed. They would 

 not hatch, and when a queen is put in 

 with them, they will kill it. The only 

 remedy for this is to transfer the worker 

 to another hive. 



J. F. Hershey said that the fertile worker 

 never raises any worker bees; they can 

 raise nothing but drones, and these are 

 perfectly worthless. 



Leonard Fleckenstein compared the 

 bee lo a human being, and said it did the 

 best it could. 



" Which is the better plan, natural or 

 artificial swarming?" was the last ques- 

 tion brought before the meeting. 



J. F. Hershey preferred the artificial way 

 of swarming, on account of a great deal of 

 time being saved. When a natural swarm 

 leaves the hive, it takes seventeen days- 

 before the young queen is in good con- 

 dition, and the hive is got iu working 

 order. In an artificial swarm, all this 

 time can be saved by placing a queen in 

 the hive at once. In tlie artificial way, 

 ^ou can swarin three limes when you can 

 only swarm twice in the natural way. 

 Before swarming in the artificial way, 

 the bees should have as much honey in 

 the hive as they have when they go into 

 winter quarters. 



Leonard Fleckenstein and Jacob Kep- 

 perling, also favored artificial swarming, 

 and cited several experiments which they 



