THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOUENAL. 



WASHINGTON, JANUARY, 1867. 



tW The American Bee Journal is now pub- 

 lished monthly, in the City of Washington, (D. 

 C) at ft2 per annum. All communications 

 should be addressed to the Editor, at that pla<;e. 



G^" The subscription list and good will of 

 the " American Bee Oazette''' having been trans- 

 ferred to the editor and proprietor of this 

 Journal, the papers have been united, and will 

 henceforward appear under the combined title 

 of the "American Bee Journal and Ga- 

 zette." It is hoped that this arrangement 

 will be satisfactory to all interested, and tend 

 to secure the permanent establishment in this 

 country of a periodical devoted to bee-cul- 

 ture. 



Our chief endeavor has been, as it will con- 

 tinue to be, to render available to our readers 

 everything new and valuable in practical and 

 scientific bee-culture, furnished by the German 

 journals devoted to this speciality. Those 

 publications are increasing in number and in- 

 terest, and still constitute the only source from 

 which a satisfactory knowledge of the progress 

 making in Europe in this regard can be derived, 

 as no similar periodical is published in England. 

 Having these at command, and receiving 

 besides, as they appear, all the new publications 

 emanating from the most eminent and ex- 

 perienced apiarians abroad, our supplies of 

 material will be ample. Yet we earnestly de- 

 sire, and respectfully solicit, from the cor- 

 respondents of the Journal and Gazette, u 

 continuance of their contributions as hereto- 

 fore. These are always perused with peculiar 

 zest by apiarians, and many of them show that 

 while American bee-keepers are not less ob- 

 servant than their foreign compeers, there is 

 frequently moreshrewdnessin their suggestions 

 and more ingenuity and directness in their 

 processes. 



The American Bee Journal and* Gazette 

 will henceforward be issued on the first day of 

 each month. 



'J^W The report of the Commissioner of Agri- 

 culture for the year 1865, lately published, con- 

 tains an interesting article on bees and bee- 

 culture, written by Mrs. Tupper, of Brighton, 

 Iowa. We have extracted from it, for this 

 numbev of the Bee Journal, a section on 

 ItaliauizijiL^ common stocks. 



E^^The following article contains a singular 

 blunder, wlxich, we presume, is to be attributed 

 rather to the ignorance of the reporter than that 

 of the "President of the Entomological Society" 

 of London. Tlie Braida cmcaiii a parasite of 

 the bee, rather apt to infect queens, rarely if 

 ever proving fatal, and certainly never directly 

 " destructive of the honey in bee-hives :" 



Mr. Waring has exhibited to the Entomolo- 

 gical Society some dead pupfc of drones which 

 he found near the entrance of one of his bee- 

 hives. They were not fully matured, and it 

 would seem that the bees must have cut off the 

 caps of the cells, and cast out the dead pupce; 

 but he was unable to throw any light upon the 

 cause of their death. 



The President of the Entomological Society 

 has exhibited specimens of the Bmula ccecu, 

 which, on the Continent, has been found to ba 

 destructive of the honey in bee-hives. It had 

 only recently been found in this country, and 

 had been imported with the Ajns Ugustica, in a 

 hive of. which species the exhibited specimen 

 had been discovered.— T^Vms' " Year Booh of 

 Facts ^ 1864. 



1[;^"The subjoined paragraph shows that 

 some folks in England have yet much to learn 

 respecting the " puzzle which has exercised the 

 wits of naturalists and philosophers for many 

 ages. " Professor Leitch will have to reconsider 

 and reconstruct his "new theor3\" 



Queen Eee. 



Prof Leitch has announced a new theory in 

 the Queen Bee, a puzzle which has exercised 

 the wits of naturalists and philosophers for many 

 ages. How is a queen Itee produced from an 

 Qg^, which, under ordinary circumstances, 

 would produce a sterile worker '? It is com- 

 monly j>uppose^l that this change is eflected by 

 the supply of a peculiar food (a "royal jelly" it 

 has been termed) to the larvfe. Prof. Leitch 

 considers that the change is effected by an in- 

 crease of the temperature of the cell containing 

 the larva intended for the production of a queen 

 bee, and that the object of the isolated position 

 of the royal cell is to admit of it being sur- 

 rounded by a cluster of bees, who, by their 

 rapidly-increased respiration, produce the 

 warmth necessary to accomplish the growth of 

 the Qineen.—AthencEinn. 



Extract from a Letter to tho Editor. 



"The December number of the French B j 

 Journal announces the departure of a colonj- jf 

 native bees from the Island of Bourbon or ie- 

 Uniou — the Apis unicolor — and wishes the/n a 

 safe arrival in France. If successfully i-jtro- 

 duccd there, we may have them in the Ujited 

 Stales by next autumn." 



