146 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL AND GAZETTE. 



dependence for the fecundation of these late- 

 bred princesses was on the services of a number 

 of small Liguriau drones bred in worker-cells, 

 and which have on this account been deemed 

 by some to be incapable of fulfilling: their proper 

 functions. Evidences of fecundation were, 

 therefore, watched for with no little anxiety, 

 and it will readily be conceived with what exul- 

 tation the fact was hailed, that on the 9th of 

 September, and on the eighteenth day of her 

 existence, it was found that this, the first English- 

 bred Egyptian queen-bee, had become fully 

 capable of performing every duty connected 

 with her position. — A Devokshike Bee- 

 keeper. 



For the American Bee Gazette. 



Ventilating Eee-Hives. 



There are many errors in bee-culture that 

 pass for truth. This is owing, perhaps, td the 

 fact that authors qf books and articles in the 

 papers are in the habit of copying from others 

 and from each other what they do not know 

 themselves. Consequently, most of the errors 

 of tlie early writers are handed down through 

 allot the different '' orirjinaV works on bee- 

 culture, and vouched fc 'ly the authors, thus 

 causing them to b« received as authentic facts 

 by such green ones as myself, who do not know 

 any better. But I have noticed bees some; I 

 have studied bees some; and I have read some 

 about bees. The more I do of either, the more 

 I am convinced that there is a great amount of 

 haxh in the Avritings of most if not all of those 

 who are received as authority on this subject. 

 I have been led to these remarks by reading an 

 article in your July number on Wintering Bees, 

 from the Ohio Cultivator^ wherein it is laid 

 down as a rule that " cannot be controverted," 

 " to afibrd them a. free ventilation of air under 

 all circumstances." 



The editor says : " Ventilation is as essential 

 to bees as pure air is to men. A dozen hives of 

 bees placed in a close room, ten or twelve feet 

 square, would destroy the purity of the air in a 

 few days, so much so, that a lighted candle 

 would go out on being placed therein, &c." Mr. 

 E. Kirby in same number goes into a learned 

 argument about oxj-gen and nitrogen and car- 

 bonic acid gas, to eiiow Mr. Fairchild why his 

 Italian bees died last winter. Turning from 

 your valuable paper to some half dozen authors 

 at hand, I find them all talking in the same 

 strain about "ventilation" and "smothering," 

 and all seem to be under the impression that a 

 bee-hive is a kind of gas-works, where the little 

 people that live therein, when they are not 

 making honey, are making poisonous gases to 

 smother themselves with. Is this so? And if 

 so, should not bees be informed of it, so that 

 wlien we make air-lioles for them, they won't 

 spend their valuable lime in hunting up some- 

 thing to stop them up with ? Some of the new- 

 fangled Italians or Egyptians may know better, 

 but (>W7' poor, ignorant bees don't. If so, why 

 will they, when they select a tree in the woods 

 for their abode, often go in at a little hole in a 

 limb, and go dijwn instead of up into the body 



of the tree, if they know that they are but 

 making a black hole of Calcutta, in which it is 

 only a question of time as to how long they will 

 live ? And by reading the Oliio Cultivator they 

 could tell exactly, by a little figuring, how long 

 the " candle of life would hold out to burn." 

 State the sum thus : 



If a swarm of bees could fill with carbonic 

 acid gas a room, say 12 feet square and 10 feet 

 Iiigh,"l3xl2xl0— 1440 cubic feet in "a few," say 

 three days, how long would it take them to fill 

 a hole containing Ixlxo — 3 cubic feet ? If 

 figures don't lie, it would take just nine 

 minutes. 



But, seriously. In the northern part of Ger- 

 many it is quite common to bury the hives in 

 the ground, stopping up all air-holes; and they 

 let them so remain for months; and the bees not 

 only come out alive in the spring, but consume 

 far less food than they do when eveiy cold blast 

 of winter can find passage through them. Mr. 

 Bruckish, of Texas, states, in the Patent Ofiice 

 Report for 1800, that he has made repeated ex- 

 periments on the subject. In November, 1848, 

 he buried two hives two inches deep, pressed 

 the earth down rather hard, and allowed no air- 

 holeti. On the 11th of ]\Iarch, 1849, they were 

 dug out again. They were all lively. 



I, on one occasion, in the heat of summer, 

 stopped the only hole there was in a hive — the 

 entrance — for thirtj^-six hours or more, without 

 any injury to the bees, but I thereby kept a 

 swarm that would otherwise have gone off to 

 the woods. 



If these learned apiarians would go out into 

 the "rural districts" where bees are kept in 

 hollow log gums with a two-inch plank nailed 

 over the top, and caulked Avith tow, or pointed 

 with mud ; where no wire-gauze-covered air- 

 holes are left, and ventilation never thought of; 

 where the entrance hole is half the winter stopped 

 up with ice, and not the least bit of air ad- 

 mitted; and there talk about smothering bees to 

 death, they would be laughed at for their 

 ignorance. 



D. L. Adair. 



Hawesville, Ky. 



For the American Bee Journal and Gazette. 



Two Classes of Hives. 



There are but two classes of hives, but of each 

 class there are many styles or kinds. These 

 two classes are made up o{ box-hives and frame- 

 hives. The combs in box-hives are stationary, 

 but in frame-hives are wn'a^^c. 



If writers on the bee-subject would keep the 

 above facts in remembrance, they will l)e saved 

 the trouble and annoyance of using a multipli- 

 city of terms, such as movable combs, common 

 bee-hives, «&c. 



I am decidedly in favor of using simple, prac- 

 tical, and yet purely technical terms. 



M. M. Baldtiidge. 



St. Charles, Kane Co., III. 



Nothing can be more interesting to a natur- 

 alist than to witness the process whicJi the bee 

 employs in making her nest. 



