THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL AND GAZETTE. 



157 



for controversy. Yet, if the controversy be 

 concerning aught in itself important or valu- 

 able, and be maintained with equal vigor and 

 in a becoming manner, we may always congrat- 

 ulate the paper which entertains it. The period 

 during which an animated discussion was car- 

 ried ou in the Bienenzeitung, respecting parthe- 

 nogenisis and other theoretical topics — the 

 period, namely, from 1848 to 1858 — was un- 

 questionably the most brilliant part of its career. 

 A similar period, with a similar controversy, I 

 might well invoke for 5^our Gazette. 



That you have in your "Foreign Department" 

 alluded favorably to my apistical labors, I duly 

 appreciate, and shall not fail to acknowledge ou 

 all proper occasions, by transmitting articles to 

 you. 



For the present I send the last number of 

 the (Jentralblatt^ and will duly forward the suc- 

 ceeding numbers. 



For your obliging care of the bee-hive of one 

 of your correspondents in I am thank- 

 ful, though it has not yet come to hand. I had 

 the pleasure, last summer, to receive from the 

 Rev. L. L. Langstroth one of his hives and his 

 treatise on the " Hive and Honey-Bee." 



Should I be able in any way to manifest my 

 readiness to serve you, you can unhesitatingly 

 command me. 



1 remain, vath the highest esteem, 

 Yours, &c., 



George Kleine. 



Populous swarms inhabiting hives formed of 

 the hollow trunks of trees, used in many north- 

 ern regions, or of other materials that are bad 

 conductors of heat, seem able to generate and 

 keep up a temperature sufticient to counteract 

 the inteusest cold to which they are ordinarily 

 exposed. At the same time, however, we may 

 infer that though bees are not strictly torpid in 

 winter at that lowest degree of heat which they 

 can sustain, yet that when exposed to that 

 degree they consume considerably less food 

 than at a higher temperature, and that, conse- 

 quently, the plan of placing hives in a north 

 aspect in sunny and mild winters, may be 

 adopted by the apiarian witli advantage. 



Maky means have been resorted to for the 

 dispersion of mobs and the allaying of popular 

 tumults. In St. Petersburg, a fire-engine 

 p'r^yiug upon them does not always co 1 their 

 cnoler; but were a few hives of bees thus em- 

 ployed, their discomtiture would be certain. 

 The experiment has been tried. Lessier tells us 

 that in 1525, during the confusion occasioned by 

 a time of war, a mob of peasants assembling at 

 Hohnstein, in Thuringia, attempted to pillage 

 the house of the minister of Elende, who, hav- 

 ing in vain employed all his eloquence to dis- 

 suade them from their design, ordered his do- 

 mestics to fetch his bee-hives and throw them 

 in the middle of this furious mob. The ellect 

 was what might be expected; they were imme- 

 diately put to liight, and happy if they escaped 

 unstuug. 



[From the (London) Journal of Horticulture. ] 



Regieidal Attacks by Bees. 



In the hope of assisting in the investigation 

 of what still appears to me a most extraordinary 

 and most unsatisfactory chapter in the natural 

 history of our little favorites, I purpose stating 

 briefly the conclusions at which I have myself 

 arrived; pointing out, at the same time, iu 

 what respects my views coincide with or differ 

 from those propounded by others. 



Regieidal attacks by bees nuiy, I think, be 

 divided into three classes : 



1st. Those iu which a matron is imprisoned 

 by her own children. 



2d. Those wherein the regieidal frenzy is set 

 on foot through the introduction of stranger 

 bees by the apiarian. 



3d. Those in which a juvenile monarch is 

 attacked by her worker sisters, before she com- 

 mences egg-laying. 



Instances of the first class, in which a matron 

 is assailed by her own children, seem to be com- 

 paratively rare, nor do they otten come under 

 the direct observation of the apiarian. When 

 they do occur, however, they appear to be in- 

 eviidbly fatal. A queen may possibly survive 

 several initiatory attacks, but these are repeated 

 at uncertain intervals, until at last she suc- 

 cumbs. In such cases, and in such only, can I 

 endorse the suggestion that a queen, once im- 

 prisoned, forfeits all regard from her subjects, 

 and that, therefore, interference on the part of 

 the apiarian can scarcely lead to any good 

 result. 



Cases of the second class, in which the regi- 

 eidal frenzy is set up by the introduction of 

 stranger bees through the manipulations of the 

 apiarian, are, of course, equally rare in well- 

 managed apiaries. But when such instances do 

 arise, experience justifies me in declaring that 

 the best results may be hoped tor from prompt 

 and judicious intervention-"-; since, if the hup- 

 less queen can but be kept aiive in a queen-cage 

 within the hive itself, until the regieidal mania 

 has abated, she will be received by her whilom 

 rebellious sul)jects, and no maiter how furious 

 the attack may have been, she will be no more 

 liable to a repetition of it than if it had never 

 occurred. 



Although the third class, in Avhich young 

 queens are imprisoned before they have entered 

 upon the duties of oviposition, appears to have 

 been rarely observed by bee-keepers, it is in 

 reality by tar the most common tbrm of regieidal 

 attack among bees, and is, moreover, very fre- 

 quently fatal. In these cases also I have iound, 

 by experience, that interveulicm on the part of 

 the apiarian ma}- often be beneficially resorted to, 

 whenever the chmger is perceived iu lime. Al- 

 though the attack may be repeated more than 

 once, it is not even then necessarily attended 

 with a fatal result; and if by the assistance of 

 the apiarian, or by her own unaided tenacity of 

 life, the juvenile but distressed monarch can 



*In iutroduciug a queen, a number of her companions 

 may be prcviou>ly di.smissed, but llie final release sliould 

 only be ventured r.pou within doors, where the queeu may 

 be leadily recaptured iu tlic evout oi her takiuf wiui<. 



