THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL AND GAZETTE. 



lys 



difFerences exist there as in Italy? From Mona 

 we receive almost exclusively rusty-brown 

 Italians, while from the district, four leagues 

 lower down, Ave obtain beautiful j-ellow bees, 

 with strikingl}^ slender bodies. 



The Egyptian bees seem to me to be mani- 

 festly hardier than the Italian, for they fly out at 

 times when the latter Avill not leave thc:r hive. 

 A weel<; ago there was still plenty of brood in 

 their hives, though there was not a trace of any 

 to be found in the Italian colonics for the la&'t 

 six weeks. My original Egyptian colony has 

 stored up more honey than any other, notwith- 

 standing I took brood from it every ten days 

 during tlie summer. Meyer. 



Lakdjiseergen, Dec. o, 18G6. 



For the American Bee Journal and Gazette. 



Mr. Editor: 



An article from Bidwell Brors', headed "/to- 

 •puritieii of Cross-bred Drones,'''' induces me to 

 report some few particular observations on the 

 same subject. On October 3, 18^ I think it 

 Was, when I received an Italian queen from 

 Rev. L. L. Langstroth, from which I succeeded 

 in raising twelve queens in that month — all of 

 which remained unimpregnated. I wintered 

 all of them in liope that some of them might 

 come out fertile; but in vain. Five of these 

 queens I lost by their swarming out in the 

 spring; the rest lived until I l^illed them. The 

 Bwarms in which they were, raised great num- 

 bers of drones, nearly all of which were of the 

 small Ivind. Being very anxious to raise 

 Italian queens, 1 liad some of them hatched as 

 early as the lUtli of April. On the 1st of May 

 I had fourteen of them, then over two weeks 

 old. 



These queens would go out three or four 

 times a day, on every warm day, accompanied 

 by large numbei-s of these small drones; but, 

 singularly enough, not one of them became fer- 

 tile. It was on the 25th of April that I found 

 the tirst hatched Italian drones in the swarm 

 containing the Langstroth queen. Two days 

 afterwards I took out the frame in whicli the 

 drones had been hatched, went around among 

 all my nuclei, and gave to each of them, and 

 to those hives which had unfertile queens, from 

 two to four drones, reinserting the frame in its 

 hive again. None of these drones made their 

 appearance betore the 3d of May. I examined 

 ail my young queens on the 4th, but none of 

 them was then laying. On the 5th I made an- 

 other examination, and found seven of the 

 fourteen queens ovipositing. 



Tliese queens became fertile just two days 

 after the lirst large drones made their appear- 

 ance in the open air. If the drones from unim- 

 pregnated queens had, at least in this instance, 

 not efiected a fertilization of any of tiie fourteen 

 queens mentioned, is there not a strong pic- 

 Bumption that such drones are unable to fer- 

 tilize a queen at all '? And if this should jnove 

 to be so, might we not further infer that im- 

 pregnation has something to do with the ability 

 of a drone to fertilize a queen ? And if this be 

 the case, it would necessarily Ibllow that the 



drones of a queen could not be pure, if tho 

 queen herself was not purely impregnated. It 

 would require further investigation to determina 

 this question, and I therefore suggest that other 

 bee-keepers also make experiments and observ- 

 ations on this subject.* 



But the inference which Messrs. Bidwell 

 Brors' make, that the queen mentioned in their 

 article as producing drones of an inferior color, 

 niust have been impregnated by a black drone, 

 is not warranted. All the seve"n queens above 

 mentioned must necessarily have been impreg- 

 nated by Italian drones, as there Avas not a 

 black di'one in my apiarj^, or any other here, 

 Avlien they Avere impregnated. After all, two 

 of the seven queens proved to be bastardized, 

 as they produced Italian and black Avorkers. I 

 have no doitbt that the queen from Avhich these 

 drones and young queens Avere raised, was as 

 pure as any sold in this country, as up to June, 

 1805, I raised forty-three pure queens, and only 

 three that turned out to be bastardized. The 

 opinion of Dzierzon and others that the Italian 

 bee, even in its mother country, must have a 

 small dash of black blood, seems to me to be 

 correct. 



Adaai Grimm. 



Jefferson, Wis., March 11, 18G7. 



* In article published in the Pennsylvania Farm Journal, 

 about iirteen years ago, we expre.ssed doubt as to the virility 

 of drones produced from the eggs of fertile workers. This 

 doubt was afterwards streugtheued by some observations 

 made by Donhuff. But when Professor Leuckart's micros- 

 copic investigations showed that the semen of such drones 

 coutidued spermatozon like those of ordinary drones, we 

 surrendered our doubt— yielding to what seemed to be con- 

 clusive evidence. The facts now communicated by Mr. 

 Grirnm give a new aspect to tiie matter, and revive our 

 doubt, so far aa tn induce us to regard it as once more au 

 open question, — [Ed. 



It avas the opinion of the ancients that bees, 

 in Avindy Aveather, carried Aveights to protect 

 them from being Avhiliied about in their pro- 

 gress through the air. Virgil has observed 

 that 



"Tjey with light pebbles, like a balanced boat, 

 Pois'd throug i the air, on even piuious float. " 



This assertion, wdiichAvas probably borroAved 

 by the poet from his predecessor, Aristotle, and 

 Avhich Avas afterAvards repeated by Pany, is 

 noAV ascertained to be erroneous. The error 

 has been noticed by both Swammerdam and 

 Reaumur, and ascribed by them to preceding 

 observers having mistaken the mason-bee for a 

 hive-bee. The former builds its nest against a 

 wttll, Avith a composition of gravel, sand, and 

 its own saliva; and when freighted with the 

 former article, may easily have led a careless 

 observer into the erroneous opinion above al- 

 luded to. 



When the general massacre of drones takes 

 place, not only all those that have undergone 

 their full transformations, but every embryo, 

 in Avhatever period of its existence, shares the 

 same fate; the maxim with beesbemg to attend 

 to the general welfare of the community, and 

 to alloAV not thos# to eat that are not useful in 

 some Avay. 



