1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



203 



A New Bulletin for Beginners 



A very good bulletin, entitled "Bee- 

 keeping for Beginners," by H. B. 

 Parks, has recently been issued by the 

 Experiment Station of Texas at Col- 

 lege Station. The bulletin is quite 

 complete, with 25 pages of matter of 

 timely interest to the novice. It is 

 vv'ell illustrated and should be easily 

 understood. Beekeepers interested 

 can probably secure copies by ad- 

 dressing the Director of the Experi- 

 ment Station at College Station, Tex. 



Mould and Bees 



By S. H. Sabine 



In connection with the discussion 

 now going on in the bee magazines on 

 the subject of "mould" and the "dis- 

 appearing disease," I had an experi- 

 ence which may be of interest. I was 

 at that time located in Buffalo, N. Y., 

 and purchased the colony from a 

 farmer who had had the hive covered 

 wi'th hay during the winter. When I 

 moved the bees home, April 15, the 

 colony was not strong and the bot- 

 tom board was covered with dead 

 bees. 



About a week later I transferred 

 the nine frames which the hive con- 

 tained to a new hive and discovered 

 that the 'three outside frames on each 

 side had some mould on them and all 

 the dead bees on the bottoin board 

 were covered with mould. The re- 

 maining three frames contained 

 some brood and eggs. Then followed 

 two weeks or more of rainy weather, 

 during which time the bees could not 

 do much in the way of pollen gather- 

 ing. Then came a few bright, warm 

 days when they worked hard. 



After the bees started \vorking I 

 noticed considerable iighting at the 

 entrance. They would tumble and 

 roll around, holding on and biting 

 each other, and would finally roll 

 down the alighting board locked to- 

 gether. Then one of them would fly 

 away and the other of the pair would 

 crawl around in the grass. This con- 

 tinued for several days, with several 

 hundred bees crawling in the grass 

 daily. 



One day I opened the hive again to 

 see if I could determine the cause and 

 found nearly as many dead and 

 mouldy bees on the bottom board as 

 there had been when I transferred 



tliem to the new hive, but they were 

 nearly all under 'the outside frames, 

 which I had previously noted con- 

 tained mould. I cleaned out the hive, 

 removed four frames which contained 

 the most mould, and replaced with 

 frames of foundation, raised the back 

 of the cover about an inch for ven- 

 tilation for the rest of the day and 

 closed it before night and had no 

 more trouble with the fighting, or, as 

 I at first thought, robbing bees. 



Tliis colony afterward built up 

 strong and stored about 25 pounds of 

 fall surplus. The queen was less than 

 two years old. 



Texas. 



Do Queens Lay in Queen Cells? 



Does the queen ever lay an egg in 

 the queen cell? I have my doubts 

 about it, for I don't see why she 

 should want to raise a queen that 

 would drive her from her home. I 

 have seen a queen on the alighting 

 board, when the swarm went out, 

 turn and go back in the hive. The 

 swarm had to return. Next day the 

 bees got back of her and pushed her 

 off and she went with them. Now, is 

 it reasonable to think she laid that 

 egg in the cell? We know that queens 

 reason. When the honey flow is let- 

 ting up she will quit laying so as to 

 not have too many bees, as the old 

 ones are not wearing out so fast. We 

 know that the bees make the queen 

 cell and guard it. 



Do bees reason? I think they do. 

 Proof of it: If we put in a hive a 

 comb that is breaking loose from the 

 top-bar, the first thing they do is to 

 build braces across to the other 

 combs to keep it from breaking down 

 when filled. MICHIGAN. 



(We were inclined to believe that 

 queens never lay eggs in queen cells, 

 until a number of people testified to 

 seeing them do it. It is possible that 

 they do this only when the cell is 

 rudimentary, incomplete enough that 

 it may not look to them as other than 

 a short drone cell. We know that a 

 queen eagerly destroys full-sized, in- 

 habited queen cells, if the bees permit 

 her to do so. Anyone who uses a sin- 

 gle-comb observation hive has occa- 

 sion to see this, if he introduces a 

 queen cell to it while there is a laying 

 queen there, or if he can induce the 

 liee'; nf it to rear queen cells prepar- 



atory to swarming and then change 

 their mind. 



Do bees reason? We believe they 

 do. But others are entitled to what- 

 ever opinion they may entertain after 

 hearing the pros and cons. What is 

 convincing to one man is insufficient 

 to another. 



As to the queen's "letting up" of 

 her laying at the end of the season, 

 there are causes for it, other than her 

 powers of reasoning. She lays more 

 or less, according to the amount of 

 food offered to her by the bees, as 

 they meet her, in the hive. We are 

 told that they feed her on the same 

 "royal jelly" as is fed to young larvae. 

 But they certainly offer her honey, 

 also. Moreover, there must be a sea- 

 son of greater laying for queens, as 

 for hens. If there is an intentional 

 reduction in her laying at the end of 

 the season, it is due more to the bees 

 than to her own volition. — C. P. D.) 



Henr\ Ehltrs, ui Anainosa, Iowa, has kept bees 45 years 



Angry Bees 



I have kept bees for about 18 years, 

 have been a voracious reader of bee 

 lore, have had as many as 90 colonies 

 and have always tried to keep abreast 

 of the times in the management of 

 my apiaries. I have, for a number of 

 years, bought queens from breeders 

 who have boasted of gentle strains, 

 not that I minded stings, but for the 

 comfort of my family and friends, 

 though I cannot say that I ever re- 

 queened a colony for the sole reason 

 that they were cross. I could forgive 

 a few stings if they delivered the 

 goods. My trouble began last sum- 

 mer, when I clipped the queens dur- 

 ing fruit bloom and dandelion. Only 

 2 or 3 colonies were marked as cross, 

 and the remarkable thing about the 

 incident was that it occurred nearly 

 simultaneously in apiaries fifteen 

 miles apart, the outapiary being by 

 far the worst. These bees were in a 

 pasture and situated about 30 feet 

 from a poplar bluff. A few cattle and 

 horses were at all times in the pas- 

 ture, but gave the bees a wide berth 

 in the daytime, at least, and the 

 length of the grass showed that lit- 

 tle grazing was done in the immedi- 

 ate vicinity of the hives. About the 

 first of July these bees were decidedly 

 unpleasant to handle, but as I had 

 often remarked that our little friends 

 were always more peppery when they 

 were working on mustard, and as 

 there was lots of that about, and clo- 

 ver apparently yielding nothing. I 

 hoped they would soon recover their 

 temper. But each visit found them 

 worse than the-last. They appeared 

 to be on the lookout for me, and came 

 to meet me, an attention I was no^t 

 capable of appreciating. Smoke was 

 of no use; it only seemed to increase 

 their anger; and on one occasion, on 

 opening the smoker to replenish, they 

 piled into it to a depth of an inch or 

 more, extinguishing the fire. Gloves 

 gave but partial protection to the 

 hands, and the smallest aperture in 

 my clothing was investigated with a 

 vigor and pertinacity worthy of a bet- 

 ter cause, and whh a success that 

 caused me occasionally to make a 

 spasmodic grab at my clothing and 



