1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



265 



A Comb of Healthy Brood 



Our cover page gives a reproduc- 

 tion of a photo published in October, 

 1910, on the cover page of this maga- 

 zine. It was furnished by Mr. Ly- 

 man, of Downer's Grove, and can 

 give the beginner a very good idea of 

 healthy brood in all stages. Notice 

 the larvae coiled at the bottom of the 

 cells, in the center bottom of the pic- 

 ture. Swammerdam compared them 

 to "a dog when going to sleep." In 

 the center of the picture, eggs may be 

 noticed. Near the top, cells contain- 

 ing pollen are shown. The top of the 

 comb shows sealed honey. 



No favorablel teomments may be 

 made about the regularity in the 

 brood in this photo, but it would be 

 impossible to show the different 

 stages in a comb that was filled regu- 

 larly, by the queen, as the brood 

 would then be almost all of the same 

 age. The variety is here, and the only 

 jiarts that do not show plainly are 

 the cells, at the edges, which are 

 slightly out of focus. 



Florida Beekeeping Course 



.\ course in beekeeping is being 

 given at the University of Florida, at 

 Gainesville. Dr. Frank Stirling, the 

 instructor, reports that "more interest 

 is being shown in this course than in 

 most others." There are 40 students. 



The State Plant Board, with head- 

 quarters at Gainesville, is in charge 

 of the bee disease law. Correspond- 

 ence on this matter should be ad- 

 dressed to the "Plant Commissioner" 

 at Gainesville. 



Color of Queens 



"The color of the queen has no con- 

 nection with the color of the work- 

 ers, for there are golden queens 

 which produce dark workers and dark 

 queens which produce very light 

 workers." — (A. Zanini, in the Bee 

 World.) We concur in this statement, 

 although by long protracted selection 

 bright queens producing bright work- 

 ers are finally secured. When we 

 mentioned to Doolittle that the color 

 of the queen had no importance what- 

 ever, he replied: "You like to look at 

 a pretty girl, why not at a pretty 



queen : 



-Editor. 



Beekeeping Near Vladivostok 



We are in receipt of the following 

 information on beekeeping, in the 

 Valley of the Usuri River, which 

 flows into the Japan Sea at Vladivos- 

 tok, by a Hungarian officer, who is 

 now a prisoner of war in the Japanese 

 camp at Pervaya-Rietchka, near Vla- 

 divostok, Manchuria: 



"In gathering information about the 

 conditions of beekeeping at this place 

 and along the Usuri River, I learned 

 that the Langstroth system is widely 

 spread; the hives in use are known 

 as Dadant hives, and alternately I 

 have also found some built on the ad- 

 vice of Dr. C. C. Miller, both with 10 

 and 14 frames. The bees are harvest- 

 ing honey from white clover (May 29) 

 which is abundant here. The average 

 production of extracted honey per 

 colony varies from 100 to 150 pounds. 



though the eason of pasturage is 

 very short, lasting from May to the 

 end of September. The climate, in 

 spring, near the seacoast at Vladivos- 

 tok, is very unfavorable to the bees. 

 Since the beginning of the two 

 months of my sojourn here, there 

 was scarcely a day without fog, and 

 every other day we are waiting for 

 fine weather." 



WILLIAM SLOVIG. 



Death of an Italian Apiarist 



Dr. Emilio Triaca, whom we met in 

 1913, at Milan, and who was one 'of 

 the founders of the Italian Associa- 

 tion of Beekeepers, and its Vice 

 President, died at his home. Villa La 

 Calma, near the Lake of Como. He 

 had served as Lieutenant in the Ital- 

 ian army, in the fifties, during the 

 war which liberated the Province of 

 Milan. He was then wounded in the 

 left leg and was a cripple ever after. 

 He held a number of positions of 

 trust in M'ilan, and was decorated 

 with the medal of military valor. He 

 was n years old. 



Dr. Triaca was one of the finest 

 and most progressive men among the 

 leading apiarists of Italy. He is re- 

 gretted by all who knew him. 



How Many Eggs May be Laid 

 in Twenty-One Days? 



In the question department, the 

 reader will find a reply by Dr. Miller, 

 giving an estimate of the number of 

 eggs a queen may be able to lay in 

 the 21 days which are required for 

 the egg to hatch into a worker bee. 



In a private note, Dr. Miller men- 

 tions the low estimates of old-time 

 writers on this question, the ma.xi- 

 mum, given by Donhoff, being 63,000 

 instead of Dr. Miller's 92,800. It is 

 interesting to read ancient authors on 

 this point; but one must remember 

 that their hives were usually alto- 

 gether too small for a full test. Ha- 

 met, one of the authorities of the 

 middle of the last century, asserts 

 that the queen lays an average of 40,- 

 000 to 100,000 eggs a year. That is 

 far from our estimates. It is true that 

 he adds that some queens may lay as 

 many as 200.000 to 500,000 in a year. 

 But he tells us also that "during the 

 active laying, she lays eggs from 

 morning till night without interrup- 

 tion." At the rate of 6 eggs per 

 minute, which has often been wit- 

 nessed, a 14-hour day would give us 

 5,040 eggs. A 10-hour day would pro- 

 duce 3.600 eggs. But why should we 

 think that she lays only in the day 

 time? Is it not because we have 

 watched her only during the day? 

 The ABC tells us, of a prolific queen, 

 that she "is on the job night and 

 day." 



The older writers were still less am- 

 bitious than Haniet, as to the fer- 

 tility of the queen. Wildman, quoting 

 Reaumur, states that "she may lay 

 200 eggs in a day." That would make 

 only 4,200 eggs in 21 days. Colin was 

 a little more liberal, estimating the 

 number of eggs a queen could lay at 

 "not less than 400 to 600 per day." He 

 used very small hives. 



Alley wrote that "a queen that will 

 not lay 1,200 eggs in 24 hours is not 

 worth preserving." That is a little 

 better than the old views. But it does 

 not come up to Doolittle, who wrote 

 that he had queens that laid 5,000 eggs 

 for weeks in succession. His descrip- 

 tion of a "really good queen" was 

 "one that will give us from 3,000 to 

 4,000 workers every day for a month, 

 previous to the honey harvest. (Sci- 

 entific Queen-Rearing, page 13). The 

 expressed opinion of this leader 

 among queen-breeders and honey- 

 producers was quite in accord with 

 the experience of Charles Dadant, 

 who found many queens, in actual 

 practice, with large hives, to occupy 

 at least 73,500 cells with brood in 21 

 days, previous to the honey crop. 



Winter Experiments 



Reports from beekeepers of great 

 experience, in northern New York, in- 

 dicate that there is still much to learn 

 in the matter of wintering, in locali- 

 ties where the confinement of the bees 

 is long protracted. 



A firm of experienced men, having 

 419 colonies, wintered in cellars and 

 out-of-doors, both heavily and lightly 

 packed, secured the following results: 



No. of colonies in fall 419 



Loss 163 



Per cent, 39. 



Wintered in cellars 165 



Loss 56 



Per cent ,34 



Wintered with heavy packing ZZ 



Loss 8 



Per cent, 24. 

 Wintered with packing on top and 



sides only 221 



Loss 99 



Per cent, 45. 



The percentage of loss is great in 

 every case, but largest in the slightly 

 sheltered colonies. Most probably the 

 low quality of the food was the great- 

 est cause of loss, since the colonies 

 were strong at the beginning of win- 

 ter. 



Moral: Let us make sure of stores 

 of high quality before winter. 



A Live Organization 



We have been favored with a copy 

 of the report of the Aberdeenshire 

 and Kincardineshire Beekeepers' As- 

 sociaition for 1919. Judging from this 

 report there must be a very great in- 

 terest in beekeeping in that part of 

 Scotland. A total of 1,391 members is 

 shown for 1919, and we are informed 

 by letter that the number has already 

 increased to nearly 1,700. 



The association has seven touring 

 experts who go about the country as- 

 sisting beekeepers with their prob- 

 lems. We infer that the touring ex- 

 pert employed by the association 

 works very much like our extension 

 men employed by the Government. 

 The report contains something over 

 65 pages and contains, besides the 

 names and addresses of members, the 

 reports of the experts, rules and 

 schedules of prizes for the honey 

 show, by-laws of the organization, 

 catalog of books in the library, etc. 



