1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



275 



HERMAPHRODITE BEES 



May 20 last I introduced a queen 

 that I got of a breeder in Alabama. 

 Today I saw some nice yellow-look- 

 ing young bees crawl around near the 

 hive. Picking one up I found it a 

 freak, such as I never saw or heard 

 of. The thing tried to sting me and 

 had a stinger. It looked like a 

 worker bee in every way; also same 

 size, but had the eyes, head and 

 tongue of a drone. They crawl out 

 and away from the hive of their own 

 accord. I saw several dozen run out ; 

 none could fly. Nearly all that I ex- 

 ammed had stings. They surely are 

 not worker bees, as they have drone 

 heads, and they are not drones, as 

 they have stings. 



Did you people ever see the like? 

 Please let me know. I enclose a few 

 as samples. W. M. SMITH, 



LeSueur Center, Minn. 



The bees which you sent are dry, 

 so it is difficult to examine them thor- 

 oughly, but they evidently have eyes 

 that join at the top of the head, just 

 like those of drones. Otherwise they 

 appear as workers. 



They are freaks and that is prob- 

 ably why they crawl out of the hive 

 to die. An accident of this kind is 

 rare. It might interest the scientists 

 at Washington if you sent them a 

 few for examination. Send to the 

 Bureau of Entomology. 



test the members will have a chance 

 to demonstrate their ability to handle 

 full colonies of bees for comb or ex- 

 tracted honey production. 



EARL G. MAXWELL, 

 County Agricultural Agent. 



JUNIORS ORGANIZE BEE CLUB 



Seven boys met at the home of 

 H. C. Cook, 4521 Park street, Omaha, 

 Saturday, June 12, and organized the 

 Douglas County Junior Bee Club, 

 elected their officers and received in- 

 structions in the beekeeping work. 



This is the first boys' and girls' 

 standard bee club to be organized in 

 Nebraska, and one of the few organ- 

 ized in the United States. This work 

 was outlined last year by Mr. H. C. 

 Cook, an expert beekeeper of Omaha, 

 and County Agent E. G. Maxwell. It 

 was given a trial last year, but not on 

 the standard club basis. Five boys 

 took up the project and the plan 

 worked so successfully it was de- 

 cided to organize a club this year. 



The rules of the contest specify 

 that the members must start on June 

 5, with a ten-frame hive, a one-frame 

 nucleus consisting of a fram; of 

 brood, adhering bees and queen and 

 that all the bees must be produced 

 during the contest from the nucleus, 

 and no assistance be given by addi- 

 tion of other bees. In 1919 each of 

 the boys who were in the contest 

 produced a good strong colony and 

 enough honey for their winter use 

 from the one-frame nucleus started 

 June 5th. One of the boys produced 

 two strong colonies of bees and 32 

 pounds of comb honey from June 5th 

 to September 5th. 



The club work has been outlined 

 as a two-year project, the first year 

 work, or "Projecf will consist of 

 building up a colony from a one- 

 frame nucleus. This is designed to 

 teach the members to raise bees. 

 "Project 2" of the club work will be- 

 gin in the fall, or at the termination 

 of "Project 1," and will cover a peri- 

 od of 12 months. During this con- 



SUMMER MEETINGS 



The Panhandle Fieeketpers' Asso- 

 ciation and the West Virginia State 

 Beekeepers' Association will hold 

 their summer meeting at Elm Grove, 

 W. Va., August 10, 11 and 12, 1920. 



The meetings will be addressed by 

 Dr. Phillips, of Washington, D. C. Mr. 

 Kenneth Hawkins, with the G. B. 

 Lewis Companv, of Watertown, Wis.; 

 Mr. E. R. Root, of Medina, O., and 

 Mr. T. K. Massie, of Hatcher, W. Va, 

 The deputy inspectors will tell of the 

 good work being done for the bee- 

 keepers of Vvest V'irginia. 



WILL C. GRIFFITH. Sec. 



BEES KILLED BY SMELTERS 



.\cting on the suggestion of L. B. 

 Bell, an Arizona beekeeper, Governor 

 Campbell, of Arizona, has instructed 

 tlie State Entomologist and Plant Pa- 

 thologist of that State to make a 

 complete investigation of Bell's claim 

 that beekeepers are losing money 

 through damage to honey plants in 

 the vicinity of the smelters. Bell 

 claims that fumes from the smelters 

 of the United Verde and Extension 

 Smelter Company, in V'erde Valley, 

 have so damaged the flowers in that 

 community by fumes from their stacks 

 that beekeeping is no longer profit- 

 able. He asks a State investigation 

 and if his claims are substantiated by 

 the scientific authorities of Arizona 

 he will ask that the smelters cover 

 the expense of moving the bees in 

 the affected territory to a new terri- 

 tory nearby where the fumes of the 

 smelters do not reach them. He cites 

 as authority for his action, that the 

 beekeepers were in the valley before 

 the smelters and have the right of 

 priority, a question which has not l 

 been tested in American courts re- 

 garding beekeeping. The charges are 

 that sulphur is deposited on the 

 bloom of honey plants which are vis- 

 ited by the bees, and that this causes 

 the honey to taste like a good va- 

 riety of parlor matches. An excel- 

 lent write-up of the case has been 

 given in the Los Angeles Times. 



KENNITH HAWKIXS. 



llall briefly told of the work of or- 

 ganizing the Boys' Bee Club, and 

 asked for the co-operation of the 

 older beekeepers. Mr. WolfF said 

 that the present was the beekeepers' 

 great opportunity to develop this in- 

 dustry in a big commercial way. He 

 urged simplified beekeeping, the run- 

 ning of the colonies for extracted 

 honey in big two-body hives, out-of- 

 door wintering and leaving 45 or 50 

 pounds of honey witli the colony in 

 the fall, so as to eliminate the worry 

 and work of feeding, and to insure 

 the bees plenty of food for early 

 and abundant brood rearing. 



After the program Mr. Taber in- 

 vited the guests to inspect his apiary. 

 One of the interesting features was a 

 couple of colonies that were started 

 from 2 frame nuclei with queens 

 brought from Mississippi by express 

 and received by him on May 15. 

 These were building up into strong 

 colonies and gave promise of storing 

 a surplus of honey this season. 



Refreshments of cake, fruit, punch 

 and ice cream were served by Mr. 

 and Mrs. Taber. 



MASSACHUSETTS BEEKEEPERS 

 MEET 



By W. H. Woltif 



A very successful and enjoyable 

 meeting of the Hampshire. Hampden 

 and Franklin Counties Beekeepers' 

 Association took place at the home of 

 Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Taber. at 7 Yale 

 street, Holyoke, on Saturday after- 

 noon, June 19. with about 50 beekeep- 

 ers in attendance. 



The principal speaker of the occa- 

 sion was Mr. F. S. Davis, who pre- 

 sented a paper on beekeeping condi- 

 tions in Florida and the South, and 

 his experiences in that section. Other 

 impromptu speakers were Otis E. Hall 

 and W. H. Wolff, of the Hampden 

 County Improvement League. Mr. 



DOPE FOR STINGS 



A troubled beekeeper writes this 

 office making inquiry after stingless 

 bees. I fear that many beekeepers, 

 including the editors of our valuable 

 bee journals, do not appreciate the 

 atrocious pain and subsequent dis- 

 tress caused many people by the sting 

 of a bee. It is so severe as to make 

 some people actually ill for two or 

 three days, and death has resulted in 

 some cases, either from many stings 

 or from a single sting on some suscep- 

 tible part of the body. 



My wife is very sensitive to the ef- 

 fects of stings. She also has a high 

 regard for the virtues of hot water 

 as a curative agent for bruises, pains 

 and local irritations. She discovered 

 that hot water promptly applied and 

 continued for some minutes over- 

 comes almost or wholly the effects 

 of a sting. Considering this in the 

 light of my medical studies, I con- 

 cluded that it results from the disin- 

 tegration of the animal poison, vary- 

 ing degrees of heat having the power 

 to alter the molecular structure and 

 hence the character of most sub- 

 stances. This suggested to me that 

 some other agent might perform the 

 same purpose. As tincture of iodine 

 is very penetrating and has a strong 

 chemical reaction, I experimented 

 with it and found that it is in most 

 instances quite as effective as hot 

 water. It is a household remedy al- 

 most everywhere available, and a 

 small bottle can be kept at the bee- 

 yard, saving the inconvenience and 

 loss of time in heating water. 



It is an axiom among physicians 

 that where many remedies are sug- 

 gested, it is because no one of them 

 is entirely satisfactory. I have heard 

 of and tried out many remedies for 

 bee stings, but these two are the only 

 ones in my experience that are really 

 effectual. The iodine must be iised 

 immediately, to neutralize the poison 

 while still at the point of puncture. 

 Moist heat is effectual after the lapse 

 of some little time. These measures 



