382 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



November 



IN SIBERIA 



In our August number, we pub- 

 lished a short description of condi- 

 tions in the eastern portions of Si- 

 beria, by Mr. William Slovig, a Hun- 

 garian officer prisoner of the Jap- 

 anese, near Vladivostok. He now 

 sends us two photos and the follow- 

 ing letter : 



Vladivostok, Aug. 15, 1920. 



Your kind letter of June 30 is at 

 hand. I will gladly send you photos 

 presenting conditions in beekeeping. 

 I have but two at present, which I 

 send you. No. 1 represents Hun- 

 garian officers (prisoners in the 

 Japanese camp) with models of dif- 

 ferent hives which they worked out 

 for the purpose of giving lessons in 

 beekeeping. 



No. 2 represents also Hungarian 

 officers studying beekeeping. This 

 is the only hive of bees within the 

 camp, with which they are daily ex- 

 perimenting. 



Yesterday we had an excursion 

 and took some photos of Russian api- 

 aries which, in case of my leaving 

 for home — as I will probably be able 

 to start this week on board of the 

 President Grant — I will arrange to 

 have sent from here or after arriv- 

 ing home. I gave orders to one of 

 my friends who will stay here for 

 some weeks, to bring with him the 

 copies of the American Bee Journal 

 which you were kind enough to send 

 me and which have not arrived yet. 

 I will write you further when I send 

 the other photos. 



Yours very truly, 



WILLIAM SLOVIG. 



PARTITION IN CELLAR 



I believe bees could be safely win- 

 tered outdoors in this place with 

 such packing as you people use at 

 Hamilton. I am thinking of win- 

 tering part of mine that way, but ex- 

 pect to put most of them in the cel- 

 lar under the house. The basement 

 is dry and the furnace room is well 

 closed off from the storage room. 

 As the storage room is much larger 

 than necessary, I will make a parti- 



lion of heavy building paper on a 

 light frame-work of lath. I have 

 found this to be a very satisfactory 

 way of making a repository for win- 

 tering bees in a basement where 

 there is need of a temporary or 

 cheap partition. The idea is not orig- 

 inal with me and may be in common 

 use, but I believe many readers of 

 the Journal, especially "sideliners," 

 would find in this a practical sugges- 

 tion for providing winter quarters 

 for a few colonies in a corner of the 

 basement. 

 Ames, Iowa. 



WALLACE PARK. 



AN IDAHO LOCATION 



Apiarists in search of locations are 

 recommended to investigate the pos- 

 sibilities of Benewah County, Idaho, 

 about SO miles east of Spokane. It 

 is asserted this county otiers a splen- 

 did field for the production of high- 

 grade honey. The county seat is St. 

 Maries, a bustling, growing com- 

 munity intensely interested in all 

 factors that help to build up the 

 city. The county agent is Victor 

 Rockwell, a live wire. Two years 

 ago a representative of the Federal 

 Government made a survey of the 

 St. Maries section to ascertain its 

 possibilities from the apiarists' 

 standpoint. His report is said to 

 have been that there was ample 

 room for at least 2,000 colonies. The 

 present total is probably not more 

 than 100 colonies. One of the best 

 nectar-producing plants in the dis- 

 trict is the fireweed, which is won- 

 derfully abundant and which yields 

 nectar from early spring until killing 

 frosts arrive in the late fall. Wide 

 areas of cut-over lands surround St. 

 Maries, in addition to the usual cul- 

 tivated fields, and the pasture for 

 bees is described as excellent. The 

 market is unusually good. 



Spokane, Wash., News Bureau. 



VIRGINS NEED ROYAL JELLY 



By Jay Smith 

 In the September number of the 

 American Bee Journal, page 307, Ar- 



Trisoncrs yf war sluJying beekeeping in Siberia 



thur C. Miller asks for the experi- 

 ence of others concerning whether or 

 not royal jelly is necessary for vir- 

 gin queens. Your experience, Mr. 

 Miller, corresponds with mine . For 

 a number of years I used nursery 

 cages for the virgins to hatch in, cag- 

 ing the cell about 24 hours before 

 time for it to emerge. I noticed that 

 the newly-hatched virgins "sorter 

 had a hankerin' " for royal jelly and 

 would clean it all out of the cells. 

 Sometimes they would gnaw down 

 into the base of the cell clear to the 

 wooden base, probably hoping to 

 strike another jelly vein. Many 

 would be found dead in the holes 

 they made. I know my style of candy 

 did not suit, so I placed a little honey 

 in the cages; but this did not seem lo 

 satisfy that craving after jelly. 



I then began to reason that if the 

 virgin reqviired jelly, probably in her 

 natural environment the nurse bees 

 fed it to her, and if that was the case, 

 nice, fresh, warm jelly is as much 

 better than hard, cold, dried-up jelly 

 as a nice, ripe, delicious apple is bet- 

 ter than dried apples. (Ever eat 'em? 

 They are awful). 



This led me to make some experi- 

 ments. Out of the same batch of 

 cells I caged part and gave the oth- 

 ers to nuclei without cell protectors. 

 Those in the nuclei hatched first in 

 most cases. Those hatching in cells 

 were introduced to nuclei. Out of 

 17 of each, 16 of the queens from the 

 cells that were given to nuclei were 

 laying before the first one from the 

 17 hatched in cages was laying. Sub- 

 sequent experiments gave about the 

 same results. I frequently noticed 

 that if a virgin was caged three days 

 she mated three days later than if 

 she had hatched among the bees. 

 This proved to me that the virgin 

 needs the attention of the nurse bees 

 if the very best queen is to be 

 reared; therefore I "junked" all my 

 nursery cages and gave a naked cell 

 lo the colony or nucleus. 



For the same reason I abandoned 

 the cell protector. In the first place, 

 it does not do any good. It is wi-11 

 known that a colony will accept a 

 cell more readily than a virgin. So 

 if they would not accept a cell and 

 you put a protector around it — why, 

 they just appoint a vigilance com- 

 mittee to keep an eye on that cell, 

 and as soon as Miss Virgin pokes 

 her head out they nab her and kill 

 her. That is all they do to her ex- 

 cept drag her out. 



But if you do not give them so 

 ripe a cell, one that will hatch in 

 about three days, it will work all 

 right. Yes, but if you leave them 

 queenless two days and give them a 

 naked cell that will hatch in one day, 

 they will accept it too; so you have 

 not saved anything by using the pro- 

 tector, but you have gained a whole 

 lot by not using it. . The bees have 

 access to the cell and thin down the 

 wax and cluster about it, thereby 

 giving it the proper incubation; and 

 when the virgin comes out, there 

 stand a row of nurses with mouths 

 chuck full of jelly, ready to feed her. 



For the best results, we should 



