1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



101 



the cage, disliking to liaiiiUc the 

 wings of virgins. Suddenly a sharp 

 sting was felt inside the hand which 

 held tlie virgin. So sharp was the 

 pain that 1 involuntarily slapped 

 my quickly opened hand against my 

 thigh. A virgin queen dropped in the 

 process to the ground, but I could 

 find no worker bee. I said to my 

 son who was helping me, "1 really 

 think that I was stung by a queen- 

 bee then." 



A few days later, while caging an- 

 other lot of virgins, the same thing 

 happened. And again my quick in- 

 voluntary movement prevented me 

 from stating with absolute certainty 

 that no worker was present, though 

 none was seen as the queen fell to 

 the ground. 



In neither case was any sting left 

 in the wound and the pain was iden- 

 tical with that of a worker sting. It 

 was possibly a little more sharp at 

 first, but it did not last long, and 

 very quickly changed from the usual 

 sensation into an itch. I was now 

 positive that I had been twice stung 

 by queen-bees, but I realized that 

 mj' proof was not beyond doubt. The 

 nursery cage might in each case have 

 had a worker clinging to it unseen, 

 and when I shook the queen into my 

 hand this worker went in unseen by 

 me. 



Fortunately, I was privileged with 

 a third trial. This happened a few 

 days later as some 80 queens were 

 being caged. This time I so far con- 

 trolled my involuntary inovement as 

 to open my hand quickly, and there 

 was the queen — alone — and she was 

 just in the act of withdrawing her 

 sting from my skin. I now knew 

 beyond all doubt that I had been 

 stung three separate times by virgin 

 queens. I also knew that many oth- 

 ers had tried to sting my hand, for I 

 would have the itching sensation and 

 also the smell of the royal poison on 

 the palm of my hand. All three 

 stings were inflicted upon the thin 

 skin between the fingers, suggesting 

 that the queen would more fre- 

 quently sting but for the toughness 

 of the skin of the human hand. 



Connecticut. 



TOO MUCH HONEY 



By John Protheroe 



Nearly as startling a phrase as "too 

 much money!" Can there be such a 

 situation? Go, ask any queen-bre-dcr 

 at the height of a heavy honey flow. 

 As long as it lasts, he grumbles and 

 digs out his smothered cells from 

 the sticky bars, and longs for that 

 "Better Land," where there is a gen- 

 tle, stimulative flow from dawn to 

 dusk, from March till October; no 

 dead intervals and no violent spates 

 of nectar. A couple of days' gentle 

 rainfall, then a hot sun on acres of 

 sweet clover; these are conditions 

 which make the honey producer 

 chuckle, "."Kha, my supers!" and the 

 queen-breeder groan, "'Oh, my cell- 

 bars !" 



Of the superlative wisdom of bees 

 the world in general has long been 



convinced, tliough there arc moments 

 when the most experienced beekeep- 

 ers have serious doubts and have 

 been known to call them pesky little 

 idiots. Several German writers, not- 

 ably von Buttel-keepen and Pastor 

 Gerstung, would have us believe that 

 they are reflex automata, blindly fol- 

 lowing the irresistible dictates of. 

 mass or community instinct. Elderly 

 moralists of all denominations, on 

 the other hand, delight in pointing out 

 the wisdom and virtue of the busy 

 bee, the prize Sunday-school scholar 

 of the animal world. The next occa- 

 sion on which you observe a band 

 of crazed robbers desperately at- 

 tempting to burgle a hive through the 

 blind hand-cut, d'o not go for the 

 kerosene jar, pause awhile and cogi- 

 tate 'Oil individual volition, on free 

 will, on responsibility and culpability, 

 on the impelling force of instinct, on 

 aberrations and conflicts within this 

 force — and if the boss gets after you 

 try and entangle him in the same 

 train of speculation. 



The subject is an avenue into the 

 deepest profundities. Consider for a 

 moment the ethical side of the matter. 

 Should you allow yourself to give way 

 to a feeling of anger towards an indi- 

 vidual bee that has stung you? Where 

 there is no respontibility there can be 

 no culpability. To relax one's philo- 

 sophic "self-restraint may become not 

 merely an illogical action but a lapse 

 into the grossest injustice. To swat 

 the dogoned little beast, whi has 

 sacrificed his sting and life in obedi- 

 ence to community instinct — how are 

 we to describe such unmanly con- 

 duct? 



Still, it is not always good poli:y 

 for a practical beekeeper to cultiva'e 

 philosophy; most of us are too mucii 

 inclined that way by nature. 



Let us, therefore, content ourselves 

 with saying that there is all the ap- 



VV. J. Sheppard. Chief Inspector of Apiaries 

 of British Columliia. The Province pro- 

 vides fully for extended inspection, with a 

 corps of seven inspectors. 



pcarance of foolish 'jehavior on the 

 part of apis mcllifica in tending a bar 

 of queen-cells with assiduous care only 

 t'o bury them alive in a wall of honey- 

 comb, thereby rivalling in horror the 

 culmination of the opera "Aida." The 

 bees indeed, do seem to have mo- 

 ments of doubt as to the outcotne of 

 this change of policy — -they some- 

 times make an eleventh hour compro- 

 mise, leaving the tip lof the cell ex- 

 posed, so that the hatching queen can 

 just escape imminent burial. Very 

 often they don't. Is this immuring of 

 unfortunate virgins due to some ob- 

 scure conflict between warring im- 

 pulses in the mass mind of the colony, 

 or is it due to a conscious change of 

 policy brought about by changed con- 

 ditions, as when a tentatively moist 

 politician becomes bone dry? 



Leaving the philosophical side of 

 it to beguile the chores of winter, 

 let us examine it as a matter of prac- 

 tical difficulty. If the larvae were all 

 well fed up to the time of capping, 

 then an incubator would ofYer a sat- 

 isfactory solution to the problem. It 

 need not be a very accurate or deli- 

 cate machine. I have seen good 

 queens hatch from cells discarded 

 in an ordinary lumber-built shed, af- 

 ter three days and nights (in an Ala- 

 bama, summer.) Unfortunately, the 

 slackening of the suipersedure im- 

 pulse affects the feeding of the new- 

 ly grafted larvae, and a cure for this 

 trouble is harder to find. Does it lie 

 in weakening the cell-building colo- 

 nies a little, in letting them simmer 

 down, so t'o speak, below boiling 

 point? This does not appeal to me 

 as sound procedure. Will relief be 

 found in giving them an intermedi- 

 ate super (forgive the nonsensical 

 expression), in which they can store 

 tlie honey? Theoretically, this is a 

 beautiful idea; everything will work 

 out perfectly. The field bees will de- 

 vote their energies to this empty su- 

 per, and the nurse bees, unimpeded, 

 and stimulated by the general pros- 

 perity of the colony, will feed the 

 queen-cells better than ever, for 

 lield bees never bother with larvae, 

 and nurse bees know . nothing of 

 comb building. Practice, however, 

 works out differently; it is found 

 that the cells are neglected; the will 

 and the energies of the community as 

 a whole have 1 een diverted; the su- 

 persedure impulse has beeir super- 

 seded by the storing impulse. What 

 liappens it is difficult to say. The 

 nurse bees either go afield sooner in 

 obedience to "the will to store' or 

 neglect their charges for some other 

 function. The directing force, the 

 spirit of the hive seems to become 

 wavering and uncertain, and confused 

 fluctuations occur in; the beautifully 

 balanced division of labor. 



Doolittle was never tired of preach- 

 ing the necessity of working with 

 and never in opposition to these hive 

 impulses. Skill lies in creating con- 

 ditions that bring about desired im- 

 pulses in a colony, and then working 

 with them and turning them to ac- 

 count. This, of course, is the foun- 

 dation of modern queen-rearing, in 



