18S6 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUUE. 



255 



DOES THE QUEEN LAY DRONE OR 

 WORKER EGGS AT PLEASURE? 



for 



FAf'TS TO PROVE THAT SHE DOES. 



'N Mr. Dadanfs article ou page 95 of Gleanings 

 f for Feb. 1, he expresses his belief that the 

 [ external conditions present at the time of the 

 • laying- of the eggs by the queen determine the 

 sex of the bee to be produced. I have reasons 

 thinking differently from Mr. Dadant. The 

 queen will lay in worker-cells of foundation before 

 it has been worked out enough to compress the 

 spermatheca in the least, and these eggs will pro- 

 duce workers, and must have been fecundated by 

 the volition of the queen. The queen will also lay 

 eggs in queen-cells, as stated by Cook, which are 

 larger than drone-cells; these eggs, hatching- 

 queens, must also have been fecundated by some 

 other process than compression by the cell. 



Another evidence, to me, that the laying of fec- 

 undated and unfecundated eggs is not automatic 

 with the queen is this: In the fore part of the hon- 

 ey season, when the colony begins to thrive, and 

 commences to make preparations for swarming, the 

 queen will skip over considerable worker-comb to 

 get to the drone-comb, and will fill it with eggs al- 

 most invariably. In the well-regulated apiary, but 

 little drone-comb is to be found; thereforo the comb- 

 builders will build drone-comb wherever they can, 

 even on the ends of fi-ames; and under the above 

 conditions, if you insert a frame containing both 

 drone and worker comb, the drone comb will invari- 

 ably be filled with eggs first. 



Now, if egg-laying, or, rather, impregnating the 

 egg, were done entirely without the will of the 

 queen, and by the compression and non-compres- 

 sion of the spermatheca, whj' docs she lay in the 

 drone-cells first? And, vice versa, later in the sea- 

 son, when conditions in the hive are reversed, and 

 the honey-flow has almost ceased, it is almost im- 

 possible to get a queen to lay eggs in drone comb 

 without feeding, when the colony is in a normal 

 condition. 



Mr. Dadant says that he has replaced drone-comb 

 with worker-comb in the brood-chamber, and the 

 queen did not seem dissatisfied with it; and he says, 

 " If the queens, while laying, were moved by the 

 desire to lay drones (eggs), our replacing of drone- 

 comb by worker-cells would bo useless." I suppose 

 by this, he thinks she would show her dissatisfac- 

 tion by laying unfecundated, or drone-eggs, in 

 worker-cells; but this would bo " against the rules," 

 and not natural, and not for the good of the colo- 

 ny; and her laying the eggs in the proper cells in- 

 dicates to me that she knows what she is about, 

 and lays her fecundated and unfecundated eggs in 

 the proper cells, where they ought to be, and where 

 they will hatch out the proper occupants for the 

 cells they occupy. I tlnnk the colony and queen do 

 show their dissatisfaction when we replace a work- 

 er-comb to the exclusion of all drone-comb. They 

 build drone-cells in every conceivable place they 

 can find, flnd it is always filled with eggs as soon as 

 it is built, at a certain time of the honey season; 

 and some writers assert that they even remodel 

 worker-foundation and build drone-cells upon it; 

 and queens frequently go into the surplus-boxes 

 and deposit eggs if there is drone-comb to be found 

 there, and there is none or very little in the brood- 

 chamber. Drone-foundation has been condemned 

 for surplus-boxes, partly, at least, o:i this account. 



In the last paragraph of Mr. D.'s article he sug- 

 gests that the reason the cells of the wasp are not 

 all filled alike may be on account of her inability to 

 obtain spiders enough at the time to fill all of them 

 alike. This may be so; but suppose that spiders 

 happened to be very abundant, and she could fill 

 them all as full as she does those for the females, 

 in which case, according to Mv. D.'s theory, she 

 would lay none but female eggs, and produce no 

 males. This would hardly be according to nature. 

 Also, if I am not mistaken. Sir John Lubbock says 

 that a wasp always takes the same number of spi- 

 ders. This would also go against Mr. D.'s theory, 

 and would show that she did not provision her cells 

 in proportion to her success in hunting, but with 

 special reference to their needs, both male and fe- 

 male. 



Mr. D. also says: " When the eggs of animals are 

 mature they don't wa:t, but drop." 1 think this is 

 not so in regard to queen-bees; for a queen taken 

 from a populous colony, when she is laying, per- 

 haps one or two thousand eggs per day, will stop off 

 short, if she has no comb to lay in; and in case of 

 the wasp, suppose the weather were very unpropi- 

 tious, and spiders were very scarce, and she could 

 get none, she would have to lay in an empty cell if 

 she were obliged to " drop," as Mr. D. says. 



I have not seen evidence enough yet to convince 

 me that the laying of eggs by the queen is auto- 

 matic, in the sense spoken of in Prof. Cook's and 

 Mr. Dadanfs articles. Edward B. Beebee. 



Oneida, N. Y. 



THE AUTOMATIC EXTRACTOR. 



SOME HINTS IN REGARD TO USE OF. 



fOUR description of the Automatic honey-ex- 

 tractor, as shown on page 53 of Gleanings 

 for Jan. 15, is very good, but you make a 

 very common mistake in your plan of oper- 

 ating the machine. Instead of starting with 

 a "quick impulse," j'ou should start very gently 

 either way, and turn about one-half way round; 

 then stop and gently but firmly start the i-eel in the 

 opposite direction, and the impetus given to the 

 comb-baskets will carry them off the vertical cen- 

 ter, and they will pass out to their several positions. 

 You may now increase the speed as desired; but if 

 the combs are very heavy, do not turn too fast, but 

 give just enough motion to throw out a part of the 

 honey. To reverse, stop the motion and let the 

 baskets swing clear by the center and nearly to 

 their position, " t'other side out," and then gentlj' 

 start the reel the opposite direction, and the combs 

 will take their new position without even a jar. 

 You may now give sufficient speed to throw all of 

 the honej' from this side, and then reverse as be- 

 fore, and finish the side first extracted from. If 

 the combs are very heavy or very tender, it may be 

 well to reverse three or four times, while, if the 

 combs are strong and the honey is now, once revers- 

 ing will be sufficient. If there should be any brood 

 in the combs, great care must betaken not to dis- 

 lodge it; but if no brood is present, you can let the 

 thing hum, and CO seconds is time enough in which 

 to place, extract, and remove four of the heaviest 

 combs; and if this is not fast enough, you must get 

 a machine with more baskets. If you will follow 

 the a'-:ove directions you may fill the baskets in the 



