356 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



May 



of a distinct race of bees; aside from that, 1 see 

 nothing to warrant such an opinion, and I think in- 

 vestigation will prove my conclusion correct; i. e., 

 they are blacks or hybrids. I should be proud to 

 believe America to be the home of a race of bees 

 Tjotter than the best; bvit if such is to be the case, it 

 will be by selecting- from the best of other lands, 

 and rendering- them homogeneous, and so raising 

 up a Saul in Israel, or a strain, head and shoulders 

 above all others. E. S. Arwine. 



Patterson, Texas. 



^ I ^ — ■ 



MORE FACTS TO SHOW THAT BEES 

 NEED SALT. 



BEES CONTROLLING THE SEX OF THE EGG. 



SN page 178 I saw an article from W. H. Green, 

 entitled, " Salt a Necessai-y Element for 

 Bees." His experience only relates what is 

 an absolute fact, that salt is one thing neces- 

 sary in making up the food of the bees. If 

 any one has not tried it he will be surprised to see 

 how eager they are for salt, when put in proper 

 shape for them to get at it handy. While keeping 

 bees in California, where there was plenty of foul 

 brood all around us, I used to prepare all the drink- 

 ing-water my bees used, and the water was medicat- 

 ed with salt, salicylic acid, and borax, but it was 

 made pretty salt. I gave it to them in shallow dish- 

 es, with a loose piece of sack thrown over it. The 

 sack was allowed to fall down inthe center, leaving 

 the edges hanging over the dish. The bees would 

 suck the water through the sack, and take every 

 drop of the medicated water from the dish. This 

 water was given to them every morning, as regular 

 as the morning came. I used it as a preventive 

 of foul brood. I took the ground that the salt and 

 salicylic acid were both disinfectants; and as the 

 bees fed the young larva? the water I prepared, it 

 must of necessity benefit them; that is, if there 

 were any germs of foul brood in the combs. 



Now, friend Root, I have been much interested 

 In the articles of Chas. Dadant and Prof. Cook on 

 " Egg-laying of Queens." While I have no disposi- 

 tion to open a controversy with two such able cor- 

 respondents as the above, yet they will allow me to 

 say that I think there is much to learn about the 

 egg-laying of queens. Under some circumstances 

 their ways are past finding out. Now, what old ob- 

 serving bee-keeper has not seen queens, drones, 

 and workers, all reared from what we suppose to be 

 the same eggs? Take a full sheet of worker-comb 

 (not a cell of drone-comb in it) from a prosperous 

 colony, before the eggs are hatched, and place it in 

 a queenless colony that has no brood of any kind and 

 sometimes they will rear queens, drones, and work- 

 ers Irom this sheet of eggs, that, had it been left in 

 theparent colony, would In all probability have been 

 every one worker-bees. 1 have had them cut down the 

 workei"-cells to the septum, build drone-cells, and 

 rear as flne-looking- drones as I ever saw reared un- 

 der any circumstances. Can you tell how they 

 manage it? I give it up, and am willing to let some 

 one else try. Will Prof. Cook or Mr. Dadant give 

 his views? It is light that I am after, not criticism. 

 For the sake of courtesy, I might wish that I could 

 agree with either of the gentlemen's views upon 

 the subject; but my observation has led me to the 

 belief that, in the instance whei-e young queens 

 lay drone-eggs before they begin laying worker- 

 eggs, is because they had not yet met the drone; 



and if I say that I am inclined to say as you do, 

 that the bees have the power to determine the sex, 

 I shall not be accused of departing from the ground 

 I have taken before. A. W. Osburn. 



Havana, Cuba, March 15, 1886. 



This subject as to whether the bees can 

 convert worker -eggs into drones has been 

 discussed a good deal already. At the con- 

 vention at l)etroit last fall it came up, and 

 some of our wisest heads discussed it ; but 

 as a rule I think they seemed to be a good 

 deal incredulous, it seems to me as though 

 brood that would have ordinarily produced 

 worker-brood is often converted into drone- 

 brood when put into a queenless hive. We 

 want careful experiments in the matter. 



MOVING BEES IN MID-WINTER. 



WINTERED WITHOUT LOSS. 



fHERE is no doubt but that perfect quiet is 

 the best, when once the colonj' has compact- 

 ly custered, and winter has set in in earnest. 

 But circumstances may be such, sometimes, 

 that some unforeseen emergency may occur 

 when we are almost compelled to handle a colony 

 in mid -winter. Then the query naturally comes 

 up. Can we do so without endangering the life of 

 the swarm ? I have tested this matter more thor- 

 oughly the past winter than I ever did before. I 

 liad purchased 7 colonies long after my own had 

 been snugly packed away in the cellar. He had 

 left them out on their summer stands, without any 

 extra packing or care. On the 13th of Jan., when 

 the thermometer was 10° above zero, I took a sled 

 and went tweh'e miles after the bees, in a very 

 deep snow. This was only four days after the noted 

 four -days' blizzard, during which time the ther- 

 mometer had been, much of the time, down to 15° 

 and 20° below zero. Of course the bees became 

 very much aroused by the time 1 got home, and it 

 was with much misgiving that I set them in the 

 cellar. I watched them closely at intervals during 

 the remainder of the winter, and was pleased to 

 see that, in a day or two, they had settled down to 

 that i)eaceful quiescent state, so satisfactory to the 

 apiarist. Two days ago they were put on their 

 summer stands, and all came out bright and dry, 

 and strong in bees and stores. 



My 01 colonies were set in a house -cellar the .5th 

 of Dec, and the 7 colonies were set in the liJth of 

 Jan., as before mentioned. They all came out, not 

 only alive, but bright and clean, with only half a 

 dozen or so with entrances a little specked up with 

 dysentery. They have been busily engaged bring- 

 ing in pollen and some honey from soft maple. 



Our cellar is quite dry, and well banked up with 

 slough hay. They had no ventilation, or, rather, 

 the cellar had no ventilation, except what was af- 

 forded from passing in and out once or twice a day 

 form an outside door. The bees were tiered up 

 tour deep, as compactly as possible, with full- 

 width enti-anccs open, and each cover slipped for- 

 ward, so as to let the bees pass in and out at will, 

 at each end of the top of the hives— no quilt, no 

 chaff, or absorbents of any kind. I hung a good 

 thermometer over the hives, and kept the tempei-a- 

 ture at 45° to .50=" all winter, by firing pretty heavily 

 during very cold weather, in a sitting-room over 

 the bees. Wo kept potatoes, apples, milk, canned 



