778 



GLEAKIKGS m BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 



weather when there was little or nothing' for the 

 bees to do; so that, hu<] it not been i'or the seed 

 crop of the Mammoth red clover, I should have 

 had to record a failure as to a honey-crop. But, 

 thanks to this source, which came in just in time 

 to save that failure, and cnabl? nie to report 33-:i 

 lbj3. of comb honey as an average yield from each 

 colony, spring- count. 



Spring- opened very propitiously, the first ;?4 days 

 after the bees beg-an to fly being- pleasant, beauti- 

 ful days. This caused the bees to rear brood rap- 

 idly, so that most of them wei-e in splendid condi- 

 tion to gather from the fruit-bloom, as their num- 

 bers were fully as great as is usually the case at 

 the time white clover opens. But, alas! our hopes 

 were blig-htcd by cool and rainy weather setting: 

 in three days before this bloom opened, and con- 

 tinuing- till the bloom was past, so that the large 

 force of bees proved only consumers instead of 

 producers, causing me to feed for nearly three 

 weeks to keep them from starving. This unpro- 

 pitious weather also caused brood-rearing nearly 

 to cease, so that the brood which should have been 

 the best for active work during- the basswood 

 bloom was miaius; and, feed as much as I would, 

 I could not coax the bees to hatch the eggs the 

 queen laid. 



flight liere is a mystery to me: How do the bees 

 keep the eggs, laid by the queen, from hatching 

 at one lime, and again hatch them sd that a hive 

 will be well filled with little larvie in three daj's 

 time? I have neticed this singular fact for jears, 

 and have also noticed that feeding bees (.at such 

 times as they do not so desire larva?) to keep up 

 brood-rearing has little if any effect in accomplish- 

 ing the desired end. Hence 1 again repeat what I 

 have said elsewhere, tliat "two or three pleasant 

 days, with plent3' of pollen, has more to do with 

 stimulating brood-rearing than weeks of feeding." 



Well, when I saw that I could get but little brood 

 in my hives the last half of May, I knew that my 

 crop of basswood honey must he short at best, and 

 especially as we had pi-omise of only about one- 

 sixth the usual bloom; but I was not prepared for 

 such a wholesale loss of bees as I experienced 

 about the 20th of June. Colonies which had started 

 to work nicel5' in sections during the week of good 

 weather we had the fore part of white-clover 

 bloom were so depopulated that they could scarce- 

 ly care for their brood; while the ground in and 

 about the apiary was literally covered with dead 

 and dying bees, so that alraV)st every step one 

 must tread on these old worn-out bees, dying of 

 ©Id age. As brood-rearing was now going on rap- 

 idly, I expected that again this brood, when hatch- 

 ed into bees, would turn into consumers, as had 

 the brood in the early part of the season; but, as 

 was said before, red clover came to our rescue, 

 which, together with the little gathered from white 

 clover, basswood, and teasel, gave me 3023 lbs. of 

 comb honey from the 60 colonies I had left after 

 my sales during the spring. Out of my 95 last 

 fall I lost 3 during the winter and spring, and two 

 Avere queenless, whicli were united with others. 

 Prom the 60, only 40 swarms issued, so that my 

 numbers to go into winter with will not be greater 

 than a year ago, for I shall unite Ihem down till 

 all have sufficient natural stores for winter. My 

 past experience proves natural stores to be the 

 best for bees to winter upon in this hicality, there- 

 fore I prefer to use them instead of going through 



the (to me) tedious operation of making and feed- 

 ing a large amount of sugar syrup. 

 Borodino, N. Y., Sept., 1886. G. M. Doolittle. 



Friend D., in regard to this matter of get- 

 ting brood and not getting brood when the 

 brood-nest is well supplied with eggs, I 

 should say the trouble is a lack of pollen. I 

 have succeeded in getting great quantities 

 of brood by feeding flour candy ; that is, 

 candy made with a proper admixture of 

 wheat or rye flour. It is astonishing to see 

 the amount of brood that even a moderate- 

 sized colony may produce, when all the con- 

 ditions are favorable; and it is sometimes 

 perplexing as well as astonishing to see how 

 the bees absolutely refuse to raise brood at 

 times, even though it seems as if we had 

 given them every thing needful. 



THE "ZEEP, ZEEP," OF QUEENS. 



AND C.\N SHE PRODUCE IT WHILE IN THE CELL? 



T SEE on page 69.5, Gleanings for Sept. 1, an 

 lit ^'^'ticle from J. C. Gilliland, in which he says: 

 «i " I have found no queens hatched, even when 

 "^ the queens had been calling one or two days, 

 but with the cap of the cell cut nearly off; 

 and as soon as they were taken out of the hive the 

 young queens would come out." Now, what I 

 wish to say is this: I do not believe a queen in cell 

 ever made a particle of noise; and all talk of the 

 bees keeping the queen in until she squeals is utter 

 nonsense. Now for my reasons: 



1 have kept bees for 30 years for — well, we will 

 say fun, certainly not profit. I have soen a queen 

 pipe with only a clear glass between us and my 

 face, not more than 6 inches from her, in good 

 light, and she on a clear (almost white) comb. She 

 just stopped, humped herself, and acted mad; 

 vibrated her wings until you could scarcely see 

 them, and " peep, peep," from 3 to 5 times, sound- 

 ed out loudly. This I saw several times, and at 

 the same time heard others doing the same. The 

 noise is made with the wings; for as the wings 

 ceased to vibrate, the noise stopped; and as the 

 vibrations grew less frequent, the sound was less 

 sharp. Now for another reason : A friend wanted 

 a queen. I went to a Holy-Land swarm where 

 queens were calling. On raising- 3 combs I caught 

 and caged 3 queens; and on closing the hive I 

 heard queens still calling. . The next day I took 

 out 3 queens, and still heard them calling. Next 

 day they swarmed, and the next morning I found 

 several dead queens in front of the hive. Some 

 seemed to be two or three days old; one, at least, 

 immature, and was undoubtedly taken from the 

 cell. My experience with Holy-Land bees, (7o( of 

 you, is that they are remarkably prolific in queens, 

 say from 20 to 30 in a hive. 1 forgot to say, that, 

 wheu I saw these queens piping, the bees about 

 them paid not the slightest attention, but just 

 kept at their work as though they did not hear it. 

 Will you, friend Root, or some other person, tell 

 us how the queen makes the noise called " piping "? 

 If, as I believe, with the wings, like the katydid 

 and other insects, then certainly it can not be 

 done in the cell. E. S. Miner. 



Neeedah, Wis., Sept. 8, 1886. 

 Friend M., we are glad to receive the 

 facts you furnish ; but we want to chide you 



