1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



851 



take wing. for. according to those who havo 

 bees go to the tiold young, these lumps of gold 

 should be astir as soon as the 14th or 15th, but 

 neither of these days showed any signs of 

 aught but hybrid bees. On the Kith, at about 

 two o'clock, f saw the first out for a playspell: 

 and each pleasant afternoon thereafter more 

 and more were out. but not one of these yellow 

 ones showed herself at any other time of day 

 till the 2(ith. when the first yellow bees weve 

 seen coming in with loads of pollen and honey 

 during the forenoon. So far I had the same 

 proof I had in my other experiments, that, when 

 there were plenty of field laborers in a colony, 

 bees do not go out into the fields as laborers till 

 they are 16 days old. I now watched with 

 more than usual interest, as the 20th to the 25th 

 of August came on apace, to see the field bees 

 go out and in at the entrance to this hive: for if I 

 had been right in the past with the 23d of Au- 

 gust at 10 A. M.. none of the hybrid bees should 

 be left. August 22d a very few hybrid bees 

 were seen going out and in at the entrance, per- 

 haps one in three or four minutes: but August 

 23 none were seen, and on the next day the hive 

 was opened and carefully looked through with- 

 out finding a single hybrid bee in it. 



Now. the question which arises is, \Nould 

 there have been any difference had these bees 

 been Carniolans? I do not think so, for. with 

 the Carniolans which I liave had at three dif- 

 ferent times, they have not proved any longer 

 lived than other bees, and I have had Carniolan 

 bees from a queen from the same source Bi'o. F. 

 says his were from. Then, if the above conclu- 

 sion is correct, we see that the long life which 

 Bro. F. secui-ed for his bees came from throw- 

 ing the colony into an abnormal condition, or 

 else young liees from other colonies ke])t the 

 population good. I am glad he is to experiment 

 further, to tell us which of these is correct. One 

 tiling I do not understand about that colony of 

 his. unless young bees from other colonies did 

 . go to it. He says he " hived a good fair-sized 

 swarm'" in liis experiments; and I think that 

 it is Professor Cook who defines a "fair-sized 

 swarm " as consisting of about 20.000 bees. 

 Bro. F. then goes on to tell us how this fair- 

 sized swarm of bees occupied and filled with 

 brood and honey a three-story hive, so that he 

 had to take away all of the combs out of these 

 three stories in order to get all the brood away, 

 as they had brood in all the combs forty days 

 after they were hived. If not a single fiee had 

 died up to +his time, they occupied more room 

 than I should expect a good fair- sized colony to 

 occupy which had had no accessions to its num- 

 ber inlO days. 



. Now just a word about secreting wax. Bro. 

 F. asks whether the bees in my observatory 

 hive were building comb or not. Most certain- 

 ly. Bees always build comb iu a honey-fiow. 

 t)oes not Bro. F. know that ? You can not 

 have a lioney-flow without the bees secreting 

 wax, all talk to the contrary notwithstanding. 

 When a honey-flow begins, what do we see? 

 The cells of the combs already built lengthened 

 out with new wax. which delights the heart of 

 the bee-keeper: next the cells of lioney capped 

 over, burr-combs built, etc.. and Prof. Cook tells 

 us that even bees on tlie clover-blossoms have 

 the wax scales on them (I quote from memory). 

 But my time is up. Don't shut down on us yet, 

 Bro. Root, for out of tliese friendly discussions 

 and experiments much good may come. 



Borodino, N. Y.. Oct. 16. G. M. Dooijtti.e. 



[Doolittle is a pretty careful observer, and on 

 general grounds it is not wise to disagiee with 

 him; but there is just one point on which my 

 observation differs. I w'ill admit that the 

 average worker bee, during the busy season. 



dies inside of 45 days: but I can not quite think 

 that they all do. Nearly every spring we have 

 been obliged to buy up colonies, and some 

 would be hybrids. Afthough these latter would 

 be requeened early in May, I have often ob- 

 served the presence of quite a number of the 

 original hybrid bees, even to the latter part of 

 August. This would make more than itO days, 

 and these colonies wei-e i-emote from other hy- 

 brids too. The reason why I have observed the 

 fact is because we do not dare to .send out 

 to our customers nuclei containing any im- 

 pure bees. Two or three times we have been 

 very much annoyed to find, in a colony from 

 which we had intended to fill an order, .some 

 four months after an Italian queen had been 

 intioduced, too many hybrid bees. We have 

 once or twice sent bees to Australia in a mail- 

 ing-cage, and these bees were on the road any- 

 whei-e from 38 to 42 days. It seems to me that, 

 if bees will live this long, jostled about in the 

 mails, with no opportunity for flight, tliey 

 ought to be able, a few of them, to survive IX) 

 days or longer, with freedom to fly, even when 

 subjected to the toils of the season. Now. it is 

 possible that I have not understood :Mr. Doo- 

 little: but I am very sure I have observed, for 

 several different seasons. Italianized hybrid 

 colonies that would show their hybrid blood 

 for three months, and longer, after the Italian 

 queen had been introduced. 



Hello! here is something from that keen ob- 

 server Emerson E. Hasty, who, as our older 

 readers may remember, used to deliglit us so 

 much by his bright spicy writings. What he 

 has to say. though.doesn't materially strength- 

 en my position. He suggests a rather new 

 idea.] E. R. 



SOME SU<iGESTIOXS FROM FEIEND HASTY. 



A very valuable and interesting experiment 

 is that which comrade France gives on page 

 7(iO. Oct. 1st. Of course, it must be repeated by 

 other.s, as well as in his own apiary. Besides 

 the possibility he speaks of— a multitude of 

 young bees joining in individually from day to 

 day. there is the further possibility of a small 

 wandering swarm entering some time when the 

 keeper is not bv. This last danger will beset 

 his isolated colony as well as the one in the 

 midst of the apiary. 



We have heard of the witness who testified to 

 the truth, the whole truth, and more than the 

 truth; and what puzzles Mr. France and the 

 rest of us is. that this comb- building colony 

 looks, at first sight, like a witness of that sort. 

 It proves that old bees build comb; and then it 

 goes to work and proves so much more that we 

 are all thrown to the ground. I write in the 

 attempt to solve the riddle. 



In the first i)lace, is it probable that the 

 army of careful observers, who have decided 

 that the bee's life during the highest stage of 

 activity is only six weeks, or a little over — is it 

 probable that this truth-seeking host have all 

 been mistaken— and so far mistaken as the dif- 

 ference between 45 days and 90 days'? No. 

 that is not at all probable. Yet I do not take 

 the opposite horn of the dilemma. I don't be- 

 lieve any swarm entered unseen, or that any 

 significant number of young bees joined indi- 

 vidually. My solution runs thus: 



Edwin France uses a very large frame and 

 hive: and \ guess the swarm was what some of 

 us would call •• a monster." He naturally calls 

 it a '• fair-sizi'd swarm " because lu^ sometimes 

 ' has much larger ones. In the next experiment, 

 friend F.. weigh your swarm. Not very long 

 after the colony was hived, the honey-fiow 

 ceased. At this time about half the colony, 1 

 conjecture, "laid themselves out" to go 



