372 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 15. 



tance of drones, our queen will stand a poor 

 chance of mating one of the desired drones, as 

 long as the colonies kept on the let-alone plan 

 will raise ten drones to where our colonies rear 

 one. Where I witnessed the mating of a queen 

 was on a high hill where I was cutting weeds 

 out of a cornfield the fore part of August. On 

 every fine afternoon, from one to three o'clock, 

 there was such a humming in the air overhead 

 that it seemed that a swarm of bees must be 

 going over, and at first I looked for them: but 

 seeing nothing I concluded that it was flies of 

 some kind. One hot day. being tired I lay down 

 to rest: and hearing this swarming noise I 

 shaded my eyes with my hands and looked 

 steadily up into the clear sky. After a little I 

 could see thousands of living creatures shoot- 

 ing in all directions, and finally I saw a dozen 

 or so of these shooting objects give chase after 

 another and overtake it. when the flight was 

 less rapid. Two of them continued circling 

 around, and. nearing the ground, stopped on 

 the tassel of a cornstalk near me. I got up at 

 once; but before 1 reached the stalk of corn one 

 of them flew away and the other fell to the 

 ground. From what I saw of the one which 

 flew away, I called it a queen honeybee: and 

 upon picking up che one that fell to the ground, 

 I found it was a dead drone. This solved the 

 mystery of the humming noise; and when I 

 have since heard this same humming in differ- 

 ent places I have believed it to be drones in 

 their congregating-places. The fact that this 

 noise is heard only in the early afternoon of 

 pleasant days also proves that di'ones congre- 

 gate, or some other insects, for I never heard 

 this noise except at this time of day. If it was 

 made by the worker liees it would be heard in 

 the forenoon as well as in the afternoon. 



One other item bearing on this subject is the 

 faci. that, pi'ior to the advent of the Italian 

 bee. a man keeping bi'KS for forty years near us 

 never saw aught but the common black or Ger- 

 man bee. Another man living four miles from 

 him purchased an Italian (|ueen one year in 

 July, and from this one queen he stocked all of 

 his apiary, some forty colonies, with Italian 

 queens the same year, which, according to 

 Dzierzon, would give Italian drones but hybrid 

 workers, as the purchased queen gave no drones 

 the first year. As this man who stocked his 

 apiary with Italian queens took no pains to 

 restrict the rearing of drones, multitudes of 

 them were reared; and, as a result, fully one- 

 third of the queens reared the next year (being 

 in the old colonies of after-swarms) by our 

 black-bee bee-keeper gave more or less bees 

 with yellow bands, to which he called my at- 

 tention. Fully one-third of my queens also 

 gave a part yellow bees; and as I was so well 

 pleased with them I was not long in procuring 

 the Italian bees myself. 



This fact has always proven to my mind that 

 drones not only congregate, but that bees must 

 be kept at least five miles or more apart to se- 

 cure the absolutely pure maiingofour queens. 

 That this bee-keeper had kept bees for forty 

 years w ithout any of them showing any yellow, 

 would seem to point to the fact that no man 

 could take our black bees in their purity and 

 breed yellow Germans from them. 



I see Mr. Alley proposes to give us yellow 

 Funics this year, yet admits that there are 

 apiaries with yellow bees in them only two 

 miles from where be rears these queens. If the 

 Punic bees are an eZ)onj/-colored bee in their 

 native home, perhaps they would not bi> so 

 Inclined to sport along the yellow line if they 

 were isolated on some island in the large lakes 

 or kept five or more miles from othei' bees, as 

 they are in the hands of Mr. Alley. Let him 

 place his apiaries from five to ten miles apart, 



and he will not be criticised so nuich in putting 

 forth his golden Carniolans and Funics. I 

 heartily wish that drones could he controlled as 

 well as the queens; but so far I see no way of 

 doing it. If we have an inferior queen we can 

 pinch her head ofl' as soon as we see her; but 

 when we come to say to a certainty as regard- 

 ing the drones our queens are to mate, we are 

 not sure of anything about it: for should we 

 pinch tlie heads of all inferior drones (an end- 

 less task) we are not sure but that there will be 

 millions of inferior drones at the congregating- 

 place, which will stand an equal chance with 

 our best. From the above T think all will see 

 the folly of claiming two mih'S as sufficient 

 distance to insure the pure mating of all the 

 queens reared. G. INL Doolitti^e. 



Borodino, N. Y.. May 2. 



[So far as my experience goes, friend Doo- 

 little is entirely right in what he says in the 

 above. Not only do drones thus congregate, 

 but a kind of flying ants may often be seen dur- 

 ing pleasant days along in the fall, congregat- 

 ing and mating, as I have already mentioned at 

 length in an article on the subject, given in 

 Gleanings sevei'al years ago.] A. I. R. 



SELF-HIVERS. 



THE STYLE HEf'OM MENDED BY HENRY ALLEY. 



Friend Root: — T promised to send you a de- 

 scription of a self hi ver that Mould hive every 

 swarm that issued through it. I will now at- 

 tempt to do so. 



FIG. 1. 



Fig. 1 shows the arrangement attached to a 

 Bay State hive. It will be seen that it pi'ojects 

 considerably in front of the hive. The bees, to 

 gain access to their home, must pass under the 

 swarmer and enter through the metal, A. Now, 

 this is no serious obstruction to the bees, as 

 they have wings, and it does not in the least 

 seem to inconvenience them in their flight from 

 and to the hive. Of course, it will bother them 

 some foi' an hour or so when first placed on the 

 hive, the same as the trap does. 



Fig. 2 shows the interior of the hiver. It is 

 the same as the drone-trap: in fact, it is noth- 

 ing else. It is made with a bay-window attach- 

 ment for the accommodation of a large swarm 



