572 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1. 



started, I do not see how you save any labor 

 over the method that makes use of Doolittle 

 cell-cups, the same being placed directly in a 

 hive having a queen. 



Is it not possible that you have not learned 

 how to make Doolittle cell-cups rapidly ? The 

 man who rears our queens has no difficulty 

 in making them at the rate of 1500 a day, and 

 with proper appliances they can be turned out 

 at the rate of several thousand a day, and the 

 work all done by a cheap boy or girl. 



Now, if you do not get around the use of 

 queenless colonies, I hope you will tell us in 

 the next issue of Gleanings just how you do 

 it. By the Doolittle method of using cell- 

 cups, it is not necessary to have a queenless 

 colony in the apiary, except during the time 

 the ordinary virgin queen takes to become 

 fertilized, and even then, under some circum- 

 stances, these young queens will sometimes 

 take their wedding-flight from an upper story 

 of a colony having a good queen below. 



But there are several points in favor of the 

 Doolittle cell cups : The cells are more regular, 

 easier to put into queen-cell protectors, and 

 they are less liable to be damaged in handling. 

 —Ed.] 



. . . ■ ii mi iii • ■ ■ 



APIS DORSATA. 



Bee-keepers of Australia After Them; Length of 

 Tongues of Dorsata. 



BY H. L. JO.NKS. 



I note in Gleanings that you are now 

 making renewed efforts to introduce Apis 

 dorsata into America; but as you already have 

 been on this same trail for some 20 years I 

 reckon we shall get ahead of you unless you 

 accelerate matters considerably on your side. 

 As far back as 1878, A. I. Root offered $100 

 for a single colony delivered to him ; but no 

 one succeeded in obtaining the prize, and now 

 you are offering $25 for a single queen alive. 

 You think it will be a joke if Gleanings gets 

 ahead of the government in securing the big 

 bees ; but I'm sure it will be a bigger joke if 

 we get ahead of Gleanings with its 20 odd 

 years' start. 



By this mail I am sending you sample work- 

 ers of Apis dorsata that I received from a 

 customer of mine (a practical bee-keeper) 

 who left this colony a short time ago, and is 

 now domiciled in the Malay Peninsula, right 

 where Apis dorsata abounds. I have just 

 shipped him four colonies of Italian bees, 

 with more to follow; and if he finds that 

 dorsata can be domesticated he will return 

 some colonies in those specially constructed 

 shipping-hives. The sample bottle that I send 

 you contains four Apis dorsata workers and 

 one Apis ligustica that I put in for the pur- 

 pose of comparing sizes. My correspondent 

 thinks they can be domesticated, and I here- 

 with quote a little from his letter, which I 

 think will be of interest to you: 



I return by this mail your mailing-bottle, with 

 samples of native bees here; but I am not qualified to 

 say whether they are Apis dorsata or not. I think 

 they can be domesticated, but it is very difficult to 

 get them. I have already expended about $9.60 



hunting after them and paying natives to allow me to 

 take them from trees near their houses; but when I 

 return with ladders, etc., to take them, I find that 

 they have been smoked away with torches on long 

 poles. Whettier this is done for the honey or through 

 some snperstition I can not saw As these bees attach 

 their combs to top branches of very high trees (prob- 

 ably because they are hunted so much by Malays), 

 and generally to very thick branches, it is no easy job 

 for one man (I know of no other man here, either 

 European or Asiatic, who will go near bees) to get up 

 so high and cut the branch and lower it, and then 

 carry it h">me; however I hope to succeed if I can find 

 them on accessible branches. I would cut the branch 

 the same length as a top bar if possible, or of a length 

 that would fit some box, and then fix a cover about 

 a foot above the box, and gradually lower it after 

 about a week, leaving an entrance above as well as 

 below for a time; then I would put a frame with a 

 starter on each side of the bees. 



There is a smaller bee here, something like a dwarf- 

 ed Italian, but it is said to be not a very good honey- 

 gatherer. 



Now, friend Root, I should like to have you 

 examine these bees minutely, or pass them on 

 to some expert so that the relative length of 

 the tongues of these and Apis mellifica might 

 be ascertained. According to some measure- 

 ments made by Mr. F. W. L. Sladen, of Ripple 

 Court, England, and reported in Gleanings, 

 1897, page 487, the tongue of Apis dorsata is 

 scarcely any longer than that of our ordinary 

 bee ; and if such is really the case it might not 

 be advisable to introduce them, even if they 

 could be domesticated and their migratory in- 

 stinct overcome. To my unaided eye, how- 

 ever, their tongues seem much longer than 

 those of our common bees. 



As soon as I learn something definite re- 

 garding the value of these bees from a com- 

 mercial standpoint I will write you further ; 

 and I also trust that I shall then be in a posi- 

 tion to scoop that twenty-five-dollar bill. 



Goodna, Aus., May 6. 



[All right, friend Jones. If you bee-keep- 

 ers of the southern hemisphere succeed in 

 getting dorsata into civilized beedom before 

 we do, we shall rejoice with you, and at the 

 same time have the satisfaction of knowing 

 that, if they have bad traits, you will pay for 

 the experiment and we will get the benefit of 

 it. However, if we can get them before you 

 do we will take our chances. 



I have just been comparing the specimens 

 of dorsata sent by you, and those sent by Mr. 

 W. E. Rambo, of India. Those from the 

 latter look much like very large five and six 

 banded Italian bees; while those you send 

 have less yellow on them, are somewhat of a 

 bluish cast, and are, I should judge, slightly 

 smaller. They are evidently dorsata, however, 

 but may be a different variety, just as we have 

 varieties among the Apis mellifica. 



With regard to the tongues of the dorsata, 

 bees, as soon as placed in alcohol, have a 

 fashion of pushing out their tongues to their 

 fullest length ; and it is evideut that the 

 specimens of dorsata sent us did that very 

 thing. I may be mistaken, but their tongues 

 do not appear to be any longer than those I 

 have seen on red-clover Italians. 



Cheshire says something about the wonder- 

 ful harmony in nature; that the tongues of 

 bees are adapted to the length of the flower- 

 cells as we find them in the vegetable king- 

 dom. Is it possible that the tongues of the 



