GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15 



authorities; for you will remember he says 

 that the time of incubation, if I may use 

 the term, depends on conditions, for he 

 found there were some variations, and that 

 those variations were due to certain condi- 

 tions.— Ed.] 



Mr. Wm. .M Whitney makes a good 

 fight against priority rights, page 847. Far 

 enough back it would probably have been 

 objected that no one had exclusive right to 

 land; yet it has come about that a good bit 

 of land is now exclusive property, and prior 

 occupation has figured no little in deciding 

 possession. If the greatest good to the 

 greatest number is to be considered, should 

 there not be some way by which a bee-keep- 

 er could feel as secure as a stock-raiser in 

 occupying a certain territory, so that the 

 public could be sure that the nectar should 

 not go to waste? What inducement is there 

 for you, friend Whitney, to invest money in 

 a plant if you know that next year there is 

 a likelihood that a similar plant will be lo- 

 cated on each of the four sides about you. 

 so that little nectar will be left for you? I 

 wonder now if you and I couldn't make some 

 such compromise as this: Let government 

 take possession of all the bee territory, just 

 as it did of the land, and by some equitable 

 means dispose of it so that bee-keeping may 

 be a stable business without making any ap- 

 peal to priority rights. Or have you some- 

 thing better to propose? 



A California correspondent ordered a 

 queen, and says, "The queen arrived Sun- 

 day evening. I called Monday evening, and 

 the ants had eaten queen and bees Sunday 

 night. Now, is the postmaster responsible 

 for the loss of the queen? " That's a ques- 

 tion in law rather than bee-keeping: If the 

 postmaster were in the habit of receiving 

 mail matter liable to attack from ants, 

 which he took care to protect from them, 

 and neglected that care in this case, he 

 ought to be willing to stand the loss. If he 

 knew nothing of the danger, he was not to 

 blame. The editor knows more law than 

 this scribbler. What does he say? [Uncle 

 Sam. in consideration of the low rate at 

 which he transmits ordinary mail matter, 

 does not guarantee safe arrival, nor indem- 

 nity against injury, unless the package is 

 registered, and even then the indemnity is 

 limited to $25. In the case under considera- 

 tion, no recovery could be secured, in my 

 opinion, even if the queen had been register- 

 ed. The average queen-breeder guarantees 

 safe arrival so that the loss in this case 

 would fall on the breeder and no one else. 

 Neither Uncle Sam nor his oflicials are sup- 

 posed to know any thing about queen-bees. 

 That they are admitted into the mails at all, 

 breeder and consignee taking their own 

 chances, is as much as we can expect. —Ed.] 



When a colony is made queenless, "the 

 bees at the start take larvte of the right 

 age, but later on keep on budding cells for 

 larvse that are too old," says the editor, p. 

 835. Exactly what they do here, and exact- 

 ly what I've said. What I've been trying 



to squelch, ar.d what has been upheld by 

 some good nien, is the libel on the good sense 

 of the bees, which says, "When a colony is 

 made queenless the bees are in such haste to 

 rear a successor that they select larvae too 

 old for good queens. ' ' I have never hinted 

 that they would not use too old larvae 

 when no better were to be had, and I have 

 stated as a trouble with the Alley plan, that, 

 when the bees did not at the start use all 

 the material given, they would later on start 

 cells when the larv^ were too old. The 

 question is, "Will the bees, of choice, select 

 too old larvae?" not, "Will they use too old 

 larvce when nothing better is to be had?" 

 If it were not asking too much, I'd like to 

 have you try this experiment: Unqueen a 

 colony, and, five days later, give it a fi'ame 

 of young brood, and see if further cells are 

 started on the old brood. But I know a 

 trick worth two of that, which I have used 

 successfully right straight along. Keep 

 your breeding queen in a nucleus with one 

 or two frames of brood, and bees enough to 

 cover as many more. Give successively 

 frames with slight starters, and, when near- 

 ly built out, or more than half built out, and 

 filled by the queen, take and give to a colony 

 from which one comb with the queen has 

 just been removed. You know the prefer- 

 ence the bees have for cell-building on new 

 soft comb, so the cells will be nearly all 

 started on this new comb — scarcely a cell 

 on any other — I had 40 cells started on one 

 such comb. Now, I can't tell you why, but 

 the important point in the case is that the 

 bees do all their starting at the beginning, 

 and no cells are started when young larvae 

 are no longer present. Possibly the explan- 

 ation is this: The bees find this beautiful 

 soft comb so much to their taste, so easy to 

 handle for cell-building, that they start at 

 once all the cells they desire, and have no 

 wish to start any later. Is there any proof 

 that bees, of choice, select larvse too old when 

 younger larvse are present? [These ques- 

 tions will be referred to our men in the bee- 

 yard, with instructions to carry out the ex- 

 periment and report in Gleanings.— Ed.] 



'■' By 



5) 



The use of javelle water in case of sting- 

 ing is recommended by several French jour- 

 nals. One editor says the objection to out- 

 ward applications is that the remedy can not 

 be applied to the virus itself, which is un- 

 der the skin; and yet he says this remedy 

 seems to be an exception in his experience. 

 Javelle water is a chlorinated solution of 

 potash, and can be obtained, doubtless, at 

 any drugstore very cheaply. It is a power- 



