1881 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



77 



agaiu. I do not think the paper will injure the rolls 

 it It is very thin and properly put on. 



WINTEKING. 



I have four ventilators to my cellar, and by means 

 of them I can keep the temperature very even, not 

 varying more than three or four degrees all winter. 

 I believe it is \"ery important to keep bees quiet 

 while they are in winter-quarters, and for that rea- 

 son I place my hives on racks which do not touch 

 any partition, but stand on a stone tloor, so that 

 nothing short of an earthquake can jar the hives. 



E. A. Thomas. 



Colerain, Franklin Co., Mass., Jan. 1, 1881. 



PROGRESS. 



BJ' SUSPECT that we are just on the point of mak- 

 I ing one more good stride ahead in our knowl- 

 ' edge of bee nature. The word is given almost 

 simultaneously from Minaesota and Florida, by 

 friend White in December Gleanings (p. 598), and 

 friend Boutelle, in December No. of the Bee Jimrnal. 

 I read the latter's article first, and had a quiet 

 "guffaw" over it. Pretty soon I quit laughing, and 

 came down to sober second thought. Why not? If 

 we may be allowed to assume one fact not yet pro- 

 ven (but not at all unreasonable), there is nothing to 

 hinder the rearing of drones from worker eggs to 

 any extent the bees desire. A bee's egg as first 

 formed has in it a germ that, upon being developed, 

 becomes a male bee. If the egg is deposited in this 

 condition, we call it a drone egg. The addition of a 

 spermatic particle while the egg is being laid pro- 

 duces a worker egg. A worker egg contains two 

 germs. It is not at all probable that the original 

 germ is annihilated or killed by the spermatic par- 

 ticle. It is simply set on a back seat by a new and 

 more vigorous power. It fares just as the lieuten- 

 ant of a military company does when the captain 

 arrives. If the cgptain is killid, the lieutenant re- 

 sumes command. Suppose, now, that a worker egg 

 with its two germs be left uncared for for an indefi- 

 nite period. Sooner or later, both germs would die, 

 and the egg become a mere bit of inert matter. 

 Germs of such different origin and character may 

 differ greatly in their powers of endurance. If the 

 oriuinal germ is capable of living a few hours the long- 

 er, a drone may be hatched from it as soon as the sixr- 

 matic particle dies. Consider further. There is a 

 good reason why the spermatic particle should per- 

 ish first. Exertion is exhaustive in its nature; and 

 the spermatic particle, as seen by the microscope, is 

 continually making spasmodic motions— like a little 

 live poUywog. The germ of the drone egg has nev- 

 er been detected by the microscope, but it probably 

 does not keep up such an expenditure of force. 



In your reply to friend White, you unconsciously 

 offer further evidence. You remark, "It is not un- 

 frequent to find a queen that suddenly, as it were, 

 lays quite a patch of drone eggs in worker cells, and 

 this, too, at a season when drones are not needed." 

 That the eggs in such cells were laid as drone eggs, 

 l8, of course, an assumption. It is more probable 

 that they were laid as worker eggs, and became 

 drone eggs by neglect. When brood-rearing is on 

 the decline, eggs are often neglected, if I mistake 

 not; but a sudden betterment of prospects, as a 

 fresh run of honey, makes the bees desire more 

 brood, and causes them to care for and hatch eggs 

 which they had previously resolved to have nothing 



to do with. The drone patches, according to this 

 theory, are patches that were neglected just a little 

 too long. 



For the benefit of those who desire to follow up 

 this matter, I would suggest a simple way of testing 

 it. Pour a little thin honey into the lamp nursery 

 (in order that the air inside may be moist enough 

 not to dry the eggs), and put in a frame containing 

 only worker eggs. Remove the queen from a good 

 colony until they become rather eager for brood. 

 Give them this frame just before the time when 

 eggs might be expected to perish. If the eggs 

 hatch, and prove workers, try again with some six 

 hours older, and so on until drones result, or until 

 the point is reached when eggs can no longer be 

 hatched at all. The whole could be done at one 

 trial by inserting an inch or two of comb with fresh 

 eggs into the frame every six hours, until enough 

 time was covered. 



SOVEREIGNS BORN, VS. SOVEREIGNS MADE. 



It is just possible that friend Klar (page o9T, of 

 1880), has shown us, as he says, another step for- 

 ward, and a still more important one. His fact is, 

 that a queen of very remarkably good qualities was 

 known to be hatched from a worker cell. I agree 

 with you, that the mere position of the larva is not 

 likely to signify much; but that is not the point, 

 necessarily. The true question I take to be this: 

 Is this rearing of queens in woi'ker cells a mere 

 freak of the nurse bees (if so, a trivial matter), or is 

 it a remarkable outburst of the reproductive pow- 

 ers of nature? It is imaginable that, on rare occa- 

 sions, a larva might have, by birth, such tendency 

 to become a perfect female, such irrepressible royal 

 vim, as to commence developing without any special 

 treatment. As soon as the delicate senses of the 

 bees could detect the royal odor they would natu- 

 rally give it some royal jelly, and rim out the cell as 

 described. The position would be an unimportant 

 matter, the late feeding and cramped quarters some- 

 what injurious; but such innate gifts and vigor as 

 would show themselves by refusing to be repressed 

 might well outweigh, by a hundred fold, all the un- 

 toward circumstances. It certainly is not asking 

 too much of us to ask us to keep watch for these cu- 

 rious queen-cells, and save enough of them to ascer- 

 tain what sort of queens they do produce. 



DIPPED FOUNDATION. 



It certainly looks as if the grand desideratum was 

 on the door-step just stepping in— a simple, cheap, 

 durable, workable, and buyable contrivance, with 

 which anybody with ordinary "gumption" can work 

 up a half-dozen pounds of wax all clean, and do it 

 well. To sell us, each one, a pair of dipping plates, 

 at three dollars, will be a better business than sell- 

 ing a roll mill to one in a hundred of us, will it not, 

 eh? When we get just the right Idea about temper- 

 ature and manipulation and the rest, I believe foun- 

 dation can be made with a pair of cast-type metal 

 plates, if they are perfectly true and smooth. My 

 first essay, if I could get around to the experiment, 

 would be to use the plates warm, dip in the style 

 friend Bonham does his plaster ones, and conduct 

 the whole operation in a large muffler box, into 

 which the operator could thrust his arms, and view 

 operations through a pane of glass, the air inside 

 being kept nearly up to the melting point of wax. 



THE CLO^TIRS. 



Artemas Ward always had to have something in 

 every letter about his "kangaroo." Clover is my 



