476 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



MayI 



old queen in No. 1 is removed and a young 

 queen just beginning to lay introduced. In 

 a few days, when eggs are found deposited 

 in the brood-cells, No. 1 is put back on the 

 old stand, and the super is replaced, the 

 frame of brood in No. 2 is removed, the bees 

 left in the hive given a jolt and a smoke, 

 and deposited at the entrance of No. 1. 

 Should the bees be vicious I take a sheet of 

 newspaper, punch a few air-holes, take off 

 the cover on the super of No. 1, spreading 

 the paper in place; put on hive-body No. 2 

 with its bees, and place the cover. The 

 bees eat their way through the paper and 

 find the way to the brood below, and the 

 queen is not disturbed. 



Last spring I tried another scheme, and 

 am going to try the method again at some 

 future time. 



When the bees were ready for the extract- 

 ing-super a frame of brood was taken from 

 below, placed in the super with a started 

 queen-cell. A zinc honey-board was put 

 between. In due time the young queen 

 hatched; but if the old queen is not a valu- 

 able one the zinc is pulled out. From nearly 

 sixty stands, over eighty per cent of the old 

 queens were dead in front of hives within 

 forty-eight hours. 



As the season was a failure in honey- 

 production, I do not call this a fair test. I 

 had no swarming, and extracted this spring 

 over 700 pounds of honey after leaving the 

 supers on the hives all winter. 



I may mention the result of the remaining 

 hives in this test. In two cases the queen- 

 cells were torn down, and in the others the 

 young queens were balled. For the short 

 time consumed, this beats all the methods I 

 have ever tried. 



I pin all my faith on the young queen, 

 and, if given elbow room, she is not going 

 to leave her new and happy home. I think 

 locations and seasons, and perhaps tempera- 

 ture, may have a great influence on the out- 

 come of these methods. 



Sierra Madre, Cal., April 11. 



THE BIGELOW EDUCATIONAL BEE-HIVE. 



The Need of It. 



BY EDWARD F. BIGELOW. 



SIBBALD NON-SWARMING PLAN A FINE ONE. 



In regard to the article in the Review, by 

 Mr. Sibbald, and yours in Gleanings on 

 "Something that Promises Better than 

 Shook Swarming," I should like to state 

 that the plan is a fine one, but it is not nec- 

 essary to wait for queen-cells to be started, 

 but all strong colonies can be treated thus 

 at the beginning of the main honey- flow; 

 and, further, when you move the old colony 

 to one side, turn it with the entrance in the 

 oj)posite direction for a day or two, as this 

 will keep the field bees from going into the 

 old colony where their queen is, and this is 

 a very important part of the operation. 



D. R. Keyes. 



Montgomery, Ala., Apr. 4. 



[Your last suggestion I believe to be in- 

 deed important. Let all those who try the 

 plan take note. —Ed.] 



Insect Study— Bees in Particular.— \t is 

 in the world of insects, vast and varied, its 

 members innumerable, beautiful, and almost 

 miraculous in transformation, that the natu- 

 ralist revels. The entomologist proclaims 

 the attractions of his favorite pursuit as 

 does no other naturalist, and no other dis- 

 putes his claim. The most exuberant lan- 

 guage fails to do full justice to the subject. 

 Kirby and Spence, years ago, wrote as fol- 

 lows: 



" Were a naturalist to announce to the world the dis- 

 covery of an animal which, for the first five years of its 

 life, existed in the form of a serpent; which then, pene- 

 trating into the earth and weaving a shroud of purest 

 silk of the finest texture, contracted itself within this 

 covering into a body without external mouth or limbs, 

 and resembHng more than any thing else an Egyptian 

 mummy ; and which, lastly, after remaining in this 

 state without food and without motion for three years 

 longer, should, at the end of that period, burst its silken 

 garment, struggle through its earthy covering, and 

 start into day a winged bird— what, think you. would 

 be the sensation excited by this strange piece of intelli- 

 gence? After the first doubts of its truth were dis- 

 pelled, what astonishment would succeed! 



" But you ask, ' To what do all these improbable sup- 

 positions tend? ' Simply to arouse your attention to the 

 metamorphoses or transformations of the insect world, 

 almost as strange and surprising, to which I am now 

 about to direct your view — miracles which, though 

 scarcely surpassed in singularity by all that poets have 

 feigned, and, though actually wrought every day be- 

 neath our eyes, are unheeded alike by the ignorant and 

 the learned because of their commonness and the mi- 

 nuteness of the transforming objects." 



All this, bear in mind, is in praise of what 

 is already known. Of the charm of discov- 

 ering these facts, the entomologist James 

 Rennie wrote: 



It can never be too strongly impressed upon a mind 

 anxious for the acquisition of knowledge, that the com- 

 monest things by which we are surrounded are deserv- 

 ing of minute and careful attention. 



If it be granted that making discoveries is one of the 

 most satisfactory of human pleasures, then we may af- 

 firm without hesitation that the study of insects is one 

 of the most delightful branches of natural history, for 

 it affords peculiar facilities for its pursuit. 



"If you speak of a stone," says St. Basil, one of the 

 Fathers of the church, " if you speak of a fly, a gnat, or 

 a bee, your conversation will be a sort of demonstration 

 of the power of Him whose hand formed them, for the 

 wisdom of the workman is commonly perceived in that 

 which is of little size. He who stretched out the heav- 

 ens and dug up the bottom of the sea is also He who has 

 pierced a passage through the sting of a bee for the 

 ejection of its poi.son." 



This very large order of animal life, Pro- 

 fessro L. O. Howard states, "comprises 

 nearly 30,000 described species ; but the 

 enormous number of undescribed species 

 . . . would probably swell this number 

 to more than 300,000." 



Of this vast number of insects, the one 

 pre-eminent in human interest is probably 

 the honey-bee. Says Morely, "Both ends 

 of the honey-bee have always been of singu- 

 lar interest to us, and this for exactly oppo- 

 site reasons. It is a double-ender— one end 

 the friend, the other the enemy of man." 



This supreme interest in the bee. Prof. 

 John Comstock expresses less humorously 

 but no less truthfully when he says: 



