666 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15 



"Well, I did not know that there was any 

 easy way of telling the truth in this matter. 

 How is it done ?" 



"Before the advent of the Italian bee it 

 was not so easy; but with any two distinct 

 races, like the Germans and the Italians, 

 the matter is quite simple. Take a colony 

 of black or German bees, for instance, and 

 about the tenth of June take their queen 

 away and introduce an Italian queen, keep- 

 ing record of the date on which the change 

 was made. In 21 days the last black bee 

 will have emerged from its cell; and if the 

 Italian quetn went to laying immediately, 

 the first yellow bee will have made its ap- 

 pearance, the time of the appearance of the 

 first Italian bee being jotted down also." 



"Ah ! I begin to see now. I had not 

 thought that the color of the bees would 

 help in this matter. Go on." 



"If your experience is any thing like what 

 I have had when conducting these experi- 

 ments you will find that, approximately, 

 which in this case means not varying more 

 than a few hours to a day or two, at the 

 end of 45 days from the time the last black 

 bee emerged from its cell, no black bees will 

 be found in that colony. At 40 days, plenty 

 of black bees can be seen, they becoming 

 less and less each day. so that, on the 44th 

 day, there will be very few indeed left, 

 nearly all being of the yellow race. Re- 

 member this is for the summer months, or 

 during the working season, and does not 

 apply at all to the winter." 



" How is that ?" 



"The life of the bee depends on the work 

 it does. Thus when it labors the most its 

 life is the shortest. Hence it comes about 

 that, through the inactivity induced by cold 

 weather, the bee can live from seven to eight 

 months," 



"That is getting down to a pretty fine 

 thing. How do you tell that?" 



"This is proved on the same principle as 

 the other— simply by changing the queen as 

 before, only it is done this time from the 

 first to the middle of September. About the 

 first of October the last blaqjc bee will have 

 emerged from its cell. Eight months would 

 carry us to about June first, and at this 

 time there are generally only Italian bees in 

 such a colony, although I have known a few 

 black bees to live as late as June 15th to 

 20th, where a colony had been so treated." 



" Well, that is an interesting experiment, 

 surely, and proves that what I have been 

 told was only a guess." 



"Yes, all of these experiments have been 

 very interesting to me, as well as proving 

 the things which I wished to know. And 

 there was another very interesting part to 

 this last experiment, which was this: When 

 spring comes, or about April first, in this 

 locality, there would be very few yellow 

 bees in such a colony, which told me that 

 very little brood was reared from October 

 until April, as well as telling me that more 

 bees die in two months in the spring, from 

 April 1st to June 1st. than all that die during 

 the six months from October 1st to April 



1st, or the six months of winter. And for 

 this reason all possible precaution should be 

 taken to preserve the life of those old bees 

 during spring, so that they do not die off 

 too suddenly, or have what is known as 

 spring dwindling, before the brood has 

 emerged from the cells in suflScient num- 

 bers to keep the colony in a prosperous con- 

 dition. " 



' ' Well, surely, there is lots to these things 

 which I had not thought possible for us to 

 tell, and I hope to profit more in future by 

 way of experimenting in different things 

 pertaining to the bees. But how about the 

 life of the drone ?" 



' ' That is not so easily told, for his life is 

 regulated very largely by the whims of the 

 workers, for drones are usually killed, or 

 driven off by the workers, long before they 

 would die a natural death from old age." 



"I have noticed the bees driving them out, 

 and had often wondered why they did it." 



" Any sudden cessation in the flow of nec- 

 tar from the fields is often considered suffi- 

 cient reason for the driving off or killing of 

 drones; but most apiarists think the drones 

 would live to about the same length of life 

 as is attained by the workers; but from a 

 close observation of those which I have tried 

 to preserve in queenless colonies for the 

 late fertilization of queens during the fall 

 months, I am of the opinion that they are of 

 a little shorter life, for it has been a rare 

 thing to find one out of a certain lot kept, 

 after the lapse of forty days from the time 

 of their emerging." 



' ' Then you would put the life of the drone 

 as about forty days ?" 



"I should be that way inclined; but a 

 queenless colony is not a colony in a normal 

 condition, and drones kept in such colonies 

 might wear out faster than in a normal col- 

 ony, if such a one would not think of driv- 

 ing them off." 



"That looks reasonable, and I should like 

 to talk on this matter further; but I see the 

 time is nearly up when I must be going, and 

 I want to know about the life of the queen 

 first." 



"The average life of the queen is about 

 three years, although some have been known 

 to live nearly six years. A man who once 

 purchased a queen from my apiary told me 

 she lived to be five years and five months 

 old; and I had one which I purchased of The 

 A. I. Root Company that lived to be five 

 years and nearly four months, she doing 

 good work up to the last month she lived." 



"That is ahead of aftiy thing I ever 

 thought of. I have been told that it was 

 better not to keep queens that were over 

 two years old." 



' ' There is no question but that a queen 

 reared during July, August, or September 

 of any year will do as good work the follow- 

 ing summer as she ever will; but it is a 

 question whether it will be a paying under- 

 taking to remove the queens in the apiary at 

 the end of the second year or summer's work, 

 and replace them with young queens." 



" What do you do in this matter ?" 



