1240 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1 



wished to secure more of her stock) I com- 

 menced feeding the colony sparingly, each 

 night, good extracted honey. In the course 

 of ten days there was a marked improve- 

 ment in the appearance of the queen. She 

 assumed the bright orange color, and looked 

 as fresh and plump as the year before; and 

 in a short time the drone brood disappeared 

 from the worker-cells entirely, and soon 

 seven frames of a nine-frame hive were 

 largely filled with worker brood. On the 

 20th of June she was again removed to an 

 observatory hive in which I wished to ex- 

 hibit her at our midsummer fair. By the 

 way, I took a first prize. On the 27th I 

 made four nuclei from the frames left with 

 their queen-cells, which are now strong col- 

 onies. 



After the fair I removed her with her 

 bees to an ordinary nine-frame hive with 

 double walls, which she with a fairly popu- 

 lous colony now occupies; but I notice that 

 she has begun drone-egg laying in worker- 

 cells again, which indicates the end of her 

 days. I expect to transfer the pet colony 

 which I have kept in my room all summer 

 to the second story of this hive, leaving the 

 old queen in the first while she lives. She 

 has given me most excellent service; yet 

 I've not made the most of it so far as in- 

 creasing her stock is concerned, as she has 

 been treated (until this season) like any oth- 

 er queen in the yard. Her bees have been 

 very gentle, beautiful, and great hustlers. 



But the thing I wished to call attention to 

 particularly in this article is the fact that 

 careful feeding in the spring with good hon- 

 ey, instead of sugar syrup, produced such 

 wonderful results by changing a drone-lay- 

 ing queen to as good a worker queen as 

 there was in the yard. Take notice, there 

 was plenty of capped sugar-syrup stores in 

 the hive when I began feeding. Now, it 

 may be that, if sugar syrup could be taken 

 by the bees as nectar is, and retained long 

 enough to become converted into grape su- 

 gar before being deposited in the comb, it 

 might be as good food for Ibees to winter on 

 as honey; but when taken in the hive, as is 

 the case in feeding, and being immediately 

 deposited in the comb, I do not believe it 

 compares with honey produced in the ordi- 

 nary way, for feeding bees. I believe that 

 extracted honey at $7.00 a hundred is cheap- 

 er to feed than the best granulated sugar at 

 $6.00 a hundred, which is less than I can buy 

 it at any of the groceries in this place at the 

 present time. 



Again, why does careful feeding cause a 

 drone-laying queen, apparently sterile, to 

 become one of the best worker-laying 

 queens? I have a theory regarding the 

 cause of this change, but want to hear from 

 some of the big fellows on this matter. The 

 result was so wonderful to me that it seem- 

 ed to open up the question of the cause of 

 the production of drones and workers. 



DO BEES IN FLIGHT NOTICE NOISES? 



There is another matter which I wish to 

 mention, that appeared as startling to me 



when I discovered it. A few days ago I set 

 about cleaning up some odds and ends in the 

 honey-house; in doing so I extracted honey 

 from partly filled sections. The extractor 

 stands near the door in one corner, a screen 

 door opening inward, and an outside door 

 opening outward— the last at this time stand- 

 ing ajar. Bees were flying in front of the 

 screen, seeking an entrance into the house. 

 The wooden handle on the crank of the sep- 

 arator is loose, and, when rapid motion is 

 obtained, it makes a shrill screeching sound. 

 When this noise was produced, the majority 

 of the bees backed up and lit on the outside 

 door. As the extractor slowed up and the 

 noise ceased, the buzzing in front of the 

 screen commenced again. This experiment 

 was repeated several times with the same 

 result. Will some one explain this phenom- 

 enon? May it not be that the present ad- 

 vance beekeepers are a little " previous " 

 in laughing at those who have been in the 

 habit of blowing horns, ringing bells, and 

 drumming on tin pans to cause swarming 

 bees to cluster? May it not be that there are 

 certain lengths of sound-waves which have a 

 marked effect upon the auditory nerves of 

 bees, that others do not? I think it a rec- 

 ognized scientific fact that certain lengths 

 of waves are recognized by some forms of 

 hearing organs, but not by others. Will 

 some entomologist or physiologist, or any- 

 body else who knows any thing about such 

 matters, tell us what he thinks about it? 

 Lake Geneva, Wis., Oct. 21. 



THE GOVERNMENT DISTRIBUTION OF 

 QUEENS. 



Conditions under which such Queens may be 

 Obtained. 



United States Department of Agriculture, ' 



Bureau of Apiculture, 



Washington, D. C. 



Dear Mr. Root: 

 which outlines a 

 is to be followed 

 ogy in the future, 

 are at liberty to 

 as it may be of 

 readers. 



Acting 



— I inclose a circular letter 

 plan of distribution which 

 by the Bureau of Entomol- 

 If you wish to do so, you 

 publish it in your journal, 

 interest to some of your 



E. F. Phillips, 

 in Charge of Apiculture. 



[The circular in question is as follows:] 



It has been customary in the past for the 

 Bureau of Entomology to distribute a limit- 

 ed number of queen-bees of the more rare 

 varieties to bee-keepers. This distribution 

 is not intended to be general, since that 

 would be impossible; and, to prevent misun- 

 derstanding, the following method, to be 

 used in all future distributions, is announc- 

 ed: 



It is desired that some of the less common 

 varieties which have proven so good may 

 become more widely known among the bee- 

 keepers of the country, to take the place, in 

 as far as possible, of the common black 



