242 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Aug. 3, 



tlir number of tliem on the outside of Commence with a few colonies. One 

 the hive. It you want to raise a great of these, at least, should have a pure 

 many queens. di\ ide one of your larg- Italian queen, and the combs in the 

 est colonies, and after 2 days put the ' 



sealed cells in the queenless part, de 

 straying the ones they have made, 

 then put the best queen and bees to- 

 gether again, and crowd her with bees, 

 and in a short time they will swarm 

 out again. By working in that way 

 you can rear a quantity of superior 

 queens from the best ones; make nu- 

 clei 2 days before putting in the choice 

 cells, and you will not have them torn 

 down as they Often are after 21 hours. 

 I have never lost one yet. 



Those who want to rear the best 

 queens should remember this: Never, 

 under any circumstances, keep any 

 cells but those I have described. You 

 may ask : Why not keep all of them ? 

 Because some of the queens reared af- 

 ter they have swarmed will he started 

 on larvae, and they will start more 

 cells than they can take thorough care 

 of. as they do of those made before 

 swarming. I have repeatedly tried 

 both, and the cells made after swarm- 

 ing were not as line as those reared 

 before, and the queens did not give as 

 vigorous and industrious workers. 

 They are not the best queens. 



We may just as well have all vigor- 

 ous, strong, healthy colonies that will 

 bring in good returns. As it is, many 

 keep nearly double the amount they 

 need, because so many are poor ones. 

 bringing in nothing. 'The main rea- 

 son why there are so many poor colo- 

 nies is, i doubt not, the large amount 

 of imperfect workers that the bees 

 worry to death, as they do the drones 

 at the same time, amounting, in some 

 colonies, to fully k of the workers. 

 You will not find such where your 

 best queens are. If you lind a colony 

 that is superseding their queen, give 

 them a good cell in the place of theirs, 

 or if out of season, and you want to 

 save the colony, mark it and give 

 them a good queen in the spring. Do 

 the same by any colony, which from 

 any cause rears a forced queen. It is 

 impossible to rear queens, allot' which 

 will give usworkers that are equally 

 vigorous and long-lived. Some queens 

 excel others in this respect. Of a 

 frame of bees all hatched the same 

 day, a few of them will live for days 

 longer than the great mass, showing 

 that some of the eggs are more highly 

 vitalized than others. 



In rearing a quantity of queens, we 

 will lind a few whose workers will 

 show a marked superiority over all 

 the others. Such queens are no doubt 

 from those more-vitalized eggs. Bv 

 taking all these precautions, it is pos"- 

 sible for us to rear queens and drones 

 from the best ones, and we are im- 

 proving our stock instead of having 

 to keep it up by fresh importations. 

 In this way we may soon have bees 

 superior to any imported ones. 



Los Gatos, Cal., July 5th, 1881. 



From the Farmer's Home Journal. 



Good Advice for Beginners. 



hive occupied by hershould be straight 

 and nice. Get a copy of Professor 

 Cook's Manual of the Apiary. I re- 

 commend this work, not because there 

 are not other good works on the sub- 

 ject, but because Cook's Manual is not 

 only a practical but a scientific work 

 as well. Subscribe for a bee paper, 

 and let that paper be the American 

 Bee Journal. If you can't afford to 

 take but one. let it be the best one. 

 With this small outfit you can make a 

 start. Read up the subject, learn to 

 handle your bees frequently, espe- 

 cially your fine gentle colony at the 

 start ; lift out the frames and learn to 

 "hunt up" the queen; show her to 

 your friends and neighbors when they 

 come to see you. Always keepa good 

 bellows bee-smoker at your side. 

 Never let your bees "boss - ' you ; avoid, 

 however, the mistake so common with 

 the inexperienced— deluging the bees 

 with smoke. Just give a little smoke 

 when they appear to rebel— just 

 enough to keep them quiet. 



If a bee is pinched by you and stings 

 you on the hand, remove the sting with 

 your thumb nail and suck the place be- 

 tween the lips, and don't halloo 

 "Ouch !" like an idiot, or be so reck- 

 less as to thrust the same hand back 

 among the bees immediately. The' 

 odor of the poison will be sure to be 

 taken as a signal for the fray, and 

 you will get more stings. A bee sting 

 is really nothing when one has just a 

 little philosophy in his composition. 

 I have a supreme contempt for the aw- 

 ful dread which most people seem to 

 delight to nurse and exhibit on all oc- 

 casions, when they hear the gentle 

 hum of the busy bee. I have seen edu- 

 cated (?) men, men sleek with knowl- 

 edge (?) bending under professional 

 cards and responsibilities, strike with 

 terrible energy at an inoffensive, tired 

 bee which, by chance, attempted in its 

 innocence to make a resting place on 

 the person of this wise (?) man. 



After the beginner has learned to 

 distinguish one from the other— the 

 worker cells, drone cells and queen 

 cells— and is able to trace the history 

 of the bee from the egg to the perfectly 

 developed bee, he can begin to rear 

 some queens, practice artificial swarm- 

 ing, introduce queens ; in short, make 

 his bees subservient to his will. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Fertilization in Confinement, etc. 



London Journal of Horticulture. 



Alteration of Sex in Eggs. 



A. PETTIGUEW. 



REV. L. L. LANOSTROTH. 



II. W. DEMAREE. 



'■ What advice would you give a be- 

 ginner in bee culture ?»' I propose to 

 devote this short article to the answer- 

 ing of this question. It can readily be 

 seen that in order to make the answer 

 satisfactory to all who may be inter- 

 ested in the culture of the honey bee, 



would be necessary for me to be in- 

 formed of the intentions and purposes 



of the beginners, so that I might tie 



able to make a proper application of 

 SUCh advice as I am able to offer. 

 Some of us keep bees solely for the 

 profits to be derived from the busi- 

 ness ; others simply for the purpose of 

 supplying their tables with the most 

 delicious of sweets; while there are an- 

 other class who keep bees principally 

 to gratify their love for the study of 

 their marvelous habits and natural 

 history. To the charge of belonging 

 to latter class I plead guilty ; though 



I have learned to try to make mvl s 



pay, as well as to gratify my inclina- 

 tions to pry into their matchless ways. 



The first advice I should offer would 

 be "make haste slowly" at the start. 



I have been engaged in a series of 

 experiments on fertilization in con- 

 finement, the results of which, if they 

 had proven favorable, I intended to 

 send to the Bee Journal. The ex- 

 treme heat has been against them, but 

 1 am afraid that we shall find nothing 

 reliable where the queens are not al- 

 lowed to liy at their will. 



With great regret I notice the poor 

 success which Mr. Benton has had in 

 his efforts to secure Apis, dorsata. I 

 have always hoped more from a cross 

 between this bee and some of ourbest 

 varieties than from the pure dorsata ; 

 and wish that Mr. Benton had been 

 able, when in its vicinity, to test the 

 feasibility of getting such a cross. A 

 few nuclei with virgin queens might 

 have given us the desired cross. As 

 the Cyprian bees have been intro- 

 duced into Ceylon, thanks to Messrs. 

 Jones and Benton, it will now be a 

 comparatively easy matter to see 

 whether the wild dorsata drones will 

 mate with Cyprian queens. Mr. Ben- 

 ton's researches have shown some 

 strong points in its favor,- and that its 

 ferocity is by no means to be dreaded. 



I thank you for your kind notice of 

 my remarks on grape sugar and glu- 

 cose. When we have proof that these 

 articles can be made pine and are sold 

 at prices which will lower the cost of 

 our commercial sweets, and when sold 

 under their own names they are sought 

 by the general public, then may those 

 who manufacture them claim to be 

 engaged in a legitimate business. 



Oxford, O. I 



What more unlikely and wonderful 

 than this V What harder to believe 

 than the statement of fact that all the 

 eggs of queen bees are naturally and 

 originally male, many of which are 

 changed and become female in char- 

 acter in passing down the bodies of 

 the queens ? In the history of bees 

 many wonderful points strike the 

 thoughtful students. One of these is 

 the well-established fact that all eggs 

 in their origin are male and converti- 

 ble into the opposite sex. For nearly 

 40 years I believed that all eggs laid 

 by queen bees were alike, and convert- 

 ible by after treatment into queens, 

 drones, and workers. By a fair and 

 satisfactory experiment made in my 

 own garden I found that this was a 

 mistake ; that the notion was alto- 

 gether wrong ; and the eggs as they 

 fall from queens are either male or fe- 

 male and remain unchangeable in that 

 respect, but the eggs which are " fe- 

 malised " in character before they 

 are laid are convertible into either 

 queens or workers by after treatment 

 in their cells. It has been long known 

 that eggs meant for workers are 21 

 days in hatching, and which may be 

 placed in royal cells by the bees and 

 hatched as queens in 14 days. Though 

 the mystery of this change or trans- 

 formation in the cells is great it is not 

 a change of sex, for both queens and 

 workers are female, the one perfect 

 or fully developed,the other imperfect; 

 but whether the special after treat- 

 ment is applied to eggs in royal cells 

 or to those in worker cells is an un- 

 settled question. If the special treat- 

 ment be given solely to royal cells, if 

 the inmates are royally fed, we have 

 some reason to believe that the 

 treatment is meant to develop and 

 perfect young queens in every respect. 

 If the special treatment is applied to 

 the eggs in worker cells it will go so 

 far to prove that it tends to dwarf the 

 insects and interferes with their devel- 

 opment. The whole of this interest- 

 ing subject is clouded in mystery. 

 Everywhere we have evidence of de- 

 sign and wise arrangement, and see 

 cells provided for the cradling of 

 young queens, bees and drones, and 

 suitable, too, for acting as reservoirs 

 for honey. In considering the sub- 

 ject of treatment that the 3 kinds of 

 bees receive in their cells, it should 

 not be forgotten that queens are only 

 14 days in their cells, bees 21, and 

 drones 24. This subject, beset as it is 

 with difficulties, presents a wide and 

 interesting field for future investiga- 

 tion, as it is to be hoped that apiarian 

 students will turn their attention to it. 

 That " all eggs in the ovaries of 

 queen bees are naturally and origin- 

 ally male, and develop as males when 

 laid without being impregnated, but 

 are changed to female if impregnated 

 before being laid," is a statement of 

 Baron Berlepsch, the truth of. which 

 has been illustrated and confirmed by 

 extensive experiments and well-es- 

 tablished facts. Notice first that un- 

 mated queens are not unfertile, they 

 lay male eggs. Some queens are 

 hatched with defective wings and 

 cannot fly, and, as queens are mated 

 outside their hives, those that cannot 

 fly remain virgin. Many queens per- 

 fect and able to fly remain so by mis- 

 fortune or inclement weather. Many of 

 these queens lay eggs which are capa- 

 ble of hatching into drones only. 

 Such queens are drone-breeders. 



Now notice that queens mated in 

 early life are capable of laying both 

 male and female eggs. Those who 

 have investigated the subject say that 

 in the body of the queens there are 

 small sacs, by name, Bpermatheca, 

 which receive and retain for use the 

 sperm, that queens have the power of 

 using it at will, and that all eggs 

 touched by it in passing are changed 

 from male to female. This will ap- 

 pear to many students of nature tube 

 anomalous and extraordinary. As 

 queens live 4 years and are wonder- 

 fully prolific, the contents of their 



spermatheca are sometimes exhausted 

 before thev cease laying, or rather be 

 fore they die ; the eggs laid after the 

 spermatheca has been emptied remain 

 male and hatch into drones. Though 

 we have had many queens die of old 

 age, and have known many hives of 

 our own ben-It of their queens by age, 

 we have never known a mated queen 

 to become a drone-breeder merely in 

 in her old age. We have seen queens 

 by reason of old age totter and stag- 

 ger as they walked, others dethroned 

 and cast out of their hives in a state 

 of dotage, and one this year lost a 

 limb and could not walk on the com db, 

 hut fell to the board again and again. 

 All these continued to lay female eggs 

 till the very last. Other teachers. 

 among them Dzierzon, Berlepsch. ami 

 Woodbury, have had fertilized queens 

 that became simply drone breeders 

 and the statements of these able men 

 are trustworthy. 



If other proof be wanted to estab- 

 lish the statement that all eggs of 

 queens are naturally and originally 

 male, it will be found in the fact that 

 from the parents of different races, 

 say from Ligurian queens and com- 

 mon drones, we have no half-bred 

 males. Paternal influence does not 

 affect the direct male progeny ; in- 

 deed half-bred drones are an impos- . 

 sibility. While young queens and 

 working bees are decidedly cross-bred, 

 the direct male offspring share no in- 

 fluence but that of the mother. Let 

 me now call the reader's attention to 

 a nice point or distinction between the 

 words " half-bred " and" cross-bred," 

 also between " direct " male progeny 

 and " indirect." While drones have 

 no half-bred— that is to say, direct 

 male progeny there is the possibility, 

 nay, the liklihood of the second and 

 third generations catching up and 

 possessing some of the characteristics 

 of the grandfather. This is the idea 

 I wish to convey, that while drones 

 have no sons of their own they may 

 have daughters which may carry the 

 characteristics tofuture generations of 

 both male and female offspring. The 

 history of drone life is stranger than 

 fiction, and is perhaps without a par- 

 allel in natural history. 



Again, it is known that some work- 

 ers lay a few eggs which invariably 

 hatch into drones, and as workers are 

 imperfect females, incapable of fecun- 

 dation, these fertile workers lend some 

 small additional proof to support the 

 statement that all eggs of bees are 

 originally of a male character. 



1 his subject is fully discussed and 

 elucidated in a small pamphlet, by 

 the late Baron Berlepsch, called " The 

 Dzierzon Theory," On page 26 the 

 Baron says " that queens' eggs are 

 susceptible of development though 

 unimpregnated, but masculinity still 

 pre-exists therein, which, marvellous 

 indeed I is transformed into feminity 

 by impregnation with the male sperm. 

 I am anxious to attract the attention 

 of my readers to this portion of the 

 theory, for it is the most important of 

 all the propositions I have undertaken 

 to discuss. With its aid almost every- 

 thing relating to bee-culture becomes 

 intelligible ; without it hardly any- 

 thing is clear. He who does not fully 

 comprehend this point will grope in 

 the dark in all his operations, and be 

 constantly exposed to mistake and dis- 

 appointment." 

 London, England, June, 1881. 



Prize Essay of the Northeastern Convention. 



How to Winter Bees Successfully. 



Oil. DADANT. 



Bees are altogether different from most 

 ot the other insects, in this respect, that 

 instead of becoming torpid in winter, they 

 remain active. Although a .tone bee is 

 killed in less than 48 hours, in a tempera- 

 ture under 40 degrees, yet bees live unit 

 prosper in the coldest regions. Their 

 gathering in numerous families helps 



