258 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Aug. 17, 



n.r the American Bee Journal. 



The Rearing and Mating of Queens. 



G. W. DKMAREE. 



This subject will never grow old and 

 tiresome as long as there is room for 

 improvement. I have read with much 



interest the several articles that have 

 appeared- in the Journal from time 

 to time, giving the methods and expe- 

 rience of the writers, touching this 

 subject. To rear good queens we are 

 told that we must select our colony to 

 rear our queens from, and another to 

 furnish the drones to fertilize them, 

 and we are reailv for business. This 

 looks quite business-like, and. doubt- 

 less, would answer well enough if the 

 apiarist resided in some secluded spot, 

 where the wing of the honey bee had 

 never fanned the air. To say that 

 there are no " black bees in the vicin- 

 ity " does not quite cover the grounds. 

 There are hybrids in every vicinity 

 where both races have existed. Though 

 the black race may long since have 

 been banished, they have left their 

 blood behind. 



With just one colony to furnish 

 drones, their being other drones in 

 the vicinity, the apiarist could just as 

 reasonably expect his queens to be 

 struck by lightning as to expect them 

 to mate, with certainty, with the few 

 drones that his one colony furnishes. 

 Of course such proceedings would an- 

 swer better very early in the spring 

 and late in the fall, when there are 

 few drones in existence. 



Mr. A. I. Root tells us that he has 

 had queens mated at a time when he 

 could see no drones, and I have seen 

 something very nearly like it myself. 

 If I wanted queens to breed from I 

 would not give much for them after 

 they had taken such a fearful chance 

 for purely mating, unless 1 could thor- 

 oughly test them myself, both as to 

 their worker and queen posterity. At 

 the risk of being charged with heresy, 

 I avail myself of this opening to say 

 that careful experiment has convinced 

 me that there are not a few queens 

 whose worker posterity are " well- 

 marked " that, nevertheless, bear hy- 

 brid royal daughters. Hence, if our 

 object is to rear pure queens and 

 bees, we must be on the continual 

 watch for taint of blood. Years ago 

 I introduced, in the vicinity in which 

 I reside, the Italian bees. They were 

 a great curiosity in those days. I set 

 them up somewhat remote from other 

 bees, and in my innocence of bee 

 knowledge pertaining to the habits of 



?ueens in their mating season (though 

 knew something of bees in other re- 

 spects). I expected lo build up an Ital- 

 ian apiary without any difficulty. I 

 went to work to rear queens, and why 

 should 1 not succeed V I had a line lot 

 Of drones issuing from 1 or 2 colonies 

 every day, and was as well off in this 

 respect as those breeders who " select 

 one colony" to produce their drones. 

 Well do i remember my disappoint- 

 ment and disgust when I watched for 

 the first hatching bees of my young 

 queens to find them all hybrids. I 

 concluded that a lottery ticket was 

 about as reliable as a purely mated 

 queen, under thecircumstances. Nev- 

 ertheless, I learned something in the 



meantime, and changed my tactics. I 

 paid no further attention to the mat- 

 ing of 1 1 nee us. but gave all my atten- 

 tion to pure queens and consequently 

 pure drones. Ami when the lime 

 came that I had pure drones Hying 

 from 15 Or 20 colonies, my labors be- 

 gan to be rewarded. My queens were 

 mated with pure drones, and it is now 

 no trouble lor me lo rear queens (hat 

 will bear the test of purity. 

 If any person will give the subject 



of mating of queens (lie lime and at- 

 tention necessary lo get a pretty fail- 

 idea of the habits of queens and 

 drones in their mating season, his 

 faith in "3" faint bands and purity of 

 blood generally will certainly undergo 



some diminution. A week ago I un- 

 dertook to watch (as 1 have Often clone) 

 a tine young queen, and see all that 

 could be seen in connection with her 

 wedding Might. I foundherto beacon; 

 summate flirt. Notwithstanding the 



air was ringing with the hum of thou- 

 sands of bustling drones, this queen 

 made 8 trips into the air, aggregating 

 about 711 minutes of time. < In her last 

 tour she was gone i~> minutes; her 

 bees became very restless, and I 

 ■trembled" for her safety, but she 

 gladdened the hearts ot the ushers at 

 the thresh hold by Haunting her wed- 

 ding certificate as she entered the 

 "queen's palace." 

 Christiausburg, Ky. 



From Psyche. 



Insect Life During Winter. 



PROF. A. .1. COOK. 



The condition of our vertebrate an- 

 imals in winter, and also the functional 

 condition of their organs, have been 

 well studied and are pretty well un- 

 derstood. That most of them require 

 more carbonaceous food at this season, 

 as this ministers to the special kind 

 of nutrition which supplies animal 

 heat, is a well recognized fact. It has 

 longbeen known that some vertebrates 

 hibernate, in which state they respire 

 very slowly, and so are able to live 

 even though the heart does circulate 

 unoxidized blood. 



The functional activity of the or- 

 gans in this case is reduced to the 

 minimum, and so nutrition is almost 

 abated, and jio food is required other 

 than that stored up in the adipose tis- 

 sue. But even though these animals 

 do live so slowly, with too severe and 

 long continued" cold they often lose 

 even this little vitality and perish. 



Physiologists have determined that 

 tissues and organs, whether in situ or 

 removed from .the body, will maintain 

 their vitality for a long time, and often 

 indefinitely, if kept in a cold atmos- 

 phere, though all functional activity 

 is for the time held in abeyance. I 

 myself have exposed hens' eggs, while 

 in the process of incubation, to a tem- 

 perature little above 0° C, until I had 

 good reason to believe that the hearts 

 of the embryo chicks had ceased to 

 beat. I then replaced the eggs under 

 the brooding hen, when with the re- 

 turn of heat came also a resumption 

 of development. Very likely the same 

 explanation may rightly account for 

 the retarded development in many 

 tadpoles that pass the winter in an 

 immature state. Most frogs develop 

 fully in summer, and pass the winter 

 in a mature state. Yet we not infre- 

 quently find tadpoles in mid-winter, 

 or large ones at the very dawn of 

 spring. 



If all animals have had a common 

 origin (andean any biologist doubt it?), 

 we may expect that the phenomena 

 observed among invertebrates will 

 closely resemble the peculiarities 

 which we note in our study of the 

 higher forms. 



The effects of cold to stay or retard 

 development among insects, though 

 perhaps not so long and closely studied 

 as have been the same influences as 

 they worked to modify development 

 among the vertebrates, will be found, 

 I feel quite sure, to act in a very simi- 

 ilar way. 



The winter of lN74-7-~> was one of the 

 most severe ever experienced in the 

 northern United States. In the month 

 of February of that year, the temper- 

 ature fell below' zero ot the Fahren- 

 heit scale (— 17.' S (',.), at Lansing. 

 Mich., twenty-one times. The mer- 

 cury showed— Hi) F. (—lis. ii 0.) on 

 8 different days, and- SO F. (34. 4 0.) 

 twice. Surely this was a good time to 

 study the effects of cold on insect life. 



The codling moth insect (t 'arpoeapsa 

 pnmrmdlu), as is well known, passes 

 the winter in the larval state, pro- 

 tected only by a slight silken cocoon, 

 and some bark scale, crevice, or simi- 

 lar covering. The spring following 

 the severe season just referred to I 

 found that nearly all these larva' that 

 had passed the winter out-doors about 

 the apple trees were dead, a circum- 

 stance 1 have never observed at any 

 other time. The fact that this mor- 

 tality was not due to parasites, that 

 there was no climatic peculiarity dur- 

 ing that winter other than the cold, 

 especially as the larva' in cellars and 



kitchens were healthy and lively .points 

 strongly to the severe cold as the cause 

 of this "welcomed mortality. If this 

 inference is correct, we must conclude 

 that insects which freeze up in winter 

 may succumb to very severe cold. 



Farmers iong since observed that 

 clover sward ploughed in autumn, and 

 planted to corn the following spring, 

 was less liable to be attacked by cut- 

 worms, than when ploughed in spring, 

 and immediately planted. This has 

 led to the- very general belief among 

 farmers, which view is adopted by 

 several noted entomologists, that ex- 

 posure to the cold, especially to alter- 

 nate freezing and thawing, is what de- 

 stroys the cut-worms. During the 

 very severe winter already referred to, 

 I subjected some cut-worms— larvae of 

 species of Agrotis — to intense cold, 

 and to alternate cold and heat, which 

 seemed in no wise to injure them. 

 Others were exposed very much as 

 they would be by fall ploughing, and 

 yet passed the winter in safety. The 

 farmers are doubtless correct in think- 

 ing that fall ploughing is a protection 

 against these marauding cut-worms ; 

 but wrong in their explanation. Ex- 

 posure to insectiverous birds and not 

 to cold is the more probable solution, 

 especially as frequent cultivation of 

 the land in autumn and spring, when 

 birds are plenty, is found to greatly 

 augment the destruction of insects. 



The late Mr. Quinby, in his work on 

 bee-keeping, states that the larva? of 

 the bee-moth [Galleriacereana) cannot 

 survive exposure to the cold ; that if 

 these larva 3 are removed from the hive 

 and its genial heat, during the winter, 

 they surely die. Mr. G. M. Doolittle 

 reports that he has observed these bee- 

 moth caterpillars in exposed positions, 

 and that they have survived even the 

 present rigorous -winter of 1880-81. I 

 have often noticed these larva' and 

 the chrysalids, which have passed the 

 winter in cold rooms outside the hives. 

 Still from the natural surroundings of 

 these insects we may easily believe 

 that they have developed a constitu- 

 tion more susceptible to the cold than 

 insects whose habits bring more ex- 

 posure. 



Mr. W. II. Edwards has shown how 

 the development of butterflies may be 

 retarded by the cold. The bearing of 

 these experiments upon the formation 

 of different broods of a species and 

 characteristic markings of each brood 

 is of very great interest. 



Among honey bees of the genus 

 Apis, we note peculiarities in respect 

 to cold, which, like their habits and 

 instincts, seem to separate them 

 widely from most other insects, and 

 strongly remind us of the vertebrates. 

 Most insects freeze up in winter, so 

 that all their functional activities are 

 held in abeyance, ready to start into 

 action at the touch of revivifying 

 warmth, which ever comes with re- 

 turning spring. A few of the higher 

 ones really hibernate. There is a 

 slight activity of the tissues which is 

 sustained by the stored-up fat cells of 

 the body. The species of Apis, on 

 the other hand, remain active, take 

 food, and resemble more closely the 

 higher vertebrates. In a nearly uni- 

 form temperature of from 3° to 8° C. 

 the domestic honey bees remain very 

 quiet, take but little food, and only 

 move as the cold outside of the clus- 

 ter impels them to crowd towards the 

 center, or as the absence of food in 

 any part of the hive impels the whole 

 cluster to change its position. If the 

 temperature outside the hive is main- 

 tained within the limits mentioned 

 above, the bees will eat so little, and 

 there will be so little dis-assimilation 

 in the body, that all the excrementi- 

 tious substances, except such as pass 

 off with the breath— and this is very 

 slight at such times— are easily and 

 safely held in the intestines for so 



long a space as •"> or 6 months. But 



if the temperature immediately with- 

 out the hive is for any considerable 

 period lowered much below the point 

 mentioned above, the bees attempt to 

 increase the animal heat by action. 

 ami by increased consumption of 

 honey, which among vertebrates is 

 typical as a heat-producing food. 

 This leads to an excessive accumula- 



tion of fecal matter within the intes- 

 tines, which consists of the undi- 

 gested food and the waste products 

 which are the resultant of functional 

 activity. In this condition, bees must 

 soon fly forth to void their feces, which 

 in normal circumstances they only do 

 on the wing, or soon they will be at- 

 tacked by fatal dysentery. The above 

 is undoubtedly the rightful explana- 

 nation of the exceeding mortality 

 among bees the past winter. In many 

 parts of the more northern States, 

 bees have been confined to their hives 

 for 5 months, and in almost all cases 

 where they have not been protected 

 from the severe cold, they have died. 

 Those wintered in suitable cellars are 

 safe and healthy, and many protected 

 out-doors by a thick wall of chaff 

 about their hives are savei I from death. 

 I have found by weighing the honey 

 in the fall and in the spring, that bees 

 kept in the right temperature during 

 the past winter have consumed never 

 more than 10 pounds (4 Kg. 5) of honey 

 to the colony, while all colonies ex- 

 posed to the severe cold have taken 

 twice that amount. The former win- 

 tered well, the latter have sickened 

 and died. 



If bees are confined in winter, and 

 the temperature be raised much above 

 10° C, the heat becomes a serious ir- 

 ritant, and the bees.unless their hives 

 are very well ventilated, and unless 

 they are soon enabled to fly out from 

 their hwes, will speedily die. 



It is an interesting fact that bees 

 require only the carbo-hydrates for 

 food in winter. They will' wilder bet- 

 ter on clear honey or even pure cane 

 sugar than when well supplied with 

 the nitrogenous pollen. I think the 

 reason of this is. that in the first case 

 they are prevented from the activity 

 which follows upon brood-rearing, and 

 breeding can only be carried on when 

 there is pollen in the hive. 



We see then that our honey bees are 

 not dormant in winter, but that, in 

 our colder climates they are Othello- 

 like, and with their occupation gone ; 

 and shut in by the rigor of the season, 

 they only eat the small amount neces- 

 sary to the hated activity of their bod- 

 ily functions. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Top Storing, Separators, etc. 



GREINER BROS. 



Since writing, July 2, our bees have 

 changed the programme materially. 

 When the basswood began to secrete 

 honey, about the middle of July, they 

 went to work in the top sections in 

 good earnest, and with partially filled 

 sections from the sides as induce- 

 ments, they have done and are doing 

 a remarkable season's work. We have 

 tiered up 3 and 4 half stories, each of 

 from 30 to 32 pounds, on many of our 

 colonies, besides I he finished seel ions 

 we have taken from the sides. Of 

 course we cannot yet give a report of 

 the season "s crop ; honey is still coming 

 in, and is likely to continue for some 

 time, for buckwheat has hardly com- 

 menced. 



On page 234 Mr. Ileddon explains 

 why bees do and do not attach to dif- 

 ferent materials; his theory sounds 

 right enough, but does not stand in- 

 vestigation. We claim, and Mr. Iled- 

 don will agree with us, that the mate- 

 rial lias little to do with the attaching 

 of comb, bees being incapable of doing 

 so, on account of hardness of mate- 

 rial, is argument only. If Mr. Iled- 

 don will look around and see how 

 nicely bees attach the edges of combs 

 in 4-sided glass boxes, how solid they 

 brace up things in glass dishes, such as 

 fruit jars, tumblers, globes, etc., a ma- 

 terial at least as hard as tin or a coat 

 of paint, he will hardly claim that 

 their incapability tends to make tin 

 bet I er suited for separators than wood. 

 By Mr. Root's recommendation we 

 painted, the first season, about i . 2 of 

 our separators ; we could not see any 

 difference, and as plain wood gave 

 such complete satisfaction, we never 

 painted thereafter. 



What keeps bees from attaching 

 combs to separators is "nature's in- 



