THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



lilOf). 



a high temperature, the humidity and 

 nutritious food suggested by Brother 

 Miller, to complete their development, 

 and reduce this in any particular, and 

 you retard the perfect development, 

 and damage the insect just in propor- 

 tion to the reduction. It may be pos- 

 sible to u^e these baby nuclei to mate 

 virgin queens taken from cages at the 

 mating stage, the cells having been 

 built and larvae nurtured in full, strong 

 colonies of bees, and the young queens 

 remaining there four or five days re- 

 rciving the benefits enumerated by Mr. 

 ?\iiller. 



Were it feasible. I Avould prefer all 

 my queen-s reared and mated in strong, 

 full colonies of bees, but commercially 

 this cannot be done ov^'ing to the ex- 

 pense; but if we approach this as near 

 as possible we will, in my opinion, be 

 rewarded by longer lived and hardier 

 stock. In the extreme south where 

 there are no cool nights, (if there be 

 such a place), these small baby nuclei 

 might be of some service, but I advise 

 thO'Se not so favorably located to be 

 isure that all their queens have the 

 [advantages Mr. Miller namas In his 

 last article. 



Referring to Mr. Alley's method, I 

 iwish to say that we owe him much 

 for the many valualile points he has 

 given us in queen rearing; and in dif- 

 fering from him in some things I do 

 not wi-sh to be understood as condem- 

 ning him. He is honest in his claims, 

 hut see-s somewhat differently from 

 <ome others, I doubt whether a better 

 nethod of selecting material for 

 lueens can be found than his. This 

 iive.s the insect royal food from the 

 -tart, and if there is a difference, she 

 lets the advantage of it. I practice 

 lis and Doolittle's methods of starting 

 ?ells, as is most convenient at the 

 ime, and can see no difference in the 

 lueens produced, and am of the 

 i)pinion that they are about of equal 

 'alue, the only difference being the 

 ilan most convenient to the operator. 



I wish to endorse Mr. Miller's state- 

 nents regarding drones; Colonies 

 lolding breeding drone-s must be well 

 'ed during a dearth of honey if you 

 lave queens to mate. 



I now have a somewhat unusual 

 Irone repository. In July I built up a 

 trong colony keeping them queenless 

 nd giving them all the drone brood 

 hat I could find giving them worker 

 rood as needed removing the queen 

 ells as built, but from some source a 

 ne queen got possession of the colony 

 ite in October, and on the 18th of De- 



47 



cember drones were flying freely from 

 this colony. When I found the queen 

 she had capped worker brood, and as I 

 had no use for the drones I left her 

 to watch results. So far no dead 

 drones have been brought out, and the 

 weather not being favorable none have 

 been flying. These bees evidently had 

 drones so long that they recognize 

 them as a necessity, (theory.) 



Don't forget to see that your queens 

 have the advantage of the warmth, 

 high humidity. nutritiou« and stimula- 

 cive food during development. This is 

 important and cannot be well fur- 

 nished by a teacup of bees in Ten- 

 nessee or north of that latitude, dur- 

 ing cool nights, or rainy weather, (ex- 

 perience). 



Spring Hill. Tenn., Jan. 16, 1905. 



THE EFFECT ON BEES OF COLD 

 AND MOISTURE. 



A Scientific Discussion Ably Presented. 



By Frank W. Proctor. 



THE QUESTION was lately raised 

 in The Bee-Keeper; "Why is a 

 freezing temperature so much 

 more disastrous to bees confined in a 

 cellar than it is to those wintering 

 upon a summer -stand?" 



Every bee is a little furnace within 

 which honey is transformed into heat. 

 The bee also gets heat by radiation 

 from substances around it, and also by 

 induction if it touches any object 

 warmer than itself. This heat is lost 

 by radiation to the air and other things 

 around it, and by conduction to any 

 colder object with which it comes in 

 contact. At any given movement the 

 body temperature of a bee represents 

 the balance between income and loss 

 of heat in the manner dcvsired. Bees 

 can vary their rate of heat production 

 by changing the amount of their food, 

 Init there is a limit to the rate at which 

 they can make the transformation of 

 honey into heat; and when it falls 

 short of the rate of loss they must suc- 

 cumb. 



The rate of radiation increases with 

 the temperature of the radiating body, 

 and is independent of the temperature 

 of the environment. Accordingly bees 

 do not lose heat in this manner any 

 fa-ster in cold weather than in warm. 

 But the amount of heat they receive by 

 radiation from surrounding matter de- 

 pends upon its temperature, and the 

 amount of heat received in this man- 

 ner in winter is small. The net result, 



