232 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



the hives became populous as fast in 

 those whose colonies had uot been 

 fed as in those that were fed. This 

 condition of things continued until 

 the last days of July. Now. I pre- 

 sume that there was honey enough 

 brought in to feed the brood ; but I 

 thought that during the day a little 

 ought to accumulate for feed in the 

 night, but in many of them I did not 

 see a drop of honey for over two 

 weeks. It made me nearly sick to 

 look at them, still they seemed not to 

 suffer. 



Still another observation : When- 

 ever a laying queen is removed from 

 a colony, and I look them over a day 

 or two after. I find that the eggs have 

 been removed. I do uot know as it 

 is the case in every instance, but I 

 have found it true so often that I take 

 that as the rule. Is that in accord 

 with the "doctors." 



Xecedah,© Wis. 



did good service all this while. I 

 have examined my bees, and there 

 are no signs of diarrhea whatever, 

 though there is plenty of pollen in the 

 hives. 

 Ligonier, 6 Ind. 



For tlie American Bee Journal. 



Hiliernatioii-Tlie Lamii Nnrsery, 



^X. Z. HUTCHINSON. 



For me Amertcan Bee JoumaL 



Qneens Reared Artificially, 



10— .T. C. IIISHLER. (23-liS). 



Mr. G. M. Doolittle, on page 86, 

 says : " My queens reared under the 

 swarming impulse, and ' those so 

 reared that are purchased of others, 

 have lived to be .3, 4. and some even a 

 years of age. doing good business all 

 those years ; while I have never pur- 

 chased but one 'dollar' queen that 

 lived 2 years, and three-fourths 'of 

 them never lived over one year." 



I wish to say to Mr. D. that most of 

 ray queens are reared " artificially,"' 

 but I have never reared any in small 

 nuclei hives. My queen-cells are 

 reared in full colonies that are strong 

 in bees. I proceed as follows : 



I take out the queen with a frame 

 of brood, and place it in a nuclei hive 

 with 2 other combs, and put it in a 

 new location. Then I take a frame 

 that is full of eggs and young larvie 

 (having prepurecl it for the bees to 

 start queen-cells) from the colony 

 from which I wish to breed, and put 

 it in the centre of the now queenless 

 colony which was prepared for the 

 new comb. My queens are 1 and 2 

 years old the coming season, except 

 one imported Italian queen which is 

 3 years old. Last season my bees 

 worked on red clover, and really de- 

 serted white clover for the red. 



I will make Mr. Doolittle the fol- 

 lowing offer : I will send him one of 

 my 1-year-old pure Italian queens in 

 exchange for one of his 1 -year-old 

 pure Italian queens; and if the queen 

 which I send liim does not di) good 

 service for tlie next 3 years (unless 

 she is killed by the bees or the colony 

 dies in winter). I will send him two 

 dollars for his queen ; and if the queen 

 he sends me does not do the same for 

 me as my queen is to do for him, he 

 is to pay me two dollars ; the ex- 

 change to be made in the month of 

 May. 



The first season I went into the 

 bee-business I reared all my queens 

 " artificially." and the colony of one 

 of them cast a swarm when she was 4 

 years old. wliicli absconded, and she 



Mr. Clarke says that starved and 

 chilled bees do not hibernate, in his 

 ■' opinion." Starved and chilled ants, 

 hornets, flies, etc.. do hibernate ; they 

 at least take no food, and are in a 

 freezing temperature. When I was a 

 boy 1 l^^ped my fatlier in splitting 

 rails, and we frequently found cavities 

 in the logs in which were large ants ; 

 these ants, especially m early spring, 

 were dormant ; sometimes there was 

 frost in the crevices about them ; and 

 to all appearances the insects were 

 dead ; but they revived in the warmth 

 of the sun. Now I knoio that bees 

 never enter this state. 



I visited Mr. B. L. Taylor, the past 

 winter. Under his barn is a cellar ; 

 in one apartment are his cattle, in 

 another, poiiltrv, and in another, bees. 

 All of these living creatures staid in 

 the cellar all winter, they moved 

 about, the cattle in their stalls, the 

 fowls in their coops, and tlie bees in 

 their hives ; they all consumed food, 

 and all enjoyed the warmth that is 

 necessary for their existence. Did all 

 hibernate ? When an insect requires 

 warmth and food, and indulges in 

 motion, it does not hibernate in the 

 sense in which that word is usually 

 understood. Mr. Clarke, in speaking 

 of the hibernation of bees, calls it 

 their kind of hibernation. ■• Their 

 kind of hibernation" is simply the 

 well-known winter quiet, which, in Mr. 

 Clarke's opinion, is hibernation in a 

 slight degree. The only way in which 

 I can make the hibernation theory 

 even appear reasonable, is to take that 

 view of it. viz : to call the well-known 

 winter quiet, a slight degree of hiber- 

 nation, and in so doing we discard a 

 very appropriate term for a misleading 

 one. and — gain what':' 



THE LAMP NUKSEKIES. 



Mr. Alley, on page 183, asks how I 

 manage my lamp nursery at niglit. I 

 explained, in my former article, how 

 I managed. I examined each queen- 

 cell in the evening, by the light of a 

 lamp, and put each cell (tlie occupant 

 of which showed signs of soon hatch- 

 ing), into a little apartment by itself. 

 When so carefully examined, but few 

 queens will hatch inside of 10 or 12 

 lioui s. As soon as •' up and dressed '' 

 in the morning, the nursery is visited, 

 audit any queens /lare hatched, they 

 have not been out long enough to do 

 much if any damage. No, sir, I do 

 not sit up nights with my lamp nur- 

 sery ; and I do not lose more than a 

 dozen queens in the course of the sea- 

 son by their hatching out when 1 am 

 not around. 



Mr. Alley keeps Ids nuclei queenless 

 three days, and then introduces a 



queen that is old enough to become 

 fertile the same day. I introduce a 

 queen a day or two old at the time of 

 removing the old laying queen. It does 

 not seem to me as though either had 

 much the advantage over tl.e other ; 

 possibly Mr. Alley gets a day or two 

 the start of me. but he gets it in being 

 successful in introducing older queens 

 than I have succeeded in doing. 

 Queens can be kept in the uursery 

 an'd supplied with food until they are 

 several days old— perhaps .5 or 6 days — 

 but I have never been able to make a 

 practical success of introducing them 

 after they were more than 3 days old. 

 Will Mr. Alley please tell us if, in his 

 opinion, the keeping of young queens 

 in a queen-nursery is the cause of his 

 successful introduction of them at 6 

 days of age ? Or is it his method of 

 introduction ? Or is it both ':' Does 

 he use one of the methods of intro- 

 duction that are given in his book, if 

 so, which one V If it is not given in 

 his book, will he please give it V 



I have never tried the queen-nursery 

 simply because I could see no advan- 

 tages in its use over the lamp-nursery; 

 if there are advantages I shall use it ; 

 and thank Mr. Alley for calling my 

 attention to it. How does it answer 

 late in the season 'f 



Rogersville,c$ Mich. 



For tbe American Bee Jottma^ 



Have Bees tlie Sense of Hearing ? 



10— S. A. SHUCK, (ri4-43). 



In reference to the above question, 

 Mr. Fox, on page 171, says : " I would 

 like to hear from others on this sub- 

 ject.'' I am very much surprised to 

 recognize the fact that few if any of 

 our prominent writers on apicultural 

 subjects are able to give any proof 

 that bees do hear. 



On page 729 of the American Bee 

 Journal for lS8o, in some experi- 

 ments by Sir John Lubbock, he says : 

 " It is, however, remarkable that bees, 

 certainly do seem to hear on some 

 occasions." Again he says : " Bees 

 will take no notice of a very loud 

 noise, even quite close to the hive ;'' 

 and Mr. Fox, in his criticism of Mr. 

 Osburn's article, says : " I would like 

 to ask Mr. O. why bees do not notice 

 a loud noise around their hives, which 

 we all know they do not."' 



It appears from the above quota- 

 tions, that because bees do not become 

 enraged, when, perchance, some one 

 should ■halloo" across the way, or 

 the children in their play, forget, and 

 shout alond. they do not notice even a 

 very loud noise about their hives. I 

 trust that Mr. Fox. or any one who 

 may read this, will not smile aloud, if 

 I say that all loud sounds, if of a 

 musical nature, have a charming in- 

 fluence over bees; at least not until 

 they have given the following a fair 

 trial : 



Remove one of the central combs 

 from the hive of a colony of gentle 

 bees, but do not disturb them, so as to 

 anger or frighten them. Still, pleaa- 

 ant weather is best. 



The bees will be found moving 

 about quietly and in every direction on 



