THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



277 



Explanatory.— The figures before the 

 names indicate the number of years that the 

 person has kept bees. Those after, show 

 the number of colonies the writer had in the 

 previous spring- and fall, or fall and spring, 

 as the time of the year may require. 



This marli indicates that the apiarist is 

 located near the centre of the State named: 

 5 north of the centre ; 9 south ; 0+ east ; 

 •Owest; and this 6 northeast; X) northwest; 

 o- southeast; and 9 southwest of the centre 

 of the State meutioned. 



For tne American see JuumaL 



Sections— Differeuce in Colonies. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Not long since I chanced to see 

 these words in one of the bee-papers : 

 " In the fall, after extracting sections 

 when re-casing the sections of 

 empty combs, (as we use no separ- 

 ators), the combs are not always per- 

 fect iu the frames ; when we find one 

 side a little fuller than the otlier, we 

 put the two full sides together, and 

 the hollowing sides together. No 

 matter it the full sides of the comb 

 should touch each other, when the 

 bees begin operations the following 

 season they will cut right through, 

 building out the other sides equally, 

 and the occasional crooked ones are 

 thus made straight." 



Upon reading the above I began to 

 wonder if the writer had ever prac- 

 ticed the plan given, and, if so, how 

 it could be that his experience was 

 so much different than mine had been 

 when trying the same plan. In every 

 case^ where I ever put two combs in 

 sections, or brood-combs even, so 

 that they touched each other. I have 

 found that the bees always left little 

 bridges of comb from one comb to the 

 other, so that when the combs were 

 pulled apart the capping to one or 

 both combs was broken, thus setting 

 the honey to running and making the 

 sections unsalable, unless put back on 

 tlie hive for the bees to re-cap the 

 cells. In so doing the bees nearly 

 always remove all the honey out of 

 these damaged cells, so that the whole 

 process requires nearly }4 as long as 

 it does to (ill a section from the start. 

 This causes a great waste of time to 

 the colony, for they are thus kept 

 fussing over a bad job instead of do- 

 ing new work. 



My plan has been to place such 

 crooked combs at the top of a warm 

 room on a piece of canvas until 

 thoroughly warmed through, when 

 the combs can be bent and 

 straightened to the perfect satis- 

 faction of the operator. If any of the 

 cells jut out too far they are shaved 

 off with the uncapping knife. In this 

 way I have a surer thing of it, and as 

 the" work is performed in the winter 

 it is much more cheaply done than in 



having the bees make a "botch job" of 

 it in the summer. 



In another paper I find these words: 

 " Colonies are exactly alike, so near 

 as we can discover, and yet one col- 

 ony yields an excellent surplus, 

 another none. Why is it V" Here is a 

 question that used to greatly bother 

 me, for I formerly was troubled in 

 the same way, but of late years I 

 have succeeded iu making each 

 colony produce nearly like results ; 

 i. e., if one colony contains 40,000 bees 

 and produces 100 lbs. of honey, I get 

 about that amount from every colony 

 containing that number of bees ; 

 while one having but 20,000 bees gives 

 a yield of 50 lbs. 



After careful study I found that 

 colonies which I pronounced " exactly 

 alike" on June 1, would not be so at 

 the time the honey harvest was at its 

 best. The trouble was that I did not 

 have a thcn-ough knowledge regarding 

 the working-force of my bees at all 

 times, nor of the interior of the hive. 

 For instance, the colony which I 

 called my best on June 1, might be- 

 come one of the poorest by July 10, 

 at which time the honey harvest 

 arrived. This, as a rule, would be 

 owing to a failing queen, as I have 

 often noticed that a colony which 

 wintered extremely well and goes to 

 breeding rapidly in early spring, does 

 not equal one that wintered rather 

 poorly, but commences brood-rearing 

 in earnest about May 25. The reason 

 is that by about June 10th the queen 

 in the stronger one ceases to be as 

 prolific as the other, and this allows 

 the bees to put the first honey coming 

 in into the brood-combs, rather than 

 forcing it into the sections, as does 

 the other through her extra proliflc- 

 ness later on. 



I have often noticed if the bees are 

 allowed to get the start of the queen 

 so as to store much honey in the 

 brood-chamber during the first of the 

 honey harvest, that colony will be an 

 unprofitable one. The remedy is to 

 give each colony only as many combs 

 as the queen will keep occujjied with 

 brood, and when a colony is found 

 having a failing queen, either give 

 another queen or remove a part of the 

 brood-combs. 



Again, the giving of a colony a 

 large amount of surplus room to start 

 with has a tendency to make the col- 

 ony an unprofitable one, which has 

 not a force of bees large enough to 

 occupy the whole of the surplus de- 

 partment at once. They seem to 

 become discouraged, and instead of 

 taking possession of a part of it, they 

 will often cluster outside, and crowd 

 the brood out with honey, never 

 entering the sections at all. 1 usually 

 give only surplus room to the amount 

 of 15 to 20 lbs., and a part of this 

 space has combs in it left over from 

 the season previous, thereby coaxing 

 the bees into the sections with the 

 first load of new honey. In a week, 

 more room is given, and so I continue 

 to give surplus room as needed. In 

 this way I always receive a good yield 

 from all. It is the attending to the 

 little items in bee-culture that gives 

 success. 



Borodino,© N. Y. 



OfHclal Report of n. S. Rntomologlst. 



Artiflcial Fertilization of Queen-Bees. 



N. W. m'LAIN. 



Since I began this work I have 

 given much thought and labor to 

 experiments in methods of artificial 

 fertilization. No other branch of 

 apicultur;/ experiment possesses the 

 same scientific interest or practical 

 value to the industry of bee-keeping. 



Ever since the art of bee-keeping 

 began to be practiced upon scientific 

 principles, the value of exact knowl- 

 edge and perfect control of the pro- 

 cess of fecundation has been recog- 

 nized. In 1846 an able German apia- 

 rist wrote: "If it were possible to 

 ascertain the reproductive process of 

 bees with as much certainty as that of 

 our domestic animals, bee-culture 

 might unquestionably be pursued 

 with positive assurance of profit, and 

 would assume a high rank among the 

 various branches of rural economy. " 

 And in a current number of one of the 

 most progressive bee -periodicals, a 

 prominent writer on apiculture says : 

 " The apiarist who finds out a sure, 

 safe, and certain method of control- 

 ling fecundation as it is controlled in 

 the animal kingdom, will confer a 

 great and lasting blessing upon bee- 

 keepers, and be the means of advanc- 

 ing the profession a long way toward 

 perfection." Realizing the difficulties 

 to be overcome, there was little 

 encouragement to expect success. 

 However, all progress" is usually the 

 slow out-growth of repeated trials," 

 and " failures precede successes." 

 Various methods and expedients have 

 been adopted for securing the fertili- 

 zation of queens in confinement, none 

 of which have proved satisfactory. 



During the past two years reference 

 has occasionally been made in api- 

 cultural papers to a process of fecun- 

 dating queens while in the larva and 

 pupa or nymph stage of development, 

 by crushing a drone larva upon the 

 queen larva, or by opening the cell 

 and introducing crushed drone larva 

 upon the nymph queen. In a few 

 instances experimenters have report- 

 ed that the practice has been success- 

 ful, and that queens thus treated have 

 begun laying fecundated eggs in from 

 one to two days after leaving the cell. 

 In each of the reported cases some 

 important fact in the evidence tending 

 to establish the genuineness of the 

 claim to success seems to have been 

 wantingor doubtful. Inconsequence, 

 these reports have been received with 

 reserve and often with ridicule. 



For putting these claims to the 

 test, I caused a number of queen-cells 

 to be built, and just before the cells 

 were capped I squeezed the contents 

 of the generative organs of nymph 

 drones upon the larval queens. The 

 bees removed the larvK and destroyed 

 the celis. After other queen-cells 

 were capped I opened them by 

 making a horizontal incision at the 

 base of the cells, and another at right 

 angles down the side of the cell, and 

 laid back a part of the side, exposing 

 the gueen pupa. Through the open- 

 ing in the cell I squeezed the liquid 



