THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



549 



your brood-chamber is too large, as 

 ■well as too deep. One thousand 

 square inches of comb is plenty, ami 

 only 700 in a reversible hive does re- 

 markably well on trial.— G.L. Tinker. 



1. I presume you mean to ask if the 

 progeny of a hybrid queen can or does 

 show a mixed lot of bees, some hav- 

 ing the markings of black bees, and 

 others the yellow markings common 

 to hybrids, all from the same colony. 

 If so, 1 answer yes. See answer to 

 Query, No. 297. 2. Ten frames. Your 

 hive would not Suit me, but one will 



fet used to any sort of frame and hive, 

 prefer the standard Laugstroth 

 frame, which is 17%x9i^s inches.— G. 

 W. Demaree. 



1. Not unless the queen has been 

 changed. In colonies that are well 

 mixed with black bees some workers 

 may look like good Italians. Again a 

 very little black admixture will show 

 in some of tlie bees wanting the three 

 bands. 2. The worst feature of your 

 frame is its oddity. The Langstroth 

 frame is the best, as so many are in 

 use;.— A. J. Cook. 



1. Yes, in color. 2. Nine frames. I 

 find by careful inquiry, and from 

 statistics gathered at our State con- 

 ventions, that more bee-keepers use a 

 frame nearer liixH inches than any 

 other size. — II. D. Cutting. 



1. Yes. 2. Ten. Not for James. 

 Were I going to establish a standard 

 frame for one-story brood-chambers, 

 I should make it ij^ inches shallower 

 than the standard Langstroth frame 

 now is.— James Heddon. 



1. No sir ! except that some of the 

 worker progeny of an impurely mated 

 queen mav be found as black as are 

 any black bees. 2. If it is desired to 

 devote the lower story to biood en- 

 tirely, ten frames should be used, 

 spaced just bee-space apart, if it is 

 desired to have stores placed below as 

 well as brood, use nine frames. So 

 far as frames are concerned, I prefer 

 the Langstroth frame ; others, deeper 

 frames. The rule is, I take it, that 

 the frame one is accustomed to, will 

 be the one he prefers.— J. E. Pond, Jr. 



Convention Notices. 



ly Tbe Iowa State Bee-Keepers" Association 

 will meet on the Fair Grounds in Des Moines, on 

 Tuesday, Sept. 7. 188H, at 'I p.m., conlinuinK in 

 session durlnp that and the following two or three 

 days. A larKe and substantial tent has been se- 

 cured and is now at hand for the use of the soci- 

 ety. Any or all of the t;. 0(H) liee-keepers of Iowa 

 are urgently requester] to be present and help 

 make the meeting a pleasant and profitable one. 



„ „ „ A. J. NoliKls. Sto. 



O. O. POPPLETON. P^et, 



\W^ The St.Joseph.Mo. Inter-State Bee-Keepers' 

 Association will hold its annual meetine on 

 Wednesday evonine of the Exposition week. Sep- 

 tember 3(1, 1KK(5. Arruneenients arc being made to 

 nave an interesting meeting. The place of hold- 

 ing the meeting will be published in our local pa- 

 pers on Tuesday and Wednesday a.m. 



E. T. Abbott. Stc. 



I»" The N. W. Illf. & S. W. Wis. Bee-Keepers' 

 Association will hold its next meeting at the resi- 

 dence of V. I>. McKibben. 1^ mile.seast of Dakota, 

 on the Milwaukee k St.PaulK. K.. on Tuesday, 

 Sept. 7, 1886. Jonathan Stewaht, Stc. 



^~ The Illinois Centra) Bee-Keepere' 

 Association will hold its next meetinsr at 

 Mt. Sterllnjr, Ills., on Tuesday and Wednes- 

 day, Oct. 19-20, 1886. .1. M. Hambacoh, Sec 



Expliiiiatory.— The tlgures befohe the 

 names indicate tbe number ot years that the 

 person has kept bees. Those after, show 

 the number of colonies thqi writer had in the 

 previous spring- and fall, or fall and spring, 

 as the time of the year may require. 



This mark O indicates that the apiarist is 

 located neai- the center of the State named; 

 5 north of the center; 9 south; O east; 

 •O west; and this i northeast; x) northwest: 

 '^^ southeast; and P southwest of the center 

 of the State mentioned. 



For the American Bee Jouma.. 



Tlie Sting Structure of tlie Bee, 



WM. F. CLARKE. 



Man is a creature of extremes. 

 When I announced the hibernation 

 theory I did it with too great a flourish 

 ot trumpets. On making known 

 anotiier discovery of mine in the 

 realm of apiculture, I went to the 

 opposite extreme, and was too 

 modest. I refer to the functions per- 

 formed by the sting of the bee. I 

 broached this matter at the Detroit 

 Convention, and did it in such a way 

 that some thought it was a " scientdc 

 pleasantry." How strange it is that 

 when one man gets off a " scientfic 

 pleasantry " it is forthwith echoed 

 through the land as a truth, although 

 it carries the stamp of absurdity on 

 tlie face of it ; while if another man 

 propounds a truth, well-nigh self- 

 evident, it is taken as a joke ! At the 

 Rochester meeting of the New York 

 State bee-keepers in February last, 

 Mr. Isham and others congratulated 

 me on having made a most important 

 hit. This astonished me, for I had 

 begun to think that I should not be 

 permitted to " diskiver " anything. 

 Ilaving been recently ousted from the 

 paternity of the hibernation theory 

 by the last man in the world whom I 

 expected to lind ahead of me iu pro- 

 pounding that theory, viz : Prof. 

 Cook. I must hang on to the only rag 

 and shred of discovery that is left me, 

 or I shall be nothing but a "full 

 private " in the great army of bee- 

 keepers ! 



But, jokingapait, I became satisfied 

 from observations made last summer, 

 and repeated during tlie present sea- 

 son, tl-.at the most important function 

 of the bee's sting is noi stinging. It 

 had often seemed to me that to get up 

 such an elaborate and exquisite 

 piece ot machinery merely for the 

 purpose of inflicting a wound was 

 hardly harmonious with the economy 

 of nature. Waste of appliance is 

 never to be found in the material 

 world, and if only stinging had been 

 meant to be done by the stinging 

 apparatus of the bee, I do not see why 

 it need have been more complicated 

 than the proboscis of a mosquito, or 

 the ovipositor of a gall-fly. If you 

 examine the sting structure of a bee 

 as represented in a good engraving 



! which shows it magnified about thirty 

 times, and study it closely, even with 

 unscientilic eye.'as I confess mine is, 

 you cannot help feeling tliat there is an 

 extravagance ot complt-xity and deli- 

 cacy in construction altogether inex- 

 plicable on the su-pposition that the 

 sole function of this be;iutiful piece 

 of machinery is that of a weapon of 

 attack and deiense. 



My observations and rHllecti(Uis 

 have convinced me that the most im- 

 portant office of the bee-sling is that 

 which is performed in (hiing the 

 artistic cell-work, capping the comb, 

 and infusing the formic acid by means 

 of which honey receives its keeping 

 qualities. As I said at Detroit, the 

 sting is really a skillfully contrived 

 little trowel with which tlie bee 

 finishes off and caps the cells when 

 they are filled brimful of honey. This 

 explains wliy honey extracted before 

 it is capped over does not keep well. 

 The formic acid has not been injected 

 into it. Tills is done in the very act 

 of putting the last touches on the 

 cell-work. As the little pliant trowel 

 is worked to and fro with such dex- 

 terity, the darts, of which there are 

 two, pierce the plastic cell surface 

 and leave in the nectar beneath it 

 tiny drops of the fluid which makes it 

 keep well. This is the " art preser- 

 vative " of honey. A most wonderful 

 provision of nature truly I Herein 

 we see that the sting and poison-bag 

 with which so many of us would like 

 to dispense, are essential to the stor- 

 age of our coveted product, and that 

 without them the beautiful comb 

 honey of commerce would be -non est. 



If these things are so, how mistaken 

 tliose people are who suppose that a 

 bee is, like the Prince of Evil, always 

 going about prowling in search of a 

 victim ! The fact is that the bee 

 attends to its business very diligently, 

 and has no time to waste iu picking 

 unnecessary quarrels. A bee is like 

 a farmer working with a fork iu his 

 hay-field. He is fully occupied and 

 very Wisy. It molested or meddled 

 with, he will be very apt to defend 

 himself with the implement be is 

 working with. This is wha!; the bee 

 does, and man by means of hi.'? 

 knowledge of the nature and habits 

 of this wondrous little insect, is en- 

 abled, in most cases, to ward off or 

 evade attack. It is proof ot their 

 natural quietness, industry and peace- 

 ableuess. that so many thousands of 

 them will go through a summer of 

 of ceaseless activity close to your 

 dwelling house, and perhaps not "half 

 a dozen stings be inflicted during a 

 whole season. 



Since the above was written, I have 

 reread Cheshire's chapter on the 

 stinging appai'atus, which, in common 

 with all other works on the structure 

 of the bee, recognizes no other use for 

 the sting than that of inflicting a 

 wound. But how perfectly suited it 

 is for that other purpose for which I 

 feel sure it is mainly intended. I am 

 especially struck with the adaptation 

 of that pair of very beautiful organs 

 called palpi, supposed to be feelers by 

 means of which the bee examines the 

 nature of the surface to be punctured. 

 I do not think there is this prelimi- 



