rSE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



693 



number of eggs from one queen. 

 Queens are cheap compared with the 

 cost of combs.— W. Z. Hutchinson. 



Yes ! In this matter I " speak as 

 one having authority," for 1 have 

 tested the point thorouglily. The 

 lovrer story, however, must be kept 

 extracted, so that the storage will not 

 drive the queen out. Give her all the 

 room she needs. Ten Simplicity- 

 Langstroth frames will be found as 

 many as the best of queens can keep 

 filled, if" the whole cell-space is given 

 her to occupy.— J. E. Pond, Ju. 



" Simplicity hive " is very indefinite, 

 as a description of a hive, with the 

 " Langstroth " left off. If the hive 

 you use has a brood-chamber as large 

 as that of the standard Langstroth, 

 the average queen will lind as much 

 room as she ought to have when con- 

 fined to the brood-chamber with a 

 queen-excluder. In my opinion it 

 does not pay to let a queen scatter her 

 brood; it is better to give her plenty 

 of room in the " queen's chamber."— 

 ■G. W. Demabee. 



Peculiar Actions of Worlier-Bees. 



Query, No. 33 1.— Doubtless you have 

 ■noticed worker bees coUected on the alight- 

 ing-board or front of tho hive, moving their 

 bodies backward and forward as though 

 they were busily polishing their mandibles 

 on the wood. Can you give any clue to the 

 «ause of their thus acting, or the purpose to 

 be served by these movements.— Ky. 



No.— G. C. Miller. 



No.— rf. D. Cutting. 



I cannot.— W. Z. Hutchinson. 



I should like a correct reply to that 

 •question myself.-^G. M. Doolittle. 



It looks as though they were clean- 

 ing the floor.— Dadant & Son. 



At such times they are " knights " 

 of Idleness— no honey to gather. In- 

 stead of "polishing" their " mandi- 

 dles " they are using them to "plane" 

 their alighting-boards and to " gnaw" 

 their entrance larger. — .J. P. H. 

 Brown. 



This appears to be a marked trait 

 of black bees. Syrio- Albino bees are 

 rarely seen to do it, and then but very 

 few. They are certainly idlers, for 

 the movements described subserve no 

 useful purpose.— G. L. Tinker. 



I have had these peculiar move- 

 ments on the part of worker-bees un- 

 der observation for several years past. 

 I sometimes notice hundreds of them 

 stationed on the alighting-board or 

 front of the hive, with their wings 

 slightly elevated, and their bodies 

 systematically moving backward and 

 forward. I have progressed no farther 

 than this, viz : These movements are 

 only seen at such times as there has 

 been a cessation of brood, as after a 

 swarm has issued, or a queen has been 

 introduced, and then generally about 

 the time the worker progeny begins 

 to hatch. I would like to know more 

 about it. — G. W. Demaree. 



Explanatory.— The flgures before the 

 names indicate tho 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 mark © indicates that the apiarist is 

 located near tne center of the State named; 

 5 north of the center; ? south; CH east; 

 K3 west; and thisd northeast; xi northwest: 

 o» southeast; and P southwest of the center 

 of the State mentioned. 



For the Amencan Bee Joumalk 



Some Oliservations in Bee-KeeiiinE, 



G. M. doolittle. 



Some items of interest to me have 

 come to my notice the past season, 

 and thinking that perhaps the same 

 might not be uninteresting to the 

 readers of the Bee Journal, I will 

 here speak of them. The first was 

 this : During the last of May and the 

 first of ,Iune we had a bad spell of 

 weather tor bees, inasmuch as it was 

 cool, cloudy, windy and rainy the 

 larger part of the time. As the bees 

 were short of stores, I had to resort 

 to feeding. 



Before commencing to feed I had 

 been equalizing stores, hoping that 

 there was honey enough in the yard 

 to supply all through the honey 

 dearth we were then having, if it was 

 properly apportioned to each colony. 

 In doing this work I noticed that 

 nearly all the brood in the hives was 

 in the shape of eggs and sealed brood. 

 As the sealed brood hatched out, 

 eggs were deposited in the cells, till 

 there came a time that there was 

 little else in any of the colonies beside 

 eggs, in the brood line. These eggs 

 the bees would not or did not hatch ; 

 or perhaps I might say the bees pre- 

 vented their hatching, or else removed 

 them from the cells just before they 

 should hatch, and the queen deposited 

 more eggs in the cells again. Of one 

 thing I was certain, the combs were 

 well supplied with eggs all this time, 

 yet scarcely a larva was to be found. 

 Feeding seemed to make little differ- 

 ence with them, and the reason I 

 especially noticed it, and tried to coax 

 the bees to get those eggs into larvse, 

 was that these eggs were to become 

 the bees for my basswood harvest, 

 and unless I had such bees I could 

 have no promise of basswood honey. 

 So I watched them day after day till 

 it came warm, fine bee-weather again, 

 when to my surprise the barren combs 

 were teeming with little larvse in less 

 than three days. 



I wish Prof. Cook, or some other 

 scientist, would tell us how the bees 

 kept those eggs day after day, not 

 allowing them to hatch, and then 

 when they wished larva, hatched 

 nearly all the eggs in the hive in a 

 day or two. Without my stopping to 

 explain the why and wherefore, it will 



be seen that I believe that the eggs 

 were preserved for a time, rather 

 than that the bees kept destroying 

 them as they were about to hatch, 

 and the queen laying fresh eggs. I 

 could explain why I think the same 

 eggs were in the hive for two to three 

 weeks, biit it would be so long that it 

 would cut out other matter which I 

 wish to present. 



After much careful observation I 

 was led to believe that a little chyme 

 was placed on every egg at the time 

 that the bees wished it to hatch, and 

 so long as this chyme was withheld 

 the eggs were preserved. One thing 

 was certain, 1 saw. eggs with chyme 

 on them, and at the base of the cells 

 about them, which cells and eggs 

 was marked, and after the lapse of 

 from one to two hours the eggs were 

 gone and larvce had taken their 

 place. This same thing I have also 

 noticed with eggs in queen-cells. 



To prove the matter farther, I 

 placed a wire-cloth cage over }:i of a 

 comb of eggs 2J^ days old, and in 4 

 days I looked to see if the eggs were 

 there intact, but the bees had gnawed 

 under the cage so as to get in en 

 masse, hence I found nothing but 

 little larvie, and my experiment was 

 in vain. Not having the time at my 

 command to follow the matter up, I 

 am still in the dark, and wish the help 

 of the sisters and brethren in this 

 matter. Oh ! how I do wish, at times, 

 that I was a scientist, but I am only 

 a kind of a practical clodhopper. Well, 

 it would not be best for all of us to 

 be scientists, so I will be content with 

 my lot. 



Mr. A. I. Root suggests that it was 

 for lack of pollen that the eggs were 

 not hatched, but I think this is a mis- 

 take, for there was plenty of pollen 

 in the hives, besides the bees had a 

 day, or part of a day occasionally, 

 when they brought in pollen freely. 



uniting colonies. 



We have long heard that when 

 uniting bees, the two colonies to be 

 united should be moved gradually 

 day by day, until they were both to- 

 gether, when they could be united 

 without any of the bees being lost by 

 going back to the old location. This 

 seemed a big job to me, so this fall, as 

 I had much of this kind of work to 

 do, I just smoked the colony to be 

 moved, at the entrance, pounding on 

 top of the cover of the hive at the 

 same time with my fist. In a moment 

 more I put the colony on a wheel- 

 barrow and rapidly went to the colony 

 they were to be united with. This 

 rapid wheeling made the bees think 

 that their house was " coming down 

 over their heads," and caused them 

 to fill themselves as "full as ticks" 

 with honey. The other colony was 

 now treated as the first, save the 

 wheeling, when both were imme- 

 diately united by alternating frames. 



Nothing was done to cause them to 

 mark their location anew, nor was 

 the old stand altered in auy way, for 

 the empty hive was placed back 

 where it stood. At their next flight 

 I saw quite a few bees about the old 

 stands, so. to see how many would 

 return, I placed a frame having honey 



