Mar. 



1899. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



133 



those which are deprived of hair by long toil, and are " slick 

 and shiny." 



It has been sug-g-ested that the slick and shiny appear- 

 ance was caused by the disease itself and only a result, but 

 I have often seen young bees, with all other appearances of 

 health and a full coat of hair, suffering from this same 

 malady. When constipation has been prevalent in a colony, 

 it seems to retain its hold among the bees, and to continue 

 slowly and contagiously, and I have often known even the 

 queens to die of the same cause. Occasionally the " name- 

 less disease " has run with more or less force in a hive for 

 an entire season, tho not with sufficient virulence to endan- 

 ger the strength of the colony, but I am of the opinion that 

 it may usually be traced back to the long winter confine- 

 ment of the bees on perhaps inferior honey. 



Plenty of good, well-diluted, warm feed in the spring, 

 is the best thing that can be recommended to do away with 

 this disease, but it is certainly advisable to procure our bees 

 as many chances of flight as possible during the cold 

 weather. 



We have just had a pleasant day (Feb. IS), and the bees 

 have again had a good cleansing flight. Every colony is 

 alive in the home-apiary to-day. Surely the loss cannot be 

 great. Hancock Co., 111. 



No. 1.— Doolittle's Talk on Bees at a Farmer's 

 Institute in New York State. 



BY REPORTER. 



JANUARY 18 and 19 there was a Farmer's Institute held 

 at South Onondaga, N. Y., about 10 miles out from 



Syracuse. Among the other speakers announced on 

 the program was Gilbert M. Doolittle, who was to be the 

 last speaker for the afternoon of the first day. Besides the 

 address of welcome in the morning, there were to be two 

 speakers in the forenoon, and in the afternoon ex-Gov. 

 Hoard, of Wisconsin, was to address the institute preceding 

 Mr. Doolittle. 



But the meeting opened late, and for this reason the 

 first speaker of the forenoon took up all the time before 

 dinner, thus crowding three speakers into the afternoon 

 session. The first took an hour and a quarter of time, and 

 the Governor an hour, so that it was nearly four o'clock 

 when Mr. D. took the platform and lookt over the tired 

 audience which had been assembled for about two hours 

 and a half. 



Mr. Doolittle's face showed that he was in a " brown 

 study " for a moment, as if he feared he could not "catch 

 and hold " his hearers with the subject, "Bees and Honey," 

 which had been assigned him. when in their tired condition, 

 for quite a few had been going out before the Governor 

 closed his address. But presently a light came over his 

 face, and he began something like this : 



A little boy was sent to a neighbor's by his mother, one 

 dark night, on an errand, and this little boy was always 

 afraid in the dark. When he returned, his mother said to 

 him, " You were not afraid much, were you, my son ?" 



The boy replied, "Oh, mamma, if you had only felt the 

 streaks of scaredness run up and down my legs as I did, 

 you would know I was scart." 



"And now to follow two such eloquent speakers as have 

 preceded me this afternoon, and especially a Governor of a 

 great State like Wisconsin, makes the ' streaks of scared- 

 ness ' run up and down my legs, just as they did on the 

 legs of that little boy." 



Here Mr. Doolittle gave a great shudder, which caused 

 a smile to come over nearly every face, and from that time on 

 Mr. D. had perfect power over those before him, so that no 

 one left the room till he had finisht speaking. 



He went on to tell how he was raised in " old, cold 

 Spafford " (as the town of Spafi'ord in which Mr. D. lives 

 has the highest elevation in the county of Onondaga), 

 where it was so cold they could eat "jack-wax " off snow- 

 banks on the Fourth of July, and raise flax to perfection. 

 How his parents moved to that town from the State of Con- 

 necticut, and being- poorly supplied with this world's goods, 

 kept him at work on the farm, so he had only a limited dis- 

 trict school education. How one day, when the school com- 

 missioner came to examine the school, his teacher had 

 pointed him out as " the biggest ignoramus in the school," 

 and. said Mr. Doolittle, " he might have added his name is 

 Doo-mne." 



This caused a ripple of mirth to pass over the audience, 

 when he continued : 



" But I am not here to tell you of my scaredness, of ray 



home surroundings, or anything of the kind, but to speak 

 to you as best I can, in my homely, ungrammatical way, 

 about bees and honey." 



He then went on to tell how each good colony of bees in 

 early spring contained a queen, and from five to ten thou- 

 sand workers. The worker-bees are the ones which do the 

 stinging, gather the nectar from the fields, nurse and feed 

 the larva?, build the comb, etc.; while the queen is simply 

 the " mother-bee," her only business being that of laying 

 eggs. When she first commenced to lay in the early spring 

 she only laid about ten eggs a day, but as the weather grew 

 warmer she made an increase, until, when doing her best, 

 she would lay from two to three thousand every daj' during 

 the forepart of June. These eggs were in that form for 

 three days, when they hatcht into little worms or larvK, so 

 small as hardly to be seen with the naked eye, but, under 

 the stimulus of the chyle fed to them then, grew till they 

 nearly or quite filled the cell six days after hatching, when 

 the cell was sealed over, and they remained in the pupa 

 form, or hid from view, for 12 days more, when they 

 emerged a perfect bee. 



He told how the young bees did little more than eat and 

 straighten out for the next day or two, when they went to 

 feeding the larvae, building comb if needed, and doing gen- 

 eral " housework," till they were 16 days old, when they 

 went out as field-workers, gathering honey, water, pollen 

 and propolis, till 45 days from the time of emerging from 

 the cell, when, as a rule, during the working season, they 

 died of old age, and another generation took their place. 

 Thus the workers lived 45 days only in the summer-time, 

 but in the winter, when they were comparatively inactive, 

 their vitality was not worn out so soon, hence the bee that 

 emerged from its cell in September lived over till the next 

 May or June. 



As the bee was 3 days in the egg form, 6 days in the 

 larval form, and 12 days in the pupa form, making 21 days 

 from the egg to the perfect bee, the queen could place on the 

 stage of action two and one-seventh generations to where 

 one died off, thus bringing about swarming throug-h her 

 more prolific eg-g-laying during May and June. 



He next told how by reversing and spreading the brood 

 the queen could be coaxt to lay a greater number of eggs 

 than she otherwise would, and if planned rightly, so that 

 the greatest number of workers were on the stage of action 

 at the same time when the honey harvest was at its best, 

 the best results could be secured in honey. 



He explained how to know when the honey-producing 

 flowers would bloom, and how to rear the bees so as to meet 

 this bloom ; but to go into all of the minutia of what he 

 said would take too long to be interesting to the reader. He 

 reminded the audience that few bee-keepers paid much at- 

 tention to this, which was the most essential point to be 

 lookt after in producing honey. In fact, he made it very 

 plain that the person who did not look after this part of the 

 business could not possibly secure the best results in api- 

 culture. 



At this point he took the audience by surprise with a 

 story something like this : 



There was a certain darkey in the South who went 

 almost daily to his nearest city to vend the proceeds from 

 his truck-garden. But one morning something unusual 

 happened, which was that his wife went with him, for the 

 first time. As he reacht the suburbs of the citv he called 

 out in his usual way, " 'Tatoks ! 'TATOES !" Mr.' D. here 

 put such power in his voice that quite a number jumpt in 

 their seats, and one girl gave a little shriek, which only 

 added to the merriment. 



Immediately the darkey felt something pulling on his 

 coat-skirt, and his wife said in a hoarse whisper, " Hush, 

 hush, honey ; you'll waken everybody in town." To which 

 the darkey answered, " Do you suppose any one will hear 

 me when I say 'Tatoks !" 



" Hear you, hear you, yes ! they'll hear j'ou all the way 

 for five miles around !" 



"Well, that's what I'm shouting for. 'Tatoks 1 

 •TATOES 1" 



This story brought a general applause, and as soon as 

 it had subsided Mr. D. imprest upon his audience that such 

 shouting, about bringing the bees and honej' harvest to- 

 gether, always brought success to the one practicing it. 



He told them how he might talk to them about swarm- 

 ing and non-swarming, queen-rearing, crating and market- 

 ing honey, preparing^ for winter, etc., but if they would 

 take home with them one thought of securing the bees in 

 time for the honey harvest, both he and they would be well 

 paid for the time .spent in coming to the institute. 

 [Continued next week.] 



