500 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Aug. 10. 1899. 



you think the time they are g-one will take them, allowing 

 IS minutes for a mile the first time a bee goes, then set off 

 again, and so on until you find them. SUBSCRIBER. 



Merrimack Co., N. H. 



Noticing the request for information in bee-hunting, I 

 will give my waj'. 



Take honey fresh from the hive, and bees will work it 

 during the months of June. July and August, as well as any 

 other months of the year. Catch in your box from six to 

 one dozen bees, then turn them loose on the honey, and 

 while they are filling catch another box full, and by the 

 time these have filled and returned, one will have a lively 

 time watching them. I have been out twenty times during 

 this month, and the bees have never workt better, altho 

 we have flowers in abundance. 



I found my first wild swarm in 1838, and have found 

 over 1,000 bee-trees since. I have started a number of api- 

 aries from wild bees. The bees I now have are all run- 

 aways, that is, were taken from the %voods, excepting the 

 increase. I let them swarm naturally, yet none run away, 

 nor do I lose any during the winter months. 



PREVENTING WINTER LOSS — AFTER-SWARMS. 



To prevent winter loss, have the hives arranged so you 

 can examine them at any time. I look mine thru every 

 week during the winter. I opened them the coldest day we 

 had last winter, with the mercury from 25 to 35 degrees be- 

 low zero, and found them livelj' and all right. 



I close the hive nearly tight at the bottom (contrary to 

 the advice of all experts), and have attacht storm-doors or 

 entrances, then arrange the entrances of the hives so there 

 will be, like a refrigerator, free circulation within itself 

 without outside influence. There will be drj' air inside, 

 never will be any dampness among the bees. The damp- 

 ness and frost, if any, will all be above the cushion and 

 above the bees. This arrangement is for wintering on the 

 summer stands. We had any amount of honej' down in 

 this vicinity last season, yet there was no loss in wintering 

 where they were properly fixt on the summer stands. 



To make the second or after-swarms nearly equal to 

 the first swarms, have ready a fertile queen, destroy the 

 young queen, and introduce a fertile one ready to deposit 

 eggs. In this way you will gain from two to three weeks. 



Calhoun Co., Mich. D. H. MeTcalf. 



The Diekel Theory vs. the Dzierzon Non-Sperm 

 Theory. 



BY C. THEILMANN. 



AT a bee-convention held in September, 1898, at Salz- 

 burg, Austria, Prof. Diekel brought out indisputable 

 facts against the fallacj' of the non-sperm theory. He 

 gave the bee-keepers a very simple formula by which they 

 could convince themselves of the correctness of his experi- 

 ments. For nearly 50 years the Dzierzon theory, based on 

 his observation, and supported by Prof. Siebold's micro- 

 scopical experiments, was, that the queen has the faculty 

 of laying impregnated and unimpregnated eggs at will. 

 From the first-named, queens and workers develop, and 

 from the latter, drones ; and whoever said or wrote any- 

 thing to the contrary were laught at, or past unnoticed. 

 Nevertheless, I have been convinced of the fallacy ever since 

 July, 1883, when accidentally a colony of my bees gave me 

 a glimpse into their secret laboratory, which is described 

 on page 594 of the American Bee Journal for 1883. Prob- 

 ably not many of the present readers are in possession of 

 it, therefore I will herewith give, in substance, the occur-' 

 rence : 



About the middle of July, 1883, I hived a swarm of full- 

 blooded Cyprian bees on frames with starters ; it was a big 

 swarm. The queen was one year old, and one of the most 

 prolific and regular layers I had in my apiary. • I hived 

 them about 10 a.m., and they went to work immediately in 

 their new home. The next morning, on examination, I 

 found the colony rather smaller than I wisht to have them 

 for comb honey production, as manj' bees went back to the 

 parent hive. 



Pretty soon a second swarm came out, which I decided 

 to unite with the Cj'prians. Knowing from previous sad 

 experience of their sensitive and fighting character, I pre- 

 pared some peppermint and sprayed them and the second 

 swarm, which I had been .shaking before the entrance, 

 while in the meantime I shook the Cyprians from the 

 frames on top of the swarm, and let them run into the hive 



together ; but the fighting began before they were all in, 

 so I repeated the spraying and shaking of the frames, but 

 the killing was still kept going. By this time other swarms 

 came out to be attended to ; I gave them another good pep- 

 perminting and closed the hive. I was kept busy at swarm- 

 ing and other things until dark. 



The next morning I lookt at my Cyprians, and found 

 not a live bee in the hive. On examination I found on two 

 frames new pieces of all-worker comb built about as big as 

 mj' hand, one of which was filled with an egg in every cell 

 regularlj', as far as the cells were deep enough. Some of 

 them had eggs when the cell was hardly 's-inch deep. 

 There was not a drone-cell in the two pieces of comb. 



After this close examination another swarm came out, 

 which I put into this hive, and thej' went to work vigor- 

 ously. About a week after I examined them, and found the 

 frames filled with all drone-combs, except the two pieces 

 above described. The one which had the eggs now had all 

 capt brood, and .scattered among it were about 25 drone 

 pupa; in enlarged worker-cells, and three queen-cells, and 

 about 300 worker pupa?. There was not an empty cell in 

 the whole batch, as far as it contained eggs on both sides. 

 There was no other brood or eggs in the hive. This last 

 swarm undoubtedly lost its queen while swarming, and to 

 save their existence they had produced queens, drones 

 and workers from all worker-eggs, and no one can convince 

 me otherwise since I made this experiment. It is evidence 

 that the workers or nurse-bees can, at their selection, pro- 

 duce either sex at will by different food. 



I am pleased that Prof. Diekel has found a way to get 

 at the true facts without having to depend upon uncertain, 

 fickle, unreliable analysis. 



The formula of Prof. Diekel is this : Take the eggs 

 from a drone-comb laid by a normal queen, and introduce 

 them into worker-comb in a colony that has been queenless 

 long enough to have become somewhat apathetic. The bees 

 will not accept transferred eggs, but tear them out. The 

 development of these eggs will show that workers and 

 queens may be produced from drone-eggs. 



Another: Remove from a drone-comb all larva; and re- 

 place with just-hatcht larva; from a worker-comb, and give 

 the one thus prepared to a colony under the same condi- 

 tion as before. You will then see queens and drones reared 

 from the impregnated or worker-eggs even after they had 

 hatcht out. 



Now I hope that man5' of our advanced bee-keepers and 

 queen-breeders will try the experiments and report results. 



In addition to the foregoing I recommend the formula I 

 have under my treatment at present, which needs no arti- 

 ficial manipulation, and which almost any bee-keeper can 

 try. It is as follows : 



Hive a swarm with a good laying queen on starters of 

 foundation, in a good honey-flow. Let them build comb 

 three or four days, then take out a frame of all worker-cells, 

 stockt with 300 to 500 eggs, and give it to another just is- 

 sued with a dipt queen. Cage the queen and lay her at the 

 entrance of the new hive with the frame of eggs, and the 

 rest filled with empty frames placed where the old hive 

 stood, and where the swarm came from. The bees will 

 come back to their queen and cluster about her. Let her be 

 caged until sundown, then take her away and drive the bees 

 into the hive : they will find the eggs before the next morn- 

 ing, aiid will stay and make use of the eggs as their instinct 

 directs them, to save their existence, and in due time you 

 will find queen, drone and worker pupa; in the comb that 

 was all worker-cells stockt with eggs of a fertile queen 

 when given to the queenless swarm. Try this and convince 

 yourselves of the long-disputed non-sperm theory in drone- 

 eggs. Wabasha Co., Minn. 



A Lecture on Controlling- Sex in Bees. 



BY PETER BOIS. 



BEE-KEEPERS are able, in a measure, to regulate the 

 production of drones in the hive, and cause the queen 

 to produce almost entirely worker (female) bees, with but 

 a small percentage of drone or male bees. This is effected 

 to some extent by having almost all worker-comb in the 

 hive and only a small amount of drone-comb. And I con- 

 sider that bee-keepers have paid more attention to this mat- 

 ter of the production of sex, and that they have obtained 

 better results than the breeders of other stock generally. I 

 have been able to keep my colonies for several years past 

 from swarming, and producing but very few drones per 

 hive, while in worker-bees or female nurses my colonies 



