Aug. 10, 1899. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



501 



have been exceedingly strong. This has been achieved by 

 noticing- that drones were produced, and swarming also, 

 when the queen in full "lay" received severe checks ; these 

 "checks," at such a time, I distinctly noticed, produced 

 drones or male bees, while freedom from checks, which en- 

 abled a queen to go thru her laying season, produced female 

 or workers only, with but very few males. If, therefore, bee- 

 keepers can govern the production of males at will, the 

 breeders of other stock ought to be able to do the same if 

 they know the law that affects the produce of male and 

 female. 



Fowl fanciers can induce birds to lay very early in the 

 season, and ensure that a fair percentage of the eggs are 

 fertile ; but such eggs mostly produce cockerels, and the 

 more fertile the hen the greater the percentage of cockerels. 

 Now if we notice that checks are much more likely to be 

 produced early in the season, when the weather is more 

 variable than later on, and that these changes of tempera- 

 ture would chiefly affect the fowls whose ovaries were the 

 most developt, we get at the reason why eggs set early pro- 

 duce a preponderance of male birds. 



The queen-wasp gets in f uU " lay " more towards the 

 fruiting part of the year than does the queen-bee, and at 

 such time cold nights begin to set in, and greater atmos- 

 pheric changes take place than during midsummer. This 

 has the effect of causing her to produce some drone-eggs 

 while she laid only worker-eggs previously. Animals gen- 

 erally are more equal in the production of males and 

 females than bees and wasps. On the other hand, the 

 queens of bees and wasps, altho their ovaries are far more 

 largely developt than those of other animals, and would be 

 thereby more liable to be affected by checks, yet they are 

 better protected against outside influences than animals 

 generally. 



The mother-bee, like the mother-wasp, is in the midst 

 of a full colony of her own progeny, which becomes an in- 

 creast protection in proportion as the maternal ovaries be- 

 come developt ; secondly, they are fed with a food that can 

 be made to produce but little variation in its influence : 

 thirdly, they have the protection of the combs to guard 

 them against sudden changes of temperature, and the combs 

 of each of these insects, altho so widely different in the 

 material of which each is composed, yet both are recognized 

 as among the best non-conductors of heat and cold : 

 fourthly, the hive in which they breed is so protected from 

 extremes of temperature as to retain the warmth of the 

 brood-nest in a very great degree while the queen-bee is ex- 

 tensively employed in egg-laying. 



Other animals, while less fertile, are at all times far 

 more exposed to outside influences, and thismay in some 

 measure account for their producing a more equal number 

 of males and females than the two infeects cited. I infer, 

 therefore, from these observations, and others of a like 

 nature, but all giving indirect evidence, that checks can, 

 and do, affect the production of sex in the egg prior to fer- 

 tilization, or at the time when the egg is ready for that pur- 

 pose. More direct evidence, however, could, I think, be ob- 

 tained by experimenting with the eggs of animals, such as 

 frogs and fish, whose eggs are fertilized onlv after being 

 laid. 



The law which appears to govern the formation of sex 

 — so far as checks are concerned — may be stated as follows : 

 An egg which is fertilized free from check produces a 

 female. In other words, a female is formed from an egg 

 that has received no check in its fertilization when (or just 

 prior to) being fertilized. 



The following rules may also be stated with reference 

 to the working of the law just cited : (1.) A female (mother) 

 may be predisposed by anterior checks to produce males. 

 (2.) A recent check exerts its greatest force, if received 

 when the ovaries are nearing (or have just reacht) their 

 greatest development for egg-production. And, also, the 

 more the ovaries have been favored towards extensive de- 

 velopment, by prevailing favorable conditions, the greater 

 is the effect in the direction I have indicated. 



The eggs laid b)- a virgin queen clearly show the effect 

 of an absolute check in producing males. When these eggs 

 were ready for being fertilized, none of the elements nec- 

 essary for the purpose were present ; and they therefore re- 

 ceived an absolute check, so far as fertilization, but possess- 

 ing of themselves the necessary vitality to produce bee-life, 

 but males only. 



The eggs of a fertile queen-bee are free from check, 

 and in consequence produce females. On the other hand, 

 when she lays eggs that have received an absolute or ex- 

 treme check, they are non-fertilized, and produce males that 

 resemble the mother only. She also lays eggs that have 



received a check sufficiently powerful to prevent them form- 

 ing females, but that admits of their being fertilized with 

 male semen ; then they produce males in more or less de- 

 gree resembling both parents. This latter case, which had 

 not hitherto been solved, presents new interest, not only 

 for the explanation it affords of the effects produced by the 

 check described in the present instance, but because the 

 effects of this check are also common to the eggs of ani- 

 mals generallj'. The effects produced by this check are 

 therefore important to breeders of farm stock, or of domes- 

 tic or pet animals, and also to fish-breeders as well as to 

 bee-keepers ; in fact, in every case where it may be desir- 

 able to specially produce females or males of any variety. 

 To control the formation of the sex in the egg at will 

 is a science of itself, and some of the details to be attended 

 to must be special to, and necessarily vary with, the kind of 

 stock dealt with. — British Bee Journal. 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. C. C. MILLER. Marengo, III. 



[The Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal office, or to Dr. Miller 



direct, when he will answer them here. Please do not ask the 



Doctor to send answers bj- mail. — Editor.] 



When Clover Yields Nectar. 



On page 396, you say that white clover bloomed Ma)- 26. 

 June 6 you were despondent on account of the failure of 

 clover to secrete nectar. Is it not an accepted fact that 

 clover does not yield nectar until it has been in bloom in 

 days ? ' ' Tennessee. 



Answer. — I don't know that I ever saw it stated as a 

 generally accepted fact that clover does not yield nectar 

 until it lias been in bloom 10 days, but it has been a fact ac- 

 cording to my own observation. What troubled me was 

 that the bees did no/ begin to store nectar within 10 days 

 after the first bloom appeared. Neither did it begin for 

 some time after that, when the bees began to be excited 

 over the harvest. But that soon died out, and the entire 

 month of June past away with empty supers, some colonies 

 during that time being at the point of starvation. 



A Bunch of Six auestions. 



1. I ordered a queen and introduced her ; she did not lay 

 more than a dozen eggs, and swarmed out after being in 

 the hive 10 days. The bees settled and remained 15 min- 

 utes, and returned to the hive, but the queen did not return. 

 It was a 4-frame nucleus, and well filled with bees. What 

 was wrong with the queen ? She was ordered for a tested 

 queen ; the breeder sent another one in her place. 



2. I had two queens sent me the other day, arriving the 

 next day after being mailed. In one cage the queen and all 

 the bees were dead but three, and in the other the bees were 

 all dead, and the queen could just crawl ; she died in a few 

 hours. Thev were not daubed up with candy, but seemed 

 to be clean and dry. What was the trouble ? 



3. I live on an elevated place. I have my bees in a row 

 facing the south, hives 20 inches apart, and a shelter over 

 them 6 feet in front and and 4';. feet behind, and of course 

 that runs the water off. At the back end, or north side of 

 this shelter it is banked up to the roof to protect them from 

 the north wind, as it would have a far sweep at them other- 

 wise. Last winter it was very cold, and out of 43 colonies I 

 lost 20. some being my strongest colonies, that froze or 

 starved, as you may call it, but there was plenty of honey 

 in the hives'. There was frost in the inside walls of those 

 hives. Nine colonies froze and 11 died of dysentery. Would 

 you advise me to put my bee-hives in pairs, and pack them 

 from now on ? If so, when shall I pair them, and pack 

 them, and how shall I pack them '.' It is not often we have 

 such winters as last. 



4. If I do not pack my bees would it not be better for 



