THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



151 



that he went through resil practical 

 tests, just iis we can expect of him. 

 His article sliowsthat he did not give 

 us fi'r facts matters of which lie had 

 readonly. We knowMr. .Jnnes to be 

 a hee-keeiier of sound sense and great 

 experience, and I wonder wliy lie did 

 not succeed with my remedy, suppos- 

 ing salicylic used to be of the same 

 properties in Canada as in the United 

 States. I am certain he has blundered 

 somewhere, otherwise his cure of foul 

 brood would have been easier and 

 surer than with the starving process, 

 which I have tried to my satisfaction, 

 and in which I had a first class ally, 

 Mr. Josepli Savage. It appears tome 

 that I am better posted on the foul 

 brood question than Mr. .Jones, and 

 I shall try to convince him of that 

 fact (if such it be) in the course of a 

 week or two, when I may have more 

 leisure than I have just now. I am 

 not alarmed that I shall offend, be- 

 cause such controversies are generally 

 accepted in the same spirit in 

 which they are given. Besides, Mr. 

 Jones and myself know that neither 

 one of us knows all about it, and both 

 of us are still willing to learn. 

 Cincinnati, O. * 



[The article referred to above, and 

 for which Mr. Muth will please accept 

 our tlianks, will be found on page 146 

 of this issue. — Ed.1 



Rural New Yorker. 



Pollen Essential for Brood-Rearing. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Of late much lias been said of the 

 deleterious effects of bees eating pol- 

 len as a winter diet, and out of it 

 there seems to have grown the opinion 

 in the minds of some that pollen is a 

 necessity when brood is being reared. 

 In other words, it is claimed by some 

 that no brood can be reared without 

 pollen, for we tind in a prominent 

 work on apiculture these words: " We 

 are interested about pollen because 

 bees cannot rear brood without either 

 it or some substitute for it." Again : 

 "They (the bees) had no pollen and, 

 of course, no brood-rearing could go 

 on without it." Also we find these 

 W(n-ds coming from high authority : 

 "I have further stated that pollen 

 was an indispensable requisite to 

 brood-rearing ; that it is an essential 

 element in the food of larval bees ; " 

 after which the writer goes on to give 

 circumstantial evidence to substan- 

 tiate liis position, without giving any 

 positive proof that such position was 

 correct. As positive evidence in court 

 is considered to be of greater value 

 than negative. I desire to give some 

 such proof that the above writers are 

 mistaken. 



Some years ago I learned that a 

 neighbor, living about a mile away, 

 was to kill his bees the next day by tlie 

 method practiced bv our forefathers 

 called "brimstoning." Accordingly 

 I went and saw him, and got permis- 

 sion to drive out the bees and save 

 them from such a cruel death, if I 

 would secure to him the combs and 



honey. After obtaining the bees I 

 carried them tuune and put them in a 

 hive together witii six frames of nice, 

 new comb without pollen. They were 

 then fed very thick sirup made from 

 standard A sugar, until I considered 

 thev had suthcient stores for winter. 

 As "it was late in October, they had 

 but two chances to fly after they had 

 been brought home and placed in the 

 cellar for winter. We have no llow-ers 

 yielding pollen late in the fall, conse- 

 quent! v no pollen was obtained. 

 Along "in the fore \)art of February I 

 commenced to stimulate them by jar- 

 ring the hive to arouse the bees into 

 activity, so that they would feed their 

 queen. Tliis was repeated afterwards 

 by way of experiment. About the 

 middle of March a fine day occurred 

 when these bees were set out for a 

 fly, as was our custom at that time. 

 After their first excitement at being 

 out in the warm sunshine had some- 

 what subsided, the hive was opened 

 and, much to my satisfaction, I found 

 brood in two combs, amounting to 

 nearly half a frameful, comprising 

 eggs, larvfe and sealed brood, with 

 now and then a hatching bee. At 

 night they were returned to the cellar, 

 where they remained till the middle 

 of April, when I found their numbers 

 had much increased and that they 

 had doubled their brood. I then be- 

 gan to teed flour, which they worked 

 on eagerly as bees generally do in 

 early spring. 



Here I wish to introduce another 

 person giving positive evidence, for 

 "in the mouths of two or three wit- 

 nesses every word may be established." 

 This person is no other than Mr. E. 

 Gallup, for whose opinions on apicul- 

 ture I have the highest respect, and 

 who was considered high authority a 

 decade of years ago as an apiarist. He 

 tells us in the Bee-Keepers' Journal 

 for October, 1870, of an experiment 

 he had made by way of putting a 

 small swarm of bees in a hive late in 

 the season and feeding them till they 

 had built thin, small pieces of comb, 

 when they were placed in winter- 

 quarters "without a particle of pol- 

 len." He then tells us how he began 

 to stimulate this little colony about 

 tlie first of February, and says: 

 "The queen commenced breeding, 

 and by the time the bees first flew out 

 in the spring they had doubled their 

 number," and tins without a particle 

 of jiollen. Next we lind on page 26.5 

 of the Bee-Keepers'' Magazine tov 1880, 

 these words from the pen of Prof. 

 Hasbrouck : " They are certainly 

 wrong who say that pollen isindispen- 

 sable to the "raising of young bees, 

 because I have had, asan experiment, 

 abundant brood reared by bees shut 

 up on new comb and fed on refined 

 sugar sirup when they could not possi- 

 bly get a grain of pollen from any 

 source." Tliis. coming from an apiar- 

 ist of close observation, can be relied 

 upon, which, witli the testimony of 

 others, prove.s cnncl usively tliat brood- 

 rearing, to a considei'abie extent at 

 least, can be carried on without any 

 pollen whatever. 



From many observations made dur- 

 ing past years, I am of the opinion 

 that the state of the surroundings. 



such as warm or cool weather, plenty 

 of honey being secreted in the flow- 

 ers, or no honev at all, a desire to 

 keep up a rapidlv diminishing colony, 

 or a perfectly healthy one, has more 

 to do with brood-rearing than plenty 

 of pollen. That the "scramble" for 

 pollen in earlv spring excites brood- 

 rearing no one will deny ; but pollen 

 may come in quite as freely in the 

 latter part of September, and yet no 

 brood-rearing at all be th^ result. 

 Much depends upon whether the bees 

 desire brood or not; if they do, they 

 will rear it without pollen, as our ex- 

 perience proves. If they do not so 

 desire, a hive full of pollen has no 

 effect upon them. Anything exciting 

 to activity has a tendency toward 

 brood-rearing, while that tending to 

 quietude gives a reverse result. 

 Borodino, N. Y. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



The Dollar Queen Business. 



HENRY ALLEY. 



I am glad to see the dollar queen 

 question brought up again. 1 hope 

 that those who purchase queens will 

 be convinced that queens cannot be 

 reared and sold by lionest dealers at 

 so low a figure, and give the producer 

 a living. I think most of our custom- 

 ers are willing to pay a fair price for 

 queens, 1 know, to my sorrow, that 

 queens cannot be reared at such prices. 

 I am not like some who write on this 

 question, as I do not tliink tlie queens 

 should be poorer for being sold at a 

 low price. I have contended for a 

 long time that the manner of rearing, 

 and not the price, is the cause of poor 

 queens. Last year was the only year 

 that I did notlosemoney at the queen- 

 rearing business. There is a call for 

 about 12,000 queens each year. I can- 

 not rear over 1, .500 of that numbet, 

 even in the most favorable season. 

 It takes all my time from the first of 

 May to the first of October. Then 

 the expense of rearing tliem eats up a 

 large sum here in this State, on ac- 

 count of the great amount of feeding 

 to be done. Last season I fed out 

 1,400 lbs. of sugar, besides several 

 hundred pounds of honey. Add to 

 the above the large number of colo- 

 nies of bees that must be destroyed to 

 fill 2.50 nuclei and to keep them re- 

 plenished with bees for .5 months; 

 then comes the full colonies that we 

 rear queens in ; then the postage on 

 the queens, letters, postal cards, cir- 

 culars, and advertising bills. I find 

 it prettv hard work to get money 

 enough in the fall to pay my bills— I 

 certainly cannot get it out of the 

 queen-rearing business. Now, what 

 do bee-keepers want queen-breeders 

 to do — keep on losing money, or stop 

 rearing (pieens V I have been rearing 

 queens so many years that I cannot 

 feel like giving it up ; it is like a 

 second-nature to me. I have kept at 

 it for several years, hoping thatsome- 

 thing would turn up so that a fair liv- 

 ing at it might be made, and know of 

 others who have done the same. Noth- 

 ing seems to have turned up that has 

 helped the case any, and at this time 



