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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Worker Bees in (Jtieen Cells. — In 



overhauling a colony that had cast a 

 «warm, I found about 15 queen cells 

 •capped over. I cut all of them out. 

 as I wished to make use of part, and 

 •opened the rest to see how far they 

 were advanced. In the first one I 

 opened I found an old, dead worker 

 bee ; the next one — a very fine looking 

 •cell— found another worker bee, but 

 fully alive, with its head all besmeared 

 with the food in the base of cell ; the 

 rest of the cells all had queen larvie in 

 different stages of development. How 

 did the worker bees get in the cells, 

 and what caused them to be capped 

 over y Please give answer in Semi- 

 Monthly. Bees in this section are 

 ■strong, but iiave very little lioney in 

 the hives, and are killing off drones. 

 Out of 16 colonies I have had only 2 

 swarms. During bloom of wild cherry 

 and locust, bees were not able to fly, 

 white clover is coming in slowly, and 

 I think it will remain slow business, 

 as there seems to be very little, only 

 able to find it in patclies here and 

 there, and our only salvation seems 

 to be fair weather during linden 

 bloom. T. MUEHL. 



Rhineland, Mo., May '20, 1882. 



[The capping of worker bees in 

 •queen cells is of such seldom occur- 

 rence that it would be difficult to ac- 

 count for it, though we might account 

 for rearing a worker bee, or mal- 

 formation, in a queen cell. — Ed.] 



The Hohey Season in California.— 



Bees are now booming on blue sage 

 and fruit bloom, and good help is very 

 scarce. They are doing better than 

 last year. I never had hives filled up 

 so since I commenced bee-keeping, in 

 1877. I lay it to comb foundation and 

 a choice race of working Italian bees. 

 Some of my queens are so dark that 

 they look almost like black bees, but 

 they give me good workers, all three- 

 banded and uniformly marked ; but 

 they do not take so well as the lighter 

 ones. I manage to breed from them 

 annually and select. I have a very 

 good cross from different breeds, and 

 have several queens that throw as fine 

 drones as I ever saw, and the queens 

 are prolific, while the workers are 

 workers. One in particular filled a 

 10-frame Langstroth hive in 2 days so 

 full that the queen could not find an 

 «mpty cell. Since our last rain about 

 a week ago, the weatlier has been fine 

 and warm, and the bloom is profuse. 

 The yard smells of it at a distance 

 from the hives, and it seems like 

 somebody's nice kitchen on cake- 

 baking day. Tlie honey comes clear 

 and fast, and when I see a cluster 

 -commencing at the entrance I extract, 

 and take at least 6 out of 10, and often 

 8, and sometimes tlie whole 10 frames 

 to empty. I find the honey about 11 

 lbs. to the gallon. Of course not fullv 

 ripe, as I have to extract to make 

 room in tlie brood ai)artment. Some 

 hives have 20 frames, and some liave 

 two tiers of sections, on some the first 

 being full of honey. The queen did 



fo into the sections until tliis week, 

 ut they crowd her out of them now. 

 I would like to have some one to ex- 



plain if they possibly can, a point not 

 in the books. Last season the weather 

 was cool and bad for rearing queens. 

 My queens quit laying Oct. 1.5; I 

 found no eggs in the liives from then 

 until Jan. 1, 1882. I examined, as I 

 thought, thoroughly. Queens seemed 

 to be all right; noticed in some hives 

 young queens appearing where the 

 old queens were superseded. They 

 ceased laying ; tried to rear queens iii 

 September and October, but had some 

 drone layers wliicli did not lay until 

 January, and I killed them when I 

 found what they were, except one 

 very fine looking queen. In the fall 

 my bees went to the neighboring 

 wine-presses and got drowned by 

 thousands, and vi'ere reduced accord- 

 ingly. Some colonies were small 

 through the winter, and mostly all 

 old bees in the spring; I kept reduc- 

 ing the hive with division boards 

 made expressly. The young queen 

 (drone layer) quit and had to be re- 

 plenished occa.-jiiinally, to keep her 

 along, but did not last. All my old 

 queens had their wings clipped, so I 

 knew when a queen was superseded. 

 I dared not interfere with the young 

 queens until they had laid, and had a 

 good card of eggs and sealed brood, 

 though 1 marked when the eggs first 

 appeared. Now the strangest part 

 appears — the brood appeared to be 

 worker brood, and so proved, and 

 pure Italians. Exi>lain that if you 

 can. My idea is, the queens remained 

 dormant until spring, when a few 

 stray drones appeared, and the queens 

 got fertilized from them, as I aimed 

 to rear drones early, but the bees were 

 not so minded and were not early. 

 She must have been fertilized late in 

 the spring, or after January. You 

 may be sure I was agreeably sm-- 

 prised, and now some of tliose queens 

 have their hives full of bees and are 

 as prolific as any as far as I can see, 

 I saved over 100 combs of foundation 

 all winter, besides a lot of full ones. 

 The foundation was all built out. 

 They were not touched by the moth 

 and are all in use now. The full 

 combs I uncapped and gave to the 

 bees as they needed it, and am ex- 

 tracting now. The honey I gave was 

 dark, from goldenrod, and the bees 

 used it in breeding hives full of bees, 

 and the extracted honey is clear and 

 fine, all Xo. 1. The air is full of bees. 

 So far I am ahead of swarming, 

 though they have plenty of queen 

 cells. J. D. Enas. 



Napa., Cal., April 30,1882. 



Prevention of Swarming. — lam hav- 

 ing trouble withnumy colonies which 

 I, tiwo weeks ago, prepared for storing 

 honey in top boxes. After following 

 the directions of Mr. Doolittle (whose 

 articles I consider of more practical 

 value than any others I have read), 

 by adding bees and brood to a colony, 

 and then putting on top boxes. The 

 bees commence working beautifully 

 in the top boxes, and then send fortii 

 a large swarm, thus depopulating the 

 hive. All work in the top boxes 

 ceases at once. Now, if I wait for the 

 hive to fill up again in the natural 

 way, the honey harvest will be over 

 before the bees commence work again 



in the top boxes. What is to be done ? 

 I have about 80 colonies, with a fine 

 prospect of a good yield this year. 

 Jonisr W. Hinsdale. 



[Use the extractor very freely in the 

 lower story and destroy queen cells, 

 then clip a wing of the queen. In 

 fact, we cannot too highly recommend 

 clipping a wing of the queen when 

 the boxes are put on, whether you 

 find queen cells or not, and regard- 

 less of symptoms for swarming. — Ed.] 



Wild Honeysuckle.— I have had to 

 feed my bees ever since fruit blossoms 

 closed off. I send you a leaf and 

 flower of what I call a wild honey- 

 suckle ; what is it V From the long 

 sheath of its flower I supposed the 

 bees would not be able to reach its 

 honey, but I find they manage to split 

 it down, or make an incision near the 

 bottom, and work upon it from morn- 

 ing till night. I also find the spirea 

 opiilafolia a good honey plant. 



Wm. Maxwell. 



Edgerton, Kas., May 23, 1882. 



[This is, as Mr. Maxwell calls it, a 

 wild honeysuckle (Loniccra parviflo- 

 ra). It prominently differs from two 

 other species, probably found na- 

 tive in the same locality, by its less 

 rank growth and by the shorter tube 

 of the flower. The common name 

 suggeks the quantity of nectar se- 

 creted and lodged in the bottom of 

 the tubular corolla ; but this nectar 

 was evidently not intended to entice 

 the honey bee to visit the flower, the 

 tube being too small for entrance, and 

 too long for this insect's tongue. The 

 manner in which bees do obtain the 

 sweet fluid, as related by Mr, Max- 

 well, and as often before observed, 

 does show the surprising intelligence 

 of the insect. It is scarcely possible 

 that what is called " instinct " has 

 anything to do with the cutting of the 

 base of the tube from without. Sim- 

 ply crowding down the throat might 

 teach them to split the corolla, and 

 gaining access in this way at times 

 might tempt them to try many other 

 methods. Or we may not be wrong 

 in attributing sense enough to the 

 bee to know what it wanted and to 

 devise at once a process of securing 

 it. At any rate, the lesson is a good 

 one and ought not to pass unheeded 

 by any one who desires to understand 

 the facts of nature, or to be mentally 

 stimulated himself to thought and 

 pleasurable inquiry. As the plant 

 blossoms profusely for some weeks, 

 and secretes an abundance of nectar, 

 educated bees may considerably profit 

 by its presence.— T. J. Burrill, 111. 

 Industrial University.] 



