790 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



out confinement and none of the bees 

 of the respective colonies will know 

 the difference. 



It is generally known that the bees 

 of one colony may be united with those 

 of another by alternating theirconibs, 

 and there is no disposition to fight. 

 Having always succeeded in uniting 

 them thus, I came to the conclusion 

 that a qneen on a comb witli lier own 

 bees and brood, would be taken no 

 more notice of than theotliers; and this 

 I have proved to be the case by con- 

 tinued and unvarying success. Taken 

 from one hive and placed in anottier, 

 while parading among her own sub- 

 jects and without being handled, the 

 queen takes no notice whatever of the 

 change, and thus her unconcerned be- 

 havior saves her from any rude inquis- 

 itiveness. I have introduced them 

 under all the respective conditions be- 

 fore mentioned, by this means, and 

 I have not met with a single failure ; 

 and during the last two seasons I have 

 been saved a large amoimt of extra 

 work bythismetliod, besides a consid- 

 erable gain in increase in bees. As 

 soon as the comb, queen, and bees are 

 inserted, the job is done, and I never 

 trouble to look at the hive again until 

 its turn comes in the ordinary course 

 of manipulation. 



The foregoing applies, of course, to 

 queens reared in the same apiary when 

 taken from nuclei or other hives with 

 frames all of one size, as should be tiie 

 case in every well conducted apiary. 

 If a nucleus cannot afford to lose the 

 comb of brood taken with the queen, 

 it is easily replaced by one from some 

 other colony. When queens come 

 from other apiaries, the mode of pro- 

 cedure is slightly different, thougli a 

 state of things somewhat similar has to 

 be introduced. An imported queen 

 will never lay vigorously for the first 

 few days, therefore it miglit be said 

 what delay would there be in encaging 

 her? There would be considerable 

 delay if tlie present laying queen were 

 at once deposed. 



To make the most of the queens, 

 first secure as many combs of hatching 

 brood as there are queens to be intro- 

 duced, and after cleaning them of 

 every bee, place each in a nucleus hive 

 with a tight-fitting division board on 

 eitlier side, put tlie queens in, and 

 close each so that no bees can get out, 

 but give ample ventilation. Now put 

 these nuclei into a moderately warm 

 room for two or three days, when 

 many young bees having hatched, and 

 the queens nearly recovered from the 

 effects of tlieir previous confinement, 

 each nucleus may be stood by the side 

 of the hive its queen is to be intro- 

 duced to, and ttie bees allowed to flv 

 for a day or two before being united 

 to the full colony. As socm as the im- 

 ported queen is laying nicely on her 

 one comb, the condemned queen can 

 be removed and the former iihserted 

 (on her own comb with the bees) at 

 one and the same operation, and no 

 notice will be taken of her. By re- 

 serving the condemned queen till the 

 moment the other is introduced, the 

 colony receives no check whatever. 

 The single comb is quite enough for 

 the new arrival for nearly a week, as, 

 after her long confinement, she is 



some days before getting into full 

 laying order. It will be observed 

 that instead of the usual way of allow- 

 ing the bees to lind out their los-i, the 

 exchange is completed before they are 

 aware of the occurrence. 



I have no doubt many will still cling 

 to the cage, hut no advancing bee- 

 keeper can afford to lose so much val- 

 uable time at the beginning of the 

 season. My experience bears me out 

 in stating that there is absolutely no 

 risk whatever in introducing in this 

 way, even in what might be thought 

 most obstinate cases. 



For tbo American Bee JoumaL 



Honey Dew Explained. 



C. H. LAKE. 



Many of the old articles written 40 

 or 50 years ago, are very interesting to 

 me, and thinking other readers of the 

 Weekly Bef. Journal would be edi- 

 fied, I have made such extracts from 

 them as I thought were worthy a place 

 in your valuable journal. I quote one 

 from the American Agriculturist of 

 1844, as follows : 



'• At a late meeting of the Farmers' 

 Club, at New York, the subject under 

 consideration being insects injurious 

 to vegetation, the Chairman, Ben 

 Johnson, of Long Island, is reported 

 to have said : ' It is my opinion the 

 dew (called, by the Dutcti, honey dew) 

 which always falls the latter part of 

 June, always kills off most insects; 

 they uniformly dis;ippear after it has 

 fallen.' " 



" Now, since I have embraced the 

 new doctrine of cause and effect in 

 the matter of blight and its conse- 

 quences, I am led to consider the 

 honey dew merely the extravasated 

 juices of the plant or tree, which, hav- 

 ing been for a time in a stagnant and 

 putrid state occasioned by unfriendly 

 atmospherical influence, are at length 

 thrown off by a new circulation of the 

 sap, the effect being the deprivation of 

 food to ttie insect tribe, which are 

 created for the purpose of feeding on 

 pulricity, and hence the cause of their 

 disappearance." (W. Fay, in Boston 

 Cultivator.) 



The editor of the Agriculturist adds: 

 " We have consulted Mr. Biowne,who 

 is well versed in matters of this kind, 

 and he regards honey dew, in most 

 cases, as the exudation of plant lice. 

 [Aphides.) 



'• He says, however, that there are 

 saccharine exudations from the leaves 

 of plants and trees, which are not dis- 

 tinguished by the name of honey dew, 

 as the labdanuin from the cestes creti- 

 cus, and the manna which exudes from 

 the ash of Italy and the larch of 

 France. There are also aiialagous 

 productions observable on plants after 

 very dry weather, which Mr. Murray, 

 in his treatise on Atmospheric Elec- 

 tricity, ascribes to an electric change 

 in the air. Mr. Murray also states 

 " that the honey dew was found on 

 plants that were entirely free from 

 plant lice, and so copious was this sub- 

 stance, that had their number been a 

 tiundred told, they could not certainly 

 have been the source of the supply. 



He supposed that he set the question 

 at rest by washing a leaf and wiping 

 it dry with a sponge ; immediately 

 after which he observed, through a 

 lens, that excreted globules were ap- 

 parent." 



But, in this experiment, might not 

 the leaf have been previously wound- 

 ed, perhaps, by the beak of a plant- 

 louse, and hence the exudation of sap, 

 instead of honey dew V And may not 

 the circumstance of his finding the 

 honey dew on leaves where there were 

 no plant lice, be accounted for on the 

 principle that these insects had left, 

 as they always do, the parts covered 

 with their exudations V 



Mr. Sau"ages, in the Transactions 

 of the Royal Society, at Montpelier, 

 remarks " that aphia (plant lice) are 

 careful to eject the honey dew to a dis- 

 tance from the place where they may 

 may be feeding." 



Mr. ]5urn cites an instance " of a 

 plant of the Chinese chrysanthemum, 

 the young shoots of wtiich swarmed 

 with aphides, and that the leaves be- 

 low were covered with honey dew. 

 The experiment was tried of wiping 

 it off from a leaf, and no more was 

 formed when it was protected by a 

 piece of paper from the aphides abov . 

 Beside, the paper became sprinkled 

 with honey dew in a few hours, and 

 by means of a lens, the aphides were 

 actually seen to eject their fluid." 



Dr. Harris, in his report on " Insects 

 of Massachusetts, describes the habits 

 of these insects, asfollows : "Plant- 

 lice seem to love society, and often 

 herd together in dense masses, each 

 one remaining fixed to the plant by 

 means of its long tubular beak, and 

 they rarely change their places till 

 they have exhausted the parts first 

 attacked. The attitudes and manners 

 of these little things are exceedingly 

 amusing. When disturbed, like res- 

 tive horses, they begin to kick and 

 sprawl in the most ludicrous manner. 

 They may be seen, at times, suspended 

 by their beaks alone, and throwing 

 up their legs, as if in a high frolic, but 

 too much engaged in sucking to with- 

 draw their beaks. As they take in 

 great quantities of sap they would 

 soon become gorged if they did not 

 get rid of the superabundant fluid 

 ttirough the two little tubes or pores 

 in the extremities of their bodies. 

 VVhen one of them gets running over- 

 full, it seems to communicate its un- 

 easy sensations by a kind of animal 

 magnetism to the whole fiock, upon 

 which they all, with one accord, jerk 

 upward their bodies and ejectashower 

 of the honied fluid." 



Ttie fecundity of plant lice is almost 

 incalculable. Ueaumur supposed that 

 in one year there may be twenty gen- 

 erations, and he proved, by experi- 

 ment, that one of these insects may be 

 the parent of 5,904,900,000 descendants 

 during its life." 



Latrille says, " one female, during 

 the summer mouths, usually produces 

 about twenty-five a day, and more 

 than one thousand have been counted 

 on a single leaf of the hop." 



Honey dew is in no way regarded as 

 poisonous, but, on the contrary, it is 

 devoured with eagerness by bees, ants, 

 and other insects, and in the forests 



