116 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



May Flowers. 



Pale winter waves his chilly wings 

 Above the white, wan world; 



The spectral winds abroad he flings. 

 And wrathful storms are hurled. 



But pallid winter's sway must yield. 



When wake the gentler days 

 That smile in sunbeams o'er the field. 



And flood the world with praise. 



Up, then, my heart! thy winter's day 

 Can work the spring no wrong; 



Its ice will melt when beams thy May. 

 Its sorrows die in song. 

 Davenport. Iowa. —M. L. H'. 



For the American Bee Journal* 



Do Workers Govern the Colony 1 



J. RUTHERFORD. 



AUo-w me to lay before the m.iny 

 readers of the Bee Journal a fev; 

 unpolished observations on the in- 

 fluence of the worker bee. 



1. The workers control the colony 

 in the act of defending, cleaning, ven- 

 tilating and preparing the brood nest. 



2. The workers control the size of 

 the brood-nest by stimulating the 

 queen or mother bee to lay. This food 

 consists of an almost colorless liquid 

 produced profusely by the nurse bees, 

 and is of the same nature as royal 

 ielly in its original state, but on com- 

 ing in contact with the air it thickens 

 and congeals into a milkhke mass, 

 hence we call it royal jelly. This most 

 wonderful stimulus is fed very spar- 

 ingly during most of the year, and is 

 regulated acccordingly to the flow of 

 honey and the temperature outside 

 the hive. 



3. The workers control the colony 

 by producing drone comb or preparing 

 it for the reception of eggs. In the 

 spring of 1882. while endeavoring to 

 secure some early drones, I put a nice 

 frame of drone comb into the centre 

 of a strong colony, and in a few days 

 it was partially filled on both sides of 

 the comb, but after this short spell of 

 fine spring-like weather, we had a cold 

 snap for ten days, during which they 

 bad no fly, and quite a number of col- 

 onies showed signs of a disease com- 

 monly called bee cholera, dysentery, 

 and now modern authority pronounce 

 it diarrhoea. I was feeling anxious 

 about tiie extended cold snap, as I had 

 96 colonies to prepare for the honey 

 harvest, and a number of colonies to 

 prepare for queen -cells ; so the flrst 

 warm day I examined the colony men- 

 tioned, and you can imagine my sur- 

 prise when 1 tell you that the same 

 comb was entirely empty. I took it 

 out of the brood-nest and put it be- 

 hind the division-board in disgust. 

 You will at once perceive that the 

 weather influenced the bees to such 

 an extent that the workers did not 

 bring the drone eggs to maturity, also 

 the workers stopped stimulating the 

 queen, and she, too, ceased to bring 

 her eggs to matm-ity. 



4. The workers control the colony 

 by enlarging or building queen-cells, 

 in preparation for and during the 

 swarming season, and workers can 

 and do remove eggs from one cell to 

 another whenever the economy of the 

 colony require it, and I have produced 

 queens, drones, and workers from 

 worker eggs. In the spring of 1882, 

 I had 4 queenless colonies, and in 

 order to keep them in good condition, 

 I gave them these combs of eggs from 

 I different colonies, and the workers 

 produced drones from worker eggs in 

 three of them ; this led me to believe 

 that the queen laid only impregnated 

 eggs after meeting with the drone, 

 which eggs are metamorphosed into 

 drones and queens by the workers, as 

 the economy of the colony demand it, 

 and that the theory advanced by 

 prominent bee-keepers that the sex of 

 the eggs is determined by the size of 

 the cell by the abdominal pressure in 

 depositing the egg, is fully exploded, 

 as I have" seen eggs laid on founda- 

 tion before the cells were complete, 

 and I believe the most advanced theory 

 is that the queen can and do lay eggs 

 intended for queens, drones and work- 

 ers by simply controlling the eggs as 

 they leave the ovaries, and that the 

 workers have nothing to do with the 

 sex, but simply to nurse and feed them 

 after the eggs are hatched. This, 

 also. I think, can be proven a myth. 

 I firmly believe that a queen never 

 laid an egg in any cell intending it to 

 be any other than a worker. Can it 

 be possible that a queen possessing 

 such jealousy, yea, such deadly hatred 

 against a rival, that the workers have 

 to guard the queen-cells in order to 

 prevent her from tearing them down 

 — can it be possible tliat such a 

 queen would voluntarily deposit an 

 egg in a royal cell, knowing tliat in so 

 doing she "was endangering her own 

 life in case of battle, or leave the 

 home of birth and adoption to form a 

 colony of her own. 



•5. The workers control the colony 

 during the swarming impulse by send- 

 ing ovit scouts to reconnoitre, select 

 and prepare a place for their future 

 abode, which is generally much in- 

 ferior to the hive they are about 

 to leave ; although I have seen them 

 select, clean aiid occupy an empty 

 hive not -50 yards distant from where 

 the swarm issued. 



6. The workers control the colony by 

 superseding the queen in case of acci- 

 dent or old age. The workers know 

 that the prosperity of the colony is 

 entirely due to the" faithfulness of the 

 queen, and whenever they discover 

 that they cannot stimulate her to lay 

 the requisite number of eggs, the 

 workers turn her ruthlessly out of 

 the hive, and proceed to select, en- 

 large and complete a number of qn^en 

 cells out of the worker eggs remaining 

 in the hive, but occasionally we find 

 mother and daughter living quietly 

 together in the same hive. They also 

 control the colony in the act of de- 

 stroying tlie drones when the economy 

 of the colony demand it, and the same 

 restless activity that was displayed in 

 rearing the brood and caring for it, is 

 now turned to hatred, and I have not 

 the least doubt but that the same bees 



that nursed and cared for the larvae 

 but a few weeks ago, is now most 

 active in worrying, killing and driving 

 them away, such is the merciless law 

 of the worker when tlie good of the 

 colony demand it. Yes, the much 

 maligned drone, though useful but a 

 short-lived career, is born to go down 

 " unwept, unhouored. and unsung." 

 Buffalo, N. Y. 



For the American Bee JournaL 



Extra Prolific ftueens. 



W. J. DAVIS. 



I fully agree with ;Mr. Doolittle and 

 Mr. Heddon that extra prolific queens 

 are not desirable when surplus honey 

 is the object sought in keeping bees. 

 I would not take the time to write, 

 nor tax the space of the Bee Jour- 

 nal, nor the patience of your readers 

 did I not tliink that a large majority 

 of bee-keepers do not believe the 

 statement, and I will admit there are 

 some reasons for disbelief. The inex- 

 perienced would say, " If the laying 

 of the queen be desirable, why, the 

 more eggs the better.'" I used to 

 think so myself, but my experience 

 does not confirm that idea, and it has 

 occurred several times that the queens 

 I thought in the spring to be the very 

 best in my apiary, were the ones I 

 would kill first in the fall. Let us see 

 if we can assign a reason for this. 



Every young bee reared in the 

 hive represents a certain amount of 

 outdoor labor by adult bees, and that 

 labor must be performed from 20 to 40 

 days in advance of the time when said 

 young Itee can engage in out-door 

 labor. It is not difficult to see that a 

 colony with 40,0(10 cells of brood must 

 do double the labor to simply " sup- 

 port the family " than a colony with 

 but 20,000 cells of brood. Yes, that is 

 plain, says one, but there are twice as 

 many bees to work. That may be, 

 but I would ask when V Not when 

 the bees are of the greatest value, viz.: 

 at the beginning of the honey harvest. 



Again, in this locality, there are so 

 many days after breeding has begun 

 in earnest, that bees can secure noth- 

 ing from the fields, and the internal 

 demand and external supply are sadly 

 out of proportion. But if smiling 

 earth and skies, or the timely aid of 

 the bee-keeper enables the " excessive 

 lareeder "" to pull through, they swarm 

 at tlie beginning of the lioney harvest, 

 while the bees of the nomal breeder go 

 into the surplus department and work 

 with a will. If the greatest number 

 of colonies and a great amount of 

 feeding is the object sought, the case 

 is diilerent. 



I think there is not so much differ- 

 ence in the amount of real labor per- 

 formed by different colonies as some 

 might tliink. The labor of one may be 

 directed to the production of brood, 

 bringing in larger quantities of pollen, 

 consuming larger quantities of honey, 

 in the matiuring of a greater number 

 of bees to be of little value in the au- 

 tumn, while another will show a large 

 yield of surplus, and a medium sized 

 colony of bees when fall frosts come. 

 The moth, with me, is a thing of the 



