THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



393 



vor tbe American Uee Juumal. 



Clipping Queens' Wings. 



W. N. UOWAUD. 



In Mr. Stewart's reply to my ques- 

 tion, on page 844, he riglitly inters 

 that 1 meant tlie period of gestation 

 by tlie word foul: and as he lias asked 

 afew questions in return, I will give 

 what 1 deem a sensible view of the 

 matter. 



I know of no bee-keepers (or any 

 one else) who treat their queens as 

 Mr. S. describes, in comparing them 

 to the mare with her legs cut off. To 

 be sure the interior of a hive, as a 

 general thing, is dark ; and this is no 

 violation of any of the natural laws 

 as regards a bee-hive ; but to make the 

 comparison parallel, as he puts it, 

 would be to cut the queen's legs off 

 as well as clipping her wing. 



A queen with her wing clipped is 

 not deprived of any of her organs of 

 locomotion, neither is it any incum- 

 berance to the fulHllment of any 

 duties that nature requires of her 

 after she has mated with the drone, 

 with the exception of flying with the 

 swarm ; and the assistance of man 

 provides for this deHcieney in a much 

 more satisfactory manner than to let 

 nature take its "course. If the clip- 

 ping of queens" wings is injurious, 

 why does it not so prove itself V 



Mr. G. M. Doolittle has for the past 

 IM years made a practice of clipping 

 the wing of each of his queens (if I 

 am correct), and he rears his own 

 queens ; yet he makes the best report 

 of comb honey (length of honey flow 

 taken into consideration) of any bee- 

 keeper in the known world i and he is 

 each year improving his bees by care- 

 ful breeding. 



In a certain sense all animal life is 

 governed by the same universal law 

 in some of its details; but certain de- 

 tails which could be applied with suc- 

 cess to one part of the animal king- 

 dom, would be disastrous if applied to 

 other parts. 



True, queens do sometimes fly flrom 

 the combs while being handled, but it 

 is generally caused by their being dis- 

 turbed ; but do they produce better 

 bees or larger yields of honey than 

 the colonies by their side whose queen 

 has a clipped wing V 



The fact that a mare may be worked 

 to within ]•") minutes of the birth of 

 the colt, does not prove that the colt 

 would not have been just as strong 

 and vigorous if the mare had been 

 allowed to roam at her own "sweet 

 will ■' in the pasture. 



Perhaps Mr. S. will say that a 

 queen with a clipped win^ is pre- 

 vented from going where she might 

 wish to, and yet she is not prevented 

 from doing all the duty that nature 

 intended her to perfoi'm in all parts 

 of the hive. 



I am aware, as Mr. S. says, that a 

 scare or other mental excitement of a 

 disagreeable nature, often makes 

 strange and woeful impressions, etc. ; 

 but can Mr. S. present any evidence 

 that a queen lias a mind, and is en- 

 dowed with mental faculties V If so, 

 could not she be taught to perform 



more duties than lier instinct now 

 luonipts her to do ? Why not educate 

 ber to share her domicil with other 

 (jueens, to assist in the egg-laying 

 duties, to care for the brood, and if 

 needed lend a helping liand at honey 

 gathering? And what a boom it 

 would be to the queen breeder if he 

 could educate queens to allow queen- 

 cells to remain undisturbed in the 

 same hive until hatched. 



In Mr. S.'s description of allowing 

 the mare to enter the match, he has 

 given no conditions that were not 

 prompted and brought about by na- 

 ture, and he simply allows her to fol- 

 low her instincts as far as his judg- 

 ment tells him it is good for her. But 

 is such a course of treatment as he 

 describes practiced by breeders of 

 iKuses noted for speed V In compel- 

 ling the (lueen to fly, he forces her 

 into an act that her instinct tells her 

 is not needed ; and if it does her no 

 harm, it certainly is of no beneflt. 



Again he says : " In the production 

 of colts, bees or anything else that 

 has. life, the parents "reproduce them- 

 selves, and neither the mental nor 

 physical condition of the offspring at 

 birth can in any way exceed the com- 

 bined condition of the parents." 

 Here his doctrine is not sound, as will 

 be seen by the evidence of Dr. J. S. 

 McAllister, page 264; and also Mr. 

 Geo. E. Boggs. page 150. 



That bees can be improved and 

 bred up to a high standard of excel- 

 lence there is no doubt ; for it is being 

 done by some of our best breeders ; 

 but the methods tliey employ are not 

 tossing their (lueen-mothers up and 

 teaching them habits of idleness and 

 neglect of home duties. 



Derby, Vt. 



For Oie Amerlc^in Bee Journal. 



The Honey Flora of Arkansas. 



A. R. NISBET. 



Clark county. Ark., is situated be- 

 tween the mountain and the swamp 

 lands of Arkansas, and boasts of con- 

 taining some soil as rich as can be 

 found in the Southwest. 



Red elm is the lirst to yield pollen, 

 and it generally blooms about Feb. 1, 

 and lasts one week. If the weather is 

 propitious when it is in full bloom, 

 the bees will gather pollen as well as 

 at any time during the summer. 

 Wild plum and peach bloom about 

 March 5 ; and bees here generally get 

 a good start in brood-rearing while 

 the bloom continues. Cotton- wood 

 and red-bud greets us in gorgeous 

 robes of various hues about March 35, 

 and bids us get our hives in readiness 

 for the forth-coming swarms. They 

 bloom for a week, and sometimes teii 

 days, after which we have a scarcity 

 of bloom until May. 



Ratan is one of our best honey-pro- 

 ducing plants. On May 5 is about its 

 average time of beginning to bloom, 

 and it lasts from 10 to 15 days. The 

 Iioiiey gathered from it is of a beauti- 

 ful rich color, and of excellent flavor. 

 It compares favorably with that gath- 

 ered from linden, but is not quite as 

 bright The holly opens a little later 



than the ratan, but before the latter 

 ceases to bloom ; and together they 

 make a honey-tlow which is hard to 

 excel. 



We very often have a great deal of 

 rain at that season of the year, and 

 sometimes lose nearly all of the honey; 

 but the fault is not in the bloom. At 

 the close of this honey flow, I ex- 

 tract the honey from every comb in 

 the apiary, which has honey enough 

 to pay for the trouble. I do that to 

 keep our nice honey separate from 

 the chineapiu honey, which begins to 

 come in about that time. 



Tbe honey gathered from chincapiiii 

 bloom is dark and very strong; and 

 another extracting takes place when 

 it is all gathered. This time I extract 

 only from upper stories and outside 

 combs of colonies in single-story hives. 



We are now ready for the linden or 

 basswood honey, and it is generally 

 ready for us by '.lune 10. 



I will probably say something in 

 the future about our summer and fall 

 flowers. I would like to meet all tbe 

 practical Arkansas bee-keepers at our 

 State F'air next fall ; also as many from 

 other States as will come. Let us 

 meet and organize that convention we 

 talked of last fall. 



Dobyville, Ark. 



Read at tlie Somerset, Me., Convention- 

 Wintering Bees on Summer Stands. 



ISAAC HUTCHINS. 



Previous to the last two years I had 

 wintered my bees without loss, and it 

 was by uniting all small colonies in 

 the autumn and contracting the hives 

 by division-boards to the require- 

 ruents of the colonies, cutting passage 

 ways through the combs, and leaving- 

 no "combs in the hives that containeo 

 less than 8 or 4 pounds of honey, and 

 packing the hive in an outer case or 

 house with chaff or dry sawdust, us- 

 ing a chaff cushion over the frames, 

 and leaving the entrance open ?b of 

 an inch by 5 inches, and not allowing 

 it to become clogged with dead bees 

 or ice. 



A year ago last fall, being pressed 

 for time, I neglected to unite any 

 small colonies, or to cut passage ways 

 through the combs; but instead, I 

 placed three sticks, }i of an inch 

 square, across the frames, so as to 

 give the bees a passage way over the 

 combs. In some of the small colo- 

 nies I contracted the hive by division- 

 boards, and they came through nicely; 

 but the most of them had the whole 

 hive, and some of the combs con- 

 tained but little honey, and such 

 combs were, in most cases, in the 

 middle of tbe hive ; and some colonies 

 ate all the honey out of these middle 

 combs and one end of the hive, and 

 died on the empty combs with plenty 

 of honey at the other end of the hive. 

 The entrance was open Jj by 5 inches. 

 Loss, 25 per cent. ; cause, starvation. 



Last attumn I packed my bees in 

 the same way, only the combs con- 

 taining the most honey at one end of 

 the hive, and contracted the entrance 

 to % by 1 inch. I think 2 colonies 

 died by suffocation from the entrance 



