694 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



and had kept his bees in two divisions, 

 one part of them at his home in Mill 

 Creek, the other, up on the bench, 

 about loO colonies; he had been too 

 busy to give his bees full attention, or 

 the results would have been better. 



Wm. M. Egan, of this city, beg.an 

 last spring with 19 colonies and now 

 has 25, and has taken 1,500 pounds of 

 honey. He considers this season a 

 very "poor one for bees and honey ; for 

 wintering he approves of Hill's device, 

 as an opening on top of the frames 

 with chaff protection proves a success 

 with him. When necessary in early 

 spring he gives them smut dust, plac- 

 ing it outside where they can work on 

 it for pollen ; he thinks "that it is far 

 better than flour, and when they are 

 scarce of honey, he gives them a 

 frame of comb honey. 



T. B. Clark, of Davis county, said 

 that in Farmington there are about 

 150 colonies of bees. They averaged 

 50 pounds of honey per colony. He 

 was pleased to say that the foul brood 

 which had infected their bees so 

 lamentably is fast disappearing. Pro- 

 tect the bees and spare the toads. In 

 France, gardeners often bought toads 

 to devour the vermin in the gardens. 



G. W. Bean, of Sevier county, says 

 that the bees have done poorly this 

 season. 



In St. George, John Campbell said 

 that the bees did well in the spring, 

 but protracted rains followed by 

 drouth disappointed the bees, and the 

 keepers, too, early in the spring. 

 Some colonies cast 8 swarms. There 

 are about 400 colonies in the place. 



Samuel Nowel, of this city, had 2 

 colonies in the spring, has six now, 

 and has taken 200 pounds of honey. 



E. Stevenson, of this city, has 45 

 colonies on cottonwood. He" has been 

 absent one year and considers the sea- 

 son a very poor one. His bees have 

 produced 1,500 pounds of honey in 2- 

 pound sections. 



J. E. Murphy, of Mill Creek, has 66 

 colonies, 36 of them being on Mill 

 Creek bench. He has taken 2,500 lbs. 

 of honey, and about 1,000 more of 

 comb honey yet to take. 



It was advised by the meeting to 

 extend the organization of bee-keep- 

 ers' association through the various 

 counties, and it might be expected 

 that Mr. Stevenson would visit the 

 settlements in this interest. 



The convention adjourned until 

 next April. E. Stevenson, jSec. 



A. M. MussER, Pres. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Sexual Functions of Bees. 



WJI. 3nTTH-RASMUSSEN.O+ 



Having read Mr. Kohnke's article 

 on this subject, on page 633, I desire 

 to ask him a few questions, and also 

 to add a few comments : First. Does 

 a laying worker ever deposit eggs in 

 drone cells 'i If so, is there any differ- 

 ence in the size of the drones reared 

 in such cells, from those reared in 

 worker-cells 'i I do not now remember 

 of ever having noticed this, nor have 

 I seen it mentioned in print. I know 

 that the drones reared from laying 



workers, are usually a little larger 

 than a worker-bee. Second. Does 

 Mr. Kohnke know whether laying 

 workers, or any workers, are in pos- 

 session of a seminal sac capable of 

 receiving and retaining the seminal 

 fluid from the drone 'i 



Now, in regard to the fertilization 

 of worker-bees : " The same scientists 

 have also proven by ocular demonstra- 

 tion that freshly-deposited eggs laid 

 by a mated queen in drone-cells, or 

 those laid by a queen not having 

 mated, as also those laid by workers, 

 are devoid of these sperm-filaments." 

 Of what use, then, would fertilization 

 be to a worker-bee, when it cannot 

 lay female eggs, but can produce male 

 eggs without the sperm-filaments, 

 that is, without fertilization V AVhy 

 cannot a worker-bee produce female 

 eggs V I think, because it cannot 

 become fertilized. And why not ? 

 Because the seminal sac has been so 

 stunted with the whole organism of 

 the individual bee, that it is incapable 

 of receiving and retaining the semi- 

 nal fluid, llie writer in Bienemeitung, 

 commenting on jNIr. Kromer's discov- 

 ery, asks : " Had the worker in ques- 

 tion a desire to mate V And further 

 on he says: "The observed fact is 

 also proof conclusive, that the stunted 

 or smaller sexual organs of the work- 

 ers admit of copulation." I admit 

 that this may be so. I believe that 

 young horses, after castration, some- 

 times show signs of sexual excite- 

 ment ; but the fact of copulation does 

 not prove that fertilization takes 

 place. " What did such eggs hatch ? 

 Only male beps, or drones." As drones 

 are produced by queens without fer- 

 tilization, reasoning from analogy, 

 they should likewise be so produced 

 by laying workers ; consequently the 

 mating of a worker-bee with a drone 

 may be only a freak of nature, induced 

 perhaps by higher development and 

 vigor of some individual worker. 

 " Nature does nothing without an ob- 

 ject ;" but the object is not always ac- 

 complished. 



Independence, Calif. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Tiering-up Sections— Hibernation. 



C. THEIL3IANN.O. 



I commenced the season of 1884 

 with 110 colonies, which 1 increaseti 

 to 190 by natural swarming, on Mr. 

 Heddon's plan of preventing after- 

 swarms, which 1 found to be the best 

 method of any that I have ever tried. 

 I obtained about 2,000 pounds of comb 

 and 400 pounds of extracted honey. 



The forepart of the summer was 

 middling good here for bees, with a 

 good prospect for basswood honey ; 

 but as the blossoms began to open, the 

 greater part of them turned black 

 and fell off, so the bees secured but 

 little honey from that source. The 

 hills and valleys were covered with 

 flowers until the latter part of Sep- 

 tember, when they ceased without 

 being frosted, although the bees got 

 but little fall honey. Red clover, 

 pumpkins, tomatoes", and here and 

 there some wild flowers are in bloom 



yet ; the bees have brought in some 

 pollen every day, for the past 10 days, 

 as the weather has been unusually 

 warm for this time of the year. It 

 has been 1.5^ to 80° in the shade at 

 noon, though the nights have been 

 cold enough for a slight, white frost 

 in places. 



In June, when about % of my colo- 

 nies had their surplus arrangements 

 about % filled with honey, and the 

 prospect for more being good, I tried 

 Mr. Heddon's tiering-up plan. All of 

 these colonies were very strong, and 

 they immediately occupied and com- 

 menced to work in the empty sections. 

 After they had them partly filled, 

 they did not find honey enough, with 

 all the abundance of flowers, to com- 

 plete the work which they had begun; 

 the result being that about % of my 

 surplus honey was not capped over 

 when the season closed. 1 never had 

 iny comb honey in such bad condi- 

 tion since I began to keep bees, and 

 I hope that it never will be repeated. 

 I am sure that I never will have it 

 occur with the tiering-up plan, as I 

 will never again tier-up until the first 

 set of sections is capped over, or the 

 sections sealed. This tiering-up plan 

 beats me in a poor honey season, but 

 I do not think that it has been so 

 with others. It would be all right, if 

 Mr. II. or some one else could foretell 

 tlie season ahead. 



I cannot close without making a 

 few remarks on hibernation. Mr. 

 Clarke writes a great deal about it, 

 and yet does not say anything ; that; 

 is, he does not tell us how to proceed 

 or to perform with our bees in order 

 to have them hibernate. 



All practical and experienced bee- 

 keepers know that bees winter best 

 when they are in a quiet state, but I 

 have never seen or heard of one who 

 knew of a method to get and to keep 

 the bees in that quiet state, or " to 

 hibernate." as Mr. Clarke terms it, 

 during their winter confinement. In 

 all my wintering of bees, I remember 

 of only one wmter through which 

 they passed in that dormant state all 

 winter, and until I put them out in 

 April. 



In the fall of 1872, I had 24 strong 

 and heavy colonies in LangstrotS 

 hives, for which I built a bee-house in 

 a side-hill near the apiary. I banked 

 it up to the shingle roof, except the 

 front which was double-walled and 

 filled with sawdust between. It was 

 frost proof. I made benches all 

 around the inside about one foot 

 from the ground, on which I put the 

 hives, on Nov. 15. I weighed them 

 while taking them in. After I had 

 them all in, I took tlie caps and 

 honey-boards oft' of all the hives, 

 which left the frames bare. The en- 

 trances were left wide open, and 

 no holes were made in the combs, nor 

 spreading of frames. I shut the door 

 and let them take care of themselves. 



During the winter I went into the 

 bee-house two or three times to see 

 the bees, and each time found them 

 as if they were asleep. They came 

 through the winter in the best con- 

 dition of any bees that I ever win- 

 tered. They consumed only from 3 

 to 7 pounds of honey per colony, for I 



