10 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Mr. King said lie learned from 

 neigbbors of Mr. Robinson, that his 

 theories of wintering bees were better 

 than his practice. 



Prof. Kroek thought that it would 

 do no good to theorize as to whether 

 bees would winter in this way; no the- 

 ory could stand against a fact, and as 

 bees have been wintered in that way, 

 that settled that it could be done, and 

 now it remained for us to explain how 

 they were able to live, without the air 

 seemingly necessary to support life. 

 He would suggest that Mr. Robinson 

 did not exclude the ventilation as ef- 

 fectually as he thought. Quite proba- 

 bly the air penetrated the covering. 



Dr. Townsend said, that as a physi- 

 ologist, he believed that a constant 

 supply of fresh air was necessary to 

 the support of life, and he thought 

 that air undoubtedly penetrated the 

 covering. 



The President said that he too 

 believed that air came tlirough the 

 covering. Air would get through 

 lately moved earth for a great distance. 

 A neighbor of his had been building 

 a silo, and had made one side of it by 

 a bank, six feet thick, of ground dug 

 out of the pit. He believed air would 

 penetrate the bank, enough to spoil 

 the fodder. 



Next on the programme, was a paper 

 by Prof. Cook of the Michigan Agri- 

 cultural College, on a " Plan for Gath- 

 ering Bee Statistics." 



Mr. King said that accurate statis- 

 tics of the honey product had never 

 been gathered. 



Mr. Poole inquired why they could 

 not get all the statistics required from 

 the census reports i* 



Mr. King answered that those re- 

 ports were worthless, as far as bees 

 and lioney were concerned. Mr. Lan- 

 dreth, when at the head of the Agri- 

 cultural Bureau, had told him that, 

 although the census reported a honey 

 crop of 1.5,0(10,000 lbs., he had data in 

 his possession showing a yield of at 

 least 35,000,000 lbs. 



On motion of Mr. Cook, the associa- 

 tion adopted the plan of Prof. Cook, 

 and Mr. Rue wasappointeda commit- 

 tee of one to put himself into commu- 

 nication with the National Association 

 for the purpose of endeavoring to 

 carry out this plan. 



The next paper on the programme 

 was by the Secretary, on " Too many 

 Eggs ni One Brisket." 



Mr. Cook said in one light the paper 

 was right ; but in another it was 

 wrong. Men to succeed in anything, 

 must focalize their energies, and learn 

 one business well, and do tliat in a 

 proper manner. 



Mr. King said that the Secretary 

 was unfortunate in keeping his bees 

 in a poor location, or from practicing 

 too closely Mr. Robinson's theories, or 

 from too much carbonic acid, and 

 hence spoke in a discouraging manner. 

 He said he could name multitudes of 

 specialists who had made a great deal 

 of money in bee-keeping — among 

 whom were G. M.Doolittle, Harbison, 

 and Jas. Heddon. He said bee-keep- 

 ers were a good deal like miners stand- 

 ing around a hole, who, when others 

 were around, acted as if there was 

 nothing in it, but when they got a 



chance, just raked out the gold dust. 

 Mr. Betsinger had told him that he 

 had made an average of 100 pounds 

 from every colony ever since he had 

 been in the business. 



Mr. Poole said he had been enticed 

 into the bee business, by supply deal- 

 ers, especially by the President, Mr. 

 King, and the Secretary. He had 

 taken a great deal of honey the last 

 season, but yet he agreed with the 

 paper, that the bee business, like the 

 poultry business, was not adapted to 

 be carried on on a large scale. He did 

 not value it for the money there was 

 in it, but for the pleasure it afforded 

 him and for the valuable lessons he 

 could get from it. 



The report of the committee on 

 question drawer was next in order. 



The first question—" Can Virgin 

 Queens be Introduced Successfully V" 

 —was answered by Prof. Kroeh. Yes; 

 by putting them into the hive when 

 less than one hour old, without a cage. 

 Mr. King could introduce a virgin 

 queen several days old, by spraying 

 her and the bees with peppermint 

 water and making them all crawl some 

 distance to the hive. 



The question—" How can Nuclei be 

 United for Wintering ? "—was an- 

 swered by Mr. King. He said that 

 he took frames from at least three 

 nuclei and set them close to the hive 

 he wished to use. Then he put them 

 quickly into the hive and closed it. 

 The bees from so many hives were too 

 much confused to quarrel or injure 

 the queen. 



The question-" Are Winter Pas- 

 sages Through the Combs Necessary V" 

 —was answered by Dr. Townsend in 

 the negative. He said that the holes 

 mutilated the combs too much— that 

 the same end could be attained by 

 small sticks laid across the tops of the 

 frames. 



Mr. King said he stretched canvas 

 on sticks, so as to liave an open space 

 above the frames. On this he placed 

 the cushion. 



Prof. Kroeh said he used to put 

 sticks over the tops of the frames, 

 bent in the form of a bow, by putting 

 the ends against the sides of the hives, 

 thus making an open space above the 

 combs, where the bees could cluster ; 

 but upon reflecting that there was no. 

 honey for the bees in this space, where 

 they were made to cluster by the warm 

 air all ascending there, he had aban- 

 doned the plan. 



Mr. Cook said that in visiting Capt. 

 Hetherington's apiary he had seen 

 little coils of tin, permanently fastened 

 near the middle of each comb, for 

 winter passages. 



Mr. Poole said that he put a frame, 

 covered with wire cloth, over each of 

 his hives, so that he could lift up the 

 cushion and see what the bees were 

 doing, without their being able to see 

 too much of him. He considered this 

 an excellent plan, although the worthy 

 President had told him that he would 

 not have the things on his place. On 

 examining his bees in winter, he ob- 

 served a constant current of bees over 

 the tops of the combs. He kept a 

 couple of colonies in a bay window, in 

 a parlor. The heat in the parlor in 

 winter did not go above 45° and the 



bees were quiet and did not fly out 

 when the weather was unfavorable. 



Thenextquestion — " How Long will 

 a Queen Remain Profitably Prolilic V" 

 —led to a lengthy discussion on a the- 

 ory of Ulivi, that queens are fertilized 

 inside the hive and frequently. Prof. 

 Kroeh, altliough undecided as to the 

 truth of the theory, gave an account 

 of some of Ulivi's observations and 

 defended his conclusion. 



Mr. King said that the theory could 

 not be correct, as they sent Italian 

 queens to Dakota, New Zealand and 

 other places where Italian queens had 

 never before been sent. They were 

 put into hives of black bees and con- 

 tinued to produce pure Italian bees, 

 when there could have been nothing 

 but black drones, if any, in the hives, 

 for a long time. 



The Secretary pronounced Abbe 

 Ulivi a " crank." His theory was 

 against the most ordinary facts con- 

 stantly observed by every bee-keeper. 

 Nothing was more common than to 

 see a queen from a black colony filled 

 up with black drones becoming fertile 

 by an Italian drone from a neiglibor- 

 ing apiary, and the opposite. This 

 cannot be explained on the theory of 

 Ulivi. Every bee-keeper has seen his 

 young queen fly off unincumbered and 

 return in a short time with something 

 attached, which Ulivi says is excreta. 

 If all his pretended microscopical in- 

 vestigations are of the same kind as 

 this, they are obviously worthless, as 

 any one can see with the naked eye 

 that they are the copulative organs of 

 the drone. 



He had examined them carefully un- 

 der the microscope and always found 

 the appendage to be torn parts of the 

 drone. He and several other persons 

 had seen this copulation take place 

 before their eyes, and always saw a 

 lacerated and dead drone as the result. 

 He had, in conducting some experi- 

 ments, kept six young queens shut up 

 in nuclei, well supplied with drones, 

 till after they had been laying several 

 weeks, when it was found, in every 

 case, that they apparently had not 

 been fertilized in the hive, as all the 

 eggs they laid produced drones. 



Prof. Kroeh said that to show what 

 chance there was for loop-holes in ob- 

 servations, he would say, that Ulivi 

 had found with his microscope that 

 the vagina of the queen was entirely 

 too small to be entered by the organs 

 of the drone. 



Several members were on their feet 

 to explain how the copulation was ef- 

 fected, but as many members had to 

 take the train then nearly due, a mo- 

 tion to adjourn prevailed. New York 

 city being selected as the place for 

 holding the spring meeting. — See- 

 Keepers'' Exchange. 



1^ The time for the usual winter 

 rush of correspondence is here, and w© 

 wish to impress upon all our patrons 

 the necessity of being very specific, 

 and carefully to state what they desire 

 for the money sent. Also, if they live 

 near one post office, and get their mail 

 at another, be sure to give ns the ad- 

 dress we already have on our books. 



