104 



THE AxMERlCAN BEE JOURNAL. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Eun for Right Race of Bees. 



That coiuinp bee, we want to see, 



Coming to near perfection ; 

 Of true specttlcscientitic, 



Well-deviaed selection. 



In choice of kind, and use of mind. 



In aKe of vast projiression ; 

 'Tls now l)eliuoved, to have improved, 



Yet genuine succession. 



That bee that we. can ali agree. 



Shall come to be the leader ; 

 Take all tbe sons, home ami imports. 



We pray, great chieftain breeder. 



Italians bright, may well delight. 



Gold dollars Indicating : 

 Then strong, plain blacks with well-filled sacks. 



Deserve not underrating. 



Smart Cyprians, too; wonders may do. 



Of vast, prolitlc nature: 

 And Pale-stine may much combine. 



Of extra valued feature. 



Albino pure. or. not so sure. 



Cross'd, mix'd. or various races; 

 From all select, to main effect, 



Suited to sundry places. 



Knowing and wise: study, devise. 



To have petition granted ; 

 And lieing about, beyond a doubt. 



The special bee that's wanted. 



To winter live, and summer give. 



Large stocks and lots of honey: 

 Pure nectar piles, and fancy styles, 



Uenoting piles of money. 



Breed beauteous rings, an<l gentle stings. 



But. long and short, that's of it; 

 All else aside, the strain provide. 



That's bound to bring toe profit. 



When ye succeed, to meet the need. 



Canadian or ye Yankee; 

 The race well run. the prize is won, 



Apiarists all will " thank ye.'' 

 Toronto. Canada. S. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



Eggs or Larvae, Which? 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



On page 54 of the Bee Journal, 

 for the present year, Mr, O. E. Cooley 

 tells us that bees remove eggs from 

 one cell to another, and then states 

 why he believes they do so, giving the 

 negative side as proof of his position. 

 There are other ways by which the 

 colony might have obtained a laying 

 queen, besides the one he gives, such 

 as a queen entering the wrong hive, 

 or a small swarm with a queen, going 

 into it, etc. ; but, as that is not the 

 object of this article, I will not go into 

 detail. 



lie says the " bees must have moved 

 an egg ;" I take it for granted that, if 

 the bees moved anything, it was a 

 larva. That bees do sometimes re- 

 move eggs 1 admit, but they are not 

 apt to do so, where there are larvae at 

 their disposal, as there was in the case 

 given by Mr. Cooley. 



To illustrate : A few years ago I 

 had a colony which was " bent on 

 swarming," and I was equally " bent" 

 on their staying where they were. 

 They had come out twice, and I had 

 put them back, cutting out the queen 

 cells each time. After staying five 

 days they came out again, and while 

 they were out, I cut out all the queen 

 cells, queen cups, and everything I 

 could find that might look like an em- 



bryo queen cell, when they returned. 

 When about half of the swarm had 

 entered the hive, out came two 

 swarms from other hives, and instead 

 of alighting, they simply passed out 

 of their hives and went in with this 

 returning swarm. As the queens to 

 both of these last, had their wings 

 clipped, they were returned to their 

 old hives, and the bees allowed to stay 

 with tliose I had determined should 

 not be liived as a separate swarm. I 

 put on extra surplus room, so that the 

 three swarms could work to advan- 

 tage, if they saw fit so to do. How- 

 ever, they did not " see fit," for at 10 

 o'clock tbe next morning, all came out 

 in the sliape of a rousing swarm (three 

 swarms in one), and so 1 concluded to 

 give them an empty hive. Upon go- 

 ing to the old hive, I counted more 

 than 250 queen cells, upwards of 50 of 

 which had larvse in them. More than 

 25 had eggs in them, which were all 

 but one or two deposited ttiere by the 

 queen ; those one or two being carried 

 tnere by tbe bees. The larvae, which 

 were transferred, were from one to 

 four days old, I should judge by their 

 appertrauce, and were plentifully sup- 

 plied with royal jelly. 



1 could give several other instances 

 where larva; have been removed for 

 queeu-rearing. Where bees have ac- 

 cess to both eggs and larva?, and a 

 removal of either is considered neces- 

 sary, my experience proves that they 

 nearly always select a larva ; this be- 

 ing in accordance with the accom- 

 plishment of their object, which is to 

 get a queen in the least possible time. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



For the American Bee JoumaJ. 



Clipping the Wings of a ftueen. 



G. W. DEMAREE. 



At the close of each volume of the 

 Bee Journal, when it has been ar- 

 ranged and bound in convenient book 

 form, I find it quite entertaining to 

 review its pages and note what has 

 been established as truth, and what 

 still remains theory. The well ar- 

 ranged index at the close of the vol- 

 ume makes this a very easy and pleas- 

 ant task. 



To the readers of the middle and 

 southern sections of our country, the 

 subject matter pertaining to the win- 

 tering of bees, is simply colossal in 

 magnitude, enough to make the " head 

 swim." My insatiate greed for " bee 

 literature," however, has induced me 

 to wade through the whole of it, cel- 

 lars, chaff, sawdust, pits, caves, 

 clamps, ad infinitum. Just think of 

 crowding the little fellows so closely 

 that their legs stick out of the doors 

 and windows. It occurs to me that if 

 there is no cases of bee murder, there 

 is much involuntary bee slaughter 

 going on in many parts of the country. 



But, at this time, I wish to notice 

 the well-nigh universal practice of 

 clipping the wings of the queens. In 

 all of volume IS not a single voice ex- 

 cept the emphatic protest of Mr. 

 James Heddon, as reported in the 

 proceedings of the Michigan Conven- 

 tion, has been raised in defense of 



the inalienable rights of the proudest , 

 and grandest of God's little creatures I 

 — the queen honey-bee. Mr. G. M. ' 

 Doolittle says that " wings are cre- 

 ated to fiy with ;" yes, but is that all V 

 Are they not a '' cover " to her body, 

 her beauty and her glory V If there 

 was nothing but the merest senti- 

 mentality in the objections I raise to 

 the wholesale chopping off of the 

 wings of beautiful queens, the plea of 

 Prof. Cook, Dr. Miller and others that 

 they could not keep bees without clip- 

 ping the wings of the queens, is suffi- 

 ciently " set off " by the success of 

 Mr. Heddon and others wlio do not clip 

 the wings of their queens. 



One of the defects of our bee litera- 

 ture is, that each writer sets forth his 

 dogmas as though his locality and sur- 

 roundings were the same as every 

 other place on the earth. I think I 

 can see why Mr. Doolittle can get 

 along with clipped-wing queens, and 

 also, why I and others operating in a 

 different climate to his, cannot get 

 along so well with them. From 

 long obsevation I have found that 

 bees never supersede their queens 

 during tlie period which intervenes 

 between the time breeding ceases in 

 the fall and its commencement in the 

 spring, and they rarely ever supersede 

 them during the early and late honey 

 harvests, simply because, in the lat- 

 ter case, an attempt to do so always 

 results in a swarm. Of course, queens 

 sometimes die during those periods, 

 in which there is no inclination on the 

 part of the bees to supersede them. 



Well, in a climate like ours, there is 

 generally a period of about six weeks, 

 say from the middle of July to the 

 first of September, in which the dry 

 hot weather parches the flowers, and 

 the bees find but little to do in the 

 fields, and being strong in numbers 

 they are ready to cut all sorts of fan- 

 tastic tricks. They will learn how to 

 cut holes in the quilts, nibble away at 

 the furniture in the hives, cut to 

 pieces sheets of foundation, "ball" 

 and supersede their queens, especially 

 if the queens are getting old, or are 

 maimed in any way. I do not remem- 

 ber of ever having had a queen to sur- 

 vive two whole seasons whose wings 

 had beeii cropped in the usual way. 



Better success, however, can be had 

 by trimming the inside of one pair of 

 the queen's wings, preserving the 

 original shape of the wings, taking off 

 just enough to bring the queen down 

 when she attempts to fly. I now 

 have a queen, of good old age, whose 

 wings were trimmed in this way when 

 she first commenced to lay. To per- 

 form the operation, you pick the queen 

 from the comb on which she is found, 

 holding her wings between the thumb 

 and fore finger of the right hand, now 

 place her body across the fore finger 

 of the left hand, bringing the thumb 

 gently down upon her head and 

 thorax — you now have her in position 

 — then take a small pair of shears and 

 trim off the inside of one pair of her 

 wings, preserving the original shape 

 of the wings, and you have done a 

 scientific job. With a queen mani- 

 pulated in this way, the inquisitive 

 workers will rarely ever find fault. 



