1903 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



341 



mandibles. These are closed, and used to 

 push with, just as they are used in much of 

 the waxwork about the hive. Wonderful- 

 ly dextrous is the little bee in the use of 

 those marvelous organs which are hands, 

 teeth, and full kit of tools combined. 



While on the subject of pollen, it may be 

 of interest to learn something- as to how 

 bees eat it, how it gets into the mouth. 

 They can not bite it off with the mouth and 

 chew it, mixing it with saliva so as to 

 swallow it; and if gnawed off, how does ap- 

 parentlj' dry matter get to the mouth? 

 Freshly gathered pollen is often licked off 

 by the tongue, and passes thence directly 

 into the mouth, but more often it is bitten 

 off by the mandibles; is softened by the se- 

 cretions from the large glands opening on 

 to the mandibles, and thence passes into 

 the mouth, but just how I do not know. It 

 is quicklj' done, and, owing to the location 

 of the mouth, has so far escaped my every 

 etfort at discover}'. Arthur C. Miller. 



Providence, R. I., Jan. 13. 



[You are doubtless correct, and the item 

 in the ABC has been marked to be strick- 

 en out of the next edition. As it has been 

 credited to the British Bee Journal— ono. that 

 is supposed to be reasonably' accurate and 

 careful in everything relating to science — it 

 was allowed to go through edition after 

 edition. But one ma\' raise the question, 

 " How do you know what the bees do when 

 their heads are inside of their cells? " The 

 bodies of the bees plug the opening so thiit 

 no mortal eye can see what is going on. 

 Nevertheless, I think you are correct, for 

 the special construction of the antennae and 

 the form of the eyes are such that it does 

 seem ridiculous (when once we come to 

 think about it) that any one should soberly 

 attempt to put out the dogma that the bees 

 use their heads as a '"battering-ram." 

 There is great strength in the mandibles of 

 the bee, and these the}' use for all sorts of 

 mechanical manipulations. We may as- 

 sume, without fe ir of successful contradic- 

 tion, that they use those same instruments 

 when their heads are concealed from view 

 within the cells. I have seen bees grab 

 hold of a piece of wax, and pull and push; 

 but the point of pressure was on or between 

 the mandibles and not on the antenna;, nor 

 the delicate compound ejes. — Ed.] 



BEE.S CHILLED TO DEATH (?) COMING TO 

 LIFE AGAIN. 



I write concerning an experience I had 

 with my bees a few days ago. I found one 

 of the colonies dead, as I thought. The day 

 before was a nice warm one, and the bees 

 had a good flight. This hive I knew was 

 weak, and also alive a week before, so I 

 decided they had been robbed, as there was 

 no honey in the comb. In looking over the 

 dead bees on the bottom-board I saw the 

 queen all curled up. I put her in a paper, 

 and put that in my pocket. A few hours 

 after, 1 took her out to show to some of my 

 friends, and, to my astonishment, I found 



her alive. I then went and gathered up all 

 the dead bees that were in the hive, put 

 them on a wire screen, and held them over 

 a warm stove. Pretty soon they began to 

 crawl. I shook them all back into the hive, 

 and placed them close to the stove, and fed 

 them with warm honey, and now two-thirds 

 of them, apparently, are as well as if noth- 

 ing had ever happened to them. Were they 

 dead or not? and what made them die so 

 soon after being robbed — less than twelve 

 hours? Fred Ames. 



Rockland, Mass., March 9. 



[The case j'ou describe appears to be 

 nothing more nor less than starvation and 

 subsequent chilling, neither of which was 

 sufficient to kill the bees. I should assume 

 that the conditions you describe happened 

 in this wa}': You sa}' the day before was 

 nice and warm. Possibly the bees were 

 robbed out on that day; but more than like- 

 ly they were on the verge of starvation, and 

 were very weak. As soon as they warmed 

 up they dropped down on the bottom-board, 

 from sheer weakness, with the queen. They 

 again became chilled. You happened on 

 the scene just in time to save them from dy- 

 ing. Warming the queen up and giving 

 her honey was just the kind of medicine 

 she needed; and the same treatment offered 

 to the bees resuscitated them, of course, at 

 once. I think you may rest assured that 

 the bees were never dead, or else they 

 would not be " apparently as well as if 

 nothing had ever happened." 



Some years ag-o we had a report of bees 

 that had lain on a window-sill all winter, 

 in a room subject to zero temperature. It 

 was reported by a bee-man at one of our 

 conventions that those bees on one warm 

 day in spring actually revived. We made 

 all manner of fun of him — asked whether 

 he was joking, or really meant what he 

 said. He was quite indignant, and insist- 

 ed that he was not joking — that those bees 

 came to life just as do flies on the window 

 in the spring after hibernating over win- 

 ter. But from the fact that no scientific ob- 

 servers have ever confirmed any thing of 

 this sort, and the further fact that no proof 

 has been produced to show that bees hiber- 

 nate as do flies and other kinds of animals, 

 we are compelled to conclude that, if they 

 have been in a chilled condition for months, 

 they will stay dead. If any of our sub- 

 scribers are in possession of scientific proof 

 to the contrary, we should be glad to have 

 the facts. — Ed.] 



FEEDING BEES IN THE SPRING. 



Personal experience in any business is 

 valuable, and the troubles of beginners are 

 sure to be of interest to others in the same 

 class. I am a beginner, and this is the 

 situation: Two colonies in the cellar quiet, 

 and I think doing well; the third, which 

 was a small after-swarm, is dead. I be- 

 lieve their hive is full of comb. There was 

 a third swarm, which got away, all from 

 one colony purchased last spring. They 



