1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



711 



report unless in a very condensed form. One of the reasons 

 why I value the work of Experimenter Taylor beyond any- 

 thing that has preceded him, is because I learn from time to 

 time what he's doing, and he isn't shut up in a glass case out 

 of the reach of practical bee-keepers. 



How Much Brood in a Frame ? — Chas. Dadant. on 

 page 680, says : " His queens are thus expected to fill 10 

 combs with brood, or 78,000 eggs in 21 days, or 3, TOO eggs 

 per day." That's all right if the Quinby frame is meant, but 

 if the Simplicity is meant, the numbers must be cut down a 

 good deal. He counts 7,800 eegs to aframe, and that's about 

 % the number of cells in a Quinby frame ; but a Simplicity 

 frame % filled would have only about 5,700. 



Wild Teaching. — Very wild teaching is that quoted from 

 Prof. Evans, on page 682, and well answered in the comments 

 that follow ; but the answer should appear in the Popular 

 Science Monthly, and not in these columns. It's like casting 

 pearls before — no, that's not the right figure — it's like carry- 

 ing coals to Newcastle, for the merest tyro iu bee-keeping 

 needs no argument to make him know that the teachings 

 quoted are wrong. If Mr. Abbott is trying to get some wis- 

 dom into the Popular Science Monthly, he's doing a good work. 



Right of Bee-Tekritory. — That bright correspondent, 

 F. L. Thompson, on page 082, says would-be bee-keepers 

 should be courteously warned away from fields already occu- 

 pied, but he comes parlous near saying the would-be bee- 

 keeper needn't pay any attention to the warning after he has 

 once started in with a few colonies. One of the troubles about 

 bee-keeping is the uncertain tenure by which the bee-keeper 

 holds his ground. The law settles where a man can farm 

 and where he can fish, but it doesn't say where he can catch 

 flies or gather honey. If either business should be deemed 

 sufficiently important, the law may some day have something 

 to say about it. 



Questions and Answers. — That lone half column at the 

 top of page 682 looks rather strange compared with the two 

 pages or thereabouts occupied in some previous numbers. 

 Have the questions sent become so hard that no answers can 

 be found to lit them ? or have all the readers become so well 

 informed that they have no more questions to ask ? I suspect 

 the fact is that beginners are more interested to get answers 

 to the practical questions that confront them while they are 

 most busily engaged at work with the bees. The wise student 

 of bee-culture will spend some time during the winter months 

 in providing himself in advance with information to be put in 

 practice the following summer. Especially will he familiarize 

 himself with a good bee-book. 



Patenting Old Things. — L. Dickerson, page 688, says 

 he had half a notion to patent his hook for hanging the 

 smoker. Possibly he might get a patent, but it would hardly 

 be worth anything, for the same thing has been invented by 

 a number of persons, and was in use long ago. Before taking 

 the trouble to get out a patent, always find out whether the 

 thing is new. 



What Heat Spoils Honey t — The answers on page 691 

 show that we are lacking in definite knowledge as to the ef- 

 fects of heat on honey, and there's a field for investigation. 

 I commend it to our industrious friend of Lapeer, providing 

 he wants to occupy some of his winter hours in that direction. 

 How much heat will honey stand without at all affecting its 

 flavor, providing the heat be continued only one minute ? If 

 5, 10 or 30 minutes? 



Clipping Queens' Wings. — Whether I agree or not with 

 my Canadian friend in the views he expresses on page 6Si>, 

 his ingenuity in developing a theory, and his skillfulness in 

 making use thereof, excite my hearty admiration. I had 

 fondly hoped that I had given him a question that was a 

 " settler." But he comes up smiling as ever, not in the least 

 fazed. 



The theory is that a queen keeps up her strength of wing 

 by a sort of gymnastics inside the hive. The plea is that 

 "when the queen finds that she has only half her wing-power 

 left to her, and that it is awkward to swing it without its 

 mate, she quits putting her wing machinery in motion, and it 

 falls into disuse." Then disuse brings deterioration, and finally 

 extirpation. 



But there is proof needed that when a wing is clipped, 

 that would discourage her from going through her daily 

 Delsarte. A horse that has his tail docked continues to switch 

 the stub just as vigorously as if it did some good. Moreover, 



the wings on one side are left whole, and those on the other 

 side are only partially cut away, so that nothing hinders the 

 queen from going through the motions just as well as before 

 the clipping. None of the muscles of the wings are disabled. 



But the greatest trouble is that the theory on which the 

 argument is based has itself, I think, no foundation in fact. I 

 have watched queens thousands of times — watched them some- 

 times for a long time, watched them while they were laying, 

 and watched them while walking over the combs — and I don't 

 remember ever having seen a laying queen move her wings at 

 such times. If it is a regular thing, it seems to me I ought at 

 least a few times to have seen queens in the act. 



In this connection I may appropriately call attention to 

 the fact that in some cases it seems the natural thing to make 

 a queen wingless after she begins to lay. Sir .Tohn Lubbock 

 says: "The queens of ants are provided with wings, but 

 after a single flight they tear them off." I do better than 

 that. I cut them off. Besides, I don't leave a queen entirely 

 wingless, but leave all except part of the wings on one side. 

 I'm not as bad as the ants. Marengo, 111. 



The Strawberry Subject Again. 



BY ED JOLLEY. 



By offering a compromising suggestion between the op- 

 posing factions of the bees-and-strawberry controversy, I have 

 gotten Dr. Miller after me with a sharp stick. He says he 

 either does not understand me aright, or I certainly don't 

 mean what I say. Now I want to assure the Doctor that I 

 mean just what I say, and will here give my position, and 

 wherein the Doctor finds me wrong, will he be so kind as to 

 set me aright ? 



The strawberry is a member of the first of the three 

 divisions of the rose family. To the common wild rose the 

 botanists have traced its origin. In fact, nearly all our com- 

 mon fruits have evoluted from the same source. We will first 

 take the common wild rose and see how it is constructed, and 

 then see what subsequent cultivation has done for it. 



We find it a perfect flower with many stamens and pistils, 

 surrounded by a single row of petals. Roses had been domes- 

 ticated and cultivated, and nearly all the colors of to-day had 

 been brought out as far back as Emperor Nero's time. Yet 

 the stamens and pistils, and single row of petals had remained 

 unchanged for many centuries after this. The changes we 

 find in the rose to-day are due to the discoveries of the botan- 

 ist Linnieus. He discovered that by destroying all the stamens 

 on a single rose-bush, and supplying the pistils of these same 

 roses with pollen from the stamens of another bush, he had 

 in the succeeding generation from the seed of these roses a 

 rose that had, instead of a single row of petals, a double row, 

 and that the stamens were correspondingly scarcer. This 

 work has been carried on with the rose until the stamens 

 have become very scarce, and in many of our fine roses there 

 is absolutely no stamen. In many others the stamens are im- 

 perfect and undeveloped. Occupying the place around the 

 pistils, which was formerly occupied by the stamens, is a little 

 fringe of imperfect and impotent stamens. We can now see 

 what changes scientific cultivation has made in the flowery 

 progenitor of the strawberry. We will go over the ground 

 again this time with the strawberry, and see if there has not 

 been some wonderful changes wrought by cultivation in its 

 case, too. 



We will take the common wild strawberry, and by a com- 

 parison of its blossoms with the common wild rose, we find we 

 have a miniature likeness of the rose in detail of construction; 

 many stamens and pistils surrounded by a single row of petals. 

 We have seen how the cross-fertilization has doubled the 

 petals of the rose at the expense of the stamens. 



We will note the result of cross-fertilization in the straw- 

 berry. Here we find the newly-added vigor increasing the 

 size and quality of the fruit instead of doubling the petals of 

 the blossoms. We also find that in the succeeding generation, 

 from the seed of this new strawberry, the stamens like those 

 of the new rose, are correspondingly scarcer. This work has 

 been carried out with the strawberry until what was formerly 

 a plant of double sex (hermaphrodite), with perfect blossoms, 

 is now a plant of single sex, with imperfect blossoms. That is, 

 the two sexes of a variety are on different plants and blossoms. 



Now, has Dr. Miller never noticed in his strawberry 

 patch, nice, thrifty-looking plants which bloomed as profusely 

 as any of the rest, but failed to set any fruit? These were 

 staminate plants, and if he is careful to cut runners from 

 these plants only, and plant them by themselves, he will have 

 a patch that will bring forth all staminate blossoms. He 



