758 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



J^ov. 28, 



ARTICLE v.— Members. 



Any person may become a member by paying to the Gen- 

 eral Manager an Entrance Pee of §1.00, for which he shall 

 receive a printed receipt, making him a member of the Union, 

 entitled to all its rights and benefits until the 31st day of 

 December, following. The Annual Fee of .$1.00 shall be due 

 on the first day of Junuary in each year, and MUST be paid 

 within three months in order to retain membership in this 

 Union. 



ARTICLE VI.— Funds. 



The Funds of this Union shall be used for any purposes in 

 the interests of the pursuit of bee-culture, when such are ap- 

 droved by the Board of Directors; and to pay the legitimate 

 expenses of the North American Bee-Keepers' Union. 



ARTICLE VII.— Salaries. 



The Salary of the General Manager shall be twenty (20) 

 per cent, of the gross income for each fiscal year. 



ARTICLE VIII.— Amendments. 



This Constitution may be amended by a majority vote of 

 all the members; provided that all proposed amendments 

 shall be presented in writing, signed by three members, and 

 sent to the General Manager before the first day of November, 

 so that they may be incorporated into his Annual Report. 



[For editorial remarks on this subject see page 764. — Ed.] 

 Freaks aud Eccentricities in Bees. 



BY G. W. DEMAREE. 



The things that bees do out of the general order of things 

 as pertains to their well settled habits, I think are properly 

 called " freaks." Those of us who have handled bees for 

 years, and observed closely their habits, know that bees some 

 times do things that cannot be reconciled to the common laws 

 of reasoning, or instinct. Such acts are freakish — sudden 

 starts in action, governed by no laws, reasonable or instinctive. 

 I have seen a colony of bees uirfitotlj/ attempt to commit 

 suicide, by refusing to accept a queen, or queen-cell, and even 

 refuse to nurse young brood. Some people would be glad to 

 say, " May be they were too old," etc. But this cannot be, 

 for I have wintered many a queenless colony, and made them 

 rear a queen and nurse brood until the hive was well stocked 

 with young bees ready for the main early honey harvest. 



Last summer I was walking through my apiary and dis- 

 covered some bees hopping and crawling on the grass in front 

 of one of the hives. I went up closer, and found the grass for 

 several feet around the entrance covered with partially para- 

 lyzed bees, dragging themselves aimlessly about. " A case of 

 paralysis !" exclaims the novice. No ; the cause was a 

 " balled queen." Bees often sting each other in their scram- 

 ble to ball a queen, yet, strange enough, they do not sting the 

 queen. 



I have seen a truant sWarm leave the apiary and go 

 straight to a hollow tree, and I have seen a swarm of bees 

 leave the apiary with " business airs," and pass over fields 

 and through a dense woods straigltt to a bunch of ironwecds, 

 two miles away. I saw one swarm of bees pass through the 

 largest tract of timbered land in the vicinity of my apiary, 

 and settle on a fence near a farm-house, and was taken in by 

 the farmer. I had a swarm of bees take leave of my apiary — 

 as though it was disgusted with such quarters, go a quarter 

 of a mile, settle on a bush, then break the cluster and make a 

 " bee-line " back to the apiary and settle on a tree. 



I once saw a swarm of bees " hived " by what may prop- 

 erly be called an accident (?). The swarm was struggling in 

 the air against a stiff gale, and a sudden gust of windswept 

 them to the ground near the entrance of an empty hive, and 

 the hive acting as a " sounding board " in response to the hum 

 of their wings, the bees caught the sound and hived them- 

 selves. My observations have led me to believe that in a state 

 of nature, more swarms of bees find homes by the sense of 

 hearing than in all other ways. 



I once saw a swarm of bees in its flight, pass near the top 

 of a large apple-tree, and the rear part of the swarm seemed 

 to catch the sound from a hole in a dead limb of the tree, and 

 made a rush for the hollow limb, while the main part of the 

 swarm was evidently bent on going forward, but the loud 

 " hum " at the hole in the limb prevailed, and the whole 

 swarm attempted to enter a cavity in the limb too small to 

 accommodate half of the swarm. I smoked them out and 

 hived them. 



I once had a swarm of bees to refuse to stay in any hive I 

 put them into. Their craze was to locate and build comb on 

 the limb they first settled on, and finally I let a part of the 

 swarm try the experiment. They made a living until the 

 honey season was over, and then starved out. 



Bees do some things so wide of the mark of common-sense 

 that their acts are both amusing and astounding to a reason- 

 ing mind. The following is an example among many that 

 might be mentioned : 



I some times leave on the hive a case of partially-filled 

 sections with honey, to supplement scant winter stores in the 

 breeding department of the hive. Well, in some way a large 

 grey mouse got into one of the cases above the brood-nest, and 

 its escape was cut off by a full brood-nest of lively bees below. 

 It occurred to me that if those bees had stopped to reflect, 

 they might have cleared a way down through the brood de- 

 partment to the entrance, and then sent a detachment of 

 fierce young " buck" bees into the super, with instructions to 

 shriek and yell after that mouse until, panic-stricken, he hied 

 his way — hair and hide — down the cleared way to the open 

 air, and thus summarily eject him as an obstreperous tenant. 



But they did no such thing. 



They maliciously murdered the intruder, and proceeded 

 to reduce him to as nice, white, clean skeleton as any natur- 

 alist ever had the pleasure of adding to his collection of 

 curiosities; " bone to his bone," as clean and nice as if the 

 whole carcass had been boiled, scraped and sandpapered. 



I have seen a big bumble-bee slip into a hive when the 

 portals were strongly guarded by vigilant warriors, and I have 

 seen him (?) led out by the ears (?), after he had passed the 

 guards into the dark interior of the hive. Now let some one 

 ask the question, " Do bees see ?" along with the quary, "Do 

 bees hear?" Such a blunder on the part of the guards of the 

 Czar's palace, would cost them their heads. 



In the month of March, some years ago, I was examining 

 my bees to ascertain how they were oS for stores to sustain 

 them until the early bloom yielded a supply. In my search 

 through the colonies I found one large colony at the point of 

 starvation. The end with them was so near that not a bee 

 in the hive seemed able to give out more than a feeble sign of 

 life, expressed by a slight motion of her wings. I could not 

 reasonably hope at the time to save more than a part of the 

 large colony, judging that most of the bees must be dead, as 

 there was positively no food left in the hive. The case was a 

 novel one, and required novel treatment. The cluster of bees 

 was exposed to the warmth of the spring sun, and the starv- 

 ing bees were sprayed with warm sweetened water, and the 

 whole of the colony revived. What a case of righteous 

 "socialism" was this!" The food in the hive had been 

 divided to the last drop ! Christiansburg, Ky., Oct. 31. 



What Dr. Miller Thinks. 



Honey Prices. — The plot thickens. Lately the editor of 

 this journal said something to the effect that 10 cents was 

 all the producer could realize for comb honey of best grade in 

 Chicago. Now comes Prof. Cook, on page 727, saying, "The 

 Eastern producer secures readily from six to eight cents for 

 extracted honey. "But looking at the honey column on page 

 738, the very highest quotation for extracted except in Phila- 

 delphia is seven cents. After taking out freight and commis- 

 sion the producer could hardly have eight cents left. Taking 

 she two statements of Messrs. York and Cook, and comparing 

 the highest prices, it makes extracted honey bring four-fifths 

 as much as comb, whereas the quotations on page 738 make 

 it less than half as much. If the editor would climb up a bit, 

 and Prof. Cook down a peg, perhaps both would be on more 

 tenable ground. [I said on page 716, that it would net the 

 shipper very little, if any, more than 10 cents. It may net 

 12 cents in some instances. See page 764 for editorial re- 

 marks on this subject. — Editor.] 



The Best Honey.— On page 727, Prof. Cook says: "It 

 is acknowledged everywhere, that California honey is equal to 

 the very best produced in any country." When one's atten- 

 tion is called to it, it is rather amusing to see that statement, 

 or something like it, coming from so many different directions. 

 Prof. Cook is a little more modest than some others, for he 

 doesn't call California honey the best, only equal to the best, 

 while oihers don't hesitate to say, no matter in what part of 

 the globe they live, that the honey produced there is superior 

 to anything produced elsewhere. I think these statements 

 are in general honestly made. The discrepancies in the state- 

 ments may be accounted for in two ways : either those who 



