1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



553 



"thof'.' To this day tears will almost fill 

 iiiy eyes when I think of the home-coming 

 of my traveling companions, and the bee 

 deaths at that window where no house was 

 ready to receive them. 



I was away from my own house for near- 

 ly a month after that. By liberal feeding, 

 bees were bred to fill the hive as it was when 

 we first started out. Though renewed in 

 actual value, the loss from the sentimental 

 aspect was never made good. 



It is interesting to note one effect upon the 

 bees of the continuous jarring and jolting of 

 railroad travel. They try to obtain rest by 

 building out burr-combs or bracing-combs to 

 the glass. Several of these were built during 

 a raih'oad run of two days. But when the 

 glass was cleaned and the hive was at rest 

 during the following week at a teachers' in- 

 stitute not a bracing-comb was built. 



THE QUESTION OF BEE AND COLONY ODOR. 



My traveling colony has brought out anoth- 

 er interesting fact and raised a puzzling 

 question. Whenever a frame with brood, 

 bees, and queen is taken away for a journey 

 of a week or two the bees left at home in the 

 hive are, of course, queenless, and at once 

 begin to repair the loss by Imilding queen- 

 cells. In restoring the frame, there is dan- 

 ger that the home bees will kill their return- 

 ing mother. This has occurred, even when 

 I have previously destroyed all the queen- 

 cells. But in either case, whether the queen- 

 cells are destroyed or not, why do the home 

 bees wish to kill their queen? Wandering 

 prodigals, in their estimation, are seldom to 

 be looked on with favor. Why? You apia- 

 rist who talk so much of the changing smell 

 of a queen during the period of introduction, 

 please tell me, has she acquired a foreign 

 odor and accent in two weeks' travel? If 

 the mother were reintroduced to her daugh- 

 ters by the regular gnawing-out process of 

 the introducing-cage, would she have recov- 

 ered her home smell? 



And that leads to another question: If she 

 were thus in regular succession introduced 

 to the one hundred colonies of an apiary, 

 would she develop a hundred different smells? 

 You advocate of smells, please put that into 

 your smelter, and let me know what you 

 draw off. 



But all this is part of another question. 

 If you would really know and love your 

 bees, and make others know and love them, 

 get a lecturer's hive and travel with them, 

 eat with them, room with them, and sleep 

 in the same bed with them. 



Stamford, Conn. 



[Referring to the subject of queen and col- 

 ony odor, as suggested in the last paragraph, 

 we belong to the school that believe that un- 

 der normal conditions a queen will be ac- 

 cepted in a colony providing she has the 

 colony odor, other things being equal. She 

 may be accepted under other circumstances 

 when she does not have such odor. When a 

 queen that has traveled all over the country 

 is returned to her colony she has lost the 

 colony odor. Having come in contact with 



men and things has so changed her that even 

 her own bees would seek, ordinarily, to de- 

 stroy her. While we would not state it as a 

 positive fact, we are of the opinion that, eve- 

 ry time a queen is changed from one colony 

 to another, unless she has acquired, through 

 the process of introduction, the odor of the 

 receiving colony, she will generally be re- 

 jected. We say generally, because there are 

 sevei'al conditions under which a queen can 

 be introduced without having the receiving 

 colony odor; but these exceptions only prove 

 the rule. — Ed.] 



♦■«» 



BEE KEEPING IN TEXAS. 



Some Useful Devices as Made and Used by 

 D. 31. Edw ards. 



BY H. H. ROOT. 



Continued from the March ir>th issue. 

 If a man can be called the father of bee- 

 keeping for his locality, then D. M. Edwards 

 is the father of bee-keeping near Uvalde. 

 He is always I'eady to tell what he knows. 



FIG. 1. — D. M. EDWARDS ILLUSTRATING HIS 

 UNCAPPING-BOX. 



