OI-E'ANINGvS 



IN 



DEE CULTURE 



Published by The A. I. Root Company, Medina, Ohio 



E. R. Root, Editor A. L. Boyden, Advertising Mjrr 



H. H. Root, Asst. Ed. J. T. Calvert, Business Mgr 



A. I. Ro«t, Editor of Home Department 



Vol. XXXV. 



SEPTEMBER 15, 1907. 



No. 18 



Very sorry to learn that JEuropneische 

 Bienenzucht, the ehaiupion of American 

 methods of bee-keeping, has suspended pub- 

 lication. It was a good bee-journal. 



For honey that is bottled, no matter who 

 is the producer, why not have the label read 

 "Bottled by"? [This phrase has not yet 

 received official sanction. It is the most 

 specific, though, of any of the phrases that 

 have been thus far suggested.— Ed.] 



Bro. Whitney, the proposition to have 

 control over a certain bee territory may be 

 as ridiculous as you say, p. 1152, to you, who 

 make bee-keeping a pastime. To some of us 

 who depend on bees for our bread and but- 

 ter it seems just as ridiculous as for a stock- 

 raiser to control the pasturage for his cattle. 



Benj. a. Ford, p. 1141, succeeds in hav- 

 ing queens fertilized in upper stories above 

 excluders. I tried it in former years, and 

 also again this year, with an entrance for 

 each story, but with too many failures. I 

 wonder why. [The trouble with the schem^c 

 of having queens fertilized over an upper 

 story of a strong colony with perforated zinc 

 between the two stories is that it fails nine 

 times out of ten — so much so that it is not 

 worth while to fuss with it. The only time 

 it succeeds is during a natural honey-flow, 

 or when bees are being fed liberally out- 

 doors, inducing artificial conditions that ap- 

 proximate very closely a natural How. — Ed.] 



After reading about two laying queens 

 invariaV)ly fighting to a finish when put to- 

 gether on the ground, p. 106S, 1 thought I 

 would try it, as [ had never done so on the 

 ground. I put two laying queens together 

 on the ground. They walked apart. As 



fast as they separated I pushed them togeth- 

 er, and, although I could make them crawl 

 over one another, I could not succeed in 

 arousing the least degree of hostility. I tried 

 the same thing with another pair, and the 

 result was the same. I wonder what was 

 difierent in Mr. Bender's case. [Mr. Bender 

 possibly tried younger queens. Suppose 

 next time you take a couple of hybrids not 

 more than six months old and then see what 

 they will do. Mr. Morrison says he has had 

 them tight repeatedly just as Mr. Bender 

 states. Possibly you did not wait long 

 enough. — Ed.] 



One year, as I have reported, I gave a 

 colony entirely drone comb, and they swarm- 

 ed out. Joseph Trojan reports, in Biencn 

 Vatcr, better success. June 8, lVt06, he threw 

 an after-swarm on drone comb. No drone 

 brood appeared — all worker. The workers 

 reared in drone cells were easily distin- 

 guished from the older workers. They were 

 not longer, but thicker. In spring, 1907, 

 a frightful quantity of drone brood appeared 

 until the end of May, when worker brood 

 returned. Trojan argues from this that all 

 eggs are fertilized, and that the workers re- 

 move the spermatoza when they wish the 

 eggs to pi'oduce drones. But he says nothing 

 aboiit the mouth of the drone- cells being 

 narrowed. By the way, I found this week 

 in a weak nucleus, with a queen that had 

 laid not more than three days, eggs in a 

 patch of drone-cells. The mouths of the 

 cells were properly narrowed. [You seem 

 to assume that bees will invariably narrow 

 the openings of drone-cells whenever work- 

 er eggs are laid therein. Are you not mis- 

 taken?— Ed ] 



I HAVE introduced many a queen by mere- 

 ly putting her in the hive without any cag- 

 ing; and 1 have lost many a queen when ^he 

 was caged not more than 24 hours. On the 

 whole, one may feel safer about a queen in 

 general if she remains in the hive aUmt 

 three days before being let out of the cage. 

 Here is my plan for having her released an- 

 tomatic^ally in al)out that length of time: 

 Take a piece of foundation-splint— that is, a 



