1683 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CtJLTUKE. 



607 



L. C. Root, Doolittle, and others. The bees are Ital- 

 ians and hybrids. This season he added some Holy- 

 Land queens for further crossing-. 



Let a swarm issue from a single colony, and the 

 bees working at other hives will join it till an im- 

 mense swarm accumulates. He often puts new 

 swarms at once into three, four, or five story hives. 



R. Wilkin and Nathan Shaw are two of the pioneer 

 bee-keepers of Ventura County. They came at the 

 same time, eleven or more years ago. They located 

 apiaries in the valley of the Santa Clara River, 

 where their bees had access to the wild mustard of 

 the lowlands and the white sage of the hills. From 

 that time they struggled faithfully for their calling, 

 reaping rich harvests in good seasons, and bravely 

 stemming the tide in poor ones, till others were at- 

 tracted to the country in the same pursuit. Ventura 

 is now one of the three foromost honey-producing 

 counties in the State; and the list of her apiarists is 

 rich indeed, including as it does such names as Cor- 

 ey, Touchton, and many besides. In the early days, 

 as well as at present, grizzly bears have been great 

 enemies of bees, such as eastern bee-keepers have 

 never experienced; and Mr. Shaw's adventures 

 while shooting or poisoning these depredators are 

 interesting to hear. 



If this is too long, you have yourself to blame for 

 it; and if it is not long enough, I can add at a 

 future time something about Mr. Wilkin's treat- 

 ment of the apiary proper; i. e., the bees in the 

 hives, together with something of the bee pasturage 

 of this region. A. Norton. 



Gonzales, Cal., Sept. 17, 1883. 



Many thanks, friend X. Your communi- 

 cation is exactly what we want, and we shall 

 welcome the further article you allude to, 

 and we will try to pay you something for 

 your trouble besides. 



AN AIB TO CKIiLAK WINTERING. 



HIVE-CARRIER. 



ARE BEES CANNIBALS? 



DO BEES CONSUME THEIR EGGS OR BROOD? 



DEISHER'S IMPLEMENT FOR CARRYING HIVES. 



SNCLOSEDyou will find a sample of a hook which I 

 use in my apiary to carry bee-hives about, which I 

 — ' thought would be a great benefit to some of your 

 readers. Of course, it takes 

 2 hooks. They are made of 

 ?8 in. iron, and are 1 foot 

 long. The lower ends are 

 one foot apart, and bend 

 in the shape like cut, and are sharp-pointed. With 

 a pair of these hooks, two boys can carry a chaff 

 hive with bees into cellar almost as easily as a bas- 

 ket of potatoes. This is just the thing to put bees 

 into the cellar, and I thought it would be just the 

 right time for Oct. Gleanings. VVm. K. Deisher. 

 Kutztown, Pa.. Sept. 18, 1883. 



For hives that are to be carried very much, 

 no doubt an implement like the above v/ould 

 be very handy ; but I believe it is not cus- 

 tomary to carry chaff hives into the cellar at 

 all. 1 do not mean to say by this that it is 

 not a good thing to do, for I think it might 

 be found a nice plan of proceeding, for the 

 bees would be less likely to dwindle in the 

 spring when carried out! The hook is quite 

 ingenious, and we tender our thanks to 

 friend D. With the above illustration and 

 directions, I presume any country black- 

 smith could make them. 



N page 457 you have an itemon bees moving, or 

 otherwise disposing, of their eggs and larva?. 

 I do not believe bees rob one another of these ; 

 if they did, they would have been seen carrying 

 them into the hive, and we would find eggs and 

 larvfe in our queenless colonies. But I think bees 

 may move the eggs in a hive, for I have found a 

 single egg in a queen-cell remote from the brood, 

 and this in a colony that had been deprived of a 

 queen, to raise queen-cells. This is the only case 

 of transferring of eggs I ever saw. But regarding 

 your question, " What became of the eggs?" on page 

 538, 1 have been full/ convinced that bees do put 

 away with eggs during scarcity of supplies. I tirst 

 noticed it a tew years ago when my colonies were 

 weak; I was anxiously watching them to see if they 

 would strengthen up for winter. Each time I look- 

 ed I would feel quite hopeful over their future pros- 

 pects on seeing a good lot of eggs. But each time 

 as I looked I found eggs and no larvae, so I no longer 

 counted on a frame of brood when I saw it full of 

 eggs, and concluded that the bees foresaw that the 

 demand was now greater than the supply, and wise- 

 ly forbore becoming more seriously involved. 



I noticed a similar occurrence this year, though 

 under different circumstances. Having disposed of 

 some queens, I put 4 or 5 nuclei together with their 

 best frames of brood to form a colony. In 2 or 3 

 days from that time there was not an egg in the hive, 

 and only a few straggling larvte left. Again, in one 

 of these nuclei quite a few bees clustered on the 

 side, so I put in a frame, which had eggs and capped 

 and uncapped larvas, but no honey, intending to 

 take it out shortly, but did not do so for a day and 

 a half; when I came, the eggs and uncapped larva? 

 were all gone, and the capped brood was uncapped 

 and half eaten up. Here, then, I thought, was the 

 solution of the difficulty. They had eaten the eggs 

 and larvae first, and the j attacked the more unpalat- 

 able capped brood. Much of it, the bees were fully 

 formed. As soon as I gave them some honey, the 

 partly eaten brood was left untouched. I was not 

 surprised at the bees eating their eggs; indeed, I 

 was almost convinced of it long ago. See with what 

 eagerness they will eat royal jelly; and do not fowls 

 eat their own eggs? But bees eating their young 

 was unexpected. J. O. Facev. 



New Hamburg, Ont., Can., Sept. 20, 1883. 



Friend F., it is well known that bees will 

 destroy the young bees, and suck out the 

 juices, when driven to it by starvation, but 

 I do not know that they will under any other 

 circumstances. It has been many times sug- 

 gested that they devour the eggs whenever 

 they do not wish to rear brood ; but I have 

 never heard it intimated that they also de- 

 vour larvie. It is true, hens sometimes eat 

 their eggs, but I never heard of their eating 

 hatched chickens, and I hardly think bees 

 do, unless, as I said before, when driven to 

 it by starvation. I, too, have noticed the 

 disappearance of eggs, or, as you put it, I 

 have noticed fresh eggs every day, and yet 

 no larvje. Very likely when the stores come 

 in slowly, late in the season, they consume 

 the eggs rather than attempt to make brood 

 of them ; and I suppose the queen soon 

 stops laying under such circumstances. 



