534 



THE AMERICA!? BEE JOURNAL. 



For the AmericaD Bee JoumaU 



Secnring tlie Necessary Rainfall, 



HENRY L. PENFLELD. 



The article of Thos. E. Hill, on 

 "Drouths and Cyclones," on page 

 487, has greatly interested me. Bee- 

 keeping and farming are Intimately 

 associated with us ; the rainfall is an 

 indispensable necessity, and, as we 

 used to say when working out prob- 

 lems at school, the " unknown quan- 

 tity " that we are trying to get. The 

 editor invites the readers by a " post- 

 script." to work out this problem of 

 the cause of drouths and cyclones. 



In this vicinity we are more inter- 

 ested in the cause of drouths, not 

 having had a good crop year since 

 1879, nor a good honey year since 1883, 

 from the reason of need of rain at 

 seasonable times. We know how in- 

 dispensable that factor is to the in- 

 dustries of farming and bee-keeping, 

 and that they are consequently lot- 

 teries as now run, that are about to 

 ruin us or any country where it is so 

 uncertain as here. 



Would it not be well for us mortals 

 to have this part of the " whole busi- 

 ness " under our control. I maintain 

 that our Creator has nothing to do 

 with the details of this important 

 factor to success in the industries 

 mentioned, but that it is left to us to 

 control it if we would, like any other 

 part of our labor. It is so in Dakota, 

 where irrigation makes it as certain 

 as any other employment. 



Now the question is. what is the 

 best way for the different locations 

 to arrive at this much-desired result. 

 I do not believe that a fervent prayer 

 will come at it generally, for that has 

 been tried so many times and failed, 

 that we are " left " to some other 

 alternative hereabouts. 



It may be that there are local causes 

 that make the drouth worse in some 

 places than in others, and I think we 

 are free to investigate this matter. 

 We have noticed that the sun draws 

 water from small or large bodies of 

 water by evaporation, and that soon 

 after the clouds gather and follow the 

 water courses, and sometimes the 

 wind carries tliem over and beyond 

 these influences to be operated on by 

 other influences. We know how apt 

 it is to rain about the 4th of July in 

 large cities, and in the vicinity of 

 battle-fields during or shortly after an 

 action, I believe, as Mr. Hill says in 

 his article alluded to, that where the 

 water was dammed up in ponds and 

 lakes, more generally in farming 

 countries, then when the sun was 

 seen to have the effect of drawing 

 water and collecting it in clouds, and 

 at a near time to set off some explo- 

 sive high in the air, that places accus- 

 tomed to having the rains go around 

 would be benefited by a good shower 

 of rain. 



We know that at certain phases of 

 the moon we are more apt to get rain 

 when the indications are favorable as 

 before stated. 1 notice that a weather 

 prophet predicts rain at a certain 

 time in the vicinity of Quincy, Ills., 



near where there is a large area of 

 bottom land in Missouri for evapora- 

 tion, and his predictions are very 

 often verified for his location. 



When by investigation the causes 

 of drouths in some places can be as- 

 certained, the remedy may be sure to 

 follow. 



Hunnewell,d Mo. 



Condensed from Agricultural Ueview. 



Bees, Bee-Hives, Honey M Money, 



REV. O. CLUTE. 



Bee-keeping is still in its infancy. 

 But it is an "infant" of vigorous 

 health and remarkable promise. 

 Modern inventions and discoveries 

 have put it on profitable basis, and it 

 has already drawn into its ranks 

 clear-headed men and women who 

 see the possibilities it offers to in- 

 dustry and skill. 



In our practical pursuits we work 

 to get money. In bee-keeping we get 

 the money by selling our honey ; we 

 get the honey by the labors of the 

 bees ; we can keep the bees only as we 

 have some suitable hive. I will here 

 consider these points in reverse order. 



Hives.— Time was when the bee- 

 keeper put his bees into a box, open 

 at the lower end, and stood them in 

 a corner of the garden to live or die, 

 as . luck might determine. If the 

 colony became queenless and so soon 

 died out ; if the bee-moth soon filled 

 it with its loathsome larvfe and so 

 destroyed it; if it became so filled 

 with honey that the queen had no 

 cells in which to lay her eggs, and 

 hence no young bees being reared, 

 the colony soon dwindled away, it was 

 all charged to " bad luck." Now all 

 this has been changed. Intelligent 

 bee-keepers to-day regard the man 

 who talks about " luck " in bee-keep- 

 ing, with about the same feelings as 

 those with which we regard the su- 

 perstition and ignorance of the man 

 who gives any attention to the base- 

 less guesses as to the weather, with 

 which our wild weather-prophets 

 amuse a too indulgent public. 



But the intelligent bee-keeper to- 

 day does not keep his bees in box- 

 hives; he uses the movable-frame 

 hive, in which the bees are led to 

 build their combs ; the frames are 

 movable, and can be lifted from the 

 hives. 



Bees.— Having hives for the bees, 

 the next thing is to get bees for the 

 hives. To do this in the best manner 

 we must understand something of the 

 natural history of the bee. In every 

 perfect colony of bees there are one 

 queen, a small number of drones, and 

 from 5,000 to 40,000 workers. The 

 queen is the only perfect female in 

 the hive. She lays all the eggs from 

 which young bees are reared. In 

 laying these eggs she is somewhat 

 prolific, as she will lay from 2,000 to 

 3,000 a day when the weather is warm 

 and honey is coming in. The physiol- 

 ogist who will successfully breed the 

 laying qualities of the queen-bee into 

 the Brahma hen, will give himself 

 fame and fortune. The only oflice of 



the queen-bee is to lay eggs. She 

 gathers no honey ; she takes no 

 care of the eggs after they are 

 laid ; she pays no attention to the 

 young brood. Nature has decreed 

 that in the division of labor in the 

 hive, she shall attend strictly to the 

 business of laying. 



The drones are male bees. Their 

 oflBce as males is their only office. 

 They do no work of any kind, not 

 even collecting the honey on which 

 they live. 



The great body of bees in the hives 

 are workers. They are undeveloped 

 females, that is, females in which the 

 reproducing organs have never fully 

 developed. These workers do all the 

 work of the hive, gather the honey, 

 make the wax, build the comb, hover 

 the eggs and young brood, nurse the 

 brood, clean up the hive, and defend 

 it from the attacks of robber bees. 

 The queen is long and slender in 

 shape— somewhat like a wasp. The 

 drones are shorter and more robust. 

 The workers are smaller than the 

 drones, and not so chuncked in shape. 



Of races of bees there are now two 

 that are very widely diffused in 

 America— the old black, or German 

 bee, and the Italian bee. Of these 

 two there is no doubt but the Italian 

 is, on the whole, much the superior. 

 It is more hardy, more prolific, more 

 industrious, and more docile. To pre- 

 fer the black bee to the Italian, is 

 much as it would be for one who is 

 breeding cattle to prefer the common 

 scrubs to the beautiful Short-Horns, 

 Herefords, Jerseys or Ayrshires. No 

 bee-keeper can afford to keep the 

 blacks. To change from the blacks 

 to the Italians is a very easy thing. 

 To do this it is necessary, in the first 

 place, to introduce a pure Italian 



queen During the working season 



the worker-bees live only about six 

 weeks; the old ones are constantly 

 dying off, their places being taken by 

 the young bees that are reared in the 

 hive. Hence in a few weeks the 

 black bees in this hive, to which you 

 have introduced an Italian queen, will 

 all be dead, and their places supplied 

 by young Italians, the product of her 

 eggs. 



The natural way for bees to increase 

 is by swarming. In old times it was 

 often thought that the more bees 

 swarmed the more profitable they 

 were. But now-a-days swarming is re- 

 garded by many bee-keepers with 

 great disfavor. If it were possible to 

 prevent swarming entirely, they 

 would do so. They approximate as 

 closely to no swarming as possible. 



Honey.— I come now to speak of 

 honey which is, of course, the great 

 end in keeping bees. No article is 

 more attractive on the table than the 

 delicate white comb with the lucent 

 honey gleaming through, more lovely 

 in color than the mysterious amber 

 from the storm-tossed Baltic shores, 

 more delicate in fragrance and flavor 

 than the fabled nectar and ambrosia 

 of the Olympian gods of old. Ex- 

 tracted honey is delicious and beau- 

 f ul. The demand for it will rapidly 

 increase, but it can never take the 

 place of the comb honey. The de- 

 mand for this will never be less than 



