THE AMERICAJSI BEE JOURNAL. 



647 



A good thing, nicely put up, only 

 needs to be known to create a demand 

 for it. so that it pays to go to some 

 trouble, and even a little expense to 

 open a home market, which is always 

 the best, because there are no freight 

 or commission charges to eat up the 

 profits, and no risk of dishonesty to 

 take the whole. 



Chautauqua Co.,p N. Y. 



For toe AmeiicaQ Bee JoutdoL 



All Hermaptiroflite Bee, etc. 



ALLEN LATHAM. 



Yesterday as I was passing through 

 my apiary, 1 noticed a young bee with 

 crumpled wings. I picked it up to 

 crush it, knowing that it was of no 

 use, and would linger and die. As I 

 picked it up I noticed that it had a 

 drone's abdomen. Well, says I, it is 

 a drone reared in a woiker-cell, and 

 has been thrown out by the bees. But 

 to my surprise, when I turned it 

 around, I saw that it had the head of 

 a worker. This led to a close exami- 

 nation, and I saw that its abdomen 

 and hinder pair of legs were uiidoubt- 

 edly drone; whereas the head, thorax, 

 wings, and front and middle pairs of 

 legs were equally undoubtedly worker. 

 I will send the phenomenon by mail 

 in a queen-cage. 



Stranger still, the forepart of the 

 bee acted like a worker, while the 

 hinder part was clumsy, and when I 

 held it in my hand, the bee exuded 

 the drabish colored matter which 

 young drones so often do when ex- 

 cited or handled. 



Now I ask, was there ever a bee of 

 that sort seen before i* To me it is a 

 great curiosity. If you consider it 

 worthy, you are welcome to put it in 

 the Bee Journal Museum. You can 

 see for yourself that the bee is just as 

 I say, though perhaps the middle pair 

 of legs may be drone instead of 

 worker. The bee now, as I send it, is 

 dead ; if it gets dry, a little steaming 

 will limber it up so that it may be 

 handled. 



The goldenrods and asters are com- 

 ing on finely here. We have had 

 some splendid weather, and bees have 

 worked as they have never worked 

 before. I think that suflScient honey 

 will be gathered to winter them. 



Lancaster,© Mass., Sept. 27, 1887. 



[The bee mentioned above is a so- 

 called hermaphrodite. A true her- 

 maphrodite, like the common snail 

 and angle-worm, is an animal which 

 is at the same time both male and 

 female. Thus an angle-worm has 

 both ovaries and testes, and so pro- 

 duces both eggs or germ -cells and 

 spermatozoa or sperm-cells. Insects 

 are never true hermaphrodites, but 

 may appear to be both male and 

 female. I have many bees that ap- 

 pear to be one sex, if we examine the 

 head and thorax, and the other sex if 

 the abdomen be examined. Thus the 

 bee sent by Mr. Latham is plainly 



female, as to head and thorax, and 

 male as to abdomen. I find that all 

 the legs are of the worker type. Mr. 

 L. thought the posterior legs were 

 drone ; but they have the charac- 

 teristics of a worker's legs. When 

 the abdomen is drone in its charac- 

 teristics, the bee is really male. If 

 the abdomen is of the female type, 

 then the bee is really female. In the 

 the first case testes were present ; in 

 the last, ovaries. Last fall I received 

 from a bee-keeper a queen, many of 

 whose bees were of this kind. The 

 queen seemed ailing, as she was not 

 prolific, yet she lived over winter, and 

 a few weeks last spring. Such her- 

 maphrodites are often found among 

 higher animals.— A. J. Cook.] 



Canadian Bee Journal. 



Bees f itliout Foofl for 21 Days, etc. 



HIBERNATION OR STARVATION? 



We have been making some experi- 

 ments to ascertain if possible how 

 long bees will live on one meal, or, in 

 other words, when their sacs are 

 tilled with honey, how long they can 

 live if kept in the right temperature. 

 In experimenting with foul brood and 

 fasting bees, we have had them live 

 for nine days ; perhaps they would 

 have lived longer, but just as soon as 

 a few bees fell from the cluster, and 

 their abdomens began to look smaller, 

 we would take them out, feeling as- 

 sured that the disease was cured, as 

 experience afterwards always proved. 

 In shipping queens we find that some- 

 times they die within five days ; at 

 other times we find that they live 

 from twenty to thirty days, although 

 they would have food to go to when- 

 ever they required it. 



Since this question came up, about 

 bees being wintered without food 

 away up north near James Bay, these 

 things have been revolving in our 

 mind. We thought we would make 

 some tests, as we have a bee-house 

 which we think is well adapted for 

 this kind of work, as the sub-earth 

 ventilation pipes passes about 40 rods 

 under ground, and the temperature is 

 about the same summer and winter, 

 and the chimneys, which are on the 

 top, cause a draft to pass through it. 

 By opening the draft and allowing a 

 current of air to pass through, and 

 closing the bee-house up tightly, we 

 have kept colonies from 12 to 21 days, 

 hanging there in a cluster. Twenty- 

 one days may seem a long time for 

 bees to exist without any food except 

 what they take with them in the ab- 

 domen, yet when the right tempera- 

 ture can be secured, and the bees be 

 induced to cluster at the commence- 

 ment, we would not be surprised to 

 find that they might be kept very 

 much longer. We may say that the 

 bees which fasted 21 days are now in 

 good condition, and from all appear- 

 ances they now promise to survive the 

 winter. 



If any one had advanced the theory 

 that they believed bees could be kept 

 for 21 days as we have done, we would 

 never have believed such a statement. 

 Now that we have actually done it, 

 may there not be some special condi- 

 tions secured whereby bees could be 

 wintered on much less stores? We 

 think that this is something that we 

 can all afford to experiment a little 

 in, even though we dolose a few colo- 

 nies. Who knows but the next great 

 stride in bee-keeping might be to take 

 all the honey from them, and have the 

 repositories specially prepared with 

 all the desired conditions, and winter 

 our bees without stores!' There 

 would be one saving at least; they 

 would not and could not have the 

 diarrhea, and if we fed them once or 

 more, we could afford to get the best 

 possible food for them ; and even if 

 we required to feed them once or 

 twice during the winter, what a sav- 

 ing this would be ! 



We do not say that all this is pos- 

 sible, but if we can keep them 21 days 

 when we supposed that we could not 

 keep them more than one-third of 

 that time, why may we not reasonably 

 suppose that we can keep them 

 throughout the winter without food ? 

 Then, again, suppose it is necessary 

 to feed them once or twice during the 

 winter— we might select and give 

 them such food as would he best 

 adapted to their requirements, and 

 least liable to give them the diarrhea. 

 Again, they would have more food to 

 go to, and would have to be satisfied 

 with just what they had, and could 

 not continue to gorge themselves 

 until their bodies become so inflated 

 that they could not retain the con- 

 tents. Suppose some of our scientists 

 turn their attention in this direction, 

 and see what the result may be. If 

 Prof. Cook, McLain and others, hav- 

 ing bees in localities where they can 

 put them into caves far down in the 

 earth,or in specially made repositories 

 where any desired temperature can be 

 secured, would look into this matter, 

 no doubt further light on the subject, 

 and something interesting to all of us 

 would be the result. Bees in the fall 

 of the year are not so valuable as in 

 the spring, and we think experiments 

 might be made without costing too 

 much to the experimenters. 



Perhaps some will think that this 

 will assist in proving Mr. Clarke's 

 hibernation theory, but facts are 

 stubborn things, and it does not mat- 

 ter to us whose theory it proves or dis- 

 proves. If we can secure a condition 

 under which bees will exist for a long 

 time without food, it is worth while 

 trying. We do not care whether it is 

 called hibernation, starvation, or any 

 other name ; if we can improve on 

 any system it is our duty to do so. 

 Live bee-keepers should never slum- 

 ber in their business, but inake an 

 effort to improve every condition to 

 the best of their ability. 



EXAMINE THE COLONIES CAREFULLY. 



Have you examined your bees with- 

 in the last week ; weighed them and 

 ascertained beyond any doubt that 

 they have plenty of stores for winter ? 

 If you have not, many will die of 



