790 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



stray swarms, by putting hives up in 

 trees, thus making 10 colonies in all. 



The summed up reports are : Total 

 number of colonies in the spring, 184 ; 

 total number of pounds of honey 

 taken, 3,232. being an average of a 

 little over 173^ pounds per colony ; and 

 number of colonies in the tall, 267. 



As the day was a stormy one, and 

 only a few members present, it was 

 decided to postpone the election of 

 officers until the next meeting. The 

 subject for discussion at the next 

 meeting will be, " International or- 

 ganization of bee-keepers," and the 

 writer was appointed to open the 

 discussion. 



After some discussion on various 

 subjects, the convention adjourned to 

 meet on Dec. 10, 1887, at the Court 

 House in Eldora, Iowa. 



J. W. Buchanan, Sec. 



For tbe American Bee JournaL 



Yi±m Fonnflation in Sections. 



ED. S. EDEN. 



In reviewing the different methods 

 employed to fasten foundation into 

 section boxes, it seems strange that 

 some one has not invented a machine 

 to do the work satisfactorily. Since 

 the invention of combfuundation, the 

 bee-keeping fraternity have striven to 

 surmount this difficulty, but with very 

 little success. Of the many machines 

 so far invented, not one of them has 

 given general satisfaction. I think 

 that this is because the inventors do 

 not consider sufficiently the difficul- 

 ties to be overcome. Some are guided 

 solely by the strength of the work, 

 regardless of speed and neatness ; 

 while others are guided by speed, re- 

 gardless of neatness and strength. A 

 machine to give general satisfaction, 

 must not only be rapid in its work, 

 but must do it sufficiently strong and 

 neat. 



If foundation is fastened by dipping 

 it into a melted mixture, or by pour- 

 ing wax along each side to adhere it 

 to the section, it will be found that 

 this destroys the guide or wall to the 

 top row of cells, and the bees will not 

 draw them out, unless they are short 

 of room, leaving a very imperfectly- 

 filled section. But if the foundation 

 is fastened neatly, they will draw the 

 top TOW out equally witli the rest, 

 leaving a section filled in a superior 

 manner. 



This plan of fastening foundation 

 by pressure has also its drawbacks, as 

 it is almost impossible to get them all 

 to stick, and especially if the section 

 is smooth ; for the substance used in 

 lubricating the dies while manufac- 

 turing foundation, prevents the foun- 

 dation from sticking to the wood by 

 pressure. Some have adopted the 

 plan of heating the section, and then 

 pressing the foundation on the warm 

 section. This plan I have tried, but 

 with very little success. The trouble 

 I had was, that the warm section 

 prevented the foundation from " set- 

 ting " sufficiently quick, necessitat- 

 ing it to be left in the machine till it 

 became sufficiently cool, before re- 



moving it ; and even then -some would 

 break loose with the least little jar, 

 making it very annoyiijg. 



It is doubtful whether the plan of 

 fastening foundation by pressure will 

 ever be developed sufficiently to give 

 general satisfaction. There are so 

 many conditions that are absolutely 

 necessary, to procure the best results, 

 such as temperature of the room, 

 pliability of the foundation, warmth 

 of the section, etc., before the work 

 can be performed successfully. It is 

 to be hoped that some one of the 

 many thousand bee-keepers will dis- 

 cover a plan that will give general 

 satisfaction. I have no doubt that 

 such a person would receive the 

 thanks of every bee-keeper in the 

 country. 



If the difficulty of fastening foun- 

 dation in the sections was overcome, 

 I believe that bee-keepers would turn 

 their attention to the production of 

 comb honey more than they now are 

 doing. 



Eastwood, Ont. 



For tlie American Bee Journal. 



Scientific BreeflinE of Oneens. 



Q. W. DEMAEEE. 



Mr. G. M. Doolittle, the well-known 

 writer on practical bee-keeping, in 

 his article on page 740, again refers to 

 scientific queen-rearing, which he 

 speaks of as " artificial." Mr. D. has 

 a right to his own views, and has a 

 right to express them in his contri- 

 butions to the bee-literature of the 

 times, but he must expect to have his 

 views on this subject criticized. Most 

 of us demand more than mere asser- 

 tion, and mere theory, when it comes 

 to settling an important question like 

 the one under consideration. To my 

 mind, what Mr. D. has written in the 

 article under consideration— in fact, 

 in all his articles that I have seen on 

 this subject— is based on mere mis- 

 taken theory, except so far as he 

 brings his own experience as proof of 

 the soundness of his position. 



My experience is the opposite of 

 his. I do not say that I would not 

 breed from a queen because .she was 

 reared by a swarming colony if I 

 could trace her parentage back to 

 pure ancestry, but I will say that I 

 have never had the good fortune to 

 cross a single specimen thus reared 

 that was equal to my finest queens 

 bred by selection under my own care, 

 and in the absence of a resisting, out- 

 raged mother-bee. 



It will be observed that Mr. Doolit- 

 tle bases his whole theory upon the 

 presence of the mother-queen while 

 the young queens are being nursed. 

 On these grounds most thinkers would 

 judge that the theory was against Mr. 

 Doolittle. Some years ago, when 

 studying the habits of bees under the 

 swarming-fever, I lifted out a frame 

 on which was the first sealed queen- 

 cell, right on the eve of an issuing 

 swarm, and discovered the mother- 

 bee circling around the first sealed 

 cell which was strongly guarded by 

 the workers. As an experiment I 



dispersed the guards with the end of 

 a stick, when the old queen seized the 

 opportunity to make a fierce attack 

 on the cell. The guards being no 

 longer interfered with, rallied and 

 forced the enraged queen away. Some 

 of the guards worried and bit her legs 

 as she sullenly retreated. Why should 

 not the "great haste" which Mr. D. 

 puts to the other account, be most 

 likely to be thought necessary in the 

 case I have described V 



It is true that young queens reared 

 by bees to supersede old, worn-out 

 queens, are generally of the best 

 quality ; but this is a different case. 

 The old queen is generally spared till 

 her successor has proven her good 

 qualities. Besides, the facts show 

 that the poor, old mother-queen, with 

 a wonderful display of stoicism, ac- 

 quiesces in the whole proceedings. 



There has been a great deal said 

 about the dry, indigestible stufi often 

 seen at the bottom of cells after the 

 young queens have emerged. On thi» 

 we have another built-up theory. 



The theory is, that such queens- 

 having been " highly fed " must b© 

 extra good queens. There is very 

 nearly nothing in this but bare specu- 

 lation, handed down from one author 

 to another, and accepted as true with- 

 out investigation. 



The individuality of the queen 

 honey-bee as pertains to the functions- 

 of a mother- bee, is the result of a 

 state of development above her sister 

 worker-bees, and this state of de- 

 velopment to be normal in nature^ 

 must be under the circumscription ot 

 nature's laws. Every close student 

 of the habits of bees ought to know 

 that young queens are fed to excess, 

 surfeited with food quite as often as 

 they are stinted for the want of it. I 

 have seen embryo queens deluged 

 with so-called royal jelly till they 

 come to nothing but big, bloated, 

 white worms, and perished in that 

 condition ; and 1 have seen them so 

 stinted with food that they were de- 

 veloped but little above the worker- 

 bee. These facts show that right con- 

 ditions are those which result in good 

 queens, and not the presence or ab- 

 sence of the mother- queen when the 

 young queens are nursed in their cells. 



When it comes to facts and experi- 

 ences, my experience differs from that 

 of Mr. Doolittle's. All the extra-fine 

 breeding-queens that I ever bad in 

 my apiary, were reared by what Mr. 

 D.and others call "artificial methods;" 

 I. e., they were reared under the care 

 of myself or other skilled breeders. 



I could bring forward the testimony 

 of a number of intelligent bee-men, 

 concerning the value of queens reared 

 by me in the absence of the reigning 

 queen ; but I do not care to do it. It 

 might have been a mere accident, but 

 I have had a limited number of queens 

 on trial in my apiary, from men who 

 advocate the " swarming impulse " 

 system of rearing queens, and not one 

 of them showed any superior traits 

 over the average queens in my apiary. 

 One of these I paid $10 for, hoping to 

 get an improvement on my home-bred 

 queens ; but she turned out to be in- 



