366 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



tists to-day, that only one sperm-cell 

 enters the egg in any case of successful 

 impregnation. 



Were it not that investigation seems 

 to make it certain that in vertebrates 

 only one spermatozoa passes into the 

 egg, v^e should w^onder if it might not be 

 true that the number of sperm-celis, few 

 or many, did not determine sex in higher 

 animals, the few producing males, and 

 more females. 



Agricultural College, Mich. 



Storing Honey, Honey-Plants, Etc, 



S. L. WATKINS. 



One of the best planned honey-houses 

 I ever saw belonged to Mr. Adam 

 Warner, of Clarksburg, Yolo County. 

 Calif. It was a two-story building, size, 

 about 12x30 ; the outside boarded with 

 rustic, the inside lined with flooring, 

 tongue and groove, which made a house 

 perfectly bee-tight. The cost, he in- 

 formed me, was about $300. The up- 

 stairs part of the building he used for a 

 workshop, where he put his hives 

 and one-piece sections together. The 

 lower part of the building was divided 

 into two rooms ; one room was for stor- 

 ing honey and preparing it for market, 

 the other a kind of a wax-room where 

 he melted his wax, and where he 

 intended making his comb-foundation. 



He had quite a novel arrangement for 

 keeping ants out of the honey-house, 

 which he assured me worked first rate. 



He had the foundation posts of the 

 building setting in small cans of tar. 

 (He had taken an ordinary five-gallon 

 oil can and cut it off about four inches 

 from the bottom, making a can almost 

 four inches deep.) The building stood 

 up off of the ground about two feet ; 

 eighteen inches of that distance was 

 mason work, and the other six inches 

 foundation posts, resting in cans of tar. 



I asked him if the ants would not 

 crawl over the tar after it became hard- 

 ened with the influence of the weather, 

 and he informed me that they would 

 not ; he said that once a month he 

 stirred the tar up a little with a stick. 



I think it is the smell of tar, more 

 than their fear of crawling over it, that 

 keeps them from crossing. 



I looked well while I was there to see 

 if I could find any ants attempting to 

 cross it, but I did not notice any. 



HONEY-PLANTS OF SACRAMENTO VALLEY. 



The bee-pasturage in the Sacramento 

 Valley is getting better every year, as 



more land is being set to alfalfa and 

 fruit. 



I find that the principal honey-plants 

 of Sacramento, Yolo and adjoining 

 valley counties are wild grapes, wild 

 rose, swamp willow, alfalfa, clover, 

 Spanish-needle, sycamore, several differ- 

 ent varieties of mint, fruit bloom, corn, 

 wild chicory, button bush, white button 

 willow and Canada thistle. 



This last, the Canada thistle, has got 

 a pretty good start in that country in 

 the pastures and waste pieces of land. 

 Canada thistles are excellent honey- 

 plants. 



The levees in that section of the 

 country have a thick set growth of 

 alfalfa on both sides, which, it is 

 claimed by some, help to strengthen the 

 levees against the high waters in the 

 Winter time, whileby others it is claimed 

 that growing alfalfa on the sides of the 

 levees is a nuisance and a damage ; that 

 the gophers tunnel the levees searching 

 for the roots of the alfalfa, and thus 

 undermine it, and make it insecure 

 against the high waters. 



Last Winter, and until late in the 

 Spring, the bee-pasturage was flooded 

 with water, and bees did not do very 

 well this last season. 



Mr. Warner has his apiaries elevated 

 from the ground from 8 to 12 feet. He 

 has a good strong platform made, which 

 is about six feet wide at the top. He 

 places about 50 hives on a platform. All 

 the hives set side by side, and all are 

 painted red, and he tells me that the 

 bees never have any trouble in discern- 

 ing or finding the right hive. Under- 

 neath the platform I saw where he had 

 taken off a great number of combs, 

 where the bees, after filling their hives, 

 had commenced building out in the open 

 air. Colonies had built side by side, and 

 I suppose on warm days the bees of one 

 colony must have surely intermixed with 

 the bees of another. 



If bees were inclined to rob in that 

 location like they do in some places, the 

 bee-keeper would have endless trouble 

 by the colonies building out in the open 

 air, but Mr. Warner informs me that he 

 has never been troubled by bees robbing. 

 They always seem to have sufficient 

 pasturage to keep them out of mischief. 



I asked him if he did not lose a good 

 many queens by having the hives set so 

 close together, and he informed me that 

 he rarely if ever lost a queen that way. 



All his hives are the Harbison style, 

 and open at the top and back. We 

 opened several ; they all seemed to have 

 an abundance of bees and honey. All 

 Mr. Warner's apiaries were surrounded 



