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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



know what caused this queen to lay 

 eggs at first which produced three- 

 banded bees, and later in life the same 

 queen produced one and two-banded 

 bees ? O. P. Miller. 



Glendon, Iowa. 



[As the queen was old, having been in 

 the hive 4 years, it was evident that 

 she was exhausted ; and some imperfec- 

 tion in her ancestry, perhaps, cropped 

 out, showing that although she was so 

 nearly pure as not to show any variation 

 in the markings of her progeny when 

 she was young, in Old age, when the 

 contents of her spermatheca became 

 exhausted, she might lay eggs which 

 produced bees unevenly marked, or 

 some very dark ones. — Ed.] 



No Fall Honey Crop. 



The honey season, just closed, was not 

 very good. From over 90 colonies in 

 the Spring, I have sold a little over 

 1,000 pounds of white comb-honey ; 

 there is quite an amount of honey-dew 

 and mixed, which is not fit for market. 

 We have had only one light shower of 

 rain in over five weeks. There has been 

 no honey gathered from buckwheat or 

 Fall blossoms, and the pastures are 

 dried up. 



It did me good to read your article, on 

 page 421, on Foreign Mails. I send the 

 following item from the Liverpool 

 Courier, showing the injustice of the 

 whole system : 



"A Bostonian landed in Liverpool a 

 few weeks ago, and purchased, among 

 other things, two small brooches as 

 birthday presents for American children. 

 The two cost 16s. As jewelry is not 

 permitted to enter the States by post, a 

 little box was sent by the Parcel Express, 

 costing 2s. The official charges have 

 just come to hand on the printed sheet 

 of a leading express company, and I 

 transcribe them : Duties, $1.00 ; cart- 

 age, shipping and delivery, 35 cents ; 

 postage, etc., 10 cents ; entries, custom- 

 house fees, etc., 81.20: total, $2.65. 

 Call this in English money 10s. 7d., 

 which, with the cost of carriage to New 

 York, 2s., gives us 12s. 7d. for two 

 little trinkets costing 16s. A fact of 

 this kind is worth many arguments, 

 and does much to open the eyes of 

 traveling Americans." 



W. Addenbrooke. 



North Prairie, Wis. 



Gathering Honey Freely. 



Poplar, linden and sourwood are our 

 best honey producers here. We had a 

 good flow of honey through a portion of 

 April ; also through May and June the 

 flow was excellent. Linden and sour- 

 wood failed, and there was no honey 

 gathered from June until about the last 

 of August. Bees are doing well here 

 now, working on Spanish-needle (smart- 

 weed, as some call it), but mostly on the 

 asters, or what we call white-top weeds, 

 gathering honey freely. Bee-keepers 

 here who do not know their business, 

 very nearly starved out their bees in the 

 months when no honey was gathered. I 

 have heard of some starving to death, 

 but if the honey flows in for a few days 

 longer, they will all be in good condition 

 for Winter, as the asters, golden-rod and 

 some other varieties of flowers grow in 

 abundance here. We have plenty of 

 white clover, but it hardly ever yields 

 any honey, I think. There is a kind of 

 vine here that generally yields some 

 honey in August. Some people call It 

 wild hop vine. How do laying workers 

 originate ? Will they be found in a hive 

 deprived of a queen in the absence of 

 larvae? Will mature workers turn to 

 laying? I have had a good deal of 

 experience with queenless colonies, which 

 is my reason for asking these questions. 

 R. A. Shultz. 



Cosby, Tenn., Sept. 27, 1891. 



[Many mature worker-bees are cap- 

 able of laying eggs, and in a queenless 

 colony often use that power in the futile 

 effort to save the colony from extinction 

 — but their eggs only produce drones. 

 Every worker-bee, being a female, could 

 have become a mother or " queen " had 

 it received the necessary food and atten- 

 tion in the larval state. But with un- 

 developed sexual conditions, and being 

 infertile, their eggs only produce drones. 

 As these " laying workers " are matured, 

 their presence is in no way dependent 

 upon the presence of larvte. — Ed. J 



Another Failure. 



The honey crop in this section has 

 proved a failure again this season, or 

 nearly so. Bees have sufficient stores 

 for Winter, if the strong colonies are 

 made to help the weak ones. 



A. J. Hatfield. 



South Bend, Ind. 



