Tmrn MMERICJCP* BEE J0UH1H2S1,. 



439 



Tiic June Bcc§ and Flo\ver§. 



Written for the Humane Journal 



BY H. G. ADAMS. 



Tho b' PS are buzzing in the lane, 

 Anil ihc 6he. p-bi-li batb a nrowsy sound ; 



There 18 no wind to turn the \ ane. 

 And send the mill-sweeps round and round. 



The laden w agon creaks along, 

 Willi t'ragrKiit hay upon it piled ; 



The 1 ttie tiriiok, with a sleepy song. 



Winds here and there, like a wayward child. 



And where its waters gather clear 

 Bepide I he bridge, in a shady pool. 



The hanpv boys, without a tear. 

 Can bathe when they come out of school. 



The bud, half hid in blossoms, flnge 



Its swt-eliiess on the balmy air. 

 And set ins to slumber as it sings. 



As one who is without a care 



Hot is ihe man who drives the sheep. 

 And hot are they who rake the hay ; 



All niiiiire seems inclined to sleep. 

 Although 'tis broad and golden day. 



The looks are nodding on the trees. 



Upon this sultry summer noon ; 

 The heat is ninety odd degrees, 



And 'lis the leafy month of June. 



GOOD QUEENS. 



The Laying C'apaeity of Oood 

 Qiieen§. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



On page 364, Mr. James McNeill has 

 a " ooniirnlniiu " which he wishes Doo- 

 littlc to answer, and as I am in thfs 

 woi'ld for a purpose, and that purpose 

 to help my fellow men, especially bee- 

 keepers, by explaining to them all 1 

 know of our pursuit, and giving a little 

 light on ilail< points as far as I can, I 

 will try to do the best possil)le on this 

 conundrum, leaving the readers of the 

 American Bee Journal to see how 

 nearly right I am. 



In the first place, if I conveyed to 

 the minds of tlie readers by the article 

 on page 323, or bj' any article, that a 

 queen lays 3,000 eggs every day for 

 two or three months in succession, I 

 wish to say that I did not intend to 

 convey an}' such an idea, for I am 

 satisfied that all queens have certain 

 periods of rest during which they Lay 

 veiy few eggs, these periods being 

 brought about by the weather, secre- 

 tion of nectar by the flowers, amount 

 of pollen brought in, etc. 



Then again, I am satisfied tliat 

 qtieens la}' eggs at many times which 

 the bees never allow to hatch, and also 

 that eggs are kept from hatching for 

 indefinite periods by the bees, when 

 again they allow such " kept" eggs to 

 hatch within 24 hours to a far greater 

 number than any queen could lay in 



a day, tlic bees liaving all this under 

 tlieir control ; all of which has an im- 

 portant bearing on the subject. How- 

 ever, the important part of the subject 

 is in having a queen capable of laying 

 3,000 to 4,000 eggs a day when we 

 most need tliem, and not one that can 

 never lay more than from 800 to 1,200 

 \inder any circumstances, as is fre- 

 quently tlie case witli cheap queens, as 

 the past has sliown me. 



A queen was once sent to me as a 

 present, by quite a noted queen breed- 

 er, and with all tlie coaxing that I 

 could do, she would not exceed 4 

 Gallup frames of btood, her usual 

 amount being about 3. I kept her for 

 two years, hoping tliat she would do 

 lietter, but as no better results were 

 attained, I became disgusted with her 

 and killed her. But more closely to 

 the point : " How do I manage to make 

 y Gallup frames give room enough for 

 a really good queen, as it would re- 

 quire 11 such to give room for a queen 

 capable of laying 3,000 eggs a day ?" 

 In this locality we have, as a rule, 

 but one really good honey-How, that 

 being from ba.sswood, which blooms 

 from July 5 to the 15th, and lasts from 

 one to three weeks, the extremes being 

 3 days for the shortest I ever knew, to 

 28 days as the longest, in which honey 

 was gathered from it. 



Now, as the wise man would pre- 

 pare for a harvest by engaging help 

 for a large harvest of any kind, having 

 that help on hand at the needed time, 

 I try to take advantage of what these 

 good queens can be made to do by 

 crowding them to their utmost capacity 

 from 25 to 50 days before the bass wood 

 opens, so as to get the largest pos- 

 sible force of workers on hand just at 

 the right time to give me the best re- 

 sults. To this end my hives are made 

 so at this time of the year they can be 

 enlarged by slipping out partition 

 boards, so that 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 

 even 15 frames can be used as a brood- 

 chamber, thus giving the best of 

 queens a chance to do all she is cap- 

 able of doing ; 15 frames in a hive, 

 filled nearly solid with brood 30 or 40 

 days before the honey harvest, is one 

 of the most pleasing sights to a hone}-- 

 producer of anything in this line of 

 business — except tons of honey being 

 exchanged for cash at the end of the 

 season. 



Later on, the object of the bee- 

 keeper who has no fall harvest should 

 be to rBduce the brood as much as 

 possible, consistent with having the 

 colony in good condition for winter, 

 for the rearing of brood very largely 

 right in the height of the honey har- 

 vest means much of our surplus being 

 fed to this brood, which are only to 

 become useless consumers after the 

 honey harvest is over. 



Working along the line of this rea- 

 soning, (which nearly 20 years of ex- 

 perience has proven to me to be bouitd 

 logic), as tlie honey harvest com- 

 mences, 1 begin to work in an opposite 

 direction by contracting the room 

 given to the queen, till at the close of 

 the season, 5 to 7 Gallup frames of 

 lirood are all that my hives contaiii, 

 and these are frequently from } to f 

 full of honey. This gives all the bees 

 required for winter, and nearly enough 

 honey for the same, so that little work 

 is d<ine along the feeding line. 



If the above is not the right princi- 

 ple to work bees upon, then a part, at 

 least, of my bee-keeping life has been 

 in vain. A thorough trial of the plan 

 will, I think, convince the most skep- 

 tical that it is the correct plan to 

 work on. 



In the above I think that Bro. 

 McNeill will find a full answer to his 

 conundrum, and I will only add that 

 if queens of poor or only moderate 

 value are used, our crop of honey 

 must be poor or moderate ; for only as 

 we have a large number of bees at the 

 right time, can we expect to attain to 

 the highest point in the production of 

 honey. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



WAX. 



Tlie Secretion of Wax— Is it 

 Voluntary t 



Written for tlie American BeeJffiimal 



BY EDSON'GERRY. 



On page 325 this question was asked: 

 " Is the secretion of wax a voluntary, 

 or an involuntary, act ?" An opinion 

 was given, stating that it was " vol- 

 untary." 



I am fully convinced from my own 

 observation, that this secretion is in- 

 voluntary ; that the bees have no con- 

 trol over the generating of the secre- 

 tions ; and that it is a n.atural produc- 

 tion, which may he seen on the under 

 part of the abdomen of the young bees. 



It is produced id a singular manner. 

 The construction of the muscular 

 rings around the abdomen are so 

 formed that they are especially calcu- 

 lated to permit these secretions to ooze 

 out from small holes located under 

 these muscular rings ; and when the 

 secretions are dried, they form small, 

 white flakes or pellets of wax ; when 

 ripe, if not removed, they will drop to 

 the bottom of the hive. 



Wax is produced only by such bees 

 as are in a condition to be able to gen- 

 erate these secretions. My impression 

 is that the young bees (while young 

 they are fat like all the young of both 

 animals and insects) would naturally 



