1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



157 



because I then knew but nttle con- 

 cerning parthenogenesis. Let me re- 

 peat the statement, in part: 



In my queen-rearing experience, it happened 

 to us once, I believe it was in 1872 or 1873, 

 that we found sale for seven first-class Italian 

 queens, very late in October. The amount of- 

 fered for those queens, by a lover of good 

 stock, was so enticing that we decided, my 

 father and myself, to sell the queens, which 

 were in very populous colonies, and take the 

 risks of being able to replace them the same 

 season. Queens were not then to be bought 

 as readily as they are now. There were still 

 many drones, as the season had been very 

 prosperous and late. But those queens, 

 hatched early in November, had no opportunity 

 to mate, for the weather turned cold suddenly 

 and the time of their rut passed without any 

 oportunity for flight, even though drones 

 might have been present. The following spring 

 we found ourselves with seven pretty and 

 very prolific drone-layers. Their eggs were 

 laid as regularly as those of fertilized queens, 

 and their progeny hatched in the most uniform 

 way, small drones from worker-cells and large, 

 full-sized drones from drone-cells. I do not 

 remember that any of their eggs failed to 

 hatch. True, some of them might have been 

 removed by the bees, unknown to us, but this 

 does not seem likely. The little drones ap- 

 peared as able-bodied as the large ones, and, 

 according to the Dzierzon tests, must have 

 been proportionally as good as the large ones. 

 It goes without saying that we promptly re- 

 placed the queens with other breeding stock, 

 and never did we have better early matings 

 than that year, since thousands of drones were 

 produced at a time when there are usually 

 very few. 



Being then between 21 and 22 

 years of age, I became very thor- 

 oughly impressed with this evidence 

 of the correctness of the Dzierzon 

 theory, which had, up to that date, 

 appeared to me only as a possibility. 

 I have, ever since, called it an estab- 

 lished fact. But it is very easy to 

 see why an observer like Fabre, who 

 had no opportunities to make a test 

 of this kind, should denounce the 

 theory as entirely false. And yet it 

 is very likely that the eggs men- 

 tioned by him as not hatching were 

 rendered unproductive by some other 

 cause than want of fertilization. In 

 my experience I have seen two or 

 three queens whose eggs did not 

 hatch, but never had an opportunity 

 of ascertaining the cause. 



However great the genius of Fabre 

 and his powers of observation, he 

 was, nevertheless, subject to preju- 

 dice. Witness his antipathy to Teu- 

 tonic teachings. Such an antipathy 

 was natural in a Frenchman, writing 

 after the crushing war of 1870, but 

 it should not have led to anticipated 

 prejudice. Besides, Dzierzon, born 

 in Karlsmarkt, eastern Silesia, may 

 have been of Slav descent, a Pole. 

 So even the prejudice against him 

 might have been ill-placed. 



In his writings, Fabre constantly 

 criticized Darwin and his theory of 

 evolution, of constant change, slow 

 and steady, due to the struggle for 

 life and the survival of the fittest. 

 Nothing that Fabre saw served to 

 convince him of anything but the im- 

 mutability of the habits and condi- 

 tions of the minute beings which he 

 watched so carefully and upon which 



he wrote so interestingly. It would 

 have been worth while, if he and 

 Darwin could have been placed face 

 to face for a few hours and urged to 

 discuss their views. They were both 

 accurate naturalists and both after 

 the truth. They were 14 years apart. 

 Darwin was born in 1809 and Fabre 

 in 1823. Neither took things for 

 granted, but while Darwin tried to 

 explain some of the phenomena 

 which he saw, Fabre left, at the end 

 of his studies and his wonderful de- 

 scriptions, what he himself calls "an 

 enormous interrogation point." 



C. P. DADANT. 



The Cycle of Seasons in Dif- 

 ferent Apiaries in Georgia 



By J. J. Wilder 



WE might include in this, almost 

 the entire Dixie land except 

 Florida, as the State of Geor- 

 gia extends from the low, flat, level 

 coastal lands to the Blue Ridge, and 

 their honey plants, their season of 

 blooming, etc in all the Southern 

 States correspond very nearly with 

 that of Georgia. 



There is a clover belt in Alabama 

 which extends up into Tennessee. 

 This particular section I am not fa- 

 miliar with, as I have never kept any 

 bees in it, and what I know is mostly 

 through correspondence. 



In this great clover belt is located 

 the largest queen-breeder and ship- 

 per of bees in all the South. But few 

 if any great hone}- producers are lo- 

 cated in it. So we might infer that 

 the season is more uniform, begin- 

 ning early, having a long, almost 

 even season, ending late, except as 

 adverse weather conditions may bring 

 about changes. It may be that the 

 honey-flow never is heavy enough 

 for a great honey harvest, but just 

 enough to keep brood rearing going 

 at a good pitch and some feeding 

 done to keep this up at more adverse 

 times, resulting in lots of bees and 

 only small amounts of honey rela- 

 tively. 



The same condition prevails in 

 northern central Florida in the 

 partridge-pea belt, which has come 

 under my own observation. 



Let me go back to general condi- 

 tions prevailing in Florida. Let no 

 beekeeper think that our country is 

 great for beekeeping because we 

 have so many small honey-flows; that 

 bees will keep strong and colonies 

 continue to exist. Far from it. Our 

 great loss in colonies actually occurs 

 between these honey-flows and our 

 winter losses are almost negligible. 



A colony may show up well on a 

 small honey-flow and at its end be 

 very strong in bees and not light in 

 stores, and before the next honey- 

 flow collapse and be lost. There may 

 be no nectar or pollen between. So 

 we have to leave the honey and keep 

 it equalized. Maybe the next flow 

 yields a little and the next a little 

 and so on. 



Most of eastern, all of southern 

 Georgia and largely southern Ala- 

 bama have the same season and about 



the same honey p.ants throughout. 

 Spring titi and the many different 

 varieties of huckleberry grow widely 

 over this great belt. The first warm 

 days in middle February they bud and 

 by the first of March they are out and 

 the bees are bringing in nectar and 

 pollen every day, weather permitting. 



Maple is also out at this time, being 

 very abundant along streams. Now 

 is the beekeeper's chance. In this 

 section it is not a matter of stores, 

 but a matter of brood for the bees 

 and as soon as these honey-plants are 

 well started blooming, all colonies 

 must be looked through carefully 

 and the stronger ones with much 

 sealed honey in the brood-nest must 

 be given empty combs in the center. 

 Bees must be carefully examined 

 each week and as the weaker ones 

 begin to strengthen and the weather 

 gets warmer give them an empty 

 comb, likewise. 



On the third round, which is about 

 the 10th of March, the strongest ones 

 will need supers and on the next 

 round general supering will be neces- 

 sary. 



Then we may expect swarming to 

 start, and we are right in the main 

 honey-flow which continues till 

 about May 25, and at which time 

 all the bees not in reach 

 of cotton fields must be left with 

 plenty of stores for summer and fall, 

 or they will dwindle and some colo- 

 nies be a total loss before winter. 



Colonies in easy reach of the cot- 

 ton fields can be extracted closely, 

 leaving only a few pounds of honey. 

 In late July, cotton and velvet-beans 

 begin yielding and a slow, steady 

 flow is on until the latter part of 

 August, at which time all honey can 

 be removed except 15 or 20 pounds 

 to carry bees over fall, during which 

 time they continue to breed more or 

 less. 



The Red Hills 



Leaving the low and level country, 

 which is for the most part only a few 

 feet above sea level and better known 

 as the Altamaba Grit Region, with 

 its larger streams in most places 

 lined with white tupelo gum, its 

 smaller ones with titi and flats al- 

 most a mass of gallberry, which ex- 

 tend the honey-flow on up to about 

 June 1, we now pass up into a far 

 more elevated section, which is sev- 

 eral hundred feet above sea level, and 

 with this we sweep over the largest 

 section of Georgia. The soil is most- 

 ly red and the land for most part 

 badly broken, but in it is some gray 

 and sandy as well as rocky soil, 

 which makes some change in the 

 honey flora. In this region the poplar 

 is the most important honey-plant. It 

 lasts until early June. Here there 

 are plenty of pollen plants and bees 

 must have more stores for winter, 

 say 10 or 15 pounds more. All in- 

 crease should be made on this flow 

 and at its close plenty of stores 

 should be left in the brood-nest and 

 some besides in supers. The black- 

 berry is also a good yielder here 

 and its flow may be expected to- 

 wards the latter part of the flow from 

 poplar. Along large streams there is 

 some black tupelo gum which gives 

 the first real honey-flow, and at the 



