1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



21 



Painting the Queens to Recognize 

 Them 



So many have asked me questions 

 concerning my way of marking the 

 queens that I will give you my meth- 

 od of proceeding. 



The coloring may be prepared of 

 several tints, but yellow is the most 

 useful, as it is more readily seen and 

 helps in finding the queen. I buy in 

 a paint shop a few cents' worth of 

 chrome yellow. I soak it with a lit- 

 tle alcohol to make a thick paste, 

 which I then dilute with sulphuric 

 ether until it becomes liquid. It is 

 then ready to be employed, but must 

 be kept meanwhile in a well closed 

 vial. 



To hold the queen during the op- 

 eration I use a ring made of paste- 

 board with a few threads run back 

 and forth through it in all directions 

 about an eighth of an inch apart, like 

 a net. Some apiarists prefer to hold 

 the queen by the thorax or drop the 

 paint on her while she is freely 

 walking about. But there is more or 

 less danger of spotting her on the 

 wrong place, on the head or the 

 wings. I prefer the net. 



I place the net over the queen on 

 a piece of comb and press down 

 lightly so as to hold her down, then 

 with a simple blade of grass I drop a 

 small particle of color on her back. 

 She must not be allowed to stir un- 

 der the net as the color might spread. 

 I prefer to release her at once. In a 

 few seconds the color is dry and the 

 queen remains marked for her entire 

 life. It is important that the paint 

 be of the right consistency, neither 

 too thin nor too thick. In the first 

 case it might spread and soil her. In 

 the second it would not remain fast 

 to the thorax. A beginner might ex- 

 periment first on a few worker-bees, 

 so as to become acquainted with the 

 method and the necessary dose. 



I usually mark my queens in this 

 way before they are mated, as it is 

 the most favorable time, and' I intro- 



duce them at once into mating nuclei. 

 But if I were to deal with fertile 

 queens in full colonies, I would cage 

 them for a half day, as the odor of 

 ether might cause the bees to ball 

 them. 



FERN. STOCKLI, Switzerland. 



(Bulletin D'Apiculture). 



(On page 200 of our June, 1914, 

 Journal, Dr. Brunnich gave his meth- 

 od, which is very similar to the 

 above. Dr. Brunnich uses lacquer, 

 with white, red, yellow or green, 

 changing the color each year, so that 

 he knows at sight how old a queen 

 is. Every 4 years the same color 

 comes again. He also makes one, 

 two or three points, or a longitud- 

 inal bar, on the corslet, as recogni- 

 tion marks. He says it is very im- 

 portant to be able to know, at a 

 glance, the age of a queen. We can 

 testify to the fact that such markings 

 make the queens exceedingly con- 

 spicuous, when hunting for them. — 

 Editor.) 



Heating Honey as it Comes From 

 the Extractor 



The Collier Brothers, at Goliad, 

 Texas, have an ingenious plan for 

 heating their honey as it comes from 

 the extractor. The picture gives a 

 good idea of the heater, which is 

 outside the building. A honey tank 

 is set on top of a small furnace used 

 for the firepot. Two pipes can be 

 seen between the tank and the 

 honey house. The honey runs from 

 the honey house into the tank 

 through the upper pipe and is re- 

 turned to the building from the 

 lower one. It is then strained while 

 warm. In the October, 1917, issue of 

 this journal is an account of the 

 method of preparing honey for mar- 

 ket practiced by N. E. France, of 

 Wisconsin. Mr. France also heats 

 his honey soon after extracting, find- 

 ing that there is less trouble from 

 granulation where the honey is 

 heated at once. 



Honey beater used by Collier Bros., Goliad, Texas. 



The Sense of Direction 



Most of our readers are aware of 

 the attribution of a sixth sense to 

 the honeybee — the sense of direction 

 —by some scientists. On this sub- 

 ject we find the following in the 

 "Bulletin Suisse," which they have 

 borrowed from the "Echo des Alpes." 

 It was written by Professor Emile 

 Jung, of the Universite de Geneve. 



"In order to inform myself upon 

 the discussion, I renewed, a few 

 years ago, upon our common honey- 

 bee, the experiments of Fabre. I 

 placed a few in a paper bag, after 

 having marked them so as to recog- 

 nize them; then I carried them to 

 several distances from their hive. I 

 liberated them at one kilometer (.62 

 mile). They came back home regu- 

 larly. At 3 kilometers a small num- 

 ber remained away, and as the dis- 

 tance was increased the number of 

 the lost increased. Beyond 12 kilo- 

 meters, none returned. It is evident 

 that the "topographic sense" of bees 

 is suited only to small distances ; it 

 therefore loses its mysterious char- 

 acter, and I explain it in a different 

 way from Fabre's view. 



"While they are working in the 

 fields it is certain that bees make ob- 

 servations, as we do ourselves in our 

 rambles. They note here a tree, 

 there a stream, in another spot some 

 peculiar grass; they thus become ac- 

 quainted with the country they in- 

 habit, the immediate environs of their 

 home first, and later more distant 

 spots. The older ones, having trav- 

 eled much, have doubtless in their 

 memory a number of guiding marks 

 which enable them to always know 

 just where they are and the shortest 

 line home. The younger ones, or 

 those newly brought to the region, 

 who have not yet had time to make 

 numerous notes, will get lost easily, 

 for the same reason that we are 

 easily lost in a strange city. Their 

 experience does not guide them far- 

 ther than a few hundred meters from 

 their home; they are quickly con- 

 fused, and that is why few of them 

 return. 



"The following experience confirms 

 this opinion: I took, at the entrance 

 of a hive situated near the Lake (Le- 

 man), 20 bees, which I marked and 

 which I enclosed in a box. Taking 

 them to the distance of six kilome- 

 ters 3.9 miles), I turned them out 

 in the middle of a meadow. Seven- 

 teen of them returned to the hive, 

 some immediately, others as late as 

 an hour afterwards. Three were en- 

 tirely lost. The next day I again 

 placed in a box the 17 bees which had 

 thus found their way through the 

 fields and meadows, but this time I 

 carried them in a boat 3 kilometers 

 out in the lake. They flew in differ- 

 ent directions and finally disap- 

 peared. What became of them? No 

 one knows, for they never returned 

 home. The famous "topographic 

 sense," with which some writers have 

 endowed the bees, as they have done 

 with ants, completely vanished in 

 this experiment. Doubtless their 

 ramblings had often led them to the 

 meadow to which I had taken them 

 the previous day; since 17 out of 20 



