1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



57 



shortens the yield and weakens the 

 population or leads to swarming. 



With the carrying about of honey 

 the busy creatures fulfill another im- 

 portant task. When the bee is lick- 

 ing up nectar or honey there always 

 flows a little portion of a secretion of 

 most useful albuminous ferments and 

 probably formic acid. Both cause the 

 inversion of the indigestible cane 

 sugar into fruit sugar and grape 

 sugar. Cane sugar cannot be assim- 

 ilated at once by the stomach, while 

 its components may immediately en- 

 ter into the blood, where they pro- 

 duce the warmth of the blood and 

 strengthen the muscles. Honey, 

 as a food, not only spares to the 

 stomach a considerable digestive 

 work, but gives to the organism al- 

 bumin and important aromatic sub- 

 stances, with stimulating and anti- 

 septic qualities. Formic acid is a 

 mighty antiseptic and has a most fa- 

 vorable fortifying influence upon the 

 musculature of the heart. 



When the honey is ripe, which hap- 

 pens in 4 to 8 days, the bees place it 

 where they wish to have it definitely 

 — around and above the brood-nest. 

 There the thick liquid is corked up 

 by shutting the cell with an artful 

 cover of wax; the honey is capped. 

 Now the honeycomb represents a 

 more or less plane surface on both 

 sides, so that the bees can easily 

 walk there without smearing their 

 feet. Jealously the little amazons 

 watch these precious provisions, and 

 they do not open the cells before 

 they absolutely need food. So no- 

 body is astonished when a populace 

 which before was good-hearted at 

 once becomes ill-humored and readily 

 uses its weapons, if man has taken 

 from them a part of their treasures. 

 After the honey crop, the bees do not 

 stand trifling. The experienced man 

 knows how to treat them and wil- 

 lingly gives them, after the crop, 

 part of the stolen goods, that his 

 darlings may not suffer of hunger till 

 the new honey season begins. ■ 



Reuchenette, Switzerland. 



Mating Queens Over Colonies 



Mr. Frank C. Pellett : 



Dear Sir — In the American Bee 

 Journal, 1917, page 344, we were fa- 

 vored with an article from you on 

 "Increase W.th Little Cost." This 

 method appealing to me, I tried it 

 out in one of my outyards the past 

 season, with no success. 



Recently, on reviewing Gleanings 

 for 1914, I find, on page 285, that Dr. 

 Miller had tried to raise some queens 

 over a colony with a laying queen, 

 but failed. Editor Root's comment 

 on Dr. Miller' "straw" stated that 

 Mr. Doolittle had met with some suc- 

 cess in getting queen^ mated in an 

 upper story of a queen-right colony, 

 but usually it proved a failure. 



On page 796, Gleanings, 1914, Mr. 

 Chadwick gave the result of his at- 

 tempt at this stunt which was almost 

 a complete failure on 75 colonies. 



Just recently I received a copy of 

 your "Practical Queen Rearing" and 

 I find the identical plan which you 



proposed in the American Bee Jour- 

 nal in 1917. 



In my own yard I tried it with 

 about 50 colonies. Each colony had 

 from one to three extracting supers 

 on, and the brood was put above the 

 supers with a wood-zinc excluder be- 

 tween the supers and the hive-body 

 below containing the old queen. 



In some cases, cells were started in 

 the original brood-chamber before 

 putting above. In other cases there 

 were no cells when making the 

 change, but in almost every instance 

 cells were started and completed 

 above. But here is where the "rub" 

 comes — not a single queen got to 

 laying above. 



The entrance to the brood-chamber 

 above was made in a half-inch rim 

 between it and the immediate super 

 below. 



No doubt this method is a success 

 with you, and I should feel much 

 pleased if you could show me why I, 

 as well as these other gentlemen 

 have met with such dismal failure. 

 INDIANA. 



Answer — As nearly as I can guess, 

 the reason for failure in all cases re- 

 ported to me is either having the up- 

 per entrance too near the one below, 

 or the lack of a ripe queen cell. If a 

 newly formed cell is given all the 

 brood will emerge from the upper 

 brood-nest before the young queen is 

 ready to lay. I make a practice of 

 starting a batch of cells in advance 

 of the time when the brood is to be 

 raised above the excluder. A ripe 

 cell is always given the day follow- 

 ing the raising of the brood and the 

 young queen should emerge the sec- 

 ond day after. If weather conditions 

 are favorable the young queen 

 should be mated and ready to lay 

 before the brood has all emerged. 

 With sealed brood present the young 

 queen does not hesitate to begin lay- 

 ing in a normal manner. If no brood 

 is present she is likely to make an 

 effort to reach the brood-nest of the 

 old queen below the excluder and be 

 lost in the attempt. 



The entrance to the upper brood- 

 nest should be on the opposite side 



of the hive from the one in the lower 

 body. Otherwise the young queen is 

 likely to enter the lower story with 

 the old queen on her return from her 

 mating flight. — F. C. P. 



The Sense Organs of the Bees 



By Terrisse Trelex, in the Bulletin 

 Suisse for October, 1918 



HONEYBEES have exceedingly 

 acute organs of smell; they 

 also have an excellent mem- 

 ory, and in addition are very skillful 

 in taking note of guiding marks. 



It is through memory and the ob- 

 servation of guiding marks that they 

 succeed so well in finding their way 

 back to the hive. They depend upon 

 this almost exclusively. It is through 

 the ambiance or environment of their 

 home, more than by its particular 

 color that they recognize it, and the 

 proof lies in the ease with which we 

 deceive them by placing another 

 similar hive in the location of their 

 own, when making artificial swarms. 

 One might almost say that, apart 

 from the attractiveness of appearance, 

 it is of little use to paint hives of 

 different colors, in an apiary. 



It has been slid with reason that it 

 is less the difference in the tints than 

 the difference in brilliancy which im- 

 presses itself upon the eyesight of 

 our insects. 



Bees see, but in a different man- 

 ner from ourselves. In a general 

 way, we must take notice that man 

 reasons and rectifies his impressions 

 through his reasoning, while the ani- 

 mal does not reason, or at least very 

 little. A horse, for instance, does 

 not see correctly, because reasoning 

 is lacking in him. He will shy at a 

 shadow across the dusty road, at a 

 piece of white paper, at a lump of 

 dirt, all things that he should con- 

 sider as very common. But in the 

 eyesight of the bee there is an essen- 

 tial difference with the behavior of 

 our own eye. She does not leave her 

 occupations when we suddenly un- 

 cover the combs ; the passing sud- 

 denly from darkness to blinding day- 

 light does not annoy her; but she 



of the roof from the 

 plainly where that li 

 Djelloud. a suburb 

 writer of the article. 



vhite that the photograph does not even delineate the crest 

 But the stove-pipe, in the upper right-hand corner, shows 

 The roof is flat, terrace-shaped. The location is Djebel- 



nis, and belongs to Mr. Andre Terrisse, brother of the 



