1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



415 



the writer is convinced that, desira- 

 ble as is the large floor space shown 

 in this portable extracting house, 

 more desirable still is the ability to 

 drive right into a yard and get 10 

 work in the minimum of time, which 

 cannot be done with a room, any part 

 of which must be unfolded or set up 

 on arrival, and taken down or folded 

 when ready to move to another yard. 

 The best size for a portable, consid- 

 ering all these points, is 8, 9, or pos- 

 sibly 10 feed wide, by 16 feet long. 



The writer has seen one portable 

 10 feet wide, and aside from a little 

 difficulty in getting into gates, and 

 in passing teams on the road, the size 

 is very satisfactory. 



However, after years of use of a 

 permanent outfit, our friends have 

 arrived at the same conclusion as 

 the writer, that where yards are not 

 too distant, the better plan is to haul 

 all combs to a central plant, where 

 everything is convenient. 



With the central plant, extracting 

 can go on, as it did with us at one 

 time last summer, when the weather 

 would have entirely prevented the 

 use of a portable, as we used escapes 

 to remove the honey in an all but 

 Arctic spell of weather. 



Meridian, Idaho. 



Water in Shipping Bees 



By A. E. Lusher 



HAULING bees and shipping bees 

 from one place to another is 

 no small side issue if followed 

 up year after year in a large way. 

 Bees need water if shipped on cars 

 any distance. When shipping bees 

 on cars a long distance I would pre- 

 fer to use a can about the size of a 

 corn can, with the same kind of 

 moss that they use in a nursery for 

 ferns, put in the can, then fill half 

 full of water. Take out enough 

 frames so the can may be tacked in 

 the corner of the super, then put on 

 the moving screen. The bees • will 

 get the water from the moss and will 

 not drown or be wet. If more water 

 is needed, the can could be filled 

 through the screen. It doesn't matter 

 if they do get a little wet on a car, for 

 they don't get the awful jarring and 

 bumping a large truck gives them. 

 Even in California, all roads are not 

 boulevards, by a long ways, and the 

 bees are in an awful uproar all the 

 trip, from bumps and chuck holes. 



I have tried many good ways of 

 giving them water, but find that if 

 they are not closed up too long they 

 will be better off without the water. 

 When the combs have fresh orange 

 honey in them and you have bad 

 roads, it will shake out on the bees 

 and stick them all up so they suffo- 

 cate while moving. 



We try to move them just after 

 they are extracted, before they get 

 in any of the new honey, for they are 

 lighter and the new combs don t 

 wire-cut if the weather is warm. 

 You may wonder why we start mov- 

 ing before the honey-flow is over, 

 but by the time the last of the honey 

 is over we have all the bees in an- 

 other flow. I have tried filling a 

 comb with water, but it shakes out 



on a rough road just like the new 

 honey does. Methods and locations 

 differ greatly. What works in one 

 place may not work in another. 



Pasadena, Calif. 



(The editor believes that water is 

 necessary only when the bees have 

 brood, or when they are fed with 

 dry candy. Fresh honey should be 

 sufficient to supply their needs with 

 the brood. We invite comment on 

 this question. — Editor.) 



Fertilizing Drone Eggs — An Experi- 

 ment 



By Gilbert Barratt 



THE statement by Dieckel in Ger- 

 many, and Simmins in England, 

 that queens lay nothing but fer- 

 tilized eggs, and that in the case of 

 eggs laid in drone-cells the fertilizing 

 element is removed by the workers, 

 led the writer, in view of later inves- 

 tigations, to prove, or disprove this 

 theory. 



A frame of drone-comb was placed 

 in the middle of a strong colony, and 

 the following day was examined. For- 

 tunately, the queen was found in the 

 act of laying in this comb, and imme- 

 diately she had withdrawn her abdo- 

 men, the cell was closed with a pen- 

 knife, thus preventing any worker 

 touching the egg. Four cells were 

 closed in this manner, the piece of 

 comb cut out and placed in an incu- 

 bating chamber running at 97 degrees. 

 The next day a little royal jelly 

 thinned slightly with new honey was 

 placed on each egg with a hair pencil. 

 These eggs duly hatched, were further 

 fed until larva? were two days old and 

 were then transferred to artificial 

 queen-cups; they were then given to a 

 colony that had been deprived of its 

 other combs being given from above 

 an excluder. They were all accepted 

 and on opening were found to contain 

 dead drones. This experiment was 

 very carefully conducted, and not the 

 slightest opportunity given of allow- 

 ing any bee to touch the eggs until 

 hatched and larva; two days old. 



The investigation in view, providing 

 the above theory was disproved, was 

 to fertilize drone eggs. Freshly laid 

 drone eggs from a pure golden Italian 

 queen were secured, the comb con- 

 taining them cut down, and pure 

 Punic drones just arriving in the hive, 

 after a flight, were squeezed over the 

 eggs, in the hope that a spermatazoon 

 would enter the micropile of the egg, 

 and thus fertilize it. The reason 

 Punic drones were chosen was to p"j- 

 vide as great a contrast as possible, 

 seeing that the Punic is intensely 

 black and possesses several distinctive 

 features. The queen chosen for the 

 eggs was one producing the lightest 

 and yellowest bees. These eggs were 

 then treated exactly as in the forego- 

 ing experiment, and produced ex- 

 tremely dark queens, considerably 

 darker than leather colored Italians. 

 Several queens duly mated, some to 

 yellow, and some to black drones, but 

 nearly all workers showed unmistak- 

 able evidence of Punic blood. Drones 

 returning from flight were selected be- 

 cause the air sac being distended, the 

 expulsion of the male sperm was fa- 

 cilitated. 



The eggs of a mismated pure golden 

 queen were the subjects of the next 

 experiment, and pure golden drones 

 used; these produced bright golden 

 queens, and finally, the eggs of a 

 drone-laying virgin were tested in the 

 same manner, these also producing 

 queens exactly as in preceding experi- 

 ments. We therefore have the anom- 

 aly of pure queens from a mismated 

 mother, also queens from a virgin. 



The value of these investigations, 

 apart from its entomological interest, 

 lies in the fact that all queen breed- 

 ers, who are building up a high-class 

 strain, can definitely introduce any 

 given blood into that strain, and, ow- 

 ing to the comparative simplicity of 

 the process, should interest all queen 

 breeders. 



The writer was not successful in 

 fertilizing eggs from Italian fertile 

 workers, nor was the experiment suc- 

 cessful when using eggs nearly due to 

 hatch. The age of the eggs may be 



