THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



297 



equally distributed in both apartments and 

 were indiscriminately intermixed through- 

 out the hive. 



I next tried removing both black queens 

 and substituting Italians, to see whether the 

 bees from the other side would regard them 

 with disfavor : and, after releasing the new 

 queens and waiting several days, I examined 

 the hives and again was overjoyed to find my 

 pet queens peacefully and quietly doing 

 duty. 



Now, friends, I have good reason to hope 

 that I shall yet succeed in accomplishing my 

 task of working out a successful non-swarm- 

 ing hive. 1 have had a higher motive in my 

 nine years' work in this line than the mak- 

 ing of money ; and if I succeed I will never 

 use it other than to benetit the bee-keeping 

 fraternity. 



I see that friend Secor smothered two of 

 his best colonies in trying the Langdon ma- 

 chine. I should have expected this result 

 where a full colony was given no greater 

 means of exit than a passage large enough 

 for only a single bee to pass out. In my 

 own device there is no danger of smother- 

 ing the bees, as the closed hive may have the 

 entrance at the back opened the whole width 

 of the hive if necessary. I have frequently 

 noticed that, where bees from different hives 

 got mixed together in natural swarming, 

 they are quite prone to swarm out again af- 

 ter being hived. They seem to be in an ex- 

 cited and unnatural condition. Now, when 

 two swarms are thrown together, as in Mr. 

 Langdon's plan, the bees are entire stran- 

 gers, and I think this accounts for their 

 strong passion for swarming, as reported by 

 R. L. Taylor. In my plan the bees are not 

 strangers that are suddenly thrown thgether, 

 but members of a common family, and they 

 will be free from that excitement that would 

 naturally follow from the home being sud- 

 denly crowded with strangers, and I believe 

 I shall not fail from this cause. In Lang- 

 don's hive, every bee that leaves the closed 

 hive has to go into the already overcrowded 

 one. In my hive no bees go to the full hive. 

 After those used to flying have left the 

 closed hive, the yonng bees that have their 

 first flight will fly from the hack entrance 

 and will return there. Friend Langdon tried 

 to critisise this feature ; but I regard this as 

 being the strong point in my hive, as these 

 bees are just the needed nurses for the un- 

 sealed larvte, and are absolutely needed to 

 maintain healthy condition and enable the 

 queen to continue her work. If I live and 

 have the strength next year, I shall finish my 

 work with non-swarmers ; for if this fails I 

 shall "throw up the sponge." 



But whatever comes of the non-swarmer, 

 the house-apiary is a complete success with 

 me, and I greatly wish, friend Root, that you 

 could be here and be convinced. I have 

 boomed the house-apiary : I have nursed it 

 as my choice pet ; and now, after three sea- 

 sons' trial, I declare that I made no mistake 

 when I said that the house-apiary had come 

 to stay, and that soon most good bee-keep- 

 ers would keep their bees in that way. 



B. Taylor. 



FoEESTViLLE, Minn., Aug. 19, 1993." 



A Condensed View of Current 

 Bee Writings. 



E. E. HASTY. 



fHE Langstroth experiment which I 

 desired to condense from the Apicul- 

 turist last month was conducted 

 eight years ago. It starts with Bevan's as- 

 sertion that the drone "hatches" on the 

 24th or 25th day from the egg ; and the 

 experiment is the natural movement of the 

 student who " wants to know you know " 

 not only whether it is correct but also wheth- 

 er it will always be so, under all circum- 

 stances, and with all strains of bees. By, 

 the way we need a reform of language right 

 here, even if we do have to reform our grand- 

 fathers to get it. An egg hatches. A young 

 bee emerges — several weeks after the hatch- 

 ing takes place. Calling both these very 

 diverse occurrings by the same name, 

 " hatching," may in some cases lead to con- 

 fusion, and is unworthy of cultured people. 

 With words in our language by the hundred 

 thousand we can afford at least one for each 

 distinct thing. 



Well in this one experiment (many more 

 are needed before the subject can be prop- 

 erly closed) the first drone emerged in 25 

 days 83^2 hours (probably ;) and the last one 

 a little scant of 27 days— quite an eye open- 

 er. Date and weather were favorable to 

 rapid development : but the honey flow was 

 so scant that other colonies killed drones, 

 and feeding was resorted to in the experi- 

 mental colony. Possibly they might develop 

 faster when all colonies are breeding drones 

 naturally. 



There is also in this article a pretty obser- 

 vation of the first acts of newly emerged 

 drones and workers. They are quite charac- 

 teristic. The worker first takes a walk, stop- 

 ping occasionally to make a " cat's toilet ;" 

 and soon, having no doubt got up an appe- 

 tite, dips in for a square meal, asking no 

 odds of anybody. The drone, according to 

 the tenor of his nature, very soon touches a 

 worker bee with his antennae and begs to be 

 fed. 



Another experiment concerning the emerg- 

 ing of queen and workers was conducted 

 ten years ago. {Ar>i. August, pp. 14-18.) A 

 nucleus was made, and the queen was re- 

 moved from it at such time that all the eggs 

 must have been laid inside of 24 hours. The 



