THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



that the latter qualifications must be in- 

 dicated by, or dependent upon, the for- 

 mer to a great extent. 



MANY EGOS WASTED fNDlCR SOMK 

 CONDITIONS. 



Mr. Olmstead's egg-experiments are of 

 great importance, and should be studied 

 thoroughly. I have noticed a comb full 

 of eggs would continue full of them to 

 the edges, while in the centre, develcp- 

 ement would take place until the whole 

 frame was finally full of sealed Vjrood. 

 The comb was examined daily, and prac- 

 tically every cell was occupied; thus show- 

 ing that a very great many eggs were 

 wasted. I am strongly inclined to be- 

 lieve that it is impossible to rightly judge 

 the prolificness of a queen until her own 

 workers have hatched and have become 

 nurses. It seems to me very likely that 

 the total number of eggs laid depends 

 largely upon the queen, while the effective 

 seasonable prolificness depends as largely 

 upon the desire and capacity of the 

 nurses to mature the brood. I think 

 strength in old bees, and weakness in 

 number of 3-oung bees, often leads to 

 great egg production and little brood. 

 On December 24th I smoked a colony in 

 a box hive, with tobacco smoke. On 

 December 26th I again smoked them and 

 cut out the cornbs, brushing off the bees. 

 There were about thirty-six square inches 

 of comb full of sealed brood perfectly 

 healthy, but many "bare headed," but 

 there was no unsealed brood except about 

 twenty square inches of comb full of 



eggs. As the temperature was seldom 

 above freezing at that time, I can see no 

 valid reason for the laying of these eggs 

 unless it was due to the smoking; and it 

 seems that it may be possible that exces- 

 sive smoking in the presence of unsealed 

 honey may have the effect of stimulative 

 feeding but yet not be persistent enough 

 to affect brood rearing except by repeated 

 applications. 



EXPERIMENTS NEEDED IN THE WAY OF 

 EXCHANGING OUJvENS. 



We could get much light on this sub- 

 ject if some one could be induced to ex- 

 change queens of two different races, and 

 brush off the bees of each colony and ex- 

 change combs every twenty-one days. 

 A large majority of the eggs of each 

 queen hatched in the presence of nurses 

 of the other race, would determine in a 

 measure whether the greater prolificness 

 of some races is dependent upon more 

 prolific queens or better nurses. The 

 principal matter to be determined in 

 this connection is to see how much of the 

 influence is due to the proportion of bees 

 of different ages and how much is due to 

 the individual characteristics of each 

 worker. 



While believing that nurse-influence 

 is necessarily small, at the same time 

 I believe that with very careful study we 

 will be able to so select that we will be 

 able to turn its cumulative effects to good 

 account. 



Cuba, X. V., Feb. 28, 1902. 



INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT. 



i;\- V. ORKIXKR. 



The Brood. Queen and Drones Influenced by the 

 \ Food Received fronn the Workers. 



K pUiri lis uniini. 



BEAR Mr. Hutchinson— I have express- of the honey bee, that such improve- 

 ed my opinion on several occasions ment will come very slowly, by degrees, 

 before this in regard to the improvement and not in great leaps. I had entertain- 



