1878. 



GLEAXIXGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



17 



pollen, if made with the addition of flour, as 

 we have advised. 



'B1V2B1M&. This term is usually ap- 

 plied to the operation of increasing the 

 number of stocks, by putting half the bees 

 and combs into a new hive, just about 

 swarming time ; and is really one method 

 of artificial swarming. If you have an ex- 

 tra laying queen to give the queenless por- 

 tion, it may do very well, but otherwise, it 

 is a wasteful way of making increase, and 

 has mostly been abandoned. If the bees are 

 just ready to swarm, and have queen cells 

 pretty well along, it may answer very well ; 

 but even then, it would pay better to take 

 but two combs with the queen cell, and get 

 a laying queen before making the actual 

 division, as advised in artificial, swarm- 

 ing. 



S5!^0^3S. The^e are large noisy bees 

 that do a great amount of buzzing but never 

 sting anybody, for the very good reason that 

 they have no sting. The bee-keeper who 

 has learned to recognize them both by sight 

 and sound, never pays any attention to their 

 noise, but visitors are many times, sadly 

 frightened by their loud buzzing. We will 

 commence as we did with the worker bees, 

 at the egg, and see how much w^e can learn 

 of these harmless and moffensive inmates of 

 the bee hive. 



If our colonies are prosperous, we may 

 find eggs in the drone comb of some of the 

 best hives as early as March, but not, as a 

 general thing, until April. You can tell 

 the drone cells from the worker at a glance, 

 (even if you have never seen them) by the 

 size, as you will see by looking at the cut on 

 page 24. Whenever you see eggs in the large 

 cells, you may be sure they are drone eggs. 

 I do not mean by this that the eggs that 

 produce drones look any different from any 

 other eggs that the queen lays, for in looks 

 they are precisely the same. They are al- 

 most the same in every respect, for the only 

 difference is that the egg that produces the 

 worker bee, has been impregnated, while 

 the others have not ; but more of this, anon. 

 The eg^, like those producing workers, re- 

 mains brooded over by the bees, until it is 

 about 3 days old, and then by one of nature's 

 wonderful transformations, the egg is gone, 

 and a tiny worm appears, a mere speck in the 

 bottom of the cell. This worm is fed as be- 

 fore, until it is about a week old, and is then 

 sealed over like a worker, except that the 

 caps to the cells, are raised considerably 

 more ; in fact they very much resemble a 

 lot of bullets laid closely together on a board. 



They will begin to cut the caps of these cells 

 in about 24 or 25 days ; the caps come off in 

 a round piece, very much like those from a 

 queen cell. Well, we have now got a real 

 live drone, and I would show you a picture 

 of him were it not winter time so that none 

 are to be procured for oxu- engraver. I have 

 examined all the pictures I can find, but 

 they are far from being truthful and ac- 

 curate. 



The body of a drone, is hardly as long as 

 that of a queen, but he is so much thicker 

 through than either queen or worker, tliat 

 you will never mistake him for either. He 

 has no baskets on his legs in which to carry 

 pollen, and his tongue is so unsuited to the 

 gathering of honey from flowers, that he 

 would starve to death in the midst of a clo- 

 ver field. 



I presume the young drones are ready to 

 leave their hive after they are about two 

 weeks old, and they do this shortly after 

 noon, of a warm pleasant day. They come 

 out with the young bees as they play, and 

 first try their wings, but their motions are 

 far from being as graceful and easy, and 

 they frequently tumble about so awkwardly 

 that as they strike against your face, you 

 might almost think them either driuik or 

 crazy. I do not know how we can very well 

 decide how old a drone must be, to fulfill 

 the sole purpose of his existence, the fertil- 

 ization of the queen, but should guess any 

 where from three weeks to as many months. 

 Perhaps they seldom live so long as the last 

 period named, but I think they sometimes 

 do. Many facts seem to indicate that they, 

 as well as the queen, fly long distances from 

 the hive — perhaps two miles or more. I be- 

 lieve we have never had any very satisfactory 

 evidence that the meeting between the 

 queen and drone, was ever witnessed by the 

 eye of man, but for all this, there can be but 

 little question in regard to the matter. The 

 drones go out of the hive, circle about, and 

 finally vanish out of sight in the heavens 

 above ; the queens do the same. In fi'om 15 

 minutes to an hoiu-, or possibly a couple of 

 hours, the queen returns with an appendage 

 attaclied to the extremity of her body, that 

 microscopic examination sliows to be the 

 generative organs of the drone. These facts 

 have been observed by hundreds of bee- 

 keepers, and are well authenticated. In at- 

 tempts to have queens fertilized in wire 

 cloth houses, I have, after letting the queens 

 out, seen the drones pursue them imtil both 

 parties vanished from my sight. Still anoth- 

 er fact ; if you take a drone in your hand 



