July 20, 1871. ] 



JOUBNAL OP HORTICULTtTBE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



59 



blished by a witness whose evidence Mr. Pettigrew himself 

 will aearoely venture to set aside. Mr. Quinby, the eminent 

 and practical American apiarian, whose opinions on this point 

 originally coincided with his own, and from whose " Mysteries 

 of Bee-keeping," several passages in support of hia peculiar 

 views are quoted in Mr. Pettigrew's ''Handy-Book of Bees" 

 (which passages are, however, nearly all either entirely omitted 

 or materially modified in the later edition of Mr. Quinby's 

 book), has since made the identical experiment which has been 

 nnsuccessfnlly attempted by Mr. Pettigrew, and he now de- 

 clares that the attempt to rear queens from eggs deposited 

 in drone cells has so utterly failed with himself and others, 

 that he and they have "no longer any hope of success." He 

 adds, moreover, that " the reason undoubtedly is, that eggs 

 laid in drone cells are not impregnated." 



It seems to me, however, that the most conclusive proof of 

 the inability of bees to reverse the sex of an egg after it has 

 once been deposited in the comb, is afforded by those rare and 

 singular instances in which, as if by mistake and by some 

 default in their usually unerring instincts, they without inter- 

 ference on the part of the apiarian, attempt of their own mere 

 motion to raise a queen from a drone egg or grub. Only one 

 such instance has ever come under my own direct observation, 

 and this was recorded at the time in the pages of " our 

 Journal." Writing at a distance from home, I am, unfortunately, 

 unable to refer to back numbers, but the circumstances were 

 briefly these :— Some years ago, in the course of my then nu- 

 merous queen-rearing operations, I formed a small swarm or 

 nucleus, to which I gave a comb containing worker-brood in all 

 stages, for the purpose of enabling the bees to raise a queen. It 

 happened, moreover, that this comb consisted partly of drone 

 cells, in which also were eggs and young brood, and at the 

 point of junction between the drone and worker cells was 

 lormed the only royal cradle which the bees attempted to con- 

 struct, but which nevertheless appeared to progress favour- 

 ably, and was in due course completed. Watching assiduously 

 as I did the development of all my roynl protegees, I found 

 that in this case fruition was unduly delayed, and becoming 

 impatient I cut open the royal cell on the twenty-fourth day 

 after the formation of the swarm, when instead of the expected 

 ■defunct princess, I found to my astonishment a living and 

 fully-developed drone apparently on the point of making his 

 first appearance on life's stage. 



Now, surely in this case Mr. Pettigrew's attempted experi- 

 ment must be deemed to have been — however unwittingly, and, 

 perhaps, because unwittingly — most fully and fairly carried 

 out. The bees themselves selected a male egg or grub, lavished 

 upon it all the extra material, food, and attention requisite for 

 the development of a queen, and succeeded in producing only 

 an ordinary drone ! — A Devonshike Beekeepek. 



It is quite apparent from several productions on bees which 

 appear from time to time in the Journal, and which are written 

 by gentlemen of long experience and practical acquaintance 

 "With apiculture, who have bestowed, no doubt, not a little time 

 and study in elucidating the natural history and economy of 

 bees, and, moreover, have given the results of that experience 

 and study to the public — it is quite apparent, notwithstanding 

 all this, that the "bee hive" is still, confessedly by them, a 

 great " mystery " unexplored — full of anomalies and unsolved 

 problems, as knotty as Mr. Pettigrew's queenless hive studded 

 over with fictitious royal cells, of which we have an account in 

 your last number. 



As to the physiological mystery which appertains to the 

 sexual character of the eggs when they first leave the ovaries 

 of the queen, and the change which science asserts some only 

 undergo on their passage outwards, I shall at present say no- 

 thing ; but that each egg is " sexually " fixed as deposited in 

 the cell by the queen is a fact beyond all contradiction. Mr. 

 Pettigrew's experiment is a most conclusive refutation of the 

 views which in his " Handy-Book " he seeks to establish ; 

 albeit, though quite true, it is not at all new. Such abortive 

 attempts at queen-rearing from drone eggs I have frequently 

 witnessed, and when some years ago the fact first presented 

 itself to my notice, I watched with as much interest and cari- 

 osity as to results as did Mr. Pettigrew ; but, alas ! when the 

 mountain brought forth, instead of a beautiful queen there was 

 produced a monster drone. This last week another instance 

 came to my notice. A friend of mine artificialised a hive by 

 division ; for the queenless half, unfortunately as it appeared, 

 no royal material was to be had — all drone cells and brood. 

 He asked me to look at the beautiful royal cells which depended 



from the combs. I did so, but my suspicious were imme- 

 diately aroused by observing no worker brood, and by the royal 

 cells being constructed on drone combs. I opened one, and 

 found, as anticipated, it contained a drone nymph, luxuriating 

 for a brief space on royal dainties, and receiving all the out- 

 ward marks of royal dignity and honour. With Mr. Pettigrew 

 I join in astonishment at the delusion. No doubt the instinct 

 of the bee is here somehow at fault ; perhaps it is also at 

 fault when royal cells are constructed and sealed in cases where 

 there are no grubs at all. Bat be this as il may, no royal bee 

 or queen can be reared except from female or worker eggs, and 

 Mr. Pettigrew must abandon hia untenable theory, which is 

 one of a bygone age, that eggs have no sexual character, and 

 that the common bees have anything to do in imparting such 

 characteristics to the eggs after they are deposited by the queen 

 in the cells. — J. Lowe. 



QUEENS LEAVING THEIR HIVES. 



YoDR correspondent, Mr. Lowe, must explain on other grounds 

 the remarkable circumstance which I mentioned three weeks 

 back. The driven Italian hive was rather weak at the time I 

 made the swarm out of it, being, in fact, only about three 

 parts full of comb and bees, and saved by spring feeding from 

 perishing of famine. Moreover, I carefully examined the combs 

 after driving in search of possible royal cells, of which I was 

 much in need. Finding none I cut out a large piece of brood 

 comb wherewith to make another artificial swarm before I sub- 

 stituted the hive for the strong and full hybrid stock. I feel 

 quite certain that there could not have been within it any 

 royal brood. 



Neither is there any mistake as to the issuing of the swarms 

 referred to, which I witnessed myself — both of them. Not only 

 so, I watched the gradual development of royal cells in the 

 hybrid hive. I saw one or two of them distinctly sealed up on 

 the 26th of May. But the strongest evidence in favour of the 

 correctness of my surmise lies in the fact that the swarm which 

 isaued on the 24th of May, out of the Italian driven hive, 

 has proved equally defective in purity of breed as its parent 

 stock, the hybrid ; whereas, the second swarm which issued 

 from the same Italian stock on the 9 th, has extremely well- 

 marked bees of all ages. I may add that the swarm of the 

 24th of May, sent out a magnificent " maiden " swarm on the 

 13th of July, which gave me the fullest opportunity of inspect- 

 ing the quality of the hybridisation. In the one case not more 

 than half the bees, if so many, are well marked, whereas in the 

 other it is difficult to see a badly marked bee. I know not 

 what other inference is to be drawn from the facts Ihave stated. 

 It may be an exceptional case, which only proves the rule. 

 Still I have always considered it far from proven that " queen 

 bees never take aerial excursions " on fine days in summer 

 lime.— B. & W. 



BEES ADAPTED TO LOCALITIES. 



Feedekick WiLLiiM VoGEL, an eminent Prussian bee-keeper, 

 says : — " An improved breed equally suited to all parts of an 

 extensive country is an impoasibility. For each particular 

 district an improved breed specially suited may be produced. 

 In a cross, resulting from the Italian queen with the black 

 drone, degeneration became apparent in the second generation, 

 the hybrids divided numerically, one portion resembling the 

 Italian, and the other the black bees. In the fourth or fifth 

 generation some of these hybrids reached again the pure Ita lian 

 others the pure black bee." 



AN OLD SWARM OF BEES. 

 Theee is a swarm of bees in the adjoining town of Knox, 

 Albany Co., that has occupied the same comb for the past fifteen 

 years, and in the same hive. The swarm was found by Benja- 

 min Gallup in the town of Watervliet, Albany Co., fifteen years 

 ago, on a pine shrub along the roadside. He went to a farmer's 

 house and procured a box 18 inches square inside. After hiving 

 the swarm in this box, he secured them, with proper venti- 

 lation, and brought them home, some eighteen miles from tho 

 spot where he found them. They have remained in the same 

 box ever since, and have cast ofi swarms every season, with the 

 exception of three seasons. The comb has never been renewed 

 since the bees have occupied the box. At present they appear 

 to be in fine condition to commence the season's work, and 



