1 62 NOTES. 



8. The Quinby Smoker.— (Page 49.) The Quinby Smoker is 

 a small bellows about four inches wide at the bottom, and eight inches 

 high. At one side there is attached to the bellows a pointed tin tube 

 considerably longer than the bellows itself, Into the lower part of 

 this tube, fuel, such as a roll of dry cotton rags or small pieces of dry 

 rotten wood is put. The fuel being ignited, the bellows is held in the 

 right hand, and a stream of smoke directed through the pointed tube 

 upon the bees. The smoke can be blown in at the entrance of a 

 hive, or, if opening a hive, it can be blown upon the tops of the 

 frames and down among the combs and bees. The smoker is a very 

 valuable implement in bee-keeping. 



9. Bees in A Hive. — (Page 58.) In every perfect swarm of bees 

 there is one queen, a number of drones, and a large number of 

 workers. The queen is the only perfect female in the swarm. She is 

 larger than the workers, and longer and more slender than the drones. 

 She is the mother of the whole hive, laying all the eggs that are pro- 

 duced in the hive. The manner in which bees rear a queen is mentioned 

 in the chapter on Italianizing, and also the way in which she is fertilized. 

 After fertilization she is in condition to lay both drone and worker eggs. 

 If from any cause a queen is prevented for some time from issuing 

 from the hive to meet the drone, she will often begin to lay without 

 having been fertilized. In this case all the eggs she lays will 

 produce drones, or male bees. It is an astonishing but well es- 

 tablished fact, that the egg which produces the male bee is 

 not fertilized In case a queen has met a drone, and has become 

 properly fertilized, the spermatic fluid is contained in a small sac. 

 When a fertile queen lays eggs in worker cells, these eggs as they 

 pass the mouth of this sac, are in some way fertilized, or impregnated. 

 All impregnated eggs, if hatched and grown in worker cells, produce 

 worker bees : if hatched in queen cells, or if the young larvae are put 

 in queen cells before they are three days old, and are fed on royal 

 food, the young bees develop into queens. All eggs deposited by a 

 fertilized queen in drone cells, are unimpregnated. This has been 

 proven by the most careful research by the most eminent microscop- 

 ists. The queen seems to have the power of preventing these eggs 

 from coming in contact with the spermatic fluid. Such unfertilized 

 eggs, laid by a fertile queen, develop into drones, or male bees. 



The drones are larger than the workers, and more robust than the 

 queen, though not so long. Their sole office is to fertilize the queen. 

 They perform no other work in the economy of the hive. When the ' 

 queen is once fertilized the drones are of no further use, except more 

 queens are to be raised for swarms that are to issue, or to be made by 

 the nucleus system. When not specially needed drones are a posi- 



