392 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
t May 15, 1884. 
HUNGER SWARMS, FERTILE WORKERS, AND 
BEES TRANSFERRING EGGS. 
A very common occurrence during the spring months is that 
of bees and queen leaving the hive. Such swarms are sometimes 
mistaken for natural ones, and sometimes termed hunger swarms. 
As far as my experience goes, not in one single instance did 1 
ever see such swarms leave the hive from that cause. 1 always 
considered the exodus due to some defect in the hive, such as 
incipient foul brood, and more particularly when the interior of 
the hive was in a cold damp state. The bees, being unable to 
raise the temperature sufficiently, take the opportunity the first 
fine day and leave the hive, which is generally repeated should 
the bees be returned without the precaution of thoroughly heat¬ 
ing and drying the hive. There is nothing better for this pur¬ 
pose, if the day be fine, than exposing the combs to the influence 
of the sun, but a few spare hives with dry and sweet combs kept 
over from the preceding summer will be more suitable. 
Do bees transfer eggs from one cell to another P is a question 
of considerable importance in apiculture. There have been many 
assertions attempting to confirm that they do so, but not one 
single case of proof nor anything likely to convince the observant 
bee-keeper has ever been adduced by the advancers of such a 
theory. On the other hand, I have made a searching inquiry of 
the first experimentalists of the day, and not one can make the 
assertion positive. I have myself devoted much time over a long 
term of years, sacrificing hives and labour to discover if bees 
really transferred eggs, but in all my experiments I never ob¬ 
served bees transferring eggs. I am not prepared to say that 
it cannot be done, because 1 have transferred larvae and had the 
satisfaction to see these nursed and hatched, but I do say em¬ 
phatically that as yet we have had no proof from a reliable 
source that bees transfer eggs. The question may, perhaps, be 
asked, Did I never find eggs in a comb that I knew the deposed 
queen had not access to P To this I must answer in the affirma¬ 
tive ; but in every case there were two queens or fertile workers, 
which is sufficient to account for the erroneous opinions held by 
casual observers. 
A case of the kind mentioned in my apiary at present will 
illustrate that phenomenon as well as others. During last 
autumn, while clumsily manipulating a hive thi-ough ill health, 
I allowed a number of the bees to enter a Carniolian hive whose 
queen was killed by the stranger bees. Being unable to put it 
right it stood over the winter until a month since, when I deposed 
the unfertilised drone-producing queen, supplying the hive with 
eggs and larvae from a Cyprian stock. The bees were reluctant to 
accept the Cyprian worker brood, preferring to i-aise queen cells 
over the drone brood, which I destroyed and added another piece 
of comb containing Cyprian larva?, which they also rejected, as 
I found on examination a day or two after, as they seemed to be 
satisfied with a cell on the first piece of comb given. This cell 
had the peculiarity of not being a royal cell nor even a drone 
cell, but simply a worker cell a very little more convex on the 
seal than ordinary worker cells, and not sealed until at least 
nine clear days after the deposition of the eggs. Anxious to be 
accurate, and cognisant of the time of evolution, I examined it 
daily until it hatched, on the eighteenth clear day, a beautiful 
average-sized Cyprian queen. Meanwhile an examination of the 
combs betrayed many newly laid eggs and royal cells containing 
eggs or grubs in different stages of formation, and this more 
than a fortnight after the deposition of the queen. 
The foregoing is sufficient proof, were such a thing wanting, 
that fertile workers and queens exist together ; and queens raised 
in worker cells, which is not uncommon, is a cause of much 
mystery to the ignorant, and apt to cause some bee-keepers to 
form wrong conclusions. The extreme coldness of the weather 
has prevented the queen mating yet, but the drones are very 
lively and seem preparing for a wedding trip whenever the sun 
shines; and I am in hopes that one of these drones from fertile 
workers will fertilise the queen, which they are capable of doing, 
having had queens fertilised by such drones before. If all goes 
right with the queen I will let your readers know the result. 
Another thing in regard to the bees of this hive is that they are 
aged, no bee being hatched in the hive since the end of July, and 
to carry out the internal economy of the hive will be required for 
two months to come, w-hich according to precedence will be alive 
at the end of tla" time. 
The difference of opinions by apiarians on matters such as 
the above and apiculture in general must be very perplexing to 
beginners in bee-keeping, but why should there be so many 
opinions respecting things so patent to the eye? Where it is 
opinion and surmise only, difference of opinion and controversy 
are quite allowable, but to discuss proven facts serves no good 
purpose further than it may bring subjects before the novice 
that would otherwise have escaped his attention. Truth and 
consistency must, however, be the rules that arguments are based 
upon. If the former is to be established we must, to accomplish 
that end, be moderate and not go to extremes. A medium path 
will always in all things accomplish most. Reflect for a moment 
on the advice, given by some, to save and unite condemned bees. 
This is very good, but these advisers teach that bees should be 
fed in autumn to induce young bees being bred as the old ones 
are extinct or are of no use by spring. Now what is the use of 
uniting bees in autumn if that were true ? but it is not. Bees, 
if properly managed in autumn and rightly prepared for winter, 
are greatly benefited by the doubling process in autumn. Your 
excellent old contributor, “A Renfrewshire Bee-keeper,” long 
since alluded to this, and later on Mr. Pettigrew advocated and ably 
carried out the same system; in fact it is the system which has 
been carried out in Scotland from time immemorial, which I may 
allude to some other time ; but let the beginner remember, to be 
successful with bees he must assist Nature, never thwart it, and 
the less he performs of the artificial and superficial work the 
better. Preserve the lives of the bees by quiet throughout the 
winter and spring, then he will be gratified to see the bees living 
in summer that lie united in autumn. 
Before dismissing the subject altogether there is one part of 
very great importance I desire to mention—viz., the pages of this 
Journal during the late Mr. T. W. Woodbury’s time teem with 
much good and reliable information; in fact, so much so that 
I feel satisfied and justified in saying that since the time of the 
death of that lamented gentleman and able apiarian no advance 
has been made in the general management of bees. There has 
indeed been a wider spread of the knowledge of apiculture, but 
the information has in many cases been taken from these pages, 
often without acknowledgment. 
I shall mention only one subject now—viz., the Italian or 
Ligurian bee and other foreign varieties. I will not enter into a 
discussion upon the subject further than saying that the intro¬ 
duction of the Ligurian bee and other varieties has been an 
inestimable boon to bee-keepers. Both the pure breeds as well 
as the crosses, particularly the latter, have given the largest 
harvests of honey ever obtained in this country, and the idea 
that they do not work upon Heather and do not collect a surplus 
of honey or that they are liable to foul brood is incorrect. Were 
it the case, as some are of opinion, that the foregoing is 
true, the bees would have ceased to exist long ago. It must be 
with the bee-keeper and not with the bee that the fault rests, 
because neither the records of the above gentlemen and many 
others, as well as myself, can corroborate the assertions of these 
wholesale condemners. In almost every failure with these bees 
I could trace the fault in the smallness of the hive, or the stock 
was not far enough advanced to get the advantage of the honey 
season. These bees will not store honey unless the stock hive 
is sufficiently large to allow the queen full powers in her egg- 
laying. It must also be remembered that, though some imagine 
that one hive is as forward as another, it may not be so. Then 
in our short and uncertain honey seasons eight days make all 
the difference between a surplus of honey or not, so that a hive 
but a week behind may miss the glut when the one in advance 
obtained it. 
Two important matters in the management of these bees I 
would strongly advise bee-keepers to attend to—viz., that of 
keeping them in large hives, without which no profit will be had; 
and secondly, be sure and have them forward in time to catch 
the honey glut, after which report particulars as to failure or 
success, so that all may be benefited thereby and come to one 
opinion not only as to varieties of bees but on the management 
as well.—A Lanarkshire Bee keeper. 
FOREIGN BEES. 
Hoping this discussion may be of service to bee-keepers I add a 
few remarks to what has been already written on this subject. My 
knowledge of the various races is a practical one, and not gathered 
from reading any journal American or British. I was one of several 
■who, like “ Hallamshire,” had hoped we had found a treasure in 
these orientalists, especially as the Ligurians were deteriorating. We 
tried to learn their peculiarities, which the bees were not slow to 
teach us ; and the unanimous conclusion we came to was that Cyprians 
—and we know they were genuine—cannot be handled with smoke 
any better than Syrians. 
But questions of profit and management I regard for the present 
