1866 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
251 
Perfecting Bees. 
BY BIDWELL BROS., ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA. 
recognizingtliese with expeditiou and precision. 
“As the result of my owne.xperience, founded 
on tlie examination of many samples of milk 
produced under tlie most varied circumstances, 
and purposely adulterated witli known quanti¬ 
ties of water, I may state that milk maybe con¬ 
sidered rich when it contains from 12 to 12^ per 
cent, of solid matters, 3 to 82 per cent, of which 
are iDure fatty substances. If it contains more 
than 12h per cent, of solid matter, and in this 4 
per cent, or more fat, it is of extra rich quality. 
Such milk throws up 11 to 12 percent, of cream 
in bulk on standing 12 hours at 62° F., and has 
a specific gravity varying from 1'028 to 1’030. 
“ Good milk of fair average quality, as has 
been stated already, contains from IO2 to 11 per 
cent, of dry matter, and in tliis about 22 per 
cent, of pure fat. It yields 9 to 10 per cent, of 
cream, and has a specific gravity of about I'OoO. 
“ Poor milk contains 90 per cent, or more wa¬ 
ter, and has a lower specific gravity tlian 1-027. 
Such milk yields not over 6 to 8 per cent, cream. 
“Skimmed milk throws up still less cream, 
has a bluer color, and is more transparent, and 
when undiluted witli water has a slightly higher 
specific gravity than new milk. 
“ Good skimmed milk has a specific gravity of 
about 1-033; poor skimmed milk 1-028 to 1-030. 
“ Milk purposelj" watered yields only 0 to 6 
per cent, of cream, and invariably has a lower 
specific gravity than 1-025. 
“If milk is both skimmed and watered it 
yields less than 4 per cent, of cream, and pos¬ 
sesses as low a specific gravity as 1-025 to 1-026. 
“A great many experiments liave led me to 
the conclusion that within certain limits tiie 
specific gravity is tlie most trustworthy indica¬ 
tor of quality, and that for all practical purposes 
an ordinary liydrometer float, b}! means of which 
the gravity of liquids can be ascertained with 
precision, and a graduated glass tube, divided 
into 100 equal degrees, constitute the safest and 
readiest means for ascertaining the quality of 
milk so far as it is affected by the relative pro¬ 
portions of the normal milk constituents. 
“A set of such instruments or lactometers, 
one being a graduated glass tube for measuring 
the proportion of cream thrown up on standing, 
and the other a gravity float or hydrometer, with 
plain printed directions for use, can be obtained 
at the cost of a few shillings. 
“A few years ago 1 made some accurate 
•gravity determinations of pure milk before and 
after skimming, and of samples mixed purposely 
with 10 to 50 per cent, of water, and as the re¬ 
sults may be useful in comparing tliem witli 
others, I give them in the subjoined table;— 
SPECIFIC GRAVITY OF WATERED MILK. 
Spedjic Gra¬ 
vity at 62° F. 
be foie 
Skimming, 
Specific Gra^ 
vity at 02° F, 
after 
Skimming. 
Pure milk. 
I-03U 
1-0337 
“ “ -f 10 per cent, water 
1-0295 
1-030S 
<• « -i-20 
1-0257 
1-0-265 
“ “ -p 30 “ “ 
1-0233 
1 -0246 
“ “ 4-40 
1-0190 
1-0208 
“ -1- 50 “ “ 
1-0163 
1-0175 
Here follow analyses of milk from numerous 
localities in the richer and poorer districts of 
London, which show tliat the amount of cream 
bears a direct relation to tlie specific gravity of 
the milk. The author concludes from his re¬ 
searches that: “These facts afford a conclusive 
answer to the objection that no dependence can 
be placed on the gravity test. The fact is, 
cream, though lighter than skimmed milk, is 
denser than water, and any amount of water 
worth adding at all, can readily be detected in 
milk by the direct lowering of its normal spe¬ 
cific gr.aYit3L” 
A colony of bees in a natural condition con¬ 
sists of a queen or mother bee, many thousand 
workers, improperly termed “neuter bees,” and 
during a yield of honey, several hundred, 
and at times thousands, of male bees, called 
drones. An examination shows the queen to be 
created for laying eggs, neuter bees for work, 
and drones for sires, and each for nothing 
else. All the workers, drones and future queens 
are bred from eggs laid by the queen. When 
we remove her from the hive, eggs cease, and on 
her return appear again. (That so-called fertile 
workers sometimes lay eggs is no exception, 
they are not workers proper, but imperfect 
queens.) On removing the queen, the foliowing 
facts are ascertained: That those eggs in cells, 
ill which workers are reared, all hatch in 3 d.ays 
(as worms) and are then termed larvae; they are 
fed honey and pollen and water, called jell}', 
for 6 days, during which they grow to be large 
white worms nearly the size of the cell. Tlie 
cell is then sealed over by the bees, and sub¬ 
sequently the worm transformed into a perfect 
worker, emerges on the 11th or 12lh day afler 
sealing, or from 20 to 21 days after the egg is 
laid. If any drone eggs are in larger, or drone 
cells, they hatch,in 3 days, are worms for 61 
days, and emerge as perfect insects on the 24th 
or 25th day from the time the egg is laid. If 
any queen eggs are in pendant cells, they hatch 
in 3 days, are 5 days in the larva state, and ap¬ 
pear on the 16th day. They fly out to meet the 
drones usually on the 3rd d.ay after le.aving the 
cell, and if successful commence laying on the 
2nd day thereafter, producing worker, drone and 
queen eggs, as either m.ay be required. When 
a queen is removed, the worker bees, on ascer¬ 
taining their loss, seek to replace her by enlarg¬ 
ing a worker cell containing a worker egg or 
larva. These intended queen cells, if in the 
body of the comb, are altered by removing the 
worker cells adjoining the one selected, extend¬ 
ing the base to increase the size, and are built 
out to clear the comb and hang down. If they 
are on the edge of the comb, they are built di¬ 
rectly downward in the shape of a pea nut. The 
drone and worker cells are built horizontally, as 
observed in a piece of honey comb; the larger 
cells are those in which drones are reared, and 
the smaller or ordinary sized are those for 
workers. In the case of the drone and worker, 
they are fed water and honey, and pollen or 
farina, which is properly termed bee-bread, as it 
contains the principal elements that support all 
anim.al and insect life. The color of the food 
or jelly partakes of the color of the pollen ; at 
times it is yello-w', brown, or red, as that of the 
flowers from which it is gathered. To show 
that the pollen of flowers is similar to wheaten 
flour, we might st.ate that early last spring, after 
our bees had eaten all their pollen stored, during 
a long and cold winter, 100 stocks consumed 
over two barrels of flour in brood raising, storing 
none, the stronger colonies necessarily using up¬ 
wards of 10 lbs. each, which alfected the color 
of the jelly—converting it to a whitish mixture. 
The food of the intended queen is ascertained 
by analysis to be “ a bread containing an albumi¬ 
nous compound,” secreted by the worker bees 
in the case of a natur.al queen, or compounded 
from the worker eggs for a forced queen. The 
drone and worker bees lose time, so to speak, in 
assimilating their coarser food, while the queen 
gains time in her development by being fed a 
concentrated easily assimilated compound. The 
eggs in hatching require about summer heat from 
the nursing bees, which must be maintained 
throughout their maturing, or until their inter¬ 
nal organization is established to produce it. 
For this reason, Italian bees can mature more 
brood in colder weather, the organization being 
more perfect, and better able to produce heat, 
and withstand cold, and consequently they 
swarm earlier. We have observed that the dif¬ 
ference of a day in the maturity of the drones, 
or of the workers may be caused by the dif¬ 
ference in temperature. When the heat of the 
days is 76° F. or above, the shorter time is made. 
It is not then the size, nor the shape of the 
cells—for small and imperfect drones, and small 
and imperfect queens (called fertile workers), 
are reared in small or worker cells,—nor is it 
the food, nor yet the oxygen of the air severally, 
w'hich developes life, but all acting in harmony. 
The ample cell, tlie quantity of nutriment and 
oxygen, produces a fullness, and the quality, a 
perfectness of development. The identity of 
the character of the parent and offspring is 
shown to be dependent upon the continuation 
of certain influences acting harmoniotisly on the 
principle of life; hence, like produces like only 
under similar circumstances. In raising over 
300 Italian queens from one last summer, we 
observed that during a continued spell of scarcity 
of honey, and hence of food, the queens were 
more deficient in vitality, and in protracted 
cloudy -weather less bright in color, but where 
a superabundant harvest and extreme fair 
weather prevailed, the highest degree of excel¬ 
lence was attained, convincing us fully that nat¬ 
ural queens i\'ere far superior to forced or un¬ 
natural ones. The influence of food in provid¬ 
ing an uninterrupted supply of honey producing 
flowers in summer, will give an increased de¬ 
velopment to the reproductive powers of the 
queen, and quiet industry to the workers; and 
avoiding the climatic extremes of heat in sum¬ 
mer, which wastes and exhausts the system, and 
cold in winter, which tends to barrenness, will 
add health and strength to the bees, effecting 
more or less uniform changes, producing de¬ 
finite characteristics, and marking them ulti¬ 
mately as a distinct and perfected race. 
Get Out of Old Ruts. 
The consumption of barley is increasing year 
by year, as the Teutonic element in our popu¬ 
lation increases in number and wealth, and im- 
jiresses more or less upon the American people 
the liking for the mild brewed beverages of Ger¬ 
many. The sale to brewers is in fact so ready, 
that the raising of barley as food for animals is 
hardly considered. We learn that oats in sev¬ 
eral extended sections of the country are, for 
some undetermined cause, beginning to fiiil to 
produce what were considered good crops but a 
few years ago. This is particularly the case in 
some of the river counties in this State, and it 
would, perhaps, be profitable to drop oats and 
try barley, which will probably do well upon 
the same soils. Hops are also recognized as very 
profitable, and like tobacco and other purely 
commercial crops, (those never consumed, but 
always sold), it may be cultivated so as to bring 
real advantage to the farm. It almost neces¬ 
sitates clean culture, and gives the farmer means 
to buy manure, do draining, etc. This follow¬ 
ing in old ruts of practice is one of the worst 
things a farmer can do, and an experiment witli 
a new crop now and then is often the straight 
road to fortune. It should always be done after 
careful thought and investigation. 
