File:American bee journal (1904) (18122790175).jpg

Title: American bee journal
Identifier: americanbeejourn441904hami (find matches)
Year: 1861 (1860s)
Authors:
Subjects: Bee culture; Bees
Publisher: (Hamilton, Ill. , etc. , Dadant & Sons)
Contributing Library: UMass Amherst Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: UMass Amherst Libraries

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838 THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. Dec. IS, 1904. 9 to 13 days, lively, active, young queens. This would indi- cate that the larvse selected may be from 1 to 4 days old. b. On actual observation as a queen-breeder for 5 years, aud bee-crankosity for nearly 30 years. E. Whitcomb (Nebr.)—a. They would select the young- est layed egg^s. b. The younger the egg or larva the better the queen they are able to rear from it. The value of the queen during her life, and the amount of work she is able to do, is entirely conditional on the time the bees have had to treat the larva. Where 30 queen cells are allowed to mature in a hive one can not expect the result to be as good as where the energies of the colony were given to 4 or S.
Text Appearing After Image:
Eyes of Insects—Comb-Honey Falsehoods. BY PROF. A. J. COOK. I AM asked by " Reader " to give the structure and what is known of the physiology of the eyes of insects. I doubt if the general reader of the American Bee Journal would be interested in a very minute description of these organs, but a general description will surely be read with interest by every studious bee-keeper. All imago or mature insects have compound eyes. These •consist of many, often thousands, of simple eyes. Besides these there are often one, two, or three simple eyes. The honey-bee shows three of these ocelli or simple eyes. I do not think that the difference of function of these two kinds of eyes, whether of distance or acuteness, is known. I have reason to think that the bee does not see very well anyway. That is, were the bee a person we would not pronounce it a very close observer. We would not say that it used its eyes to a very good purpose. I certainly have detected bees making some very curious mistakes, where we would think that accurate observation would have brought different results. The structure of each simple eye, whether one of the ocelli or the parts of the compound eye, is much the same, and suggests the structure of our own eyes and the eyes of the higher animals. We find the form, however, quite dif- ferent from the eye of vertebrates. Instead of being sub- spherical it is cylindrical. In front we have the window, so to speak, the clear transparent cornea. Some distance back, as we should expect, comes the crystalline lens, and farther back we find, as we should also expect, the retina. The humors also remind us of the same in the eyes of the higher animals. As is general in the eyes of invertebrate animals, we find the retina quite different from the same in the vertebrate eye. True, we find something like the rods and cones, but they point forward instead of back, and so the image is front instead of back. The most interesting thing is to find how these many small eyes act. We know, positively, that our eyes act as one, and the loss of one does not seriously impair vision, except to make it more diflBcult perhaps to determine per- spective. It seems now pretty well established that the eyes of insects, that is, the separate eyes of the compound eyes, act each separately, each seeing a part of the object, and thus the object may be said to form a mosaic, or, to put it differently, each little eye or facet sees its own part of the object. Each is guarded by a sort of a diaphragm so that it images only its own part of the thing mirrored in the eye. We see, then, that if this view is the correct one, the destruction of any of these simple eyes or facets would by just so much impair the vision, or cut off so much of the ob- ject looked at. Each of the simple eyes sees part of the ob- ject, and that is imaged in none of the other facets. That the compound eyes are used for long range, and the ocelli for near vision, or vice versa, is, I think, more than we surely know. I think that the compound eyes are the more important, as they are always present, while the ocelli are frequently wanting altogether. The greater development of the compound eyes would lead to the same conclusion. SO-CALLED MANUFACTURED COMB HONEY. I was pleased at the emphatic way in which the Na- tional convention took up the matter of the oft-repeated falsehoods that comb honey may be, and is often, a fraud or artificial make-up. The fact that honey is a superb food element, one of the very safest sugars, should make us all jealous of its good name. The truth that it can not be fab- ricated by any but the bees should be known by all. I have a suggestion to make, and that is, that we all write the truth of this matter for our local and State papers, so that the right of it shall be more widely known. I propose to do this at once. Of course, these articles will be more or less widely copied, and so the truth will be pretty well spread, and the editor that is so far behind as to rehash the nonsense will become as he ought to, a laughing stock. Let us scatter this important truth broadcast, in the in- terest not only of the bee-keeper, but of the consumer of honey. Every one ought to know that when he buys comb honey he is surely getting a pure and most wholesome article of food. Eos Angeles Co., Calif. A Report for the Season of 1904. BY WM. STOLLEY. ANOTHER summer has passed, and on this day (Nov. 10) the earth is covered with a 6-inch layer of the " iDeautiful white snow " for the first time in the ap- proaching winter. I finished the winter packing of my bees Nov. 7, and everything in my little apiary of 42 colonies is in tip-top shape now. Each colony has from 30 to 40 pounds of winter stores in double-walled hives, and they will now repose undis- turbed until the soft zephyrs of spring will recall them to renewed activity. Generally, we have many fine days dur- ing the winter in Nebraska, so the bees can have cleansing flights, but it has happened that my bees had no flights for 105 days ; therefore I use all possible precautions to prepare them always for the worst that may happen. I started in last spring with 40 colonies, spring count, and obtained from 35 colonies 3130 pounds of extracted honey, and from S colonies in New Heddon hives, 354 sec- tions of nice comb honey ; and, besides, 350 pounds of honey set aside in brood-combs for feeding next spring. Thus I got 3834 pounds of honey, of which 3484 are for the market except whatever may be used for home con- sumption. From cappings I got 54 pounds of nice wax. My aim is to prevent increase as much as possible, and although I had IS swarms issue from the 40 colonies, I have for winter, only 42 colonies. All queens in the lower tier of my bee- shed I keep clipped, but in the upper tier a few colonies were allowed to have queens undipped. HIVING BEES WITH A SHOT-GUN. Now it happened that three swarms issued with queens undipped, and these swarms proved to be high flyers, and clustered in soft maple trees, about SO feet high. Being 73 years old, I did not relish the idea of climbing the trees after them, but instead concluded to apply the " shot-gun remedy ". They were fine swarms, with the best of queens, and, as it happened, had clustered on twigs about one inch in diameter. My Winchester repeater, loaded with No. 8 shot, worked admirably, and brought down the clusters of bees in every instance, right in front of hives properly adjusted. Of course, the twig on which the bees .luster has to be shot off if possible a foot, or two feet, above the cluster of bees. It worked well. In thus hiving bees by means of a shot-gun, proper caution should be taken to place the hive at the exact place, so that the falling cluster of bees will laud in front of and

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