OUR CORNERSTONE REMEMBER at all times that improved bee our end and aim, and we trust

no one will hesitate to give any facts from experience because they may tend to overthrow any par ticular person or hobby." If any of our special plans don't work, or if anything we adver tise has had its value overestimated, here in these pages is the place of all others to set the error right.-From A. I. Root's introductory" in the first issue of Gleanings in Bee Culture, January 1, 1873.

between the segments, near the tip of the abdomen, at the upper (dorsal) side, constitute a scent organ. Sladen observed that in hiving a swarm, bees that first discover the entrance bend their abdomens in such a manner that this scent organ is exposed and an odor is given off which is strong enough to be detected by man. This odor is driven back to other bees by fanning the wings and in this way the bees of the entire swarm are informed that a home has been found, communication evidently being entirely by scent instead of by sound (the "joyful hum") as was previously supposed.

Recently v. Frisch and Park found that the use of this scent has a much wider application. They determined that when

bees discover a new source of food they expose the scent gland and by fanning, distribute the odor so that other bees in the vicinity are attracted to the food.

During the summer of 1923, Bruce Lineburg not only confirmed the observations of v. Frisch and Park, by experiments conducted at the Bee Culture Laboratory of the Bureau of Entomology at Washington, D. C., but also establishcd the fact that scent is a most important factor in enabling a discoverer of a supply of food to lead others directly to it. It appears that a discoverer of food produces a scented trail as it flies through the air. This trail can be followed by other bees, if they leave the hive within a few minutes after the discoverer has returned to the hive and "announced" her discovery by the peculiar "dance" through the hive described by both v. Frisch and Park.

At first thought this theory seems so fantastic as to be beyond belief but, as Mr. Lineburg states, "the facts observed are of such a nature as well nigh to establish such a theory as a fact." The theory would explain many of the heretofore inexplainable things, such as, for instance, the speed with which other bees come to the source of a newly discovered supply of food, a phenomenon often cbserved by the beekeepers.

The fascinating story of Lineburg's experiments is told in the November-December (1924) issue of the "American Naturalist."'

The Editor well remembers one occasion when a great physician in one of our large cities asked for an interview at his office. Even though there were a dozen or more patients in the outer office waiting to see the great physician, the Editor was ushered through a hall into the inner office where arrangements were quickly made by which the physicianbeekeeper and the Editor drove to the suburbs of the city to see the physician's apiary. When the dozen or more patients who were patiently awaiting their turn were mentioned, the physician-beekeeper remarked that they would wait until he returned an hour or so later. He explained that his work was so strenuous that it was necessary for him to have some diversion and the bees filled the bill exactly in his case.

Recently the Editor had the pleasure of attending a meeting of the Montreal Beekeepers' Association at Montreal, Canada. In this association many of the leaders are business and professional men who have taken up beekeeping as a diversion. The keenness of perception of the various beekeeping problems and the thorough acquaintance with the beekeeping literature on the part of these busy business and professional men is indeed surprising. They are perfectly at home in the discussion of the various phases of practical honey production and as keenly interested in short-cuts in production and greater yields per colony as any practical beekeeper, who makes his living from the bees, could possibly be. They are also intensely interested in the proper marketing of their product even though the financial returns may mean but little if anything to them.

Such a class of beekeepers are worth more to the industry than most of us realize, inasmuch as they bring all of their business or professional training to bear upon the problems of beekeeping with even greater enthusiasm than most practical producers. They are also constant boosters for honey as a food and no one can measure the extent of their influence on the consumption of honey among their friends.

beekeeper as well as a home for the bees, offer a fruitful source of disagreement among beekeepers for it is quite natural that different workers prefer different kinds of tools.

Beekeepers in the United States and Canada have learned that there is no magic in any particular hive construction which together with American ideas of standardization, has resulted in the . elimination of most of the odd styles and sizes of hives in America. In the older discussions of the hive question in this country as well as in some of the present discussions in some of the foreign bec journals, there has been a tendency to make extravagant claims for greatly increased yields of honey because of some slight difference in the construction of the hive, which are not at all justified. Even now too many loose statements are made in comparing different sizes or styles of hives. Such statements as "twice as much honey with half the labor" from some certain type of hive are extreme and can not be the result of carefully conducted experiments in an unbiased way.

So many conditions that are not always apparent, bring about a difference in the yield of the various colonies in the same apiary even when the hives are all exactly alike, that it would be folly to draw conclusions from a difference in yield of a few colonies which are housed in a different size or style of hive. In order to make a fair comparison of different styles of hives, a large number of each kind should be used in the experiment in the same apiary and the experiment should be conducted over a number of years in order to eliminate differences that may have been brought about by some peculiarity of the season. Furthermore, the management of each type of hive should be suited to the particular hive in question, for different types of hives require different management.

In this country the differences of opinion in regard to hives are largely concerned with the size of the brood-chamber, some preferring the Jumbo size of frame while others prefer the standard. Since the advent of non-sagging foundation and the resulting more nearly perfeet brood combs, even this difference in opinion is being rapidly cleared away. In other words, under proper management there is apparently but little if any dif ference in the yield of honey from colonies in the different styles of hives used in this country, provided all are abundantly supplied with food at all times, and except for the sake of uniformity, it would be folly to throw away good hives of either style in order to adopt the other.

BEEKEEPERS who are located where the main honey flow comes early in relation to the peak

Production of of spring broodPackage Bees. rearing, have the annual problem of trying to build up all colonies to maximum strength in time to take advantage of the honey flow. In such localities the most successful beekeepers make every effort to have their colonies in normal condition the previous late summer and fall, give them the best of protection during winter and see that each colony is abundantly supplied with stores for the great expansion of brood rearing previous to the main honey flow, for this is the time the workers for the harvest are

reared. The system of management throughout most of the year is directed especially to the one thing of speeding up brood-rearing in the spring in order to have the greatest possible number of workers for the harvest. This is the condition throughout the greater portion of the north, especially in the white clover and alsike clover region as well as in the orange region of California. It is extremely difficult for beekeepers in such localities to realize that there may be locations where it may not be profitable to push brood rearing to the limit in the spring when the bees are so willing to greatly expand their brood-rearing activities.

However, there are many locations where the bees go on with their program of heavy brood-rearing in the spring as though they expected the honey flow to follow immediately, but where there is no early honey flow. In some localities the peak of brood-rearing comes so long before the main honey flow that the colonies are actually not as strong at the beginning of the honey flow as they were several weeks earlier. It is no wonder that the beekeeper in such locality has been unable to understand his fellow worker in the other type of location who is struggling to build his colonies up to profitable strength early in the season. Neither is it any wonder that the beekeepers in the two types of location disagree violently as to the proper management of the colonies to take advantage of the honey flow, for their problems are entirely different. A prominent honey producer who produces honey in carload lots once told the Editor that he prefers to have his colonies become weak during the winter and spring as otherwise they would build up too early and go down in population before the arrival of the honey flow, thus being in poorer condition to take advantage of the honey flow than the colonies that were weakened by poor

wintering or by a lack of sufficient stores for extensive brood-rearing in the spring.

There are several things that can be profitably done in such localities that are no doubt better than permitting the colonies to become greatly weakened during the winter and spring in order to have them arrive at the honey flow later in the season, in the pink of condition. One of these is to divide the colonies at the proper time so that the two divisions will reach their greatest strength in time to take advantage of the main honey flow. Another plan which has been practiced extensively in California is that of moving the colonies to another location where there is an early honey flow.

During recent years beekeepers in certain localities in the south, have practiced taking package bees from their colonies early in the spring, thus holding them back in their development so that they are actually in better condition from having had the package bees taken away than they would have been if permitted to reach their peak of strength too early and then go down hill afterwards. This is indeed a fortunate solution of the problem since most of the localities where the colonies reach full strength, some time previous to the honey flow, are in the south. The great package bee industry that has grown so rapidly during recent years is built to a large extent upon this peculiar condition which makes it more profitable to take the bees away for packages than to leave them in the hives. Some have even taken the extreme view that it would be profitable to take away a part of the bees from strong colonies even if they were destroyed instead of being sold as package bees.

This explains in part, at least, why package bees can be furnished so cheaply in some southern localities. The beekeeper who takes proper care of his colonies so that they do not become greatly weakened during the winter, can actually take several pounds of package bees from each colony and later secure a larger crop of honey than if he had not shipped the package bees. It is in such localities that the package bee business will reach its greatest development in the future. So far as the climate is concerned, no doubt the orange region of southern California could produce package bees profitably. But it is not a package bee location because it is blessed with an early honey flow from the orange blossoms. For this reason one would expect package bees to be shipped into southern California instead of this being a center for package bee production.

a

the bee symbol of industry and royalty. They have rendered great service to mankind since the first observing humans found some honey in abandoned combs, among the rocks and trees in central and eastern Asia.

Domestication of Honeybees.

A

Bees were never domesticated, whether they lived in logs in far-away India, in the cliffs of the Atlas Mountains, Mount Olympus or Hymettus, or in the yards of The A. I. Root Company at Medina. The bee lives near man, but does not have any intimate association with him. cat, a dog, a horse, a camel or an elephant, for that matter, will answer our calls because they understand the names given them, and like to be petted. have known a camel (whose head and neck alone were as large as the whole human body) turn around when called, and rub its great lips along my face, showing a sympathetic expression in its dark-brown eyes, almost the size of cups, and uttering something like a low murmur, as much as to say, "That's all right."

I

We may give our queen bees names, but has any beekeeper ever been able to go to a hive, call the mother bee or any other bee, and take the honey as he would take the milk of a goat or a cow? Or to handle his bees as he does his dog or horse? All of these animals which have been so thoroughly tamed, are so completely domesticated that they are thankful for their owner's intervention. There is nothing of the kind in the bee. They must be smoked when a visit is undertaken. They must be shut in when they are to be carried away. No, bees are not and never will be domesticated. They will steal the honey which man imprudently leaves uncovered, after having stolen it himself from the hives. The one uses his smoker to take it; the other, its sting.

When man, many thousands of years ago, first observed bees, their ways and their products, in the fertile plains of central Asia, he by degrees devised a hive with two objects in view, viz., a

the origin of the bee have been numerous and varied, according to the nationality of the naturalist or philosopher who wrote about them. They were invariably described as having originated in the country where he lived. The poetical Indian writers refer to the bees as originating in a honey-producing flower; the superstitious Egyptians supposed her to originate in the entrails of the deified bull Apis, whence the Latin name of the bee was derived. The Greek philosophers (musical and divine), as well as the seafaring adventurers, said she was born on the Isle of Crete in the abode of the gods, under the sound of brazen instruments and cymbals; and modern Teutons have claimed that one race at least, i. e., the brown European bee, is of German origin.

The glacial periods, when great sheets of ice flowing down from the arctic regions toward the temperate zones COVered all vegetation and animal life for uncounted centuries, have upset many theories. Mammoths, which can live only in warm climates, where they can find food on branches of trees, were discovered in the latter part of the eighteenth century in the colder regions of northern Siberia, near the mouths of the great rivers. A mammoth in a complete state of preservation, whose flesh had been perfectly preserved in nature's cold storage, was used as meat by the Siberian explorers. According to geologists, it had been lying there for at least 30,000 years.

Wherever mammoths could thrive, plants would necessarily have to growespecially the flowering plants. Insects of all kinds were required to fertilize them, as pollination was the only way, whether by the agency of wind or by insects. The most numerous of insects found on flowers were bees, and therefore the discovery of the mammoth so far north, at such a distant period in the

world's natural history, shows that bees likewise existed, in all probability, in that region and at that time. Ice had certainly driven back nearly every genus of animal life toward warmer climes, but many others lingered right at the borders, or else adapted themselves to the environments. The polar bears, foxes and birds are examples of this. Bees found in the amber formations, in a fossil state, around the Baltic and in Switzerland, prove that they existed in the Tertiary period. H. v. Buttel-Reepen, in 1906, as well as Heer, calls this bee ancestor Apis adamitica, and recently Dr. J. L. Rathsamhauser of Bordeaux discovered another fossil bee in France.

The Cradle of the Honeybee.

There is no doubt that the warmer region of central Asia was the original home of the honeybee. When man took honey from the "blue bee," as he called it, in the cradle of humanity, it was also in the cradle of bees. In no other part of the world are so many species of bees grouped together in one spot, with so many flowers at their disposal, and at the same time, so many bee-eating birds and insects about them. The Saharian species of bees, on the other hand, which live in a sandy and rocky region of northwestern Sahara, may be said to represent the other extreme, where flowers are scarce and bee enemies an exception. They have no traceable ancestors, as do the Indian bees, but are a distinct race which has developed in that place, during thousands of years, in that environment and have become good honeygatherers.

Two of the Indian species of Apidae -the great rock bee (Apis dorsata) and the pigmy bee (Apis florea)-have developed side by side, each building a single comb in the open air and under the ledges of rocks, branches of trees, or on bushes. Owing to the sudden change of climate or perhaps on account of the dry seasons, the giant bee has learned to migrate to more congenial climes. The intermediate species of Indian bees (Apis indica) has learned to settle in one place and to choose its lodgings so as to be able to protect brood and honey against would-be intruders. In regions where flowers are found all the year round, the Indian bee has established its home near the ground, enabling it to store the small amount of honey necessary for winter.

and in Siberia they do not pass beyond the 51°-Irkutsk and Tomsk."

Shuckard, in "British Bees," says: "Collections exhibit about sixteen species of the genus Apis, whose natural occurrence is restricted to the Old World; for though the genus, especially in the species A. mellifica has been naturalized in America and also in Australasia, and in some of the islands of the Pacific, they were originally conveyed thither by Europeans."

Origin and Characteristics of Italians.

Beekeepers, as a rule, are interested in knowing more about the origin of the bees and questions, such as these, are often asked: "Where did blacks and where did yellows originate? How did their colors and their tempers, their aptitude for gathering honey, their mode of multiplication, etc., develop into the present state?" The answers to these questions are not easy.

The Italian bee, which is simply a variety of Apis mellifica, was distinguished from the European brown bee by Spinola in 1906. As usual, early entomologists often added the adjective to the species from the place whence they first saw the race. The Ligurian bee is found everywhere in Italy except Liguria, where the brown bee is known. The origin or introduction of this bee or its hybridization, is not definitely known; but, by comparing the homes of the other yellow and black races, an hypothesis may be formed. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, makes mention of dark and bright races of bees. He probably meant the Cyprian and darker Grecian bee. Virgil also speaks of both black and colored bees. He, therefore, must have had a knowledge of the northern black bees.

The Greeks were, however, much further advanced, according to Hesiod, in the use of bars, to which the combs were fastened. These were put into baskets or skeps opening at the top. During their interminable wars, seven and a half centuries before our era, those hives

were

completely forgotten. However, Solon reminds beekeepers, in the sixth century before our era, that their hives should be at a distance of at least 300 feet from the neighbor beekeeper.

Inasmuch as beekeeping was so far developed, it is easy to understand why the Greeks, as a seafaring nation, carried hives with them. The hives were set up by those primitive sailors, Greeks or Phoenicians, in places where they stayed for one or more seasons, and where they plowed the land, sowed the seed, and waited for the harvest. They likewise carried their religious emblems with them and a statue to Ceres, the goddess