Querist next says—“Again, is it not a fact that the self-preservation of the matured bees, is far stronger than the love of offspring? Witness, for instance, the destruction of drones during a dearth in the honey harvest?” I do not know whether I understand him here. When I say, honey harvest, I mean a time when there is plenty of honey to be found by the bees in flowers, honey dews, &c. Webster’s unabridged gives the meaning of dearth as “scarcity, want, need, famine.” These two terms then stand in direct opposition to each other. A honey dearth within a honey harvest is an utter impossibility. It implies two distinct terms, not both existing at one time, as a man within a man, or a horse within a horse. Language seems here to have betrayed Querist over to my side of the argument. It is true that the workers do destroy the unhatched drone brood in time of dearth. But why do they do it? It is in strict obedience and conformity to this alleged first law of nature.
Does Querist not know why his bees are so slow about entering their honey boxes, for the purpose of building combs? It is simply this grand fundamental principle that prompts. It is only because there are supernumerary bees in the hive that a portion of the workers leave the brood and enter the out of-the-way receptacle. The temperature required to produce brood is 70° to 80° Fahrenheit; and the amount of brood produced is governed by the number of mature bees in the hive. If the greatest instinct in workers be to gather honey, why do they not abandon the brood en masse, go into the honey boxes, and begin comb-breeding, when the grand flow of honey is to be found in the flowers? Because they would thereby doom the colony to inevitable destruction. Why do not bees enter honey boxes of their own accord, without waiting to be coaxed (as is generally the case) by placing therein small pieces of empty comb? Because their numbers will not permit them to leave the brood. And the same law of instinct, steps in and tells them that the brooding department must be run, whether combs are built and honey collected, or not. Why do they not build combs as readily in honey boxes above the combs containing brood, as they will in an open space below? Because they can thus produce the required temperature of 70° to 80°, and the heat generated below will ascend through the brood combs and bring about the same temperature above also (among the brood), thus accomplishing a double purpose, by virtue of the natural tendency of heat to ascend.
Querist says—“Mr. Seay has much to say about brood chilling.” This is true, and I have still more to say about it. It is this—it is brood just hatched, or not more than four days old, that is so easily chilled. This brood is very hard to see in the cells, and bee-keepers are not looking for it to be chilled; but when it becomes so and is lost, without having been seen in that state by the inattentive observer, its destruction is not the less attributable to that cause. Querist says where he lives, “sealed brood is not very likely to become chilled during June and July—the swarming months, and but few bees are necessary to keep it at the proper temperature to mature.” We do not know where Querist lives, but we do know that in Iowa in the months of July and August, on replacing our frames after handling them for some time, when the temperature was rather low for those months, we have frequently designated the place in the combs where young brood existed, by piercing the combs in a circle around it, with short stems of timothy grass, and left them there for a day or two that I might be sure to find the exact place and cells again; and, in many cases, on re-examination, I found no brood in those cells. I have repeatedly made swarms in the Langstroth hive, and afterwards found that the brood, in what I call the first stage, was gone.
J. W. Seay.
Monroe, Iowa.
[For the American Bee Journal.]
Report of Apiary in 1870.
The Field. The farmers cultivate their fields for produce for the city. They are so frequently broken up that white clover has a poor opportunity for an abundant crop. But little buckwheat is sown. This season none of any consequence within three miles. Fruit blossoms in the spring were unusually abundant.
The Season. The early part of the season was favorable for gathering honey. The breeding apartment of the hives was well stored with brood and honey at the commencement of the white clover harvest. This harvest was, however, shortened by the drouth, and no honey was stored in boxes after the middle of July; and in some cases honey was removed from boxes partly filled.