R. M. Argo has found a job for Gallup.

That bees will sometimes build worker-comb when there is no queen present is a positive fact, but the rule is almost invariably drone comb. The fact that they built one-third drone comb is no proof that they did not have an old queen. If they are gathering honey abundantly, they are very apt to build too much drone comb; and sometimes they do so in such cases, even with a young prolific queen. But with such a queen, when they are gathering just sufficient to build comb and store but little honey, the rule is almost invariably worker comb exclusively.

That bees will frequently make preparations for swarming immediately after being hived is another positive fact, especially when the season is good and the newly hived swarm is large. The first case of the kind that came under my observation, occurred a number of years ago in Canada. I hived an extra large swarm for a neighbor, sometime in the forenoon. About four o’clock in the afternoon the shout came across the mill stream, “my bees are going off!” I left all, and followed them to a large pine stub. I cut down the stub, split it open, took out the bees, put them in the same hive. That night they were sold as an unlucky swarm, removed 3½ miles, and in just eight days from the time they were replaced in the hive, they sent out a large swarm, which left for the woods. The bees then belonged to my cousin. They left on Saturday. On Sunday I went to church close by my cousin’s, and he informed me that his bees had filled their hive and swarmed, and the swarm left for parts unknown. I was rather incredulous, but after church went and made an examination. Sure enough, the hive was completely filled and several sealed queen cells were in sight, with several more unsealed near the bottom of the comb. The hive was a box twelve inches square by fourteen inches high, and when the swarm was hived I had to put on a large box before the bees could all be got in the hive. That box was nearly filled with comb, but the bees that went off took the honey with them. On the fifteenth day they sent out a second swarm. So much for purchasing an unlucky swarm!—Since then I have had several cases of the same kind come under my observation; one in the summer of 1868, and another this summer. The one in 1868 was not a large swarm, and they did not fill their hive before sending out a swarm. The case this season was a large artificial swarm made by putting together bees from several hives, with a queen.—I should be strongly inclined to think that, in your case, they started queen cells for the purpose of superseding the old queen. When a queen has begun to fail at about swarming time, and forage is abundant, they cast a swarm. In my case, in 1868, it was no doubt caused by the bees superseding the old queen. I had a case this season, where the first swarm came out with a young queen, leaving the old queen in the hive, with plenty of sealed queen cells. In another case, when making an artificial swarm, I found the old queen and a young one both, fertile, with several sealed queen cells.

E. Gallup.

Orchard, Iowa.

The amputation of one of the antenna of a queen bee appears not to affect her perceptibly, but cutting off both these organs produces a very striking derangement of her proceedings. She seems in a species of delirium, and deprived of all her instincts; everything is done at random; yet the respect and homage of her workers, towards her, though they are received by her with indifference, continue undiminished. If another in the same condition be put in the hive, the bees do not appear to discover the difference, and treat them both alike; but if a perfect one be introduced, even though fertile, they seize her, and keep her in confinement, and treat her very unhandsomely. “One may conjecture from this circumstance, that it is by those wonderful organs, the attennÆ, that the bees know their own queen.”

That which is profitable only to the speculating business, though it be theoretically plausible, deserves not to be recommended or accepted, if it be not calculated to produce beneficial results to the practical bee-keeper.