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THE

NORTH AMERICAN

BEE-KEEPERS’ GUIDE,

By J. M. HIcKS,
PRACTICAL APIARIAN,

BATTLE GROUND, TIPPECANOE CO., iND.

wf i‘ \) u ii

LAFAYETTE |
BEE STEAM PRINTING HOUSE,
J. L, COX & BRO., PRINTERS.
1875. —

‘ntered According to Act of Congress inthe year 1575,
BY J, M. HICKS,

dn the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

In prisiacha this Ruins dt atten on the
Honey Bee, it is not my intention to en-
ter into a. long story about what our
fore-fathers did, or how they kept bees

-and ‘cut out honey by the barrel or tub

ful; but what I aim at will be to ‘give

‘the reader somethi ng that is practical and

up with the times. “For be assured that
the science of Apiculture-has and is mak-
ing fast progress, and many valuable les-
sons haye and will be learned, about the
proper mariagement: of the little honey
bee; knowing as I well do that there

has been many books both great and
small, written on the management and
culture of the honey bee. I feel some-
what timid about trying to.add one more

_work upon the subject. Yet feeling as-

sured that there has been and is “yet,
many false ideas abroad in-the land, con-
cerning the breeding and management
ot bees, IT deem it a eeiticr of sufficient
importance to unravel at least some of
the mysteries. of their work, (in the hive)
which i is most usually so constructed in

shape that the novice would searcely ev-
er think of looking further than at the
place where the bees enter their Hive for
farther instruction.

I trust, therefore, that in my efforts to
_ placé this Book befor®a reading public,
and especially the Bee keepers of North
America, it will be the means of deing
at least some good, having had near
thirty years experience in Bee keeping.

I therefore Respectfully dedicate this
little volume to all lovers of the honey

bee. eae e ©
J. M. HICKS, -
Battle Ground,
Tippecanoe County, Ind.

INTRODUCTION

ma Book, on Bee Culture is not de-
signed to be so over-loaded with sur-
plas matter or technical terms as to tax
the young beginners mind,and make Bee
culture an endless and a laborious stu-
dy. But on the contrary I design it as a
book of importance to those who haye
never had the opportunity of knowing by
practical exp€rience what there is in the
management of the (so much neglected)
Honey Bee; as well | may be able to
place before those who have had many
years experience in the past system of
handling and raising bees by what they
eall in (for which I truly feel sorry.)
as Tam well convinced from my own
experience that luck has nothing to do
with a Correct System of Bee Culture,

and only rests upona proper knowl-
edge of nature’s laws governing the ever
busy little honey bee, which has been
created for man’s good; but oh! how sad-
ly neglected and let go to ruin; after
which man was so blind as not to know
the true cause and called it his bad luck.
What would we now inthis enlightened
age think of a man who hada horse in
a stable and otherwise would wholly neg-
lect him ? You would say at once, the
man would have bad Inck with his horse.
Just so with his bees, he has owned per-
haps for years in the old fashioned round
or square box hives, which he has to-
tally neglected until they finally died —
and were lost, Nature’s laws not even
thought of once by the a and then he
lays ‘it all to his ‘bad luckand actually
tells you that he has such “poor luck
with bees that he cannot raise them.
Reader, how many horses do you- think
such treatment as this man gave his bees
would raise? and how fat would his hogs
and sheep be if they received such treat-
ment as the bees do, of those who pro-
nounce bee keeping all in luck and let
them go at loose ends, with Nature’s
was entirely neglected.

But while we have spoken gf these
who have thus ‘acted very unkindly to=
ward the little honey bee aad finally gave
up in despair, let us see well to it that
we,under the new dispensation of things
pertaining to the welfare ‘and prosperity
of the bee; make no mistakes: and ruin
our stock; which if properly cared for —
and attended to inthe right time will
pay a larger income than any other in-
vestment man can make, Here let’ me
j iy it is no * uneommon - - thiiig

frequetitly © hear ’-of Bee-keepers
earn from a few stands of bees sev-
en to ten hundred per cent.. I also will
say that my humble opinion is, the only
sure road té success for the Aparian is
to use 2 Moyable frame Hive of some
kind, which must be a hive up with the
times, so you can handle bees with ease
and pleasure. This of course will be a
matter for you to decide, to some extent
in your own mind, from the fact, that
cost as well as the facilities for handling
bees depend very much upon the con-
struction of your hive. I have tried
several, different hives of the movable
frames” as patented heretofore, among

which I am better pleased with the re
sults of the Hicks Bee Hive than any
I have as yet tried.

Reader, be you who yeu may, let me
impress upon your mind the impertanee
of a strict adherence to the natural laws

yverning the most industrieus insect
that God has given for the good of man.
As well I desire that you study the les—
sons herein lnid down for your pra¥tical
operations, which if followed will lead
you to success and save many eolonies
of bees, tvhich have been heretofore lest
for want of a proper system of Branage-
ment. Very Truly,

J, M. HICKS,

THE NORTH AMERICAN
Bee Keeper'y Guide.
Gy

CHAPTER I.

a eemeemed

The Natural History and Descrip-
tion of the Honey Bee.

Bes Honey Bee is said to have exis-
- dt ted fromthe earliest dawn of erea-
tion. Bethisas it may, we read in
Holy writ, of Bees and Honey beth be-
ing found in the carcass of a lion (Judges
14th chapter, 8 verse.) Itis said that
the Creater gave to Adam the privilege

2

ef naming all living creatures, both of
the animal and insect kingdom, among
which he must have given the name of
the Honey Bee; which has been a fore-
runner of Civilization and was no doubt
brought to this continent by» the puritan
fathers, which has existed ever since
among us. Itis said that in parts’ of
Europe the culture of the. honey bee is
earried on with great profit, there are as
many as nine hundred colonies to the
square mile. A Colony. of Bees usually
contains from ten to — eighty
thousand and in a perfect state, consisting
of three kinds; Ist the queen or female,
the mother of the whole hive. She lays
the eggs which hateh, both workers and
drones, (the lazy fathers) of the swarm
or hive. :

The workers are female in theirssex,
though not fully developed; therefore
they are the honey gatherers and wax
workers as well as nurse and take care
of the young bees. In a word they. do
all the labor in ‘and out of: the hive, as
well they defend themselves from all in-
trusions and make war upon their en-
emies.

gq
2)

and are the male Bees of the stock or
swarm; they are more clumsy,their heads
and trunks are covered witha fuzz or
sort of hairy coat, their wings are larger
than the workers and when they fly the
sound is very different from the other bees,
They have no cavities on their legs, con-
sequently cannot carry pollen, they can-
not sting, having nothing of the sort to
defend themselves with; they do no labor
about the hive, and are only useful to
meet the young queens in the swarming
season, after which, the workers expel
them from the hive, killing them by
stinging without merey, which is sure
death and thus ends their existence.

More About the Worker Bee.

I here wish to say something further

4

about the worker bees nursing their
young. 3

I have watched: sith great care for
hours at a time, In my Observatory
Hick’s Bee Hive and have invariably
found the young bees becoming nurses
as fast as they hatched out, thereby re
lieving the older bees from the duties in
the hive, which it seems they were pleas-
ed to have the privelege of doing, | and
giving place to the young bees, and from.
a careful as well many and repeated ob-
servations I have made I am fully pur-
suaded in my own mind that the young,
worker wnen first hatched out, enters
from that moment upon its duties, just
as the apprentice who commences to
learn a trade and thus goes on up, step
by step, unto perfection; from the young
nurse bee to that of a wax worker and
then launches out in the open air; dely-
ing into each flower of the ‘field and for-
est, for the sweet nectar to carry home
where peace, harmony and wisdom
dwell. . The worker bee is not so large
as the drone, but is of a size between
the drone and the queen, and are more
active both in and out of the hive, rom

,

5

the fact they gather all the honey and
pollen, or bee bread, which is food for the
young bees, which after they once enter
upon the duties as honey, pollen and pro-
polis or glue gatherers; they only live
about forty or fifty days which is the ay-
erage life of a worker bee,

.
Size and ‘Shape of Queens.
The queen is of a slender shape and’
much longer than the drone or worker,»
and as I before stated she lays. all the’
egos which hatch the bees, she is usuallyy
of a brighter color than the worker or’,
drone, her wings appear to be shorter»
than the worker bee’s wings, but this. isp
owing to the fact her body is much long-
er and the wingsdo not-cover her so com-
pletely as the wings do the other bees,she
always seems to be busy moving about’

to)
on the combs except when in the act of ;

a
.¢)

laying eggs, which she is capable of per-
forming at the rate of two to threé thou-
sand per day.

Age of Queens not Certain.

Although it is equally true that a
queen will live in many instances to be
four or five years old and perform all the
functions of the mother of a colony; but
if the workers discover that she is about
to become barren, they will at
onee make preparation to supercede
her, and rear another Queen,in due time.
Reader, I could go on and write page up-
on page, in connection with this subject
of the honey bee, but as { promised in
the outset, it was not my intention to
over-load your minds with surplus mat-
ter, I will therefore in conclusion say to
you, go to your hives and there learn
‘lessons of wisdom and harmony which
dwell therein, and has from the earliest
dawn of creation.

A Test of Queens Laying Eggs.

_ In my recent observations in my ob-
servatory hive I timed a fine italian
queen while in the act of laying, and she
laid seven eggs per minute, which was

t

at the rate of-four hundred and twenty
per hour, this of course she could not
perform very long ata time, but I ana
well satisfied that a good prolific and:
healthy queen can lay at least three thou-
sand eggs in twenty-four hours, in the
proper season of the year, if the nurse or
worker bees perform their duty in wait-
ing on her by feeding and keeping up
her strength and vigor which isa duty
they seem to perform ‘with great pleasure
and promptness while she isin the act of
_ daying.
Do eae Sting.

She also has a sting which she uses
only in dispatching other rival queens;
and it is said often killing the young
embryo queens in their cells which L
doubt. ia

It seems to be a traitof character im
queen bees. to never use their sting ex-
‘cept on a rival queeen, at least if so E
have never known or heard of an in-
‘stance yet, as they only seem to have am
antipathy for other queens, and have
been known to meet each other in mor-
tal combat. Itusually takes about fif-
teen to sixteen days to hatch out a fully

8

‘developed queen in a good strong
colony of bees and about twenty-one
*daysto hatch a worker bee from the
‘Vege, the drones require about twenty-
‘four days to become Le developed and
* hatch out, the above time as_specified
‘depends very much upen the condition
of the colony of bees, which if strong
‘will often shorten the time a few days

" especially the royal queens which I have
° ‘known to hatch out in twelve days from

' the time the workers commence the

Construction of Royal Cells.

Queen Cells ave cells which resemble a
peanut so much on the side of the combs
-, and is usually constructed so as to hang
nearly perpendicular, ( REO) are much
larger than any of the other cells in the
comb ) which causes the queen to he
developed with her head downward, and
_allow the organs of reproduction ito
be fully developed, the queen cell is
sometimes built around the egg, and at
, other times the egg is carried by the
workers and placed in the cell and foyal
jelly is also placed in the cell with
the egg, which helps with that of the

»

9

cell to change its nature from that of a
worker to that ofa royal queen,her royal-
ty passes about three days in the egg,
five daysa grub or larve, during which
time the workers deposit so much royal
food in’ the ‘cell that the Jarvee fairly ©
- floats in the jelly-like mass, the cell is
then closed by the workers, and the
larva commences to spin its cogoon
which oceupies ebout twenty-four hours,
‘the tenth eleventh and twelfth days it.
“remains in complete repose; then it is
- that transformation takes place, in which
‘four days are passed, and generally on
the sixteenth day the perfect state of the
-. queen is attained. When she first emerges
“from the cell she seeks her own food like
any other bee. No very particular atten-
tion is paid to her until after her impreg-
“nation ; but as.soon as that has taken
place she is at once recognized and con-
stantly attended by the worker bees.
But her attendants are not ‘any special
_ or certain bees set apart for that pur-
pose, as is often stated by some writers,
but wherever the queen moves among
the bees they seem to detail themselves
in sufficient numbers for the purpose of

10:

feeding and caressing her in all her la-
ag ee so while she isin the
act of laving eggs in the cells.

Impregnation of the Queen.

After-hatched, it usually takes place
about the fifth day after she is hatched
out ofthe royal cell, but in some in-
stances I have known them to go longer;
yet itis very seldom, and if she should
go unimpreenated until she is twenty
days old you may set it down as a fixed
rule that she will never have copula-
tion with a drone; at least I have never
known of an instance of the kind
taking place, and have never heard
of but one case that a queen has become
' fertilized after she was twenty days old.
She usually comes out of the hive a
tween the hours of 12 and 4 o’clock i
the after-noon when the drones are fly.
ing most abundently. As before remark-
ed. the queen usually comes out to meet
the drone in the air,on the wing in order
to copulate, which it is said, once perior-
med is sufficient for life. But my expe-
rience this year 1870. has taught me that

li

it does not always take place in the
open air.

Artificial Fertilization in Confine-
ment.

I have made three efforts this season
in my Hicks Bee Hive and twice out of
the three efforts I succeeded in having
two beautiful Italian queens fertilized
by a selected and pure drone as could be
found in the City of Indianapolis.

Here I will give my plan, practiced
or tried in the above cases referred to.

In the first place I procured a fruis
cover which is made of a citaered or
oval top shape of wire cloth; to this L
made a close fiting botom of a thin piece
of board and placed a piece of honey with
my queen and drone, also a single work-
er bee in the cage and then I set my
cage in the top of the Hicks Bee Hive
and after Thad let them remaina few
hours all closed up by themselves (except
the workers were allowed to come up
and remain on and around the cag
which Bo the necessary heat.) { ee
examined them twice before I found any
perceptible change after which I took

2

the queen and removed her to the hive.
I desired to test her qualities as to purity
which I found to be all IT could ask or
desire her to be.’ Let me say the drone
was dead asa door nail. in both cases:
above _ referred to. And_ to-day (N o-
vember Ist, 1870,) I have as pretty
marked italian bees as there isin the
state from those queens thus fertilized,

Yet I would not say that the above
plan will in every instance succeed.

See illustrated Bee Journal, of 1870,
page 473, also same book page 479

But when the queen Is pe mitted to exe
at will and pleasure as in the old way to
seek her own econ 2pany, ny opinion is
that copulation takes place on the wing
after which she commences laying in
about four or five days

4

How a Fertile Gueen is Known.

A Fertile queen is known by her de-
positing her eggs in the cells clese to-
gether in circles, each surreunding the
first,and on both sides of the comb alice.
sealed worker brood, will present a reg-

ular smooth surface of a brownish color.

13

How 2 Virgin Queen or Drone lay-
ing Queen is Known.

If you have an unfertile queen, she
may be known by an irregular brocd, a
number of raised oval cells in worker
‘combs. which shows the presence of
drone brood and indicates a drone lay-
ing queen only, or a queen that is
approaching barrenness, which is some-
times the case, when they become quite
old, which, if the latter, will often cause
the old queen to be superceded by a’
young queen, reared by the workers to
_ take her place. |

An Instance of Two @ueens in Gne-
Hive.

I have known one instance of this
kind in the summer of 1870, in a strong
and full colony of Italian bees, owned
by a Mr. Cal. Elliott, of the city of In-
dianapolis. The fertile queen can lay
both kinds of eggs, that of drones and
workers. This, to many, will seem quite
strange; it is nevertheless true.

14

The Impregnating, or Seminal
Flnid,

received by the queen from the drone
is contained ina sac called the sperm
“reservoir, or spermatheca, which com-
municates with the ovaduct, through
which the eggs pass to be deposited in
tae cells, “Therefore, when the eggs
leave the ovaries, or ege-bag, they are
unimpreenated; but, in passing through
tae oviduct, all eggs that produce work-
ers, or queens,are brought in contact

with the mouth of the sae containing the
sake fluid, and receives a portion of
i¢, which impreonates them, while all the
eges that hatches drones (which is
tae. male ae passes, it is said,

through th oviduct without com-
ing in Siitact with the seminal

fluid. My own convictions are that
tae queen being fertilized it is fully car-
ried through her system and in her blood
for life, which impregnates or fertilizes
dine drone egos suificient without recety-
ing the fluid direct from the sperm re-
servolr. If this is not the case, why
og nature given her the instinct to know

15

just when her eggs for workers are ex-
hausted and go in search of drone cells,
while the unfertile queen will lay her
eges in any and all cells?

Tt is supposed that the qneen has a
different motion in laying eggs in work-
er cells to that in drone cells, which may
be true; but, so far as my experience
goes, I am firmly of the opinion that
this difference comes from natural in-
stinct, which she fully understands from
“her own feelings while in the act of lay~
ing, as I have sat and watched her ti all
the motions she made for hours at a
time in my Observatory Hicks Bee-
ffive, prepared expressly for the pur-
pose, in which I have timed her while in
the act of laying, which result was as
follows: The first two minutes she laid
ten eggs—five cach minute—and_ the
third minute she laid seven, which made:
seventeen in three minutes, at which
rate she would fill three hundred and
forty (340) cells in an hour, and which
would be eight thousand one hundred
and sixty (8, 160) in twenty-four hours,
But it is certain that she must have some
time to rest, which we must allow. This

16

being the fact, we can safely say that a»
healthy and vigorous queen will lay from
one thousaud to three thousand eggs
every twenty-four hours in the working
season if honey and pollen is plentiful,
all things being equal.

CHAPTER: 11.

On Swarming, and Why Bees
swarm.

It is an admitted fact that bees have
been kept for ages past, and yet there
are but few of to-day who keep bees but
what are ignorant of the nature of
swarming.

I shall therefore try in this econnec-
tion to show briefly why stocks throw
off swarms, and speak of the general
characteristics of swarming.

First Swarm.

When a hive becomes full of comb,

bee-bread and brood, the queen has
y

no longer sufficient room to deposit her

egos, and the workers require more room

s 17

to store their honey; prepa ration is
therefore made for swarming. This is
done by the workers, who instinctively
commence the rearing of young queens.
For here let me say if young queens are
not reared no swarming need be looked
_ for, neither will it take: place, though
they may be ever so much crowded for
room. Hence it is not altogether true
that bees swarm for want of room. No
stock will ever cast a swarm unless the
queen will leave, and she will not leave
unless rival queens are being reared. It
is also equally true that the old queen
is the one that leads the first swarm.
She, finding the cells all filled and occu-
pied, and the rearing of young ones
ee becomes very much agitated
and ea 1 day 1 more restless, and not be-
ing a by the ouards and senti-
nels around the queen- -cells to destroy
them, runs rapidly over the combs, some-
times stopping upon the side of a comb
and dropping her eggs among the work-
ers, who greedily ‘devour them. The
workers also. partake of the excitement.
A few at first, the number gradually in-
creasing, running rapidly over the

18

combs, striking their attene at eachoth-
er. And as soon as one or more of the
queen-cells are capped over, the excite-
ment still increasing among the bees, as
if by pre-concert the; rush to the honey
cells and fill themselves with their pre-
cious stores. After each bee has par-
taken to their fill, the weather permit-
ting, they rush from the hive in a per-
fect cloud, as if the very halls of pan-
cemonium had been let loose among
them,

The Old Queen Going With Them.

Most usually she leaves the hive when
about two-thirds of the swarm are out.
I have often noticed her go back two or
three times, as if she wished to sce if
all things were in readiness before she
would make the effort to fly. - There are
but few drones to go with the first
swarm, from the fact that the old queen
is impregnated for life. Hence they are
not required. Instinctively they remain
with the parent hive, where the young
queens are being reared.

_—

——

- Pe

EU:
"When the First Swarm is Cast

the parent hive is left without a queen,

‘but there are several being fast devel.

oped. As before remaked, one or more
of the queen-cells are generally sealed
over before the old queen leaves. In
about eight or nine days after the first

swarm Hay issued a second swarm may

be expected—that i is, if the stock inten ds

. to cast a second swarm.

The Piping of the @ueens

is often heard on the evening before the
second swarm issues. This piping noise
is somewhat in sound like that of a

young chicken when it is making the

effort to leave the shell in hatching
Suppose a first swarm had issued on
Monday, just a week from the evening
of the next-day, which would be Tues-
day evening, if you will go to the hives
you will hear the cry of war, as it is so

‘ealled by most of bee keepers, and is a

sure token of a swarm to come off on
the following’ day, which would’ be
Wednesday. ‘Yet this is not always a

20

certain rule, for I tell you, reader, the
weather has a great deal to do in bee
swarming. Tor instance: if it has been
a long, dry spell you need not be sur-
prised at your bees if they fail to swarm
atall; but let there come a good shower
of rain and my word for it you will see
the swarms more ceréain the next day,
if it isa beautiful day, than if it had re-
mained dry and parched, or suitry.
Now, one thing more I wish to call
your attention to, and that is the fact of
so many bee keepers claiming that as
soon as a young queen is hatched she
goes In search a other queen-cells, that
she may tear them open and dispatch the
more young Lesa tender sister queens in
their embryo state before they have time
to hatch and become her rivals. Now,
I wish to be plainly understood. that I
do not believe any such doctrine, having
watched with a careful eye this very
much mistaken idea, and have in many
instances found that as soon as a young
queen had hatched out and was of a
strong and vigorous form, which is al-
ways determined and decided by the
worker bees themselves, they at onee

21

proceed to gnaw open and demolish all
the other queen-cells that are unhatched,

This has been a lesson of great inter-
est to me, and feeling unsatisfied with the —
explanations by other bee men as to how.
they were disposed of, I fully prepared
myself with an Observatory Hicks Bee
Hive and watched with care, and in eve-
ry instance the result has been as above
stated. Yet, dear reader, it may be that

Queens Do Often Meet in Mortal
sigue Combat,

and ®engage in a death struggle, I do
not deny; but never until one or both
have become fertilized. Then it is that
a disposition seems to take hold and
predominate for the supremacy as mis-
tress and mother of the future colony.
Again, how often is it that we are asked,
Can you tell me why it is that a swarm
of my bees eame off with two, three or
even four queens? Yes, dear reader:
this goesto prove my theory. As above
referred to, you will recollect that I
have before stated that there were
guards whose duty it was to keep watch

22

o¥er the queen-cells, each one having a
separate set; and as fast as those queens
_ were hatched out their euards or attend-

ants still kept watch over their queen,
preventing any others from harming her,
until. there might «be, perhaps, two,
three or even four queens hatched ; and
finally some one of tbe number, getting
indignant at some of her sister queens’

presence, starts out in disgust, with the

sound of swarming inj¢her shrieks, and
they all go togethersin one common
swarm, as it were, and while on the wing
it is possible that one of the three or
more queens may copulate with a drone,
after which they settle all together, and
the bee-keeper, feeling himself at. ia loss
as to what course to pursue, concludes
to have ene extra large swarm, of them,
and actually puts them all in a flour or
salt barrel, and thinks he has. done all
things well. So the next morning he
goes out and looks about and finds two
or three queens dead... Now, Mr. C.,
this isjust the fruits of one or more of
your queens having copulated with a
drone while in the swarming melee,.after
which, if they would -ever fight at all,

»

wa

——_

ee a

23

it will then take place, soon after-they
have been hived together... And the re-
sult is you find so many dead ones about
your barrel of bees that you hived. the
day acaba |

€H APTER. Ll:
What & ‘Queen-Cell Looks Like.

Hlncjin gt nen often asked what a
queen-cell looked like, I will proceed to
describe, in as clear and plain manner
as possible. They are usually built on
the edge or side of the brood-combs, and
look very much like a pea-nut. They
are about three-eighths of an inch in
‘diameter at the base, and extend down-
wards, gradually tapering to about half
the size at the lower end or point, and
ig usually about one and an eighth of an
inch long. It isalso my humble opinion
that queen cells are made of an entirely
different: material to that of any of the
combs. . And, this being’ the case, it. is
also my conviction that it is the differ-
ent material w hich produces such. radi-

eal change in the egg, or larve, which

24

makes a queen. Iam well aware that
many who have been bec-keepers for
years differ with me on this subject. But —
here let me say I have been a student
for the purpose of learning the mysteries
of the bee hive, which has been done
only by dint of study and close obser-
vation, and ‘feel sure :that “what I have
stated with regard to the change above
spoken of, is correct. Especially sowhen
we all-admit the theory that all eggs
are female in their sex except those pro-
ducing drones. And any egg whieh a
fertile queen deposits in a worker-cell
will also produce a queen if transferred
from said cell into a royal cell before it
gets seven days old... Now, the mere
change from the brood or worker-cells.
to that of the royal cell does not make
a queen bee. But it is also necessary
that the wants of the whole colony de-
mand a queen should be raised, so that
all may work in unison and harmony
together, the older bees performing the
labor of carrying honey, water and poi-
Jen, all of which is essential to the rear-
ing of worker, or queen bees.

29

What: a Royal Queen Cell is
me , Made of. ha

This eel sarees has been for many :
years aj puzzler to a great many: bee.
men, and seems to be hard for most. of
them: tou uderstand; but T think. if. we
apply, the, ‘right means in the right way
it will not. be hard . to “determine and.
come at, facts... Haying made _ several
tests and. experiments, I new feel» sure
that I make a correct, statement when I
assert that: the queen, cell.is made from

what is known as farina, or dust of
flowers, and better known as bee-bread,
a large share or quantity of which, as
well.as that of pulp, is also used in-pre-
paring and building those royal cells,
which have already been described: as
the cells in which the queen is raised
and hatched. This forms an entirely
different substance from that.of any of
the other cells in the hive, and which,
when filled with the creamy-like food
which the worker bees always supply
for the queen while in a larve state. It
has the property in it of extracting a
substance from the body of the cell,

26

which also changes its chemical nature.
This, in my humble opinion, is all ne-
eessary in order to bring about the re-
sult of maturing a fully devoloped

female or queen, so that when she has -

mated with a drone that is fully and
properly organized, she is then a proper
bee to lay all the eggs for replenishing
the hive with worker bees and drones
for future prosperity. We have exam-
ined, time and again, those cells under a
microscope, and invariably found them
composed of a large portion of farina,

and a sufficient amount of pulp to give’

the cell solidity and a glossy inside coat-
ing.

Do Bees Supercede Their Queens?

To this question allow me to say they _

do, and often kill them in the spring of
the year, after they have wintered safely
through, as I have often observed. And
I would further say for the benefit ofall
who may be interested in the little hen-
ey-bee, that this killing of queens so
early in the spring of the year is one of
the many causes why we lose se many

27

stocks, and es to eurselves why our
bees died in April,.or even as late as
May, after they had begun to gather bee
bread and honey. The question often
arises why they kill their mother and
only hope of existence. To this there
might be many and various answers,
some of which I will give. The first is,
yen as soon as your, as well as your

neighbor’s, bees begin to fly out and go
in search of food, they find it quite
searce, which frequently starts them to
robbing : and in this they always kill
the queen as soon as possible. When
- accomplished, success is theirs, and they
then go with the robbers ,and- earry off
their own honey, if they have any, to
the suecesstul hives of the robbers. An-
other reason is, it frequently* happens
that in handling your bees you get' your
hand on the queen, and get her scented
from -your hand, and in this wa ay she ds
often attacked and killed as soon as you
close up your hive. J have often been
asked by persons visiting my apiary to
let them see a queen, asserting at the
same time that they have never seen a
queen, which is all right; but if they

28
knew. how dangerous it was to the wel-
fare and prosperity of the stock of bees,
I feel certain. they would, not ‘insist: on
me to show the queen, ‘and in all proba-
bility in-deing so I would. Jose a full
stoek. in.a short. time.

CHAPTER uv.

Further Explanation of Sex.

There wish to explain further about
the.sex of the eggs being determined at
the time of laying; for instance, it is ad-
mitted by all Bee- -keepers Ww ho Jay any
claim to apiarian science, that a virgin
ee at twenty-one days old will lay

‘ges which will produce drones only-

(But Tsay they are imperfect drones,
not having the male organization fully
developed, and cannot perform the func-
tions of the male in fertilizing queens.)
Hence, it must. follow that the general
rule holds good in the insect creation, as
in the animal; for if we have a pure,
imported Italian queen, which was fer-
tilized in her mother country, where
there are no other bees except the pure

29

Italian, and We raise pure virgin queens
. from her, and have no other drones. but
the Black in our. apiary,~we now have
those young queens copulate with the
Black ‘drones, and. the result. is a
cross. breed, which will). be. the
came of ‘all. the bees aud drones that
said. queens may raise, no matter how.
long she lives or how many times she is
permitted to swarm, or artificially divid-
ed. Now comes. the. pretty. part; sup-
pose: you raise the next season all your
drones from this same: queen that has
met the black drone and queens from
your imported queen again, and they
copulate with the drones last mentioned;
Task, what will be the result? -Answer-
—They will be three-quarter bloods of
Ttalian stock, notwithstanding the opin-
ion of Mr. 8. D. Barber to the contrary,.
for he says the drones from such queens
as are fertilized by a black drone, will be
pure Italian. (See his Bee book, page
36.) I should very much hate to be
compelled to have stock from such a
man’s apiary, who would teach such
false doctrine and at the same time do
so much advertising as he does. Broth-

30

er Barber, I hope you will get new light,
and sell better stock than I saw a few
days since from: your apiary, February,
1874.. Now, the fact i is, that the blood
of such queens is tainted for life, no —
ter how pure they may be in their vir 5
state, or before they copulate with is
black drone. It willalso be right the
revers? if we have a black queen fertil-
ized by an Italian drone; all of her
stock will be half-breeds of the two
kinds, and her drones will be halt-breeds
also. But Mr. Barber says, by his theo-
ry, they, the drones, are pure black, or
of the native bee. The same rule will
hold good, as we have often seen, in the
human family as well asin the animal
creation: alsoin the swine we see the
same result’s of Nature’s law.

But we will now leave you, dear read-
er, to study into cause and ‘effect, and
solve such problems for yourself. ‘Hay-
ing given you the true results of such a
course of breeding, let me say, try and
be honest in ally your sales of o es,
Rights and Quee

° ol

CHAPTER. v..1/,,
PRACTICAL LESSON

On Transferring Bees and Brood
into Movable Frame Hives.

First, get. you a, good roll of cotton
rags, and wrap some fine wire around it,
then set fire to one end, but don’t let it
blaze; new step baldly up. to the hive
of bees you desire to transfer, and blow
some smoke in at the entrance until you
hear the bees set up.a humming noise,
Now pick; up your hive, bees and all,
and take them to a.room, or some other
place where the other bees will not both-
er you in trying to rob. Of course you
will now have your new hive in readi-
ness, with the frames laid near by. Now
give your bees a little more smoke, and
in ten minutes you can lay the mouth or
lower end of your old'hive close to your
new movable frame hive, and with a
good hammer, or hatchet, and cold- chis-
el, cut the nails. of your old hive, and
take off one side. Now have a table, or
bench, on which to lay your emis.

32
a »

of brood, and procure a_ long-bladed
knife, well sharpened on a regular seythe
stone, which makes the best edge =
cutting out the combs. Be careful ¢
take out all the combs, a sheet ata titie,
and with a goose - feather, or small
broom, brush off the adhering bees into
your new hive; also, be careful and do
not bruise or mar the brood in handling,
and lay into a neat pile as you take it
out, and brush off the bees into your
new hive; after which you cfn take a
frame and fit a comb of brood, being

careful to keep the same end to the top
of your frame as it stood in the old hive,
and with a No. 9 or 1p bradawl ma ake a
few holes through the frame and put in
wooden pins, or white thorns, which
you must prepare, or get quite a number
beforehand, of some tough, good wood;
CaS will be best.” The pins must be
about two and a quarter inches long,
Agree tapered like a darning needle.

‘After you have thus fitted all the brood
in the frames, place them in proper shape
as they were before, with the combs near
the middle be the hive. Your bees be-
ing already clustered in the hive, you

will have no trouble in handling them
further, only to be careful not to mash
or crush them as you close up your hive
gently. Now take and set the new hive
where the bees formerl; stood, and you
will have the gratification of seeing them
at work in less than thirty minutes. In
a day or two go tothe hive and open
slowly and gently, and make a careful
examination of the combs, to see that
they are all in the frames properly, and
that all is right; but if any have warped,
straighten them, and draw out all the
wooden pins that can be spared, as the
combs will in two or three days be all
fastened by the bees in the frames.

The above is one of the best plans,
and by far the most speedy.

Why is it that Bees of the Present
Bay do not Swarm so Much, nor
Make as Much Honey, as They
Did Years Ago, During the Early
Settlement of the Country?

Now, reader, you have no doubt asked
this question more times than I know
anything about, and in all probability

2)
By

have during the fairs where I have been
lecturing asked me the same. Aind while
T now attempt to give you a a fair and an
honest-answer, let 1 me say, it is of the ut-
most importance for tue success of an
apiary, that it should be located in a
neighborhood where the | yc can readily
find an abundant supply of good pastur-
age. The success of bee- -keeping de-
pends ¢ greatly upon this. As well might
a stock-srower expect to make his cattle
profitable without supplying them prop-
erly with food, as to, suppose that Be
will live, thrive and be of benefit to their
owners without obtaining constant sup-
plies of pollen and honey, in some way,
from spring to fall, w ith but little, if
any, intermission. I suppose that any
school girl or boy ten years old could
very easily answer the question, if Twere
- toask why itis that cattle, horses and
hogs that run at. large now-a-days, do
not thrive as well as they once did Aen
this country was new; yet the first ques-
tion has been a puzzler to many older
heads than mine, and would-be wise bee-
keepers. But they never think once that
it is just as essential in the one case as in

“

OR
Oo

the other that the efforts of man must be
put forth in furnishing the necessary sup-
ply that nature once furnished, but now
shorn from the land; and if not ‘pro-
duced through and_ by the effort’ of the
bee-keeper, they will fall far short of that
most bountiful and richest of all dain-
ties, which cannot be procured in any
other way than through and by the hon-
ey-bee; which was gathered from: the
flowers all over this broad land of ‘the
North American Continent. The coun-
try, in} its wild state, produced in the
greatest abundance an unvarying sueces-
sion of flowers, from early spring until
frost came, yielding for the harvesters
(the Bees) unlimited supplies of bee-
bread and honey, as well as propolis, or
glue, for their use in stopping up cracks
and lining their old-fashioned hives, so
rudely made and furnished to them; all
of which (except the old-fashioned hive)
are just as essential now, as in the days
of the priniitive fathers, to propagate
very rapidly, and to store up) immense
quantities of honey, bidding défiance ‘to
the moth, unless, as it sometimes’ hap-
pened, a disorganized colony’ would fall

a prey to their : depredations, As the
forests were felled, 2nd ‘the country
:to a state of cul-

cleared and breugh? oan
st urage was in

tivation, this source of pa
many places almost entirely cut off, un-
til their sole depence: enee was On the clo-

ver and buckwheat, 1: shiek asts but about
two months of the vear; a iring the re-
mainder of the season oe an 10 gather

sufficient honey tos»
ate wants. Ins suc ler: e
vided pasture and mate =i ble provi-
sion for all wher sind
‘neglected in tote the most. faithfal “and
productive of all servants, the Honey-
Bee, which is left to prov ide for itself ; ‘
the inevitable result of which will be
their total extinction in oid settled coun-
tries, unless a change 's made in this di-
rection, and pasturaec supplied for them,
which can be done 2 less expense than
for any other stock, anciqrith greater re-
turns of profit. |
I bios ced in a former lesson given
upon pasturage for becs, to tell you what
kinds, or at least the most of the many
‘which are valuable plant ty and. will now
say if you who desire io keep the little

Ge ?
re}
sry
their ‘aed
i

ov

pets will but half way perform your duty
toward them, at the right time and in
the right way, they will pay you over
ten hundred per cent; besides, you will
reap a rich reward from the crops thus
cultivated as food for cattle, sheep, horses
and hogs.* Besides, I feel quite sure

you will never regret ‘having bought this
Tittle book.

Do Queens Have a Sting? And if
so, Do They Ever Use Them, and
What On?

In this lesson, dear reader, let me say
that Queens have stings, and use them
only on rival Queens and Drones. This
may seem rather strange to many who
have read our lesson upon her royal dig-
nity when we said that they never used
their stings on anything except a rival
Queen. But at the time we wrote that
mae we did not know quite as_ much
as do now about Bees 9 or

Queens. You must recollect, likewise,
eal *Alsiké ewer akon the best of er and is first-class

og pasture, which is fully substantia ‘by some ofthe .
frm and: best farmers in th ean ernped

. HEAD,
Battle Ground, TPippecation' Co., Ind.

38

that we desire that you may fully under-
stand that all. the mysteries are not
learned ina short time about bees and
their habits. And let us -further . say
that we had never known in ‘all our ex-
periments up to. Jnly, 1874, that a virgin
Queen would wilfully, and apparently
maliciously, attack an innocent drone
and send him to his long home by sting-
ing him to death without mercy. But
such is the fact, and we have two living
witnesses who will attest it, having seen
the same incident, which we shall, how
relate,

We think it .was about. the 10thiof
July, 1874, that. we received a, Jetter
from a Mr, D. T. Musselman, of Cam-
den, Carroll County, Indiana, who. de-
sired us to come to his place and..assist
him in the artificial swarming of his
Italian bees, all of which were.in good
condition in the Hicks Bee-Hive. We.
arrived at his place of residence on, the
18th. He and ourself, in company with,
a friend, proceeded . to. extract hon+)
ey from the combs of a few frames, and-
to make up some-five.or six extra stock Se
Then he took ian strong” and "Vigor -

39

ous hive of bees, in which he had sever-
al Italian Queens hatched, in small cages.
We took one of the cages out, and as the
drones, were flying out on their usual ex-
eursion trips, we caught one very large
and vigorous one in Tess than a quarter
of a minute. We then thought we would
try another one; which we. soon caught
and plaeed in with her royal: highness,
and she treated him the same way, all of
which was accomplished in less than a
minute’s time; and strange to say, yet
too. true, when she thrust her sting
into them, it. killed them so dead that
they showed no signs of life, and seemed
to be perfectly hard. .The queen seemed
to be in a perfect rage and restless, wish-
ing to escape from her confinement no
doubt. But we.will here say again, that
as yet we have never known an instance
where a queen has eyer stung a human
bemg or an animal of any. kind.
[See lesson on Drones. |

More Pereons than do, Should Keep
Bees..

We will in this lesson try to show that

40

it would be well for all parties con-
cerned, and far better for the whole
country, if more people would engage in
this laudable and most profitable busi-
ness. In the first place, we all acknowl-
edge that the Honey-Bee is a perfect
model of industry, and shows to man-
kind that lazy loungers are not long tol-
erated in their household, but are soon
expelled with a death-warrant. Again,
if we would profit by wisdom’s ways, we
should at least have a few stands of bees
in our gardens or door-yards, 1n order to
see them occasionally, and learn indus-
trious habits, as they are at work from
early morn till dewy eve, and yield a
rich return to their keeper, which cannot
be procured in any other way than by
the industry of the little Honey-Bee.
Again, how many there are who now
are dragging out a miserable existence,
who have been brought up in idleness in
the homes of perhaps rich parents, and
afterward become poor by not knowing
how to work or economize? We would
add, that if our young and rising gener-
ation would copy more after the habits
of the little Honey-Bee, our prisons and

poor-houses would have fewer inmates,
our courts would be bothered less
with cases of persons charged with erim-
inal offences, anc our State and county

debts be seagia ‘ty veduced. In this way
they would conir bute greatly to their
own Sarge $8, a become good citizens
and ornaments to soviet ty. ‘Then let us
in our efforts ‘enireat “one and all who
ean control, eitior by purchase or lease,
afewrods of Mother Earth, to get and

i ie

keep a few stands of bees. Persons who
live in cities, as weil as those in villages
and on the farm, may keep bees, and
scarcely miss the time it takes to keep
them in good trim, which can always be
done early of a morning, the best time
to perform any needed operation with
your bees, st ch as artificial swarming, or
taking a few tomes of heney, which
makes a dish loo< beautiful when prop-
erly arranged ov tue table at meal-time.
tis by far much easier and cheaper
when thus procured, than to have it to
buy in the market places, e especially so
when honey is steadily year by year ad-
vancing in price.
We have written more on this subject

42

than we had at first intended, but when
we see and. feel the importance of it,
which ought to interest every lady and
ventleman, both young and old, we hard-
ly know how and where to close our re-
marks, without giving you some advice
as to what is best for the poor and brok-
en-down merchant and mechanic, as well
as many farmers, who have failed j in bu-
siness, and women who have lost their
husbands and left in many cases with a
house full of little helpless children to
support. We say to all such, let us en-
treat you.to try your hand at keeping a
few stands of bees, as you know not .
what you can do until you have made the
effort. We will cheerfully give you all
the instructions we can, if you write to
us, inclosing a postage stampto send you
an answer to your questions.

This is one of, the simplest things in
bee-keeping.. But before It go further
into the explanation of making your new
swarms, dear reader, | , let me say, get you
a good movable frame hive, one in which

43

you feel assured you can handle bees with
ease and profit; and after you have thus
made your selection, have all your hives
made of the same size and pattern, hay-
ing them all painted at least two or three
weeks before you need them for use.
This being done, you are ready for mak-
ing your increase of stock, provided they
are strong in numbers and plenty of
brood. Now you can open one of your
new hives and take out six of the frames;
then-open a hive of bees and take out
two full frames, bees, brood and honey,
all together, and replace in their stead
two empty frames. Let a full frame
stand between the empty ones, and ap
the full frames you have just taken ou
of the full hive into the empty hive, set-
ting hem sideby side. Then operate
on two more hives the same way, being
careful that you do not take a queen
from any one of your full stocks. This
relieves them from swarming, and gives
you six full frames in your new hive,
which you can now place jn or at the old
standpoint of some strong and populous
colony, by setting the old stock at the
same new location and place your new

44

hive in its stead; my word for it, they
will raise a queen ina few days for them-
selves, as they have plenty of eggs and
youn ¢ brood from which to fuily mature
and protect themselves for at least from
two weeks to fifteen days, at which time
you can exchange a frame er two of
brood from some populous stock, so as
to prevent your new hive from swarming
when the young queen comes out to meet
the drone. Be careful to brush off all
adiering bees of the last mentioned
frames into their own respective hives,
which will prevent your young queen
from getting killed by the young bees, if
you should make a mistake and put: bees
and all in together.

A Fertile Worker—How Known.

My dear reader, this is one of the
-many difficulties that the apiarian has te
contend with in bee-keeping, and should
be better understood, even by the older
beekeepers. Te Fertile (worker) is
known only by the uneveness of the
brood she aldhichs (like that of a vir-
gin queen), all drones and no worker

45

bees, which will soon annihilate the

y
whole colony—as I have before told you
that drones were not self-sustaining,
from,t the tact that they do not carry hon-
ey, bee-bread or water, as workers do.

ft is i so true that such drones are not
fully developed. males; hence they are of
nO. .value. in fertilizing queens. The
cause of the Fertile worker being brought
nto existence is the fact. that it was an
ies ,er quite a young grub, that was
raised in a worker cell, in : close proximi-
ie to a royal or queen cell, that has had
enty of royal cream, or food prepared
d placed so near the young worker
that it has been affected by the royal
food intended for the young queen; but
t not having a proper cell in which to
pecome fully developed, it does not ar-
vive at that degree of perfection in its
0 rans of reproduction, or ovaries, as to
become fertilized and lay eges to raise
bees as a fertile queen does, but being
what I calla neuter. It has none of the
natural fitness of nature, that is actually
necessary to reproduce its species, and
keep up a full family or colony of bees.

46

How to Get Rid of the Fertile
W orker-

The way for the apiarian to get rid of

them, is to exchange a few frames of
21) q

brood with a good stock of bees that has
plenty of eggs and young bees froma
prolific queen; and my word for it, they
will soon clear her out of the hive, and
raise another queen for themselves.

CHAPTER VI.

On the Drone Question, and What
the Drone is for.

Permit me to state first, that a full
and perfect swarm of bees consists of
three kinds, first, the queen, or mother
of the whole colony; second, the worker,
or honey-gatherer; third, the drone, the
subject of which we now propose to
treat. This is the male bee, and is al-
Ways present in the swarming’ season;
without which the honey-bee would soon
become extinct, as it is essential from the
creation up to the present time, that all
created beings in all nature have two pa-

47

rents, a mother anda father; hence, the
drone is the father; of all the bees that
may be raised ina regular swarm. He
is only useful in fertilizing the queen,
which, when once performed, puts an end
to his life, and leaves the queen fertile
for life. She lays all the eggs from that
time on to produce both bees and drones
for future swarms, without ever meeting
or copulating again with. another drone.
This may seem like strange doctrine, but
nevertheless it is true; and further let
me state right here, that the queen can
and does lay frequently as high as 3,000
egos in a day and night, in the height of
the honey harvest; and will in any rea-
sonable honey season lay on an average
1,500 in twenty-four hours.. This no
doubt will be surprising. to many, and
also be doubted by those who have not
had an opportunity of knowing. I wish
‘further to say that it quite frequently
happens that the queen, when she fails
to meet and copulate with a drone for
twenty-one days, scarcely. ever becomes
fertilized, and, will also commence laying
eggs which produce drones only, and the
whole colony willsoon become extinct

48

and have passed away. ‘The drones net
being self-sustaining, likewise they 7 hav re
not the proper organs for fertilizing oth-

er queens, and soon perish, leaving 3 no
issue for a future generation.

Opinien of General Adair Deubktcc.

I am well aware that General Adair,
of Hawesville, Kentucky, has a differcnt
opinion; for he asserted, in 1871, ai the
North American Bee Conven ition, held
at Cleveland, Ohio, that he had a virgin
which he had raised drones {rc om, and
that she became fertilized by her own
offspring, which I cannot Senly oF ab

boring under a ‘mistake, and bélieds ‘Y
could account for the fertility of his yir-
gin queen.

The drone is larger than the worke) ie
bee; has no sting, and therefore is herr--
less; is a consumer, and not a producer,
of honey, pollen and water, and lives upon
the labors of the industrious worker
and is unmercifully expelled from ihc
hive after the swarming season is over.

i

49

(I have often thought I should very
much dislike to be a drone.)

Now, dear reader, let me say to you,
go to your bee-hive, if you have one |
you can open with ease, and learn les-_
sons of wisdom; there is where we have
a finer display of true Mother Nature
than any man’s pen can describe on pa-
per. Ihave only opened up the way
fora beginning for you, and am only
sorry I have not the room in this little
book to talk more to you, and lead you
further into the fountain that is full of
mystery, and will be as long as we live;
but when you have there taken one les-
son, it will fit you better for the second,
and so on, until you in all probability
will be made to exclaim, “Oh, what won-
ders to man there are in the little Honey-
Bee and Nature’s God!”

CHAPTER VII.

Driving Bees into New Hives.

I would here remark that this is a par-
tieular thing to do, especially so if you
are not acquainted with the operation,

50

yet it is also very simple, if properly un-
derstood. I have driven a full swarm
from one hive into. another in. fifteen
minutes, and not have a single person
stung, or get stung myself. .My. plan
is, first to take some warm water .and
sweeten it well with honey, or sugar will
do, and sprinkle the bees with the syr-
up, and then take a, roll of cotton rags
and smoke them well (as mentioned in
lesson on transterring), then carry them
off to some cool and shady place, and
turn your hive upside down, and. set
your new hive over the open end of the
old stock to be driven. Now, get. you
two good sized sticks, about eighteen in-
ches long, and beat with the sticks oR
the sides of the hive, with the .bees in,
and in a few minutes they will all go up
and cluster as a regular swarm. in the
top of your new hive.

How to Locate Bees After Driving.

Place them in a new location, and the
old hive-you. can set. back cab. its sold
stand-point,fwhere it will recetye.a)suf-

ficient number of workers: to, protect the

51
brood, and will raise another queen.
This driving process should always be
done at the right time, or you may ruin
your stocks. I have made four good,
strong stocks from one in a season, and

had them winter well, but it happened
to bea good season.

How to Hive Bas and Settle Them
_ When Allowed to Swarm,

‘te you prefer letting your bees swarm
gael, IT would recommend a free use
of water. to be thrown among them while
‘on the wing; first, if you haye no bushes

_ov fruit. trees handy for them to settle on,
"T would’ say to get a few brushy-fopped
~ bushes and set them nearly ‘where your
beé-stands are, several days ‘before you
expect themto swarm; then, with a free
use of water, as above, while they areon
the wing, ‘will generally ‘settle them in
due time. Now_lose no time, in making
preparation | ta get them’ hived; which
you can do very soon without much
trouble. First, open the side door of
your hive, if you have one of the Llick’s
Flives, and place a small piece of board

52

slanting edgewise, at the bottom of the
hive, so your bees can have no trouble
in going in; then before you undertake
to do anything further, have you a pint
or more of sweetened water, made quite
sweet; with this gently. sprinkle the
swarm, and after you see they have com-
menced filling themselves, you can take
the bushes and place them down close to
the hive, and give the bush a quick jar
with your hand, which will leaye the
bees about all at the base of your hive.
(Don’t be afraid of them, for I tell you,
dear reader, they will not hurt you; this
is why I have told you to sprinkle them
with sweetened water.) Take a little
brush broom, or a goose-quill is best,
and brush them in gently; after- which
close up your door, and set them where
you intend them to stand.

CHAPTER VIII.

On Patent or Movable Frame
Hives.

This is a subject that perhaps may not
interest you, my reader, very much; and

I ean also say, that I ean well recollect

when I first heard of the reaper and
mower; it was pronounced by many of
onr forefathers to be a humbug of Yan-

kee origin, and yet, how is the farming

business carried on?’ I leave you to
judge. But improvement is. now the
order of the day, and he who will not
keep up, must stay behind, for I claim
that there are many advantage es obtained,

as well as a radical changes “being made,
in the management and culture of the
honey-bee, as in any other branch of
agriculture. Never did our fathers or’
mothers take from a single stand of bees
in one season 328 pounds of nice honey,

until they obtained and used a movable
frame hive. And let me further say,

that the above amount is no uncommon
thing now; and even from 500 to 900
pounds have been taken in good, nice,
extracted honey from a single stand of
bees in one-season. I have taken 152
pounds of nice extracted honey from a
single stock of Italian bees, and made
right good, strong stocks besides, which
I sold at twenty-five dollars each in my
hive, and my honey at forty-five cents

54

per pound. This may seem rather fishy,
as used to be said by those who doubted

2 ———

Gompletion Hicks Hive.

a report of any kind, when they thought
it uncommon; but I have living wit-

5

aS

nesses who lived on an adjoining lot, and
saw for themselves. lived in, the , city
of Indianapolis at, the time, where there
are many who know miey 1,

eeeperon Hicks Bee- Hive.
vi

Tt was in stocker 1 rege ait f
completed my, Bee- -Hive and. took out
letters patent, in 1870, 25a working
nearly twenty years on a plan;:to have a
movable frame hive work to my owh,,as
well as to the satisfaction of many oth-
ers. This I truly believe I have accom->,
plished, and feel ‘certain that a man or
woman can take care of at least one-third
more stocks in the Hicks Bee-Hive than
in any other ever invented and placed
before the bee- keeping world for sale,
have used, and tried to use, some twenty
different movable frame hives, but have
neyer in any other hive procured as
many advantages as in the Hicks Bee-
Hive, having “thoroughly tested it side
b= side with the Buckeye and Rough-
and- Ready hives, both invented by sine
C. Mitchell, the first of which I bought
more square miles of territory in, than

any other man that ever bought of the
patentee; the last hive is not, nor ever
was, patented, and yet I see agents mak-
ing efforts to sell Rough-and-Ready Bee-
Hives, and rights for the same,

Frauds Should be Put Down.

IT apprehend that many who have
made purchases in said hive last men-
tioned, would like to see the inventor or
his agent. I have also come in contact
at fairs of various counties with the Kid-
der and American Bee-Hives, in compe-
tition, and have as yet been successful
over both of the last named, as well as
over the Langstroth and Wilkinson Bee-
Hives, at every fair where I have met
them.

Fhe Hicks Bee-Hive is one of the
Easiest Hives to Handle Bees in

That has ever been placed before, or of-
fered to bee-keepers of this country.
Time will in the future, as well as it bas
in the past, speak out and tell the truth
as to what hive is best for all general

a¢

piepoues in bee-keeping. The Hicks
Hive has enly to be seen in order to un-
derstand it, and tried to be appreciated.
In it you can see ata glance any or all
trouble, in which your bees need assist-
ance. No frames to be removed by lift-
ing out, but. they can be all swung at
one motion, which gives the keeper fuli
control over the whole brood at once,
and can examine each frame free and in-
dependent of any other, thereby render-

ing bee-keeping pleasant, as well as very
profitable; it being so arranged that arti-

ficial swarms are made up in five min-
utes’ time, and prevents the great loss
by watural swarming, as they often go to
the woods when allowed to swarm the
old-fashioned way. Ina word, it is the
hive in which if you find weak stocks
you can strengthen by changing a few
frames with any other hive of the same
pattern, or feed at any time, either win-
ter or summer, without any danger of
robbing by other bees ; ; also, if a queen
is to be found, it can be done in one min-

ute, without lifting out a frame, or hurt.

ing a single bee in opening and closing
the hive. Last, though not least, a lady

58

or child can at any time take the surplus
honey for table use or market, without
coming in contact with the bees, cr in
any way interfering with the BEB HAC
chamber. (See cut of Hive, open and
closed, shown both ways, on page 54,)

Vexed Question About Drones Ex-
plained.

In this article I propose to adyance
my own ideas concerning drones pro-
duced by a virgin queen, ora fertile
worker, which I have never heard or
read in any work on apiculture, or ex-
plained by any one; and why it is that
a man as old in the bee business as Mr.
Quinby, and who has written, perhaps,
as much on bees as any one author in
America, has never even tried to explain
this subject about such drones, is a mys-
tery to me; and yet, I hold it as a fact
that all drones that are thus produced by
such mothers are wholly worthless, and
have not the proper functions, or in
other words, they do not have the male
organ properly developed, with which to
fertilize a virgin queen, and are a perfect

\e

59.

set of neuters, neither male or female.

Now let. us examine zi little, and see
what the result will be. ‘Suppose we
havea stand of such drones in our api-
ary, and no other drones within four
miles, and we have a good stock of bees
with a good prolific mother; we now ex-
change : a frame of worker brood) with
the fertile worker, or virgin queen stock,
which are producing nothing g but drones;
the result is, the young bees thus placed
in the said stock, will at once start queen-
eclls and raise a ‘good virgin queen; and
yet they are not any better off than be-
fore, from the fact that the drones are
deficient, and cannot fertilize the young
queen; but they will have. exterminated
the fertile worker, or the virgin quecn,
if such there is in the hive.

How Bees are Often Lost, and Cause
Explained.

Now, dear reader, let me ask, if you
do not recollect at any time in your life
of a stand of bees being lost, and you
did not know the cause, and often won-
dered why it was that the brood combs

60

become so uneven, and leoked as if
something had been gnawing them, and —
almost made them look as if they had
been eut into very roughly after the bees
were all gone and but a few drones left
to tell the tale of disaster? Let me here
say to you, that nine times in ten you
raay set it down as a loss by having a
virgin queen which has never become fer-
tili zed, or a fertile worker, which is
worse, from the fact that you cannot
hunt them out and destroy thém, as you
can the queen. I would therefore rec-
ommend you to hunt out and destroy
all such virgin queens, when you dis-
cover such brood as above, whieh is very
uneven, with raised cells, and perfectly
haphazard—no regularity ‘about it. But
if you have no other queen to supply her
place, then do as above, exchange a
brood sheet from some ood, prolific
stock. IT would also say, if it be that
you are troubled with a ‘fertile worker,
which [ claim cannot be found and sin-
gied out, you must also exchange a brood,
comb, young bees and all, just as you
find it, and my word for it, they will
soon make a clearing out of said fertile

61

worker, and raise a queen for themselves,
which will save further trouble, if you
have good and perfeet drones in your

ere
CHAPTER IX.

are

How to Raise Italian Drones Early.

First let me say, this requires some
care, and must have some attention paid
to it by the apiarian. You will first
procure of some one (whom you can
trust), a pure Italian queen, say in An-
gust or September, and see that you get
her properly introduced into a good,
strong and healthy stock of bees. Now
when the winter sets in fairly, I would
recommend you to put them in some
quiet, warm and dark place, just cool
enough to not freeze. See that they have
plenty of honey to keep -them at least
three months before you put them away
im their winter quarters. Now let me
further say, you must take three or four
pounds of honey to a quart of warm wa-
ter, and let it stand in a tin vessel twelve
hours, after which set it on a stove and

62.

bring to a boil andskim. Now feed about
a half to a table-spoonful once a day.
from the 20th of February, until the
weather gets warm enough to set them
out on their proper stand for the season;
feed in old combs. placed in the top of
Hicks Hive, which can be done at any
time; my word for -it, you will haye
drones one month Conce than your
neighbor, who trusts to luck and allows
his bees to swarm the old-fashioned way,
(See artifical swarming

Be sure to feed as above directed, c7'-
ery day, until the bees gather plenty of
pollen and: honey for natural resources.
You can also give a little rye meal as a
substitute for pollen while feeding,

Introduction of Italian Queens—
The Proper Manner of Introducin
a Queen to a Full Colony, 0
Bees.

First, find and capture the queen you
desire to supercede, then cage her and
leave the cage in the hive, say six or
eight hours; then open your hive as
quietly as possible, and take the queen

63

out of the cage, and put your Italian
queen in the same cage; cut a piece of
honey to plug the hole with, and then
set the cage carefully back in the hive,
and the bees will soon liberate her, while
they are left ‘alone, which will ke in five
or’six hours. © 9 = 1 . ;
I have practiced this method come five
or six years, and found it the best of
many plans ‘which I have tried, never
haying lost'a single queen yet, with the
above mode of operation, and think
‘that all who tries it will have no cause
‘to Yégret having purchased this book, as
the above 1s) worth’ ten’ times ‘the cost.
_, How to Raise or Breed Queens.
“Rirst) select the. stock! 'yéu' desire to
‘breed’ from and then’ divide the brood
by ‘placing’ two’ frames’ into’ hives you
have made'queeniées eight or niné days
previous, and’thus’ exchange with, say
three hives,’ first cutting out’ all queen-
éells in the three queenless colonies, when
the bees will goto work and build from
‘six to twelve cells in each hive, which
you can cut out of and insert into other

>

64

stocks, on the eighth day, and thus Ital-
ianize some fifteen or twenty ina short
tima, letting each one raise its own
queens.

How to Prevent Bees from Distroy-
ing their young, and the Cause.

This is a lesson of importance to every
bee-keeper. First let me say, as a gen-
eral rule, the destruction of young bees
is caused from a scare ity of honey, which
is also brought about by a cold spell of
the weather, which closes up the flowers
or bloom of the fields, and makes it hard
work for bees to get a sufficient amount
of honey to ge on with the raising of
their young, and sets them at once te
destroying ‘and carrying the young unma-
tured bees out, which we so often see
lyinggin front of the hives, of a morning,
waen we first visit our apiary. This is
the effect of such cool weather as we have
in the’month in May, and often in June.
Lhave quite frequently seen heavy frosts
in these two months which killed the
flowers so that there was very little hon-
ey to be gathered by the bees; and rath-

65

er than starve they would at once fali
to work and destroy their young. Now,
when you sce this state of things going
on, you must prevent it at once, by feed-
ing as directed; except you will feed s
double quantity of syrup in their case.
Sometimes they will kill off their young
rather than swarm, but this you can pre-
vent by ariificial swarming, and make
them yourself, and make many good,
strong stocks by so doing, with an addi-
tion of a little feed. But if you desire
to obtain honey, do not practice artificia!
swarming very extensively; but keep:
your stocks strong with plenty of empty |
surplus frames, as above, and cut out all
queen-cells. —-

’ Foul Broods—Cause of.

I have no doubt but that this disease
is caused from impure honey and soured
bee-bread, which has been stored quite
early in the season by the bees. I think
it 1s quite like every other kind of na-
tnre’s production, which is frequently
gathered by the bees before it gets ripe
or fully matured; and being stored away

66

in close packages, as is the ease, which
we all know. They store’ bee-bread in
the brood-combs near where the young
bees are being raised, and there being so
much animal heat necessary to keep up
the proper temperature, it causes the fa-
rina, or bee-bread, which is gathered
first, to become soured, with the honey
also that they must use in preparing the
food for the young larve, and this im-
pure food must necessarily bring on dis-
ease, and is therefore called foul-brood.

Foul Brood—How Known.

Tt may very readily be ‘known ‘by its
offensive smell, and on a close examina-
_ you will discover that the brood is

verted dev, and’ Seems | te be all tail-
Ane in the cells, rather dark and
ropy-like mass. The best rémédy [have
ever found in treating this difease isa
preparation pr sha thus: také pure rain
water and Holl it ten minutes and’to éy-
ery gallon disso:ve four pounds of A
coffee sugar and again bring it'to a_ boil
and skim. Now to one quart of this
syrup put in a lump of borax (biporate

67

of soda) about as large asa me-
dium sized hickory nut, and thoroughly
dissolved while hot by stirring, and then
let cool until about blood heat then add
one oz. of laudinum, [tincture of opium |
also one table spoonful of good table salt
all to be well stirred before using, now
take a fine brush broom and sprinkle oy-

er the combs gently oncea day, cut_ out
all the dead brood.

Dysentery, or Bee Cholera.

This is also one of the most to be
‘dreaded diseases that the bee-keeper has
to contend with.- It is met with more
frequently than any other among bees.
Tt is very easy to distinguish it from any
other malady, yet Ido not think it con-
tagious as many suppose it tobe. The
bees have a tendency to be rather daun—
ey and also have a very unpleasant odor.
When you approach a_ stand affected
with dysentery they mope or craw! slow-
ly over their combs and often coming
out and discharge their excrement over
the hive as well as over their brood
combs and honey and if let alone often

68

dinger out a miserable life. In fact there
are more bees lost in North America
with this disease annually, than all the
rest of the diseases known to bees. It is
quite unpleasant to have a case of this
kind, and in fact it is net pleasant to
mect with a diseased subject of any kind,
either in the animal or human family,

Treatment of Bee Cholera.

But like either. of the last mentioned
races I claim it can be successfully treat-
ed when we find a colony troubled with
this complaint. The first thing to do is
to take the stand to. some quiet warm
place and open them out gently so as
not to get them to flying and have you
some eood syrup, made of honey if pos-
sible, boiling with a pint of good nice
rain water to two pounds of honey, and
skim it well, so as to take off all im-
purities, and. let cool, so, that you, can
now put one tabtc-spoonful in some old
bits of comb laid in your hive, and the
bees will come up and feed on this s syrup.
Feed the above amount onee a day reg-

69

ularly, when in a few days you. can set
them,

CHAPTER X.
The Italian Bees, and Their Supe-
‘viority over the Common Native
Bee. .

Let me here say that the description
of this. class or race of bees has so often
been explained heretofore that I hardly
deem it necessary to enter into a full de-

tail, but suffice it to say that all who
have: tested their qualities as workers
universally acknow Jedee them as being
far ahead of the native or common bees
of this country.. In the first place, they
are more friendly disposed tdéward their

keeper, and:can be handled with more
pleasure, and less danger of being stung,
while it is acknowledged by all that
they are by far better honey gatherers;
also, they are larger than the Black
Bees, and defend their hives from rob-
bers better, and, ina word, let me say I
have yet to hear of a colony of pure
Italians ever being taken with the pest,

70

called the moth worms; while we, as
bee-keepers, can not say the same for
the native class we have had and tested
over a century in this country. The
Italian queens being of a very beautiful
golden color, are more easily found in a
hive or swarm, and are more prolific
than black queens are, which give their
keeper larger and stronger swarms ear-
lier in the season, so that we can be
more certain of getting a generous sup-
ply of honey, if native fields, with their
millions of bloom, secrete-the nectar
for them to work on. ‘This class, called .
the Italian Bees, were discovered dur-
ing the wars of Napoleon by Captain
Boldenstein, who brought them over the
Alps in 1843. They were also intro-
duced by’ a celebrated German bee-
keeper, in 1853, into Germany, and in
1860 into the United States. I should
say more in their favor, but I fear some
one will at once say that Hicks is grind-
ing his ax for the sale of queens; but be
this as it may, let me say to you, brother
bee-keeper, that if you once try the pure
ltalian Bees, you would not give one
stock fer two of our old-fashioned na-

: id

,
tives, which we first procured as seed
from the woods. -I have them as pure
as they are in Italy, and am better
pleased every day with them; and if you
would come to my apiary you would be
convinced the sameas I am. I could
here give many names as references who
have procured queens of me who have
universally spoke in praiseot the Italian
Bees as being by far superior to the old-
fashioned kind; they also work on red
clover in August, While the honey har-
vest is scarce they seem to be busy on
many dark and misty days, while the
black bees are idle, and using up their
already scanty supply.

How-to Italianize a Hundred
Stands with QGne Queen, and
Leave Her in the Same Hive.

After you have a good queen intro-
duced, as before stated [see lesson on
introducing Italian queen to bees], you
will, as soon as she is laying eggs freely,
20 and kill, say about four bees in your

black stock, and in eight days go to
them again, open and examine care-

72
fully and cut out all queen cells. Then
you can take out one frame of each hive
and brush the bees back into their own
hives. Now go to your Italian stock,
and take four frames; br ushing the bees
of into their own hive, and put in the
four from the other stocks, and give each
black stock a frame from the Italian
brood from which they will raise queens
from the fresh eggs, pure Italian, and if
you have other black stock you can also
vo and kill their queens, and in eight
days you can cut out part of the queen’s
cellg and divide them by inserting the
combs, which will save much precious
time.

What is Poilen, and Why Bees Use
it for Food. :

In this lesson we shall perhaps differ
greatly from most bee- -keepers. Pollen
is the ‘fecundating dust of plants, and is
ofa mealy like substance, which bees of
all classes seem to have a special desire
for, and especially so with the honey bee
as it is well known by all persons who
keep them, that they gather and carry

mS
)

into their hives in large quantities, of
which it is said they use during winter
as food; but my experience has tar ght
me to respect this idea of theirs so far
only as the young bees are concerned,
which are under fourteen days old, after
being hatched, and before they become
outside workers, for it is ine their mi-
nority that they are the nurse-bees in the
hive, as well as they are the wax-work-
evs the first thirty days of their active
life in gathering honey, pollen and
water for supplies, after which they per-
form such other duties as are necessary
about the hive, in guarding and de-
fending that which they have spent the
best part of their lives for. Dear read-
er, let me once more say to you that the
worker bee does not live over fifty days
from the time it commences its labors
as a honey gatherer. It is also my opin-
on’ that the older bees are the ones that
bring in what is known as pfopolis or
bee-glue, of which they use large quan-
tities to close up cracks and openings in
their hives, This pollen is bread for
the young and tender bees that are per-
forming duty in the hive, in preparing

74

food for the young yet unhatched, and
also, it is my opinion, which I feel cer-
tain, is quite correct, that it is those bees
that are always most busy in cleaning

eells from which bees are constantly
hatching.

How to Feed Weak Stocks in Order
to Save Them,

This will be a job deserving of some
care; but while it has been my misfor-
tune to meet with many such in my
travels among bee-keepers, I will here
give my method, which I haye found
nine times in ten to prove effectual. It
you have honey, I wonld recominend it
to be used, but if not, then sugar will
do by preparing it thus: Take rain water
and heat.it to a boil, afer which put
intoa quart of water four pounds of A
coffee sugar, or, 1f honey is to be used,
put in six pounds of honey, stir well un-
til itagain boils, and then skim off all
impurities, and let cool. Now you can
tike some bits of old combs, and pour a
spoonful or two on the same, and place
in the top of or on the hiye, so the bees

75

can come up and take it alidown. Ifit
is in the winter, set your hive in a warm
room, where there will be no noise or
confusion, feed regular every day for ten
or fifteen days. This mode will save.
many stocks that would otherwise be
lost. It will pay to feed all such stocks.

?

Old Fozies Must Succumb.

‘Bui, says one old fogy, if I have to do
allthis, 1 would rather let them go.
Yes, my old friend, your ideas are just
what has got most "bee- ‘keepers in past
ages to believe it is all in luck, when, in
fact, it isscience. Will you attend to

it? Let me here suggest that when you

°

have a pig, or a calf, eow or horse that
has met with some accident, and got
down, as the saying is, at the heel,
would you let them go? ‘T rather euess |
not, but would at once proceed to doctor
them up, and reap your reward in the
future by the increase of its value.
Therefore let me impress it upon you to
attend to your bees at once, w hen you
can so easily do so by following the
directions laid down in this little ‘book,

76

Avice to Beginners in Apicul-
ture.

T will here say a few words to those
whocontemplate going into the business
of keeping bees as a means of making a
living at.it, which, I apprehend will be
many, when I shall lave gone, .and not
return this way any more. First, let
me say that February or March are the
best months inwhich to make your pur-
chases of stocks; and don’t always
choose the heaviest as best, but rather
select those with good bright combs and
a sufficiency of honey to last two months.
Also let me say, if you desire to succeed
in the business, you must adopta good
movable frame hive, and get you a neat
and well made sample, by which you
will also make or have made all the
hives you may need for a year, just like
the sample hive, and have them all
painted two good coats of paint and oil.
Then, when the bees are about to
swarm, I would have all the stocks
transferred into your new hives, and in
all probability you can have an increas
of one-third by your operation of trans-

ut
ferring, if you are careful and under-
stand what you are doing. [See lesson
on transferring.| It will be necessary
that you look at your bees by opening
the hives at least once or twice a week,
and if you should discover any moth-
worms, take them out of the brood
combs. with a sharp-pointed knife, also,
don’t fail to put your foot. on every
worm, and send it to its long home.
Don’t try to do too much the first year,
as here is where many make failures in
starting out with big ideas, and finally
pronounce the businessa humbug. But
let me say there is no surer way in ail
the agricultural pursuits than the busi-
ness, and yet it may be badly managed,
and prove almost ruinous to those who
neglect its demands, and finally the next
we hear of them is that they pronounce
it all in luck, and wind up with perhaps
many dollars out of pocket. And yet I
know of hundreds who have made it a
suecess, and some of them have made
fortunes. It is a business in which both
old and young can engage, and make it
a success if they will put their energies
to work witha will and determination

78

to go through. I know of two young
ladies, sisters, who madenearly seven
thousand dollars in one year; and yet
they live in the cold and bleak State’ of
Wisconsin. I. will further add that
there i is § scarcely any place in the United
States so poor but there can be a few
sis of bees kept to advantage, while
almost any person could and can keep
bees, which will yield a larger income
* than any other stock can possibly do
with the same cost ere expense, It is
also a fact that no one dare gainsay that
bees will pay better dividends on. the
capital inyested than .United States
bonds of any class or series, and better
than any railroad, canal, turnpike or
gravel road coporation have or will ever
pay in. this. country. Not even the
banking business can begin to pay such
dividends as bees well managed pay
their owners, I know that many will
say I have gone wild on this subject; but
here allow me to say I know ofa gen-
tleman in Northwestern Indiana who
made five hundred dollars in one season
from one stand of bees in his door-yard.

79

Each Month’s Labors Laid Out for
the Apiary.

Marcu—This is the month you
should see that all your bees have a
generous supply, and ifthe weather is
warm you should set them on their
regular stands for the seasen.

Aprit—Examine and see that they
feed plentiful; also be careful and set
all your hives where you intend them to
remain, keep a cover over all your
stocks; also, if they are not gathering
pollen, give rye bread.

May—Examine carefully, and sce
that all stocks have a prolific qneon,
and that no robbing is going on. |

JuNE—In this month you should
supply the surplus chamber with
frames or boxes, and give them all the
combs you can to fill with surplus
honey, and if you don’t wish swarming,
eut out all the queen cells. .

Juiy—If you desire so to do, now is
your time for transferring and making
up a few extra colonies; if not, keep
plenty of frames or boxes supplied for
others te steve surplus honey in.

80

AuGcusrt—Now is the greatest time
for trouble with the robbers. Keep the
entrances elena so thata single bee

can pass out and inata time. Also be
careful about the moth-worm, and be
sure to kill all you see.

SEPTEMBER—Now is the time. that
. you should keep all your stocks: strong

in numbers, and see well to it that they
all have good prolific queens.. It is
also.a good month to procure Italian
queens.

OcToBER—Is geod, also, to introduce
queens, and guard well against moth-
worms; also see that you keep your bees
in good condition.

NovEMBER—In this month equalize
your bees, and take away all honey
from the caps, but leave plenty in the
brood chamber, so they will be supplied
through the winter.

DrEcEMBER—This is the first winter
month, and is the proper time to hive
your bees; if the weather gets cold so. as
to freeze the gronnd quite hard, close up
all lower ventilation when you put them
in your bee hive, eellar or cave, which
should have slenty of upper ventilation;

£81

the hives must have: upper ventilation;
keep the temperature at about 35 deg,
above zero, and keep the place you haye
your bees stored in very- dark and quiet.
If the winter should be very open and
warm, I would;,recommend to leave
them on their summer stands, ard fill
the top of your hives with dry cobs or
fine eut straw, made quite dry. ely
— JANuUARY—This is the month in
which have all the hives you need fer
the coming year made and well painted,
which will be in readiness for swarming
season or artificial division, which is by
far the best where you use a good frame
hive,. |
FEBRUARY—See well to it that your
bees are well supplied with honey, and
if you haye any stocks from which you
expect to breed queens and drones, you
should feed a little syrup about the 20th
of. this month. [See lesson on feeding
bees—weak stocks. | |

‘Last, though not-least, I will here
once -more impress it tpon you to Le
prompt in all your undertakings with
bees, and do everything in due season,
as per advice, and success is yours, with

a rich reward for all your troubles; also,
it isa true saying whatever is worth do-
ing at all is worth doing well.

On Choosing a Location for an
Apiary.

In making your selection, let me say,
choose an east view, so your hives may
have the benefit of the early morning
rays of the sun to enliven them to early
action in gathering honey and pollen,
allof which is necessary to the welfare
of your bees, as well, also, as to the
keeper. If the above position or situa-
tion cannot be obtained, or something
as near as possible, I wonld, asa next
best choice, take a south front, but by
no means allow your stands to receive
the noonday sun, as this would be detri-
mental, quite often causing the combs
to melt down and destroy your bees, as
well as your honey, and set bees to rob-
bing.

How to Build a Bee House.

Now, dear reader, let me tell you how
I build a bee house, one thatany farmer,

83

as well as the more polished ' mechanie,
can build quite cheap. Set two rows of
posts, say about. six feet apart in one
row, and ia the other twelve feet apart,
and eight feet’ apart in the last men-
tioned row, and in the first let your
posts be about six feet above ground,
and cut them off on a line quite level,
and spike poles or scantling on top to
rest your rafters on; then spike a scant-
ling about six inches above the ground
en your lowest row_of posts, which now
prepares it for siding, likea barn, on
one side, then put on a good roof of
elapboard or plank; this constitutes your
bee house, Youcan arrange your bees
under this. shed so the hives will front .
eastward and to the open side of your
shed, which is all sufficient for summer
tise, remembering always to set the hives
about three inches clear of the ground
by driving four small stakes down, and.
Jeveling them so the hive will stand
quite plumb. Let the hives stand about
eighteen inches clear of each other, re-
membering, also, to have them painted
of different colors. and set alternate, "ne
tayo of the same shade-side by side,

84

which will, if practiced as€I have sug-
gested, save many valuable queens for
you in the course of a season.

Pasturage for Hees.

I would next recommend you and all
the rest of mankind to sow seeds of va-
rious kinds, such as Alsyke clover, white
clover, plant trees and shrubs of various
kinds, as they will be useful for bees, as
well as for man and beast, producing the
best of pasturage for stock, and hay for
feeding your cattle, sheep and horses
during winter; especially the Alsyke
clover can not be excelled for hay, as
well as for honey. It stands ahead of
all other, There are many trees I might
here mention as shade and fruit trees, of
which the linden or basswood is_ first,
poplar maple, elm, buckeye or horse-
chestnut, also, [the yellow willow is fine
for bees, together with apple, peach,
pear, plumb, apricot, nectarine, cherry,
quince, and I would not forget the black
locust; also, there are many small shrubs
which are of value, such > as currant,
gooseberry, raspberry and blackberry,

85

ef which I need not mention further, as
they are common to almost all who have
any knowledge of farming or gardening,
and are all good for honey.

CHAPTER XI.

Bee Stings, and Remedies fot the
3193 same, |

I will here give a cure for bee sting.
As soon as you are stung procure a good.
sized padlock key, fill the barrel about
half full of soda and salt mixed, then fill
up with water, or cider vinegar is better,
then apply the key over the wound with
the solution on the part so as to cover
where the sting was extracted, which
should always be done first with your
finger nail or knife blade.

Another Simple and Sure Remedy

That all persons have at their fingers-
end isto first extract the sting as soon as
possible, as before stated, with your nail
or knife-blade, then wet the end of your
finger in your mouth, and then insert it

86

in your ear, so as to get wax from what
we might calla dirty ear, and rub on
the wound, which will give relief quite
soon. ‘This isa sure and positive cure,
which we all have at any time and place
~ we happen to’ be. It sometimes hap-
pens that persons get badly stung, and
that it makes them very sick, causing
terrible swelling, blindness, and excru-
ciating pain. In all such cases I would
recommend a free use of salt water as a
wash, abundantly applied to the parts
stung, and a cup of warm water, with a
table-spoonful of mustard, well stirred
in as an emetic, which must be drank at
once, so as to produce vomiting as soon
as possible. This will relieve in severe
eases.

The Profits of Bee-keeping Com-
pared with that of - Other
Stocks.

In this article I propose to show you,
dear reader, that there is no other in-
vestment that will begin to pay the
profits to the owner that bees will if
properly and fairly managed, yet how

87

often is it’ that persons will try to snub
you, and turn. up. their noses’ and say
“tis too small a business for me,” when,

if yow were to» take. the trouble to. in-
vestigate the profits: they reap year after
year, you would find that you,» with
ten stands of bees properly:, managed,

would reap a larger income im one) year
than that \man-or woman !who is afraid
of getting’ into’ the small: business of
bee-keeping.: ° For instance, let‘us look,
and contrast one'stand of bees and) the
profits of the sanie with that of a sheep
for) one or two-years.- We will allow,
say five dollars’ for the sheep; and. the
same for the bees,’ which Lb thinkis: a
fair price. Now forthe result. “The
bees will have, say one extra stand, as
they, no doubty twill swarm (which I
would much prefer—artifieialh .swarm-
ding), and you will, of an ordinary, sea-
son, get, say forty pounds of honey to
the stand, worth thirty cents per pound.
‘This would: bring you twenty-four dol-
Jars, and your extra swarm is worth five
dollars more; in all it: would be twenty-
nine dollars. Deducting the cost of hive,

say two dollars, would leaye you twenty-

8§

seven dollars clear profit. Now what
has the sheep made all this time? for I
wish to be fair, and give due credits
where they belong. Well, in the. first
place, it is worth three dotlars a year to
feed the sheep, and say we now have a
lamb six months old, worth two dollars
and fifty cents for wool and lamb, which
leaves only fifty cents as profit, to sa
nothing about time and trouble of feed-
ing both winter and summer, while
vour bees have boarded themselves and
made you a clear gain’ of twenty-seven
dollars. But, says some doubting
Thomas, this will do to talk about and
show on paper. Well, Mr. T., I pre-
pose to more than double this with my
bees, and will here challenge any man
_ to try me on ten or twenty stands of
bees, and he to take the same number
of sheep, and if I will not double his
profits in one or ten years, he shall have
ali I make from the bees, if he will do
the same by me and give me all. his
sheep, with their increase, at the end: ef
said term if I beat him. |

~~

89

A Mystery Much Doubted by Other
Authors.

I have often forced a colony of bees
to make queens by taking their queen
from them, which they at once proceed-

_ed to supply as soon as they discover

their mother.queen missing, and it often
happens that when their young queen
has hatched out and become fully of age
to meet the drone, she will make her
bridal tour, and is lost by some acci-
dent—high winds, or a bird may catch
her before she reaches her home again.
This, I say, is often the case, which
should always keep the bee-keeper on
the lookout, and to know the exact
condition of every hive of bees in his
apiary; and if he should find a stoek of
bees thus made queenless, it demands
his immediate attention, and he should
have one or two frames of brood with
eges exchanged from some other strong

stock, in order that they may again

make a queen for themselves. Now
comes the mysterious part. You will
often find queen cells built on one or
more of their old combs in which there

90

could not have beena single egg, except it.
was transferred from one of the combs
which you gave them with eggs and
brood .How came they to build.a queen
cell.on a sheet of comb of thei, own
when there could not have been an egg
in it, except by transfer from. one comb
to another? Oh, says one, they had
eee of their own., Now, my dear read-

r, here let me say this can not be so,
fam the fact that bees do make their
qneens from eggs that are laid or de-
posited by a fertile queen in the worker
cells, and they can not. be thus conyert—
ed.or, transferred .into a royal queen
after. they are seven days old... Hence
you will discover that. during the time
required to hatch the queen that was
lost'on the bridal trip would have, been
some twenty-four or, five days up to the
time you discovered. your stoek, was
queenless, and gave them the, frames. of
brood, as above referred, ic. . L»appre-
hend that the theory, as taught by many |
writers, about the queen depositing the
egg in the royal cell is false, and can not
be relied on as being correct; and that

=)
the worker bees, which are not more

$1

than fourteen days old, are the managers:
of all that pertains to the welfare of the
inside arrangements of the hive, I have
no doubt, for we-sce them, as’ I have
before remarked; enter on> their duties
from the moment they are hatched” ont
of theircells. “Ty think Ihave said
enongh upon thispoint, and shall leave
the student to his observatory hive for
farther instructions, whieh: wills be of
_more value to you than all’ I could
write in an age; yet. this. ae serve to
give you as start. .

Inverted Brood, ‘and What. is the
| Result.

a here wish, for the purpose a draw-
ing from others, if possible, their views
as to the true cause “of the young bees
being raised or nearly matured in their
cells, with their, posterior, in front of
cells, which I shave often scen, and can
not account for such a state of affairs.
Would it not be reasonable to suppose
that this would cause foul brood, which
is so. much dreaded by bee-keepers? Tt
is my humble popmsion this state of

92

things would naturally be inclined to
produce said disease, from the fact that
it would be impossible for them to hateh
with their heads toward the center of
the comb and the tail outwards, which
must produce death before they are
fully matured, and a perfect ropy mass
will be the result, which, with the ani-
mal heat of the older bees, causes a pu-
trid and offensive smell, which is not
pleasant to the apiarian or visitor, and .
to be loathed by all who may come in
contact with it. I have often seen such
brood, and I think, without exception,
foul brood ensued if they were not taken
out in due time. I desire the opinions
of others as to the true cause, if any
other there be. Let me hear from any
one who is well posted on the subject of
foul brood.

‘Who may Keep Bees and Make
Them Pay.

In connection with the above sub-
ject, I might say a great deal, and many
things that would tickle the mind, as
well as make you feel quite certain that

93

God never made a man, woman or child
who had arrived at a proper age of dis-
eretion but could keep bees. But while
T claim this to be true, I also. know that
there are many who.are too indolent and
careless to even keep themselves, mutch
lege take care of a few stands of bees.
And yet, notwithstanding, I might add
that the poor, as well as the rich, can
make bee-keeping quite profitable.
Then let me further say, the farmer, the
mechanic or the lawyer, as well as
the doctor who may have a few moments
to spare morning andevening, may keep
a few stands of bees, as well as the poor
washerwoman, or a lady with her thou-
sands of dollars can make bee-keeping a
success, and have upon her table one of
nature’s richest and choisest of luxuries
ata very small expense. I may also
add to the list very many ministers of
the gospel, who have worn themselves
out in the service of the ministry. and
have been superannuated on account of
poor health. To allsuch let me say,
try bee-keeping. If you but try you
will:become interested in the business,
and make it pay. I would not. forget,

04

also, the poor consumptive, who needs
out-door exercise in order to get pure
air for his or her lungs, with that of
moderate exercise for the body. ‘Toall
such as mentioned let me say, if you are
poor from, and have been in theservice
of the Gospel, standing as'‘a superan—
nuated minister, | will let you have one
of my hives, w ith bees in ‘the same, at
half price, and give you the: right: to
make and use all you may want: “thete-
after.

Twill now talk to the ladies a little.
And first. allow ome to «say that when
they become interested in the bee busi—
ness they make ‘the best of apiarians,
from the fact that they take more pains
in the handling of their bees thairomen
do; and at is, inothe: very nature! of
things; adapted to their nature‘and dis-
position, for there is nothing that loves
kind treatment better than a. swarm of
bees, which ladies are. always ready | to
bestow. Furthermore, they attend more
closely and strictly to 6c: work, which
is the only sure road to success, ‘as it
begets industrious and steady habits.
If we could induce the young and rising

95.

generation to pay more attention to bee-
keeping, and not so much to the flippant
styles of fashion, we would have a bet-
ter class of men and women, and fewer
paupers and convicts in our asylums,
penitentiaries and county jails.

How to Winter Bees Successfully.

In this lesson I will give the most
approved plan, at least the one I like
best. In the first place, let me say,
never put your bees away in their win-
ter quarters until the weather has,.be-
eome settled cold and the ground. has
frozen quite hard. Then you can put
them in a cellar, if it is a dry one, but
if not let me entreat you to prepare a
house with double walls, so that you
can fill the space with spent tanbark, or
sawdust will do; at any rate, prepare a
house that will prevent freezing, as it
requires, a great deal more . honey
to winter out in the open air than
it does in a place that is dry and will
not freeze. After you have thus pre-
pared suitable winter quarters, you cds
now set your bees in carefully, not jarr-

96

ing them in handling, and place the
stands, say about six inches apart, leay-
ing plenty of upper ventilation; also, be
careful that mice do not enter any of
the stocks and cut the combs, as well as
kill many of the bees. It is a well
known fact that the wood mice are
death to bees, and often destroy a whole
swarm ina few days. You must keep
your cellar, or bee house (as the case
may be), cool enough, so that the bees
will not become restless: also, warm
enough so that it will not freeze; the
proper temperature is about 35 degrees
above zero, and if dry, you will have
no trouble in wintering safely through.

How toiKeep Honey from Souring,

. This may be done either of two ways
or modes, The first is to boil and skim
thoroughly, and put away in good
earthen or glass jars, and cover up
closely. In this way I have kept, and
have known others to keep, honey sev-
eral years. But if you desire to keep
your honey so as.to retain’ all its origi-
nal flayor, vou will let it ‘stand® few

\

97

hours in an open vessel, and then warm

itup-to about blood heat, which will
cause all impurities to come to the top,
which you will take off gently with a
large spoon or fine skimmer, then jar
and can as you would fruit, which will
also keep for five years and be good.

To Keep Honey from Granulating.

You must boil gently thirty minutes,
- and skim off all impurities, and place
away in ordinary jars, and keep covered
with paper, or a cloth will do, when
kept close, to keep out all dust or in-
sects.

To Make Tatty from Honey for the
Children.

Let me say this is one of the most
healthy and best of candies for our little
_ folk, which can be prepared thus: Take,
say a quart of good strained honey and
cook it in a skillet, or an oven such as
eur mothers used to bake the good old-
fashioned corn dodger in, and ‘put into
ita small lump of alum half the size of

98

a small hickory nut, and boil until it
begins. fo make wax, ‘which you can test
by having a cup of cold water, and with
a spoon drop afew drops into it, and
you can soon judge of its qualities,
which, when suificiently hard to suit,
you may now take pie-pans and butter
them before pouring the taffy in, after

which pull, and use as best suits your
taste.

What is Honey Dew, and How is It
Produced? —

I do not wish to go into along de-
tailed story, but shall proceed at once
to give my own views, which I believe
are as near correct as anything I have
ever read upon the subject; hence, if f
should reiterate in part the views ‘of any
former opinion expressed, it will only
be so far as I shall. coincide with some
of the expressions that have come under
my.especial notice. But feeling that all
is not true that has been or yet remains
to be written, I shall therefore give you,
dear re aders, what I feek assured ate
facts, so far as I have been able bo

99

eather them. Tlence, when we take

into account the my steries that’ Nature’s
God. has brought about to produce and
perfect her work in all the vegetable, as
well as the animal and insect kingdoms,
I feel like saying that honey dew is also
one of the many mysteries, that man 1s
not yet fully acquainted with. But
when we look back to days that have

passed and gone, we can fully recollect
that honey ‘dews aly rays come when the
weather is warm and pleasant, and the
trees and shrubs all dressed in living
green; likewise, the flowers are out in
fae bloom, sony that we behold all na-
ture smiling in her beauty. Then it is
that we sce, ak a beautiful, bright morn-
ing, the leaves of many and various
kinds of bushes fairly elistening with
that sweet nectar called honey dew.
Hence, I believe it to be secreted in the
many and various flowers through the
night, and, by the chemical action of the
sun of those warm days, it 1s taken up
into the atmosphere in a condensed
form, and then returns to the earth in a
liquid, lodging upon the shrubs and
trees in the night time, and. i is one of the

jad

richest harvests for our bees. In other
¥ Bie s, it is the rich odor of flowers and
plants thrown off in the day time that is
thus returned in ihe sweet-like sub—
stance sometimes so bountifully bestowed
for the good of man, It also feeds many
thousands of insects, and supports many
colonies of bees. But, as is often said,
many who profess that there is an in-
sect, called aphis, producing honey
dews, as we commonly understand the
term, I do not believe; yet I am well
aware that there are such insects, and
tree and bud lice, that suck the juice
of the tender leaves and buds of various
shrubs, and will exude a substance simi-
lar to honey dews; but surely we could
not be so foolish as to believe it to be
honey dew of the regular order,

A Visit to the North American
Bee-keepers Convention in 1871.

Tt has been my province to examine
several works on this drone question as
to purity, and. Iclaim that it is a fixed
fact in nature that the drone is effeeted
in its purity, as wellas the workers of

LOL

all queens that may become fertilized by
black drones,- is certainly reasonable,
and why Mr. Kretchmer, who has pub-
lished two different books on bee-keep~
ing, should say that all drones from an
Ttalian queen which has been fertilized
by a black drone are pure is certainly a
stretch in a direction that takes nature’s
Jaws down, as well as natural science.
[See last edition, page 125,] And
again, when he, in the same book, page
126, states that the drones vary in color
more than queens or workers, | sup-
pose he has direct reference to the Ital-
ian drones; if so, I do not wonder at
such discrepancies, and must say to yeu,
friend IKretchmer, I do not wish te
make any purchases of your so-called
ftalian pure stock. I feel that all such
theories should and will be put down
as the people become more enlightened
on the subject; and while I think of it,
leh me say that in 1871, while I at-
tended the North American Bee-keep-
ers’ Convention at Cleveland, Ohio, it
afforded me much pleasure to hear the
different views of many who professed to
be well posted on the drene question,

102

one of whom was a doctor Bowyer, of
Alexandria, Indiana, and who had_ the
starch all taken out of him by that old
and venerable sage, doctor and profes-
sor, Curtland, a man for whom I enter-
tain the highest respect, and give great
credit to his views, who boldly asserted
before the entire convention that it was
certain that a pure blood was tainted by
cohabiting with another or mixed race,
and that it weuld hold good in the in-
sect as well as the animal or human
ereation, and I believe especially so
where the female is of pure blood of a
different class. Now, it is admitted by
all that the Italian bee is of a different
class and of a superior race to that of
the black bee of this country, and when
the two races are brought together and
bred as, above spoken’ of, it will effect
the entire family, and continue to do so
as: long as that mother queen faises bees
or drones that fertilize your young
queens. IL would, therefore, advise you,
dear reader, to be careful in making
your purchases. If you desire to get pure
ce and keep them so, you will first
have to get that which is pure, and then

105

breed as directed-and laid down in this
book, and success will crown your ef-
forts. [See lesson Page 61. How to
Raise Italian drones. |

J ean not refrain from giving friend
Quinby a passing notice, who claims to
have raised virgin queens late in the fall
for the purpose of having carly drones
the next spring. [See his second edi-
tion, page 37.| I do not miss my guess
very much when I say to him, is so
far as such drones are concerned, hey
are wholly worthless, and never were
known to fertilize a queen at any time
of the year, and I doubt his cr any one
else ever w ues such a stock over,

[See pages 28, 29 and 380, this Book.]

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INDEX.

PAGE.
The Natural History and Description of the Honey Bee, 1
Drones sre Larger than the Worker i ar a About a
BENITO IEC, wusesemeyidducedasdeccteroveleivedeestotensonvenstra >:
Size and Shape of QUEENS oo eeeccesses cess ceerevessescenenaet eaves 3
Age of Queens Not Certain-—A Test of Queens Laying .
at Peaitereere Peeeervreecceara SHO eHHFHE UTE HTH SORTTIEPED ?
‘Be Queens ‘Sting. es edie. Pande tomer,
Construction of. “Royal Ts eae ee Te re a ce
Impregnation of the QUEEN. eseecsssrenertser seenee eneaer senses 10.
Artificial Fertilization in Confinement (0.022 cei
How a lertile Queen is Known., apes deri 2
How a Virgin Queen or Drone-Laying =o is
Known—An Instance of Two Queens in One Hive...... 18
The Impregnating or Seminal Fluid............ he ic
On Swarming, and Why Bees Swar m—First Swarm... _ 16
‘The Old Queen Going with: Them,,......, 18

When the First Swarm is Cast—The P" ed ‘ot the -
Qos ii eos wsrae ee LD
Queens Do Often Meet in Mortal Nees ig BP iit cok eae ho).
What a Queen Cell Looks Like,...........ccccssaccovcosceseceeore 2°
What A Royal Queen Cellis Made Ol aren alctieicaeee
Do Bees Supercede ‘heir Queems,,........sccccccecesscceserescns " 26
imaierwecplanation of Sexiss a Bene: Ja ceacsporepsissscosee
Qn So aaiinaia Bees and Braod into Movable “Frame
ves,. ded TT eeoresn secon sececerrccesecccrerosees
Ww tae is it that Bees of ‘he Present Day do not Swarm go
Much nor Make as Much Honey as They Did Years
Ago, During the Early Settlement of the Country...... 25
Do Queens Have a Sting? Andif so, Do They Ever Use
Then and What Ont gee. ces Ne estas insecimemee OF
More Persons than do Should Keep Bees, sche eee 39
Artificially Swarming Bees,.0....,.....::csccsscssssssscevvsersesvean 42

A Fertile’ Ww orker—How Kaown,, reer scien Sen ORESTeT 2902

How to Get Rid of the Fertile Worker—On the Drone -
Question, and What the Drone is For
Opinion of General Adair Doubted
Drivine Bees into New dives... 0.3) eee nu vieatgtan
How to Locate Bees After Dri IU AINO is 2, ee
How to Ifive Bees and Settle Them When Allowed to
FS WALI hoe ieee ian S 2 scaeuis #00 o oeleg gaeeeene nee aimee ee
On Patent or Movable F rame Hives... wiesehetenemennels
Competition of the Hicks Bee-Hive,,...............0.00...
}rauds Should be Put Down—The Hicks Bee- ilive. is
_One ot the Easiest Hiv es to Handle Bees in,

weet eeeee eeaeeuses

Pe eee eset eee ens Bebeseess

ABOOCOTE: ver eeeeretorereveseeeess

woven eases sagen

How to Raise Ttalian Diones arly Sovtae 2... MR eee rae
Teteodiciie a Queen toa Full Oolaties of meee Nase :
How to Raise or Breed Quebis se seem Ris ec
How to Prevent Bees from Destroying Their “Young,
and, te r@auBe, J.) iss. cie eked ghad vated ike eae
Fouls Brood —Cause.s0fi, 53 s20104..0 snk eee, Ree
Koul Brood—How Known,
Dysentery, or Bee Cholera...
Treatment of Bee Cholera,, «fo eet Sie MUL ASAP ae
The Italian Bees, and heir ‘Superiority Over tho Com-
nion INatlve "BEC. ccci- cen: we eee reaeeif,
TIow to Italianize a Hundred’ Stands with One poe
and Leaye Her, in, the Same Hives... 5.12.00 aeenee
What is-Pollen, and Why Bees Use itfor lood., Das
How to Féed Weak Stocks in Order to Save Them... ies
Old Rogies: Aust Succumb s35, 2a. eeeetes eseeoen es aes :
Advice to Beginners in Apiculture... suehaaveneleesdscddcece
Kach Month’s Labors Laid Out for the A DIALY onc cccscevete
On Choosing a Location for an Apiar ieee. to Builda
BEC-NOUSE., .ccccosnasee sans, Melathe dee lagiedee mannan amma ee
Pasturage for BepS 2c cant keds. REO ae eeetee
Ree Stings, and Remedies for the Same—Another Sim-
pleand Sure Remedy,........ ashlee eda tue nba seanseoteet
The Profits of Bee- Keeping “Compared with that of
OPher STOCK « .,... wascascesss <gsstee eee Biativd EURO alias
A Mystery Much Doubted by Other Authors,..... noes SOV
Inverted Brood, and What is the Result.........ccssceseseee
Who May Keep Bees and Make Them Pay. sc daeliitauoubeaetae te
How to Winter Bees Successfully FUE Cel guaeeee es
Tow to Keep Honey from Souring,.............-206..:
To Keep Honey irom Granulating—To Make diate

DORR E ROR ER e ee COOPER ETS SOn erent eB EOESe

tse neers Paaee Cem meee en eee ae eeeeteeee oes

se eereseees

for the Children,,.,.. .. ob sobs Spek statee act Roe
What is Honey Dew ‘and How is It Produced. re ee peers
A Visit to the North American Bee- -Keepers’ Conven-

eeecoee eenseeee ©

pm onl a Ol a)

tion in a hyp Umea s ves gee SRTSAT ee eret cegererereee rev eseree Sait aD

ERRATA,

The first word in the last line of introductory remarks
should read ‘‘laws,’’ in place of ‘‘was.”’

The first word in last line on page 43 should read
“some,” and not ‘same.’ Also, on page 5],in lesson
“Tlow to Hive Bees,’’ the word ‘nearly,’ in the seventh
line, should read ‘‘near by,’’ On page 53, third line from
bottom, the first word should read ‘Seight,’’ in place of
‘ight.’”? Also. the letter ‘‘o’’ in last word in twenty- first
line from top of page should be ‘‘c,”” and read as ‘‘nice.”’
On pages 54and 55, the word ‘‘Completion” should read
“Competition of the Hicks Bee-hive,’’ and not ‘““Comple-
tien Hicks Hive.’’ On page 62, fifteenth line, the word
‘for’ should read ‘{from; and on page 64 the word ‘‘in’”
should te “‘of,” in fifth line from bottom, after ‘‘month,’’
Also, the last word on page 66 should be “‘bicarbonate,”’
in place of ‘‘biporate.” On page 69, the second line
shouln have the words ‘‘back on their stand’ supplied, in
order to make the lesson clear and comprehensive in the
treatment of bee cholera. On page’70, the word ‘‘native,’’
in twelfth line from top, should “read “nature,” and on
page 71 we find in third line from bottom the word
“bees,” which should be ‘‘qneens;”’..‘‘stocks,’’ in second
line from bottom, should be “stacks. Also, on page 72,
line 14, the word “‘in’’ should be used after ‘“‘inserting,’’ to
makesense. On page 77, line sixteen, just before ‘“‘busi-
ness’’ should be “‘this business.”” On page 79,*in lesson for
April, the word ‘‘have’’ should be used before: ‘‘feed,’’ to
make proper sense; and ‘‘meal’’ should be used in place of
‘‘bread.’? On pege 80, the word “‘hive,’’ in December les-
on should be ‘‘house,’’ which is used in second and sixth
ines. ;

Price ist cf

FLIV ES, BEES

AND

ITALIAN QUBEINE.

At Retail and by the Quantity.

SINGLE COPY OF THE

North American Bee-keeper’s Guide... .-..22....... cee $ 50
Hicks’ Bee Hive and Farm Right... ..cccccccscseseseee 10 00
Hicks’ Bee Hive, with Italian Bees, ooo. ....... es ceeeeeee 20 00
For Hicks’ Hives per dozen.................. heen cde ten aecentenes 36 00
Kialian Queen, single one tested............ «as cde near 5 00
Ltalian Queens Per COZEM, 2... ..ccccccseseccsccecssscoeeeseees 33 00
{talian Queens per half-dozen © ....0.)2 5. ue Cee ee 18 00
One imported Italian Queen.... . 5 heceeés tee oe ae ee 10 00
Alsike Clover Seed per pound ............e..ccccceccesseeees see? 50
Mustard Seed per pound oo. ...........ceeseceeeerer sevens avtee 30
Silver-hulled Buckwheat per pound ooo... ss... senses

Qo
Honey Extractors furnished at manufacturers’ ee the
best in the market.

Address:
J. M. HICKS & Co.,
Battle Ground, |
Tippecanoe County, Ind.

B.—Always be particular Ss write your name and
sdaves plainly, te avoid mistakes. ;

BeS-T desire to procure good ener-
getic Agents throughout the United
States and Territories, to whom liberal!
commissions will be allowed, aS age! as
good premiums in Bees, alten (Queens,
aad Hicks Lives, including the North
American Bee- iveeper’s’ Guide, a book up
with the times in Bee- -keeping, which
retails at fifty cents per single copy, and
is worth ten times the price to any
farmer or person contemplating going.
into the Bee business.

Address, with inclosed stamp for
terms, and you will always hear from

me, ae Me AICKS.

I also wish to negotiate and make ar-
rangements for all first-class honey, for
which I will pay cash or exchange Ital-
ian Queens, or Hicks Bee Hives, with
or without bees in the same. In a
word, I will exchange any article I keep
ior sale to supply Bee-keepers with for
good, first-class honey, at fair prices.

J. M. HICKS,
Battle Ground,
Tippecanoe County, Ind.

J@IDE. ICES & CO-

WILL FURNISH

TRIMMINGS AND HARDWARE

pn OR—

wile Se : i
Hicks’ Bee Hives,
—ALSO—

A Full Set of Transferring Tools,
FOR AGENTS, FURNISHED ON SHORT NOTICE,

Weare also prepared, to furnish the best
money-Bzxtracters,
AT MANUPACTURERS’ PRICES.

awe far ; p Ty

Knives for Uncapping Honey.
and WAX-EXTRACEORS.,.

Will also be furnished on Short Notiee and ai Low Price~

Address all orders to

J. M. HICKS & CO.,
Battie Ground,
ate ae Coes Ind.

ee

8a" Tbhe Best and Purest Stock of Brama Chickens “fur-
nished on reasonable terms for cash. It is a well-known
fact that the two families of Bramas—that of dark ana
light—if bred together, make the most hardy and best
chickens for the market, and by far the richest, sweetest
and best meat for use.

Address all orders to J. M. HICKS & CO..

Battle Groung, Ind.

er MM adtiargl or, (a) ©

4 Price 90c., Postpaid. og. =

THE

e
‘NORTH AMERICAN | :

a 8 0 \ 1G away gy oy ANY sj
SB / CA TS Ges, Sy —) ~
NAKA NOWAK AK ae NK STG =
~~

Sine = |. >

Pee Mm UICKS, |
Practical Apiarian, |
Battle Ground, Tippecanoe Oo., Ind. |

BEE STEAM PRINTING HOUSE,

Gog (J. L. COX & BRO., PRINTERS. 4 ay
1875. re | ae

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