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THE 


AMERICA 


BEE   JOURNAL. 


EDITED  BY  SAMUEL  WAGNER. 


To  Us,  both  field  and  grove. 


Garden  and  orchard,   lawn  and  tlo^^-ery  mead, 

The  blue-veiii'd  violet,  rich  columbine, 

The  wanton  cowslip,  daisies  in  their  prime, 

With  all  the  choicest  blossoms  of  tlie  lea, 

Are  free  allowed  and  given. "-PARLi.mENT  OF  Bees,  John  Day,  1607. 


VOLUME  V.-1869-70. 


PUBLISHED  BY 

SAMUEL   WAGNER,    WASHINaTON,    D.    C. 


18  7  0. 


638. OS" 
/Am3 


Index  to  Volume  V.-American  Bee  Journal. 


All  aboard!  244. 

Alleys'  ne w style  Langstmth  hive54 

Alsike  clover  34,  43,  59,  60,  80, 125, 

126,100,179.      '      '      '      '      ' 
Amateur  Beeculture  190. 
American  hive  264. 
ArRo'.s  proposal  61 .    Report  246. 
Artificial  bee  pasturage  166. 
Artificial  swarming  16,  74, 145,  203, 

2.52.  --^      1      . 

Asters  aiKl  Golden  Rod  124 . 
Auchampaugh's  question,  reply  to 

Au.stralian  honey  bee  91 . 

Bee  cellars,  ventilated,  2.^0. 

Bee  cholera  100. 

Bee  comb  guide  129,  167,  194,  201, 

Bee  culture  203,  dark  ages  in,  262. 

Bee  disease  206. 

Bee  feed  124,  141. 

Bee  feeder  14,  36,  68,  208,  238. 

Bee  house,  131, 161, 164. 

Bee  pasturage  29,  166. 

Bee  puzzle  193 . 

Bee  stings  9,  60,  210, 

Bee  tricks  43. 

Bee-keepers  239 .    Facts  for  28 . 

Bee-keepers'  convention  93,  94. 

Beekeeping  in  Egypt 21. 

Bee  keeping  in  India  109. 

Bees,  does  it  pay  to  keep?  216. 

Bees  dividing  10. 

Bees  in  Connecticut  9. 

Bees  in  Jefferson  (Wis.)  1.58. 

Bees  in  Massachusetts  178 . 

Bees  in  New  Jersey  238 . 

Bees  in  Southern  States  254 . 

Bees  in  Tompkins  co.,  N.  Y.,  114. 

Bees  in  Yucatan  179 . 

Bees,  Italian  6,  35,  145, 198 . 

Bees,  North  and  South  160. 

Bees,  robbing  9, 119,  204. 

Black    queen  from   pure    Italian 

brood  244. 
Blossoming  time  51. 
Bockliara  clover  58 . 
Bottle  of  all  sorts  201 . 
Brood,  chilling.  146. 
Brooding  temperature  31. 
Bronze  bees,  236 . 
Buckeye  tree,  36. 
Buried  bees  resuscitated. 
Burying  bees  137. 

Camphor  vs,  robbing  bees  9. 

Canada,  wintering  bees  in  76,  77. 

Card  62. 

Challenge  62,  accepted  88 . 

Chautauguo  Co.  (N.  Y.)  Beekeep- 
ers' Association  227 . 

Cheaper  bee-house  161. 

Cheap  paint  172,  263. 
.Chilling  brood  146. 

Chloroforming  bees  199 . 

"Claims"  of  N.  C.  Mitchell  16]. 

Cleansing  mouldy  combs  153. 

Coal  oil  for  bee-stings  60.  , 

Colonies,  multiplication  of  169. 

Comb  frames,  to  stand  on  bottom 
board  187. 

Comb  guide  129, 167, 194,  201.  207. 

Comb  guide  suit  167. 

Combs,  to  clean  and  preserve,  67. 

Comments  and  replies  .55. 

Common  bees  and  Italians  120. 

Conditions  of  early  swarming  223. 

Conklin's  diamond  hive  139,  180, 
rejoinder  231. 

Confinement  of  honey  bees  213 . 

Coi'rection236. 

Correspondence  of  the  Bee  Journal 
40,  64,  86,  206,  128,  147,  171,  195, 
217,  241,  267. 

Cost  of  producing  honey  214. 

Cumberland  plateau  (Tenn . )  256 . 


Diamond  frames  once  more  180. 
Dimensions,   form,  and   manage- 
ment of  hives  2:-i3 . 
Dimiimtive  (lueen  52. 
Divers  remaiks.  116. 
Disturbing  bees  189. 
Dividina;  bees,  Ifi. 
DoesbeektH'piug  pay?  203. 
Does  it  pav  to  keep  beesi 
Does  it  pay  to  i)aiut  liives^  43. 
Drone  and  swarm  catcher  48. 
Dwarfed  queens  219. 
Dzierzou  theory  126. 

East  Indian  bees  92 . 

Editorial  16,  39,  63,  8i,  98, 104,  127, 

146,170,195,215,241,  'm. 
Effect  of  water  on  combs  1 
Egypt,  beekeeping  in  21. 
Egyptian,   Grecian,    Italian,    and 

common  bee  245. 
Eutianpp  lilocksllS. 
Kwirn-  imi-iims  l-"'l . 
I':x|.rririir,.  in  licck.'cpingin. 
Kxin'iieiicc  with  liee  stines  9. 
Jixperience  with  fouibrood. 
Experience  and  experiments  Un. 
Experience  and  observations  186. 
Experimenting  142. 

Facts  for  beekeepers  28.. 

Facts  vs .  theory  179. 

Fani'ied  faults  of  Italian  bees  197. 

I'alality,  -reat. 
l'"a,ult'^  111  wintering  bees,  175. 
l-'ci'ilinu,-,  stimulative  53.  , 
Fcn.eitv  ol  East  Indian  bees  92. 
F.Miil,.  reserved  ((uccus,  1J5. 
Foi-tJle  workers  24.  47,  144,  191. 
Five  questions  ini,  answered  141. 
Fouibrood  51,  89,  105,  147,  161,  205, 

Four  banded  Italians  193. 
Frame  hives  49,  202. 
Fugitive  swarms  252. 

Gallup's  hives  243. 

Gallup's  notions  considered  58. 

Gentle  reminder  9. 

Golden  rod  and  aster  1'24. 

Great  fatality  261. 

Greatest  enemy  of  beekeeping  212. 

Grinnn's  Apiary,  35. 

Handling  bees  67. 

History  of  our  honey  emptier  190. 

Hives,  movable  coinb  49. 

Hives  patented  in  1869. 

Hives,  size  of  60,  78. 

Hives,  transferring,  &c .  235. 

Honey  bee  in  Australia  91 . 

Honey  dew  13,  46.  74, 121. 

Honey  emptying  machine  66,  87. 

133,  138,  145,  146,  169,  202,  264. 
Honey  gathering  43. 
Honey  knives  234. 
Honey,  origin  of  45. 
Honey  season  68,  variations  of  182 . 
Honey  season  in  New  York. 
Honey  season  at  Tolono,  Ills.  115. 
Honey  vinegar  44. 
Honor  to  whom  honor  is  due  34. 
How  I  found  a  black  queen  56. 
How  my  bees  wintered  32. 
How  thorns  grow  in  bee-land  26 . 
How  to  cleanse  mouldy  combs  155. 
How  to  preserve  empty  combs  67 . 
How  to  treat  fertile  workers  144. 
How  to  arrest  fugitive  swarms. 


Impure  Italians  8. 

Indian  bees  200. 

Influence  of  locality  50. 

Inquiries  238. 

Inside  and  out  13.  queens  185 


Introducing  queens  117,  146,  221, 

226,  256,  259. 
Iowa,  letter  from  1.37. 
Italian  bee.'**,  35,  145, 198. 
Italian  bees  on  red  clover  56. 
Italian  bees,  fancied  faults  of  IDS. 
Italian  bees,  my  views  of  2.35. 
Italians  and  blacks,  163. 
Italians  and  common  bees  120. 
Italians  vs.  black  bees  198. 
Italian  fling  88. 
Italian  queens  160,  '240. 
Items,  several  125. 

Justice  20. 

Lambrecht  fouibrood  case  Hi). 

Iriist  season  IdO. 

Leaf  frojn  history  129. 

Letter  from  Iowa  137- 

Letter  from  New  Hampshire  115 . 

Locality,  influence  of  50. 

Loss  in  wintering  101. 

Maple  sap  for  bee-food  214. 

Maple  sugar  for  bees  162. 

Massaiihusetts,  bees  in  178. 

Melexti-acter  169. 

Melilot,  Eastern  58. 

Michigan  Beekeepers'  Convention 

94,  225. 
Motli  trap,  new  264. 
jMouldy  combs,  l.")3. 
Movable  comb  hives  49. 
Multiplication  of  colonies  169. 
Musings  in  the  evening  157- 
My  experience  119. 

Natural  swarms  142. 

New  Hampshire,  letter  from  115. 

New  York  State  Fair,  bees  and 
hives  at  9s. 

New  York  State  Fair,  recollections, 
of,  144 

Non-fertile  queen  bee  146 . 

Non-swarming  15, 162. 

Non-swarmers  vs.  swarmers  227. 

Northwestern  Beekeepers'  Associ- 
ation 113. 

Notes  from  Central  New  York,  98. 

Novice,  37,  80,  KH,  129,  14J,  153,  169, 


Novice,  bee  hives,  131. 
Novice's  melextractor  227. 
Novice  on  hives  173. 
Novice's  report  247. 

Observations  and  experience  84 
Observations  and  experiments  186 
Observations  and  results  149. 
Observations  and  statistics  253. 
Observations  and  suggestions  7. 
Ohio  Beekeepers'  Convention  181. 
Ohio  Beekeepers'  Association  93. 
Origin  of  honey  45. 

Paint  for  hives  172. 

Faper,  as  a  non-conductor  268 . 

Paper  hive  32, 68,  ISO. 

Paper  quilt  44. 

Parthenogenesis  of  the  honey  bee 

133 
Past  and  future  246. 
Pasturage  2ii.  34,  16ti. 
Pasturage  artilicial  166. 
Patent  comb  truides  207. 
Patent  hives  232. 
Peabody  honey  extractor  138, 179. 
Plagiarism,  systematic  260 . 
Pollen  as  bee  feed  150. 
Practical  bee  ciUture  69. 
Preserving  reserved  queen  185. 
Prevention  of  swarming  84,  86,  264. 
Preventing     bees     killing   young 


Pricc.'s  Cabinet    Reversible  Hive 

140,210,   257. 
Protluct  of  honey  134, 176 
Profits  of  beekeeping  142. 
Profits  of  a  hive  of  bees  136. 
Proposition  123 . 
Protection  in  winter  12^. 
Pseudo  foulbrood  51. 
Pnre  progeny  and  hybrid  5S. 
Puzzling  points  207. 

Quiility  of  soil  for  bee  culture  183. 

Queen  among  fertile  workers  244. 

Queen  catcher  19. 

Queen  catching  162. 

Queen  cell  isolated  42. 

Queen  cell  queerly  placed  38. 

Queen  cell,  trouble  with  157. 

Queen  cells,  to  supply  best  49. 

Queen  diminutive  52. 

Queen,  Italian  240. 

Queen  nursery,  143,256. 

Queen  raising  74. 

Queen  raising  in  winter  lo. 

Queens,  dwarfed  219. 

Queens  mating  twice  8,  3'i,  79,  185, 

186. 
Queens  mating  thrice  57. 
Queens,"reserved  l-i5. 
Queens,  two  in  a  hive  163. 
<.|ueer  notion  236. 
Queries  by  a  beginner  151. 
Querist's  question  answered  141. 
Questions,  reply  to  U. 
Questions  by  querist  S3. 

Raising  early  queens  220. 

Rare  case  18. 

Recollections  of  Nev/  York  State 

Fair  144. 
Rectangular  movable  frame  hive 

99 
Rectangular  frame  hive,  rejoinder 

139. 
Red  clover,  Italian  bees  on  .56. 
Reminder,  gentle  9. 
Removing  queens  84. 
Replies  and  comments  55. 
Replies  and  remarks  229. 
Replies  to  inquiries  255. 
Reply  to  C.  Dadant  15. 
Reply  to  questions  11 . 


Re(iuest  IDS. 

Responses  and  remarks  151. 

Reserved  queens  145. 

Results  149. 

Results  of  wintering  14. 

Review  of  May  number  259. 

Robbing  bees  9. 

Robber  blocks  119. 

Robbing  promptly  checked  204. 

Sacred  history  of  the  honey  bee  209. 

Season  OS. 

Selecting  stock  219. 

Self-robbing  52. 

Several  items  125, 194. 

Size  of  hives  78, 134, 176. 

Soil  for  bee  culture  1S3,  240. 

Something  strange  121 . 

Square  I'ranio.  di)ul)le-case  hive  140. 

Stimulative  feeding  53, 155. 

Stings  9,  60,210. 

Stopping  fugitive  swarms. 

Stocks  aud  hives  suited  to  pastur- 
age 50. 

Straight  combs  165 ,  251. 

Successful  practice  120. 

Sugar  candy,  153. 

Suggestion,  another  81. 

Suggestions  aud  observations  7. 

Suggestions  and  theories  97. 

Sundry  things  118. 

Superseding  fertile  workers  191. 

Superstitions  76. 

Swarming,  artificial  16, 145. 

Swarming,  early  223. 

Swarming  on  foot  12. 

Swarming  to  prevent  211. 

Swarming  without  aqueen  8, 16, 74. 

Swarms,  artificial  145,  203. 

Swarms,  natural  142, 

Swarms,  natural,  excel  artificial 
123. 

Systematic  plagiarrism  260. 

Temperature,  brooding  31. 
Tliat  proposition  123. 
Theories  aud  suggestions  97. 
Tlieorv.  Dzierzon's  120. 
Time  of  blossoms  51. 
Toad  161. 
Tobacco  smoke  60. 
Transferring  bees  240. 


Trials  and  queries  of  a  beginner 

157. 
Triangular  comb  guide  129,    167, 

194,  201,  207. 
Trouble  with  queen  cells  157. 
True  theory  of  bee  culture  249. 
Two  queens  in  a  hive  163. 

Uncapping  cells  234,  234. 
Uniting  robbing  bees  206. 
Unpatented  bee-feeder  14.    ■ 

Variation  of  honey  season  182. 
Various  sorts  of  matter's  27. 
Ventilating  button  220. 
Ventilation  261  263. 
Ventilation,  natural  83. 
Ventilation  in  winter  36. 
Ventilated  hive  72. 
Views  of  the  Italian  bees  235. 
Vinegar,  honey  44. 

Water,  eftect  of.  on  combs  1. 

Wax  scales  found  in  winter  213. 

West  Virginia,  bees  in  66. 

What  caused  our  bees  to  die?  167. 

What  we  lack  67. 

Windsor  county,  Vermont,  62. 

Wintering  bees  5,  32,  loo,  103. 120, 

121,  12S,  157,  230,  238,  243. 
Wintering  bees,  mishap  in  5. 
Wintering  bees  on  chicken  meat 

82. 
Wintering  bees  in  Canada  76. 
Wintering  fertile   reserve   queens 

145. 

Wintering,  results  of  14. 
Winter-bred  queen  184. 
Winter  protection  122. 
Winter,  queen  raising  in  10, 184. 
Winter  ventilation  36. 
Word  of  explanation  232. 
Worker  bees  in  drone  cells  135, 181. 
Worker  comb  changed  to  drone 
comb  165. 

Yellow  bands  200. 

Yellow  bands,  two  or  threel  255 . 

Yield  of  surplus  honey,  in  decimals 

1S4. 
Young  queens  laying  drone  eggs 


INDEX    TO    CORRESPONDENTS. 


Abbe  E.  P.  187;  Adair  B.  L.  165,  184,  232;  Alley  H. 
54,  79,  145,  161,  186,  196,  207,  239;  Argo  K.  M.  14,  61,  100, 
246 ;  Atwood  A .  6,  77 ;  Ayres  G .  K .  9 . 

Baldridge  M.  M.  62,  88;  Baldwin  Bros.  128;  Baker  W. 
239;  Barnard  A.  36, 137;  Barclay  J.  W.  128.  161;  Bar- 
nard N.  36, 137;  Barnard  nr.  H.  C. 243, 257;  Baroness  of 
BerlepschUl:  BassettC.  H.  148;  Batcheldor  D.  T.  172, 
241;  BickfordR.  32,  98, 123,  213;  Biglow  C.  B.  68;  Bill  E. 
1,  28:  Bledsoe  J.  K.  167,  218;  Blinn  H.  C.  210;  Bohrer 
Dr.  G.  191 ;  Boughton  G.172;  Brickey  P.  60;Briggs  Eev. 
E.  L .  252 ;  Bright  E .  C .  128 :  Brundage  A .  J .  28 ;  Burbank 
D.  164;  Burgess  G.  T.60;  Byers  A.  148. 

C.  D.  13;  Can-  W.  24,47, 134;  Chaffee  H.  115;  Chau- 
man  A.  172,  185,  214;  Clark  J.  169;  Cole  S.  W.  29;  Cork 
G-.  76;  Crane  J.E.14;  Crathorne  F.  137;  Crist  H.  118, 
153,  220,  234,  236 ;  Cochran  L .  W .  172 ;  Codding  O .  P .  148 ; 
Coggshall  D.  H.  51,  117, 122, 160, 162, 172, 179;  Condit  W. 
C.  10,  2.56;  Conklin  Dr.  A.  V.  159,  231;  Crowfoot  J.  35; 
Curtis  J.  67. 

Dadant  C.  5,  48,  78,  87. 135;  Dart  R.  128;  Davis  J.  L. 
12,  36,  145,  220;  Davis  Dr.  J.  19,  143;  Davis  AV.  J.  199; 
Dayton  J .  2::J8 ;  Dines  J .  B .  127 ;  Dufleler  J .  26 ;  Dumass 
M.  A.  127;  Dungan  D.  M.  107;  Dunlap  A.  120;  Durant 
A.  P.  9;  Diu-borow  H..  196. 

Edwards  L.  108. 

Fairbanks  Z.  E.  .32;  Faul  H.  86, 106,  121, 128;  Fisher 
A .  J .  217 ;  Fisher  J .  L .  181 :  Fitz  Wilkins  0 .  171 ;  Flory 
J.  L.  124;  FogelM.  D.  13;  Fortune  J.  P.  171. 

Gallup  E.  7,  28,  31,  33,  49,  63,  67,  76,  86,  149,  154, 169, 175, 
183,  193, 207,  212, 218, 220,  229, 232, 233, 240, 243, 255 ;  G-ardner 
J.  R.  52, 106;  Gill  W.  184;  Gladden  M.  A.  217;  Good- 
rich J .  D .  241 :  Gregory  W.  195 ;  Greene  J .  W .  81,  87, 99, 
244;  Grimm  A.  108,  125,134,142,  146,158,  185,193,206, 
211,  213;  Green  A.  263. 

Hadsell  J.  H.  96;  Hart  A.  H.  88, 128;  Hastings  C.6,44, 
68;  Hamlin  T.  B.  218;  Hawkins  D.  J.  217;  Hazeu  Rev. 
J.  50,  176;  HillT.  C.  87;  Housel  C.  J.  108;  Hoyt,  C.  H. 
18;  HulmanT.  Sr.  122;  Hussey  Rev.  J.  14S;  Hubbard 
J.  T..  9,  48, 115,  234.  238;  Hunt  D.  C.  116;  Heddon  J. 261. 

.Sohnson  E.  M.  163, 171 ;  Johnson  J.  H.  242 . 

Kellogg G.  P.  62;  Kidder  J.  H.  217;  Kirk  W.  H.  9; 
Kretchmer  E.  172.  259 


Lambrecht  A.  1,  Lane  D.  P.  213;  Langstroth  Eev.  L. 
L.  11,  20,  129;  Langstroth  J.  T.  129;  Libby  H.  243; 
Llndley  L,  M.  172;  Little  G.  88;  Locke  J.  148;  Lovett 
H.  K.  171. 

M.  M.  36;  Man  well  Eev.  A.  C.  119;  Marvin  J.  M.  1.5, 
136, 155, 189, 194,  240, 243 ;  McLean  J .  L .  8, 48, 182, 251 ;  Mc- 
Math  M.  42;  Meader,  Eev.  J.  148;  Meader  J.  D.  157; 
Merriman  J.  T.  108;  Middleworth  J.  195;  Miller  M.  99, 
180;  Miller  E.  166:  Miner  F.  H.  165;  Miner  H.  D.  36; 
Miner  Mrs.  M.  D.  234;  McFatridge  P.  W.  108, 142, 145; 
McGaw  T.  G.  147,  219;  Mohler  G.  127;  Morgan  W.  H. 
147, 196;  Murphy  E.  R.  86, 146;  Murray  J.  W.  108. 

NashF.  G.  147;  Nesbit  H.  44.  57,133,  142;  Newton 
W.  C.  235,  236;  Novice,  No.  2. 

Page  Mrs.  L.  217;  Paine  O.  S.  60, 128;  Palmer  S.  C. 
82;  Parmley  Dr.  E.  200;  Peabody  J.  L.  16, 142;  Peck- 
ham  P.  162;  Philips  E.  58;  Pierson  T.  100;  Pond  .T.  E. 
Jr.  34:  Potter  A.  117;  Pratt  Dr,  R.  W,  243;  Price  J.  M. 
140,  244,  253;  Puckett  Dr.  B.  58,  124,  206,  260. 

QuinbyM.  200,205,219. 

Reekie  D.  86 ;  Eogers  C.  178,  251 ;  Rogers  Miss  C.  S  .204 ; 
Rose  J.  T.  144;  Rosenstiel  H.  126;  Roebuck  J.  R.  196; 
Ruggles  G.  H.  D.  62;  Root  A.  I.  37,  80,  104,  129,  145, 153, 
169,  173,  208,  247,  257;  Rowley  W.  268;  Russell  P.  E.  Jr. 
261. 

S.  B.  214;  Sage  L.  217;  Salisbury  A.  145;  Sanborn  J.  E. 
P.  196;  Sanford  Dr.  S.  147;  Sehlichte  F.  217 ;  Sheldon 
W.  148;  Severson  P.  J.  163;  Seay  J.  W.  56,  84,  101; 
Smith  O.  T.  15;  Smith  T.  179,  227;  Spence  J.  217:  .Stiles 
A.  50;  Stinebring,  G.  W.  218;  Stratton,  W.  M. 
238 

Thomas  J.  H.  10,  88, 156, 190,  201;  Thomas  H.  M.  10, 15; 
Tillinghast  I.  F.  67,  74,  98, 125, 144, 190,  235,264;  Titus  A. 
W.  179;  Townley  J.  H.  166;  Truesdell  Rev.  J.  W.  50, 
56,  SO. 

Waite  O.  C.  167,  236:  Wallace  J.  C.  128;  Way  J.  L. 
120,171;  Wells  H.  S.  161;  White  ll.  W.  147,  217;  Whit- 
lock  C.  172;  AVinfleld  J.  120,141;  AVolcott  O.  S.  160; 
Woodbury  T.  W.  91,  109;  Worden  J.  M  187,  217;  Wor- 
thington  D.  M.  124,  238.  264;  Wurster  6, 156,  203:  Wolf 
W.256;  Woody  T.  262. 

Young  P.  268. 


American  Bee  Journal. 


EDITED  AND  PUBLISHED  BY  SAMUEL  WAGNER,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

AT  TWO  DOLLARS  PEK  ANNUM,  PAYABLE  IN  ADVANCE. 


Vol.  V. 


JULY,    l^GO. 


No.  1. 


[For  the  Amevican  Bee  Journal.] 

The  Effect  of  Water  on  the  Combs  and 
the  Life  of  the  Bees. 


Superficial  observers  of  nature  and  lier  opera- 
tions are  very  apt  to  form  erroneous  conclusions, 
mistaking  eff  cts  for  causes,  and  constructing 
hypotheses  which,  when  compared  witli  tlie 
facts  on  which  tliey  purport  to  be  based,  do  not 
even  represent  the  shadow  of  the  substance  in 
question.  Similar  consequences  flow  from  the 
miscouceptions  of  those  who,  in  uiter  unac- 
quaintance  with  the  wonderful  operations  of 
natural  forces,  as  well  as  with  the  results  of 
those  processes,  venture  to  speculate  on  phenom- 
ena which  casually  come  uuder  their  observa- 
tion. We  do  not  propose  to  censure  the  failure 
of  the  latter  ;  they  have  simply  not  been  taught 
to  observe.  But  the  former,  while  impelled  by 
a  desire  for  knowledge,  reflecting  on  the  sub- 
jects which  they  design  to  elucidate,  deduce  in- 
correct and  oftlimes  ridiculous  inferences  from 
their  premises,  simply  because  they  happen  to  be 
ignorant  of  the  requisite  auxiliary  branches 
of  science. 

Such  and  similar  remarks  are  we  frequently 
constrained  to  make  in  the  various  departments 
in  which  technical  operations  impinge  on  natu- 
ral processes,  or  rather  where  they  seem  to  be 
sustained  by  ascertained  particular  facts  in  nat- 
ural science.  An  atleiitive  perusal  of  the  vari- 
ous periodicals  devoted  to  specialities  frequently 
presents  this  truth,  and  renders  it  manifest  that 
if  practical  interests  are  to  be  successfully  ad- 
vanced, the  processes  employed  must  be  brought 
into  operative  harmony  with  the  principles 
which  science  has  demonstrated  to  be  true  and 
applicable. 

We  read  lately  at  a  friend's  house,  the  excel- 
lent American  Bee  Journal,  published  in 
Washington,  and  found  therein  many  very 
valuable  articles;  but  among  them  likewise 
some  whicb,  whether  for  the  first  or  the  second 
of  the  reasons  indicated  above,  present  views 
not  precisely  in  accordance  with,  or  not  held 
in  due  subordination  to,  the  scientific  principles 
of  force  in  the  premises.     From  this  considera- 


tion, and  because  a  translation  of  our  articles 
on  foulbrood,  communicated  to  the  Hanover 
Centralbatt,  appeared  in  the  Journal  in  the 
autumn  of  1868,  we  resolved,  if  its  columns 
were  open  to  our  discussions  in  the  field  of  apis- 
tics,  to  endeavor  to  aid  in  bringing  the  views  of 
bee-keepers  on  apistical  questions  in  accord  with 
the  principles  of  modern  science,  in  a  country 
which  has  long  been  the  chos-n  home  of  two  of 
our  children—availing  ourselves  also  of  the 
opportunity  to  elucidate  more  fully,  or  render 
more  easily  intelligible,  the  articles  on  foulbrood 
to  which  we  have  just  rt. erred. 

In  support  of  the  position  assumed  at  the  out- 
set, it  will  only  be  necessary  for  us  to  advert  to 
what  has  appeared  in  some  of  the  principal 
apicultural  and  other  journals  of  Germany, 
Thus,  a  certain  Dr.  Landois  had  heard  that 
worker  bees  possess  the  power  to  raise  queens 
from  worker  eggs.  Basing  himself  on  this  con- 
ceded fact,  he  unblushingly  declared  in  the  Jour- 
nal for  Scientific  Zoology,  that  it  is  in  power  of 
the  beekeeper,  by  regulating  the  quantity  of 
food  administered  by  him,  to  raise  queens, 
workers,  or  drones  at  pleasure.  And  later,  sani- 
tary-counsellor Dr.  Preuss  maintained  in  the 
Bienenzeitung,  that  foulbrood  is  the  product  of 
a  fungus,  by  him  named  '■'■cryptococcus  alvearis;''^ 
though  Liebig  and  other  eminent  chemists  and 
naturalists  had  previously  shown  that  fungi  and 
infusoria  are  the  products  of  incipient  puirelac- 
tion.  Indeed  Dr.  Preuss  mixes  up  the  putrefactive 
and  Uie  fermentive  processes  strangely,  in  his 
article  ;  citing  them  now  as  appearing  in  due 
order,  and  again  as  occurring  wholly  out  of 
place.  He  contends  in  general  that  fermenta- 
tion is  a  consequence  of  the  formation  of  vege- 
table tissues  ;  though  it  has  long  since  been  de- 
monstrated by  Liebig,  Dopping,  Struve,  and 
Karsten,  that  sugar,  for  example,  may,  by  de- 
composition, be  resolved  into  alcohol  and  car- 
bonic acid,  without  exhibiting  in  the  process  the 
slightest  indication  of  the  presence  of  fermen- 
tive fungi.  The  most  eminent  chemists  and 
I  physiologists  have  shown  conclusively  that  the 
i  putrifyiug  substance  is  the  generator  of  fermen- 
tation, and  when  brought  into  contact  with  fer- 
mentable matter  in  certain  states  of  temperature, 
'  in  the  presence  of  moisture,  will  superinduce  the 


THE  AMEEICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


fermeiitive  process.  Dr.  Preuss,  on  the  other 
hand,  contends  that  the  fungus,  which  he  chiims 
to  have  discovered  in  the  putrid  larvoe,  was  the 
cause  of  pulrefactiou  in  them.  Otliers,  again, 
having  seen  that,  at  certain  seasons,  bees  carry- 
water  into  their  hives,  and  relying  on  the  repre- 
sentations of  previous  observers,  speali,  especi 
ally  in  the  Bienenzeilung  lor  1838,  of  "  water 
dearth  "  among  bees— just  as  though  thej'  were 
spealiiug  of  a  human  being,  languishini?  with 
parched  tongue  for  a  drop  of  water  to  quench 
his  thirst.  Bees  Ivuow  not  thirst.  They  carry 
in  water  simply  to  dissolve  crystalized  honey, 
to  enable  them  properly  to  concoct  the  aliment 
required  by  the  brood.  This  portion  of  their 
labor  might  more  appropriately  be  designated 
as  providing  the  means  of  solution.  There  are 
others,  also,  who  speak  of  "  dysentery  "  among 
bees,  as  though  it  were  something  that  might  be 
regarded  as  a  diseased  condition  of  their  organ- 
ism, such  as  occurs  at  times  in  the  intestinal 
canal  of  human  subjects  ;  and  they  liave  even 
advised  recourse  to,  and  have  themselves  em- 
ployed, the  remedies  deemed  efficacious  in  the 
latter  case.  These,  however,  leave  out  of  view 
altogether  the  fact  that  bees  must,  within  a 
certain  limited  period  of  time,  be  able  to  dis- 
charge thtir  fjEces;  and  if  the  proper  opportunity 
to  do  this  is  not  presented,  the  alvine  viscera 
become  gorged.  Bees  are  then  constrained  to 
make  their  evacuations  when  and  where  they 
can,  oft  of  necessity  polluting  their  combs  and 
the  interior  of  their  hives.  This  condition  is, 
no  doubt  a  fearful  one  to  the  suffering  insects  ; 
but  is  not  in  reality  a  disease.  As  soon  as  the 
weather  permits  the  bees  to  fly,  the  whole 
difficulty  is  removed. 

We  might  greatly  enlarge  tliis  catalogue  of 
transgressions  against  science,  if  disposed  to 
pursue  the  registration.  But  we  should  proba- 
bly be  thereby  templed  to  engage  in  discussions, 
•which  might  not  indeed  be  of  disservice  to  the 
cause,  though  they  should  lead  us  too  far  away 
from  our  present  purpose.  From  these  and 
similar  incongruous  notions  and  doctrines,  we 
shall  therefore  only  select  that  which  from  its 
nature  seems  to  bear  a  close  relationship  to 
what  has  been  called  "  water  dearth."  We 
take  occasion  accordingly  to  speak  somewhat 
in  detail,  of  i/te  effect  of  water  on  the  combs  and 
the  life  of  the  bees. 

What  is  called  water  dearth  among  bees  is  a 
subject  which,  as  we  have  already  stated,  has 
been  repeatedly  and  exhaustively  discussed — 
the  singular  notion  of  its  occasional  existence 
having  sprung  from  the  fact  that,  in  the  spring, 
bees  are  frequently  seen  sipping  water  at  pools 
and  ditches,  and  conveying  it  into  their  hives. 
Misled  by  this  fact  and  the  queer  fancies  which  it 
seems  to  have  engendered,  bee-keepers  liave 
been  induced  to  institute  various,  experiments, 
which,  if  viewed  in  the  light  of  their  possible 
consequences,  might  well  be  regarded  as  design- 
ed to  work  the  uiter  destruction  and  ruin  of  bee- 
culture.  No  doubt  this  is  a  strong  expression  ; 
but,  it  is  nevertheless  true.  We  have  often  read 
in  various  bee  journals,  that  practical  bee-keep- 
trs,  wliea  they  saw  that  their  bees  were  gelling 
restless  in  the  spriug,conceiving  they  were  suffer- 
ing from  the  supposititious  water  dearth,  poured 


j  water  in  the  combs,  and  remarked  triumphantly 
that  after  such  operation  the  bees  became  quiet. 
The  poor  dear  creatures!  Ti)ink  of  a  man  con- 
fined in  a  circumscribed  space  and  gnsping  for 
fresh  air  ;*  and  now,  instead  of  being  blessed, 
with  what  he  sigh?  for,  a  bucketful  of  cold 
water  is  dashed,  not  indeed  in  liis  face,but  in  his 
narrow  liouse,  and  judge  how  the  poor  disap- 
pointed suffi-rer  would   feel! 

If  it  be  asked,  do  not  the  bees  need  water  ? 
we  must  say  in  reply,  they  do.  Honey,  for  in- 
stance, if  it  remain  long  undisturbed  in  tlie  cells, 
becomes  partially  candied,  the  grape  sugar  it 
contains  alone  remaining  liquid.  1'he  crystals 
being  of  so  compact  and  solid  a  nature,  the  bees 
are  unable  to  consume  them  in  that  form,  or 
prepare  from  them  the  jelly  with  which,  in  an 
undigested  state,  tlie  larva?  of  the  workers  and 
drones  are  supplied  in  their  last  stage  prior  to 
transformation,  it  is  quite  natural  that  they 
should  be  dissolved  and  made  available,  by 
means  of  water  brought  in  from  abroad.  Hence 
it  happens  in  the  spring,  so  soon  as  bees  have 
brood  to  nurse,  and  the  honey  trom  which  the 
jelly  is  to  be  prepared  is  pailially  crystalized, 
water  is  in  demand  and  some  of  the  workers 
are  seen  carrying  it  in.  It  is  wise,  therefore,  at 
this  season,  to  supply  them  in  convenient  places 
with  pure  rain  or  river  water  in  a  shallow  pan 
or  dish,  placing  in  it  a  piece  of  sponge,  or  moss, 
or  some  chips,  to  save  the  bees  from  drowning. 
Well  water,  if  used  for  this  purpose,  should  be 
previously^boiled  and  allowed  to  settle,  to  free 
it  of  mineral  salts  that  might  prove  injurious. 

Bees  never  carry  more  water  in  their  hives  than 
siifficefi  for  their  immediate  loants.  No  bee-keeper 
ener  found  that  they  store  up  any  in  the  cells  for 
future  use.  The  reason  of  this  is  obvious.  Per- 
manent dampness  or  moisture  in  a  hive  is  invari- 
ably followed  by  the  destruction  of  the  colony. 
Hence  the  instinctive  antipath}'  to  it  so  unmis- 
takably manifested  by  ihe  bees  everywhere  in 
the  various  functions  of  their  life.  This  asser- 
tion mny  seem  to  require  some  further  elucida- 
tion. There  are  two  points  which,  on  close  in- 
spection of  the  combs  of  a  hive  and  the  sub- 
stances therein  deposited,  supply  us  with  the 
tangible  evidence  why  bees  are  fo  solicitous  to 
exclude  water  and  all  dampness  from  ilieir 
dwellings;  and  observant  bee-keepers  will  not 
have  failed  to  see  how  sedulously  they  end^avor 
to  lid  tbeir  hives  of  all  superfluous  moisture 
therein  condensed  or  collected,  so  soon  as  the 
temperature  of  the  atmosphere  will  permit  thrni 
to  do  so.  Every  drop'of  water  is  then  re- 
moved, as  quickly  as  it  makes  its  appearance. 

As  warm-blooded  creatures  receive  with  their 
nutriment  two  substances  producing  very  differ- 
ent effects  on  their  organism,  so  likewise  the 
bees.  They  receive  with  the  honey,  a  non- 
nitrogenous  substance  (C  12  H  13  O  12xH 
O),  the  combustiljle  material,  which  combining 
with  the  oxygen  inhaled  through  their  stigmata, 


*That  bees  require  a  constant  supply  of  pure  fresh 
air  in  tlieir  liives,  for  purposes  of  respiration  and  diges- 
tion, will  readily  be  conceded  in  view  ut  tlie  large  amount 
of  vapor,  carbonic  and  formic  acid^encraied  therein— the 
natural  product  of  respiration  and  digestion.  With  ihe 
editor's  permission  we  may  herealter  treat  of  this  topic 
more  fully  in  these  columns. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


forms  carbonic  acid  and  hydrosjen.  Where 
this  clicmical  coinbinatioii  of  dements  takes 
pace,  caloric  is  liberated.  As  this  combinalion 
l)roce'eds  in  the  body  of  the  bee,  the  inlialed 
oxygen  uniting  with  the  nitroi>;en  and  carbon  of 
the  nutriment  consumed  forming  aqueous  vapour 
and  carbonic  acid,  it  is  obvious  that  the  bee 
developes  and  possesses  animal  heat  equiva- 
lent to  a  temperature  52^  or  55''  F.,  whereby 
the  activity  of  its  organs  is  maintained  and 
their  vital  functions  supported. 

With  pollen,  on  the  other  hand,  they  receive  a 
plasiic  nutriment,  supplying  nitrogen  and  sul- 
phur (phosphorus),  of  which  we  may  remark, 
in  passing,  their  bodies  are  composed.  It  sup- 
plies the  ferment  by  the  agency  of  which  wax  is 
elaborated  from  honey.  It  is  the  medium  by 
wliich  the  wasted  powers  of  the  bee  are  recu- 
perated, and  by  which  the  nervous  and  muscu- 
lar system  is  supplied  with  the  perduring  vigor 
and  toughness,  wliich  we  so  admire  in  our  wing- 
ed favorites.  Matuie  bees  consume  l)Ut  little  of 
this  substance — only  as  much  as  suffices  for  the 
purposes  here  indicated  ;  whereas  to  the  brood 
is  administered  so  much,  in  the  jelly  allotted  to 
it,  as  is  required  for  the  constitution  of  the  bee's 
body  and  the  construction  of  the  cocoon  la 
whic'.i  it  is  destined  to  undergo  its  final  trans- 
formation. 

Everyljody  is  familiar  with  those  properties 
of  nitrogenous  and  sulphurous  substances  wliich 
render  them  peculiarly  susceptible  of  putrefac- 
tion when  ex|)osed  to  the  action  of  the  oxygen 
of  the  atmosphere,  to  moisture  and  a  certain 
decree  of  heat.  That  such  is  the  case  also  with 
the  nitrogenous  pollen  stored  in  the  cells  by  the 
bees,  scarcely  needs  to  be  remarked,  after  what 
has  already  been  said  ;  yet,  to  obtain  satisfac- 
tory evidence  of  the  fact,  let  us  institute  the 
following  experiment: 

Take  out  of  a  comb  about  one-quarter  of  an 
ounce  of  pollen,  and  triturate  it  between  the 
fingers  ;  then  put  it  in  a  phial  and  pour  on  it 
as  much  water  as  will  cover  it  about  half  an 
inch.  Set  the  open  phial  ten  days  or  two 
weeks  in  a  place  tlie  temperature  of  which 
ranges  fr^^m  62°  to  60"  F.  Should  much  of  tiie 
water  evaporate,  replace  it  gradually.  If  the 
contents  be  carefully  observed  during  the  time 
mentioned,  it  will  be  seen  that  when  decompo- 
sition has  comn\enced,  minute  air  bubbles  will 
be  formed  and  rise  to  the  surface  ;  and  the 
whole  mass  will  ultimately  become  agitated. 
That  larvae  fed  with  putrescent  pollen  must 
perish,  will  be  evident  when  we  consider  how 
very  destructive  every  other  putrescent  sub- 
stance proves  to  be  when  brought  in  contact 
with  organic  substances  in  the  conditions  al- 
ready stated.  Putrid  meat,  putrid  medullary 
matter,  or  putrescent  blood  placed  on  a  wound, 
produces  vomiting,  debility,  and  finally  death. 
(See  Ilagendie's  experiments). 

The  reader  will  now  readily  underst<»nd  why 
bee«,  instinctively  conscious  of  the  dangerous 
influence  which  water,  or  even  mere  dampness, 
iscapable  of  exerting  on  their  nit'ogenous  nu- 
triment, are  so  exceedingly  solicitous  to  keep 
the  interior  of  their  hives  as  dry  as  possible. 
Yet  a  large  proportion  of  beekeepers'  besides 
furnishing  their  bees  with  hives  saturated  with  or 


not  readily  absorbing  moisture,  do  all  they  can 
to  keep  the  combs  damp  bkewise.  We  seeni  to 
hear  soniti  of  those  thus  impugned,  angrily  ex- 
claim : — "  Nonsense  !  We  give  our  bees  a  suit- 
able well-constructed  wooden  hive,  and  it  is 
fody  to  talk  of  damp  combs  in  them  !  The 
writer  is  overdoing  matters  !"  In  place  of  all 
replication  we  pray  these  worthy  friends  to  ex- 
amine the  interior  of  their  wooden  hives  in  Oc- 
tober or  November ;  and  again  in  February, 
March,  or  April,  to  satisfy  themselves  how 
plentifully  vapor  has  been  condensed  in  them, 
how  moisture  pervades  the  whole,  and  specially 
how  dampness  has  affected  the  combs. 

In  such  circumstances,  indeed,  it  is  quite 
natural  that  the  inner  walls  should  be  covered 
with  condensed  moisture  and  drops  of  water, 
resulting  from  external  cold,  whenever  the  bees 
are  no  longer  able  to  remove  it  as  fast  as  it  is 
formed.  And  then,  as  the  quantity  condensed 
increases,  it  will  form  on  the  combs  also,  and 
trickie  down  from  cell  to  cell,  and  entering 
these  will  speedily  dampen  the  pollen  they  con- 
tain; which,  in  turn,  operated  on  by  the  in- 
creasing warmth  of  spring,  begins  to  undergo 
putrefactive  decomposition,  ultimately  proving 
destructive  to  the  larvoe  fed  with  jelly  prepared 
from  it.  No  kind  of  timber,  generally  availa- 
ble for  hives,  is  porous  enough  to  absorb  all  the 
moisture  at  times  generated  by  the  bees  therein 
domiciled  ;  and  there  seems  to  be  no  alternative 
but  to  seek  some  other  material  better  adapted 
to  the  purpose  desired. 

In  another  point  of  view,  also  the  moisture 
condensed  in  wooden  hives,  will  sooner  or  later 
inevitably  result  in  the  ruin  of  the  colony  ex- 
posed to  it. 

Every  larva— whether  worker,  drone,  or 
queen — before  uodersoing  its  final  transforma- 
tion, envelopes  itself  more  or  less  perfectly  in  a 
cocoon  spun  by  itself;  and  we  may  properly 
inquire  of  what  substance  the  filaments  of  that 
tissue  are  composed.  As  already  intimated,  it 
is  derived  from  the  pollen  consumed  by  the 
larva.  To  demonstrate  this  fact,  is  our  next 
task.  The  experienced  beekeeper  doubtless 
knows  that,  when  pressing  out  wax,  a  dark 
mass  is  left  in  the  sack.  This  is  composed  of  the 
cocoons  or  nymj^hal  envelopes  remaining  in  the 
cells  after  the  brood  has  emerged  Let  him 
take  an  ounce  of  this,  place  it  in  a  retort  with 
a  small  quantity  of  water  in  the  condenser. 
Now  hfat  the  retort,  taking  care  to  exclude  at- 
mospheric air.  The  tissues  will  be  burned, 
leaving  in  the  retort  a  portion  of  carbon  and 
the  mineral  substances  combined  therewith. 
The  other  substances,  assuming  a  gaseous  form, 
passed  over  into  the  condenser,  and  either  occu- 
py the  space  over  the  water,  or  have  been  absorb- 
ed by  the  latter.  Among  these  is  the  nitrogen. 
This,  when  liberated  from  the  tissues,  immedi- 
ately combined  Avith  the  hydrogen,  which  was 
liberated  at  the  same  time,  forming  ammonia. 
Tills  latter  substance,  wath  which  alone  we  are 
here  concerned,  is  absorbed  by  the  water  in  the 
condenser,  and  its  presence  there  may  be  shown 
in  the  following  manner  :  Heat,  in  a  capsule, 
a  small  portion  of  tiie  water  taken  from  the 
condenser ;  add  thereto  a  little  caustic  lime ; 
and  the  ammonia  evolved  will  be  detected  by 


THE    AMERICAN    BEE  JOURNAL. 


the  pungeut  odor  diffused.  Since  honey  (H12 
C12  012—2  H  O)  contains  no  nitrogen,  it  is 
manifest  that  the  substances  forming  the  tissue 
of  the  cocoon  enveloping  tlie  embryo,  must 
have  been  derived  from  the  nitrogenous  pallen 
consumed  by  the  larvae. 

It  is  tlius  demonstrable  that  the  cocoon 
tissues  remaining  in  the  brood  cells  contain  ni- 
trogen and  sulphur  ;  tbat  these  absorb  water 
like  a  sponge  ;  and  when  this  happens  they  he- 
come  coated  witli  mouUl  and  finally  undergo 
decomposition.  The  honey  gathered  and  stor- 
ed in  the  cells,  hegins  to  ferment,  and  in  this 
state  furnishes  the  most  fitting  material  for  gen- 
erating foulbrood. 

Now  conceiveof  any  formvf\i&ie\ex  of  wooden 
liim,  tenanted  by  hees,  in  which  they  consume 
their  food,  and  in  which  consequently  a  propor- 
tionably  great  quantum  of  aqueous  vapor  is 
generated  and  condensed  against  the  sides,  just 
as  we  see  it  in  spring  and  fall  on  the  window 
glass  of  our  dwellings,  and  it  may  well  be  con- 
tended tbat  tiie  moisture,  (which  must  eventu- 
ally be  generated  in  any  loooden  hive,)  with  its 
resulting  evils,  is  more  and  more  certainly  det- 
rimental to  bees  than  any  other  malign  influ- 
ence to  whicli  they  are  liable  to  be  exposed. 
******** 

Having  thus,  as  we  conceive,  shown  conclu- 
sively the  effect  which  water  has  on  the  combs 
and  tlie  life  of  the  bees,  we  have  only  to  add 
that  this  dangerous,  malady—foulbrood— finds 
its  source  naturally  in  the  circumstances  to 
which  we  have  traced  it.  If  namely,  pollen  be- 
comes putrefied  by  the  conjoint  operation  of  the 
oxygen  of  the  atmosphere,  water  and  heat,  then 
the  cause  of  foulbrood  is  obviously  discovered. 
Precisely  because  wooden  hives  are  now  more 
commonly  used  than  formerly,  and  the  condensa- 
tion of  moisture  is  thus  of  more  frequent  occur- 
rence and  more  abundant,  complaints  of  the 
prevalence  and  diffusion  of  this  malady,  are  far 
more  numerous  than  Ihey  formerly  were,  when 
straw  hives  were  in  almost  general  use. 

That  the  cause  of  foulbrood  must  properly  be 
sought  for  in  pollen  made  putrescent  by  mois- 
ture, will  be  clearly  eslablislied  by  the  follow- 
ing experiment :  Take  a  fourth  of  an  ounce  of 
pollen,  and  triturace  it  between  the  fingers  ;  place 
it  in  an  open  phial  and  keep  it  constantly  moist 
with  lukewarm  water,  exposing  it  for  eight  or 
ten  days  to  a  temperature  of  62°  to  Go®  F.  The 
mass  will  then,  if  the  moistening  has  not 
been  neglected,  have  fully  undergone  decompo- 
sition. Having  satisfied  yourself  of  this,  take 
half  a  pound  of  honey  warmed  to  liquidity, 
pour  the  decomposed  pollen  in  it,  and  mix  the 
whole  thoroughly  by  shaking  or  stirring.  Let 
it  now  stand  eight  or  ten  days  longer,  in  a  tem- 
perature of  from  65®  to  70o  F.,  and  then  feed  a 
healthy  colony  with  this  fermenting  substance 
— taking  care  to  do  the  feeding  in  a  close  cham- 
ber, to  prevent  other  bees  from  participating. 
The  brood  in  this  colony  will,  icithin  a  week,  be 
dead  and  putrid. 

The  attentive  reader  will  thus  understand 
that  the  pollen  decomposed  by  the  action  of 
moisture  and  heat,  caused  the  honey  to  undergo 
a  chemical  change.  In  other  words,  the  pu- 
trescent pollen  was  the  leaven  by  which  the 


fermentable  honey  with  which  it  came  in  con- 
j  tact  was  brought  into  a   state   of  fermentation; 
i  and  being  then  fed,  ^indigested,  by  the  nursing 
j  bees  to  the  larvoe  of  workers   and   drones,  just 
previous   to   their  last   transformation,  carried 
the  fermenting  process  over  into  their   delicate 
organism  —  causing     putrefaction     and    death. 
The  contagious  matter  of  this  disastrous   mala- 
dy, as  is  well  known,  speedily  becomes  diffused 
[  far  and  wide,  carrying  with  it  the   destruction 
j  of  bee-culture  in  all  its  range.    It  is  hence  speci- 
i  ally  important  that  we  acquaint   ourselves  with 
its  nature  and  mode  of  diffusion,  that  we  maybe 
the  better  able  to  preserve  our  colonies  from  it 
or  cure  them  when  attacked. 

In  organic  bodies  we  clearly  distinguish  two 
different  classes  of  substances.  One  of  these, 
under  the  influence  of  the  oxygen  of  the  atmos- 
phere, in  certain  conditions  of  temperature  and 
moisture,  is  susceptible  of  decomposition.  Prom- 
inent among  these  are  all  bodies  rich  in  nitro- 
gen and  sulphur  (phosphorus).  The  others  do 
not  undergo  decomposition  so  long  as  they  are 
kept  pure  and  unmixed.  To  these  belong  non- 
nitrogenous  substances  (starch,  sugar,  fats, 
&c. )  To  the  first-class  belongs  the  pollen  gath- 
ered by  bees  ;  to  the  second  class  belong  honey 
and  the  wax  produced  therefrom.  When  a  nitro- 
genous substance  undergoes  decomposition,  its 
j  constituent  elements  possess  the  peculiar  prop- 
erty of  communicating  the  putrefactive  process 
1  to  any  non-nitrogenous  substances  with  which 
tliey  are  brought  in  contact,  and  thus  become 
the  occasion  of  the  separation  of  the  elements  of 
which  organic  substances  are  composed  and 
enable  them  to  enter  iato  other  combinations. 
This  phenomenon  may  be  distinctly  observed 
by  placing  some  sound  organic  substance  in 
close  contact  with  a  rotten  apple  or  other  decay- 
ing fruit.  In  a  short  time  it  will  be  acted  on  by 
the  atoms  of  the  putrescent  body;  and  the  in- 
fection will  in  consequence  speedily  spread 
more  and  more,  in  concentric-circles,  until  it 
whelms  the  whole  in  one  common  abysm  of  de- 
composition and  destruction.  If  now  such  pu- 
trescent substance  be  suddenly  diied,  decompo- 
sition is  at  once  arrested  and  ceases;  but  imme- 
diately recommences  and  proceeds,  when  again 
permeated  bj'  moisture  and  heat. 

Having,  in  the  foregoing,  given  a  somewhat 
minute  account  of  the  nature  of  the  putrefac- 
tive process,  it  will  readily  be  understood  that 
so  soon  as  the  larva,  prior  to  its  final  metamor- 
phosis, partakes  of  the  undigested  jelly,  compo- 
sed of  putrescent  pollen  and  houey,  the  fermen- 
tive  process  will  be  communicated  to  its  body, 
which,  infected  thereby,  at  once  passes  into  a 
state  of  decomposition.  So  long  as  the  colony 
continues  populous,  the  extraordinary  internal 
heat  of  the  hive  dries  up  successively  the  putrid 
larval  remains  ;  but  minute  motes,  such  as  we 
may  see  fioating  in  the  sunbeams  in  a  darkened 
chamber,  become  detached  and  float  about  in 
the  atmosphere  of  the  hive  as  well  as  in  that  of 
the  apiary,  and  are  spread  abroad  by  every  cur- 
rent of  air.  They  are  thus  carried  to  and  enter 
other  hives,  and  may  finally  reach  even  distant 
apiaries.  They  find  a  lodgment  in  the  pollen,  the 
honey,  and  the  cells  of  the  hives  they  enter,  in- 
fecting the  contents,  and  communicating  the 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


process  of  decomposition.  The  nursing  bees 
in  such  infected  colonies  feed  the  brood  with 
contamincated  jelly,  and  foulbrood  soon  mani- 
fests its  presence. 

We  find  phenomena  precisely  similar  else- 
where in  the  economy  of  nature — two  of  Avhich 
may  serve  to  illustrate  the  view  we  have  pre- 
sented. 

In  human  dwellings  near  which  marshes  or 
ponds  exist  that  become  dried  up  by  the  heat  of 
summer,  epidemic  diseases,  fevers,  &c.,  occur. 
Tiiese  are  usually  thus  accounted  for.  Tiiose 
niiirshes  are  the  arena  where  myriads  of  infi- 
te3!?imally  minute  animalcuItE  abound.  Tlie 
evaporation  of  the  water  and  drying  up  of  the 
marshes,  deprive  these  creatures  of  their  vital 
element.  They  perish;  tlie  oxygen  of  the  air  acts 
on  their  remains,  dissolving  their  organic  combi- 
nation; and  then  their  liberated  cimstituent  ele- 
ments enter  into  new  combinations — the  sulphur, 
for  example,  uniting  with  the  hydrogen,  forms 
sulphuretted  hydrogen.  The  extreme  heat  of 
summer  soon  dries  up  these  putrescent  organic 
substances  ;  myriads  of  minute  atoms  quickly 
become  detached  therefrom  and  are  carried  by 
the  air  into  all  the  region  around.  They  are 
thus  inlialed  by  the  inhabitants,  adhere  to  the  | 
internal  tissues  of  the  body,  and  there  finding 
the  reciuisite  conditions  ot  heat  and  moisture, 
become  putrescent  again,  and  communicate  the 
putrefactive  process  to  the  organs  they  infest. 
Disease  is  the  result — the  person  afflicted  grows 
sick. 

Morbid  matter  from  a  corpse,  conveyed  into 
an  open  wound,  decomposes  the  blood,  and 
finally  causes  death. 

Having  thus  shown  that  tlie  atoms  of  dessica- 
ted  larval  remains,  floating  in  the  atmosphere, 
are  able  to  superinduce  the  decomposition  of 
pollen  and  honey  in  the  cells  of  neighboring 
hives,  and  thus  become  the  means  of  gradually 
diffusing  the  malady  further  and  further,  j 
though  the  disease  itself  is  originally  caused 
by  the  moisture  condensed  in  wooden  hives, 
the  importance  of  discontinuing  the  use  of 
whatever  contributes  to  or  aids  in  the  couden 
sation  of  moisture,  is  at  once  obvious. 

That  foulbrood  can  be  caused  by  feeding  the 
bees  of  colonies  containing  brood,  with  contam- 
inated or  fermenting  honey  is  likewise  evident 
fromthe  preceding  statements  ;  and  under  this 
conviction  we  content  ourselves  Avith  remark- 
ing further  that  the  minutest  particle  of  putres- 
cent nitrogenous  matter  mingled  with  the 
honey,  suffices  to  render  foulbroody  the  larvse 
to  which  it  is  fed. 

What  has  thus  been  advanced  in  these  latter 
passages  may  be  summarily  presented  in  the 
following  propositions:  1.  Foulbrood  may 
originate  from  putrescent  pollen  ;  2,  from  con- 
tagion and  infection  ;  and,  3,  from  feeding  fer- 
menting honey.  The  honey  brought  to  us  from 
trans-atlantic  countries,  is  mostly  expressed 
from  combs  still  containing  both  larvoe  and 
pollen ;  these,  exposed  to  heat  during  trans- 
portation, naturally  become  putrescent,  causing 
the  honey  to  ferment,  and  producing  foulbrood 
in  the  larvae  to  which  it  is  fed. 

August  Lambrecht. 

BOKNUM,  NEAR  WOLFENBUTTEL.      Jan.  1869. 


[For  t,ho  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Mishap  in  Wintering  Bees. 


As  I  have  extolled  the  wintering  of  bees  in 
the  ground,  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  confess  the 
check  I  encountered  this  winter. 

The  tirst  fortnight  of  September  was  very 
profitable  to  the  bees.  Many  of  my  strong 
stocks  gathered  twenty-five  pounds  of  lioney 
each,  in  three  days.  On  the  16th  of  (he  month 
the  frost  killed  all  the  flowers;  and  from  that 
time,  the  weather  being  cold  and  rainy,  the 
queens  ceased  laying.  I  had  then  several 
young  queens,  to  replace  the  tested  queens  I 
liad  sold  and  the  black  impregnated  queens  I 
had  removed  from  my  hives  and  destroyed- 
but  I  could  not  induce  mauy  of  these  youn'^' 
queens  to  lay.  Thus  the  time  for  putting  the 
hives  in  winter  quarters  was  at  hand,  before  I 
could  ascertain  whether  they  were  impregnated 
or  not. 

In  these  circumstances  I  reinforced  twelve 
nuclei  with  bees  and  honey  ;  desiguing  to  keep 
them  through  the  Avinter,  that  I  mlght^have,  in 
the  spring,  some  fertile  queens  on  hand,  to  're- 
place drone-laying  queers  ;  for  I  felt  pretty 
sure  that  I  had  many  au  uuimpreguated  queen 
in  my  hives. 

My  bees  were  buried  in  November,  before 
the  hard  frosts  set  in.  The  month  of  January 
and  the  first  half  of  Feliruary  were  unusually 
warm  and  wet.  I  was  far  from  being  ea'-y  as 
to  my  colonies,  as  I  suspected  that  they  were 
suffering  from  dampness.  I  had  concluded  to 
lake  them  up  before  the  end  of  February  ;  but 
the  last  fortnight  of  that  month  and  all  of 
March  were  so  cold  that  I  could  not  dig  them 
up  before  the  HOlh  of  March.  I  found  all  my 
ruchees  in  a  piteous  condition.  One-fourth  of 
them  had  perished,  with  plenty  of  honey  in  the 
h'ves;  and  all  had  more  or  less  dead  bees. 
The  strongest  stocks  had  survived;  but  amongst 
the  weaker,  in  whose  hives  the  honey  was  much 
scattered,  the  bees,  after  consuming  the  stoies 
immediately  within  their  reach,  were  prevented 
liy  mouldiness  from  passing  to  the  otlier  parts 
of  tlie  hive,  and  thus  perished  though  there  was 
plenty  of  honey  close  by. 

But  this  is  not  all.  On  the  very  day  that  the 
hives  were  replaced  on  their  summer  stands,  I 
had  the  mortification  to  see  the  bees  of  several 
desert  them  en  masse,  thougli  the  hives  were  in 
good  order  and  stored  with  honey.  Eight  col- 
onies played  me  that  sad  trick.  The  bees  en- 
tered some  of  the  other  hives;  hut  as  for  the 
queens,  they  were  lost,  although  I  had  hived 
several  of  them,  with  as  mauy  workers  as  pos- 
sible. 

I  suppose  these  queens  were  unimpregnatcd, 
and  issued  in  quest  of  drones,  and  the  workers, 
having  no  brood  to  care  for,  followed  them.  I 
think  I  may  safely  say  that  not  one  bee  left  my 
bee-yard — all  entered  some  of  the  other  hives. 
Thus,  from  Avant  of  brood  in  the  hives,  I  was 
unable  to  ascertain  whether  fertilization  rould 
be  eff"ect;ed  in  any  case,  after  so  long  .x  delay  as 
from  autumn  to  spring.  I  am  left  poorer,  by  a 
full  third  in  the  numijer  of  ruchees,  but  enriched 
with  plenty  of  mouldy  combs. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


Now,  from  what  cause  came  this  reverse? 
Did  it  come,  as  we  are  told  by  friend  G.iUup, 
from  tlie  great  age  of  my  bei^s  ?  Certainly  not. 
For.  having  bartered  some  Italian  stoc^ks  for 
black  bees,  I  replaced  the  queens  iu  Au-' 
gust,  and  the  laying  of  tlie  young  queens 
Avas  insignificant  before  winter.  Fourteen 
(14)  of  tliese  ruchees  are  alive  ;  yet  they 
had  only  old  bees.  I  think  ihe  mish**])  must  be 
attributed  to  some  otlier  cause.  The  houey 
gathered  on  the  13th,  14t,h,  and  15rli  of  Septem- 
>^erwas  not  duly  evaporated  before  the  cold 
■we  ither  set  in.  Consequently,  it  remained  un- 
capped, iind  the  warm  weather  maintained  it  in 
a  watery  condition.  The  dampness  and  the 
relative  heat  of  the  trenches  rendered  the  bees 
uneasy  ;  they  ate  more  than  usual,  and  perish- 
ed eitner  by  dysentery,  or  by  the  mould  which 
invaded  the  combs. 

Neither  did  the  bees  winter  well  in  cellars 
this  year,  as  the  combs  grew  mouldy.  It  hai 
been  noticed  that  a  cellar  is  alwaj^s  damp  in 
summer,  and  dry  in  a  cold  winter.  This  ex- 
plains the  great  mortality  of  bees,  from  dysen- 
tery, in  cellars  this  mild  winter. 

Is  there  any- way  to  prevent  such  dampness  ? 
Yes,  there  is  an  e;isy  and  cheap  one.  Pro(;ure 
some  waste  bittern  from  salt  woiks.  That  sub- 
stance has  great  power  for  absorbing  moisture  ; 
and  it  costs  nothing,  ns  tlie  s  ilt  manufacturers 
have  no  use  for  it.  Dry  it  in  an  iron  kettle, 
and  put  some  of  it  in  an  earthen  pan,  in  the  bot- 
tom of  which  one  or  two  small  holf^s  have  been 
bored.  Place  anotlierpan  below  the  first  to  re- 
ceive the  drippings  from  the  upper,  when  the 
bitiern  becomes  liquified  by  the  absorption  of 
moisture.  When  all  is  dissolved,  pour  the 
liquid  in  tlie  kettle  again  ;  evaporate  to  diy- 
ness,  anfl  tlien  replace  it  in  the  pierced  eai  thern 
pan.  This  may  be  repeated  twenty-five  or 
thirty  times. 

This  process  was  invented  by  Prof.  Bubreuil, 
of  Paris,  to  keep  fruit  houses  dry  ;  and  a  patent 
was  taken  for  it  foi  tliat  purpose.  I  have  tried 
it  myself  while  in  France,  and  found  it  works 
■well.  It  could  be  used  for  every  siock  by 
placing  the  pans  under  the  cap  of  the  hive. 
The  pans  for  this  use  should  be  made  to  con- 
tain about  a  quart;  and  for  a  cellar,  there  might 
be  several  large  enough  to  contain  a  gallon 
each. 

If  the  salt  and  queensware  -works  would  ad- 
vertise these  products  in  the  Bee  Journal,  I 
am  quiie  confideDt  they  would  have  a  good  de- 
mand for  these  articles,  as  soon  as  their  use 
would  become  widely  known. 

Cn.  Dadakt, 

Hamilton,   III. 


[For  tlie  Ameilcan  Bee  Journal] 

The  Italian  B;e. 


Millipedes,  or  wood  lice,  are  a  most  destruc- 
tive enemy  to  bees.  They  sometimes  proceed 
from  the  stands  being  made  of  old  decayed 
wood,  in  wldch  the  wood  lice  lay  their  eggs,  and 
thus  breed  under  the  very  hive.  Entering  the 
hive,  they  breed  in  the  combs. 


The  color  of  the  honey  depends  on  the  color 
t?f  the  juices  which  the  bees  collect  it. 


Mr.  W.  Hewson,  of  Kent,  England,  wishes 
Gallup  to  try  h's  hand  on  his  questions.  The 
real  sujieriority  of  the  Italian  bees  consists  (es- 
p^cially  in  this  new  country,  where  our  honey 
is  mostly  ga'hered  from  wild  flowers,)  in  their 
great  industry  in  gathering  forage  and  raising 
brood,  in  seasons  when  the  black  bees  do  com- 
paratively nothing.  The  queens  are  more  pro- 
lific. The  bees  swarm  more  frequently,  if  left 
to  themselves;  and  they  are  almost  perfectly 
moth-proof.  Instead  of  running  all  over  the 
hive  when  the  miller  is  around  in  the  evening, 
tliey  cluster  closely  at  the  entr>7nce,  and  seem 
to  say  : — "  now  come  on  ;  Ave  are  not  going  to 
run  after  you."  They  defend  themselves  from 
robbers  much  more  elfcctually  than  tlie  blacks. 
They  can  be  handled  very  easily,  without  dam- 
age from  stings,  unless  afti-r  cold  weather  sets 
in,  in  the  fall,  or  after  they  are  done  breeding. 
At  such  periods  I  think  they  are  fully  as  cross 
as  the  natives.  But  let  thenr  have  a  taint  of 
black  blood,  and  they  are  sometimes  as  cross  as 
vengeance.  You  can  sit  down  by  a  pure  swarm 
for  boms,  Avhen  they  are  at  work,  and  not  a 
single  bee  Avill  come  buzzing  about  you.  In 
fact,  they  mind  their  own  business.  On  open- 
ing a  hive  to  find  the  queen,  or  perform  any 
other  operation,  the  queen  will  not  attempt  to 
hide  like  a  black  queen  ;  and  the  bees  Avid  stick 
to  their  regular  business,  if  they  are  handled  as 
they  should  be.  The  Italians  are  longer-lived 
than  the  blacks.  Hence,  if  a  swarm  becomes 
qu  enless,  they  keep  up  their  strength  consider- 
ably longer  than  the  blacks  when  iu  the  same 
condition. 

That  red  clover  question  I  answered  before 
in  the  Bee  Journal,  but  Avill  do  so  again.  I 
have  seen  two  seasons,  since  I  came  Avest,  that 
black  bees  Avorked  freely  on  red  clover;  but 
usually,  on  our  rich  western  soil,  neither  blacks 
nor  Italians  can  do  anything  Avitli  it.  On  sand}'' 
land  they  probably  could  work  on  the  blossom 
almost  every  season.  I  presume  that  last  sea- 
son they  Avould  have  worked  freely  on  it  on  ac- 
count of  the  drouth  shortening  the  cups  that 
contain  the  nectar  ;  but  Ave  had  no  clover  here. 

I  prefer  smoke  from  chips,  rotten  AA'ood,  or 
sawdust,  to  fumigate  bees  for  handling;  but 
use  very  little  at  any  time — ^just  snflBcient  to 
make  them  ask  your  pardon,  if  they  show  any 
crossness.  I  lave  a  strong  impression  that 
tobacco  smoke  makes  them  irritable  and  cross, 
especially  if  used  often,  or  by  a  novice.  Bees 
properly  handled  with  Avood  smoke,  never  ap- 
l)ear  to  resent  it  afterwards,  even  if  handled  a 
dozen  times  a  day. 

I  know  of  no  way  to  prevent  the  accumula- 
tion of  propolis,  only  to  have  your  frame  bear- 
ings quite  small  ;  and  if  your  honey  board  fits 
just  right,  you  Avill  have  very  little  trouble.  I 
allow  a  trifle  over  a  quarter  of  an  inch  between 
the  honey  board  and  frames  ;  three-eighths  of 
an  inch  between  the  frame  and  side  of  the  hive; 
and  half  an  inch  between  the  bottom  board  and 
the  bottom  bar  of  the  frame.     The  side  pieces 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


of  the  frnmes  are  a  trifle  over  one-ei?htli  of  an 
incli  thick,  and  one  incli  wide.  Wlien  thus 
made  and  adjusted,  there  is  no  fastening  of  the 
frames  to  the  hive  or  honey  hoard  with  pieces 
of  comh. 

Whether  we  hold  ourselves  indebted  to  Mr. 
Langstroth  or  not,  we  are  certainly  under  obli- 
gations to  him  for  liis  liive  and  hook,  and  for 
his  honorable  manner  of  dealing  with  his  cus- 
tomers genernlly. 

To  smn  up  the  ftalian  bee  question  in  a  very 
few  words — I  would  sooner  have  one  Italian 
swarm  than  two  natives,  for  real  pleasure  and 
profit.  Since  the  May  number  of  the  Bee 
Journal  came  to  hand,  I  have  received  six  let- 
ters on  this  same  question,  and  five  of  them 
complain  that  the  writers  have  purchased  each 
an  Italian  swarm,  and  the  bees  are  so  cross  that 
they  dare  not  go  near  them.  If  they  hnve  not 
been  badly  handled  and  thus  irritated,  I  should 
be  strongly  inclined  to  think  that  tliey  are  not 
pure,  even  if  tiieir  markii  gs  are  perfect.  It 
must  be  understood,  however,  that  wlien  Ital- 
ian btes  are  thoroughly  aioused,  they  can  and 
will  sting  with  a  vengeance.  The  liybrids  are 
fully  as  good  as  the  pure,  so  far  as  storing  hon- 
ey and  fertility  of  queeiis  are  <oncerned.  But 
when  a  purchaser  pays  for  an  Italinn  swarm,  he 
wants  and  expects  lo  receive  wiiat  he  paid  for. 
If  I  am  rightly  informed,  huniLug  is  not  all 
coufined  to  tbis  side  of  the  big  water,  for  it  is 
not  every  inipoited  queen  that  proves  to  be 
pure.  I  might  say  more  for  the  Italians,  but 
enough  at  piesent. 

Elisha  Gallup. 

Osage,  Iowa. 


[For  Ihe  Americaa  Bee  Journal.] 

Observations  and  Suggestions. 


Mr.  Editor: — Having  been  for  manj' years 
a  subscriber  to  the  AmeuIcan  Bee  Journal,  it 
has  afforded  me  mucii  pleasure  to  note  the  im- 
provements that  have  been  made  in  its  charac- 
ter and  appenrance,  during  the  last  two  years  ; 
as  well  as  the  increasing  "interest  shown  in  the 
cause  by  its  numerous  correspodents. 

Although  not  a  large  bee-keeper,  I  have  been 
more  or  less  engaged  in  the  business  for  the 
last  twenty  years.  Since  the  Italian  bees  came 
into  notice  I  liave  puicliased  several  queensthut 
were  supposi'd  to  be  of  the  purest  stock,  and  by 
that  means  have  succeeded  in  Italianizing  and 
hybridizing  nearly  all  of  my  colonies.  In  some 
cases,  wlieie  bees  iiave  bet-n  removed  to  a  new 
and  distant  loc;ility,  my  observations  have  re- 
sulted in  the  impression  that  their  industry  and 
energy  were  increased  by  the  change  ;  and  it 
is  quite  reasonable  to  suppose  that  tlie  infusion 
of  new  and  improved  blood  would  Iiave  the 
snme  beneficial  influence  in  their  case  which  it 
has  on  other  kinds  of  stock.  But  further  than 
this  I  cannot  say  that  I  have  found  any  decided 
superiority  in  tht-ir  favor. 

It  has  often  occurred  to  me  that  our  climate 
in  this  immediate  locality  was  one  of  the  woist 
in  the  country  for  bees,  as  from  cold  and  wet 
weather,  they  frequently  lose  the  whole  range 


I  of  the  early  blossoms  ;  and  I  think  they  never 

,  accumulate  any  surplus  stores  after  the  first  or 

I  second  week  in   Ju  y.     The  last  season  was  a 

very   unlavorahle   one   for  liee-keepers  in  this 

vicinity.     Scarcely  auy  surplus  honey  was  made, 

and  very  few   young  swarms  will   survive  the 

present  winter.     In  consequence  of  the  scRrcity 

j  of  the   honey   supply,  great  numbers  of   bees 

were  lost   in  the   grocery  and  count'y  stores; 

and  old  stocks  were  mucb  weakened  tliereby. 

Our  winters  are  probably  too  open  and  varia- 
ble to  admit  of  storing  bees  in  special  deposito- 
ries. But  I  am  favorably  inclined  to  the  plan 
!  of  packing  nnd  wintering  them  on  their  summer 
I  stands.  For  this  purpose  our  common  hives 
might  be  moved  gradually  close  to  each  other  in 
the  fiill,  and  temporarily  boxed  around  with 
boards,  and  filling  up  the  interior  space  with 
cut  straw  or  other  non-conducting  material — 
leaving  a  small  passnge  outward  for  the  bees 
from  each  hive.  They  should  also  be  covered 
over  and  kept  dry.  When  they  are  left  unpro- 
tected, every  cold  spell  will  cause  the  death  of 
a  large  number.  Sometimes  a  pint  or  more  of 
dead  bees  will  be  found  on  the  bottom  board  at 
once.  Out-door  packing  might  prevent  this, 
and  also  allow  them  to  fly  out  wlien  the  weather 
permits.  This  plan  is  only  recommended  for 
common  hives  that  are  already  in  use.  In 
making  or  buying  h'ves.  it  would  be  much  bet- 
ter to  get  those  which  are  des  gned  for  inside 
packing. 

Most  of  my  hives  contain  movable  frames  ; 
but  there  are  also  a  numl>er  of  the  common 
square  form.  Where  aitificial  swarming  and 
queen  raising  are  practiced,  a  birge  portion  of 
the  hives  shou'd  have  movable  frames;  and  I 
look  upon  artificial  swarming  as  a  necessity, 
wliere  a  large  number  of  bees  are  kept.  In 
laising  queens  in  nucleus  liives,  there  seems  to 
be  a  dittlculty  in  bringing  the  fir.st  crop  to  matu- 
rity. TIjey  liJitch  out  well  enough,  but  seeni  to 
get  lost  in  various  ways.  Comparatively  few 
of  the  earlier  ynung  queens  become  impregna- 
ted in  time  for  the  first  swarms.  But  Inter  in 
the  season,  there  is  little  trouble  in  getting  a 
supply  of  them.  Losses  then  seem  to  be  fewer, 
but  the  young  queens  come  in  too  late  for  use 
in  making  swarms. 

I  see  tiiat  some  of  your  advertisers  offer  to 
sell  pure  Italian  queens  at  very  low  price's— as 
j  low  even  as  two  dollars  and  fifty  cents  each,  where 
I  twenty-five  are  included  in  an  order.  As  we 
j  can  hardly  afford  to  buy  Italian  queens  for  all 
our  stocks,  even  at  these  low  rates,  and  are  not 
I  always  successful  in  raising  them  ourselves,  I, 
for  one,  would  be  willing  to  trv  common  qr.eens 
at  low  prices,  if  they  could  be  liad  \vhen  needed; 
and  ibe  colonies  cou'd  afterwards  be  Italianized. 
The  advantage  to  be  derived  from  extra  queens, 
so  as  to  be  able  to  give  one  immediately  to  the 
old  as  well  as  to  the  new  swarms,  is  so  obvious 
that  some  of  our  friends,  who  are  in  the  busi- 
ness of  selling  queens,  would  do  well  to  prepare 
themselves  for  this  demand— which,  I  think 
would  soon  become  a  largo  one,  since  they 
could  be  sent  so  cheaply  by  mail.  The  recent 
mortality  in  bees  may  lessen  the  demand  for 
queens,  as  those  who  have  no  bees,  will  not 
wish  to  buy  queens. 


8 


THE  AMEEICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


Another  matter,  ou  wliicli  I  would  like  to 
liave  the  views  of  more  experienced  bee  keepers, 
is  tliis  :  when  removing  a  strong  swarm  and 
substituting  a  weak  one — eitlier  for  the  purpose 
of  making  swarms,  or  recruiting  weak  stocks — is 
there  no  danger,  from  the  great  rush  of  strange 
bees  into  the  weak  liive,  that  the  queen  of  the 
latter,  unless  caged,  will  be  destroyed,  before 
they  have  time  to  become  acquainted  with  lier? 
So  many  mishaps  have  resulted  from  my  experi- 
ments in  clianging  hives,  that  I  have  latterly 
adopted  the  plan  of  caging  the  queen,  or  where, 
as  in  the  case  of  a  common  hive,  that  cannot  be 
done,  of  substituting  queenless  stock  for  a  time, 
until  they  have  become  aware  of  their  loss,  and 
then  replacing  this  with  the  one  that  is  to  re- 
main. 

Stephen  Scotton. 

Richmond,  Ind. 


[For  the  Ainericau  Bee  Journal.] 

Impure   Italians,    and    Queens    Mating 
Twice. 


Sometime  since  a  copy  of  Kidder's  circular, 
giving  description  and  price  of  Italian  bees  and 
queens,  came  into  our  possession.  In  this  cir- 
cular it  was  claimed  tliat  inasmuch  as  the  Ital- 
ian bee  existed  nowhere  in  its  purity — not  even 
in  its  native  country,  Italy — living  as  it  did  in 
close  proximity  to  our  common  kind  ;  that  as  a 
natural  consequence,  one,  two,  and  three  banded 
bees  would  appear  simultaneously,  in  colonies 
having  purely  mated  Italian  queens  ;  and 
purchasers  must  be  satisfied,  if  even  a  majority 
of  the  workers  have  the  three  yellow  stripes 
around  the  abdomen. 

Now,  every  intelligent  bee-keeper,  who  has 
practiced  rearing  Italian  queens,  knows  that 
queens  from  pure  mothers  having  mated  with 
common  drones,  wi  1  beget  workers  a  majority  of 
Avhich  will  have  the  three  yellow  stripes.  At  least 
tills  is  my  experience.  But  Mr.  Kidder's  custo- 
mers receiving  such  queens  must  be  satisfied, 
since  a  majority  of  their  workers  are  three 
banded,  and  by  this  mode  of  reasoning  sucli 
queens  arc  as  near  an  approach  to  purity  as 
can  be  arrived  at,  from  their  present  imperfect 
condition  ! 

Another  tenet  in  bee-keeping,  not  less  absurd 
and  inconsiderate  than  that  taught  by  Mr.  Kid- 
der, is  tlie  doctrine  that  an  Italian  queen  may  and 
often  does  mate  concurrently  and  consecutively 
with  drones  of  different  species,  whereby  lier 
progeny  are  differently  marked — some  being 
common,  some  Italian,  while  others  partake  of 
the  character  of  both.  This  idea  is  being  dis- 
seminated here,  by  persons  engaged  in  the 
queen-raising  business,  and  in  my  opinion  is  a 
shrewd  invention  to  blind  the  minds  of  those 
bee-keepers  whom  they  wish  to  humbug  by 
their  spurious  queens.  Thanks  to  auch  men  as 
LangstroMi,  Gallup,  &c.,  for  their  regard  for 
trutli  and  tlie  rights  of  others,  by  refusing  to 
alliiw  such  errors  and  impositions  to  be  prac- 
ticed upon  the  people,  without  entering  their 
protest. 


B.y  the  way,  allow  me  to  express  my  thanks 
to  Mr.  Gallup  for  the  freedom  and  liberality 
with  which  he  has  favored  us  with  the  results 
of  his  observations  and  experience  in  practical 
bee-culture.  He  is  just  the  kind  of  man  we 
want  to  instrut;t  us  in  the  art  ;  and  his  ideas  are 
of  the  first  class.  The  size,  shape,  and  practical 
workings  of  the  hive  he  has  presented  for  our 
consideration,  I  like  very  much.  Long  may  he 
live  to  enjoy  the  advantages  wlucli  his  favorite 
hive  and  long  experience  in  bee-keeping  afford 
him, 

J.  L.  McLean. 

Richmond,  Ohio. 


[For  tbo  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Swarming  Without  a  Queen. 


A  colony  of  bees  cast  a  top  swarm,  without 
issuing  or  the  queen  leaving  the  hive. 

This.  Mr.  Editor,  would  seem  almost  incredi- 
ble, but  there  is  hardly  anything  impossible 
nowadays.  The  following  account  of  the  ac- 
cession of  a  swarm  to  the  apiary  of  James  Mc- 
Lean, in  accordance  with  the  facts  above  stated, 
came  under  my  observation  : 

In  the  summer  of  1865,  Mr.  McLean  had  a 
swarm  issue  rather  late  in  the  season — too  late 
to  secure  honey  enough  to  enable  it  to  pass  the 
winter  in  safety.  It  tlierefore  died,  leaving  tlie 
hive,  however,  full  of  nice  comb.  This  hive, 
which  was  a  box  in  the  form  of  a  four-cornered 
P3^ramid.  witli  glass  on  its  sides,  and  a  slide,  by 
means  of  which  the  operations  of  the  bees  upon 
the  combs  could  be  distinctly  seen.  Tlie  comb 
he  reserved  for  a  future  swarm.  The  next  year, 
the  swarming  seasom  having  arrived,  he  placed 
this  hive  at  the  side  of  a  populous  colony,  with 
its  edge  a  little  raised,  that  the  bees,  then  begin- 
ning to  lie  out,  might  pass  up  among  the  combs 
and  protect  them  from  the  depredations  of  the 
miller.  As  the  number  ot  bees  increased  and 
the  storage  of  honey  gradually  crowded  tliem 
out,  they  wended  their  way  up  among  the 
combs  and  finally  began  to  deposit  lioney  in 
them.  Each  subsequent  day  brought  further 
accessions  of  honej' to  those  combs;  and  soon 
our  attention  was  drawn  to  the  gradual  length- 
ening out  of  a  queen  cell  on  tlie  edge  of  a  comb, 
which  had  been  started  by  the  bees  the  season 
before.  This  process  of  queen  cell  construction 
progressed  from  one  degree  of  formation  to 
another,  until  it  readied  completion.  Tiien,  to 
our  astonishnif-nt,  after  the  lapse  of  sufficient 
time,  a  young  queen  emerged  from  the  cell,  to 
assume  undisputed  possession  of  so  pleasant  a 
habitation. 

In  process  of  time,  tliis  liive  began  to  be  re- 
plenished by  bees  reared  from  its  own  combs  ; 
its  intercourse  with  the  parent  hive  ceased  ;  its 
independence  became  established  ;  and  it  now 
ranks  among  the  first  colonies  of  the  apiary. 

Que^y. — i3id  the  bees  remove  an  egg  from 
the  parent  hive,  and  place  it  in  this  cell ;  or  did 
the  queen  lay  it  there  ? 

John  L.  McLean. 

Richmond,  Ohio. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


[For  the  Americau  Bee  Journal.] 

Experience  with  Bee  Stings. 


I  am  glad  Mr.  Gallup  has  related  some  of  his 
experience  wiili  bee  stings;  and  also  tliat  he 
has  roconimended  water  treatment.  When  I 
commenced  beekeeping  a  stiug  was  a  formida- 
bio  affiiir,  swelling  for  several  days  and  ob- 
structing mj^  sight  if  inflicted  near  the  eyes. 
Now,  although  tlie  pain  is  sharp  at  first,  in  a 
few  hours  the  swelling  is  at  its  height,  and  is 
generally  not  noticed.  Probably  my  system 
has  become  accustomed  to  it. 

Having  tried  the  water  treatment  several 
years,  not  ojly  in  my  own  case,  but  for  others, 
i  am  satisfied  that  it,  is  the  best  remedy  I  have 
tried,  and  1  have  tried  many.  I  have  a  brother 
to  whom  a  bee  sting  is  very  poisonous.  Several 
years  ago  he  was  stung  in  his  upper  lip,  Avhicli 
swelled  badly.  A  few  days  afterwards  he  was 
suing  slightly  on  his  body.  Within  five  min- 
utes liis  upper  lip  began  to  swell;  then  his  face, 
especially  under  his  Jliws,  giving  him  somewhat 
the  appearance  of  a  severe  case  of  mumps.  He 
then  began  to  feel  oppressed  for  breath,  and 
blotches  began  to  come  out  over  his  body  and 
limbs,  which  looked  like  nettle-rash,  aud 
caused  him  to  feel  uncomfortable  and  alarmed. 
At  the  same  time  he  felt  sick  and  chilly.  We 
removed  his  clothing  and  sponged  hi3  body 
with  tepid  water,  fie  then  began  to  feel  re- 
lieved and  after  lying  down  a  sliorl  time  felt 
much  better,  SubseQ_^uently,  when  stung,  his 
upper  lip  would  begin  to  swell  within  three  or 
four  minutes;  but  at  no  other  time  have  the 
symptoms  been  as  serious  as  at  the  time  men- 
tioned. 

I  should  have  said  that  the  sting  which  pro- 
duced such  a  marked  ettect  was  inflicted  by  a 
bee  whicli  accident. y  flew  into  his  shirt  bossom, 
and  it  appeared  to  be  very  slight.  If  T  remember 
correct!}',  it  was  nearly  over  his  stomach; 
which  may  account,  in  some  degree,  for  the 
remarkable  eff'est  produced.  But  at  the  same 
time  it  must  be  remembered  that  a  bee  sting 
was  and  is  a  serious  aff"air  for  him  whenever 
inflicted. 

A  person  who  intends  to  keep  bees  should 
expect  occasional  stings,  aud  Ije  determined  to 
bear  them  with  fortitude.  This  will  take  away 
at  least  half  the  suff"ering  occasioned  by  them. 
By  experience  a  person  will  know  when  to  ex- 
pect cross  bees,  and  be  prepared  lor  them.  I 
have  had  swarms  intolerably  cross  when  hiving 
them,  and  a  day  or  two  afterwards  would  open 
the  hive  and  handle  them  with  no  protector 
and  not  a  cross  bee. 

J.  L.  Hubbard. 

Walpole,  N.  H.,  December,  1868. 


[For  tlje  Americau  Bee  Journal.] 

Camphor  vs.  Robbing  Bees. 


A  person  who  has  familiarized  himself  to  bees, 
can  by  means  of  the  passion  of  fear  impressed 
upon  them,  and  b}'  that  dexterity  in  the  man- 
agement of  them,  which  can  only  be  acquired 
by  practice,  manage  bees  as  he  pleases. —  Wild- 
man. 


I  noticed  an  article  in  the  April  number  of 
the  BtiE  JouKNAL  from  A.  Grimm,  about  using 
camphor  to  stop  bees  robbing. 

I  had  two  stocks  ot  bees  that  were  being  rob- 
bed, and  I  did  not  think  it  possible  to  save 
them,  without  removing  them  into  the  cellar.; 
but  thought  I  would  try  the  camphor.  I  had  no 
gum  eaufphor  in  the  house,  and  therefore  took 
some  of  the  liquid  in  a  teaspoon,  and  turned  it 
on  the  bottom  board  near  the  front  entrance  (in- 
side) ;  and  in  less  than  one  minute  every  rob- 
ber bee  had  disappeared.  I  never  saw  such  a 
scampering,  to  leave.  Upon  examination  both 
stocks  proved  to  be  queenless. 

G.  R.  Atres. 

Springfield,  III.,  April  26,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

A  Gentle  Reminder. 


Mr.  Editor  :— I  have  been  a  reader  of  the 
Bee  Journal  for  three  years,  and  peruse  its 
Images  witli  more  interest  than  any  other  reading 
matter  that  comes  to  hand.  I  wish  I  could  get 
a  number  every  week. 

Bees  are  cultivated  with  some  taste  in  this 
place.  There  is  one  man  in  town  cultivating 
the  honey  bee  without  the  Bee  Journal. 
That  is,  he  does  not  take  it.  He  borrows  it  oc- 
casionally. I  don't  like  very  well  to  lend  the 
numbers.  They  are  gone  sometimes  when  we 
want  them  ourselves.  Our  friend  over  the  way 
is  a  clever  fellow  (as  you  know  all  bee-men  are); 
aud  we  will  try  to  get  him  to  send  for  the  next 
volume. 

We  got  an  average  yield  of  honey  here  last 
season.  Some  bees  have  died  through  the  win- 
ter. We  are  looking  for  a  good  time  this  sum- 
mer.    I  will  not  tax  your  patience  further. 

A.  P.  Durant. 

Athens,  Ohio. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Bees  in  Connecticut 


Mr.  Editor  : — My  bees  have  wintered  fine- 
ly, under  an  open  shed,  covered  with  straw, 
cobs,  carpet,  &c.  They  have  been  gathering 
pollen  now  two  weeks,  and  are  brooding  fast. 

I  look  uiion  your  Journal  as  indispensable 
to  the  beekeeper.  I  would  not  part  with  the 
information  contained  in  three  certain  articles 
from  your  very  valuable  contributor,  Mr.  E. 
Gallup,  for  the  price  of  a  volume. 

About  "that  division  board."  A  very  good 
one  can  be  made  by  tacking  a  piece  of  paste- 
board, of  the  size  required,  on  one  of  the 
frames.     It  will  be  found  light  and  convenient. 

W.  H.  Kirk, 
West  Cheshire,  Conn. 


10 


^HB  AMEEICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Queen  Raising  in  Winter. 


[For  tbeAmerican  Bee  Journal.] 

Dividing    Bees,    or    Making    Artiflciai 
Swarms. 


Mr.  Editor: — Rather  an  unusual  occurrence 
came  under  my  notice  a  few  weeks  since,  of  a 
colony  of  bees  raising  a  queen  in  mid-water. 
I  will  give  the  facts  of  the  case,  throw  out  a 
few  suggestions,  and  leave  it  ojjen  to  the  readers 
of  the  Journal. 

In  October  last,  I  furnished  a  neighbor  an 
Italian    queen— a  young  one,  which  had  just 
commenced  to  lay.      After  destroying  the   old 
queen  in  a  good  strong  si:)ring  swarm,  he  intro- 
duced the  Italian  queen.     They  received  her  all 
right.     The   first  of  December  he   closed   the 
entrance  of  the  hive,  gave  them  upward  venti- 
lation, and  removed  them  from  their  summer 
stand  to  a  dry  cellar  under  his  dwelling  house. 
About   the  middle  of  January,  when  visiting 
his  bees,  to  see  if  they  were  all  right,  he  dis-  j 
tincily  heard  the  i^iping  of  a  young  queen.     He 
immediately  removed  the  hive  to  a  convenient  j 
l^lace,    and  commenced   an  examination.      He  | 
found  a  good  fair  quantify  of  bees  and  honey, 
and   on   the   three   central   cards    considerable  j 
brood  in  all  stages,  and  on  one  of  the  cards  a  i 
good-sized  queen  cell   guarded  by  a  cluster  of  1 
bees.     On   opening  this  cell  he   found  a  fine,  I 
young,  full-grown  Italian  queen  ;  and  on   one  | 
of  the  other   cards  he   found  the  old   queen,  j 
apparently  all  right.     He  destroyed  the  young  | 
one,  and  removed  the   hive  to  the  cellar  again,  i 

Now  I  would  like  to  know  if  any  of  the  read- 
ers of  the  Bee  Journal  has  ever  had  a  case  of 
the  kind  come  under  liis  notice.  Does  it  not  at 
once  settle  the  point,  that  the  royal  jelly,  a  food 
given  to  young  queens,  is  nothing  more  or 
less  than  honey,  i^ollen,  and  water?  For,  in 
the  above  case,  there  could  not  possibly  have 
been  anything  more  obtained  by  the  bees.  Does 
it  not  also  account  for  so  many  colonies  having 
drone-laying  queens  in  the  spring,  when  return- 
ed to  their  summer  stands  ?  Last  spring  I  my- 
self, had,  out  of  thirty  stocks  all  right  in  the 
fall,  three  drone-laying  queens  ;  and  those  were 
in  hives  that  had  in  them,  in  the  fall,  young 
prolific  queens  of  that  season's  raising.  Possi- 
bly they  raised  another  queen,  for  some  cause 
unknown  (to  me  at  least),  like  the  colony  above 
referred  to  ;  and  when  the  queens  were  allowed, 
by  the  bees,  to  come  together,  the  prolific  one 
happened  to  be  slain.  This  of  course  would 
leave  the  hive  with  a  young  queen,  without  a 
possibility  of  her  becoming  fertilized. 

I  have  now  given  the  facts  of  the  case,  and 
hope  to  hear  from  some  of  the  readers  of  the 
Journal,  who  have  had  more  experience  than 
myself. 

H.  M.  Thomas. 
Brooklin,  Ontario,  Canada. 


The  goodness  and  flavor  of  honey  depend  on 
the  fragrance  of  the  plants  from  which  the  bees 
collect  it. 


The  honey  gathered  by  the  bees  early  in  the 
spring  is  finer  and  preferred  to  that  gathered  in 
the  fall. 


There  are  several  Avays  in  which  bees  may  be 
divided  and  artificial  swarms  made,  with  com- 
parative success.  The  object  should  be,  how- 
ever, to  make  artificial  swarms,  that  are  in 
every  respect  equal  to  natural  swarm?,  leaving 
the  parent  stock  in  equally  good  condition  also. 
To  do  this,  we  require  to  keep  as  close  to  nature 
as  possible.  In  other  words,  we  must  act  in 
perfect  harmony  with  the  nature  and  habits  of 
the  bee.  It  would  then  be  well  to  inquire, 
what  is  the  true  condition  of  the  parent  stock, 
after  a  first  swarm  has  been  cast ;  and  of  the 
first  swarm  after  it  has  been  hived  ? 

It  is  well  understood  that  the  old  queen  goes 
with  the  first  swarm,  and  a  very  large  portion 
of  the  bees — that  is,  worker  bees,  as  the  drones 
always  remain  in  the  parent  hive  until  the 
second  swarm  issues,  which  always  contains  a 
young  queen.  It  is  well  understood,  also,  that 
the  first  swarm  seldom  issues  until  queen  cells 
are  commenced  and  young  queens  are  being 
developed.  It  will  be  seen  then  that  after  a  first 
swarm  has  gone  off,  the  jiarent  stock  has  but 
few  bees,  and  no  queen.  It  is,  however,  full  of 
combs  filled  with  young  bees  in  all  stages,  from 
the  larvae  to  the  full  grown  bee  issuing  from  the 
cells,  and  young  queens  Avhich  will  be  matured 
in  about  nine  days.  Such  then  is  the  natural 
condition  of  the  parent  stock,  after  a  first  swarm 
has  issued  in  a  natural  way.  The  first  swarm 
after  being  hived  is  in  the  following  condition. 
It  has  an  empty  hive — a  hive  without  comb  or 
honey  ;  but  it  has  a  laying  queen  and  a  large 
number  of  bees. 

Now  how  shall  we  divide  a  colony  so  as  to 
secure  the  same  conditions  to  both  stocks  ?  If 
we  could  do  this,  and  make  our  8vvarr.:s  a  few 
days  earlier  than  they  would  swarm  if  left  to 
themselves,  and  save  the  trouble  of  watching 
for  swarms  to  come  off,  and  the  loss  of  bees 
going  to  the  bees  it  would  be  very  desirable. 

I  will  now  give  my  method  of  making  swarms, 
and  the  reader  may  see  how  near  I  keep  to  na- 
ture. I  wait  uniil  I  see  some  signs  of  swarm- 
ing, or  near  to  swarming  time,  generally  to  about 
the  time  queen  cells  are  being  started.  I  then 
go  to  the  hive  I  wish  to  divide  and  search  for 
the  queen  by  looking  over  each  card  of  comb 
carefully.  As  soon  as  I  discover  her,  I  ]iut 
the  card  of  co»nb  on  which  I  find  her  in  a 
new  empty  hive  from  which  I  have  removed 
one  frame.  I  then  put  the  frame  in  the  old 
stock,  in  place  of  the  card  of  comb  I  removed. 
I  now  remove  the  old  stock  away  some  distance 
to  one  side,  putting  it  on  a  new  stand  ;  and  set 
the  new  hive,  in  which  I  put  the  queen,  on  the 
stand  were  the  old  hive  stood.  The  result  is, 
the  bees  will  rush  out  of  the  old  hive,  return  in 
large  numbers  to  the  old  stand  and  enter  the 
new  hive,  where  they  find  their  queen,  but 
an  empty  hive. 

It  will  now  bs  seen  that  the  old  stock  or  hive 
will  lose  a  large  proportion  of  bees  and  the  old 
queen,  the  same  as  in  the  case  of  a  first  swarm  go- 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


11 


ing  off  naturally  ;  but  it  will  contain  all  the 
combs,  h()nej\  and  youncc  bees,  save  -what  are 
contained  on  the  one  card  removed.  If  queen 
cells  were  not  already  staited,  they  will  at  once 
start  them,  and  a  queen  will  be  matured  in  ten 
or  twelve  days,  only  a  day  or  two  longer  than 
when  a  swarm  issues  naturally.  The  swarm  in 
the  new  hive  will  be  in  just  the  same  condition 
as  a  first  swarm  would,  except  that  they  have  a 
card  of  comb  instead  of  an  entirely  empty  hive; 
and  the  next  day  even  this  card  of  comb  may  be 
removed,  first  shaking  ofi"  all  the  bees  and  the 
queen,  and  replaced  in  the  old  hive  again,  leaving 
the  swarm  to  build  all  new  combs,  as  iu  natural 
swarm!  a  g. 

It  will  be  seen  at  a  glance  that  nothing  can  be 
nearer  nature,  than  the  plan  I  give.  "But," 
says  some  one,  "  it  is  diflicult  for  me  to  find  the 
queen,  and  I  would  like  some  method  that  I 
could  practice,  without  searching  for  the  queen." 
Here  it  is,  then.  "When  you  wish  to  make  a 
swarm,  first  remove  the  stock  you  intend  to 
divide  a  sliort  distance  away,  and  set  an  empty 
hive  on  the  stand  where  the  stock  stood.  Now 
remove  each  card,  carefully  shaking  offer  wing- 
ing off  all  the  bees  back  into  the  hive,  and  place 
the  card  in  the  empty  hive.  By  the  time  you 
have  placed  them  all  in,  there  will  be  bees  enough 
return  to  nourish  the  brood.  Having  put  frames 
into  the  old  hive  from  which  you  have  just 
removed  the  cards  of  comb,  place  it  again  on 
its  stand,  removing  the  new  hive  into  which 
you  have  put  the  cards  of  comb  to  a  new  stand. 
It  will  now  be  seen  that  the  queen  and  a  large 
portion  of  the  bees  will  be  on  the  old  stand,  in 
the  old  hive  now  filled  with  empty  frames,  and 
like  a  first  swarm  will  go  to  work  and  fill  their 
hive  with  new  combs.  Care  must  always  be 
taken  that  the  hive  containing  the  combs  has 
bees  enough  to  nourish  the  brood. 

I  would  here  remark  that  whatever  method  is 
practiced,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  the  old 
queen  be  in  the  empty  hive,  as  bees  always  build 
clrone  comb  when  they  have  no  queeu ;  and  every 
method  that  does  not  recognize  this  fact  should 
be  rejected.  J.  H.  Thomas. 

Brooklin,  Ontario. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Reply  to  B.  C.  Auchampaugh's  Questions 
About  Patent  Rights  and  Claims. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  will  answer,  as  briefly  as  I 
can,  the  questions  of  B.  C.  Auchampaugh,  iu 
in  the  last  number  the  Journal. 

And  first,  let  me  assure  him  that  he  is  entirely 
mistaken  in  supposing  that  I  claim  to  be  the 
first  inventor  of  all  kinds  of  movable  frames, 
as  the  following  extracts  Irom  page  209,  3d  edi- 
tion of  my  work  on  bees,  published  in  May,  1859, 
will  plainly  show.  "  1  have  before  me  a  small 
pamphlet,  published  in  London  in  1851,  describ- 
ing the  construction  of  the  "Bar  and  Frame 
Hive"  of  W.  A.  Munn.  The  object  of  this  inven- 
tion is  to  elevate  frames,  one  at  a  time,  into  a  case 
with  glass  sides  so  that  they  may  be  examined 
without  risk  of  annoyance  from  the  bees." 

In  the  June  number  of  the  Bee  Joubital  for 


1861,  page  142,  is  a  communication  which  first 
appeared  in  the  "  Country  Gentleman,"  some 
extracts  from  which  will  make  this  point  still 
clearer  to  your  correspondent  : 

"When  I  applied  for  a  patent,  I  was  not 
aware  that  movable  conib  hives  had  ever  been 
used,  except  those  with  movable  bars  or  the 
sectional  frames  of  Huber.  The  former  required 
the  combs  to  be  cut  from  their  side  attachments, 
while  the  latter  were  so  costly  and  demanded  so 
much  experience,  time,  and  patience,  to  open 
and  close  the  sectiosn,  that  notwithstanding  they 
were  invented  at  the  close  of  the  last  century, 
they  were  confined  almost  exclusively  to  ama- 
teur bee-keepers.  ******  Since  my 
application  for  a  patent,  I  have  ascertained  that 
prior  to  ray  invention  other  movable  frames 
besides  those  of  Huber,  were  in  use  iu  Europe, 
None  of  them,  so  far  as  I  can  learn  after 
thorough  inquiry,  are  any  better  than  those  of 
Huber.  I  would  refer  those  who  desire  informa- 
tion on  this  point,  to  the  Cours  Pratique  d^ 
Apiculture  of  Mr.  Hamet,  published  in  Paris  in 
1859,  which  contains  a  larger  variety  of  cuts 
and  descriptions  of  hives  than  can  he  found, 
I  believe,  in  any  other  work.  All  the  modifi- 
cations of  the  Huber  hive  are  pronounced  by 
Hamet  to  be  useful  only  for  purposes  of  obser- 
vation ;  and  he  asserts  that,  in  the  districts  of 
France,  where  bee-keeping  is  most  largely  pur- 
sued, no  movable  frame  hives  have  ever  come 
into  general  use— and  that  the  removal  of  the 
frames  from  the  best  of  them  is  often  more  diffi- 
cult than  from  the  Huber  hive.  He  closes  his  ac 
count  of  these  hives  with  the  significant  remark 
that,  "  in  a  moment  of  enthusiasm"  he  once 
supposed  that  such  a  hive  might  be  cheaply 
made,  but  that  he  had  tried  in  vain. 

"Now  compare  these  results  in  France  with 
the  extension,  by  the  best  practical  bee-keepers 
of  this  country,  of  the  movable  comb  principle, 
and  the  inference  will  be  almost  irresistible  that 
they  have  not  yet  invented  a  cheap  and  practical 
way  of  using  movable  frames.  *  *  *  *  * 
Of  all  the  movable  frame  hives  now  in  use  on 
the  continent  of  Europe,  the  Berlepsch  hive  la 
probably  the  best.  It  was  invented  subsequently 
to  mine,  and  uses  the  essential  features  covered 
(in  this  country)  by  my  patent,  without  which 
the  German  hive  would  have  had  no  more  prac- 
tical utility  than  those  which  have  so  signally 
failed. 

"  Allow  me  to  give  an  extract,  in  this  con- 
nection, from  a  letter  received  by  me  last  fall 
from  the  Baron  Von  Linsingen,  of  Osnabriick, 
Kingdom  of  Hanover,  dated  August  10,  1860: — 
'  I  feel  convinced  that  no  other  apiarian  has 
been  able  to  construct  a  movable  comb  bee- 
hive in  such  an  advantageous  way  as  you  have 
done.' 

"  Were  I  to  attempt  to  show  in  what  particu- 
lars the  various  patents  in  this  country,  using 
movable  frames,  have  appropriated  to  a  greater, 
or  less  extent,  the  essential  and  patented  features 
of  my  invention, I  should  require  more  space  than 
iu  the  largest  liberality  you  would  be  willing  to 
give  ;  besides  opening  a  personal  controversy 
in  which  comparatively  few  of  your  readers 
would  feel  any  interest.  This  much,  however, 
I  wish  to  say,  that  in  my  opinion  all   of  them 


12 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE   JOURNAL. 


use  some  of  these  features  ;  and  tliat  without 
this  use  they  Avoukl  be  of  no  more  practical 
vahie  than  the  European  hive.  ***** 
*  *  I  have  never  sought  for  more  than  my 
right,  and  if  any  one  can  show  that  before  my 
invention  tliere  existed  any  movable  frame  liives  j 
adapted  to  practical  use,  or  any  invention  that 
used  the  essential  and  patented  features  of  | 
mine,  I  will  try  to  be  the  first  to  acknowledge 
that,  though  an  original  inventor,  I  was  not  the 
first  inventor  of  such  a  hive." — L.  L.  Lang- 
stroth. 

A  few  rem?rks  will  show  Mr.  Auchampaugh 
why  the  Patent  Office  is  continually  granting 
patents  on  invenlioos  Avhicli  use  some,  or  all,  ol 
the  patented  features  of  my  hive. 

Suppose  tliat  A  makes  and  patents  an  inven- 
tion. B  makes  what  he  calls  an  improvement, 
using,  however,  some  of  the  features  covered 
by  A's  patent.  In  his  application  for  a  patent 
he  confines  his  claim  to  the  new  feature  which 
he  has  invented.  Could  the  Office,  with  any 
show  of  right,  refus",  his  application  ?  They 
must  take  for  granted  that  after  hispatent  issues, 
he  will  obtain  a  license  from  A  to  use  the  pat- 
ented features  without  -wjich  liis  invention 
would  be  worthless  ;  or  th:it,  if  he  attempts  to 
use  or  sell  his  invention  without  sucli  a  license, 
A  will  resort  to  the  Courtis  of  law  for  redress. 
C,  D,  E,  &c.,  majr  each  patent  successive  im- 
provements ;  and  all  of  them,  if  they  use  A's 
patented  features,  must  get  license  under  him. 
If  C  uses  any  of  B's  patent,  he  must  also  get  a 
license  from  B;  and  the  patentee  of  the  last 
improvement  must  obtain  Iceuse  from  all  the  par- 
ties whose  patented  features  he  uses.  It  will  then 
be  seen  that,  in  the  cases  supposed,  the  first  in- 
ventor is  tlie  only  person  who  can  use  his  own 
invention  without  anj"^  license  ;  and  that  he  can 
not  use  a  single  improvement  patented  by  other 
parties,  without  license  from  them.  This  is  all 
manifestly  right ;  for,  if  the  first  inventor  could 
prevent  other  parties  from  patenting  improve- 
ments, where  would  be  the  inducement  to 
others  to  attempt  to  perfect  any  invention  ;  and 
if  improvements^usingfeaturesalrcady  patented, 
could  be  made  and  sold  without  licensu 
from  the  first  inventor,  Avhere  would  be  the 
inducement  for  any  one  to  spend  time  and  money 
in  patenting  an  invention,  when  any  improve- 
ment could  deprive  the  original  inventor  of  all 
pecuniary  profit  for  his  own  invention  ?  From 
ignorance  of  these  important  principles  of  pat- 
ent laws,  the  public  are  often  grossly  deceived. 
Some  one,  for  instance,  patents  what  he  calls 
an  improvement  on  some  valuable  patented  in- 
Tention.  With  his  patent,  to  which  the  great 
seal  of  the  United  States  Patent  Office  has  been 
duly  affixed,  he  goes  around  among  those  who 
are  entirely  ignorant  of  such  matters,  to  sell 
his  invention.  If  he  is  brazen-faced  in  his  dis- 
honesty, he  will,  when  asked  what  features  his 
patent  covers,  boldly  assert  anything  in  the 
macliine  or  patented  article — the  fact  often  be- 
ing that  the  feature  really  covered  by  his  patent 
is  some  worthless  conceit,  for  which  the  pur- 
chaser, if  he  knew  what  he  was  buying,  would 
not  pay  a  single  cent ;  while  the  thing  tlmt 
attracts  him,  and  the  right  to  use  which  he 
supposes  he  is  buying,  is  something  not  claimed 


in  the  patent  shown,  and  is  really  the  property 
of  another.  The  old  latin  maxim",  "  Suppressio 
veri  suggestio  /a?s?,"  (the  suggestion  of  false- 
hood by.the  suppression  of  truth)  is  plainly  appli- 
cable to  all  parties  who  advertise  and  sell  any 
patent  whicli  cannot  be  legally  used  without  a 
license  I'rom  some  prior  patentee,  whose  patented 
features  are  used  in  such  invention.  The  only 
excuse  which  can  save  the  honesty  of  such 
parties,  is  the  plea  of  ignorance,  whicli  certainly 
cannot  be  applied  to  most  patentees  ;  and  as 
far  as  regards  iny  claims,  cannot  l)e  of  any  avail 
to  those  who  persist,  after  this  exposal  in  ignor- 
ing my  rights. 

I  am  increasingly  confident  that  no  movable 
comb  hive  can  be  invented,  that,  in  the  long 
run,  will  stand  the  test,  whicli  does  not  use  one 
or  more  of  tlie  patented  principles  of  mj^  hive. 
Do  I  seem  to  claim  too  much,  or  in  a  boastful 
spirit  ?  If  I  was  the  first  to  invent  (as  I  think 
I  was)  the  combined  features  essential  to  suc- 
cess, I  was  like  the  company  who  having  the 
choice  of  routes  for  a  railroad  or  turnpike,  se- 
lected the  best  and  shortest  one  between  tT\(o 
termini.  Those  who  search  for  another  and 
independent  route,  however  sanguine  they  may 
be,  can  never  get  as  good  a  one  ;  any  more  than 
a  way  can  be  found  (letween  two  given  points, 
shorter  than  a  straight  line.  Nearly  all  the 
movable  comb  hives  in  use  in  this  country  and 
Europe,  use  some  of  the  essential  and  patented 
features  of  my  invention  ;  and  I  feel  little  hesi- 
tation in  predicting  that  the  few  Avhich  use  none 
of  tliese  features  will,  on  thorough  trial,  be  dis- 
carded by  all  who  dcbirc  to  obtain  tlie  highest 
df  gree  ot  pleasure  or  profit  from  heeculture. 
L.  L.  Langstrotht. 

Oxford,  Butler  Co.,  Ohio,  Juno  4,  1869 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Swarming  on  Foot. 


Several  years  ago,  while  yet  keeping  the 
black  bees,  a  hive  of  bees,  in  the  swarming  sea- 
son, in  plain  view  from  where  I  sat  at  dinner, 
commenced  pouring  out  of  their  liive  in  regular 
swarming  style.  But,  singular  enough,  not  a 
bee  t  ok  wing.  Belbre  there  was  a  pint  of  bees 
out,  I  set  an  emptj  hive  a  few  inches  from  the 
first,  on  the  same  board,  and  brushed  in  a  few  of 
the  bees.  These  set  up  their  usual  hummiug, 
and  drew  in  the  whole  colony  as  it  issued  on 
foot.  I  left  this  swarm  where  it  was,  and  it 
prospered  finely.  I  may  add  that  the  day  was 
rather  cool. 

John  L.  Davis. 

Holt,  Mich. 


Great  improvements  may  certainly  be  made 
in  the  essential  article  of  providing  plenty  of 
pasture  for  bees,  whenever  this  ful)ject  shall  be 
more  carefully  attended  to  than  it,  unfortunate- 
ly, has  hitherto  been. —  Wildman. 

Bees  themselves  may  be  reckoned  enemies  to 
bees;  for  they  sometimes  wage  cruel  wars 
against  each  other. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


13 


[For  the  American  Bee  Jouraai.  ] 

Honey  Dew. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  ^vill  give  the  readers  of  the 
Journal  my  knowledge  of  honey  dew,  as  it 
was  requested  in  number  10,  for  April,  1869.  I 
have  been  acquainted  witii  this  species  of  dew, 
in  the  State  of  Maryland,  for  twenty-five  years. 
I  have  never  known  it  to  miss  tor  six  years,  at 
any  time.  It  has  no  regular  period,  but  appears  to 
fall  for  two  or  three  years,  and  at  times  will  miss 
a  year,  and  so  on.  Men  who  have  noticed  it  in 
Ohio,  tell  me  the  same. 

I  never  knew  it  to  fall  later  than  July.  In 
July,  1868,  1  was  in  Maryland,  and  it  was  a 
very  dry  time.  We  had  three  dews,  which 
was  all  the  bees  could  get  at  then,  and  they 
went  for  it  strong.  The  woods  were  iilive  with 
bees ;  and  they  tilled  their  hives  below,  and 
started  in  the  boxes. 

This  dew,  so  called,  stands  the  sun  very  well. 
I  was  often  told  that  if  the  sun  shone  hot  on  it, 
it  would  waste  away.  To  convince  some  how 
it  was  affected,  I  gathered  some  leaves  with  the 
dew  drops  on,  and  hiid  them  on  a  rock,  where 
the  sun  could  strike  it  ah  day,  and  it  was  as  hot 
as  I  ever  felt  it.  In  the  evening  the  leaves  were 
dry.  They  lay  there  all  night,  and  in  the  morn- 
ing the  dew  was  as  good  as  on  the  first  day.  I 
am  sure  that  if  the  bees  do  not  get  it  all  the 
first  day,  they  can  get  it  from  day  to  day,  until 
a  rain  comes  and  washes  it  off. 

Bees  like  this  dew.  It  makes  a  very  nice 
honey,  and  bees  live  on  it  as  well  as  on  any 
honey  that  they  gather.  Its  color  is  somewhat 
like  our  best  syrup  molasses,  but  it  makes  a 
very  nice  and  good  honey.  Its  effect  on  bees, 
I  must  say,  is  perfectly  harmless.  I  am  satis- 
fied of  tills,  by  experience.  In  the  State  of 
Ohio,  I  never  saw  manj'  honey  dews:  but,  I 
think,  from  some  cause  or  other,  five  swarms 
die  here  for  one  in  the  Eastern  States. 

About  tlie  sugar  this  dew  may  contain,  I  am 
not  prepared  to  say.  I  have  no  doubt  it  will 
make  sugar,  as  all  other  honey  does.  Bees 
gather  other  substances  that  would  not  make 
sugar  before  they  make  honey  of  it.  If  bees 
will  not  live  on  anything  but  sugar,  then  it  cer- 
tainly contains  sugar,  fur  I  know  they  live  on 
the  honey  made  from  this  dew. 

Where  this  dew  originates  I  do  not  know  ; 
but  I  am  sure  it  is  no  insect  honey.  The-wri- 
ter  spoke  of  salt  dew.  I  suppose  that  about  the 
salt  lakes  we  might  find  salt  dew  ;  and  so  tbis 
may  come  from  a  honey  lake  source,  though 
the  climate  might  change  the  dew. 

This  is  my  experience  of  honey  dew.  as  a 
response  to  the  request  of  a  writer  in  the  Jour- 
nal. 

M.    D.    FOGEL. 

Alpha,  Greene  Co.,  Ohio,  May  21,  1869. 


Antonine,  the  martyr,  in  the  seventh  cen- 
tury, speaks  of  the  honey  of  Nazareth  being 
most  excellent,  and  in  the  present  day  bees  are 
e.xteusively  cultivated  at  Bethlehem,  for  the 
sake  of  the  profit  derived  from  the  wax  tapers 
supplied  to  the  pilgrims. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Inside  and  Out. 


On  examination  in  the  fall  of  1868,  I  found 
four  stocks,  so  very  deficient  iu  both  honey  and 
bees,  that  I  concluded  to  plare  them  in  a  cellar, 
where  the  temperature  Avas  uniform  at  about  45°. 
It  was  perfectly  dry  and  the  hives  were  on  a 
bench,  three  feet  from  the  floor.  One  stock,  the 
weakest  of  all,  was  in  a  common  box  hive,  with 
a  two  inch  hole  iu  the  top.  I  left  the  bottom 
entrance  open,  but  closed  the  hole  in  the  top, 
by  placing  over  it  a  glass  jar  filled  with  candy, 
of  wiiich  they  consumed  tbree  pounds.  When 
placed  out,  March  14t!i,  they  worked  eagerly  at 
meal,  and  to-day  (June  1st),  this  stock  is  "one 
of  my  strongest.  I  continued  the  candy  feed 
until  the  apple  trees  were  in  blossom,  using  al- 
together less  than  five  pounds.  The  three  other 
stocks  were  in  movable  frame  hives.  I  closed 
the  entrances,  and  placed  candy  over  the  holes 
in  the  honey  boards,  so  that  they  could  come  up 
when  they  chose.  They  were  very  uneasy.  At 
first  I  thought  they  required  more  ventilatiou, 
and  I  raised  the  honey  boards  ;  but  they  were 
still  more  restless.  I  snon  found  Ihem  dying 
with  dysentery— covering  combs,  frames,  and 
hive,  with  the  black  excrement  so  well  known 
to  most  beekeepers.  This  was  a  clear  indica- 
tion that  my  treatment  was  not  adapted  to  their 
case.  So  placing  tbe  candy  on  the  frames,  ever 
the  bees,  I  made  all  tight  and  warm  overhead, 
opening  the  bottom  ventilators.  They  revived, 
and  I  tound  no  more  dead  bees  on  the  bottom 
board?.  Though  very  much  reduced  in  num- 
bers, they  were  active  in  carrying  in  the  meal, 
as  soon  as  placed  on  their  summer  stands.  I 
have  satisfied  myself  that  upicard  ventilation  is 
not  adapted  to  icealc  stocks  placed  in  a  cedar. 

I  wintered  si.xteen  stocks  on  their  summer 
stands;  with  all  upward  ventilation  closed,  and 
bottom  ventilators  left  open.  They  were  in 
single  board  hives.  I  turned  the  entrances  to- 
wards the  north,  which  sav  s  many  bees— for  as 
the  sun  does  not  strike  the  lighting  board,  they 
do  not  venture  out,  except  inveiy  mild  weatlipr. 
Tbe  hives  had  no  shelter,  but  remained  exactly 
as  in  summer.  All  but  one  wintered  si>endidly, 
and  that  one  was  a  common  box  hive  which 
had  evidently  lost  its  qtieeu,  for  there  was  plen- 
ty of  honej-,  but  very  few  bees.  I  believe  this 
turning  the  hive  will  be  found  very  valuable  by 
all  who  winter  out  of  doors  ;  but  I  do  not  re- 
member to  have  seen  it  recommended  or  sug- 
gested in  the  Journal. 

Apiarians  should  remember  that  their  location 
must  determine  the  best  method  of  wintering 
their  bees.  In  this  neighborhood,  where  we  are 
almost  sure  to  have  one  or  two  warm  days  in 
every  week,  I  believe  it  is  much  the  best  to 
leave  all  the  (stocks  which  are  in  good  condi- 
tion, on  their  summer  stands  ;  but  I  have  equal 
confidence  that  very  weak  stocks  can  be  win- 
tered safely  and  cheaply  in  dry  cellars,  by  feed- 
ing caudy,  without  upward  ventilation. 

Is   THE   Loss   OF   THE   StING   FaTAL  ? 

One  cold  morning  in  April,  I  visited 'my 
hives  before  breakfast,  and  found  a  large  mouse 


14 


THE  AMEEICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


•which,  in  trying  to  effect  an  entrance  through 
a  hole  too  small  for  him,  had  become  wedged, 
so  that  he  could  neither  advance  nor  return. 
He  was  was  covered  with  bees,  all  seeking  an 
unoccupied  spot  to  deposit  a  sting.  He  died  a 
few  minutes  after  I  released  him.  I  counted 
thirty  stings  left  on  his  tail  alone.  The  bees  crawl- 
ed back  into  the  hive  as  soon  as  I  removed  the 
mouse.  As  the  morning  was  damp  and  cool, 
no  bees  flew  till  neatly  noon.  I  then  examined 
the  hive  and  tound  no  dead  bees,  nor  any  on 
similar  examinations  for  several  days.  Dicl  the 
bees  which  had  lost  their  stings  all  wait  until 
noon,  and  then  fly  out  never  to  return  ?  Or  is 
it  possible  they  could  have  survived  after  so 
fearful  an  injury  ? 

I  wish,  through  the  Journal,  to  thank  Mr. 
Gallup  and  many  other  of  your  correspondents, 
for  tlieir  valuable  suggestions  and  experiences. 
In  the  matter  of  ventilation  I  do  not  dispute  the 
accuracy  of  "Gallup's"  system  of  inside  winter- 
ing strong  stocks,  with  upward  ventilation. 
But  that  applies  to  steady  cold  winters,  and 
not  to  our  changeable  climate.  Poor  Novice's 
list  of  reverses  would  have  been  less  appalling 
had  he  left  his  bees  on  their  summer  stands. 

C.  D. 

Stanwich,    Conn. 


[For  the  Americau  Bee  Journal.] 

Results  of  Wintering. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 

Cheap  Unpatented  Bee-Feeder. 


Mn.  Ebitok: — Seeing  a  description  of  a  bee- 
feeder  in  the  Bee  Journal,  I  send  you  a  de- 
scription of  the  one  I  use,  and  Avhich  I  like  very 
much. 

Make  a  box  out  of  half-inch  lumber,  four 
inches  wide,  eight  inches  long,  and  two  inches 
deep.  Nail  it  together  firmly.  Tlien  run  bees- 
wax around  the  corners,  to  keep  it  from  leaking. 
Now  bore  one  or  two  one-inch  holes,  with  a 
smooth  boaring  bit,  tiirough  the  bottom  at  one 
end.  Just  back  of  these  boles,  or  one  and  a 
quarter  IdcIi  from  the  end,  make  a  partition  one 
inch  high,  to  keep  the  honey  from  running 
down  into  the  hive.  Two  inches  and  a  half 
from  the  other  end,  make  another  partition. 
Let  it  set  up  one-eighth  ol  an  inch  from  the  bot- 
tom, and  come  one-fourth  of  an  inch  above  the 
top  of  the  box.  Now  make  a  float  to  fit  the 
central  apartment,  to  keep  the  bees  from  drown- 
ing. Drive  a  few  brads  into  the  bottom  of  the 
box,  to  keep  the  float  one  eighth  of  an  inch 
from  the  bottom  at  all  times.  Put  a  glass,  five 
by  six  inches,  over  the  end  into  which  the  bees 
have  access,  and  the  feeder  is  finished. 

You  can  now  pour  honey  or  sugar  syrup  into 
the  other  end,  which,  passing  under  the  divi- 
sion board,  raises  the  float  without,  disturbing 
the  bees,  or  attracting  rol)bers.  There  is  little 
or  no  loss  of  heat  from  the  hive,  and  it  is  very 
convenient.  Anotlier  advantage  is,  there  is  no 
IDatent  on  it.  James  E.  Crane. 

Bridport,  Vt.,  May  7,  1869. 


Meltssus,  King  of  Crete,  is  said  to  have  been 
the  first  who  invented  and  taught  the  use  of 
bee  hives. 


In  the  May  number  of  the  Journal,  page 
212,  I  notice  Novice's  account  of  his  reverses. 
I  expected  something  of  the  sort,  but  not  that 
it  would  go  as  far  as  it  seems  to  have  done. 
Those  who  have  read  my  article  on  wintering 
bees,  in  the  December  number,  page  108,  will 
have  seen  at  the  conclusion  of  it  that  I  was  just 
reducing  my  stocks  to  fifteen  to  feed  for  winter. 
I  reduced  to  fourteen  and  fed  as  1  said,  and  had 
them  all  ready  for  winter  by  last  of  November, 
on  the  same  plan  then  described.  Every  stock 
wintered  safely.  No  further  feeding  was  requir- 
ed until  near  March,  when  I  commenced  giving 
them  a  spoonful  a  day  to  each  hive,  to  stimulate 
breeding,  as  they  were  all  Aveak  as  regarded 
both  bees  and  stores.  One  stock  I  found,  in 
April,  with  a  drone-laying  queen.  I  thought 
the  best  plan  would  be  to  take  off  her  head  at 
once,  and  unite  the  bees  Avith  the  next  weakest 
stock,  which  I  did. 

My  neighbors  all  laughed,  as  usual,  at  my 
folly  in  going  to  so  much  trouble  as  to  haul  a 
load  of  straw  to  winter  bees,  &c.  But  in  spring, 
when  they  found  ihat  all  my  bees  were  alive, 
and  not  a  live  stand  of  their  own  left — some 
having  lost  as  many  as  sixty  stands,  (all  they 
had,)  they  changed  their  minds  considerably. 
They  say  the  disease  went  all  around  me,  but 
spared  my  bees  ;  though  I  tell  them  it  was  no 
disease  at  all.  I  agree  with  Burbank,  Gallup, 
and  a  few  others,  as  to  what  was  the  cause.  I 
am  surprised  that  Novice  thinks  it  was  a  dis- 
ease that  killed  his  bees.  In  my  opinion  it  was 
his  own  imprudence,  in  delaying  so  long  to 
place  them  in  the  cellar.  However  he  may  dif- 
fer frcm  me  in  opinion,  we  are  now  on  equal 
terms  and  will  take  a  race.  He  has  thiiteea 
stands,  and  1  had  thirteen  on  the  3d  of  May, 
when  swarming  began  in  my  apiary.  His 
aim  is  to  increase  his  stock  ;  and  that  is  my 
aim  also  at  present.  I  now  have  thirty-one 
stands,  all  natural  swarms,  and  four  old  stands 
have  not  swarmed  yet.  Every 'one  of  these 
swarms  came  out  in  May,  except  the  last  one, 
which  issued  to-day,  June  2.  The  first  swarm, 
which  came  out  May  3,  is  about  to  swarm 
again  ;  and  if  the  remaining  old  stands  do 
not  send  out  swarms  this  week,  I  shall  next 
week  make  artificial  swarms  from  them.  I  pre- 
fer natural  swarms,  when  they  come  early 
enough.  The  season  is  first-rate,  and  several 
of  my  stands  have  their  caps  about  full. 

Does  Novice  want  to  know  the  secret  of  my 
success  ?  Well,  tell  him  that  as  all,  or  ninety- 
five  out  of  every  hundred  of  my  neighbors'  stands 
died  last  winter,  I  procured  all  the  clean  combs 
I  could,  and  fastened  them  into  frames,  and  so 
saved  my  bees  the  labor  of  gathering  sixty 
pounds  of  honey  first  to  fill  the  frames,  and  then 
forty  pounds  more  for  cap  honey,  provided  the 
season  is  not  then  over.  Had  I  reared  early 
queens,  my  success  might  have  been  almost  as 
good  again  ;  but  I  neglected  this,  fearing  I 
should  weaken  my  stands. 

I  would  suggest  to  Novice  to  try  ten  stands 
on  my  plan  next  winter.     I  will  report  the  re- 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


15 


suit  of  this  season's  operations  in  the  September 
number  of  the  Bee  Journal  ;  and  hope  Novice 
will  d»  the  same.  If  it  then  appears  that  he 
has  beat  me,  I  will  send  him  an  Italian  queen 
of  my  own  rearing.  I  am  sorry  for  his  rever- 
ses, "as  a  man  who  cares  as  much  for  his  bees 
should  not  meet  with  such  reverses. 

The  Bee  Journal  should,  by  all  means,  be 
sustained.  What  would  beekeepers  do  without 
it  ?  Then  1ft  them  pay  in  advance  promptly, 
and  not  neglect  it  like  myself  for  a  year,  or 
nearly  so,  simply  because  my  last  money  was 
stolen  from  the  letter.  Though  I  live  Ihirteen 
miles  from  the  nearest  money  order  post  office, 
I  will  procure  an  order,  to  insure  safe  transmis- 
sion this  time. 

R.  M.  Argo. 

Lowell,  Ky.,  June  2,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Reply  to  Charles  Dadant. 


Yes;  the  drone  cells  were  cut  down  to  the 
same  depth  ;  and  made  same  size,  on  the  other 
end,  as  worker  cells.  And  I  have  seen  eggs, 
after  they  were  laid,  in  both  worker  and  drooe 
cells  less  than  half  the  usual  depth  ;  that  is, 
they  were  in  process  of  construction  when  the 
eggs  were  laid.  On  the  25Lh  of  May,  this  ye>ir, 
I  found  a  piece  of  drone  comb  that  had  l)een 
placed  on  the  honey  or  top-board,  or  sticks,  so 
that  the  bees  could  cany  the  honey  out  of  both 
sides  ;  and  it  being  left  too  long,  the  bees  built 
new  comb  upward  from  the  horizontal  piece  of 
old  comb,  making  curves  until  they  could  as- 
sume tbe  upright  or  perpendicular.  There 
were  eggs  and  brood  in  both  sides,  old  and  new 
comh  ;  some  of  the  brood  were  capped.  Now 
would  those  that  stand  on  their  heads  hatch  out 
queens?  Being  anxious  to  destroy  nearly  all 
the  drones  in  my  apiary,  having  cut  out  all 
drone  cells  from  the  worker  combs,  and  inserted 
enough  in  frames  by  themselves  to  control  that 
kind  of  stock,  I  did  not  like  to  be  controlled 
by  the  bees  or  queens,  and  hence  destioj^ed  the 
piece  of  comb  referred  to,  too  soon  for  knowl- 
edge. 

Bees  have  done  better  this  spring  on  fruit, 
flowers,  and  the  dandelion,  {taraxacum),  than 
ever  before,  having  commenced  to  swarm  on 
the  twenty-fifth  of  May.  Many  stocks  have 
more  honey  in  their  hives  now  than  they  had 
last  fall. 

James  M.  Marvin. 

St.  Charles,  III.,  June  3,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal] 

Non-Swarming. 


Oil  of  olives,  or  any  mild  oil,  is  thought  by 
many  to  be  a  cure  for  the  pain  and  inflamma- 
tion arising  from  the  sting  of  a  bee;  but  repeat- 
ed experiments  have  shown  that  it  fails  oftener 
ihan  it  succeeds.  It  seems  probable  that  the 
success  sometimes  met  with,  is  rather  an  acci- 
dent than  a  cure;  for  there  are  many  j^eople  to 
wliom  the  sting  of  a  bee  does  not  occasion  any 
pain  or  inflammation.  Some  men  disdain  to 
use  the  least  precaution,  even  when  they  are 
sure  of  manystings.— "R'YZdmaTi. 


In  the  May  number  of  the  Journal,  C.  E. 
Thome,  of  Selma,  Ohio,  asks  if  the  bee  disease 
can  be  connected  witii  the  fact  that  the  bees 
cast  no  swarms  during  the  season.  I  answer 
positively.  No.  I  have  been  keeping  bees  in  a 
small  way  about  twelve  years.  I  found  a  very 
small  swarm  on  a  brush  pile,  late  in  June,  1856, 
which  I  put  into  a  hive  ten  inches  square  by 
eighteen  inches  hieh.  They  managed  to  get 
stores  enough  to  carry  them  through  the  follow- 
ing winter.  The  next  season  they  filled  up  the 
hive  and  got  quite  strong,  but  did  not  swarm. 
In  May,  1858,  I  found  a  swarm  in  a  hollow 
shell-bark  tree,  which  I  cut  down  and  sawed  off 
immediately  above  and  below  their  stores, 
which  occupied  a  space  about  four  feet  long  and 
from  six  to  ten  inches  in  diameter.  The  main 
entrance  was  within  six  inches  of  the  toii,'aud 
a  very  small  hole  near  the  bottom.  They 
swarmed  in  about  two  weeks  after  I  got  them 
home,  and  never  failed  to  give  me  one  or  two 
good  swarms  every  year,  until  in  1867,  the  log 
got  so  rotten  that  it  would  hardly  stand  alone. 
My  other  long  hive  did  abuut  as  well.  I  gave 
away  and  sold  several  swarms,  yet  in  the  fall  of 
1867  I  ha>d  sixty. three  stands,  when  I  took  up 
some  of  the  oldest  and  some  of  tlie  weakest — 
leaving  me  an  even  fifty  over.  These  Avere  in 
good  condition,  and  bid  fair  early  in  the  follow- 
ing season  to  yield  a  large  harvest.  All  lived 
through  the  winter,  and  yet  I  did  not  obtain  a 
single  swarm  from  them.  They  are  all  doing 
well,  except  two  that  lost  their  queens  this 
spring.  These  had  got  tolerably  wormy  when 
my  first  swarm  came  off,  on  the  27th  ult. 
I  put  it  into  one  of  these  old  hives,  with  the  old 
combs  and  worms.  Next  morning  I  jjiiked  up 
about  twenty  cocoons,  with  moths  nearly  ready 
to  come  out,  and  quite  a  number  of  worms. 
They  have  cleaned  it  all  out,  s"'  that  I  did  not 
find  a  single  worm  this  morning  ;  and  ihey 
have  commenced  work  in  the  honey  boxes, 
which  I  ]iut  on  the  next  day  after  hiving  them. 
I  have  another  svv^arm  which  I  put  in  with  the 
other  weak  stand,  and  they  are  doing  about  as 
well  as  the  first.  I  have  already  had  eighteen 
or  nineteen  swarms.  My  bees  are  all  common 
black  bees,  and  are  in  common  box  hives  made 
according  to  Quinby's  old  plan.  I  have  never 
]3aid  much  attention  to  them,  except  to  hive 
them  when  they  swarmed  and  put  on  honey 
boxes,  and  take  them  off  again  when  full.  I 
have  generally  let  them  take  caie  of  themselves. 

I  think  Mr.  Gallup  is  a  little  mistaken  about 
bees  all  djing,  unless  they  had  access  to  buck- 
wheat. I  do  not  suppose  there  was  a  peck  of 
buckwheat  sown  within  five  miles  of  my  bees, 
yet  I  did  not  lose  a  single  hive  ;  though  many 
died  in  town  and  ov.t  on  the  prairie.  I  suppose 
it  was  the  crab  apple  honey  that  saved  mine. 
Some  of  them  had  two  eight  pound  boxes  rearly 
full  on  the  first  of  June  last  year.  They  all  had 
some,  but  cleaned  it  nearly  all  out  before  the 
first  of  September.     After  the  rain   set  in,  iu 


16 


THE    AMERICAN    BEE  JOURNAL. 


September,  the  strongest  stocks  stored  consider- 
able honey  in  the  boxes.  Some  of  this  I  gaye 
to  the  weak  ones,  -whicli  carried  them  through 
all  right. 

C.  T.  Smith. 
Trekton,  Clintok  Co.,  Ils.,  June  3,  18G9. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Does  it  Pay  to  Keep  Bees? 


Having  often  been  asked  the  question,  does  it 
pay  to  keep  bees,  or  is  it  safe  to  invest  money 
in  an  apiary  ?  I  have  always  answered  the 
question  by  saying  it  does  pay  and  is  a  safe  iu- 
vestment,  if  the  party  investing  thoroughly  un- 
derstands the  nature  and  habits  of  bees,  is  wil- 
ling to  give  tliem  th»^  proper  care,  and  provide 
them  with  suitable  hives.  I  now  propose  giving 
a  short  account  of  my  success  in  bee-keeping. 

aume  fifteen  years  ago,  I  purchased  two  colo- 
nies, not  Avith  the  intention  of  making  money 
out  of  them,  but  for  the  purpose  of  providing 
myself  and  family  with  a  luxury  in  the  shape 
of  nice,  pure,  white,  honey.  But  I  soon  be- 
came convinced  that,  by  jjroper  management, 
they  could  be  mnde  to  yield  a  profit,  besides 
supplying  mj^  table  with  a  wholesome  luxury. 
Still,  as  there  were  at  that  time  no  movable 
comb  hives,  I  had  to  labor  under  considerable 
disadvantage  as  well  as  loss.  Very  often  some 
of  the  slocks  would  refuse  to  swarm  until  the 
season  for  collecting  honey  was  nearly  over. 
Consequently  the  young  swarms  could  not 
gather  honey  enough  to  winter  on,  and  not 
liaving  the  movable  comb  hives,  these  could 
not  be  built  up  from  stocks  that  had  plenty  of 
honey  and  some  to  spare.  Hence  I  was  forced 
to  destroy  them  in  ttie  tall,  which  Avas  a  loss. 
Other  hives  would  refuse  to  swarm  altogether, 
which  of  course  was  a  loss  of  all  increase  from 
such.  Then,  again,  some  colonies  would 
swarm  and  the  young  swarm  would  take  a  bee- 
line  for  the  woods  and  disappi^ar.  Other  hives 
would  get  infested  with  millers  and  worms, 
which  would  destroy  them  sooner  or  later.  Yet, 
after  all  the  losses  from  every  source,  I  made  a 
fair  profit  by  selling  honey,  and  occasionally  a 
hive  of  bees.  But  since  the  introduction  of  the 
movable  comb  hive  and  the  Italian  bees,  T  have 
made  more  than  double  the  profit;  for  there  has 
been  no  loss  from  young  swarms  going  to  the 
woods,  or  from  colonies  refusing  to  swaim,  or 
being  destroyed  by  the  miller.  For  I  have 
practiced  artificial  swarming,  which  does  away 
with  all  loss  in  that  direction  ;  and  if  millers  get 
into  a  colon}"-,  I  remove  the  cards  and  clean 
them  out,  therebj'^  saving  my  stock.  I  also  re- 
move cards  of  comb  from  full  stocks  that  have 
them  to  spare,  and  strengthen  weak  ones  there- 
Avith,  instead  of  destroying  them,  as  I  was 
forced  to  do  formerly.  Then  again,  the  Italian 
bees  defend  themselves  much  belter  from  mil- 
lers, and  are  much  better  Avorkers,  consequently 
they  store  more  honey  in  the  boxes  for  their 
OAVuers. 

I  commenced  in  the  spring  of  1867  with 
twelve  Italian  stocks,  worth  at  that  time   about 


two  hundred  dollars.  Last  week  I  sold  the  in- 
crease of  stocks  for  five  hundred  dollars,  and 
during  the  two  years  I  realized  four  hundred 
dollars  in  Avax,  honey,  and  queens  sold.  Al- 
lowing two  hundred  dollars  for  cost  of  hives 
and  time  in  attending  to  them,  (Avhich  Avill 
more  than  cover  it),  leaves  seven  hundred  dol- 
lars, or  three  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  profit 
each  year — not  bad  interest,  for  two  years. 

A  Avord,  now,  to  parties  intending  to  start  au 
apiary.  Get,  if  possible,  a  location  where 
white  clover  is  plenty  ;  or,  better  yet,  induce 
your  neighbors  to  sow  alsike  clover,  which  is 
one  of  the  most  profitable  crops  a  farmer  can 
raise,  either  for  seed  or  for  hay,  or  for  both  ; 
and  for  bees  it  is  ahead  of  anything  I  ever  saw. 
Provide  yourself  also  with  good  movable 
comb  hives,  and  the  Italian  bees;  and  be  as  at- 
tentive to  Ihem  as  you  Avould  be  to  any  other 
stock  from  Avhich  you  expect  to  derive  pleasure 
and  profit.  An  apiary  started  Avith  such  ad- 
vantages, I  am  satisfied  Avill,  with  proper  care, 
prove  to  be  a  safe  and  profitable  investment.  . 
H.  M.  Thomas.^ 

Bkooklin,  Ontario.  


[Foitlie  American  Bee  Journal  ]    • 

Artificial  Swarming. 

Mr.  Editor  : — I  have  a  new  method  of  arti- 
ficial swarming,  Avhich  I  Avill  try  to  explain  to 
you. 

First — I  make  my  hives  thirteen  inches  by 
nineteen,  inside  measurement,  Avith  the  frames - 
running  crosswise.  I  have  two  entrances,  one 
on  the  east  and  one  on  the  south.  Part  of  the 
bees  Avill  use  one  entrance,  and  part  the  other. 
As  early  as  it  Avill  do  to  raise  queens,  place  a, 
partition  board  in  the  centre,  with  six  combs  on 
each  side  ;  and  give  the  queenless  side  a  queen 
cell  after  once  getting  a  supply.  Noav  Ave  have 
two  swarms  of  bees  \a  one  hive,  and  we  get  an 
equal  number  of  old  and  young  bees  in  each 
side,  and  they  will  keep  each  other  Avarm. 

As  soon  as  they  need  more  room,  place  an 
empty  hive  light  up  against  the  entrance  of  the 
one  you  wish  to  change,  (the  entrance  of  the 
new  hive  to  be  directly  in  front  of  the  old  en- 
trance); and  take  out  the  frames  and  bees; 
put  them  into  the  new  hive,  and  give  each  more 
room.  If  the  hives  are  of  the  same  color,  the 
bees  will  not  notice  the  change;  and  by  moving 
them  a  fcAV  inches  every  day,  they  can  be 
placed  Avherever  desired. 

'iliis  is  a  new^  idea  of  my  own,  and  I  shall 
soon  put  it  in  practice.  I  thought  I  Avould  send 
it  to  you  in  season  for  the  June  Journal,  and 
give  others  a  chance  to  try  it. 

Hives  might  be  made  large   enough   for   six- 
teen frames.     Then  give  each  side   tAVo   empty 
frames,  and  let  them   remain   together   till  the" 
bees  fill  them,  and  they  Avill  each  be  quite  good  ■ 
sized  sAvarms.* 

J.  L.  Peabodt. 

ViRDEN,  Ills. 

*The  Dzierzon  "  twin  ftzfc"— shown  in  Bee  Journal, 
vol.  1.  paae  l;i — is  constructed  .substantially  on  this  plan, 
and  has  long  been  thus  used  for  the  multiplication  of  col- 
onies. It  is  a  movable  bar  hive,  and  Mr.  D.  claims  very 
positively  that  It  Is  "tke  best  hive  yet  Introduced."— Ed. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


17 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


WASHINGTON,  JULY,    1869. 


I^Subscribers  to  the  Bee  Journal  residing 
in  Canada,  whose  subscriptions  ended  with  the 
fourth  volume,  will  please  renew  them  If  they 
desire  to  have  the  paper  continued,  as  the  post- 
age has  to  be  prepared  here.  Mr.  J.  H. 
Thoma?,  of  Brooklin,  Ontario,  is  our  authorized 
agent  there. 


Want  of  room,  in  this  number,  compelled  us 
to  omit  a  portion  of  Mr.  Lambreclit's  article,  in 
wliich  he  further  illustrates  his  views  of  the  bad 
qualities  of  wooden  hives,  and  advises  the 
adoption  of  straw  hives  instead — especially  one 
devised  by  Mr.  Giavenhorbt.  Of  this  we  shall 
endeavor  to  furnish  a  description  hereafter  ; 
though  vre  are  inclined  to  think  American  bee- 
keepers would  prefer  the  straw  hive  patented, 
in  this  country,  by  Mr.  Henchen,  of  Minnesota  ; 
if  such  are  to  be  adopt-d. 

Wooden  liives,  as  used  in  Europe— and  here 
too,  if  used  in  the  same  manner— may  be,  or  at 
times  become,  1  able  to  the  objection  urged 
against  them  by  Mr.  L.  ;  but  they  possess  so 
many  advantages  and  conveniences  in  olhei 
re9(j«ct»,  that  the  use  of  them  is  not  likely  to  be 
abandoned  either  abroad  or  here.  The  effort, 
therefore,  should  rather  be  to  devise  some  mode 
of  obviaiing  the  olijection,  than  to  discard  the 
material.  This  we  conceive  is  best  attained,  in 
Odl-door  win'er  ng  at  least,  by  the  judicious  use 
of  upward  ventilation,  whereby  excessive  con- 
densation of  moisture  in  hives  is  prevented,  at  a 
season  when  it  cnnnot  read  ly  be  reniov.d  by 
the  bees.  As  soon  in  autumn,  or  the  early  pan 
of  winter,  as  moisture  begins  to  he  condt-nsed  in 
a  hive,  give  just  suffic'ent  upward  veutilatiim  to 
check  this  condensation  and  keep  the  hive  and 
it»  inm'tes  dry.  Let  this  be  thus  coutiuued  un  • 
til  lowaids  ilie  approach  of  t-pring,  when  brood 
ing  recommences;  then  watir  is  needed,  and  the 
bees  can  appropriate  condensed  moisture  in 
prepar  ng  food  fur  the  larv«.  Thus  managed. 
the  possible  cause  of  fuulbrood //•«??«  ihia  source. 
■will  be  removed,  the  combs  will  not  be  envel- 
oped in  mouUi,  nor  the  bees  likely  to  be  troubled 
with  dysentery. 

The  condensed  moisture  is  mainly  deiived 
from  the  ordinary  insensible  perspiration  of  the 
l»««t.    Thia  perspiration  should  be  allowed  to 


pass  off  freely  in  winter,  and  without  condensa- 
tion, if  the  bees  are  to  remain  healthy.  Nor 
should  a  hive  be  so  warm  and  tight  as  to  increase 
the  perspiration  to  a  regular  sudation,  and  keep 
it  in  petpeiual  flow.  Bees  could  no  more  survive 
such  tieatment  and  keep  in  health,  than  men 
could  if  confined  in  the  surlorific  aMnosphere 
of  a  close  chamber.  In  a  wooden  hive  having 
a  good,  thick,  close-fitting  bottom  board,  with 
tight  and  stout  side  walla,  out-door  wintering 
can  be  successfully  accomplished,  if  judicious 
use  be  made  of  upward  ventilation.  Ibis,  Ger- 
man beekeepers,  proficient  as  they  are  in  other 
re?pects,  have  yet  to  harn.  They  condemn  top- 
opening  hives  as  allowing  heat  to  escape  too 
Ireely  in  winter,  which  they  legard  as  certain 
to  prove  ruinous  to  a  colony  ;  whereas,  were 
the  truth  as  they  conceive  it  to  be,  we 
should  not  have  had  a  liive  survive  the  ^\  inter 
years  ago.  How,  when,  whether,  or  to  what 
extent,  if  at  all,  upward  ventila  ion  should  be 
used,  w^here  bees  are  wintered  in  cellars, 
vaults,  or  special  repositories,  we  do  not  und<  r- 
tike  to  say,  as  we  have  had  n'>  expeiience  In 
that  line.  Experiments,  with  careful  observa- 
tion, can  alone  furnish  satisfiictory  lepliea  to 
those  questions. 


One  of  our  earliest  subscribers,  remitting  f.iT 
our  filth  volume,  sent  us  his  photograph,  and 
suggests  that  other  beekeepers  should  folio «tr 
his  example,  to  enable  us  by  and  by  to  g't  up, 
for  our  gratilicafon,  "a  big  vi[\mm,  viith  three 
yellow  hands''^  The  idea  is  original,  and  a 
volume  exceedingly  interesting  to  an  editor 
n)iglit  thus  be  compi  ed.  One  of  <ui-  North 
Caiolina  friends  sent  us,  some  time  ago,  a 
photogr.iph  of  his  ap'a'y,  exhibHiug  tasteful 
..rran'gement  and  evidencing  careful  manage- 
ment. 


Many  persons  when  first  told  that,  in  this 
'atitude,  and  in  the  g-  n  al  mouths  of  JMay  and 
June,  the  queen  bee  lays  about  two  tiiousani 
eggs  a  day,  and  can,  and  ofiimes  does,  lay 
three  thousand  in  that  brief  period,  receive  the 
information  with  evident  incredulity— seeming- 
ly assenting  to  the  statement  only  on  the 
g-ound  of  imp')ssibi  ity  and  irom  courtesy. 
These  have  mujh  yet  to  h-arn  of  the  wonders 
and  mysteries  of  ins^-ct  life,  and  will  fiiul,  as 
they  pioceed,  if  they  do  proceed,  tliat  that  which 
they  received  with  surprise   beyond  bel.ef,  U 


18 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


really,  compavali^^ely,  a  small  matter.  Thus, 
in  prolificness,  the  queen  bee  lags  far  in  the 
rear  of  her  royal  sister,  the  queen  of  the  white 
ants.  In  a  recent  communication  to  the  Ohio 
Farmei\  Ur.  Lane,  pfeaking  of  what  he  saw  of 
this  iu«ect  in  his  visit  to  Siara,  siys: — "The 
countiy  is  literal.y  full  of  these  pesis,  and  they 
seem  to  be  as  diligent  as  ants  Avere  in  the  days 
of  Solomon,  for  they  were  always  at  work,  and 
in  almost  every  place.  It  often  seemed  to  me 
surprising  tkat  there  could  be  so  many,  until  I 
I  learned  that  a  single  female  is  capable  of  lay- 
ing thirty  millions  of  eggs  in  a  single  year,  or 
eijjhty  thonmnd  in  a  day.  After  this  I  ceased  to 
tcnnder,  aud  was  thankful  there  were  no  more." 
As  one  of  these  queens  lives  two  years  in  her 
perfect  stale,  11)e  multitude  of  her  ofFspiiug 
reaches  a  figure  in  comparison  with  which  that 
of  the  most  fertile  queen  bee  dwindks  almost  to 
insiiruificance. 


Mr.  C.  F.  Muth,  of  Cincinnati,  having  suc- 
cessfully tried  the  Ulde  process  of  introducing 
queen  bees,  described  in  the  May  number  of  the 
Bee  JouR^^AL,  writes  to  us  as  follows,  under 
date  of  J  une  19. 

"  On  Monday  last  I  took  a  small  tumbler  full 
of  syrup  made  of  sugar,  and  flavored  it  pretty 
strong  with  grated  nutmeg.  I  removed  the 
queen  from  a  hive  of  black  bees,  and  fed  the  bees 
with  most  of  the  syrup.  I  then  opened  an 
Italian  hive,  caught  the  queen,  and  holding 
her  with  the  thumb  and  fore-finger,  dipped 
her  several  times  in  the  syrup  left  in  the  tumb- 
ler, and  set  her  on  one  of  the  combs  of  that 
hive  of  black  bees.  The  third  day  after,  on 
Wednesday  afternoon,  I  examined  the  hive, 
and  found  the  Italian  queen,  bright  yellow  as 
she  was,  marching  among  the  black  popula- 
tion as  quietly  as  it  she  were  still  among  her 
own  people.  This,  no  doubt,  is  a  success;  and 
this  mode  of  introducing  queens  is  worth  very 
much  to  the  beekeeper." 


Dr.  Devron  writes  us  from  New  Orleans,  on 
the  17th  instant,  ""With  me  swarming  (natur- 
al) commenced  on  the  19th  of  March— three 
weeks  or  a  month  earlier  than  the  previous 
year  ;  and  I  have  already,  within  two  weeks, 
obtained  some  two  hundred  (200)  pounds  of 
surplus  honey  from  four  (4)  colonies,  swarms 
of  this  year,  placed  in  empty  hives  of  the  Lang- 
stroth  pattern.  Two  swarms  were  Italian  hy- 
brids, and   two  ordinary  black   bees.     No   ma- 


terial ditTerence  found  in  the  quantity  or  qual- 
ity of  the  honey,  save  that  the  first  swarm, 
having  laid  the  surplus  in  frames,  gave  alone 
about  eighty  (80)  pounds.  In  the  North, 
wintering  the  bees  is  the  trouble.  Here  it  is 
in  summering  them,  in  exceedingly  dry  or 
rainy  seasons,  when  virgin  swarming  or  star- 
vation often  produce  desertion  or  useless 
swarms." 


It  it  stated,  in  a  Silesiau  agricultural  docu- 
ment, that,  since  1850,  when  he  iutiodiiced  the 
Italian  bees  in  Germany,  Mr.  Dzierzon  has 
reared  and  sold  a.hout  five  thousand  queen  bees, 
at  an  average  price  of  five  dollars  each.  This 
might  seem  to  be  a  large  and  profitable  busi- 
ness ;  but  when  we  reflect  that  it  is  the  net 
produc',  of  fourteen  years'  unremitted  labor 
and  attention,  and  that  meanwhile  probably 
five-fold  that  number  of  queens  were  reared 
and  lost,  or  proved  to  be  of  no  commercial 
value,  it  can  hardly  be  regarded  as.  a  very 
remunerative  employment. 


Correction. 


In  the  report  of  the  Michigan  Beekeepers' 
Convention,  published  in  our  last  issue,'  Mr. 
Moon  is  represented  as  having  said  that  "he 
could  control  the  time  of  swarming  as  follows": 
Raise  queens  artificially,  and  by  putting  one  Trt 
a  large  full  stand,  swarming  immediately  takes 
place." 

Mr.  Moon  saj^s  it  should  have  read  queen 
cells,  instead  of  queens.  He  also  adds'th^t 
those  cells  will  sometimes  be  destroyed. 


[For  tlie  American  Bee  Journal,]- 

A  Rare  Case. 


I  had  a  rather  singular  occurrence  hnppen  in 
my  apiary  a  few  days  ago,  such  as  I  have  never 
known  before.  I  had  a  young  Italian  queen 
reared  in  a  nucleus.  One  day  I  went  to  it  and 
found  that  she  had  that  day  met  a  drone  ;  and 
having  a  stock  from  which  I  had  taken  a  queen-, 
I  thought  I  would  introduce  her  there,  which  I 
did.  The  stock  was  standing  some  twelve  or 
fifteen  rods  fiom  the  nucleus.  Several  days 
after,  on  opening  the  nucleus,  I  found  the  yonn^ 
queen  in  there,  with  indications  of  having  agarri 
met  a  drone.  In  endeavoring  to  catch'  htr,  she 
took  wing  and  I  have  not  seen  her  since.  • 

C.    H.    HOT5T. 

NoKWALK, .  Ohio.  .     „      ....^ 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


19 


[For  the   Amsrican   Bee  Journal.] 

The  Queen  Catcher. 


X?' 


>"s 


1.  The  wire  box  to  catch  the  queen,  as  she  passes  out  of  the  hiveto  meet  the  drmes. 

2.  The  w'l-e  case  to  enclose  tlie  comb  on  which  the  young  queen  is. 

3.  The  wire  tube  connecting  the  box  and  case. 

a.  Entrance  to  the  wire  cage,  

b.  Entrance  to  the  wire  box.     On  the   c«i,  these   entrances  are   not  as  distinctly  mcucated 
under  a  and  b,  as  they  should  have  been. 


The  queen  catcher  is  a  new  invention  whicli 
I  liave  laid  before  several  experienced  beekeep- 
ers, who  call  it  "a  good  and  ingenious  inven- 
tion,''' to  cntch  the  queen  in  natural  swarming, 
wlien  that  is  allowed. 

Some  suggest  that  it  will  also  do  for  securing 
the  pure  fertilization  of  young  quee'js.  Tliis, 
of  course,  would  require,  in  some  cases,  a  differ- 
ent arrangement  of  the  cages  and  tube's,  to  fa- 
cilitate the  operation. 

The  queen  catcher  is  composed  of  a  flat  wire 
tube,  20  to  24  inches  long,  1|  inches  wide  ;  and 
a  wire  box  7  inches  long,  5  by  5  inches  square, 
both  made  of  fine-wov&  wire  cloth.  One  end  of 
the  tube  is  inserted  in  nn  aperture  in  the  box, 
made  to  receive  it.  Both  box  and  tube  are  sup- 
ported upon  a  frame  on  a  level  with  the  hive, 
so  that  the  other  end  of  the  tube  can  be  intro- 
duced into  one  side  of  the  main  entrance  of  the 
hive.  The  remainder  of  the  main  entrance  is 
closed  by  a  regulator  so  that  none  but  the  work- 
er bees  can  pass  in  and  out.  Thus  arranged,  it 
is  ready  for  swarming,  the  queen  being  compel- 
Led  to  pass  out  into  the  wire  box.  Tlie  swarm 
missing  the  queen  returas,  nnd  discovering  her 
iu  the  box,  clusters  on  it.  The  bees  are  theu  in 
a  convenient  place  to  handle  and  hive  in  the 
XTi^ual  way  ;  and  we  can  satisfy  ourselves  of  the 
presence  of  the  queen  in  the  box. 

The  box  should  have  an  aperture  in  the  top, 
to  lei  the  Avorkers  which  pass  into  it  escape.  It 
shpuld/lso  have  a  door,  by  which  the  queen 
can  easily  be  liberated  among  the  bees,  when 
ready,  and  all  is  d'>ne. 

As  above  suggested,  I  use  this  wire  box  and 
two.tubes,  when  caging  the  queen  and  drones 
from  different  hives,  at  the  same  time — the 
tu,pes  pagsing.from  each  hive  into  the  wire  box  ; 
one  hive  containing  the.. queen,  aad  the.  other 


the  pure  drones  The  entrance  to  each  hive  is 
to  be  closed,  as  in  swarming  ;  so  that  the  qupcn 
and  drones  will  be  compelled  to  meet  iu  the 
bos.  The  young  queen  should  never  be  per- 
mitted to  pass  out  on  her  bridal  tour,  before 
the  catcher  is  arranged.  On  the  fifth  or  sixth 
day  after  leaving  her  cell,  is  the  time  she  usual- 
ly "passes  out  to  meet  the  drones,  if  the  weather 
is  favorable. 

Tlie  choice  drones  should  also  be  confined  to 
the  hive  ;  for  if  permitted  to.  fly  out,  black  or 
impure  drones  may  enter  the  hive  with  them  ; 
and  thus  the  purity  sought  might  not  be  secur- 
ed, unless  caught  in  a  sepirate  box  and  the 
choice  drones  selected,  before  ciging  tlie  queeu. 
If  confined  moie  than  one  hour  touether,  they 
must  be  supplied  with  a  sponge  saturated  with 
honey,  for  feed  in  tiie  box.  If  the  niglits  are 
cool,  they  must  also  be  placed  where  they  can 
Lave  the  heat  of  the  bees  to  give  them  the 
proper  warmth.  They  may  require  to  be 
kept  confined  together  forty-eight  hours.  The 
queen  is  liberated  hy  turning  open  the  door  of 
th>"  cage,  down  upon  the  frames. 

When  the  hives  containing  the  queen  and  the 
drones  are  too  tar  apart  to  use  one  catcher  as 
above  noted,  then  of  course  two  will  have  to  be 
used,  and  the  drones  cauijrht  in  one  and  thea 
put  in  the  other  containing  the  queen,  and  arran- 
ged and  managed  as  above  stated. 

I  first  used  a  glass  box,  but  b)^  experiment 
soon  found  that  the  wire  is  preferable,  as  it 
excites  the  queen  and  droups  less  ;  and  where 
the  heat  of  the  bees  and  ventilation  are  desired, 
it  is  again  preferable. 

By  a  union  of  the  queen  catcher  and  Dr. 
Preuss'  wire  comb  cr.ge,  (see  A.  B.  .Journal, 
volume  4,  page  206),  we  have  all  that  can  be 
desired  to  secure  the  pure  fertilization  of  young 


20 


THE    AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


queens,  since  it  will  do  away  with  some   of  tlie 
objections  made  to  the  plan  above  described. 

The  diagram  will  at  once  show  how  the 
whole  is  arranged,  when  in  use.  It  will  be 
seen  that  there  is  no  chapce  for  the  queen  to  be 
lost,  when  tlie  Citcher  is  once  placed  in  work- 
ing condirion.  with  the  wire  tube  entering  the 
case  and  box.  She  must  pass  into  the  box,  as 
she  goes  out  to  meet  the  drones.  The  wire  case 
encloses  the  comb  on  which  tlie  young  queen  is 
found,  upon  the  fouith  d.iy  after  she  leaves  the 
queen  cell.  If  a  comb  is  also  encased  with 
choice  drones,  in  the  s  ime  manner  as  for  secur- 
ing the  queen,  we  can,  by  the  same  arrange- 
ment, have  the  choice  drones  pass  into  the  same 
box — there  being  no  chance  for  the  drones  to 
become  mixed  after  being  selected  and  confined 
in  the  case.  An  aperture  is  made  at  the  lower 
front  corner  of  the  wire  case,  to  receive  the 
wire  tube,  as  it  stands  in  the  hive  or  nucleus 
box. 

Jewel  Davis. 

Charleston,  III. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Justice. 


Mn.  Edtor:— In  your  May  number  Mr. 
Walter  Hewson,  of  England,  among  other 
questions,  says  : 

"  Tne  Irtst  question,  though  la^t  is  not  least, 
do  we  not  all  hold  ourselves  indebted  to  Mr. 
Langstrolh  ?  Is  he  not  tlie  Father  of  modern 
hives  and  the  Prince  ot  modern  Apiarians  ?  A 
correspondent  wrote  some  time  back  that  we 
owe  him  a  dr-bt  not  only  of  g-alitude  but  of  cash/ 
Brother  beekeepers,  if  this  is  so,  (and  it  really 
»•(),  should  we  nut  find  a  pleasure  in  attempting 
to  liquidate  that  debt  ?" 

I  desire  to  tliank  Mr.  Hewson  for  the  gener- 
ous feeling  which  prompted  him  to  speak  thus. 
1  appreciate  ii  all  the  more,  Coming  as  it  does, 
from  an  entire  stranger,  and  being  in  such  wide 
Cofitrawt  with  the  treatment  I  have  received 
from  many  of  my  own  countrymen;  some  of 
■whom,  atier  profiling  largely  by  my  invention, 
have  not  scrui)led  either  lo  withhold  as  far  as 
posiible,  any  proper  acknowledgment  ot  th-ir 
obligations,  or  tempted  others  to  use  illeg«lly 
my  inveuvion  ;  and  others  s'ill  have  for  years 
denounced  me  as  attempting  to  palm  otf  foreign 
inventions  as  my  own. 

If,  however,  I  should  allow  Mr.  Hewson's 
question  to  pass  without  any  comment,  I  should 
ao  the  greatest  injury  to  the  celebrated  Prussian 
Bee  Muster,  Dzierzon  ;  who,  by  his  di-covery 
of  the  parthenogenesis  in  bees,  has  thrown  a 
fl  )nd  of  light  on  points  peitaining  to  their  repro- 
d  iction -which  puzzled  the  profound  intellect 
of  Aristotle,  and  eluded  the  pitience  and  en- 
tlmaiasm  of  a  Swammerdam,  a  Reaumur,  au'l  a 
Uuber.  No  true  heal  ted  beekeeper  can  fail  to 
put  the  laurel  crown  upon  the  brow  of  Dzieizou, 
and  hail  h  m  as  fuciie  princeps  (our  chief  com- 
mander) in  the  strife  of  thousands  of  years. 

While  by  this  great  discovery  he  has  placed 
bimself  at  ilie  head  of  all,  I  may  perhaps  be  par- 


doned for  quoting  from  your  letter,  December 
24th,  1852,  published  in  the  first  edition  (1858) 
of  my  work  on  the  honey  bee  : 

"  You  may  certainly  claim  equal  credit  with 
Dzierzon  for  originality  in  observation  and  dis- 
covery in  the  natural  history  of  the  honey  bee,* 
and  for  success  in  deducing  principles  and  de- 
vising a  most  valuable  system  of  management 
from  observed  facts.  But  in  invention,  as  far 
as  neatness,  compactness,  and  adaptation  of 
means  to  ends  are  cone  rned,  the  sturdy  Ger- 
man must  yield  the  palm  to  you." 

It  is  with  increasing  reluctance  that  I  am 
compelled  so  o  ten  »o  obtrude  upon  the  public, 
my  claims  and  the  various  ways  in  which  they 
iiave  been  ignored  by  many  beekeepers  ;  but  if 
your  readers  feel  under  obligation  to  me  for  the 
invention  of  a  hive  which  has  confessedly  given 
a  new  impulse  to  beeculture,  I  can  easily  show 
some  of  them  a  way  in  which  they  can  do  me 
justice.  Let  them  read  my  article  in  this  num- 
ber, "Reply  to  B.  C.  Auchampaugh's  ques- 
tions about  Patent  Rights  and  Claims,"  also  the 
advertisement  of  L.  L.  Laniistroth  &  Son, 
showing  what  territory  in  the  extended  patent 
is  still  controlled  by  them.  If  they  are  using 
any  style  of  hive  c'early  covered  by  my  claims, 
(see  page  152  of  the  8th  number,  volume  4,  of 
Bbe  Journal),  no  matter  of  whom  they  may 
have  purchased  the  patent,  they  are  using  my 
property  for  which  they  have  paid  me  no  equiv- 
alent. Our  advertisement  will  show  them  how 
they  can  do  us  jus' ice. 

It  is  true  that  the  larger  part  of  the  most  Tal- 
uable  territory,  has  passed  out  of  our  hands  ; 
belonging  now  to  Mr.  R.  C.  Otis,  of  Kenosha, 
Wiscons  n,  who  by  his  untiring  energy  has  per- 
haps done  more  than  any  other  person  to  intro- 
duce thC' movable  frame  primiple  to  the  public, 
and  who  has  not  yet  received  any  adequate  re- 
muneration for  tiie  lime,  money,  and  enerfj 
which,  since  1856,  he  has  devoted  to  this  busi- 
ness ;  but  like  myself,  i»  a  poorer  man  for  all  he 
has  done. 

L.  L.  Langstrots, 

Oxford,  Butler  Co.,  Omo,  June  10,  1889. 


»Mr.  Wagner  doe'  Dot  seem  to  have  appreciated  Um 
value  of  Dzlerzon'i  discoveiy  of  parthenogeuesli. 

J^fOur  remark  was  not  meant  to  embrace  partiitno- 
yenesis- a  matter  tlien  ?tlll  controverieU  bymany«mt- 
nent  phy  lolo^Ms.  The  expression  ihui  happens  to  b» 
broader  than  u  ghou'd  have  been.  At  a  not  much  later 
period,  the  language  would  certainly  have  lt>e«:n  so  mudV 
tied  as  to  acc.rd  Uue  credit  to  Dzierzon  for  hia  d»- 
covery.— Ed. 


Madame  Vicat  says,  "moths  are  most  ready 
to  attack  hives  whi*h  havei  swarmed  often* r 
than  once;  bee  .use  in  them  tue  combs,  in 
V  hich  the  young  queen  bi  es  were  reared,  being 
empty,  serve  both  for  shelter  and  food  to  thotf 
magijots,  which  feed  only  on  wax." 


Nature  has  endowed  bees  with  an  exquisite 
sense  of  smeil,  for  they  can  scent  hone/  and 
wax  at  a  great  distance. 


American  Bee  Journal 


EDITED  AND  PUBLISHED  BY  SAMUEL  WAGNER,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

AT    TWO   DOLLARS  PER   ANNUJI,    PAYAELE   IN   ADVA>;CE. 


Vol.  V, 


AUGUST,     l^OO. 


No.  2. 


[From  tlic  Lo;k"o.i  "  Journal  cf  Horticulture."] 

Bees  and  B3e-Keeping  ia  Egyp";. 


It  may  be  remembered  tbat,  wbeu  commen- 
cing a  series  of  avtic'es  upou  "The  Eiiyptian 
Bee,"  I  stated  tliat  the  distinguished  German 
apiarian,  Hen-  Vo2;el  had  talien  charge  of  the 
illustridus  Utile  strangers,  Avhose  iuvohtntary 
migration  into  Europe  had  been  made  under  tlie 
Huspices  of  the  BerJu  Accbmatisation  Society. 
Afc-r  succeeding  to  admiration  in  multiplying 
and  diss^minaung  his  interesting  jirotegees, 
Ilerr  Vogel  seems  to  have  been  inspired  with 
tlie  desire  of  making  the  acquaintance  of  Apia 
fasciata  in  its  own  habitat.  This  desire  he  was 
ena'-Ied  to  graiify  during  the  spring  of  ISGO, 
and,  I  have  now  much  pleasure  iu  submit! og  to 
the  readers  of  "  our  Journal  "  a  translation  of 
the  very  interesting  account  which  he  has  given 
of  his  ap'.arian  observation  during  his  Egyptian 
tiip. — T.  W.  WooDBUiiY,  DEVONsntuE  Bee- 
KEEPEPv,  Mou^T  Badfokd,  Exeteii,  E^•GLAKD. 

THE   EGYPTIAN   BEE. 

The  recluse  who  never  moves  outside  the  four 
walls  of  his  house,  or  at  the  farthest  goes  not 
beyond  the  familiar  shade  of  the  trees  in  his 
own  garden,  may  well  believe  that  the  sun 
shines  not  on  foreign  lands,  and  that  the  inhab- 
iiants  of  distant  countjies  must  perforce  dwell 
in  utter  darkness  ;  but  the  bee-master  should  at 
kast  know  from  what  field  and  from  what  flow 
er  his  bees  gather  sweet  nectar  and  gaily-tinted 
poUfU,  as  well  as  the  places  from  which  they 
fetch  water.  The  reader  of  our  Bee  Journal 
may  also  if  he  pleases  travel  in  thought  through 
Germany,  I'aly,  Poland,  Russia,  and  by  land  to 
all  the  c.;untries  of  Europe — by  water  to  Austra- 
lia, Ai^ia  and  Africa;  to  the  lauds  of  the  Moham- 
medan and  the  heathen,  and  witness  how  the 
little  bee  is  everywhere  provided  for  by  the  be- 
neficent Creator,  and  how  she  is  fostered  by  n)an. 

Let  me  beg  the  courteous  reader  to  permit  him- 
self to  be  iu  thought  transported  with  me 
through  the  air  and  over  the  blue  waters  of  the 
JMediterranean  to  the  ancient  city  of  Cairo.  But 
Cairo  alone,  the  unsubdued  or  rather  the  invin- 
cible, is  not,  with  all  her  glory  and  magnifi- 


cence, sufficient  to  captivate  us,  for  we  are  anx- 
ious to  see  the  little  bee  and  the  Egyptian  bee- 
mas:ers.  Hiring  donkeys,  the  driver  straightway 
conducts  us  to  Old  Cairo,  and  to  the  Arab  Soli- 
man,  who  is  grave-digger  Id  the  English  church- 
yard. Here,  accordingly,  we  find  the  old  Arab 
occupied  in  the  God  s  acre  under  the  shade  of 
the  tall  trees  ;  .but  he  is  not  now  making  a  last 
resting  place  in  the  cool  ground  for  any  ihild  of 
man,  but  is  onlv  closing  a  bee-hive,  into 
which  he  has  just  shaken  a  swarm  of  his  wards. 
Ourdiagoman  introduces  us  as  European  bee- 
keepers, Avho  have  come  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  the 
Kirypiian  bee-master,  and  to  listen  to  the  teach- 
ings of  Egyptian  wisdom.  Alas,  it  is  not  per- 
mitted to\is  to  read  in  ilie  ey<-s  of  the  Arabian 
bee-mas'er  the  impression  which  this  represen- 
tation has  made  upon  him.  Soliman  certainly 
wears  no  yash-mak,  like  the  feminine  beauties 
or  ugly  ones  of  his  land,  but  has  simply  a  bee- 
cap  "drawn  over  his  head.  We  express  to  him 
our  surprise  at  seeing  in  Old  Cairo  a  bee-cap 
exactly  similar  to  those  we  have  met  with  iu 
Europe,  when  Soliman  at  once  becomes  com- 
municative, and  relates  as  follows: 

"In  the  year  1242*  the  foreigner  Hammer- 
schmidt  liouuht  of  me  a  stock  of  bees,  which  he 
took  to  Europe.  In  the  folbnving  year  Ilam- 
merschmidt  came  again  from  Berlin,  a  town  of 
the  unbelievers  iu  the  cold  North,  to  Cairo,  ana 
brouiiLt  me  this  cap  as  a  present.  The  inven- 
tor olf  the  bee  cap  is  Vogel,  a  bee-kneper  in 
Europe  who  received  my  bees.  Neither  my 
father,  nor  my  gi and  father,  nor  great-grand- 
father knew  bee" caps,  and  formerly  I  also  con- 
tinually went  amongst  my  bees  without  a  bee- 
cap.  How  proud,  then,  am  I  to  possess  the  first 
bee-cap  in  the  land  !  How  costly  is  the  mate- 
rial of  this  fabiicl  The  great  Prophet,  him- 
self, could  n(,t  have  worn  worthier  or  better 
raiment!  The  colors  of  the  mateiial,  and  of 
this  band,  are  tiny  not  excellent  and  ravishing 
to  the  eye,  as  a  rose  that  is  kissed  by  the  first 
blush  of  the  dawn  ?  Vogel's  friend  has  washed 
this  fabric  with  pearls  of  dew  in  the  morning, 
and  dried  it  iu  the  evening  glow  of  the  heav- 


'Hegira. 


22 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


We  miss  lieaving  the  farther  praises  of  the 
bee-cap  whilst  mak:ng  the  following  note  in  our 
diary  : — 

1.  "In  the  year  1865,  the  Berlin  Acclimatisa- 
tion Society  sent  through  the  photographer, 
Hammerschmidt  a  bee-cap,  which  Vogol  had 
Jurnislied,  to  the  Arab  Solimiin,  in  Old  Cairo. 
This  cap  is  the  first  in  Egypt." 

We  are  pleased  at  the  truthfulness  of  the 
Arab,  who  does  not  extol  hiir.self  as  the  inven- 
tor of  the  bee-cap,  whilst  we  pardon  his  niis- 
takef  in  ascribing  the  invention  to  Vogel. 

In  order  not  to  weary  the  reader  with  the 
diffuse  and  pompous  sj^eeches  of  the  old  Arab, 
we  merely  extract  the  farther  notices  from  our 
diary,  permitting  ourselves  only  to  add  some 
explanatory  remarks. 

3.  "The  ruler  of  the  bees  is  slender  as  a  palm 
tree,  the  male  heavy  as  a  crocodile  ;  the  slaves 
are  most  like  the  mother,  must  work  day  and 
night,  cleave  in  love  and  service  to  the  ruler, 
and  slaughter  the  males  at  command.  The 
ruler  orders  the  murder  of  the  males  as  soon  as 
the  flowers  are  withered  in  the  hesit  of  summer; 
the  males  are  unable  to  defend  themselves,  in 
that  they  are  sliuglefs.  If  the  males  were  to 
remain  alive  in  the  summer  they  would  obtain 
authority  ;  but  in  the  bee  community  only  the 
mother  shall  rule." 

The  Arab  also  knows  three  different  kinds  of 
bees — the  queen,  drones  and  workers.  He  says 
that  the  worker-bees  may  be  so  attached  to  the 
queen  because  they  owe  their  existence  to  her. 
The  egg  of  the  bee  is  not  unknown  to  the  Arab 
bee-master  ;  he  knows  that  out  of  it  will  cornea 
worm,  and  in  time  a  young  bee. 

3.  "  Bees  swarm  in  Old  Cairo  in  the  month  of 
March,  when  the  clover  begins  to  flower.  At 
this  time  the  Arab  daily  lays  his  ear  on  his 
stocks,  in  order  to  hear  when  the  old  mother- 
bee  begins  to  'weep.'  When  this  '  weeping  'is 
heard  lie  counts  upon  a  swarm  being  pleased  to 
issue  the  next  day.  As  the  queen  will  then  for- 
sake her  children  and  her  government  to  found 
a  new  empire,  the  Arab  deems  the  sounds  of 
lamentation  very  natural." 

We  can  scarcely  understand  this  mistake  in 
respect  of  swarms.  Soliman  firmly  maintains 
that  swarms  can  be  looked  for  only  when  the 
rulers  "weep"  (pipe  or  clack.)  From  what 
we  heard,  we  concluded  that  the  Arab  first 
watches  lor  swarms  when  a  stock  has  already 
sent  ofi"  a  prime  swarm,  and  Avhen  the  young 
queens  in  the  stock  hives  pipe  and  clack.  The 
first  prime  swarm  must  theielore  certainly  fly 
off",  unless  he  should  by  accident  discover  them 
hanging  on  a  tree.  To  the  question,  Whether 
he  did  not  sometimes  have  a  swarm  without  the 
queens  having  "wept,"  he  answered  that  then 
he  had  either  missed  hearing  the  "weeping," 
or  the  swarm  found  was  a  wild  (flown  away) 
one. 

4.  "The  swarms  are  shaken  into  empty  cyl- 
inders. In  order  that  the  bees  may  be  pleased 
Avith  their  new  dwelling,  empty  and  full  honey- 
combs are  set  up  in  it.  This  can  be  ea&ilj'  done, 
as  all  the  cylinder-hives  are  of  equal  width. 
Each'  comb  must  be  placed  on  a  forked  stick, 

i  Err  are  humanum  est. 


and  by  means  of  this  may  be  firmly  fixed,  if 
the  length  of  the  slick  be  the  same  as  the  diam- 
eter of  the  hive." 

It  is  ceitain  that  during  the  past  hundred  years 
the  Egyptians  have  been  able  to  prevent  swarm- 
ing. Solimaii  is,  in  this  point  of  his  practice, 
perfectly  Dzierzonian,  without,  hoM'ever,  know- 
ing Dzierzon's  name.  That  the  Arab  pievents 
swarming  in  order  to  dry  the  tears  of  the  ruler 
of  the  swarm,  is,  practically,  of  no  importance 
whatever. 

5.  "If  a  stock  swarms,  notwithstanding  that 
the  queen  has  not  yet  "  wept,"  the  Arab  makes 
an  artificial  swarm.  When  the  bees  have  taken 
flight,  he,  towards  evening,  stops  the  entrance 
in  the  front  disc  of  the  cylinder,  opens  the  door 
behind,  takes  out  a  portion  of  the  comb  with 
the  bees  hanging  on  it,  and  places  it  carefully 
in  an  empty  cylinder.  In  order  not  to  weaken 
one  ttork  too  much,  he  takes  combs  and  bees 
from  two  or  three  hives,  and  foims  his  artificial 
I  swarm  by  putting  them  all  together.  When  the 
I  back  door  is  again  closed,  the  front  entrance  is 
opened,  so  as  to  receive  into  the  parent  stock, 
instead  of  into  the  artificial  swarm,  those  bees 
which  have  collected  du'ing  the  removal  of  the 
combs.  The  Arab  thinks  that  he  has  then  a 
i  queen  in  the  new  stock,  and  that  otherwise  the 
operation  fails.  'When,' says  Soliman,  'I  do 
not  divide  and  remove  the  bees  at  the  light  time, 
the  young  bees  kill  their  old  mother,  and  cast  her 
dead  body  out  of  the  hive.'  " 

Our  friend  Soliman  also  understands  dividing 
and  transporting.  He  only  divides  those  stocks 
that  have  young  queens  which  pipe  and  clack. 
He  always  takes  care  that  he  has  a  young  queen 
in  the  artificial  swarm,  because  afier  a  queen 
has  been  hatched  the  divided  SAvaim  Avould  not 
have  suitable  brood  for  raising  a  queen,  as  when 
a  stock  pipes  and  clacks  after  the  first  swarm 
has  issued  all  the  brood  is  already  sealed  over. 
That  artificial  swarms  may  be  made  Avith  brood 
only,  passes  the  comprehension  of  the  Arab, 
and  thinking  is  not  his  metier.  I  doubt  not 
that  to  this  day  there  are  old  boys  in  Germany 
that  know  no  more  of  the  manner  in  which  a 
queen  is  produced  than  Soliman  himself.  Some 
years  since  a  bee-keeper  died  in  this  neighbor- 
hood, who  never  could  thoroughly  comprehend 
that  it  was  possible  for  the  bees  to  raise  a  queen 
out  of  an  ordinary  worker  egg  or  larva;.  In 
order  to  demonstrate  the  matter  to  him  ad  in- 
staniium  and  ad  oc^ilos,  I  made  on  my  own  stand, 
and  before  his  eyes,  an  artificial  swarm,  by 
means  of  brood  comb.  Every  comb  did  he  most 
rigidly  examine,  and  finally  declared  it  certain 
that  no  royal  cells  were  {here.  Eiiiht  dnys 
afterwards  I  took  this  opposer  of  the  march  of 
intellect  to  the  artificial  swarm,  lifted  out  the 
combs,  and  showed  him  five  adhering  royal 
cells.  "  Yes,"  he  admitted,  "those  are  queen 
cells."  I  detained  the  old  man  in  order  to  con- 
vince him,  and  desciibed  the  manner  in  which 
a  queen-bee  Avas  reared.  During  my  discourse 
he  shook  his  head,  as  I  fondly  thouglit,  in  won- 
der at  the  marvellous  instinct  of  the  bee  ;  but 
some  days  afterwards  I  heard  that  this  incred- 
ulous and  mistrustful  blockhead  thus  expressed 
himself: — "  Why,  this  blunderer  would  make 


'HE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


23 


me  believe  something.  He  puts  royal  cells  into 
tiic  h've  behind  my  back,  and  would  then  per- 
suade me  that  tlie  queeulcss  bees  had  built 
them."  Boma  locuta,  re,s  fiiiita,  thought  I. 
Our  bce-colleaiiue  Soiiman  could,  indeed,  hardly 
have  expressed  himself  worse. 

The  Arab  holds  the  erroneous  opinion  that  at 
the  time  of  swarmiug  there  are  several  queens  in 
oue  and  the  same  hive  ;  and  that  if  the  stock 
does  not  swarm,  or  he  does  not  divide  it,  the 
old  mother  is  always  killed  by  the  young  queens. 

6.  "In  the  middle  of  summer  (August)  when 
the  Nile  rises  and  overflows  its  banks,  the 
Es5''ptiaa  bee-master  cuts  out  the  honeycombs. 
Wliilst  this  is  being  done  the  entrance  is  stop- 
ped, and  the  disc  at  the  back  of  the  hive  being 
removed,  the  bees  are  driven  towards  the  front, 
by  means  of  smoke.  A  knife  having  been  used 
to  loosen  them  at  the  top,  perhaps  three-fifths 
of  the  honey-laden  circuhir-shaped  combs  are 
taken  out.  Combs  containing  brood-cells  are 
not  meddled  with  ;  and  if  at  any  time  the  Arab 
by  mistake  takes  out  a  comb  containing  eggs, 
larvae,  or  sealed  brood,  he  immediately  returns 
it  again.  The  destruction  of  bees  by  sulphur 
is  unknown." 

In  Egypt  they  also  follow  the  swarming  and 
depriving:]:  system.  To  destroy  brood  is  there 
held  as  a  sin.  What,  indeed,  would  Soliman 
call  those  German  bee-keepers  who  teach  that 
at  the  time  of  the  blooming  of  the  willow  (the 
end  of  March  or  beginning  of  April)  one  should 
cut  out  of  the  stocks  all  empty  and  brood-combs 
up  to  the  sealed  honey  at  the  top?  Verily  all 
that  they  do  in  strange  lands  and  distant  parts 
of  the  earth  is  not  so  much  amiss. 

7.  "  Soliman  is  truly  a  great  smoker,  yet  he 
never  employs  tobacco  in   his  operations,   but 

I  smokes  bees  only  with  dried  cowdung." 

I  have  before  stated  that  the  Egyptian  bee 
stings  onlj''  when  irritated,  and  I  now  repeat  the 
same,  in  order  to  avoid  mistakes;  but  on  the 
other  hand,  if  irritated  it  is  extremely  vicious. 

I  at  first,  operated  on  the  imported  colony 
without  smoke  ;  and  as  I  was  neither  stung  nor 
otherwise  molested  by  the  bees,  I  could  then 
with  truth  assert  that  the  Egyptian  bee  did  not 
sting.  About  four  weeks  afferwards  I  made  use 
of  cigar-smoke  when  withdrawing  an  Egyptian 
brood-comb  in  order  to  remove  it.  I  forthwith 
received  eleven  stings  in  the  face  and  five  in  the 
bauds.  The  other  day  I  purpose, y  operated 
with  tobacco  smoke,  and,  having  on  no  bee-cap, 
was  compelled  to  run  away.  All  recent  obser- 
vations go  to  prove  that  tobacco  smoke  excites 
the  greatest  wrath  in  the  Egyptian  bee.  With 
the  Gejiuan  and  Italian  bees  the  human  breath 
produces  the  same  etFect.  If  the  ire  of  an 
Egyptian  stock  is  once  excited,  it  remains  for  a 
long  time  extiemely  vicious,  and  when  it  has 
at  last  calmed  down,  we  need  use  but  a  few 
whiffs  of  tobacco  smoke  to  see  the  rage  of  the 
little  insect  break  out  again  in  all  its  full  fury. 
We  can  understand  with  what  spirit  the  Egyp- 
tian bee  sets  upon  people,  when  w^e  consider  the 
extraordinary  agility  and  vivacity  of  the  insect. 
In  order  to  subdue  its  irritation,  I  use  the  smoke 

JThis  deprivation  Is  effected  by  cutting  combs  out  of 
the  hives.— A  Devonbhiee  Bee-keeper. 


of  decayed  willow  wood,  (touchwood,)  and 
this  convei'ts  its  cnura'^e  into  embarrassment, 
despondency,  and  dread.  They  will  even  then 
fly  at  the  operator,  circle  around  liim  like 
mad,  and  piicli  on  his  face,  hands,  &c.,  curv- 
ing themselves  at  the  fame  time  as  if  they 
Avould  sting,  but  mostly  fly  off  agnin  without 
having  done  so.  I  have  not  yet  tried  upon  the 
Egyptians  the  cfl"ect  of  smoke  from  dried  cow- 
dung 

8.  "The  Egyptian-cylinder  hives  are  four 
feet  long  *  and  are  made  of  a  compost  of  Nile 
mud  and  cowdung.  The  Arab  makes  a  mould 
of  reeds,  round  which  he  plasters  the  well- 
kneaded  material  to  the  thickness  of  about  3 
inches.  Wlien  the  cylinder  which  is  thus  form- 
ed becomes  dry,  the  reedwoi'k  is  withdrawn. 
Straw  hives  are  unknown  iu  any  part  of  Egypt. 
In  Upper  Egypt,  iu  addition  to  these  cylinders, 
they  also  use  as  bee-hives  movable  pots  and 
pans  formed  of  the  same  material.  Stray 
swarms  are  frequently  discovered  on  the  ground, 
when,  if  the  finder  has  not  the  courage  to  hive 
them,  and  the  swarms  be  on  his  own  land,  he 
takes  Nile  mud,  mixed  with  cowdung,  and 
builds  a  little  hut  in  the  form  of  an  oven,  clos- 
ing up  the  hole  which  he  has  left,  by  means  of 
a  door  formed  of  the  sanie  material." 

Travelers  tell  us  not  unfrequently  of  bee-hives 
which  they  have  seen  in  Es:ypt.  So,  for  exam- 
ple, De  Maillet  in  his  Description  de  VEgypte 
speaks  of  "  hives,"  "bee-hives,"  and  "  honey- 
hives."  Among  the  Egyptian  "bee-hives" 
they  have  not,  up  to  the  present  time,  con- 
trived straw  hives,  but  only  cylinders,  pots, 
&c.,  formed  of  Nile  mud.  There  is  positively 
no  reason  whatever  for  supposing  that  the  an- 
cient Egyptians  used  straw  hives,  since  straw 
is,  on  account  of  its  retention  of  heat,  a  most 
unfit  material  for  bee-hives  iu  this  country. 

9.  "The  Egyptians  place  their  bee. hives  as 
near  as  possible  to  the  clover  fields.  In  the  im- 
mediate neighborhood  of  the  cylinder-hives, 
which  are  piled  up  like  drain-pipes,  is  erected  a 
dwelling  for  the  bee-watchman." 

Bees  collect  the  most  honey  from  clover.  The 
clover  Avhich  is  so  abundantly  cultivated  in 
Egypt,  Trifblium  alexandrinum,  should  also  be 
cultivated  by  the  Berlin  Acclimatisation  Society 
in  the  experimental  fields  iu  Berlin,  where, 
through  sowing  the  original  seed,  they  had  such  a 
brilliant  result  in  the  year  1862.  The  plant  is  an 
anuua,l,  and  the  seed  raised,  even  on  good  soil, 
in  this  locality,  is  wanting  in  the  vigor  ne- 
cessary to  produce  the  superior  clover  which 
we  find  iu  its  native  country.  To  import  seed 
annually  would,  with  the  high  cost  of  transport 
and  the  doubtfulness  of  the  supply,  be  doubly 
disadvantageous. 

10.  "  Travelling  with  bee-stocks  is  no  longer 
seen  in  Eaypt." 

According  to  various  accounts,  the  ancient 
Egyptians  practiced  a  profitable  system  of  migra- 
tory bee-keeping.  De  Maillet  related  (1740), 
that  they  then  still  trade  use  of  the  Nile  in  order 
to  obtain  a  rich  honey  harvest.  "In  Egypt 
they  have  preserved  a  custom,  introduced  by  the 
ancients,  of  maintaining  bees  in  a  very  peculiar 

♦About  3  feet  10  inches  English  measure. 


24 


THE    AMERICAN    BEE  JOURNAL. 


manner.  Sainfoin  is  first  sown  toAvarcIs  tlio  end 
of  October,  wlieu  the  Nile,  subsides.  As  Ui)per 
Egypt  is  hotter  than  Lower  Egypt,  and  tbe 
inundation  sooner  disappears,  thw  s'ainfom  tliere 
grows  and  flowers  earlier.  They,  therefore, 
send  their  bee-hives  fiom  Lower  Egypt  to  the 
south,  in  order  that  the  bees  may  gatlier  from 
the  floweis.  The  beehives  are  all  numbered 
and  piled  in  a  pyramidal  form  on  Nile  boats. 
The  bees  pastuie  for  some  days  in  the  fields, 
and  Avhen  it  is  believed  that  the  chief  harvest  is 
over,  the  boat  moves  two  or  three  miles  north- 
wards, and  halts  again  so  long  as  the  bees  can 
profitably  remain.  At  last,  I'll  the  beginning 
of  February,  the  boatman  returns  to  the  sea  and 
restores  the  stocks  to  their  o\\  ners."  Niebulir 
also  describes  migratory  bee-keeping  in  Nile 
hoats.  Fiom  verbal  information  imparted  to 
Dr.  Gerstacker,  we  learn  that  neitlier  Ehieuberg 
nor  Dr.  Hartmann  observed  during  their  travels 
the  transportation  of  bee-hives  on  the  Nile. 
Hammers-chmidt's  careful  inquiries  in  the  year 
18G5  have  established  the  fact,  that  at  present 
migratory  bee-keeping  is  not  pursued  in  Egypt. 
All  modern  accounts,  theretbie,  which  rcpresi^nt 
migratory  bee-keeping  as  being  still  customary 
iu  that  country,  are,  of  course,  uu'ouuded. 

11.  "The  worst  enemy  which  the  l)ees  have 
in  Egypt  is  a  long  slender  wasp,  or  humble-bee, 
•wiih  a  red  body.  Li  the  latter  ]iart  ot  the  sum- 
mer this  insect  sets  itself  before  the  entrance 
of  the  hive  and  kills  every  bee  that  comes  out. 
At  this  seasrou,  therefore,  a  child  is  slaiioned  in 
front  of  the  hives  with  a  large  fan  to  drive  away 
the  wasps.  In  ihe  year  IbCo  the  Arab  boliman 
liad  in  a  short  time  no  less  than  eighteen  cut  of 
a  bundled  stocks  so  completely  plundered  that 
they  died,  and  all  through  the  carelessness  of 
the  child  to  whom  the  watch  was  entrusted." 

What  Egpytain  insect  may  be  meant  by  the 
red -bodied  wasp,  or  humble  bee,  I  am  unable  to 
learn.  I  hope,  however,  iliat  those  naturalists 
■who  are  among  the  readers  of  our  uee  Journal 
will  be  able  to  determine  its  name  from  this 
insufficient  description, 

12.  "  W.  Hammtrschmidt,  the  photographer, 
had  promised  me  a  photopraph  of  the 
Arab  Soiiman,  undoubtedly  tlie  greatest 
Eeyptian  apiarian.  At  my  request,  also,  boliman 
declared  that  he  would  gladily  permit  himself  to 
be  photographed  ;  but  he  soon  changed  his 
mind.  Even  the  most  civilised  Arali  cannot 
understand  the  nature  of  the  piintograph,  and 
therefore  views  the  art  as  the  woik  of  the  devil, 
terrifying  accordingly  to  the  ordinary  Bedouins 
and  Fallaheen.  Friend  Soiiman  very  soon 
began  to  allege  all  manner  of  excuse,  such  as 
that  he  suflTered  from  rheumatism,  nnd  was 
unable  to  go  when  Herr  Hammerschmidt  invi- 
ted him  to  accompany  him  and  have  his  likeness 
taken  ;  so  that  all  I  obtained  from  the  old  Soli- 
man  was  an  exchange  of  compliments." 

The  reader  may,  perhaps,  be  enabled  from  the 
infoiination  which  I  have  set  before  him  to 
picture  to  himself  Egyptian  bee-keeping.  I  ain 
indebted  for  this  inioimatiou  almost  entirely  to 
Herr  Hammei  Schmidt,  who  has  passed  nearly  a 
generation  in  Egypt,  and  is  a  perfect  master  of 
the  Arabian  language,  so  that  an  understanding 


with  the  Arab  became  easy.  Herr  Hammer- 
schmidt obtained  answers  to  a  number  of  ques- 
tions which  I  had  written,  and  noted  them  down 
immcdiatll}^  In  order  not  to  pervert  the  sense 
of  Herr  H.unmerschmidt's  memoranda,  I  have 
transcribed  them  almost  lit<^rally. 

AVe  have  been  far  away  from  home,  and  right 
glad  are  avc  to  be  safe  back  again  with  wife  and 
child.  We  intend  nex  t  to  make  an  excursion 
to  Greece,  in  order  to  report  up  )n  the  bee-keep- 
ing in  the  convent  Caesarea,  one  league  from 
Athens,  on  the  front  spur  of  the   Hymettus — 

W.    YOGEL. 


[For  the  Americaa  Bee  Journal.] 

Fertile  Worker-Bees ;  or,  Undeveloped 
Females. 


I  have  fried  a  great  number  of  experiinents 
with  f.rlile  worker-bees  duiing  the  la^t  five 
years,  and  have  destroyed  or  permanently  in- 
jured a  number  of  stocks  in  miking  them  havG 
fertile  workers  in  the  hive.  I  have  examined 
hundreds  of  combs  iu  these  slotks,  in  the  hope 
of  detecting  the  worker-bee  in  tbe  very  act  of 
laying  eggs;  and  1  may  say  that  I  have  exam- 
ined nearly  every  bee  in  thojc  stocks  that  con- 
tained fertile  workers,  but  never  coukl  fix  on 
the  bee  thai  I  could  posiiively  say  laid  the  eggs. 

But,  as  in  most  things,  with  perseveiance  I 
at  last  accomplished  the  task  I  had  set  niyself. 
For  on  the  2(hh  day  of  August,  I860,  at  7  A.  M. 
I  quietly  removed  the  crown-board  off  a  stock 
that  contained  fertile  Avorkeis,  and  quietly 
lifted  out  one  of  the  centre  combs  and  saw  a 
worker-bee  in  tlie  very  act  of  layinir  an  egg. 
(No  person  that  ever  saw  a  queen  la>ing  eggs 
could  be  udstaken  in  this  act  )  The  bee  had 
its  abdomen  down  in  the  cell,  the  comb  around 
her  being  clear,  and  was  surrounded  liy  the  bees 
exactly  as  a  fertile  queen  is  found  when  iu  the 
act  of  ovipositing. 

My  lifting  out  the  comb  did  not  appear  to 
disturb  this  bee  more  than  it  has  a  fertile  queen 
when  I  have  lifted  nut  a  comb,  several  of  which 
have  laid  eggs  whilst  I  have  had  the  comb  ia 
my  hands.  I  waited  until  this  lertile  worker 
had  finished  laying  the  egg,  and  as  she  was 
withdrawing  her  abdomen  out  of  the  cell,  I 
caught  her  and  put  her  into  a  small  queen  box, 
I  lemoved  the  comb,  which  contained  worker 
cells  only,  and  examined  this  egg  which  I  saw 
the  worker-bee  laying  ;  but  in  appearance  there 
was  little  or  no  ditfeience  between  it  and  an 
egg  laid  by  a  fertile  queen.  Iu  some  of  the  cells 
there  were  from  one  to  ten  eggs  in  one  cell,  and 
drone  brood  in  all  stages  of  flevelopement,  some 
of  them  hatched  out  as  small  drones. 

The  sealed  brood  had  a  very  singular  appear- 
ance, with  here  and  there  a  couical  cover,  the 
brood  not  being  in  a  mass  as  when  laid  by  a 
fertile  queen.  In  some  cases  two  of  the  eggs 
were  hatched  in  the  same  cell,  the  bees  enlarg- 
ing the  eutrance  to  the  cell  to  the  size  of  two 
cells,  and  then  covering  the  two  larvae  with  one 
large  couical  cover ;  and  I  have  seen  them  af- 
terwards   emerge    horn    their    cradle    perfect 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


drones.  This  is  Ihe  first  account  I  ever  beard 
of  I  wo  bees  coming  to  maturity  in  the  same 
cell. 

The  fertile  woikcr  hce  presented  all  the  clia- 
rncteii.stics  of  a  common  bee,  except  the  abdo- 
men, which  Avas  a  little  more  distended.  Upon 
carefully  dissecting  the  bee,  I  found  that  her 
ovaries  contained  egga,  some  of  which  had  come 
to  maturity  ;  but  nothing  like  the  quantity  of 
eegs  found  in  the  ovaries  of  a  fertile  queen. 
""l  believe  this  is  the  first  fertile  worker-bee 
that  has  ever  been  actually  caught  in  the  very 
act  of  laying  eggs,  since  the  diiys  of  the  king  of 
bee-masters— the  illustrious  Iluher* 

For  ile  workers  are  more  common  than  most 
bee-masters  are  aware  of,  and  the  young  drones 
they  produce  are  often  thought  to  be  the  pro- 
geny of  drore  breeding  queens.  "A  Bee-mas- 
ter" who  lias  Avritten  a  series  of  articles  in  the 
'■'ScoHuh  Gardener,''''  oflered  in  that  paper  to 
give  £10  for  any  i'ertile  bees  or  their  eggs.  I 
lold  hiui  if  he  would  expend  ten  pence,  to  cnrry 
him  from  his  house  to  my  apiary  and  back,  I 
would  show  him  a  hive  with  liundreds  of  eggs 
laid  by  fertile  Avorkers.  I  suppose  he  was  con- 
vinced there  were  such  things  us  fertile  workers, 
as  he  never  came  to  see  them. 

William  Care. 

Newton  Heath, 
Neau  Makchester,  Eng. 


Exhibition  of  Bees. 


Froni  the  account  given  in  the  "  Manchester 
Guardian'''  of  the  National  Horticultural  E.xhi- 
bition  at  Old  Trafford  (England),  in  May,  we 
copy  the  following  paragiapli,  showing  lliat  the 
bees,  their  work,  and  ibir  accommodations, 
occupied  a  prominent  position  on  that  occasion. 
A  sight  so  novel  to  most  of  the  spectators  and  so 
inferesting  ami  insr.ructlve  to  all,  cannot  have 
faik-d  to  make  a  strong  and  lasting  impression 
in  favor  of  bee-culture  there. 


bees  are  in  Mr.  Carr's  "improved  unieomb- 
observatory  revolving  bar-frame  bee-hive," 
which,  for  scientific  purposes,  is  one  of  the  most 
wonderful  hives  ever  invented,  as  all  the  mys- 
teries of  the  hive  are  exposed  to  view\  And  it 
is  most  interesting  to  see  the  queen  laying  her 
eggs  in  the  cells,  surrounded  t)y  her  maids  of 
honour,  who  are  constantly  paying  her  some 
attention;  at  one  time  feeding  her,  then  dressing 
or  smoothing  her  hairs,  crossing  their  antenuEC, 
as  if  in  conversation,  or  communicating  to  one 
another  by  their  sensitive  touch,  and  then 
moving  out  of  the  queen's  way  as  she  walks  in 
royal  dignity  over  tliecombs  in  search  of  empty 
ceils  in  which  to  deposit;  her  eggs  ;  and,  like  the 
Couit  of  our  own  Queen,  her  sut)jeets  retire 
backwards,  with  their  faces  turned  to  her 
majesty.  Mr.  Carr  states  that  a  fertile  Ligurian 
queen  will  lay  from  100,000  to  200,050  egL!;s  in  a 
year,  and  that  one  impregnation  fructifies 
more  than  half  a  million  of  eggs.  In  ibis  uni- 
comb  hive  the  eggs  and  brood  can  be  seen  in  the 
cells,  and  tlie  young  bees  biting  the  cover  of 
their  cradle  away,  and  emerging  into  life  per- 
fect bees.  Tlie  bees  that  have  been  abroad 
collecting  can  be  seen  unloading  the  pollen  from 
the  basket  in  their  thighs,  and  depositmg  tlie 
lioney  in  tlie  cells.  In  fact  all  the  hidden  won- 
ders  of  the  interior  of  a  beehive  are  here  revealed 
at  a  glance.  Mr.  Carr  also  exhibits  a  liell  glass 
filieci  with  from  thirty  to  forty  pounds  of  very 
splendid  honeycomlis.  It  was  collected  at 
Clayton  Bridge  principally  from  white  clover, 
liy  the  supeiior  and  beautiful  bees,  the  L'gurians. 
He  also  exhibits  improved  bar  frames,  filled  Avith 
beautitul  honeycombs,  weighing  from  six  to 
seven  pounds  each.  Any  comb  can  be  t.kea 
out  of  these  improved  humane  bar-frame  hives, 
and  placed  on  the  breaklast  or  tea  table  in  less 
tlian  fiv?  minutes,  at  any  lime  of  the  day,  with- 
out killing  a  single  bee.  Mr.  Carr  has  had  a 
great  number  of  jirizes  awarded  to  him  frr  ihc 
exhibition  of  his  bees  at  work,  and  he  exhibits 
a  large  s  Iver  medal  awarded  to  him  at  the 
Manchester  and  Liverpool  A<j,riculLural  iSociciy's 
centenary  celebration  in  1867. 


Bees  at  Work  in  the  Bot.\kical  Gar- 
DE>-s.— One  of  the  most  interesting  sights  in  the 
exhibition  is  two  stocks  of  those  beautiful  and 
superior  honey  bees,  the  Ligurian  or  Italian  Alp 
bees,  at  worlc.  These  aie  exiiibited  by  Mr. 
William  Carr,  of  Clayton  Bridge,  Newton 
Heath,  in  one  of  his  "improved  humane-obser- 
vatory revolvmg  bar-frame  beehives,"  the  four 
sides  and  the  top  of  which  are  composed  ot 
layers  of  glass.  The  bees  and  combs  in  the  iiive 
are  always  in  view.  There  is  a  thermometer 
int;ide  the  hive,  and  Mr.  Carr  states,  from  obser- 
vations that  he  has  taken  three  times  each  day 
for  several  years,  that  it  is  the  warmest  hive  in 
winter  that  he  has  tried.  There  about  25,000 
bees  in  this  hive.     The  other  stock  of  Liguiian 


f  *i^"The  Baron  of  Berlepseh,  and  his  assistant  G-nntlier, 
repeatedly  CiiufT  t  fenile  wuiners  in  the  act  ol  laying 
cgjjs;  and  frot.  Luckert,  in  May,  18d).  dissected  seveial 
Aviiieh  ttie  Haron  sent  lo  him  vreservod  iu  spi'its  of  wiue. 
But  iliefact  tliat  two  larv;e  weie  sealed  up  in  one  cell, 
■with  one  large  conical  cover,  a'ul  came  to  maturity,  is 
vte  believe  aaot>servation  not  made  before. 


The  enormous  quantities  of  honey  produced 
may  be  comparatively  estimated  by  the  collate- 
ral production  of  beeswax,  which  it  exceeds  by 
at  least  ten  to  one.  When  we  refiect  upon  what 
masses  of  the  latter  are  consumed  in  the  rites  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  and  Gi-eek  churches 
throughout  the  many  and  large  countries  Avhere 
thoae'religions  prevail,  we  shall  be  able  to  form 
a  aeneral  estimate  of  the  extensiveness  and 
universality  of  the  cultivation  of  l)ees.  Nor  are 
these  the  only  uses  to  Avhich  wax  is  applied,  and 
the  collective  computation  of  its  consumption 
Avill  show  that  bees  abound  in  numbers  almost 
transcending  belief. 


The  only  instance  of  the  occurrence  Of  the 
very  distinct  genera  oi  Apis  and  Mellipana,  both 
honey-storing  genera,  ytt  knoAvn  to  exist  indi- 
genously iu  Che  Same  locality,  is  found  in  the 
island  of  Java. 


20 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


[rci*  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

How  Thorns  Grow  in  Beeland. 


On  reafling  the  article  on  pnge  48  of  the  Sep- 
tember nnuiber  of  the  Bee  Jouiinal,  statintj 
that  Osmond  Putton  died  from  the  effect  of  a 
bee  sting,  I  thought  it  my  duty  to  give  a  truthful 
account  of  what  happened  to  me,  last  summer, 
Avitli  a  distant  neighbor  of  mine.  Though  tiie 
fact  I  am  g')ing  to  relate  has  nothing  to  do  di- 
rectly Avith  p.aclical  bee-culture,  yet  it  may 
save  some  a  good  deal  of  trouble,  keep  them 
perhaps  fron\  sleepless  nights  and  apprehensions 
ot  dreadful  vengeance;  and  at  the  same  time  serve 
as  a  warning  against  iuttmperance,  carelessness 
and  superstiiiou. 

As  with  me,  so  I  am  aware  it  is  with  nearly 
every  bee-keeper,  \,-ho  has  a  large  apiary. 
Farms  on  whicli  bees  are  kept,  arc  more  fre- 
quented by  visitors  and  seekers  than  others.  If 
not  tlius  with  all,  it  is  so  however  with  me  in 
the  bee  season.  Then,  especially  on  Sunday's, 
a  neighbor  or  some  stranger  strolls  along  the 
fences,  with  slow  and  measured  step,  looking 
np  and  down  through  garden  and  orchard,  till 
he  an ives  in  fair  sight  of  the  apiary.  Here  his 
steps  slacken,  and  lie  finally  slops,  apparently 
counting  the  bees  and  hives.  Then,  slowly 
moving  onward  again,  he  at  lengtli  disappears 
as  suddenly  as  he  came.  This  nray  be  seen 
every  summer,  Avherever  a  public  road  passes 
within  view  of  an  apiary. 

A  man,  liviug  some  n\iles  away,  made  such 
approaches  to  my  apiary,  several  times,  when 
pa:>sing  along  oa  his  way  to  church,  or  on  other 
business.  One  Sunday,  returning  from  Mass, 
about  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  he  made  his 
appearance  again,  in  his  habitual  slow  pace,  gaz- 
ing intently  over  the  fence,  his  lace  beaming  with 
deiiglit.  On  seeing  me  near  an  apple  tree,  where 
I  was  examining  some  damage  done  by  mis- 
chievous boys  the  previous  winter,  he  crosbcd  the 
fence,  and  gesticulated  towards  the  apiary. 
Being  myself  extremely  deaf,  I  heard  nothing, 
but  judged  trom  his  actions  that  the  man  was 
greatly  astonishod  at  seeing  so  many  bees — 
more  perhaps  than  he  had  ever  seen  before. 
Pleased  to  see  him  thus  interested,  I  went  to 
him  and  asked  if  he  was  a  lover  of  bees.  "No," 
said  he,  "I  have  never  seen  honey  bees  in  an 
apiary;  but  I  have  heard  a  great  deal  of  talk  about 
them,  and  theref'^re  stepped  over  to  ask  your 
permission  to  have  a  Jouk  at  them."  "Well, 
friend,"  I  replied,  "you  shall  not  only  see  mj' 
apiary,  but  the  hives  also  inside  and  outside, 
and  morever  taste  the  sweetness  of  the  honey- 
comb this  very  day."  Together  we  walked  till 
we  reached  tne  apiarj- — which  is  a  bee-house 
two  stories  high,  covered  with  a  shingle  roof, 
and  enclosed  all  around  with  boards,  with  a 
door  for  entrance.  The  hives  were  placed  close 
together,  nnd  we  stood  in  front  in  full  range  ol 
the  bees'  flight.  As  my  man  was  in  profuse  pers- 
piration, after  his  four  miles  walk  from  church, 
1  told  him  it  was  noi  a  safe  place  for  us.  The  bees 
Avere  flying  splendidly;  it  was  just  two  o'chick, 
the  weatner  was  very  sultry,  the  young  were 
exercising  in  great  numbers,  and  the  man  Btood 


at  full  height  among  them.  Fearing  he  might 
be  stung,  I  asked  him  to  go  into  the  bee-hou^e. 
But  seeing  me  disregard  the  bees  and  expose 
myself  so  fearlessly,  he  concluded  the  bees  are 
merely  flies,  and  declined  seeking  shcller.  "No," 
said  he,  "1  was  once  stung  in  my  thumb  by  a 
iiumble-bee,  it  was  nothing  more  than  a  flea 
bite,  big  bee  though  it  was."  "Well,  then," 
said  I,  "be  attentive,  I  am  going  to  turn  over 
one  of  the  hives  that  you  may  see  its  interior. 
Be  careful  not  to  make  any  sudden  movement 
which  ma}' irritate  the  bees,  though  mine  are 
gentle."  In  a  moment  I  hnd  the  ^hive  turned 
over  with  the  opening  or  mouth  towards  him. 
The  man  prattled  and  looked  on  to  liis  heart's 
content,  examining  both  btes  and  combs  closely, 
and  constantly  approaching  nearer  and  neaier, 
till  suddenly  he  made  a  fearful  leap,  uttered  a 
piercing  shriek,  and  rushed  away  with  quite  a 
stream  of  bees  in  pursuit.  In  an  instant  he  was 
seen  no  more,  but  the  bees  whirled  all  around 
in  wild  excitement.  I  was  soon  stung  twice, 
and  returning  toe  hive  to  its  position,  marched 
ofl' very  demurely  out  of  harm's  way.  Having 
reached  a  safe  distance,  I  looked  up  for  my  m-an. 
He  was  seen  Avhirling  his  arms  wi  dly,  jumping 
and  rushing  frantically  through  thrediiiug-floor, 
on  his  way  to  the  woods.  I  called  to  him  to  stop 
and  I  would  assist  to  free  him  from  his  tor- 
mentors; but  he  seemed  as  deaf  as  myself,  and 
mad  with  excitement  and  puin,  soon  disap- 
peared in  the  woods.  Thus  lar  the  story  is  a 
natural  one,  and  the  like  occurrence  may  have 
happened  frequently  elsewhere. 

Three  days  after,  having  heard  nothing  of 
him,  and  feeling  uneasy  on  his  accounr,  though 
he  was  a  stranger  to  me  and  an  Irishman,  I 
could  not  refrain  from  making  inquiry  about 
him.  So  I  went  to  a  friend  who  lived  not  far 
from  the  Irishman's  farm.  I  reached  there  about 
four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  at  once  stated 
my  errand,  relating  what  had  taken  place  on 
the  previous  Sunday  at  my  apiary.  My  friend 
snid  he  knew  it  already,  and  then  related  to  me 
the  version  of  the  story  as  given  by  the  other 
side,  Avhich  was  very  different  from  mine.  We 
concluded  to  go  together  to  i)ie  man's  farm,  and 
explain  how  the  affair  happened.  I  could  not 
account  for  the  mishap,  except  b}'  supposing 
that  as  his  mouth  was  close  to  the  bees  he  had 
blown  his  breath  among  them,  and  the  efiVct 
would  be  the  woi-se  if  the  man  had  just  pre- 
viously drank  whisky  or  other  ardent  spirits. 
The  object  of  our  visit  was  to  inform  liim  where 
the  fault  probably  lay;  but  the  man  was  not  at 
home  on  our  arrival,  having  just  gone  to  letch 
his  cows  from  pasture.  On  entering  the  house, 
my  friend  made  some  apologizing  remarks 
about  the  behavior  of  the  bees  on  Sunday.  In 
an  instant  the  wife  rose  xike  a  tury,  screaming 
at  the  top  of  her  voice,  foaining  with  passion, 
and  uttering  maledictions  with  steam-liUc  volu- 
bility. She  seemed  reatly  and  resolved,  like  a 
hyena,  to  tear  me  to  pieces;  and,  deaf  as  I  am, 
I  was  soon  aware  that  something  worse  than 
bee-stings  was  in  prospect.  I  Iherefoie  re- 
frained from  making  any  remarks ;  but  my 
friend  finally  succeeded  in  assuring  the  wom;in. 
that  the  trouble  arose  from  her  husband's 
whisky-flavored  bTreath  being  blown  among  the 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


27 


bees.  This  seemed  to  calm  liev  somewhat, 
though  she  would  not  give  up  the  quarrel.  On 
a  hint  I'lom  mj  friend  we  left  the  premises,  and 
I  accompauii'd  him  to  his  home,  where  he  re- 
lated to  me  the  account  of  the  afl'air  given  by 
the  other  party,  as  follows: 

It  seems  that  the  man,  on  leaving  ray  hee- 
house  with  a  rush,  knocked  off  his  hat,  which 
rolled  nearly  under  the  hive.  Seizing  it  in  hot 
has'e,  he  leaped  and  run  in   bewildered  excite-  j 


the   prejudiced,    and  to  enlighten   the    super- 
stitious ?  J.  DUFFELER. 
BliOWN  CO.,  "Wis. 


fee«/j 


[For  the  Aniericaii  Bed jQiffa.l.'i 

Various  Sorts  of  M^tpxs.  ^ 

Our  friend  Puckctt  seems  to  take  oTrit^€mtlas. 


^^ 


ment,  thinking  perhaps  that  half  the  colony  of  j  1>ad   as  the  little  girl  said  her  baby   did   cuning 


bees  were  after  him.  He  was  suing  seven  tim 
— once  just  below  his  lett  eye,  four  times  under 
the  hair  of  his  head,  once  on  the  right  cheek, 
and  once  on  the  neck.  This  was  nearly  enough 
to  make  him  hot  on  such  a  warm  summer's  day. 
It  was  the  first  time  in  his  life  that  the  man 
had  a  conflict  Avith  a  bee-hive.  He  leaped  and 
ran  till  he  was  aliout  forty  rods  from  me  in  the 
Avoods.  When  there  he  felt  another  keen  burn- 
ing sensation  in  his  light  side,  as  though  a 
whole   handful   of  hees"  were   slinging   him  at 


teeth.  (See  May  No  B.  J.,  page  21G.)  Hear 
him  !  He  says  ; — "  Where  did  the  late  swarm 
get  the  thin  watery  honey  ?  Is  not  an  early 
SAvarin  just  as  liable  to  get  such  honey,  if  it  is 
secreted  in  the  flowers  ?  Bees  do  not  make 
lioney,  &c."  (In  vol.  3,  No.  9,  page  172,  I 
gave  a  short  article  on  the  subject  of  evaporating 
nectar.)  I  wish  now  to  give  some  more  of  my 
nonsense,  as  our  friend  calls  it.  He  says  bees  do 
not  make  honey  ;  but  I  am  strongly  inclined  to 
"  'nk  they  do.     We  will  take  maple-sap  as  an 


once.     Just   think  of  it  !     Who  evir   heard    of  I  example.      When  the  weather  is  suitable,   the 


bees  setting  a  mim  on  fire  !  Yet  such  was  the 
veritable  lact  !  The  man  was  a  confirmed  iu- 
veteiate  smoker,  and  constantly  cariied  friction 
matches  about  him.  That  tame  Sunday  he 
bappi  ned  lo  have  them  in  his  ves-t  pocker,  and 
among  them  some  copper  cents  had  found  their 
way,  which  he  had  received  at  a  tavern  where 
he  drank  a  glass  of  whiskey  on  his  return  i'rom 
church.  A\hile  he  was  lunning,  and  jumping, 
and  sti iking  with  his  hands,  these  copper  cents 
ignited  ihe  friction  matcht-s;  these  set  fire  to  the 
cotton  lining  .of  his  pocket,  whence  it  was 
comniuaicated  to  his  muslin  shirt,  in  which  a 
hole  was  burned  as  large  as  a  man's  hand. 
Luckilv   it   was    discovered    in   time,   and    he 


bees  in  a  strong  stock,  will  manufacture  or  ud- 
honey  from  thnt,  and  of  the  purest  kind,  though 
the  sap  is  so  thin  and  watery  that,  in  boiling  it 
down,  it  takes  about  sixteen  quarts  to  make  one 
pound  of  grained  sugar, or  twelve  quarts  to  m;ike 
it  of  the  co:;sistcncy  of  honey  such  as  bees  make 
of  it  in  tlie  spring.  So  you  perceive  that  a  bee 
has  to  cather  twelve  drops  of  sap  to  make  one 
diop  of  honey.  Yet  all  th.-y  gather  through 
the  day  is  consumed  in  leaiing  brood,  or  made 
into  honey  through  the  night  ;  and  thin  waleiy 
neclar  is  made  into  honey,  by  the  bees,  in  the 
same  manner  and  by  the  same  process.  I  am 
aware  that  some  say"that  if  you  feed  sugar  sy- 
rup, the  bees  will  deposit  it  in  the  cells  just  as 


succeeded  in  putting  it  out.  Thus  he  reached  j  you  feed  it  to  tliem.  That  is  so  in  the  fall,  or 
liom".  exhausted,  bewildered,  and  almost  crazy.  [  when  the  weather  is  cold.  But  take  that  same 
The  first   impression  of  himself  and   wife   was  j  syrup  snd  reduce  it  very  thin  and  watery,  and 


that  the  bees  had  been  set  on  him  by  supernat 
ural  powds;  for  both  man  and  wife  are  very 
ignoranV  and  exceedingly  superstitious,  having 
lull  faith  in  witch-craft  and  sorcery.  In  their 
eyes  it  was  nothing  but  a  hellish,  devilish,  oc- 
cult affair,  of  which  the  husband  had  become 
the  sport  aud  the  victim. 

This  occur,  ence  is  suggestive.  The  man's 
ignorance  led  him  into  trouble.  Had  he  known 
and  believed  that  the  human  breath  is  offensive 
and  irritating  lo  bees,  he  would  havebeen  care- 
ful  to   avoid   breathing   upon   them   and   thus 


the  bees  Avill  make  it  into  honey,  if  fed  to  thetn 
in  the  months  of  July  or  August.  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that,  in  the  process  of  evaporation,  the 
bees  must  necesarily  mix  a  portion  of  their 
saliva  Avith  it,  which  prevents  it  from  granula- 
ting, to  a  certain  extent. 

H<-re  is  anot'^er  question  for  consideration. 
While  the  black  bees  are  stoiing  their  Avatery 
honey  in  cool  Aveather,  either  in  summer  or  fall, 
the  Italians  are  storing  a  good  quality,  gathered 
from  the  saine  source  and   at  the    same   time. 

This  good  quality  of  the  Italians  in  all  proba 


their   anger;  he  could    have   gratified  ]  bility  had  something  to  do  AVith  saving 


his  curiosity  Avithout  incurring  their  displeasuie 
If  he  had  common  prudence  and  care'ulucss, 
he  would  not  ha\'e  carried  friction  matches 
loosely  in  Ins  potket,  running  the  risk  of  a  hor- 
rid death  by  fire,  as  might  have  been  his  fate  if 
he  had  fainted  or  fallen  v.heii  in  the  woods. 
Again  his  ignorance  and  superstition  might 
have  led  him  to  seek  for  revenge  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  my  bees.  And  in  such  circumstances, 
might  not  otliers,  Avorse  tempered  and  malici- 
ously disposed,  proceed,  under  fancied  provoca- 
tion, to  commit  arson  or  murder,  imiiellcd  to 
criminal  acts  by  ignorance  ail  d  gross  supeistilion? 
Is  it  not  hence  the  interest  of  every  bee-kef-per,  ,  .,  - 

toavailhimself  of  every  opportunity  to  guide  the    the  bottom,    with   comb   aud   honey,    and   the 
inquiring,  to  instruct  the   ignorant,   to  inform  '  honey  is  of  good  quality.     The  one  willi  the 


them 
the  past  season,  whereas  the  blacks  alldied  in 
the  same  apiary. 

A  great  deal'depends  upon  the  management 
of  bees,  Avhether  they  leave  thin  Avatery  honey 
or  not.  We  Avill  take,  for  example,  two  swarms 
at  the  same  time,  and  both  of  the  same  size. 
And,  for  illustration,  Ave  will  say  that,  late  in 
the  season,  one  is  put  in  a  hive  tA\'elve  inches 
square,  Avith  eight  frames;  and  the  other  is,  at 
the  same  time,  put  into  a  hive  of  the  same  di- 
mensions, containing  four  frames.  The  first 
fills  the  eight  frames''half  Avay  doAvn  Avith  comb 
and  honey,  and  the  hon?y  A\ill  be  thin  aud 
watery.     The  other  fills  the  four  frames,  from 


28 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


four  frames  will  winter  in  a  good  depositorj'-, 
lifive  abundance  of  honey,  and  not  have  the 
dysenteiy  ;  Avhile  the  other,  with  the  eight 
fiames,  will  consume  all  its  honej',  have  the 
dysentery,  and  starve  to  death  before  spring. 
1  think  you  will  uiuierstand  w'hat  I  mean.  It 
is  as  neCLSsa'y  to  have  warmth  for  ev;iporating 
nectiir  by  liie  bees,  tis  it  is  to  have  warmth  to 
develop  brood  or  save  all  the  wax  in  buildiog 
comb. 

To  be  a  little  more  plain  with  friend  Puckett, 
so  that  he  can  understand  what  I  mean  by  my 
bees  "  knowing  better  than  to  have  tlie  dysen- 
tery," it  is  necessary  tl)at  ihe  bte-master  sliould 
thoroughly  understand  his  business,  and  attend 
to  it,  and  tlien  his  bees  will  not  have  the  dys- 
entery. I  was  sick  this  winter  and  could  not 
attend  to  my  bees,  or  to  the  ventilation  of  the 
cellar.  Some  of  my  stocks  commenced  brei  d- 
ing  very  rapidly,  and  consequently  got.  thedys- 
enteiy  more  or  less,  But  as  soon  as  I  could  I 
remedied  it,  by  properly  ventilating  the  cellar. 
Siome  writers  call  it  a  contagious  disease,  and 
reeommeod  giving  lh^'  bees  mtdicinc.  But  I  con- 
t'  nd  thai  it  is  noD.  I  have  not  lost  a  swarm. 
All  are  doing  finely.  iSo  it  appears  that  Gal- 
lup's  nonsensical  method  of  mauiiging  bees  is 
full  iis  g(jod  as  some  other  people's  sensible 
management. 

In  uaim  weather,  in  summer,  when  the  davs 
and  nigliis  are  boih  warm,  a  comparatively 
small  ciuantily  of  bees  will  make  a  good  quality 
of  huncy,  let  tbe  nectar  be  ever  so  thin  nnd 
watery  when  gathered.  You  will  recollect  that 
last  fall  was  Vt-ry  cool,  while  the  bees  were 
storing  the  principal  quantity  of  honey,  and 
that  too  Avben  tbe  bees  were  greatly  reduced  in 
numbers.  You  wiJl  observelhat,  Novice  in  his 
reverses  says  some  of  his  swarms  had  consumed 
immeuse  quantities  of  honey  by  the  first  of 
March.  Try  again,  friend  Novice;  don't  give 
up  tbe  ship  ! 

I  have  considerable  more  to  say  on  the  subject 
of  dysenteiy  or  no  dysentery  ;  but,  in  all  ]iioba- 
bility,  our  fiiend  Puckett  has  got  enough  of 
Gallujj's  nonsense  for  one  dose.  I  sliall  be 
pleased  if  Iriend  Pucktit  will  tell  us  through  the 
Bek  Jourral,  Avhctherhe  thinks  the  maple  sugar 
sap  is  made  into  honey  by  the  liees,  or  does  the 
sap  make  itself  into  honey  ?  This  is  an  impor- 
tant quesrtion. 

Our  Mississippi  friend,  Tomlinson,  will  per- 
ceive that  I  told  him,  in  the  Februaiy  No.,  page 
154,  that  my  rule  wouh".  only  hold  good  early  Tn 
the  season,  or  when  the  bees  were  not  gathering 
honey  too  rapidly.  His  bees  were  evidently 
gathering  honey  rapidly  at  the  time  they  were 
building  comb.  Tlien,  too,  I  presume  your 
southern  climate  is  ditferent  from  ours.  A  cor- 
respondent Irom  Tennessee  writes  that  young 
early  queens  invariably  lay  drone  eggs  the  first 
season.  AVith  us,  that  is  llie  exception,  and  not 
the  rule — especially  with  black  bees.  We  want 
more  southern  curicspondcnce  for  the  Bee 
Journal. 

'Jo  day  my  bees  are  evaporating  nectar  from 
rack  maijle  blossoms,  and  gathering  it  too. 

E  Gallup. 
Osage,  Iowa,  May  8,  1869. 


[For  tlie  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Pacts  for  Beekeepers. 


A  suitable  abode  for  the  honey  bee,  is  a  hive 
perfectly  air-tight,  except  at  one  place,  and  that 
should  be  so  that  tlie  bee-keeper  can  enlarge  or 
diminish  at  will.  Bees  do  not  thiive  in  a  hive 
where  there  is  a  current  of  air  i^as^ing  through 
it.     They  stop  all  holes  at  the  top  if  they  can. 

I  will  liave  to  take  my  friend  Elisha  to  task 
a  little,  as  he  says  in  the  August  number  of  the 
Bee  Journai,,  1868— "there  is  no  use  in  in- 
flicting another  patent  hive  on  the  community 
lor  tlie  next  thousand  years.  All  use  what  is 
called  t'je  Lanstroth  principle  ;  only  the  form  is 
varied.  When  they  depart  from  that,  they  make 
a  move  in  tlie  wrong  direction.  "Now  if  I 
understand  rigiit  what  our  much  esteemed  friend 
L.  L.  LangstioLh  has  patented — and  all  be  has — 
is,  movable  comb  frames  so  arranged  in  the  hive 
or  case  that  they  will  leave  a  vacant  space  all 
around,  between  the  hive  and  Irames,  and  be- 
tween the  honey  board  and  frames.  This  is  toe 
main  feature  of  his  patent.  J  hold  that  all  hives 
that  have  this  space,  no  matter  wlietber  theyaro 
shallow  or  deep,  giving  Iree  circulation  of  cold 
air  all  around  the  bees,  and  striking  in  between 
each  frame  to  the  clustering  bees,  do  more  liarm 
than  tbe  shallowness  of  the  hives  our  ffiend  Eli- 
slia  speaks  of.  In  early  spriiig,  if  i  here  come  a  lew 
days  of  mild  weather,  the  bees  spread  out  over 
tbe  combs,  the  queen  depositing  etigs  ia 
nearly  all  the  cells,  and  the  bees  cover  them. 
Then  comes  a  cold  sciap,  or  even  one  cold  night, 
causing  tlie  bees  to  cluster  compictly  together. 
All  tbe  eggs  and  larvte  outside  of  tbe  cluster  are 
chilled,  and  cleaned  out  by  the  bees.  And  so  it 
goes  all  through  the  changeable  weather  of 
spring.  All  hives  that  have  this  vacant  space, 
it  IS  almost  impossible  for  bees  to  breed  up  in  at 
all  in  early  spring  ;  making  them  too  late  for 
early  swarming  or  to  gather  honey  when  it  is 
most  plentiful.  If  such  hives  have  lower  and 
upward  ventilation,  lotting  the  cool  air  rush  up 
through  tlii^  hive  and  carrying  otf  the  animal 
heat,  the  bees  in  them  are  Morthless.  Comb 
frames  should  fit  tight  to  the  side  of  the  hive, 
to  prevent  this  vacant  space.  Our  fiiend  A.  V. 
Conklin,  of  this  place,  has  constructed  a  hive 
with  frames  tight  fitting,  that  are  as  easily 
handled,  taken  out,  and  put  back,  as  any  mova- 
ble comb  frames  that  I  have  handled. 

Aaron  Benedict. 

Bennington,  Omo. 


The  study  of  natural  history  requires  method 
as  a  lodestar  to  guide  through  its  intricacies, 
but  is  oneAvhich,  pursued  simply  as  a  recreation, 
yields  both  much  amusement  and  gratifying  in- 
struction. It  shows  us  that  when  we  unclasp 
the  book  of  nature,  and  whenever  we  may  turn 
its  leaves,  eveiy  word  the  syllabhs  of  which  we 
sirive  to  spell,  is  pregnant  with  Iruitluluess  of 
wonderful  wisdom,  Avliose  profound  expression 
the  human,  intellect  is  too  limited  thoroughly  to 
comprehend. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOUENAL. 


29 


[For  tlie  American  Boe  Journal.] 

Bee  Pasturage. 


The  importance  of  bee  pasturage  has  already 
been  urged  through  the  columns  of  the  Jour- 
nal, as  well  as  by  most  of  our  modern  writers 
on  bees;  but  I  do  not  think  it  is  appreciated 
as  it  should  be,  by  the  majority  of  beekeepers. 
While  the  war  about  the  form  and  shape  of 
hives  continues,  without  any  prospect  of  a 
speedy  peace,  and  the  paramount  importance  of 
the  third  yellow  band  is  so  strenously  insisted 
on,  I  fear  that  the  equally  important  question 
of  where  those  yellow  daughters  of  Italy  are  to 
get  the  honey  to  fill  those  hives,  is  for  the  time 
being  overlooked 

With  au  abundance  of  bee  pasturage,  I  do 
do  not  think  that  we  should  ever  liave  a  poor 
year  for  honey.  By  an  abundance  of  bee  pas- 
turage I  mean  a  succession,  commencing  early 
in  spring  and  lasting  through  the  season.  And 
if  the  supply  from  natural  sources  is  deficient  or 
fails,  it  should  be  provided  by  introducing  and 
cultivating  lliose  h  )ney-producing  plants  whose 
blossoms  will  come  in  at  the  proper  time  to  fill 
up  the  deficiency.  Surely,  if  bees  are  worthy 
of  cultivation  at  all,  it  would  pay  to  expend  a 
little  labor  and  money  in  prolonging  the  season 
for  them — thus  rendering  them  doubly  valua- 
ble. 

Here  is  the  way  they  talk  bee  down  in  this 
country.  Last  year:  "Well,  neighbor,  how 
are  your  bees  ?"  "  Well,  this  has  been  a  bad 
spring  for  bees.  It  has  been  dry,  and  cold,  and 
very  windy,  and  the  bees  could  not  get  about 
very  well;  but  I  tell  you  they  are  making  a  heap 
of  honey!"  This  year:  "Well,  neighbor,  how 
are  your  bees  doiug  this  year?"  "Well,  I 
don't  know,  hardly.  We  have  had  rain  nearly 
all  the  time,  and  it  has  been  a  bad  season  for 
the  bees  ;  but,  somehow,  they  are  making  lots 
of  honey  !"  This  has  been  my  experience  here, 
for  the  few  years  that  I  have  kept  bees. 
Whether  wet  or  cold,  hot  or  dry,  our  bees  have 
generally  yielded  us  about  the  same  quiintity  of 
surplus.  It  may  have  been  because  we  expect- 
ed but  little  from  them,  and  were  satisfied  to  go 
to  ovu'  old  boxhivesand  remove  almost  one-third 
of  the  contents,  leaving  the  bees  to  fill  them  up 
again  at  their  leisure,  and  not  seeing  the  inside 
of  them  again  until  the  same  time  the  next  year. 
But  with  the  movable  combs  and  the  honey- 
emptying  machine,  I  hope  soon  to  discover 
whether  there  be  that  great  difference  in  the 
honey  harvest  of  different  years,  which  some 
assert. 

In  localities  where  the  honey  harvest  only 
lasts  two  or  three  weeks,  I  am  not  surprised  to 
hear  the  complaint  that  a  drouth  or  a  wet  spell 
cuts  off  the  supplies.  But  here  we  have  such  an 
abundance  of  honey-producing  plants,  growing 
in  such  a  variety  of  locations— some  in  uplands, 
some  in  bottoms,  some  upon  the  poorest  hill- 
sides, others  in  thick  jungles,  that  any  unfavor- 
able atmospheric  condition  would  not  affect 
them  all  at  the  same  time,  or  at  least  very  un- 
equall}\  Hence  we  can  safely  count  on  a  con- 
tinuous supply  of  honey  here,  from  very  early 
spring  till  the  middle  or  last  oi  July.     I  am  dis- 


posed to  think  now  that  August  is  our  only 
month  of  scarcity.  Our  fall  pasturage,  I  think, 
is  pretty  good.  My  bees,  last  year,  raised  a  new 
brood  of  drones  in  September. 

I  have  been  making  a  note  of  bee  pasturage 
in  my  section  this  season,  and  will  give  you  the 
result,  for  the  benefit  of  the  readers  of  the  Bee 
Journal.  I  will  only  note  the  principal  trees 
and  plants  which  occur  in  more  or  less  abun- 
dance, and  upon  which  I  have  seen .  bees  at 
work  in  considerable  numbers  Many  are  left 
out  as  unimportant ;  while  many  others,  doubt- 
less, have  been  overlooked. 

Red  Maple,  bloomed  January  24 ;  ceased 
March  15. 

The  blossom  buds  of  the  red  maple  com- 
menced opening  on  the  24th  of  January,  at 
which  time  I  noticed  bees  carrying  in  pollen 
from  it.  It  was  in  full  bloom  February  9th, 
and  ceased  to  bloom  March  15th. 

The  importance  of  the  red  niiiple  as  a  bee 
plact  cannot  be  over-estimated.  We  raise  our 
bees  on  it  here  for  the  spring  campaign.  Com- 
ing in  at  a  time  when,  from  our  warm  winters, 
the  bees  have  nearly  exhausted  their  supply  of 
honey,  it  is  invaluable  ;  and  were  it  not  for  it 
we  should  have  to  resort  to  feeding.  It  fur- 
nishes a  supply  of  natural  pollen  so  early,  that  I 
fear  I  shall  be  debarred  from  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  my  bees  enjoy  a  feast  of  "  old  rye."  It 
grows  in  countless  numbers  along  all  our 
branch  creeks  and  river  bottoms. 

Plum,  bloomed  March  13  ;  ceased  March  28. 

Peach,  bloomed  March  16  ;  ceased  April  1. 

Spicewood,  bloomed  March  20 ;  ceased 
April  1. 

Dogwood,  bloomed  March  20;  ceased  May  5. 

Sugar  Maple,  bloomed  March  30 ;  ceased 
April  19. 

Sassafras,  bloomed  March  30  ;  ceased 
April  20. 

Pear  and  Cherry,  bloomed  March  30 ; 
ceased  April  10. 

GoossBERRY,  bloomed  March  30 ;  ceased 
April  20. 

The  last  three  are  unimportant  at  present,  on 
account  of  their  scarcity  ;  but  we  hope  the  day 
is  not  distant  when  the  lovers  of  good  fruit, 
as  well  as  of  bees,  will  make  them  more  plenti- 
ful. 

Red  Bud,  bloomed  April  4  ;  ceased  April  20. 

Apple,  bloomed  April  6  ;  ceased  April  25. 

AViLLOW,  bloomed  April  11  ;  ceased  May  8. 

The  willow  is  a  splendid  source  of  pasturage 
with  us,  growing  thickly  along  the  banks  of 
creeks  in  our  old  fields,  and  is  spreading  every 
year  over  the  marshy  places  in  the  creek  and 
river  bottoms. 

Wild  Cherry,  bloomed  April  20 ;  ceased 
April  30. 

Dewberry,  bloomed  April  25 ;  ceased  May 
25. 

White  Clover,  bloomed  April  29 ;  still 
blooming. 

Three  or  four  years  ago,  white  clover  was 
almost  unknown   among   us.     I  only  know  of 


30 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


one  or  two  little  patches  in  an  old  field.  But 
now,  in  some  of  the  old  clearings  on  the  edge  of 
Forked  Deer  Kiver  bottom,  we  have  as  good 
a  stand  of  it,  as  perhaps  could  be  found  in  any 
pasture  in  New  York  or  Pennsylvania.  It  is 
principally  distributed  through  the  agency  of 
cattle  and  high  water;  and  it  can  now  be  found 
very  thick  along  all  of  the  road  sides  and  banks 
of  streams,  and  even  extending  into  the  thick 
woods.  I  have  been  told  recently  that  the 
bottoms  along  Hatchie  River  are  being  over- 
grown with  it,  in  the  same  way.  My  bees  are 
now  working  on  it  finely,  and  I  hope  that  it 
will  carry  them  through  July. 

Barbekry,  or  Hockberry,  bloomed  May  1 ; 
ceased  May  15. 

Black  Gum,  bloomed  May  2 ;  ceased  May  9. 

Blackberries,  bloomed  May  2  ;  ceased  May 
30. 

These  latter  grow  everywhere  in  the  greatest 
profusion,  and  yield  the  most  delicately  flavored 
honey  that  we  have.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that 
the  growth  threatens  to  appropriate  a  large 
portion  of  our  soil.  The  cattle  avoid  it;  the 
farmers  give  way  to  it ;  Mr.  Nig  scratches  his 
head  and  declines  a  contest ;  but  the  bees  "  go 
in"  with  a  will.  Mr.  Editor,  I  too  have  a 
honey-emptying  machine  of  my  own  construc- 
tion, and  can  appreciate  the  delight  of 
"Novice."  From  a  strong  prejudice  against 
beekeeping,  my  "better  half"  has  been  con- 
verted into  an  enthusiastic  apiarian.  Need  I 
add,  that  delicious  honey,  and  the  aroma  from 
the  honey-emptying  machine  during  the  black- 
berry harvest,  won  her  over. 

Locust,  bloomed  May  3  :  ceased  May  20. 

Poplar,  bloomed  May  3  ;  ceased  June  5. 

West  Tennessee  is  the  home  of  the  poplar. 
Here  it  attains  its  greatest  size.  I  know  of  one 
tree  that  is  nine  feet  in  diameter.  It  is  a  favor- 
ite amusement  of  the  little  negroes  to  knock 
down  the  blossoms  and  suck  the  honey  they 
contain. 

Holly,  bloomed  May  10  ;  ceased  May  28. 

This  is  a  splendid  honey  plant,  but  does  not 
last  long.  It  grows  only  in  the  bottoms,  along 
the  banks  of  creeks  and  rivers.  Bees  resort  to 
it  in  great  numbers,  during  the  whole  period  ot 
its  blooming. 

Persimmon,  bloomed  May  24  ;  ceased  June 
10. 

Wild  Grapes,  bloomed  May  26 ;  ceased 
June  30. 

The  latter  is  another  splendid  honey  plant 
with  us,  not  excelled  even  by  the  poplar.  It 
is  very  abundant,  growing  everywhere.  In- 
deed, it  would  be  a  very  difficult  matter  to  find 
a  spot  in  any  of  the  thick  woods  of  West  Ten- 
nessee, that  is  not  adorned  by  the  rank  foliage 
oftlie  Vitis  Lahrusca. 

Catnip,  bloomed  May  22  ;  ceased  June  25. 

I  have  been  very  favorably  impressed  with 
catnip  as  a  bee  plant ;  and  think  that  a  little 
labor  expended  in  its  propogation,  would  be 
well  rewarded.  A  few  bunches  set  upon  the 
top  of  some  old  worn  out  hill,  would  soon  cover 
the  whole  hill-side,  as  it  spreads  rapidly. 


Muscadine,  bloomed  June  12 ;  ceased  June 


15. 

Elder,  bloomed  June  10  ;  ceased  July  10. 

Chestnut,  bloomed  June  15  ;  ceased  June 
27. 

Pondweed,  bloomed  June  23  ;  still  bloom- 
ing. 

Sumac,  bloomed  June  25  ;  still  blooming. 

Corn  Blossoms,  bloomed  July  5;  still  bloom- 
ing. 

There  are  three  periods  during  which  I  have 
seen  bees  carry  in  pollen  more  abundantlj'  than 
at  any  other  time  during  the  year,  viz  :  during 
the  blooming  of  the  red  maple,  in  February  ; 
from  corn  blossoms,  in  July  ;  and,  again,  from 
the  golden  rod,  in  October. 

Honey  Dew.  Showers  of  honey  dew  fell  on 
the  28th  of  May,  and  on  the  8th  and  the  18th  of 
June.  I  have  '^een  it  crystalized  on  poplar 
leaves.  Chestnut  leaves  have  been  glued  to- 
gether with  it.  It  has  been  very  abundant  also 
on  the  white  oak,  and  on  the  rough  leaves  of 
the  hickory.  Too  much  of  it,  this  year,  to  be 
the  production  of  the  insects.  What  do  you 
say  of  it,  Mr.  Editor.* 

If  you  think  it  will  be  interesting  to  the 
readers  of  the  Bee  Journal,  I  will  continue 
my  notes  on  the  bee  pasturage  of  West  Ten- 
nessee, and  report  again  at  The  close  of  the 
season. 

Yours,  with  bee  love, 

S.  W.  Cole. 

Andrew  Chapel,  Tenn.,  July  10,  1869. 

*Our  impression,  from  observations  we  have 
had  opportunities  to  make,  is  that  what  are  cal- 
led honey  dews  originate  from  three  different 
sources,  and  differ  accordingly  in  quality.  That 
which  is  most  common  in  the  Southern  section 
of  the  Middle  States,  is  of  atmospheric  origin  ; 
is  usually  very  abundant  when  it  occurs ;  is 
eagerly  gathered  by  the  bees ;  and  yields  a  hon- 
ey scarcel}'^  to  be  distinguished  in  taste,  color, 
or  consistence,  from  that  gathered  from  the 
blossoms  of  plants.  It  is  always  serviceable 
and  never  injurious  to  the  bees.  Another  kind, 
less  abundant  in  quantity  and  of  more  rare  oc- 
currence, is  of  vegetable  origin,  being  an  exu- 
dation on  the  leaves  and  in  the  axillae  of  various 
plants,  dependant  probably  on  certain  states  of 
the  atmosphere.  It  is  darker  than  tlie  former, 
somewhat  viscid,  and  of  less  agreeable  taste, 
though  constituting  a  pretty  good  article.  It  is 
gathered  somewhat  less  eagerly  by  the  bees  and 
is  not  injurious  to  them,  or  is  not  produced  and 
stored  in  sufficient  quantity  to  become  so.  The 
third  kind,  usually,  when  it  occurs  more  abun- 
dant than  the  second,  is  more  restricted  in  its 
range.  It  is  the  product  of  aphides,  and  its  pro- 
duction is  dependant  on  states  of  the  atmos- 
phere favoring  the  rapid  multiplicatiou  of  those 
insects.  As  it  usually  occurs  when  the  nectar  of 
flowers  is  scarce,  it  is  more  freely  gathered  and 
stored  by  the  bees.  It  is  an  ill-tasted,  rather 
innutritous  substance,  having  a  strong  tendency 
to  decomposition.  When  stored  in  a  hive  in 
such  quantity  as  to  make  it  the  main  depen- 
dence of  the  bees  iu  winter,  is  apt  to  produce 
debihty  ;  and  dysentery  will  follow  if  the  bees 
are  long  confined  by  stress  of  weather. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


31 


[For  tho  American  Boo  Journal.] 

Brooding  Temperature  Again. 


There  is  an  article  in  tlie  March  number  of 
the  Bee  Journal,  headed  "Brooding  Temper- 
ature," by  J.  D.  Meador.  This  is  a  subject 
that  is  but  imper'ectly  understood  by  a  large 
proportion  of  beekeepers.  Yet  it  is  one  of  vital 
importance  to  all.  Let  us  see  if  we  cannot 
say  something  respecting  it  that  will  be  of  some 
interest. 

It  has  been  said  that  this  economising  the 
animal  heat,  so  as  to  keep  up  the  proper  breed- 
ing temperature,  and  also  to  save  all  the  wax  at 
the  same  time,  is  one  of  Gallup's  whims.  Well, 
friends,  if  you  understand  the  theory,  and  will 
put  it  in  practice,  you  will  find  tliat  it  is  one  of 
the  best  whims  you  ever  obtained  from  Gallup. 
To  illustrate — let  us  take  two  hives  to  begin 
with,  of  exactly  the  same  form  and  dimensions. 
The  Quinby  hive  and  the  hive  I  use  are  both  of 
the  same  form  and  size,  namely  twelve  inches 
deep,  twelve  inches  wide,  and  eighteen  inches 
long,  inside  measure.  The  difference  is  in  the 
arrangement  of  the  frames.  Mr.  Quinby's  go 
the  long  way  of  the  hive,  while  mine  go  the 
short  w^lJ^  Now  we  will  use  a  division  board 
in  both  hives,  and  we  will  have  a  practical  bee- 
keeper to  manage  both  hives.  He  will  soon 
find  out  that  with  the  same  quantitj^  of  bees, 
and  with  queens  of  equal  fertility,  at  the  same 
time  and  under  the  same  circumstances,  the 
hive  first  mentioned  cannot  be  managed  so  as  to 
have  every  cell  occupied  with  brood,  so  as  to 
save  all  the  wax;  while  the  other  can  be  thus 
managed.  Furthermore,  the  hive  with  the 
small  frames  can  be  managed  so  that  double  the 
quantity  of  workers  can  be  gathering  outside  ; 
while,  in  the  hive  with  the  large  frame,  they 
have  to  stay  at  home  in  order  to  keep  up  the 
necessary  heat  to  develop  the  brood.  In  the 
hive  with  the  large  frame  the  bees  are  spread 
out  over  too  large  a  surface;  whereas  in  the  hive 
with  the  small  frame  they  are  in  a  more  natural 
and  compact  form. 

After  both  hives  are  filled  with  combs,  brood, 
and  bees,  there  would  not  be  any  material  dif- 
ference, except  in  the  working  of  the  hive.  But 
let  both  hives  become  reduced  in  numbers,  by 
bad  wintering  or  any  other  cause,  and  then  the 
advantage  of  the  small  frames  is  at  once  seen. 
Here  is  a  box  of  ten  by  twelve  inches  square 
and  twentjr-four  inches  high.  There  was  a 
good  swarm  put  into  it  last  year,  and  they  filled 
the  hive  to  the  bottom;  the  bees  have  been 
well  wintered  and  consumed  but  little  of  their 
stores  ;  the  brood  comb  is  at  the  bottom,  but  the 
animal  heat  is  at  the  top.  Now,  cut  off  the  top, 
and  bring  the  size  of  the  hive  to  twelve  inches 
in  depth,  and  double  the  quantity  of  bees  can 
and  will  go  into  the  fields  as  gatherers. 

Again,  we  Avill  put  an  ordinary  swarm  into  a 
small  compact  hive — one  that  you  can  finally 
enlarge  to  the  same  capacity  as  the  other.  The 
one  will  make  a  piofitable  swarm,  while  the 
other  does  comparatively  nothing.  The  simple 
reason  is  this,  the  one  has  a  large  working  force 
to  spare;  while  in  the  other  most  of  the  bees 
have  to  stay  at  home,  developing  only  half  the 


quantity  of  brood  which  the  former  can  mature. 
After  the  weather  becomes  warm  enough,  both 
night  and  day,  there  will  not  be  so  marked  a 
diifference  between  them,  as  there  is  in  cooL 
weather. 

In  old  box  hive  times,  it  was  a  fact  well 
known  to  practical  beekeepers  that  in  a  hive 
twelve  inches  square,  the  bees  would  build  their 
combs  the  nearest  right  and  send  out  the  earliest 
swarms — surpassing,  in  this   respect,  any  other 
form  of  hive  that  we  could  get  up,  if  the  spring 
was  favorable,  so  that  they  did  not  run  short  of 
supplies.     Yet  a  hive  of  that  capacity   proved 
too  small  fox  every  season.    'The  hive   I   use_  is 
twelve  inches   square,  with   another   half  hive 
added  to  one  side.     Those  arc  the   dimensions. 
Now  recollect  that  I  never  said  that  the  hive  T  use 
is  the  best  hive  in  the  world,  or  that  it  will  make 
honey  without   bees;  but  that  the  hive  suits  me, 
and  I  am  perhaps  as  difficult  to  please  as  any 
other  person.     At  least,  before  I  obtained   this 
hive  I  tried  as  many  different  forms  of  hives,  in 
all  probability,  as  any   person  in  the   United 
States.     I  formed  an  idea  of  what  a  hive  should 
do,  and  until  I  obtained  one  that   would   work 
up  to  my  standard,  I  was  not  satisfied.    Sliould 
any  one  wish  more  surplus  room,  he  can  make 
the  cap  a  ten  acre  lot,  if  he  chooses.     Unless 
you  have  a  hive   that  will  work  on  this  princi- 
ple, it  is  useless   to   attempt  a    rapid  increase. 
You  will  have  to  wait  till   late   in   the   season, 
and  in  every  case  make  up  a  strong   swarm   at 
the  start.     IBut  in  that  case   it  is   always  more 
difficult  to  control  the   comb-building  with  a 
strong  swarm  to  commence  with,   than  with  a 
weak  one.     Furthermore,  a  swarm  very  strong 
at  the  start,  will   build   comb   faster  than_  the 
queen   can   occupy  it;   and  in  such  case  it   is 
difficult  to  make  all  swarms  alike  for  the  next 
season.     Occasionally,  in  some   circumstances, 
a  swarm  in  a  large  hive  becames  reduced   to  a 
mere  handful,  and  still  recupeiates  ;  but  in  the 
right  kind  of  hive  we   can  always  bring  up  a 
weak  sw<«rm  speedily.     The  best   of  us  occa- 
sionally have  swarms   reduced  in  numbers  be- 
fore we  become  aware  of  it.     How   often,  early 
in  the   spring,  we   wish   to  strengthen  a  weak 
colony  by  inserting   a  card   of   brood   from  a 
strong  swarm,  without  injuring  the  latter.  Then, 
how  much  easier  to  handle  a  small  frame  than 
a  large  one,    without   danger   of  breaking  the 
comb.     "When   I   am  increasing  my   stocks,  I 
frequentl}'-  have  beekeepers  visit  me.     We  walk 
around  among  the  stacks,  and  the  universal  re- 
mark is—"  how    strong    and     populous    your 
swarms  are  !"    But  when   I  come  to  open  the 
hives,  and  show  thein  the  nuclei  with  two,  three, 
or  lour  frames,they  cannot  comprehend  iiow  such 
small  swarms,  Avhich  from  their   working,  they 
had  supposed  were  extra  populous,  could  work 
so  strong,  until  I  explain  to  them  the   principle 
of  economizing  the  animal  heat.     Now,  gentle- 
men, this  is  not  mere  theory.     It  can  be  demon- 
strated in  twenty-four  hours,  at  any  time  in  the 
summer.     We  would  take  one  of  those  nuclei 
at  night;  remove  the  division  board;  and  move 
the  four  combs,  bees  and  all,  into   the  centre  of 
the  hive.     The  following  day  nearly  all  the  bees 
stay  at  home  to  keep  up  the  necessary  tempera- 
ture; and  the  queen  will  cease  laying,  except  in 


32 


THE  AMBEICAN  BEE  JOUENAL. 


the  middle  of  the  duster.  At  night  again, 
place  Ihein  back  hs  before;  adjust  the  division 
board;  and  next  day  they  will  be  ready  to  go  to 
work  again,  and  you  will  find  the  queen  can 
and  will  dpposite  eges  wherever  there  are  emp- 
ty cells.  Of  course,  I  mean  that  this  shall  be 
done  in  common  spring  weather,  and  not  with 
the  thermometer  at  95°  in  the  shade. 

I  might  enlarge  on  this  subject,  but  it  appears 
to  be  i:unecessary.  It  is  one,  nevertheless,  that 
is  worthy  of  careful  study  and  practice  by 
every  beekeeper  in  the  land,  and  in  deciding 
what  form  of  liive  you  will  adopt,  this  matter 
should  be  taken  into  consideration. 

Elisha  'Gallup. 

Osage,  Iowa. 


(For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

How  My  Bees  "Wintered. 


In  December  last  I  prepared,  in  about  an 
hour,  twenty-four  hives  of  bees  for  wintering 
on  their  summer  stands,  in  the  manner  describ- 
ed on  page  109,  volume  4,  B.  J.,  and  will  brief- 
ly report  the.  result. 

I  examined  every  colony  and  every  comb, 
April  15  and  16,  transferring  all  to  new  and 
clean  hives.  Two  colonies,  both  strong  in  the 
fall,  were  dead.  One,  judging  from  the  large 
amount  of  bee-bread  in  the  combs,  had  failed 
to  rear  a  queen  after  swarming ;  and  the  other 
had  starved.  Both  cases  the  result  of  want  of 
attention  on  my  part,  and  not  the  fault  of  the 
system  of  wintering.  Fout  weak  swarms, 
having  only  five  or  six  frames  of  comb  each, 
came  through  in  fine  condition.  These  had  re- 
ceived especial  care,  on  account  of  their  weak- 
ness— having  been  covered  with  a  roll  of  cotton 
batting,  in  addition  to  the  carpet  or  woolen 
clothing;  and  are  today,  In  consequence  of  a 
little  stimulative  feeding  and  a  full  supply  of 
combs  from  the  dead  colonies,  in  as  forward  a 
condition  as  any  I  have. 

I  left  home  on  the  16th  of  April  for  a  month's 
absence,  and  on  returning.  May  16th,  found 
three  more  colonies  dead.  An  examination 
showed  plainly  that  they  had  been  robbed. 
But,  again,  the  four  weak  colonies  had  escaped 
unharmed,  and  stronger  ones  had  been  the  vic- 
tims. Why  ?  Simply  because  I  had  again 
taken  better  care  of  the  weak  ones,  by  closing 
the  entrances  to  their  hives  so  that  only  one  or 
two  bees  could  pass  at  once,  and  had  left  the 
others  open  three  or  four  inches,  thinking  them 
strong  enough  to  defend  themselves  against 
robbers.  Not  one  of  these  five  colonies  would 
have  been  lost,  if  I  could  have  been  at  home  to 
attend  to  them  at  the  right  time.  Five  min- 
utes labor  would  have  saved  them  all.  A  fer- 
tile queen,  or  a  comb  of  brood  from  which  to 
raise  one,  for  the  first ;  one  or  two  frames  of 
honey  for  the  second  ;  and  some  small  blocks 
to  reduce  the  entrances  of  the  last  three,  would 
have  been  suflicient.  Not  a  comb  of  all  the 
three  hundred  was  mouldy  or  soiled  ;  and  every 
colony  but  the  one  tliat  starved  (containing 
that  remarkably  prolific  and  beautiful  hybrid 
queen,)  had  plenty  of  honey  remaining,  April 
16th,  to  carry  them  through. 


I  My  bees  flew  freely,  voiding  fneccs  January 
6th  and  February  9th,  and  perhaps  at  other 
times  in  my  absence  from  home — an  advantage 
that  bees  housed  in  winter  quarters  could  not 
enjoy.  Repeated  examinati(ms  during  the 
whole  winter,  showed  tlie  bees  in  all  the  hives 
lying  up  on  the  top  of  the  frames,  against  the 
warm  woolen  covering.  On  the  whole  I  like 
the  plan  well  enough  to  employ  iti  again  next 
winter. 

My  large   double  glass  hive  cast  a  fine  swarm 

to-day,  leaving  a  strong  colony  in  tlie  old  hive  ; 

while  some  of  mj''  neighbors'  bees,  in  box  hives, 

are  on  the  point   of  starvation — owing  to   the 

scarcity  of  spring  forage  in  this  vicinity.     How 

'  Can  this  be   so  ?      Answer :    /  feed   my    bees 

I  when    they  need    food  ;    they   do  not,  on  the 

I  ground    that    "  bees   ought    to    support    them- 

!  selves."      I  fed  twenty-five   pounds  of    sugar 

I  made  into  syrup  to   twentj''  colonies  yesterday, 

i  in  less  than  four  hours  time.     How  ?     Take   otf 

!  the   honey  board,  lay  a   frame   of  empty  comb 

I  (drone  comb  is  best,  though  any  will    answer,) 

on  the  top  of  the  frames  ;  pouv   on   the   syrup 

freel^^,  a  pint  at  a   time  ;  when   the   twenty  are 

supplied,    it  will   be  about   time   to  go  round 

again.     But  the  bees  are  all  on  the   coml)s,  and 

!  in  the  way.     Never  mind,  pour  it   on — it  runs 

I  otf  the  bees  like  water  off  a  duck.     1  got  the  idea 

from   Mr.  Langstroth,  who   says,    and   I  agree 

with  him,  that  "honey  comb  is  the  best  possible 

bee-feeder." 

R.    BlCKFOED. 

Seneca  Falls,  N.  Y.,  June  12,  1869. 


[For  tlie  Americau  Bee  Journal.] 

The  Paper  Hive  and  its  Inventor. 


As  Charles  Hastings  has  introduced  "  Cox's 
Paper  Hive"  to  the  readers  of  the  Bbe  Jour- 
nal, we  choose  to  add  our  little  knowledge  of 
said  hive  and  its  patentee  and  vender. 

One  year  ago,  tjc  last  days  of  March,  said  E. 
Cox  made  his  appearance  in  our  town.  His 
purpose  in  visiting  the  place,  as  per  his  own 
statement,  was  not  to  sell  the  right  to  use  his 
hive,  or  territory  under  his  patent  ;  but  simply 
to  avail  himself  of  the  opportunity,  means,  and 
talent  here  afforded  to  test  his  "new  theory  of 
the  fungus  growth  of  the  honey  comb,"  treated 
of  by  J.  M.  Marvin,  in  the  April  number  of  the 
Bee  Journal,  under  the  heading  ot  "a  new 
and  curious  theory."  Yet,  after  gathering  all 
the  looked-for  information  on  this  point  that  he 
could,  he  tarried  here  week  after  week — the  at- 
tractions of  our  "  romantic  place  "  chain-like 
bound  him,  until  realizing  a  few  hundred  dol- 
lars on  sale  of  territory,  he  found  it  in  his 
heart  to  bid  adieu  to  our  towns  many  attrac- 
tions. 

In  Cox's  own  words  his  hive  was  destined  to 
perfectly  revolutionize  beekeeping.  So  per- 
fectly adapted  was  it  to  the  nature  and  wants 
of  the  bee,  that,  as  it  became  known,  no  other 
hive  could  stand  before  it,  or  with  it.  Of  neces- 
sity it  would  supersede  all  other  hives.  Bees 
would  go  on  breeding  all  winter.     He  put  a 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOUENAL. 


33 


swarm  in  it  in  November  of  the  fall  previous, 
iu  the  town  of  Pdpon,  where  he  was  then  living; 
and  said  swarm  had  gone  on  breeding  all  win- 
ter, and  in  March,  prior  to  his  visiting  our 
town,  had  thrown  off  n,  swarm  of  "about"  two 
quarts  of  bees,  snd  had  left  in  the  liive  "al)out" 
seven  quarts. 

The  brood  chamber  of  his  said  hive  was  just  a 
cubit  foot.  The  hive,  too,  is  moth-proof,  made 
so  by  two  pieces  of  tin  nailed  each  side  of  the 
entrance.  Robber-proof  also,  as  the  entrance  is 
through  the  bottom  board  directly  into  the 
bee  chamber.  Two  entrances,  one  on  a 
side,  througli  whicli  a  good  swarm  of  "bees 
would  Avalk  in  and  out  up  to  three  hundred  per 
minute.  At  Rochester,  Minnesota,  during  the 
season  of  18G7.  four  hundred  swarms,  in  his 
liive,  had  averaged  seventy-five  pounds  of  sur- 
plus honejr  in  boxes.  Who,  at  Eochester,  can 
give  us  the  facts  on  this  point  ? 

As  to  said  hive's  practical  working  here- 
about, out  of  at  least  seventy-five  swarms  put  in 
last  seasou,  not  ten  are  surviving  at  this  date  ; 
not  so  large  a  percentage  having  failed  of  all 
the  other  hives  in  the  country.  Through  prom- 
ise of  "  great  yield  of  honey  and  increase  of 
bees,"  I  was  induced  to  let  said  Cox  pick  a 
stock  from  among  lifty,  to  put  in  his  hive,  as  an 
experimental  swarm,  to  be  taken  charge  of  by 
anotlier,  for  which  I  was  to  be  insured  at  least 
thirty-five  pounds  of  box  honey  in  the  fall,  witli 
an  additional  prime  swarm  of  bees,  as  my  share 
of  the  products.  Said  honey  I  have  not  seen, 
and  the  stocks  of  bees  have  gone  the  way  of  all 
flesh. 

Cox's  "movable  top  bars  of  a  peeuliar  shape,'''' 
and  the  "thin  sharp  lance,"  have  had  their  day 
with  me.  The  turning  from  the  use  of  mova- 
ble comb  frames,  to  the  use  of  bars  and  lance, 
is  a  step  backward  in  bee-culture;  and  if  Hast- 
ings has  not  advanced  to  the  use  of  movable 
comb  frames,  ere  his  present  season's  experi- 
ence with  Cox's  hive,  bars,  and  lance  is  finish- 
ed, he  will  probably  rue  the  day  that  he  ever 
made  acquaintance  with  them,  or  their  vender 
either.  One  claim  of  Cox  for  his  hive,  over- 
looked, is  certainly  worth  mentioning.  It  is, 
that  black  bees,  iu  it,  will  do  equally  well  with, 
the  Italians  1 

Z.  C.  Fairbanks. 

Appleton,  Wis.,- June  12,  1869. 


[For  the  Americaa  Bee  Jonrnal.] 

Natural  Ventilatien. 


Spanish  Broom.    (Cytisus  albus.) 

By  a  calculation,  which  one  may  justly 
enough  make,  en  the  bees'  labors,  one  may 
conclude  tliat  an  acre  of  Spanish  broom  will 
yield  honey  and  wax  enough  for  ten  good 
stocks  of  bees  ;  for  this  broom  brings  a  vast 
qna,ntity  of  flowers  fertile,  both  in  wax 
and  in  honey,  and  continues  blooming  a 
long  time.  And  when  a  stock  of  bees  have 
flowers  to  their  likiug,  of  which  tliis  is  one  of 
the  chief,  and  have  a  large  quantity  of  them, 
they  will  fill  their  hive  both  with  wax  and  hon- 
ey, iu  five  or  six  weeks,  if  the  weather  permit 
them  to  go  abroad.  The  common  broom  is  in 
no  way  comparable  to  the  Spanish  broom, 
either  for  its  flowers  or  its  witlis. — Bradley. 


In  the  Bee  Journal,  volume  4,  number  10, 
page  183,  in  an  article  headed  "  Upward  Ventil- 
ation,,'''' by  Mr.  Miner,  he  hits  us  upward  ventil- 
ation men,  and  says  that  we  have  not  the  man- 
liness to  admit  his  theory. 

A  number  of  years  ago,  when  I  lived  in  Can- 
ada, we  had  what  I  call  a  hard  winter.  The 
thermometer,  for  sixty  days  in  succession  was 
not  above  10°  below  zero,  and  for  eight  of 
those  days  the  mercury  was  frozen.  The  fol- 
lowing spring  all  the  wild  bees  in  hollow  trees 
were  found  to  be  di'ad,  except  those  loitJi  abun- 
dant ventilation  at  the  top  of  the  cavity  or  hollow. 
And  in  fact  so,  likewise,  did  all  the  tame  bees 
die,  unless  they  had  upward  ventilation.  I  found 
three  hollow  trees  in  the  spring,  with  abun- 
dance of  bottom  ventilation,  and  the  bees  were 
all  dead.  There  was  plenty  of  honey,  and  one 
of  them  had  over  one  hundred  pounds.  I  found 
them  by  following  my  own  bees  to  the  trees,  as  ■ 
they  were  taking  away  the  honey.  I  also  found 
one  extra  good  swarm,  with  the  bees  all  alive. 
The  entrance  was  at  the  top  of  the  cavity.  The 
hole  ■was  round,  and  about  four  inches  in  diam- 
eter. I  lost  some  swarms  in  Weeks'  Vermont 
hives,  with  abundance  of  downward  ventila- 
tion ;  but  my  box  hives  and  old  conical  straw 
hive,  with  a  two-inch  hole  at  the  top  and  the 
bottoms  plastered  up  tight,  wintered  in  excel- 
lent condition.  A  neighbor  wintered  eight 
swarms  in  box  hives,  with  a  two-inch  hole  in 
the  top  of  each.  They  set  on  the  top  of  hem- 
lock stumps,  without  any  protection  whatever  ; 
and  were  in  the  best  condition  in  the  spring. 

That  bees  will  wiirter  in  Illinois,  without  up- 
ward ventilation,  I  do  not  in  the  least  doubt  ; 
and  that  they  will  winter  with  upward  ventila- 
tion is  also  a  positive  fact.  With  upward  ven- 
tilation, and  all  downward  ventilation  stopped, 
there  is  no  circulation  of  air,  only  as  the  bees 
themselves  cause  it;  and  they  cause  the  circula- 
tion just  as  they  require  it,  and  no  more.  It  is 
a  well  known  fact,  (at  least  to  me),  that  bees 
will  be  just  as  prosperous  in  a  hollow  tree,  in 
summer,  with  tlie  entrance  at  the  top  of  the 
cavity,  as  they  will  be  with  the  entrance  at  the 
^'ottom  ;  and  this  rule  holds  just  as  good  with 
the  common  box  hives.  But  bees  frequently  go 
into  a  hollow  tree  with  both  upward  and  down- 
ward ventilation.  In  that  case,  in  a  cold  win- 
ter, they  invariably  perish.  If  Infinite  Good- 
ness has  furnished  the  bee  with  a  home  adapted 
to  its  needs,  as  Mr.  Miner  saj^s,  a  great  many 
swarms,  according  to  my  experience,  are  very 
foolish  in  making  their  selection. 

I  am  well  satisfied  that  bees  would  succeed  in. 
Illinois,  with  upward  ventilation,  or  Avith  hori- 
zontal ventilation ;  but  in  Lower  Canada,  up- 
ward ventilation  in  the  hollow  tree,  is  the  rule 
for  success. 

Here,  in  this  climate,  I  have  found  it  poor 
policy  to  have  bees  commence  breeding  earlier 
than  the  first  of  March;  and,  in  some  seasons, 
not  before  the  loth.  iSwarms  that  commence 
breeding  early  in  February,  are  no   further   ad- 


34 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


vanced  on  the  20tli  of  May,  than  those  of  the 
same  strength  in  numbers  that  do  not  com- 
mence breeding  vintil  the  first  of  March.  Then 
those  that  commenced  breeding  earliest,  have 
consumed  much  more  honey  without  a  corres- 
ponding benefit. 

In  a  dry  airy  cellar,  such  as  Mr.  Thomas 
speaks  of  in  the  June  number  of  the  Bee  Joue- 
NAL,  bees  can  be  wintered  witliout  upward  ven- 
tilation. I  know  that  to  be  a  fact  by  actual  ex- 
perience. Yet,  with  proper  upward  ventilation 
they  will  winter  just  as  well.  But  in  a  damp 
or  moist  cellar,  or  a  cave,  it  is  Impossible  to 
winter  them  in  good  condition,  without  up- 
ward ventilation.  And  a  large  majority  of  us 
farmers  have  to  use  just  such  cellars  as  we  hap- 
pen to  have,  especially  in  this  new  country. 

The  Amekican  Bee  Journal  is  a  National 
Institution.  It  is  not  especially  for  your  locali- 
ty, neither  is  it  for  mine.  Therefore  do  not 
knock  us  all  doviui  with  your  arguments,  with- 
out as  much  as  giving  us  a  chance  to  defend 
ourselves.  There  are  quite  a  number  of  sub- 
scribers (and  there  ought  to  be  many  more)  in 
Canada,  even  further  north  than  where  I  was 
born. 

Elisha  Gallup. 

Osage,  Iowa. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Honor  to  Whom  Honor  is  Due. 


XFrom  the  Southern  Planter  and  Farmer.l 

Alsike  Clover  for  Bee  Pasturage. 


Early  in  the  year  1868,  I  was  induced  by  an 
article  I  saw  in  the  "Bee  Journal,"  to  try  the 
alsike  clover  for  my  bees.  I  accordingly  pur- 
chased a  pound  of  the  seed,  which  I  sowed  upon 
SI  small  piece  of  land  (about  a  quarter  of  an 
acre,)  thcugh  too  much  seed  for  the  quantity  of 
land.  It  germinated  well,  and,  like  the  red 
clover,  only  made  a  good  stand.  But  this 
sprmg  (186'JJ  it  came  up  well,  and  now,  the 
ICth  of  June,  it  will  stand,  if  erect,  twenty  to 
thirty  inches  high,  and  is  covered  with  blos- 
soms and  bees.  Indeed,  I  have  rarely  seen 
bees  more  numerous  on  buckwheat  blooms, 
than  on  this  clover.  I  shall  sow  a  lot  of  buck- 
wheat for  fall  pasturage  ;  but  for  May  and 
June,  I  think  the  alsike  clover  furnishes  more 
food  than  any  plant  I  have  ever  seen.  When 
not  too  coul  or  rainy  for  them  to  be  out,  you 
will  find  the  patch  covered  with  bees  pretty 
well  all  day,  and  at  times  almost  in  swarms. 
They  have  sent  forth  a  goodly  number  of 
swarms,  and  filled  the  bodies  of  the  hives  well 
with  store  honejr  ;  and  I  hope  will  yield  a  good 
surplus.  I  shall  sow  tbis  fall  another  lot  much 
larger  than  the  one  I  now  have,  reserving  that 
till  the  other  is  sufficiently  advanced  to  afi'ord 
them  food  ;  and  as  long  as  I  am  able  to  procure 
seed  lo  sow,  shall  do  so  to  keep  up  a  succession. 
Besides,  it  yields  an  abundant  crop  of  hay  ;  not 
so  much  as  the  red  clover,  but  the  sweets  fur- 
nished to  the  bees  more  than  make  up  any  dif- 
ference. The  bloom  is  like  that  of  the  white 
clover,  folding  back  in  such  a  way  as  to  enable 
the  bees  to  get  into  every  part  of  it ;  while  on 
the  red  clover,  coming  up  in  the  same  patch, 
you  never  see  one.  M.  G  F. 

Henkico  Co.,  Va. 


Mr.  Editor: — After  Columbus  had  crossed 
the  pathless  ocean,  discovered  and  made  known 
the  existence  of  another  continent,  and  proved 
to  the  world  that  progression  was  the  universal 
order  of  things,  it  was  easy  enough  to  follow 
where  he  had  led,  and  to  assume  to  wear  the 
laurels  which  he  had  won.  So  in  Bee-culture. 
Years  ago,  when  apiculture  as  a  science  was  in 
swad'iling  clothes,  there  was  published  a  book 
called  "  Langstroth  on  the  Hive  and  Honey 
Bee."  This  book  purported  to  give  a  new  sys- 
tem of  bc'-culture,  and  recommended  a  new 
form  of  hive.  Of  course,  at  first,  a  great  hue 
and  cry  was  raised  against  it,  but  "truth  is 
mighty  and  must  prevail."  Soon  matters  chan- 
ged, and  the  same  parties  who  cried  out  against 
the  principles  laid  down  in  that  book,  began  to 
appropriate  them,  and  thit  too  in  a  manner  not 
at  all  creditable  to  them,  as  honest  conscientious 
individuals.  At  first  perhaps  this  order  of 
things  was  not  as  culpable  as  it  might  have 
been  ;  for  many  persons  ignorant  of  the  claims 
set  forth  in  the  Langstroth  patent,  Avere  viola- 
ting ii  innocently.  But  noic,  it  seems  to  me 
that  no  one  can  appropriate  surreptitiously  any 
of  Mr.  Langstroth's  claims,  without  incurring 
the  guilt  of  gross  fraud. 

It  is  easy  enough  to  write  a  book  on  bee-cul- 
ture, when  Mr.  Langstroth's  able  work  is  at 
hand  to  plagiarise  from  ;  and  it  is  easy  enough 
to  get  up  a  movable  comb  hive,  when  Lang- 
stroth's patent  is  at  hand  to  build  by  ;  but  is  it 
honest?  is  it  just  ?  Do  we  not  all  owe  a  debt  of 
gratitude  to  Mr.  Langstroth,  which  should  lead 
us  not  only  not  to  steal  his  improvements,  but 
when  we  legitiimitely  us3  them,  give  him  full 
credit  for  them  ?  In  all  the  different  styles  of 
hives  that  I  have  seen  advertised  in  the  Bee 
Journal  and  elsewhere,  I  find  them  simply 
modifications  of  the  Langstroth  hive  ;  and  still 
I  find  but  one  man  among  them  all,  who  comes 
out  and  gives  the  credit  due  to  that  hive,  (I  re- 
fer to  H.  A.  King  &  Co.'s  invention  of  the 
American  hive,)  and  not  only  do  they  steal  his 
invention  or  parts  thereof;  but  some  of  the 
writers  steal  his  written  ideas,  and  publish  them 
bodily  in  the  Bee  Journal  and  elsewhere, 
witliout  even  so  much  as  saying,  by  your  leave. 
Mr.  Alley,  of  Wenham,  is  perhaps  an  exception 
to  the  above,  as  he  in  his  new  hive,  (un- 
patented), gives  Mr.  Langstroth  full  credit.  In 
fact,  he  calls  it  a  Langstroth  hive.  I  have  seen 
his  hive  in  practical  use,  and  for  surplus  honey 
I  think  it  has  no  superior.  It  fully  demonstrates 
the  fact  that  bees  will  work  in  side  boxes,  and 
while  its  form  is  such  that  it  can  easily  be 
manipulated,  it  is  open  to  no  objection  that  can 
be  urged  against  its  wintering  out  of  doors.  In 
fact  I  deem  it  a  model  hive  for  surplus  honey, 
and  would  recommend  bee-keepers  generally  to 
try  it. 

I  have  no  pecuniary  interest  in  the  Lang- 
stroth hive,  and  have  written  this  article  simply 
as  a  matter  of  justice  to  him  whose  book  on 
bee-culture  first  led  me  to  engage  in  a  pursuit 


THE  AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


35 


which  to  me  is  both  pleasant  and  profitable. 
Perhaps  some  may  not  fully  agree  with  the 
ideas  set  forth  in  Mr.  Langslrotii's  work  ;  but 
that  cannot  be  a  good  excuse  for  bodily  aiipi'o- 
printing  that  which  they  do  admit  is  correct. 

Hoping  that  every  reader  of  the  "Journal" 
will  appreciate  the  justice   of  Mr.  Langstroth's 
claims,    and   aid    him    in  the  maintenance   of 
them,  I  subscribe  myself,  ever  for  the  right, 
J.  E.  Pond,  Jr. 

FoxBORo'  Mass.,  July  3,  1869. 

[For  the  American  Bee  Jourual.] 

Italian  Bees.— A.  Grimm's  Apiary. 


Mr.  Editor  : — By  your  permission,  I  will 
give  the  readers  of  the  Bee  Journal  some  of 
my  experience,  observations,  &c.  First,  I 
would  like  to  say  a  few  words  aout  the  Italian 
Bee.  About  seven  years  ago,  I  bought  a  queen 
of  Mr.  Langstroth,  and  paid  ten  dollars  for  her. 
About  five  years  ago  I  bought  another  of  him, 
and  paid  him  twenty  dollars  for  her.  I  was 
well  satisfied  with  the  queens,  for  I  think  tliey 
were  pure.  I  succeeded  in  raising  some  pure 
queens  from  them.  Ever  since  that  time  I  have 
pure  Italians,  hybrids,  and  natives  to  manage, 
and  I  must  say  that  the  Italian  bees  are  much 
superior  to  the  natives,  with  but  one  excep- 
tion— that  is,  when  they  once  thoroughly 
aroused,  they  are  great  deal  worse  to  sting. 

We  are  determined  to  Italianize  our  whole 
apiary  this  seacon,  (What  I  mean  by  our,  is 
myself  and  brother  own  the  bees  jointly — two 
hundred  stocks — but  I  have  the  care  of  them.) 
For  that  purpose  we  have  just  bought  forty 
swarms  of  Mr.  Adam  Grimm,  of  Jefferson, 
Wisconsin  ;  and  as  it  fell  to  my  lot  to  go  and  get 
them,  I  would  like  to  say  a  few  words  about 
what  I  saw.  I  happened  to  be  at  Mr.  Grimm's 
a  year  ago  last  fall,  at  the  time  he  opened  the 
boxes  in  which  he  brought  in  his  imported 
queens  I  helped  him  some  two  or  three  days, 
to  pick  out  the  native  queens  in  his  hives  and 
introduce  the  Italians.  As  for  the  queens,  Mr. 
G.  had  very  much  handsomer  ones  in  his  own 
stock.  The  imported  ones  looked  to  me  like 
little  dark  things.  He  did  not  have,  I  think, 
more  than  one  or  two  well-marked  queens.  I 
made  some  allowance,  in  my  thoughts,  for  them 
at  the  time,  as  having  been  confined  so  long. 
But  this  spring  I  recogized  the  same  little  dark 
things,  with  but  little  improvement  since  then. 
Mr.  G.  designates  them  as  Mona  queens  ;  and  I 
will  do  so  likewise. 

I  was  at  Mr.  Giimm's  from  the  11th  to  the  17th 
of  May,  1869.  During  that  time  we  examined 
a  great  many  colonies,  and  when  we  came  to  a 
Mona  stock,  we  almost  invariably  found  those 
queens  mucli  more  prolific,  and  the  hive  much 
stronger  with  bees  and  heavier  with  honey,  than 
were  the  hives  of  his  former  bees.  Another 
thing  we  were  very  sure  to  find— that  is,  they 
were  a  great  deal  crusser.  About  the  progeny  of 
those  queens.  The  drones  are  black,  witli  three 
narrow  light-colored  stripes.  The  workers  are 
darker  and  browner;  and  some  of  them  have 
very  dark  brown  stripes.  On  the  whole,  they 
are  not  as  handsome  or  bright  as  his  other  stocks; 
but  are  stronger  and  better  workers. 


Mr.  Giimm  has  his  bees  in  three  places. 
Before  selling  any  this  spring,  he  had  in  his 
home  apiary  three  hundred  and  sixty-two  colo- 
nies, all  pure  Italians  except  twelve.  Those 
twelve  he  let  a  Mr.  Foster,  who  lives  some  miles 
away,  have  on  shares.  He  is  determined  to 
have  no  opposition  in  his  own  apiary,  so  that 
all  who  purchase  of  him  can  depend  on  pure 
stock.  In  his  northern  apiary,  he  had  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-two  colonies,  nearly  every  hive 
in  real  good  condition,  and  among  them  about 
six  hybrid  stocks.  The  southern  apiary  con- 
tains one  hundred  and  sixteen  stocks,  all  but 
two  in  good  condition.  I  think  his  bees  had  too 
much  honey  for  that  time  of  the  year.  Nearly 
every  hive  contained  one  or  more  cards  of 
comb  completely  full  of  honey.  What  I  mean 
by  good  swarms  at  that  season  of  the  year,  is 
four  or  five  cards  of  comb,  well  filled  with  brood, 
and  bees  endugb  to  cover  it ;  with  a  few  pounds 
of  honey. 

TWO   FERTILE    QUEENS   IN   A   HIVE. 

While  I  was  at  Mr.  Grimm's  we  found  two 
fertile  queens  in  one  hive  ;  and  without  doubt, 
they  had  lived  together  since  swarming  last  sea- 
son ;  as  it  was  too  early  for  one  to  be  a  young 
fertile  queen.  Mr.  G.  said  they  were  in  a  hive 
where  more  than  one  swarm  went  together  last 
year.  We  are  positive  they  both  laid  eggs, 
for  we  separated  them,  and  put  one  part  of 
the  bees  with  one  queen  in  one  hive,  and  the 
rest  of  the  bees  with  the  other  queen  in  another 
hive.  We  afterwards  examined  both,  to  see  if 
all  was  right,  and  they  had  both  been  laying. 

SIZE   OP   HIVES. 

I  have  used  several  kinds  of  hives.  I  first 
used  the  Langstroth  hive,  10  inches  deep,  14 
inches  wide,  and  18  inches  long,  all_  inside 
measure  ;  and  used  ten  frames  to  a  hive.  I 
now  use  a  hive  the  same  size,  only  12  inches 
wide,  instead  of  14,  with  eight  frames;  and  find 
it  to  work  better  in  this  locality  tban  any  hive  I 
ever  used.  The  honey  boxes  we  use  are  about  6 
by  6  inches  and  5  inches  deep,  holding  from  four  to 
five  pounds  of  honey.  We  expect  to  put  in  twelve 
to  a  hive.  The  way  we  will  manage  it,  is  to 
take  off  the  honey-board  and  lay  strips  of  wood 
on  the  frames,  thick  enough  to  come  up  level 
with  the  sides  of  the  hive,  so  that  the  boxes  will 
sit  level.  We  will  then  lay  a  two  inch  strip 
lengthwise  and  in  the  centre  of  tlie  hive  ;  then 
set  on  six  boxes,  three  on  each  side  ot  the  strip. 
These  boxes  will  have  holes  in  the  botton. 
Then  when  we  want  to  put  on  six  Ijoxes  more, 
we  will  take  out  tlie  two-inch  strip,  suspend  a 
brood  comb  above  where  it  lay,  and  then  set 
on  the  other  six  boxes.  Their  entrances  will  be 
at  the  inside  lower  corner,  next  to  the  suspended 
comb.  We  expect  the  bees  will  be  led  directly 
to  the  boxes  by  the  comb  spoken  of. 

I  have  made  this  communication  full  long 
already,  and  will  close  by  vt^ishing  all  bee-keep- 
ers a  better  season  for  bees  this  year,  than  the 
last  was,  which  was  very  poor  indeed  with  us. 
I  also  wish  the  Bee  Journal  much  success,  as 
I  consider  it  a  great  help  to  the  bee-keepers,  and 
think  all  should  take  it. 

Issachar  Crowfoot. 
Rubicon,  Wisconsin,  June  9,  1869. 


THE    AMERICAN    BEE  JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Winter  Ventilation. 


My  bees  were  put  in  the  cellar  on  the  loth  of 
]Srovember,averaging  25  pounds  net.  The  honey- 
boards  wore  raised  one-tourth  of  an  inch  on 
blocks,  and  the  lower  holes  closed.  This  carries 
off  dampness  from  the  sides  of  the  hives  better 
than  tlie  top  holes  open,  witlioul  circulation 
through  the  mass  of  bees. — April  14th,  the  bees 
averaged  15  pounds,  having  used  ten  pounds, 
each,  in  five  months.  The  strongest  family 
used  twelve  pounds  ;  the  weakest  used  seven 
pounds.  April  17th,  set  out  the  best  hives. 
They  had  no  bee  bread,  and  had  raised  no 
brood.  They  made  no  spots  of  faeces  on  tlie 
hive  or  the  adjoining  fence — which,  according 
to  Mr.  Salisbury,  B.  J.,  page  116,  showed 
them  perfectly  healthy.  April  25th,  saw  first 
pollen  gathered.  April  26th,  saw  plenty  of 
eggs,  but  no  larvfe.  Have  moved  drone  combs 
to  sides  of  the  hive,  to  retard  drone  breeding  ; 
and  bj''  placing  empty  worker  comb  in  centre  of 
cluster,  my  best  hive  has  over  31,000  brood  in 
all  stages,  with  no  drones  emerged  yet.  The 
second  best  had  21,000  ;  others  10,000  to  12,000. 
Brood  combs  all  free  from  mould. 

In  1867,  put  iu  hives  without  upward  ventila- 
tion. Last  of  January  water  began  to  run  down 
the  sides,  and  in  movable  comb  hives  blue 
mould  an  eighth  of  an  inch  long  began  to  ap- 
pear. I  inverted  the  box  hive  and  raised  the 
honey  board.  The  water  on  the  sides  disap- 
peared, but  the  mould  did  not ;  and  after  setting 
out  in  the  spring  the  bees  made  sawdust  of 
those  combs  for  a  month,  removing  nearly  one- 
third  of  some  of  them. 

H.  D.  Miner. 
Washington  Harbor,  Wisconsin,  June  12, '69. 


[For  the  American  Bhs  Joarnal. 


The  Buck-eye  Tree,  as  a  Honey-produe- 
ing  Plant. 


I  do  not  remember  seeing  the  buck-eye  reck- 
oned among  tlie  honey-producing  plants.  Some 
of  my  colonies  have  made  comb  and  stored 
thirty  pounds  of  surplus  honey  from  the  buck- 
eye blossoms  this  spring.  They  come  into 
bloom  a  few  days  belbre  the  white  clover,  and 
just  al'ter  the  fruit  trees.  The  quality  of  the 
honey  is  good.  It  is  very  thick,  dark  colored 
as  the  bass-wood  honey  ;  but  not  ciuite  eciual 
to  it  in  quality. 

For  the  information  of  those  who  never  saw 
a  buck-eye  tree,  I  would  state  that  it  grows  here 
on  the  bottom  lands  of  streams,  aui*  is  the  first 
to  leaf  out  in  the  spring.  The  tree,  blossoms, 
and  nuts,  look  like  a  horse  chestnut,  and  can 
hardly  be  distinguished  from  it,  except  in  smell 
— which  is  very  offensive. 

White  clover  began  to  blossom  here  the  first 
of  June,  but  the  season  has  been  so  wet  up  to 
July  4th,  that  1  doubt  if  any  ono;  colony  has 
gathered  two  pounds  of  honey  from  it. 

II.  M, 

SaiiMiTT  County,  Ohio. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal 

The  Cheapest  and  Best  Bee  Feeder. 


I  have  seen  none  ot  those  bee-feeders  the  merits 
of  which  have  been  so  widely  spread  abroad 
through  the  Bee  Journal.  I  do  not  claim  for 
myself  much  iuventive  srenius.  In  the  one  I 
am  about  to  describe  I  have  simply  taken  what 
I  consider  the  better  parts  of  two  already  de- 
scribed, and  combined  them  into  one. 

One  described,  was  a  self-sealing  glass  jar  ; 
the  top  punched  full  of  fine  holes ;  a  piece 
of  strainer  wire-cloth  soldered  over  them  ; 
and  through  these  openings  the  bees  were  to 
suck  their  feed,  after  the  jar  is  inverted.  "A  tin 
rim  I  to  1^  inch  wide  was  soldered  around  the 
top,  to  hold  the  jar  up  from  the  honey  board, 
and  so  give  a  larger  number  of  bees  a  chance 
to  work  on  the  same  at  one  time. 

Another  described,  was  a  tumbler  with  a 
piece  of  fine  cotton-cloth  put  over  the  top,  and 
supported  by  an  india-rubber  band  ;  and  this  in- 
verted over  a  hole  in  the  honey-board. 

What  I  have  done,  is  to  add  the  tin  rim 
on  the  first  described,  to  the  latter.  This  I  have 
done  by  making  a  rim  ^  inch  wide,  large  enough 
to  fit  loosely  over  the  top  of  the  tumbler.  On 
the  middle  of  the  rim  put  a  small  band  pro- 
jecting inwards.  This,  when  the  tumbler  is 
inverted,  will  hold  it  up  from  the  honey-board, 
and  give  the  whole  surface  of  the  top  of  the 
tumbler  for  the  bees  {o  work  on  at  once.  We 
can  thus  see  how  fast  the  feed  lowers.  The 
whole  cost  of  these  was  eleven  cents  each. 
When  nol  wanted  for  feeders,  the  tumblers  are 
worth  just  as  much  for  anj^  other  purpose  as 
they  ever  were. 

Alonzo  Barnard. 

Bangor,  Maine. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Queens  Mating  Twice. 


Mr.  Editor  : — With  your  permission,  I  will 
give  Mr.  Pond  and  the  readers  of  the  Journal 
some  facts,  that  he  may  endorse  me. 

First.  I  never  said  that  old  queens,  or  queens 
after  they  once  begin  lay  freely,  will  mate  with 
drones.     I  now  say  that  they  will  not. 

Second.  I  say  young  que/ns,  before  they  be- 
gin to  lay,  may,  and  otten  do,  pair  or  copulate 
more  than  once.  As  the  drone  dies  in  the  act 
of  copulation,  of  course  she  mates  with  more 
than  one.  in  such  cases — which  drone  effected 
her  impregnation,  I  will  leave  for  Mr.  Pond  to 
saj'';  but  I  believe  they  all  influenced  her  progeny. 

"The  queen  alluded  to  on  page  140,  Bee  Jour- 
nal, vol.  4,  was  raised  miles  from  the  nearest 
Italian  drones.  She  could  not  have  met  one 
of  them.  Yet  her  progeny  was  two  and  three  yel- 
low banded.  She  lived  three  years,  and  never 
produced  a  black  bee. 

Delhi,  June  4,  1869.  John  L.  Davis. 


The  bees  throughout  the  world,  as  known 
collectively  to  the  richest  cabinets,  number 
about  two  thousand  species. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


37 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Novice,  and  Wliat  He  has  been  Doing, 
up  to  July  5, 1869. 


Dear  Bee  Journal  :  We  hope  yonr  readers 
have  not  concluded  that  "  Novice's  Eeverses" 
have  quenched  his  enthusiasm,  as  he  has  been 
quiet  so  long.  That  is  far  from  being  the  case. 
Urgent  business  demanded  his  attention  so  close- 
ly for  the  past  few  months  that  no  time  pre- 
sented itselt,  save  the  "small  hours"  of  the  night; 
and,  after  a  day  of  toil,  those  seemed  hardly  the 
thing  for  a  general  talk,  such  as  you,  Mr.  Edi- 
tor, have  a  right  to  expect.  Our  "better-half," 
moreover,  decidedly  objects  to  such  pastime  on 
Sundays,  although  we  were  full  of  matter  to 
"gossip  about  bees  ;"  and  thus  it  has  all  accu- 
mulated until  the  present  time.     So  here  we  are. 

We  would  remark  to  our  readers  that,  after 
sending  our  last  article,  Ihe  editor  kindly  gave 
us  some  suggestions,  as  follows,  in  regard  to 
speedily  buildmg  up  an  apiary  again. 

April  24, 1869. 

Dear  Sir  :  I  am  sorry  to  hear  of  the  reverses :  but  have 
a  suggestion  to  offer,  which  may  possibly  be  of  some  ser- 
vice in  re-establishina;  your  apiary  speedily.  We  all 
know  that  a  prolific  queen  can  lay  many  more  eggs  than, 
from  want  of  room  and  other  causes,  she  actually  does 
lay.  Some  years  ago  a  German  bee-keeper,  named 
Vormwalt,  conceived  the  idea  that  by  means  of  artificial 
incubation,  this  reserved  power  of  a  queen  might  be  made 
available  for  a  rapid  multiplication  of  stock.  He  con- 
structed a  hot-bed  in  the  ordinary  manner,  and  sunk  into 
or  set  over  it  a  nucleus  hive  made  water-tight ;  and  sus- 
pended therein,  when  the  temperature  had  risen  to  brood- 
ing heiglit,  frsimes  containing  combs  with  sealed  brood, 
taken  indiscriminately  from  his  hives.  The  young  bees 
hatched  out  in  due  time,  and  were  taken  charge  of  by 
some  dozens  of  advilt  workers  which  had  been  transferred 
with  the  brood  combs,  there  being  some  honey  in  those 
combs  for  their  support.  Empty  worker  combs  were  in- 
serted in  the  parent  nives,  in  place  of  the  sealed  brood 
removed  ;  and  thus  the  queens  were  accommodated  with 
a  fresh  supply  of  empty  cells,  which  they  speedily  stocked 
with  eggs— encouraged  thereto  by  the  strength  of  their 
colonies  and  abundant  .stimulative  feeding.  These  were 
in  turn  transferred  to  the  hot-bed  nucleus,  when  the 
brood  was  sealed.  By  a  suitable  arrangement  the  young 
bees  when  hatched  were  passed  into  a  nucleus  hive  with  a 
a  sliding  bottom,  set  over  the  one  in  which  the 
hatching  was  carried  on  ;  and  thence  used  for  strength- 
ening or  building  up  colonies.  The  account  stated  that 
Mr.  V.  was  very  successful  in  hatching  brood  taken 
out  immediately  after  the  cells  were  sealed.  Ovipositing 
was  thus  kept  up  almost  without  intermission,  and  a 
multitude  of  working  bees,  relieved  from  duty,  could 
join  in  out-door  labors. 

I  do  not  pretend  to  give  you  the  exact  details,  but 
merely  an  outline  of  the  process,  which  your  own  ingenu- 
ity would  doubtless  enable  you  to  improve  upon,  if  you 
are  tempted  to  try  the  experiment.  As  you  have  plenty 
of  empty  combs,  and  honey  enough  for  stimulative  feed- 
ing, it  strikes  me  that  this  process  might  be  worth  try- 
ing ;  and  if  successful  it  would  be  quite  a  novelty  in  bee- 
raising  in  this  country. 

This  letter  was  received  about  the  1st  of  May, 
and  we  had  been  for  some  days  studying  on  the 
feasibility  of  making  our  few  remaining  queens 
supply  eggs  for  more  than  one  hive,  as  we  found 
two  of  our  surviving  thirteen  colonies  were 
queenless  in  April ;  and  we  soon  after  killed 
one  of  the  rest  by  accident,  as  will  be  mentioned 
hereafter.  Hence,  by  the  middle  of  May,  we 
really  had  only  ten  queens,  and  our  stocks  were 
so  weak  that  there  were  not  enough  bees,  we 
should  think,  to  make  more  than  four  decent 
swarms.     We  mention  this,  that   our  readers 


may  know  what  we  had  to  build  up  on,  especi- 
ally Mr.  Argo,  who  has  our  sincere  thanks  for 
his  kind  notice  of  our  mishap,  iuthe  July  num- 
ber. His  supposition  that  the  disease,  or  what- 
ever it  is  called,  was  the  result  of  our  imprudence 
in  not  taking  the  bees  in  early  enough,  is  cer- 
tainly a  mistake.  This  he  would  have  seen  by 
reading  our  article  more  carefully,  as  about  half 
a  dozen  stocks  were  carried  in  quite  early — ^just 
about  the  proper  time — but  they  suffered  alike 
with  the  rest,  and  the  neighbor  we  mentioned, 
lost  his  only  Italian  stock  in  precisely  the  same 
way,  with  the  hive  half  full  of  sealed  honey,  on 
its  summer  stand. 

We  think  we  shall  leave  our  bees  out  next 
winter  ;  but  already  begin  to  feel  a  dread  of  the 
result  in  any  case. 

To  go  back  to  our  subject.  We  immediately 
determined  to  try  the  artificial  hatching  ;  but  as 
the  weather  was  tolerably  warm  by  the  1st  of 
May,  we  thought  we  would  not  then  go  to  the 
expense  of  an  apparatus,  and  worked  in  this 
way.  We  removed  two  frames  each  of  sealed- 
brood  from  two  of  our  Langstroth  hives,  and 
placed  the  four  in  an  empty  hive,  having  first 
shaken  off  all  the  bees.  This  was  theu  placed 
close  to  our  Stewart  stove  in  the  kitchen,  in 
which  we  keep  fire  day  and  night — the  family 
having  little  dread  of  the  contents,  as  they  could 
hardly  believe  that  real  live  bees  would  be  the 
result. 

We  would  mention  here  that  we  have  several 
times  tried  the  experiment  mentioned  in  Mr. 
Langstroth's  book,  of  putting  an  Italian  queen 
into  a  hive  of  black  bees,  and  counting  the  age 
of  the  young  bees  before  they  gathered  honey 
and  pollen,  and  the  time  always  agreed  with 
that  statement. 

These  bees  were  hybrids,  and  on  the  third  day 
they  made  such  a  humming  that  we  took  them 
out  of  doors,  and  only  carried  them  in  at  night. 
On  the  fourth  day  we  opened  the  hive,  and  could 
hardly  beUeve  our  eyes,  so  great  was  the  num- 
ber of  gray,  downy  "  baby  bees,"  as  the  chil- 
dren called  them  ;  and  we  were  much  surprised 
to  find  queen-cells  started  by  the  little  chaps. 

On  the  fifth  day  they  were  flying  so  busily 
that  we  thought  they  were  being  robbed ; 
but  on  going  close  to  the  hive,  found  they  were 
all  right. 

Oa  the  sixth  day  we  gave  them  a  pure  queen 
from  another  hive  that  we  wished  should  start 
queen-cells  ;  and  on  the  seventh  day,  Mr.  Edi- 
tor, there  was  no  disputing  it,  they  were  work- 
ing briskly  on  the  fruit  blossoins,  bringing  in 
honey  and  pollen!  In  a  week  more,  any  one 
would  have  pronounced  that  hive  the  heaviest 
swarm  we  had,  judging  from  the  way  they 
worked. 

Why  did  they  commence  to  work  at  an  age  so 
much  younger  than  usual  ?  Was  it  because  there 
were  no  old  bees  among  them,  and  necessity 
obliged  them  to  work  ?  We  do  not  think  we 
carried  a  dozen  bees  at  farthest  on  the  frames, 
when  the  bees  were  shaken  off  and  brushed 
from  them. 

We  formerly  made  our  artificial  swarms  by 
raising  queens  in  a  nucleus  ;  and  then,  as  soon 
as  the  queen  began  to  lay,  caging  her  in  an 
empty  hive  set  in  the  place  of  some  old  stock. 


THE  AMEBIC  AN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


with  a  frame  or  two  of  brood,  the  returning  bees 
making  the  swarm.  This  plan  does  very  well, 
but  we  were  obliged  to  keep  the  queen  caged  at 
least  two  days  when  she  was  most  needed. 

We  have  this  season  made  twenty-five  artifi- 
cial swarms,  and  all  from  our  ten  weak  stocks, 
on  a  plan  which  we  think  easier  and  less  trouble 
than  any  we  have  ever  seen.  It  is  simply  this  : 
Two  frames  of  brood  and  honey  are  removed 
from  the  parent  hive,  and  placed  in  a  new  hive 
located  anywhere  you  wish.  In  about  twenty 
days  they  will  have  a  laying  queen,  and  the  ad- 
dition of  two  more  frames  of  sealed-brood,  if 
early  enough  in  tlie  season,  say  when  natural 
swarming  commences,  is  amply  sufiicient,  so 
far  as  our  experience  goes.  A  friend  Avho  keeps 
black  bees  thinks  they  would  require  more  to 
make  a  sure  thing  of  it— which  is  probably  true. 
In  this  case  there  is  no  hunting  of  queens  and 
no  caging.  In  fact,  they  need  not  be  seen  at 
all,  unless  it  is  desired  to  clip  one  wing  of  the 
young  one,  which  we  always  do.  With  the  four 
frames  taken  at  different  times  from  the  old 
stock,  which  they  will  replace  so  quickly  as  to 
be  hardly  missed,  there  is  hardly  a  chance  of 
failure. 

To  go  back  a  little.  Our  wintering  disaster 
deprived  us  of  all  our  purely  fertiUzed  queens, 
except  one  ;  which  we  explain  by  supposing 
that  the  hybrids  are  hardier  than  the  pure  Ital- 
ians, which  we  have  many  times  had  reason  to 
think  is  the  case.  This  queen  was  introduced 
without  any  trouble  among  the  "  baby  bees,"  as 
before  mentioned.  About  the  last  of  May  we 
transferred  her  to  a  nucleus  that  had  failed  in 
rearing  a  queen,  and  introduced  her  by  means 
of  diluted  honey  scented  with  peppermint,  as 
per  directions  in  a  former  number  of  the  Bee 
Journal.  She  was  received  as  if  she  had  alwajs 
belonged  there  ;  but,  to  be  sure  of  her  safety,  we 
looked  again,  fifteen  minutes  after  releasing  her, 
and  she  was  moving  about  among  the  bees  as 
quietly  as  we  could  desire.  Imagine  our  morti- 
fication and  sorrow  on  finding  her  in  the  even- 
ing on  the  bottom  board,  surrounded  by  a  small 
ball  of  hissing  bees,  and  just  expiring.  We 
could  not  forbear  setting  our  foot  on  the  clump 
of  mischievous  imps,  after  extricating  the  queen. 
She  died  soon  after.  This  is  the  first  case  we 
have  had,  where  a  queen  had  once  been  received 
and  was  afterwards  turned  upon. 

This  accident  forced  us  to  divide  our  weak 
stocks  severely  in  forming  nuclei,  to  take  advan- 
tage of  our  only  chance  for  pure  young  queens. 
We  managed  to  get  twenty-two  fine  yellow  ones 
from  the  brood  in  the  hive. 

We  were  very  much  surprised  in  opening  the 
hive  containing  the  "baby  bees"  ten  days  after- 
wards, to  find  the  combs  from  which  we  had 
cut  brood,  filled  with  new  loorker  comb  ;  and, 
stranger  still,  with- eggs  and  brood  in  all  stages, 
and  finally  a  young  queen  that  had  evidently 
been  laying  all  the  time  since  our  lamented  pure 
queen  had  been  removed  !  As  she  is  very  dark, 
and  her  bees  nearly  black,  we  must  suppose  that 
she  was  raised  from  the  hybrid  brood,  re- 
moved and  placed  in  the  hive  thirty  or  forty 
days  before.  In  that  case  she  remained  some 
two  or  three  weeks  in  the  hive,  at  the  same  time 
with  the  pure   queen.     We  can  hardly  accept 


this  explanation,  and  would  be  much  obliged  to 
some  one  for  a  better. 

Our  thanks  are  due  to  R.  M.  Argo,  for  his 
kind  offer  on  page  15.  We  cheerfully  accept  his 
challenge,  with  the  best  will  in  the  world  ;  only 
it  must  be  remembered  that  we  had  only  eleven 
stocks  to  commence  with.  Ten  in  realitj'^,  though 
we  will  call  it  eleven,  as  we  were  at  fault  in 
losing  the  queen.  Also,  we  had  only  frames  of 
comb  enough  to  furnish  thirty  hives  in  all — the 
bees  having  had  to  build  the  rest.  As  winter- 
ing is  so  uncertain,  would  it  not  be  best  to  sub- 
mit an  account  of  our  stock  to  the  Editor  about 
next  April,  and  let  him  decide  who  made  tlie 
best  year's  work  ;  and  he  who  is  found  to  have 
made  most  progress,  shall  receive  an  Italian 
queen  from  the  other. 

Mr.  Editor,  we  are  sorry  to  say  that  some  of 
the  subscribers  to  the  Bee  Journal  do  not  profit 
by  it  as  much  as  they  should  do.  Only  a  few 
days  ago,  a  bee-keeper  came  seven  or  eight 
miles  to  see  how  we  swarmed  bees  artificially. 
When  asked  if  he  had  not  found  the  articles  in 
the  Bee  Journal  plain  enough,  he  said  he  had 
not  had  time  to  read  the  last  two  numbers. 

Others  who  were  at  first  quite  enthusiastic, 
say  they  cannot  get  time  to  bother  about  bees  ; 
althoug'h  a  "patent  hive,"  with  some  one  to 
"  talk  "it,"  will  command  their  attention  at  once. 

Is  there  any  other  business  that  wiW  pay  with- 
out some  bother  ?  Or  any  that  can  be  made 
profitable  without  some  care,  attention,  inquiry, 
or  study  ?  If  there  is,  please  give  us  some  ac- 
count of  it. 

A  friend  now  here  wintered,  we  think,  some 
forty  or  fifty  stocks  last  winter,  without  losing 
any,  in  a  house  constructed  for  the  purpose.  He 
carried  them  out  during  the  warm  weather  to 
let  them  fly,  and  then  put  them  back  again. 
Has  not  a  properly  constructed  house  many 
advantages  over  a  cellar  ?  One  very  important 
one  to  us  would  be  that  it  could  be  made  much 
easier  of  access. 

With  best  wishes  to  the  Bee  Journal  and  all 
its  readers,  we  remain.  Novice. 


[For  the  Araericau  Bee  Journal.] 

Queen  Cell  Queerly  Placed. 


Mr.  Editor  :  We  do  not  wish  to  weary  your 
patience  with  a  long  letter  about  something  per- 
haps not  at  all  interesting  to  you,  but  would 
like  to  relate  an  incident  that  came  under  our 
observation  on  the  11th  of  June,  as  we  think  it 
goes  to  prove  that  queen-cells  are  not  always 
made  on  the  identical  comb  that  the  egg  was 
laid  in.  While  examining  an  old  stock  tbat  had 
just  cast  off"  its  first  swarm,  we  discovered  a  very 
large  and  perfectly  developed  queen-cell,  capped 
over,  attached  to  the  bottom  piece  of  one  of  the 
outside  frames  which  was  not  two-thirds  full  of 
comb  ;  and  there  was  no  comb  within  three 
inches  of  the  cell.  Did  the  queen  lay  the  egg  in 
the  bottom  piece  of  the  frame  ?  Or  did  the  bees 
carry  it  there  ? 

Fairbrother  &  Cram. 

Maquoketa,  Iowa,  July  17,  1869. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


39 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


WASHINGTON,  AUGUST,    1869. 


It^"  Though  this  number  of  the  Bee  Jouknal 
contains  four  additional  pages,  we  have  still  on 
hand  a  number  of  communications  which  reached 
us  too  late  for  insertion  this  month. 


^IW  The  success  of  ' '  Novice  "  in  the  artificial 
incubation  of  bees,  should  lead  to  further  experi- 
ments. With  a  suitable  apparatus  and  such 
modifications  and  improvements  of  the  process 
as  will  readily  suggest  themselves,  we  think  a 
complete  revolution  in  artificial  multiplication 
of  stocks  may  be  effected. 


In  the  further  prosecution  of  his  investigation 
of  the  nature  and  cause  of  foulbrood,  Mr.  Lam. 
brecht  has  ascertained  that  though  its  chief  source 
is  found  in  fermenting  or  fermented  pollen  and 
honey,  there  are  at  least  seven  secondary  cause^ 
to  which  it  can  be  traced.  Yet  he  feels  confi- 
dent that  he  has  it  now  so  completely  under 
control  as  to  be  able  to  produce,  check  and  cure 
the  disease  at  will.  His  ability  to  do  this  was 
recently  tested  by  a  committee  appointed  by  the 
Salzgitter  Apiarian  Society  in  Brunswick,  Prus- 
sia. They  certify  that  in  a  healthy  colony  se- 
lected by  themselves,  Mr.  L.  speedily  produced 
the  disease  by  feeding  the  bees  with  fermenting 
pollen  and  honey,  so  that  when  examined  by 
them  the  brood  cells  contained  a  tough, brownisii- 
grey,  fetid  matter.  Even  the  larvse  in  new  drone 
comb  were  destroyed  thereby— which  circum- 
stance the  committee  regard  as  decisive  evidence 
of  the  existence  of  the  malady  in  its  most  malig- 
nant form.  We  have  not  yet  seen  their  final 
report,  but  understand  that  it  is  conclusive  as  to 
the  efficiency  of  the  modeof  treatment  employed 
by  Mr.  L., — which  varies  according  to  the  par- 
ticular type  or  stage  of  the  disease.  We  pre- 
sume we  shall  have  the  report  at  an  early  day ; 
probably  in  time  for  the  next  number  of  the 
Bee  Journal. 

Mr.  L.  designs  now,  if  sufficient  encourage- 
ment be  offered,  to  communicate  to  bee-keepers 
his  method  of  efi'ectually  curing  a  foulbroody 
colony  in  two  days  at  most,  to  prevent  the  intro. 
duction  or  spread  of  the  disease  in  an  apiary, 
and  to  render  fermented  or  infected  honey  in- 
nocuous when  used  as  bee-feed.  To  this  end 
he  proposes  to  issue,  at  as  early  a  period  as  prac- 


ticable, a  pamphlet  giving  his  processes  and  the 
curative  means  employed,  provided  500  subscri- 
bers at  four  dollars  per  copy,  or  1,000  at  two 
dollars,  can  be  obtained  in  the  United  States. 
These  prices  are  fixed  with  a  view  of  securing  to 
him  compensation  for  his  labor,  and  some  remu- 
neration for  the  benefit  conferred  on  bee-culture 
by  his  invention.  If  efficient,  a  knowledge  of 
the  process  would,  even  at  the  higher  price  of 
the  pamphlet,  be  cheap  to  any  one  in  whose  api- 
ary the  disease  exists,  or  where  the  introduction 
of  it  may  be  feared,  for  hitherto  it  has  proved  to 
be  an  unmanageable  and  disastrous  malady 
when  it  has  obtained  foothold.  We  will  receive 
the  names  of  subscribers  conditionally,  to  be 
forwarded  only  in  case  the  whole  number  re- 
quired is  made  up,  and  there  be  satisfactory 
evidence  that  the  process  will  in  all  cases  effect 
a  cure. 


It^"We  shall  hold  over  the  "  Hungarian's" 
story  till  next  month,  hoping  meantime  to  find 
a  further  account  of  the  wonderful  mode  of  win- 
teiing  spoken  of  by  him.  He  did  not  originate 
the  story,  nor  did  he  greatly  embellish  it.  It  has 
long  been  current  in  Germany,  and  is  certainlj-- 
almost  as  marvellous  a  narrative  as  that  of  the 
ancient  method  of  producing  bees  detailed  by 
Virgil. 


We  find  the  following  paragraph  now  going 
the  rounds  in  the  daily  papers  : 

m^""  A  victimized  farmer  has  found  that  kero- 
sene oil  gives  instant  relief  if  applied  to  bee- 
stings." 

It  happens  that,  whatever  else  the  "victim- 
ized farmer  "  may  have  found,  he  did  not  find 
that  fact.  The  discovery  was  made  by  a  corre- 
spondent of  the  Bee  Journal — the  Rev.  P.  R. 
Russell,  of  Bolton,  Mass.,  and  by  him  communi- 
cated for  our  June  number.  We  have  known  it 
to  be  successfully  tried  in  several  instances  re- 
cently. 


111^°  Where  pasturage  is  abundant  in  the  fall, 
but  scaice  in  July  and  August,  feed  your  bees 
in  those  months  suflaciently  to  keep  up  brood- 
ing. Bees  reared  in  August  and  September  may 
indeed  come  too  late  to  aid  in  out-door  labor 
before  the  season  ends  :  but  their  presence  in  the 
hive  will  release  a  corresponding  number  of 
older  bees  from  home  duties,  and  allow  them  to 
engage  in  foraging  abroad  while  the  weather 
permits. 


40 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


Last  fall  bees  were  observed  gathering  honey 
plentifully  from  the  blossoms  of  the  European 
Ivy  {Seder a  helix)  on  the  old  city  walls  of 
Griiningen  in  Germany,  which  are  literally 
covered  with  that  climber.  Colonies  nearly 
destitute  of  stores,  procured  a  full  winter's  sup- 
ply from  that  source,  late  in  September,  when 
no  other  plants  were  in  bloom  there.  Have  bees 
been  known  to  frequent  the  blossoms  of  this 
plant  in  this  country  ? 


Correspondence  of  the  Bee  Journal. 


WiNTERSET,  Iowa,  June  28. — But  few  bees 
have  swarmed  here  yet,  except  Italians.  These 
have  kept  swarming  almost  every  pleasant  day 
since  the  26th  of  May.  My  Italians  are  begin- 
ning to  wake  up  some  of  those  keeping  bees 
here.  Several  told  me,  a  few  days  ago,  that 
their  (common  brown)  bees  never  swarm  before 
July.  A  large  swarm  of  Italians  came  out  with- 
in fifteen  minutes  after  those  visitois  called. 
We  had  alreadj^  sixteen  or  eighteeu  swarms  at 
that  time,  though  here  June  is  generally  a  poor 
month  for  bees,  there  being  almost  no  white 
clover  around  here  yet. — M.  B. 

Jefferson,  Wis.,  June  28. — The  spring  has 
been  exceedingly  unfavorable  for  bees  here,  and 
the  summer  opens  rather  uupromisingly.  I 
wintered  my  bees  very  successfully,  having  lost 
only  two  colonies  out  ot  one  hundred  placed  in 
a  cellar  last  fall,  where  they  had  to  remain  till 
near  Easter,  before  the  weather  allowed  me  to 
remove  them  to  their  summer  stands.  Possibly 
as  the  summer  comes  on  pasturage  may  improve; 
but  until  now  I  have  had  to  feed  my  bees  liber- 
ally.—W.  W. 

WiNTERSPORT,  Me.,  June  22. — Notwithstand- 
ing the  frequent  letters  and  communications  you 
receive,  I  am  constrained  to  think  that  you  do 
not  fully  appreciate  the  immense  benefit  your 
publication  confers  on  beekeepers.  No  person 
who  possesses  a  decent  share  of  brains,  can  be  a 
constant  reader  of  the  Journal  and  not  be  pro- 
gressive and  reasonable.  It  is  hoped  that  you 
may  be  able  to  publish  it  semi-monthly  at  an 
early  day.— G.  S.  S. 

Albany,  III. — Please  send  me  the  Bee  Jour- 
nal another  year.  I  could  not  well  do  without 
it.  My  bees  are  doing  very  well  this  season. 
They  commenced  swarming  on  the  4th  of  June. 
They  are  hybrid  Italians,  and  were  kept  in  the 
cellar  till  the  middle  of  March,  without  top  ven- 
tilation.    They  came  out  all  right. — A.  B. 

Sheboygan  Falls,  Wis.,  July  21.-- -Please 
find  enclosed  two  dollars,  for  which  send  me 
the  Bee  Journal.  To-day  I  have  accidentally 
met  with  late  numbers,  and  find  them  full  of 
meat — ^just  the  thing  to  be  of  value  to  the  prac- 
tical bee-keeper. — C.  C.  M. 

Shiloh,  Ohio,  July  17.— Cannot  get  along 
without  the  Bee-Journal :  wish  it  came  oftener. 
— W.  H.  O. 


ViRDEN,  Ills. — I  have  three  very  fine  gold- 
colored  queens,  twenty -three  days  old.  Two  of 
them  have  been  laying  for  neatly  two  weeks  ; 
the  other  has  not  laid  at  all,  though  she  is  the 
largest  of  the  three,  and  looks  as  though  she  were 
full  of  eggs.  What  can  be  the  reason  ?  f  do  not 
like  to  destroy  her,  as  she  is  so  fine.  I  have  an 
old  Italian  queen,  very  fine,  which  I  put  into  a 
stock  of  very  poor  hybrids  on  the  first  of  May. 
I  took  out  a  card  of  comb  last  Saturday,  to  give 
to  a  nucleus  to  raise  queens .  There  were  three  or 
four  eggs  in  some  ot  the  cells.  I  saw  the  queen 
at  the  time  ;  she  seemed  all  right,  and  was  lay- 
ing. Could  there  be  a  fertile  worker  and  a 
fertile  queen  in  the  hive  at  the  same  time  ? — J, 
L.  P. 

Chippewa,  Canada.— Please  send  me  the 
Bee  Journal  another  year.  I  trust  your  circula- 
tion does  and  will  increase.  I  consider  the  pub- 
lication a  valuable  work. — F.  G.  N. 

Chillicothe,  Mo.,  .June  28. — The  season  last 
year  here  was  very  dry,  the  winter  open  and 
warm,  the  spring  late  and  cold,  the  summer  thus 
far  is  very  wet,  and  bees  are  doing  poorly. — J. 
W.  G. 

Lewisburg,  West  Va.,  July  2. — Bees  are 
doing  remarkably  well  here  this  season.  They 
have  not  given  many  swarms,  but  are  storing  a 
great  quantity  of  honey.  There  is  an  immense 
crop  of  white  clover,  and  there  has  been  an  un- 
usual bloom  from  the  beginning.  I  hope  this 
season  will  close  quite  encouragingly  to  the  bee- 
culturists,  as  al8f>  to  the  Bee  Journal. — T.  L.  S. 

Hancock,  N.  H.,  June  28. — Bees  are  doing 
very  well  here.  White  clover  is  just  in  blossom, 
and  the  Italians  are  gathering  honey  fast. — H. 
W.  W. 

Danvers,  Mass.,  June  30. — I  will  try  bee- 
keeping one  year  more,  hoping  to  have  more 
success  than  we  have  had  for  these  four  or  five 
years  past.  This  spring  my  bees  commenced 
with  good  prospects.  Never  better.  Stocks 
strong,  honey  enough  to  breed  well,  splendid 
weather  ;  but  lo  and  behold!  my  bees  began  to 
swarm.  Formerly,  when  I  began  to  keep  bees, 
I  watched  eagerly  for  swarms;  but  now  they 
come  when  I  do  not  think  of  them,  one  or  two 
a  day,  and  sometimes  two  together.  We  had 
two  large  swarms  of  Italians  come  out  together 
and  unite,  and  we  did  not  attempt  to  separate 
them.  I  commenced  with  twelve  stocks,  and 
formed  one  strong  nucleus,  besides  which  I  had 
fifteen  swarms,  at  least  we  hived  that  number  ; 
but  whether  they  all  came  from  our  hives  I  do 
not  know — though  I  know  that  most  of  them 
did.  And  now,  sir,  where  shall  we  get  our  sur- 
plus honey  ?  We  have  had  poor  honey  weather 
for  a  fortnight ;  and  we  cannot  expect  the  season 
to  last  more  than  a  fortnight  longer.  My  bees 
are  still  pretty  strong  now,  notwithstanding  the 
swarms.  If  we  do  not  get  surplus  honey  this 
year,  I  shall  think  bee-keeping  a  poor  business 
as  far  as  money  is  concerned.  I  enclose  two 
dollars  meantime,  hoping  the  season  and  the 
Bee  Journal  will  bring  forth  good  things. — E. 
E.  P. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


41 


Osage,  Iowa,  June  29. — This  season  is  hard 
on  the  black-bees,  and  also  on  the  one  and  two- 
striped  Italian  ;  but  the  pure  three-striped  fel- 
lows are  gathering  pollen,  rearing  brood,  send- 
ing forth  swarms,  &c.,  while  the  one  and  two- 
striped  and  the  blacks  have  to  be  fed  to  keep 
them  from  actually  starving  to  death.  I  have 
before  this  heard  that  the  two-striped  were  just 
as  good  for  breeding  and  working  purposes  as 
the  pure  ones  ;  but  this  season,  thus  far,  demon- 
strates the  superiority  of  the  pure  Italians  over 
all  others.  Crops,  with  the  exception  of  corn, 
are  extraordinarily  good  thus  far.— E.  G. 

PoKTLAND,  Maine,  June  14. — Enclosed  I 
send  you  two  dollars  to  pay  for  the  fifth  volume 
of  the  Bee  Jow'nal.  I  cannot  afford  to  take  it 
at  a  less  price.  Eacli  number  is  worth  to  me  the 
price  of  the  whole  volume ;  and  I  take  extra 
pains  to  advise  all  my  bee-keeping  friends  to 
subscribe  for  it.  I  am  under  great  obligations 
to  several  contributors,  especially  to  friend  Gal- 
lup for  his  bold  way  of  instructing  us  in  the 
mysteries  of  bee-keeping.  If  any  of  your  con- 
tributors have  occasion  to  visit  this  city,  I  hope 
they  will  call  on  me. 

The  season  here  is  cold  and  backward.  No 
swarms  have  come  out  yet  to  my  knowledge. 
My  colonies  are  strong,  and  I  think  will  swarm, 
if  the  weather  gives  them  an  opportunity,  though 
one  or  two  have  exhausted  their  patience  and 
cast  out  tlieir  drones.  Notwithstanding  the 
season  lias  been  bacliward,  I  have  found  my  bees 
to  breed  rapidly  by  the  use  of  Mr.  J.  L.  Hub- 
bard's little  tin-cone  bee-feeder — the  simplest^ 
best,  and  handiest  that  I  have  ever  seen  ;  and 
thanks  to  Mr.  Hubbard,  no  patent. 

I  have  supplied  friends  in  this  vicinity  with 
twenty  hives  of  pure  Italian  bees  this  spring, 
and  if  I  do  not  miss  my  calculations,  I  intend  to 
be  the  means  of  inducing  one  thousand  persons 
in  tliis  State  to  keep  bees. 

Only  think  of  the  immense  amount  of  honey 
that  goes  to  waste  in  the  United  States — enougli 
in  five  years  to  pay  the  whole  national  debt, 
principal  and  interest.  Of  course  it  cannot  all 
be  gathered  ;  but  any  additional  accumulation 
of  it  adds  so  much  to  the  real  wealth  of  the 
countrj'.  I  think,  with  a  little  exertion,  the 
increase  in  this  State  may  be  fivefold  in  a  very 
few  years. — M.  G.  Palmer. 

Cincinnati,  Ohio,  June  19. — I  thouglit  I 
might  this  year  liave  a  chance  to  test  tlie  superi- 
ority of  the  Italian-bees  over  the  black-bees,  if 
tliey  possess  auj'-  in  regard  to  producing  more 
honey.  So,  in  the  spring,  I  set  a  hive  of  Ital- 
ians and  one  of  black-bees  side  by  side,  both 
having  young  queens  of  last  year,  and  being  of 
tlie  same  strength — the  Italian  liive  having  a 
little  advantage.  I  examined  them  both  yester- 
day. Their  breeding  apartment  is  alike  full  of 
bees,  brood  and  honey  ;  but  the  black-bees  have 
filled  tlieir  supers  (eighteen  small  frames  hold- 
ing about  I5  pounds  each)  almost  full,  while  the 
Italians  have  yet  hardly  commenced  working  in 
theirs.  What  may  be  ilie  cause  of  it  ?  I  must 
add  that  both  stoclvs  were  v/eak  in  the  spring 
from  the  effects  of  last  year's  disease  ;  but  they 
are  now  strong  and  preparing  to  swarm.  I  have 
the  Langstroth-hive,  with  ten  frames  in. 


I  keep  my  bees  on  the  roof  of  my  house  in 
town,  and  have  very  good  luck  with  them.  I 
took  yesterday  from  a  young  swarm,  made  on 
the  22d  of  May,  fifteen  frames  of  honey,  each 
weighing  1|  pounds.  I  took  on  tlie  22d  of  May, 
fourteen  small  frames,  each  weighing  one  pound, 
or  a  little  over.  They  had  made  this  honey,  I 
believe  from  the  blossoms  of  locust-trees  in  my 
neighborhood.  The  honey  was  very  nice  and 
white.     These  are  black-bees. — C.  F.  M. 

LANsiNGAaLLE,  N.  Y.,  July  5.— Bees  are  not 
doing  much  here  this  season.  No  swarms  yet, 
and  the  probability  is  that  there  will  not  be 
many  in  this  vicinity. — D.  W.  F. 

Fulton,  III.,  July  6. — Bees  are  swarming 
too  much  here,  for  those  bee-owners  who  do  not 
attend  to  them.— R.  R.  M. 

Gnadenhtjtten,  Ohio,  July  5. — Bees  in  our 
neighborhood  have  not  gathered  much  surplus 
honey  up  to  this  time,  though  we  have  had 
regular  rains  and  an  abundance  of  white  clover, 
which  is  the  main  source  of  honey  with  us.  The 
reason  for  this,  I  think,  is  that  the  bees  having 
found  so  little  honey  the  latter  part  of  last  sea- 
son, exhausted  their  stock  entirely  last  winter. 
Consequently  it  took  them  a  long  time  to  fill  up 
their  hives  before  they  could  work  in  the  sur- 
plus honey  boxes.  Besides,  the  bees  not  having 
swarmed  last  season,  many  of  the  queens  have 
become  old  and  exhausted.  This  keeps  the 
colonies  in  a  weak  condition,  and  hence  swarms 
are  not  plenty  this  summer,  especially  from 
black-bees. 

The  past  winter  was  comparatively  mild,  and 
bees  wintered  well  on  their  summer  stands, 
when  protected  from  winds  and  rain.  We  know 
nothing  here  of  the  "  bee  disease,"  except  what 
is  brought  about  by  bad  management,  which 
can  only  be  cured  by  bee-keepers  informing 
themselves  by  reading  the  Bee  Journal  and  other 
good  works  on  bees. — S.  L. 

Hopkinsville,  Kt.,  July  9. — I  could  not 
well  do  without  your  valuable  Journal.  The 
last  three  numbers  have  amply  repaid  me  for 
my  subscription.  I  hope  to  be  able  to  send  you 
some  subscribers  in  a  short  time.  Bee-culture 
is  gaining  ground  in  this  region.  This  has  been 
a  fair  honey  season. — G.  B.  L. 

Lowell,  Kt.,  July  6. — My  bees  went  up  from 
thirteen  stands  to  fifty-one  this  season,  all  but 
two  natural  swarms.  Hundreds  of  pounds  of 
cap-honey  besides. — R.  M.  A. 

Tyrone,  Canada,  July  6. — The  weather  this 
season  has  been  wet,  cold,  and  windy,  in  this 
section  of  Canada,  and  consequently  unfavor- 
able for  bee-keeping. — J.  M.  L. 

Lewiston,  Me.,  July  13.— There  are  but  few 
new  swarms  here  this  spring.  I  wintered  five 
stocks  the  past  winter.  All  came  out  in  fine 
condition  ;  but  1  have  had  only  one  swarm  from 
them,  which  issued  on  the  21st  of  June.  June 
was  a  very  poor  month  for  bees  in  this  vicinity; 
it  was  too  wet.  July  has  been  quite  good  so 
far,  and  the  bees  are  gathering  honey  in  abund- 
ance. White  clover  is  very  plenty  here  this 
season.  There  are  very  few  bees  kept  in  this 
locality.     I  do  not   think  there  are  more   than 


42 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


twenty -five  or  thirty  swarms  in  the  town.  I 
think  I  am  the  only  bee-keeper  in  town  who 
takes  the  Bee  Journal.  I  could  not  think  of 
doing  without  it.     Long  may  it  prosper. — Hok- 

ACE  LiBBT. 

Monmouth,  III.,  July  10. — Bees  here  are 
doing  better  this  year  than  at  any  time  since  I 
came  West.  On  June  27th,  I  had  a  bushel 
swarm  come  off,  and  next  day  I  took  seventy 
pounds  of  honey,  made  in  nine  frames  in  supers. 
Both  tlie  old  stock  and  the  new  are  working 
finely  in  the  boxes.  Most  of  the  bees  in  this 
section  are  swarming  too  much  ;  some  casting 
as  many  as  four  or  five  swarms.  The  old  box- 
hive  is  used  almost  exclusively. 

I  have  on  four  different  occasions  introduced 
queens  by  scenting  the  hive  and  queen  with 
nutmeg-syrup.  Within  the  past  week  I  have 
succeeded  in  introducing  unfertile  queens  to 
colonies;  which  most  writers  say  is  almost  an 
impossibility.  I  do  not  think  it  would  do  to 
introduce  queens  when  bees  are  not  gathering 
honey  freely,  without  cagmg  for  forty-eight 
hours  ;  at  least  there  would  be  great  risk.  Rob- 
ber-bees would  also  be  more  apt  to  pitch  in,  from 
scenting  the  uulmeg-syrup. 

I  have  tried  putting  gum-camphor  into  a  hive 
being  robbed,  and  find  it  effectual  in  stopping 
the  robbers. 

I  am  confident  that  bee-keepers  who  have  Ital- 
ian queens  impregnated  by  common  drones, 
cannot  keep  their  stock  pure.  Should  a  queen 
mate  with  a  drone  from  a  hybrid  queen,  her 
progeny  will  not  all  show  the  tJireehands,  as 
they  should  do  if  pure.  I  have  a  queen  of  this 
kind  now,  which  I  raised  last  summer.  About 
one  bee  in  a  hundred  of  her  brood  has  lost  one 
band.  There  were  no  common  drones  for  her 
to  mate  with  ;  but  I  had  hybrid  ones  in  two 
hives.  I  put  in  pure  queens  this  spring,  to  pre- 
vent there  being  any  hybrid  drones  raised. 

Were  the  hybrid  bees  not  so  terribly  cross,  I 
do  not  see  but  that  they  are  just  as  good,  if  not 
better,  than  the  pure  Italians.  If  anything  they 
are  more  industrious,  and  the  queens  very  pro 
lific.  But  if  they  are  ail  as  cross  as  mine  were, 
1  would  not  accept  them  as  a  gift,  and  be  obliged 
to  handle  them.  Tobacco  smoke  will  hardly 
have  any  effect  on  them  ;  but  the  Simon  Pure 
are  a  source  of  great  pleasure  to  a  lover  of  bees. 

It  seems  strange  to  me  that  bees  have  gathered 
as  much  honey  as  they  did  ;  for  during  the  past 
month  we  have  had  almost  constant  rain,  so 
that  bees  could  not  work  one-fourth  of  the  time. 
But  the  rains  have  kept  the  white  clover  in 
bloom  ;  and  it  now  looks  as  if  it  would  continue 
for  ten  days  longer.  Basswood  is  jnst  coming 
into  bloom,  so  that  bees  near  the  timber  will 
have  a  fine  chance.  Mine  are  in  town,  and 
timber  is  not  very  near  to  me,  though  still  some 
within  a  mile,  and  my  bees  will  have  some  little 
chance.  Honey  will  no  doubt  be  quite  cheap 
this  year.— T.  G.  McG. 

Osage,  Iowa,  July  5. — My  private  corre- 
spondence on  the  bee  question  is  very  large. 
Bees  are  doing  rather  indifferently  well  through- 
out the  entire  north  ;  and  as  far  south  as  Mem- 
phis, Tennessee,  they  are  doing  extraordinarily 
well.— E.  G. 


Maquoketa,  Iowa,  July  17. — Enclosed  please 
find  two  dollars,  for  which  send  to  our  address 
the  fifth  volume  ot  the  American  Bee  Journal. 
We  would  not  do  without  it  for  the  price  of  four 
stocks  of  pure  Italians  every  year.  We  have 
had  the  pleasure  of  perusing  its  pages  once  a 
month  for  the  past  three  years,  and  aside  from 
the  pleasure  the  reading  afforded,  it  has  been  at 
least  three  hundred  dollars'  benefit  in  the  way 
of  cash  obtained  by  a  knowledge  of  some  im- 
portant facts,  that  we  would  have  learned  from 
no  other  source  than  the  Journal. 

Bees  are  doing  exceedingly  well  here  this  sea- 
son. Ours  commenced  swarming  on  the  23d  of 
May,  and  notwithstanding  the  bad  weather  we 
had  in  June,  they  have  been  issuing  out  nearly 
every  day  since,  and  are  still  boiling  out  as  if 
they  were  bent  on  filling  every  empty  hive  we 
could  get.  They  stored  some  honey  in  boxes 
during  the  period  that  crabapple-trees  were  in 
bloom,  which  is  something  unusual  for  this  sec- 
tion of  country. — F.  &  C. 

FoLTON,  III.,  July  15. — Bees  are  doing  very 
well  here  when  they  can  get  out  between  the 
showers,  as  it  is  raining  about  half  the  time. 
They  gather  honey  enough  to  keep  breeding 
rapidly;  and  with  most  bee-owners  they  are 
swarming  too  much.  They  are  not  storing  as 
much  surplus  honey  as  most  of  us  bee-keepers 
here  would  like  to  have  ;  but  if  we  have  good 
weather  the  rest  of  the  season,  they  are  in  a 
condition  to  improve  it.  The  Alsike  clover 
yields  more  honey  here  this  season  than  the 
white,  or  at  least  they  worked  better  on  it. 

I  would  like  to  inquire  of  some  of  the  old  bee- 
keepers how  to  get  the  bees  to  work  in  boxes, 
when  they  are  very  strong  in  numberiS,  and 
there  is  guide-comb  put  in  the  boxes. 

I  would  also  like  to  know  if  it  is  generally  so 
that  the  progeny  of  queens  imported  direct  from 
Italy  is  crosser  than  after  they  have  been  here 
several  years.  I  have  two  imported  queens,  and 
their  progeny  is  a  great  deal  crosser  than  that 
of  those  I  received  from  Mr.  Langstroth. — R. 
R.  M. 

Olneyville,  R.  I. — Enclosed  you  will  find 
two  dollars,  for  which  please  continue  to  send 
to  my  address  the  American  Bee  Journal,  for  I 
cannot  do  without  it.  It  is  a  welcome  visitor, 
and  no  one  that  has  more  than  one  colony  of 
bees  should  fail  to  get  it. — J,  K.  W. 

St.  Chakles,  III. — Best  season  for  bees  that 
we  have  seen  for  years. — M.  M.  B. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Isolated  Queen  Cell. 


In  removing  surplus  honey  from  a  Langstroth, 
full-glass  hive,  with  frames  in  the  upper  box,  I 
found  a  sealed  queen-cell,  and  no  other  brood  ! 
This  is  something  new  to  me.  The  bees  must 
have  taken  the  egg  from  the  brood-chamber  of 
the  hive. 

M.  McMath. 

Snickersville,  Va.,  July  19,  1869. 


^HE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


43 


[For  the  Americau  Bee  Jourual.] 

Honey  Gathering  and  Bee  Tricks. 


Mr.  Editok  : — My  bees  are  just  now  (June 
14th)  having  a  glorious  time  among  the  tulip 
trees  and  locusts,  which  are  very  prevalent  here 
and  have  bloomed  profusely  this  season.  For 
six  successive  days,  the  bees  have  labored  with 
a  determination  and  zeal  without  a  parallel  in 
the  insect  creation,  keeping  up  one  continuous 
stream  of  dozens  abreast  charming  and  gladden- 
ing the  soul  of  him  who  is  destined  to  reap  the 
fruit  of  their  labor.  Why,  Mr.  Editor,  the 
delights  which  the  period  of  swarming  and 
hiving,  and  the  accumulation  of  stores  of  honey 
afford  the  apiarian,  are  without  question  among 
the  richest  of  all  his  earthly  enjoyments. 

My  bees  are  noio  prepared  to  go  into  winter 
quarters,  with  stores  amply  sufficient  for  every 
emergency — the  product  of  one  short  week  ;  for 
they  enjoyed  only  about  one  half  of  the  fruit 
tree  blossoms,  the  honey  of  which  was  nearly 
all  expended  in  the  production  of  brood.  If  I 
remember  correctly,  Mr.  Langstroth  says  iu  his 
work,  that  the  tulip  tree  is  the  greatest  honey- 
producing  tree  in  the  world.  But,  Mr.  Editor, 
not  doubting  tlie  correctness  of  this  invaluable 
author,  I  must  say  that  it  must  be  very  good  if 
it  surpasses  the  locust. 

Not  to  be  too  tedious  on  this  subject  I  will 
mention  a  trick  which  one  of  my  colonies  tried 
to  play  upon  me,  and  which,  if  it  had  succeeded, 
would  have  been  quite  a  joke  truly.  The  day 
after  it  had  cast  the  first  afterswarm,  I  made  a 
draft  on  it  for  a  young  queen,  which  I  secured 
from  a  cell  that  was  about  mature.  This  queen 
was  designed  for  a  quenless  colony,  but  was  lost 
in  introducing.  The  fourth  day  after  the  first 
cast  I  made  another  draft  on  it  for  a  cell,  intend- 
ing to  introduce  the  cell  this  time,  for  better 
success.  I  was  just  about  to  insert  the  cell  in  its 
intended  iiive,  when,  accidentally  and  luckily 
too,  my  attention  was  called  to  the  appearance 
of  a  portion  of  a  scale  protruding  from  its  apex, 
resembling  part  of  the  capping  of  a  drone  or 
queen  cell.  -This  was  a  poser,  for  the  cell  other- 
wise, to  all  appearance,  had  not  parted  with  its 
inmate,  being  waxed  over  as  completely  as  any 
cell  I  ever  saw.  The  appearance  of  this  scale 
however  created  suspicion,  which  caused  me  to 
make  an  examination  to  satisfy  my  curiousity, 
when  lo,  to  my  surprise  and  chagrin  I  found  a 
dead  bee  inclosed.  Now,  Mr.  Editor,  was  the 
circumstance  of  this  bee  being  closed  up  iu  the 
cell  purely  accidental ;  or  did  the  bees,  foreseeing 
my  intention  to  demand  another  queen  cell,  and 
being  enraged  at  my  former  interference,  really 
think  to  play  a  joke  on  me,  by  defeating  my 
calculation  in  this  way  ? 

By  and  by,  I  will  favor  you  with  a  few  inter- 
resting  items  connected  with  the  swarmings  of 
this  hive,  which  to  me  at  least  are  very  strange, 
serving  to  confirm  some  principles  previously 
known  in  the  economy  of  swarming,  and  sug- 
gesting others  that  are  new. 

John  L.  McLean. 

Richmond,  Ohio,  June  14,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal] 

Does  it  pay  to  paint  Hives. 


It  is  readily  admitted  that  hives  look  better 
and  will  last  longer  if  painted  than  if  left  un- 
painted.  But  I  would  like  to  know  if  bees  will 
or  can  do  as  well  in  painted  as  in  unpainted 
hives.  By  painted  hives  I  would  wish  to  be 
understood  as  referring  only  to  those  so  painted 
as  to  be  nearly  or  quite  impervious  to  moisture. 

Now,  wherein  is  an  unpainttd  hive  superior 
to  a  painted  one  ?  Simply  in  this,  that,  if  prop- 
erly covered,  it  will  keep  the  bees  drier  at  all 
seasons  of  the  year,  (and  this  is  of  great  advan- 
tage in  cold  weather),  and  in  cold  weather  the 
bees  will  be  kept  much  warmer.  The  moisture 
evaporates  through  all  parts  of  the  hive,  keeping 
the  bees  dry,  quiet  and  warm,  avoiding  dysen- 
tery and  an  undue  consumption  of  honey. 

1  expect  to  have  corncobs,  saw  dust,  shavings, 
ashes,  and  other  absorbents  thrown  into  my 
face,  to  get  out  the  moisture  ;  but  still  I  cannot 
help  thinking  that  hives  would  keep  bees  better 
if  unpainted. 

Some  of  these  absorbents  may  be  useful,  in 
keeping  the  bees  warmer  by  thickening  the  walls 
of  the  hive.  But  is  not  the  paint  usetlil  only  so 
far  as  looks  and  durability  are  concerned  ;  and 
is  it  not  positively  injurious,  as  retarding  the 
evaporation  of  moisture  ?  This  is  the  result  of 
my  observation  and  experience,  and  I  believe 
the  damage  is  greater  by  far  than  the  cost  of  a  new 
hive  occasionally. 

I  keep  my  bees  on  benches  in  the  open  field, 
some  are  under  trees,  with  a  temporary  cover 
for  each  hive.  In  the  winter  I  keep  them  in  a 
part  of  the  house  cellar.  And  having  a  few  un- 
painted hives  all  the  time,  I  have  found  that 
bees  in  them  keep  iu  bitter  condition. 

I -would  like  to  know  the  experience  of  others. 
J.  L.  Hubbard. 

"Walpole,  N.  H. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Alsike  Clover  Seed. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  would  like  to  make  some  in- 
quiry through  the  Bek  Journal,  of  its  many 
readers,  in  regard  to  the  time  and  mode  of  sav- 
ing and  cleaning  Alsike  clover  seed. 

I  believe  it  has  been  pretty  thoroughly  dis- 
cussed and  is  generally  believed  to  be  a  good 
honey-yielding  jilant,  and  also  very  good  for 
hay — equal  to  red  clover,  if  not  better.  But  as 
to  the  mode  and  time  of  saving  the  seed,  I  do 
not  remember  that  anything  has  been  said.  I 
would  like  some  of  those  among  the  readers  of 
the  Journal  who  have  tried  it,  to  give  us  some 
information  on  these  points. 

I  have  been  trying  for  several  years  to  raise 
this  kind  of  clover,  but  always  failed  until  this 
season.  I  bought  seed  from  different  parties 
who  advertised  largely ;  but  when  I  got  it,  I 
found  it  was  all  mixed  with  a  great  variety  of 
seeds,  dust,  &c.  And  I  never  got  any  alsike  to 
grow,  without  having  numerous  noxious  weeds 
to  come  up  with  it.  At  last  I  saw  a  notice  in 
the  Bee  Journal  that  Mr.  H.  M.  Thomas,  of 


41 


THE    AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


Brooklin,  Canada,  had  pure  seed.  I  seat  a 
small  sum  to  him  to  pay  for  some,  and  in  a  short 
time  received  by  mail  li  pounds  of  what  I  sup- 
pose to  be  2)ure  alsike,  as  there  was  not  a  seed 
ef  any  kind,  except  the  alsike  in  the  package — 
not  even  a  particle  of  dust.  It  was  put  up,  too, 
i  n  a  good,  strong,  cotton  sack,  so  that  every  seed 
put  therein  came  to  me  ;  whereas  the  seed  put  up 
by  others  was  in  paper  bags,  some  of  whicli 
were  torn  and  nearly  half  the  seed  wasted  before 
it  reached  me. 

The  seed  I  got  of  Mr.  Thomas  is  growing 
very  well,  though  it  was  sown  late  (April  23). 
1  will  endeavor  to  get  more  seed  from  Mr. 
Thomas  next  spring,  and  sow  several  acres ; 
and  would  like  to  know  the  best  mode  of  gath- 
ering and  cleaning  the  seed  myself,  that  I  may 
not  be  at  the  trouble  and  expense  of  sending 
all  the  way  to  Canada  ;  and  I  presume  there  are 
many  others  in  the  same  condition.  Those 
having  the  knowledge  will  please  communicate 
it  through  the  Journal,  and  doubtless  oblige 
many  readers.  H.  Nesbit. 

Ctnthiana,  Kentucky. 

P.  S.  I  saw  some  Italian  bees  gathering  honey 
freely  from  red  clover  on  the  2oth  and  26th  of 
June  last.     Bees  are  doing  well  here. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Will  some  of  your  able  correspondents  through 
your  valuable  paper,  inform  me  how  I  can  get 
honey  from  my  l)ees. 

In  the  spring  of  1864, 1  had  only  three  swanns  ; 
I  have  now  ninety-three,  all  from  the  three.  I 
never  sold  a  queeu,  and  do  not  care  to  keep 
more  than  ten  stocks,  and  from  them  get  what 
honey  I  need  in  my  family. 

The  cost  of  hives  and  annoyance  of  swarming 
and  hiving,  without  honey,  is  too  much  for  .me, 
not  having  "  bee  on  the  brain." 

Have  you  a  legitimate  money-making  man 
among  all  of  your  subscribers  or  correspondents 
who  will  inform  me  how  I  can  get  honey,  and 
no  more  bees  ? 

My  bees  swarm  when  they  have  ample  room 
for  fifty  pounds  more  honey  in  the  boxes  over 
the  hives,  and  often  without  making  a  pound  of 
honey  in  the  boxes. 


F.  Daniels. 


Grafton,  Vt. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

I  would  suggest  for  the  consideration  of  cor- 
respondents, that  restricting  themselves  to  argu- 
mentation, comments,  and  statements  of  facts, 
would  give  more  permanent  value  and  real  inter- 
est to  their  contributions.  Readers  want  re- 
marks on  bees  and  hives  ;  discussions  of  debate- 
able  points  of  theory  or  practice,  correction  of 
misconceptions,  exposure  of  error  or  misstate- 
ment, &c.,  and  not  ridicule  of  other  correspond- 
ents. It  is  indeed  not  always  easy  to  deal  with 
such  matters  without  letting  some  pungency  in- 
termingle :  but  personalities  should  be  avoided. 
While  fresh,  they  are  amusing  to  some,  but  they 
do  not  read  well  after  the  volume  is  bouud  and 
put  away  in  some  good  company  for  the  use  of 
apiarian  posterity.  E.  A. 


[For  the  American 

A  Paper  Quilt. 


lournal.] 


iVIr.  Editor  :  While  perusing  Mr.  Lam- 
brecht's  able  article,  "  The  effect  of  water  on 
the  combs  and  life  of  the  bees,"  I  was  expecting 
in  every  line  some  mention  of  the  use  of  paper, 
instead  of  straw,  for  the  purpose  of  absorbing 
the  surplus  moisture  so  detrimental  to  the  pros- 
perity of  the  bees  in  winter.  For  the  benefit  of 
the  readers  of  the  Journal,  I  will  describe  what 
we  call  a  "Paper  Quilt,"  answering  several 
purposes :  First,  carrying  off  the  moisture. 
Second,  keeping  the  bees  warm.  Third,  allow- 
ing the  bees  to  pass  to  any  part  of  the  hive,  en 
masse,  in  the  coldest  weather  ;  in  which  condi- 
tion they  never  perish  for  want  of  honey  so  long 
as  there  is  any  in  the  hive  ;  and  last,  but  not 
least,  the  quiltoffersbetter  opportunity  for  feed- 
ing in  cold  weather  than  any  other  arrangement 
yet  known. 

To  make  the  quilt,  take  four  pieces  of  half- 
inch  board,  one  and  a  half  inches  wide,  and  of  a 
length  so  that  when  nailed  together  the  inside 
of  the  frame  will  be  as  large  as  the  inside  of  the 
hive  on  which  it  is  to  be  used.  This  done,  you 
have  a  frame  or  box  the  size  of  your  hive  and 
one  and  a  half  inch  deep.  Next,  paste  four 
sheets  of  brown  sugar  paper  over  the  top  edge 
of  the  frame,  allowing  on  every  side  one  or  more 
sheets  to  come  down  over  the  outside  to  the 
]ower  edge  of  the  frame,  to  keep  out  cold.  A 
slat  nailed  across  the  top,  to  handle  it  by,  and  the 
quilt  is  finished — cost,  five  cents. 

The  cap  or  chamber  of  the  hive  should  be  ven- 
tilated near  the  top.  Two  half-inch  holes  on 
opposite  sides  will  be  sufficient  to  keep  the  inte- 
rior of  the  cap  dry.  I  prefer  offering  ventilation 
for  the  bees  near  or  at  the  bottom  of  the  hive. 
Give  plenty  of  it.  Twenty  stocks  are  lost  for 
want  of  ventilation,  where  one  is  by  giving  too 
much.  j3Ut  do  not  allow  a  draught  of  air  through 
the  hive,  so  long  as  we  can  prevent  dampness 
collecting  so  much  cheaper  and  safer  by  the  use 
of  the  paper  quilt. 

Every  open-top  hive,  whether  of  straw,  paper, 
or  wood,  should  be  provided  with  such  a  quilt, 
whether  wintered  indoors  or  out.  We  do  not 
consider  a  hive  half  finished  without  one.  Food 
can  be  given  to  the  bees  by  laying  down  honey- 
in  the  comb  on  top  of  the  bars  ;  or  liquid  sweets, 
water  ;  or  flour  placed  in  empty  comb  will  be 
taken  down  when  needed,  in  cold  or  warm 
weather.  A  shallow  feeder  of  any  form  may  be 
used,  if  preferred  to  comb. 

C.  Hastings. 

DOWAGIAC,  MiCniGAN. 


Honey  Vinegar. 


Take  thirty  gallons  of  rain-water,  heat  it,  and 
put  it  into  a  barrel  ;  add  two  quarts  of  whiskey, 
three  pounds  of  honey,  five  cents  worth  of  citric 
acid,  and  a  little  mother  of  vinegar.  Fasten  up 
the  barrel,  and  put  it  in  the  cellar,  and  in  a  short 
time  it  will  contain  vinegar  unsurpassed  for 
I5urity  and  excellence  of  taste. — Kretchmaf s 
Guide  Book. 


American  Bee  Journal. 


EDITED  AND  PUBLISHED  BY  SAMUEL  WAGNER,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

AT   TWO   DOLLARS   PER   ANNUM,    PAYABLE    IN   ADVANCE. 


Vol.  v. 


SEPTEMBER,,    l^eo. 


No.  3. 


The    Origin  of  Honey. 


The  following  is  an  abstract  of  a  paper  on  the 
above  suliject,  read  before  the  Bristol  (England) 
Microscopical  Society,  by  W.  W.  Stoddard. 

Although  honey  is  a  familiar  body,  it  is  curi- 
ous to  note  how  little  mention  is  made  in  any 
chemical  or  botanical  work,  of  the  changes  that 
take  place  in  its  elimination,  of  its  origin,  or 
even  of  its  composition.  Most  chemical  author- 
ities simply  state  that  the  solid  crystaline  por- 
tion of  honey  is  grape-sugar,  but  say  nothing  of 
the  liquid.  Johnson,  in  his  ^'-  Chemistry  of 
Common  Life,''''  says  :"  Honey  is  formed  and 
deposited  naturally  in  the  nectaries  of  flowers, 
and  is  extracted  therefrom  by  the  bees.  When 
allowed  to  stand  for  some  time,  it  separates  into 
a  white,  solid  sugar,  consisting  of  white  crys- 
tals, and  a  thick  semi-fluid  syrup.  Both  the 
»oli(i  and  the  liquid  sujar  have  the  same  general 
properties.  The  solid  sugar  of  honey  is  identi- 
cal with  the  sugar  of  the  grape."  Such  is  the 
drift  of  the  whole  information  that  can  be  gath- 
ered respecting  the  composition  of  honey. 

On  dissecting  the  honey  bee,  we  find  tlie  pro- 
boscis continued  into  a  beautiful  ligula  or 
tongue.  It  is  a  flexible  organ,  covered  with 
circlets  of  very  minute  hairs.  The  ligula  of  the 
honey-bee  differs  from  that  of  the  other  divi- 
sions of  the  bee-family  (the  Andreuidse)  both 
in  shape  and  miscrosopic  appearance.  It  is 
probable  that  the  bee  uses  the  ligula  by  insert- 
ing it  in  the  nectar,  which  would  be  plentifully 
collected  by  means  of  the  hairs  before-mention- 
ed. These  hairs  very  likely  answer  a  somewhat 
similar  purpose  to  ihe  teeth  of  the  molluscar 
tongue.  At  the  base  of  the  proboscis  commences 
the  ffisophagus,  which  after  passing  through  the 
thorax,  terminates  in  an  expanded  sac,  termed 
the  houcy-bag.  This  is  an  elastic  glandular 
organ,  placed  before  the  entrance  of  the  true 
stomach.  Into  this  sac  the  saccharine  fluid  en- 
ters after  being  swallowed.  Should,  however, 
any  more  solid  substance  be  present,  it  is  for- 
warded into  the  true  stomach  for  trituration  by 
the  numerous  teeth  with  which  it  is  furnished. 
The  honey  gland  also  secretes  a  peculiar  acid 
to  be  mentioned  presently.     The  bee  retains  the 


fluid  portion  in  the  honeysac  till  the  proper 
time  should  arrive  for  deposition  in  the  cell  of 
the  honey-comb. 

At  the  base  of  the  corolla  of  a  flower,  on  the 
thalamus,  is  a  part  termed  by  the  botanists  "the 
disc."  It  is  that  portion  which  intervenes 
between  the  stamens  and  the  pistil.  It  is  com- 
posed of  bodies  usually  in  the  shape  of  scales 
or  glands.  When  examined  at  the  proper  sea- 
son, they  aro  seen  to  abound  in  a  thick,  sweet 
fl  lid,  which,  since  the  days  of  Aristotle  and 
Virgil,  has  rejoiced  in  the  name  of  ''nectar."  On 
this  account  the  part  yielding  it  received  for- 
merly the  name  of  "  nectary."  Even  in  the 
present  day  those  organs  are  the  sul)ject  of 
much  misapprehension.  Linnjeusand  his  follow- 
ers give  the  term  nectary  to  any  gland  or  organ 
for  whose  otBce  they  could  not  otherwise  ac- 
count. The  plants  which  furnish  the  greatest 
quantity  of  nectar,  and  are  therefore  most  liked 
by  the  bees,  generally  excrete  it  from  the  disc 
of  the  flower.  On  many  plants,  however,  as 
ranunculas  and  fritillaria,  a  small  globular  organ 
occurs  at  the  base  of  each  petal,  and  in  which 
also  the  nectar  is  enclosed,  though  not  in  such 
profusion  as  in  the  disc  before  alluded  to. 

As  will  presently  be  shown,  the  nectar  is  a 
simple  solution  of  cane-sugar  formed  from  the 
amylaceous  sap  of  the  flower,  and  elaborated 
for  the  nutrition  of  stamens  and  pistil.  What 
the  bees  find  in  the  fl.oiDers  is  the  surplus  left  when 
those  organs  have  been  supplied.  The  author 
examined  every  flower  he  could  collect  at  the 
early  season  of  the  year,  (April  and  May,)  and 
found  sugar  in  them  all,  whether  furnished  with 
discs,  or  nectariferous  glands,  or  not ;  and  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  sugar  is  necessary  for  the 
male  reproductive  organs  of  the  flower,  as  it  is 
in  them  chiefly  to  be  found — the  so-called  necta- 
riferous body  merely  serving  the  purpose  of  a 
reservoir. 

The  plants  which,  in  England,  are  most  attrac- 
tive to  bees,  are  mignonette,  currant,  hazel, 
wail-flower,  hollyhock,  raspberry,  broom,  rose- 
mary, lime,  buckwheat,  clover,  willow,  goose- 
berry, lemon  thyme,  heath,  turnip,  osier. 

On  examining  an  immature  blossom  of  a 
wall-flower,  the  vessels  will  be  found  filled 
with  an  amylaceous  fluid  which  gives  a  distinct 


46 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


blue  with  iodine.  After  tlie  lapse  of  from  twen- 
ty-four to  forty-eight  hours,  the  flower  having 
become  much  more  expanded  and  the  stamens 
more  mature,  the  fluid  on  being  again  tested  will 
have  a  sweet  taste,  and  give  a  dirty  blackish- 
brown,  instead  of  a  blue  with  iodine.  On  cutting 
out  the  disc  of  several  ripe  specimens  of  wall- 
. flower  the  author  obtained  a  syrupy,  clear,  color- 
less fluid.  This  was  mixed  with  a  small  quantity 
of  distilled  water,  treated  with  lime  and  carbon- 
ic acid  in  the  usual  way,  and  filtered.  The 
filtrate  was  then  concentrated,  and  allowed  to 
crystalize  spontaneously  on  a  glass  slip.  The 
result  was  a  beautiful  regular  cup  of  crystals  of 
cane-sugai. 

As  tlie  flower  became  mature,  the  saccharine 
fluid  was  acted  upon  by  the  vegetable  acids 
more  and  more,  until  at  length,  when  the  ovary 
being  fertilized  and  the  flower  dead,  a  last  ex- 
amination showed  the  saccharine  residue  on  the 
withered  disc  to  be  nearly  all  grape-sugar, 
almost  incapable  of  being  faiily  crystalized. 

The  hee,  visiting  the  flowers  when  in  their 
prime,  inserts  its  ligula  into  the  blossom,  and 
laps  up  the  greater  portion  of  the  liquid-sugar, 
which,  after- passing  through  the  cesophagus,  is 
deposited  in  the  honey-sac.  It  here  comes  in 
contact  with  the  secreting  glands,  which  emit 
an  acid  which  the  author's  experiments  showed 
to  be  identical  with  formic  acid.*  This  it  is 
which  doubtless  causes  the  peculiar  tingling 
sensation  at  the  back  of  the  throat  when  much 
honey  has  been  swallowed,  and  which  is  more 
perceptible  to  some  than  others.  The  bee,  after 
its  arrival  at  the  hive  empties  the  contents  of  the 
lioney-sac  into  comb,  where  it  remains  until  the 
store  of  honey  is  taken.  When  separated  from 
the  comb,  the  purest  hone)'  is  a  clear,  thick, 
liquid,  which,  after  standing,  becomes  thicker, 
till  at  length  it  "setf,"  as  it  is  technically  called. 
A  small  bit  of  this,  placed  under  a  quarter  of 
an  inch  objective,  shows  that  this  is  owing  to 
the  grape-sngar  (which  has  gradually  been 
forming  at  the  expense  of  the  cane-sugar) 
crystalizing  out  in  extremely  thin,  regular, 
six-sided  prisms.  All  the  cane-sugar  is  retained 
in  the  liquid  portion  of  the  honey.  This  crys- 
talization  proceeds  till  the  whole  of  the  cane- 
sugar  becomes  converted  into  grape.  When 
this  takes  place,  so  great  is  the  proportion  of 
crystals  that  the  honey  is  said  to  "  candy,"  and 
is  not  considered  so  good  from  the  presence  of 
acetic  acid,  which  is  produced  by  the  grape- 
sugar,  which,  in  its  turn,  undergoes  a  change, 
through  the  agency  of  fermentation.  The  hon- 
ey crystals  are  not  identical  with  those  of  cane- 
sugar. 

On  more  closely  examining  a  slide  containing 
a  bit  of  old  honey,  besides  the  prisms,  will  be 
seen  small  bundles  of  crystals.  These  are 
manna-sugar.  They  remain  after  honey  has 
been  fermented,  and  may  thus  be  separated. 
With  these,  small  round  or  oval  bodies  will 
also  be  noticed  spread  on  the  field  of  the  micro- 
scope, and  on  the  pollen  globules,  showing  in  a 
beautiful  manner  from  what  flower  the  honey 
was  collected.     Of  course  they  vary  with  each 

*We  suspect  that  this  formic  acid  will  be  found  to  be 
not  a  secretion,  but  the  product  of  a  secretion.— Ed. 


locality  ;  but  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  a  bee 
will  only  visit  the  same  species  of  flower  at  the 
same  journey  ;  for  the  examination  of  a  great 
number  of  bees  will  show  that  two  kinds  of 
pollen  are  never  found  on  the  same  insect, 
although  they  may  be  very  diff'erent  on 
another,  working  on  the  same  flower-bed.  A 
single  bee,  with  all  its  industry,  energy,  and 
innumerable  journeys  it  has  to  perform,  will 
not  collect  more  than  a  teaspoonful  of  honey 
in  a  single  season  ;  and  yet  the  total  weight  of 
honey  taken  from  a  single  hive,  is  often  from 
sixty  to  one  hundred  pounds.  A  very  profit- 
able lesson  of  what  great  results  may  arise  from 
persevering  and  associated  labor  ! 

The  evidence  on  which  the  author  relied  for 
the  presence  of  formic  acid,  was  by  distilling 
the  honey  and  receiving  the  distillate  in  an 
alkaline  solution.  The  resulting  solution,  after 
decomposition  by  an  acid  and  evaporation, 
afforded  all  the  usual  reactions,  and  readily 
reduced  the  salts  of  silver. 

The  foregoing  facts,  therefore,  clearly  show 
that — 

First.  Honey  is  derived  simply  from  a  solu- 
tion of  cane-sugar,  identical  in  every  respect 
witli  that  from  the  sugar-cane. 

Secondly.  That  it  afterwards  receives  the 
addition  of  a  small  quantity  of  formic  acid  from 
the  glands  of  the  bee. 

Thirdly.  That  cane-sugar  afterwards  becomes 
gradually  altered  into  grape-sugar  by  chemical 
decomposition. 

The  flavor  of  honey  is,  of  course,  quit  acci- 
dental, and  dependant  on  the  aroma  of  the 
flowers  the  bees  have  visited. 


[From  the  Keokuk  "Gate  City. "J 

Honey  Dews  in  the  West  and  Southwest. 


It  is  now  over  forty-six  years  since  myself  and 
some  three  or  four  other  boys  stood  on  a  gravel 
bar  on  the  east  fork  of  White  Water  river,  in 
Union  county,  Indiana,  and  near  the  village  of 
Brownsville,  and  in  the  afternoon  the  same  day 
we  saw  drops  of  pure  honey  falling  and  lighting 
on  the  leaves  of  the  alders.  All  of  us  tasted  of 
the  honey. 

The  weather  was  quite  dry;  the  atmosphere 
somewhat  smoky,  the  days  were  quite  warm, 
and  the  nights  rather  cool;  and  from  that  time 
to  the  present  time  I  have  witnessed  many  honey 
dews,  and  all  ol  them  have  come  on  under  sim- 
ilar conditions  of  the  atmosphere;  that  is,  the 
weather  has  always  been  dry,  with  cool  nights 
and  warm  days.  Then,  again,  I  have  observed, 
under  certain  conditions  of  the  weather,  that 
honey  bees  will  work  but  little  on  anything,  and 
will  not  deign  to  notice  the  bloom  of  buckwheat, 
from  the  fact  that  it  contained  no  honey. 

Honey  dews  in  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi, 
viz:  forty  degrees  north,  have  generally  come  in 
June,  sometimes  about  the  1st  of  September, 
though  but  seldom  ai  that  time, 

I  will  now  proceed  to  give  some  observations 
that  I  made  when  on  my  way  to  California,  in 
the  summer  of  1850,  and  from  about  the  25th  of 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOUENAL. 


47 


August  to  the  1st  of  September  of  that  year; 
and  -wil]  preface  those  observatious  by  presum- 
ing that  many  persons  have  seen  a  plant  com- 
monly called  dew  plant, (in  botanical  works 
called  Deosmer*)  that  at  mid-day,  in  the  middle 
ofaAvarm  room  will  be  covered  with  cool  dew, 
and  bear  in  mind  that  on  the  Humboldt  river 
there  is  much  alkali  water,  and  bare  alkaline 
plains;  that  vapors  from  those  plains  may  have 
an  influence  on  the  higher  stratas  of  the  atmos- 
phere, and  produce  chemical  results  that  have 
not  heretofore  been  investigated  by  skilful 
chemists. 

But  let  us  have  facts. 

The  first  honey  dew  that  I  saw  on  the  Hum- 
boldt was  on  a  plant  resembling  the  dew  plant.  I 
stood  on  an  alkali  surface,  with  no  other  plant 
touching  it,  and  was  loaded  with  pure  honey, 
with  a  pleasant  flavor. 

I  ate  sparingly  at  first,  and  finding  it  good,  I 
hunted  for  other  plants  of  that  same  kind,  and 
found  them  all  loaded  with  honey,  while  there 
was  no  higu  of  honey  on  the  grease  wood  and 
sage  bushes,  and  but  little  on  the  willows. 

Within  a  few  days,  and  farther  down  the  Hum- 
boldt river,  the  wnllow  trees  were  loaded  so  heavi- 
ly with  honey  that  it  bent  them  considerably;  and 
in  going  through,  my  clothing  became  so  coited 
with  honey,  that  I  took  olf  everything  and 
washed  them  out  at  the  river,  on  different  occa- 
sions, after  it  had  been  my  turn  to  get  up  the 
oxen. 

Then  again  still  further  down  and  near  the  sink 
or  lakes  formed  by  the  Humboldt,  there  was 
much  coarse  grass,  almost  like  broom  corn,  the 
blades  of  which  were  so  loaded  with  honey  that 
the  little  Indians  and  squaws  were  stripping  it 
off  with  their  fingers,  putting  it  in  to  bowls,  made 
from  tula  or  bulrushes,  and  boiling  the  honey 
in  copper  kettles  until  it  would  grain  slightly, 
and  then  stowing  it  away  in  tula  yessals,  where 
I  ate  a  small  amount.  It  tasted  quite  pleasant, 
but  I  would  not  pretend  to  say  that  the  squaws 
looked  neat  that  gathered  it. 

I  made  some  other  observations,  but  it  is  only 
honey  that  I  am  writing  about  just  now. 

I  have  kept  a  large  stuck  of  bees  for  thirty 
years,  and  have  noticed,  although  the  weather 
may  be  quite  dry,  if  the  nights  are  also  uncom- 
fortably warm,  that  bees  gather  but  litte  honey, 
and  the  only  reason  that  buckwheat  is  consider- 
ed valuable  as  a  honey  plant,  is  because  it  blooms 
generally  in  dry  weather  late  in  the  fall,  when  the 
difference  in  the  temperature  between  two 
o'clock  in  the  day  and  two  o'clock  at  night 
is  suflicient  to  favor  the   production  of    honey. 

Let  me  use  one  more  illustration.  Let  any 
person  place  his  hands  on  the  grass  of  a  warm 
evening,  and  he  will  find  the  dewy  grass 
much  cooler  than  the  surrounding  atmosphere, 
or  even   than   the   earth   upon  which  it   grows, 

That  in  the  growth  of  vegetation  there  are  min- 
ute chemical  changes  effected  that  under  favor- 
able ciicumstances  will  produce  in  the  bloom 
honey,  and  that  adverse  circumstances  would 
produce  but  little  if  any  honey.  That  under 
certain  conditions  of  the  atmosphere,  honey,  or 
as  it  is  generally  termed  honey  dew,  is    pro- 

•TWs  l8  probably  a  misnomer. 


duced  in  vast  quantities,  and  comes  down  direct 
from  above,  covering  the  leaves  with  a  thick 
coat  of  pure  honey,  most  abundant  on  all  kinds 
of  leaves;  and  when  it  is  rather  light,  it  may  be 
seen  only  on  the  hickory  and  some  few  other 
varieties  of  trees. 

Those  extraordinary  falls  of  honey  dew  are 
frequent  in  the  desert  country  east  of  the  Sierra 
Nevada  Mountains,  sometimes  heaviest  in  one 
locality,  then  in  some  other  place. 

This  phenomenon  is  probably  produced  by  cold 
currents  of  air  passing  over  the  Sierra  Nevada 
Mountains  and  coming  in  contact  with  the  heat- 
ed and  partially  stagnant  atmosphere  of  the  des- 
ert country,  impregnated  with  alkali,  to  the  east 
of  those  mountains.  But  in  all  cases  within  my 
observations,  particularly  on  the  Humboldt,_the 
weather  has  been  dry,  the  atmosphere  a  little 
smoky,  the  days  warm,  and  the  nights  quite 
cool  indeed.  Those  signs  are  so  invariably  the 
same  that  I  have  frequently  predicted  a  honey 
dew  before  seeing  it. 

I  am  also  aware  that  some  persons  contend 
that  honey  dew  is  but  simply  the  excrescence 
of  certain  aphides;  but  a  microscope  will  soon 
explode  that  theory. 

All  advance  in  ideas  are  only  theories  until 
they  become  settled  facts  or  exploded  theories, 
and  the  foregoing  observatious  have  been  pen- 
ned with  the  expectation  that  they  will  be  not 
only  criticised  but  ridiculed. 

But  if  our  Government  or  the  agricultural  de- 
partment thereof  can  be  aroused  sufficiently  to 
cause  the  necessary  investigations  to  be  made 
I  will  endure  the  ridicule. 

Now  that  the  Pacific  Railroad  is  completed 
it  would  be  but  a  small  matter  for  our  Govern- 
ment to  send  out  some  two  or  three  able  chem- 
ists, with. the  necessary  apparatus  for  analyzing 
and  testing  the  condition  of  the  atmosphere  at 
the  time  of  those  great  falls  of  honey  dew. 

A.    W.    Harlan. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal] 

Fertile  Worker  Bees ;    or,  Undeveloped 
Females. 


Since  writing  my  previous  article  on  fertile 
worker  bees — see  page  24,  volume  5 — I  have 
had  another  very  clear  confirmation  of  that  arti- 
cle in  my  apiarv.  In  a  stock  of  Ligurian  bees 
that  lost  its  queen  in  April,  1809,  I  put  in  a 
brood  comb  out  of  another  stock,  on  which 
they  raised  three  royal  cells,  two  of  which  I  cut 
out  on  the  ninth  day.  I  examined  the  comb 
again  on  the  seventeenth  day,  and  found  the 
royal  cell  still  sealed.  On  opening  it,  I  found 
the  young  queen  dead  in  the  cell,  no  queen  in 
the  hive,  and  nearly  all  the  brood  hatched  in 
the  comb  I  put  in. 

On  May  22,  I  again  examined  all  the  combs 
and  found  no  queen  in  the  hive,  but  a  number 
of  eggs  laid  in  one  comb.  On  carefully  exam- 
ining the  worker  bees  on  this  comb,  I  saw  one 
going  from  cell  to  cell,  putting  its  head  in,  the 
same  as  a  fertile  queen  does,  to  see  that  it  is 
cleaned  out  ready  for  an  egg  to  be  deposited  in 
it.  At  last  she  found  one,  and  inserted  her  ab- 
domen in  the  bottom  of  the   cell,  and  laid  an 


48 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


egg.  As  she  was  withdrawing  her  abdomen,  I 
caught  her,  and  put  her  under  a  glass  in  the 
house. 

This  is  the  second  fertile  worker  bee  I  have 
caught  in  the  very  act  of  ovipositing.  This  bee 
is  little  or  no  different  in  appearance  to  that  of 
other  bees. 

May  24.  Again  examined  all  the  combs,  and 
found  no  qneen  in  the  hive,  but  more  eggs  laid 
by  fertile  workers  ;  and  on  the  comb  containing 
them,  I  saw  a  worker  bee  go  from  cell  to  cell, 
and  lay  eggs  in  four  separate  cells.  I  then 
caught  her  when  withdrawing  her  abdomen 
out  of  the  last  cell,  and  took  her  into  the 
house. 

These  two  fertile  workers  were  not  attended 
by  the  other  bees,  the  same  as  the  first  fertile 
worker  that  I  caught,  but  appeared  excited  and 
walked  on  the  comb  rnpidly,  not  in  that  quiet 
sedate  way  a  fertile  queen  does  when  oviposit- 
ing. One  of  the  cells,  (in  which  I  saw  the 
worker  lay  eggs  wlien  the  comb  Avas  in  my 
hands),  was  so  deep  that  she  had  great  difh- 
culty  to  get  her  abdomen  to  the  bottom  of  the 
cell,  to  fasten  the  egg  she  was  laying.  Her 
body  not  being  much  longer  than  that  of 
another  worker,  her  wings  caught  in  the  edge 
of  the  cell  and  prevented  her  from  going  deep- 
er ;  but  after  several  attempts,  she  got  her 
wings  close  to  her  body  and  then  went  with  it 
into  the  cell,  so  deep  that  her  head  was  below 
the  entiance. 

On  June  3d,  that  good  and  clever  bee-master, 
the  Rev.  W.  C.  "Cotton,  (who  has  written 
several  works  on  bees),  being  on  a  visit  to  me, 
we  examined  all  the  combs  in  this  hive  again, 
and  found  a  great  quantity  of  brood  produced 
by  feitile  workers,  and  some  of  the  drones 
ready  to  emerge  from  their  cells.  Under  one 
large  conical  cover,  we  found  three  larvae  per- 
fectly developed  in  one  cell;  and,  under  nnother 
large  cover,  two  larvae  in  the  same  cell.  We 
removed  this  comb,  containing  eggs  and  brood 
in  all  stages  of  developement,  laid  by  fertile 
workers. 

We  did  not  see  any  fertile  workers  laying 
eggs,  but  it  appears  there  are  several  in  ihiS 
hive,  as  more  eggs  had  been  laid  since  I  re- 
moved the  other  two  fertile  worker  bees. 

I  put  a  sealed  royal  cell  in  one  of  the  combs, 
and  the  queen  was  hatched  the  next  day. 
"When  she  commenced  laying,  the  fertile  work- 
ers all  disappeared. 

"William  Carr. 

Clayton  Bridge,  Newton  Heath,  near 
Manchester,   England. 


Careful  experiments  show  that  pure  air  is 
necessary  not  only  for  the  respiration  of  the 
mature  bees;  but  for  the  hatching  of  the  eggs, 
and  developing  the  larvae  :  a  fine  netting  of 
air-vessels  enveloping  the  eggs,  and  the  cells  of 
the  larvae  being  closed  with  a  covering  filled 
with  air-holes. 


Bees  prefer  to  gather  fresh  bee-bread,  even 
when  there  are  large  accumulations  of  old  stores 
in  the  cell. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

The  Sagot  Swarm  and  Drone  Catcher. 

Mr.  Sagot,  a  distioguished  French  beekeeper, 
describes  thus  this  new  implement. 

"With  four  thin  boards  make  a  flat  tube  or 
gallery,  four  or  five  inches  wide,  three  fourths  of 
aa  inch  deep,  and  twenty  inches  long.  Make 
the  bottom  of  both  ends  thinner  in  order  to  fit 
the  entrances  of  the  hives. 

Cut  out  two  or  three  inches  of  the  upper  side 
of  both  ends,  and  replace  it  with  sheet  iron 
perforated  with  holes  5.32  of  an  inch  in  diam- 
eter, or  by  a  grate  with  meshes  of  same  dimen- 
sions. 

Several  days  before  swarming  is  expected, 
insert  the  tube,  or  gallery  between  the  stock  hive 
and  an  empty  one  prepared  for  the  reception 
and  establis^hment  of  a  swarm.  Adjust  it  so  as 
to  fit  closely  the  entrances  of  both  hives,  forming 
a  channel  of  communication  between  them. 

The  workers  will  soon  learn  to  ])ass  in  and 
out  through  the  holes  in  the  sheet  iron  or  the 
meshes  of  the  grate  ;  but  the  drones,  being  too 
large,  will  pass  along  the  gallery,  and  either 
enter  the  empty  hive  or  collect  under  the  second 
grate. 

In  the  interior  of  the  gallery,  two  or  three 
inches  from  the  end  near  the  stock  hive,  fix  a 
vertical  swipe  made  of  light  tin  and  suspended 
on  a  horizontal  wire.  This  swipe  must  fit  the 
gallery  at  the  top  and  sides,  but  leave  a  space 
5.32  of  an  inch  at  bottom,  to  permit  the  bees  to 
pass.  The  d cones  follow  ing  them  push  forward 
the  swipe  and  enter  the  gallery  likewise,  but 
cannot  return,  for  two  small  nails  prevent  the 
swipe  tVuni  moving  back  in  the  direction  of  the 
stock  hive. 

As  the  swarm  goes  out,  the  workers  pass  and 
the  drones  push  forward  the  swipe.  The  queen 
enters  the  gallery,  the  drones  at  the  other  end, 
vainly  seeking  for  a  passage  out.  Yet  the 
swarm  clusters,  and  missing  the  queen  soon 
return  to  the  hive.  As  some  bees  have  entered 
the  empty  hive,  and  have  been  followed  by  the 
queen,  the  returning  workers,  attracted  by  the 
Call,  direct  all  the  swarm  into  the  new   hive. 

As  soon  as  you  ascertain  that  the  swarm  has 
settled  in  the  new  hive,  place  it  where  you 
intend  it  to  stand  ;  and  adjust  your  swarm- 
catcher,  to  some  other  hive. 

By  means  of  this  device  you  can  likewise 
easily  get  rid  of  all  the  drones — letting  them 
perish  in  the  empty  hive  ;  or  if  you  wish  to 
preserve  them,  remove  the  swarm-catcher  in  the 
evening,  and  allow  them  free  entrance  to  their 
hive. 

The  sheet  iron,  properly  perforated,  is  easily 
procured  in  France,  but  I  do  not  know  whether 
it  can  be  obtained  here.  There  will  be  some 
demand  for  it,  for  this  device,  and  also  for  Dr. 
Preuss's  process  of  pure  fertilization  of  queens. 
C.  Dadant. 

Hamilton,  Ills.  July  6,  1869. 

P.  S. — Mr.  John  L.  McLean,  on  page  eight 
of  the  July  number  of  the  Bee  Journal,  revives 
his  business  of  puzzling  the  bee-men.  On  page 
172  of  the  third  volume,  he  gave  us  an  enigma 
to  solve.     "What  will  be  his  third  ?  C.  D. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


49 


[For  the  Aniericau  Bee  Journal.] 

Use  and  Make  of  Movable  Comb  Hives. 


To  suppose  tliat  a  movable  comb  hive  is  any 
advantage,  unless  pr  )per  use  is  made  of  those 
movable  combs,  is  all  moonshine.  In  otlier 
words  the  person  who  pays  ten  dollars  for  the 
right  to  use  the  movable  comb  hive  and  puts  a 
swarm  of  bees  into  it,  expecting  a  large  profit 
from  it  simply  because  it  is  an  improved  hive, 
but  pays  no  attention  to  the  bees  afterwards, 
cannot  and  will  not  receive  any  more  i^enefit  or 
profit  from  it  than  he  would  from  a  common 
box  hive  of  tlie  same  form  and  dimensions, 
similarly  treated. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  my  travels  among 
beekeepers  I  have  found  one  very  bad  feature, 
and,  in  almost  every  instance,  the  fault  is  in  the 
maker  of  the  hive.  For  example,  A  buys  a 
right  to  some  patent  and  one  sample  hive.  He 
employs  some  carpenter  to  make  a  dozen  hives, 
and  furnishes  the  sample  as  a  model  by  which 
to  make  them.  The  hives  are  all  completed, 
paid  for,  and  placed  in  readiness  for  use.  In 
due  time  A  puts  bees  in  some  of  them,  and 
commences  opeiations.  By  and  by,  he  wishts 
to  exchange  or  transfer  frames  or  combs  fiom 
one  hive  to  another,  and  he  finds  that  in  no  two 
hives,  hardly  any  of  the  frames,  are  made  alike; 
in  other  words  the  frames  in  one  hive  will  not 
fit  in  another.  He  has  movable  combs,  it  is 
true  ;  but  of  what  advantage  are  they  to  him  ? 
Now  this  is  no  iniRginary  evil.  It  is  one  almost 
universally  experienced,  wherever  I  am  acquain- 
ted. I  have  Langstroth  hives,  Lee,  Kidder, 
American  hives,  &c.  all  in  the  same  fix — all  ow- 
ing to  the  carelessness  or  ignorance  of  the  carpen- 
ters who  made  them.  Langstroth  iiives  that  I  am 
acquainted  with,  are  almost  universally  made  a 
perfect  moth  nest.  The  frames  come  close  to 
to  the  sides  and  bottom,  so  that  a  bee  cannot 
pass  around  and  under  them  ;  and  tlie  moths 
revel  in  perfect  security,  in  consequence  of  this 
misconstruction.  Make  your  hives  and  frames 
all  exactly  alike.  Three  eightli's  of  an  inch 
between  the  frame  and  the  ends,  and  half  an 
inch  lietween  the  bottom  bar  of  the  frame  and 
the  bottom  board,  is  the  proper  distance.  It 
more  room  is  given,  the  bees  are  apt  to  fill  in 
with  comb. 

A  movable  comb  hive  properly  made,  and 
Italian  bees  properly  managed,  I  consider  per- 
fectly moth  proof.  I  have  been  repeatedly 
asked,  in  private  letters  last  winter,  why  I  do 
not  write  an  article  on  the  bee  moth  question 
for  the  Bee  Journal.  The  reason  is  this,  I 
think  that  the  moth  was  made  on  purpose  to 
destroy  the  careless  beekeepers'  bees  and  get 
them  out  of  the  way.  I  have  kept  bees  for  forty 
years,  and  never  had  a  swarm  injured  by  the 
moths.  And  yet,  during  that  time,  I  have  seen 
any  numbers  of  swarms  destroyed  by  them  in 
my  immt-diate  vicinity.  Well,  you  Avill  say — 
"  Gallup  has  been  a  lucky  dog  !"  I  do  not  take 
any  stock  whatever  in  luck^  and  never  did. 

Querist,  in  the  February  number  of  the  Bee 
Journal,  page  148,  thinks  that  he  has  found 
fi  chance  for  Gallup  to  do  something.     But  as 


Novice  lives  so  much  further  south  than  I  do, 
I  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  is  correct. 
My  experience  with  the  form  that  I  use  and 
the  form  of  the  American  hive  is  this  :  the 
form  of  hive  I  use  has  produced  one  third 
more  bees  and  double  the  quantity  of  honey, 
side  by  side,  and  under  the  same  management. 
At  present  I  need  not  tell  the  reason  why  ;  for 
if  friend  Puckett  accepts  my  proposition,  you 
will  in  all  probability  get  tlie  reason,  p?-o  and 
con.  If  Gallup  sees  any  chance  for  fun,  he  will 
be  on  hand. 

The  many  correspondents  who  are  asking  my 
views  on  that  "  bee  disease,"  will  get  them  by 
and  by. 

Ei,isHA  Gallup. 

Osage,  Iowa. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.! 

To  Supply  Best  Queen  Cells. 

Mr.  Editor:— I  wish  for  the  benefit,  if  it 
may  be,  ot  all  the  readers  of  the  Journal,  to 
speak  again  of  the  convenience  of  something 
like  the  "Long  Economic  Hive,"  described  in 
the  May  number,  for  keeping  up  a  supply  of 
celled  queens. 

It  will  be  remembered  that,  in  this  hive,  the 
frames  are  inserted  crosswise,  with  two  en- 
trances on  the  sun  side,  one  near  either  end. 

Let  such  a  hive,  full  and  in  good  order,  con- 
tain the  chjicest  queen.  Tiien.  at  the  proper 
season  of  the  year,  or  when  it  is  desired  to  raise 
queens,  lift  out  a  frame  near  the  middle  ana 
insert  a  closely  fitting  division  board  in  its 
place — thus  making  lor  the  time  two  hives 
of  one,  with  a  separate  honey-board  for  each 
part. 

The  queen  being  in  one  part  of  the  hive,  the 
bees  in  the  other  part  will,  from  her  eg«s,  pro- 
ceed to  construct  queen  cells,  which  after  nine 
days  may  be  carefully  cut  oflT  and  removed  to 
other  hives,  or  to  the  queen-rearing  boxes,  and 
the  queen,  with  due  precaution,  changed  to  that 
end  of  the  hive  ;  when  the  unqueened  part  will, 
in  turn,  proceed  to  construct  queen  cells,  and  so 
on  alterua.tely. 

The  advantages  of  this  method  are  : — 

First.  Its  convenience  in  having  statedly 
through  the  season,  a  supply  of  maturing  cells. 

Second.  Its  safety.  The  bees  in  both  parts 
having  the  same  mother  smell  alike,  and  like  her; 
on  which  account  she  is  not  so  likely  to  be  in- 
jured. 

Third.  Its  utility.  The  bees  not  being  much 
disturbed  in  the  change,  nor  removed  from  their 
stand,  are  not  in  so  much  haste,  and  consequent- 
ly commence  with  younger  grubs,  or  with  eggs; 
and  the  stock  being  stronger  than  a  small  nu- 
cleus, keeps  up  a  more  equable  temperature  and 
a  better  supply  of  food,  thus  producing  more 
perfect  queens  for  future  mothers. 

Fourth.  Its  certainty.  By  this  process  one  is 
sure  of  cells  at  the  time,  and  as  there  is  sup- 
posed to  be  nothing  impure  about  the  hive, 
there  can  be  no  mistake  about  the  queen  as 
raised,  unless  spoiled  or  injured  in  the  process 
of  fertilixation  afterwards. 


50 


THE  AMBEICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


I  continually  use  three  of  my  best  queens  in 
this  way,  aud  so  have  every  three  or  four  clays 
a  fresh  supply  of  cells,  to  be  made  use  of  accord- 
ing to  circumstances,  in  the  yard,  or  otherwise, 
to  mature  for  market.  I  have  yet  lost  no  queen 
by  the  frequent  change,  and  like  the  method 
much  better  than  any  that  I  have  seen  described. 
J.  W.  Truesdell. 

Warwick,  Canada,  July  30,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Stocks  and  Hives  Suited  to  Pasturage. 


The  facility  afforded  for  securing  new  colo- 
nies of  bees,  to  any  desirable  extent,  by  artifi- 
cial means,  removes  much  of  the  interest 
formerly  felt  in  natural  swarming.  The  little 
time  required  for  fully  stocking  any  field,  by 
annually  doubling  the  stock  by  natural  swarms, 
until  the  field  is  full}'  occupied,  renders  the 
question  of  increase  of  colonies  a  subject  of 
minor  importance. 

Every  apiarian,  with  a  field  limited  in  its  ex- 
tent and  power  of  production,  must  naturally 
inquire — "By  what  means  may  I  secure  the 
greatest  amount  of  honey  produced  by  my  field, 
in  surplus,  in  the  best  stale  and  shape  for  mar- 
ket and  use?" 

I  will  hazard  a  few  suggestions  in  answer  to 
this  inquiry. 

1.  Negatively.  Keep  no  more  bees  than  your 
field  will  supply.  Limit  the  number  of  your 
colonies  stiictly  to  the  capacity  of  your  field. 
It  you  have  as  many  colonies  of  bees  as  can  be 
sustained  during  the  working  season,  and  se- 
cure sutEcient  stores  for  winter,  little  surjilus 
need  be  expected.  In  such  case  the  result  would 
naturally  be  that  a  few  strong  colonies  would 
give  some  surplus  ;  the  medium  one  might  jus-t 
squeeze  through  the  winter;  and  the  weak  ones 
starve  to  death.  Under  such  circumstances, 
one-half  the  number  of  colonies  Avould  give 
double  the  surplus  that  the  whole  would  do. 

2.  Procure  hives  with  surplus  room  for  150 
lbs.  or  200  lbs.  of  honey.  Place  in  such  hive 
the  working  force  of  two  of  your  common  colo- 
nies. You  may  thus  secure  double  or  triple  the 
working  force  in  each  colony,  and  secure  from 
one  colony  200  lbs,  or  more,  of  surplus  honey. 
This  may  be  done,  if  your  bees  swarm,  by 
placing  two  or  three  swarms  in  the  new  hive. 
Or  by  placing  in  the  first  swarms  issuing  trom 
the  old  hive  ;  place  the  new  hive  in  place  of  the 
old  one,  and  drive  out  all  the  bees  from  the  old 
hive;  they  will  enter  the  new  hive.  Place  the 
worker  brood  in  a  small  box,  putting  it  in  com- 
munication with  the  new  hive.  Thej'  will  hatch 
all  the  brood,  and  secure  thus  a  great  colony. 

I  now  think,  from  experiments  already  made, 
that  colonies  may  thus  be  brought  to  an  average 
ot  200  lbs.  One  ton  from  ten  colonies  per  sea- 
son. 

If  I  had  an  apiary  with  common  swarming 
hives  in  use,  I  should  treat  them  in  that  manner, 
confidently  expectiug  an  average  of  from  150 
lbs.  to  200  lbs.     Judgmg  from  my  past  experi- 


ments with  the  large  hives,  I  have  no  doubt 
I  should  secure  it.  If  I  feared  the  stock  was 
too  large  for  the  field,  I  should  divide  it,  placing 
it  in  two  fields. 

If  any  of  your  readers  have  doubts  of  the 
success  of  such  course,  and  see  obstacles  in  the 
way,  I  would  thank  them  to  state  them  in  the  Bee 
JoDKNAL,  and  I  will  seek  to  remove  any  imag- 
ined objections. 

Jasper  Hazek. 

Albany,  N.  Y. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal 

Influence  of  Locality. 


Mr.  Editor: — I  had  almost  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  it  was  useless  for  me  to  be  at  any 
more  expense  in  trying  to  succeed  in  bee-keep- 
ing, for  not  withstanding  having  the  benefit  of 
the  Journal,  Avith  all  its  learned  contributors, 
and  with  all  my  energy,  I  have  not  for  the  last 
two  years  obtained  honey  enough  to  spread  on  a 
piece  of  bread  and  butter  as  big  as  my  hand,  and 
had  about  concluded  not  to  trouble  you  any 
further  for  the  Journal.  But  your  generosity 
in  sending  me  the  July  number,  and  on  reading 
its  contents,  together  with  something  of  a 
change  in  the  prospect  for  honey  the  remaining 
part  of  the  season,  has  induced  me  to  add 
another  two  dollars  to  the  many  already  lost  in 
the  business  I  have  ever  so  much  delighted  to 
pursue. 

lam  convinced  that  much  depends  on  location 
in  the  success  of  bee-keeping.  I  am  situated 
on  the  high  rolling  prairies  of  Northern  Illinois, 
and  notwithstanding  my  dwelling  and  apiary 
are  in  the  midst  of  eight  or  nine  acres  of  fruit 
and  ornamental  trees,  mostly  fruit,  and  of  near- 
ly twenty  years  growth  ;  yet  in  consequence  of 
so  much  high  cold  wiird  in  the  spring,  that  the 
season  of  blossoms  passes  off  with  but  little 
advantage  to  the  bees,  particularly  as  it  has 
been  this  season,  I  could  hardly  count  on  one 
good  day  for  gathering  honey  while  the  fruit 
trees  were  in  blossom,  though  everywhere  the 
trees  were  covered  with  a  snowy  whiteness. 

But  I  see  that  my  friend  Marvin,  only  about 
twenty-five  miles  from  me,  tells  quite  a  different 
story,  in  regard  to  bis  bees.  His  management 
maj'  be  much  better  than  mine,  but  I  am  certain 
his  location  is  better  calculated  for  bee-keeping. 
Being  in  the  valley  of  the  Fox,  his  fields  of  fruit 
and  other  pasturage  are  ensconced  by  high  blufi's 
on  one  side,  and  by  natural  forests  of  linden  and 
other  honey-yielding  trees  on  the  other.  I  see 
by  the  Journal  that  his  bees  were  swarming 
on  the  twenty-fifth  day  of  May,  while  my  best 
Italians  were  four  weeks  later  this  season. 

I  had  about  two  acres  of  alsike  clover,  which 
commenced  to  blossom  the  first  week  in  June. 
All  that  saw  it  while  in  bloom,  said  they  never 
saw  so  beautiful  a  field  before.  It  stood  up  well, 
and  about  eighteen  inches  high,  so  thick  upon 
the  ground  that  another  blossom  could  hardly 
be  put  in  without  crowding  on  its  neighbor. 
Whenever  the  weather  would  admit,  which  was 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOUENAL. 


51 


but  a  little  part  of  the  time,  it  was  covered  wilh 
a  perfect  mass  of  bees,  and  honey  was  brought 
in  by  them  at  a  rapid  rate. 

The  white  clover  is  likely  to  hold  out  well,  as 
the  ground  is  still  moist  from  the  heavy  rains 
The  fields  are  covered  with  its  finest  flowers 
and  bees  are  laying  in  honey  at  a  good  rate. 

The  Alsike  was  in  blossom  about  four  weeks 
It  is  now  cut  and  ready  for  threshing. 

A.  Stiles. 

Genoa,  Ills.,  July  19,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

The  Season,  and  the  Time  of  Blossoming. 


Mr.  Editor  : — As  you  invite  communications 
from  all  parts  of  the  country,  I  thought  a  few 
words  in  regard  to  the  condition  of  beekeeping 
in  this  section  would  not  come  amiss. 

Bees  are  doing  poorly  in  this  coumtry.  It 
has  been  rainy  and  wet  nearly  all  the  spring 
and  summer.  My  bees  were  in  a  condition  to 
divide  when  the  apple  trees  were  in  bloom. 
The  weather  came  on  freezing  and  cold,  and 
they  did  not  swarm.  Then  it  became  milder, 
and  the  bees  commenced  swarming  on  the  20th 
of  June,  and  are  now  nearly  through  ;  at  least 
have  finished  swarming. 

Not  a  pound  of  surplus  honey  has  been  stored 
at  this  date.  The  weather  is  now  fair,  basswood 
trees  are  in  full  bloom,  and  the  bees  are  doing 
well  on  the  blossoms. 

A  subscriber  to  the  Bee  Journal  asks  for  the 
time  of  honey  flowers  blooming  in  diff'erent  sec- 
tion of  the  country.  I  send  herewith  my  record 
up  to  the  date,  beginning  in  April,  and  kept  in 
Tompkins  county.  New  York. 

April  15,  18^9,— Soft  Maple  in  bloom. 

April  18,    "     — Willow  in  bloom. 

May  17,     "    —Hard  Maple  in  lull  bloom. 

May  22,     "     —Dandelion. 

May  26,     "    —Black  Cherry. 

May  27,     "    — Aple  trees  in  full  bloom. 

May  28,     "    —Pear  ttee. 

June  11,     "     — Thorn  tree. 

June  15,  "  —Black  and  Red  Raspberry, 
good  honey  plants. 

June  10,  1869,— Some  white  clover. 

June  20,     "     —White  clover  in  full  bloom. 

July  2,       "     —Tame  mustard. 

July  15,     "    — Milkweed. 

July  26,     "    — Basswood  or  Linden. 

Our  next  resource  is  the  buckwheat,  from 
which  we  get  half  our  surplus  honey.  It  blooms 
in  the  latter  part  of  August  and  lasts  all  through 
September. 

I  should  like  to  have  beelteepers  in  different 
sections  of  the  country,  north  and  south,  give 
the  time  of  the  blooming  of  honey-yielding 
plants  during  the  season  with  them.  Records 
of  this  kind  would  be  of  great  interest  and  value 
to  beekeepers,  and  should  be  communicated  for 
the  benefit  of  the  readers  of  the  American  Bee 
Journal. 

_  D.  H    COGGSHALL 

West  Groion,  If.  Y.  July  26,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  JournaL] 

Gallup  on  Pseudo-Foulbrood. 


Four  years  ago  this  present  season,  I  was 
traveling  down  south  of  here,  in  this  State,  and 
was  informed  that  bees  were  dying  off  with 
foulbrood.  One  man  told  me  that  he  had  just 
lost  three  young  swarms  with  the  disease;  and, 
altliough  it  was  nearly  three  miles  out  of  my 
way,  I  went  and  made  a  post  mortem  examina- 
tion for  my  own  satisfaction.  The  bees  were 
all  dead — that  fact  could  not  be  disputed.  And 
as  this  season  proves  to  be  similar,  and  as  I  have 
received  several  letters  on  the  subject,  I  will 
eive  a  description  of,  and  also  a  remedy  for  that 
kind  of  foulbrood.  The  old-fashioned  conta- 
gious foulbrood  I  have  never  had  any  experience 
with,  and  furthermore  do  not  wish  for  any. 

The  weather  was  such  that,  during  the  lime 
of  wild  plum  and  wild  api^le  blossoms,  bees  did 
not  store  the  usual  quantity  of  honey  to  last 
through  any  time  of  scarcity  that  might  occur, 
and  that  usually  does  occur  here  the  latter  part 
of  June.  Still  they  gathered  sufiicient,  from 
day  to  day,  to  raise  an  immense  quantity  of 
brood;  and  on  the  last  of  June,  we  bad  seven 
or  eight  days  of  quite  cold,  cloudy  weather,  fol- 
lowed by  three  days  of  rain,  which  confined  the 
bees  to  their  hives.  I  was  from  home  for  three 
days,  and,  on  returning,  I  found  three  of  my 
swarms  with  very  strong  symjjtoms  of  the  dis- 
ease; but  I  administered  the  remedy,  and  it  had 
an  immediate  effect.  The  usual  symptoms  are — 
first,  the  bees  kill  off  their  drones  ;  next,  the 
immature  drones  are  drawn  out  of  their  ceils, 
thrown  down  on  the  bottom  board,  and  dragged 
out  in  front  of  their  hives.  As  the  disease  pro- 
gresses, the  young  workers  are  seen  crawling 
out  of  the  hive  and  tumbling  about  in  great 
numbers.  Finally  some  of  the  old  workers  die 
in  the  same  manner.  About  this  time,  if  we  ex- 
amine the  inside  of  the  hive,  we  find  the  bees 
quite  helpless  and  damp;  their  abdomens  disten- 
ded with,  (well,  we  will  call  it  dysentery;)  all 
the  unsealed  larvfe  completely  sucked  up  l)y  the 
workers,  which  have  become  veritable  canni- 
bals; the  bottom  board  covered  with  dead  bees 
in  the  pupaj  stage,  thrown  down  by  the  work- 
ers; cells  full  of  capped  brood,  with  the  caps 
torn  open,  and  the  pieces  of  the  young  com- 
pletely sucked  out  by^  the  workers.  Now, 
should  the  weather  change,  so  that  the  bees  can 
gather  honey,  the  workers  will  survive;  but  you 
will  discover  that  they  work  very  little,  and 
they  appear  lo  be  troubled  with  large  green  flies 
around  the  entrance  of  the  hive.  If  the  hive 
be  now  opened,  a  horrid  stench  will  issue,  and 
a  putrid  mass  be  seen  on  the  bottom  board  alive 
with  crawling  maggots,  and  perhaps  in  the 
coml)s  too.  I  haveseen  hives  in  this  condition, 
this  season,  not  a  thousand  miles  from  here. 
Understand,  that  if  the  weather  should  not 
change  in  time,  the  workers  will  all  perish. 
When  discovered  in  the  first  stages,  if  you  have 
no  honey,  administer  at  least  one  quart  of  dis- 
solved sugar,  clean  off  the  bottom  board,  and 
see  that  the  bees  are  fed  regularly  until  they 
can  gather  for  themselves.  This  is  a  sure  rem- 
edy for  this  disease.     No  cure,  no  pay;  and  any 


52 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


person  who  allows  his  bees  to  get  into  the  last 
stage  of  this  disease,  deserves  never  to  have 
either  bees  or  honey. 

Well,  Gallup,  this  looks  about  like  starvation, 
instead  of  a  disease.  Yes,  it  appears  about  as 
near  to  starvation  as  anything  that  I  know  of. 
But,  according  to  my  friend,  Mr.  Puckell's 
reasoning,  it  certainly  must  be  a  disease. 

This  might  lead  to  and  end  m  contasiious 
fouldrood.  A  private  correspondent  in  Tomp- 
kins county,  N.  Y.,  last  year,  gave  me  a  very 
close  description  of  this  disease,  and  wished  me 
to  give  my  views  on  the  question  through  the 
XJEE  JoUKNAL.  Others  have  requested  me  to 
write  an  article  on  foulbrood.  To  such  let  this 
be  my  reply — The  most  of  my  articles  are  writ- 
ten from  actual  experience  and  observation  ; 
and  as  I  never  have  had  or  seen  a  case  of  con- 
tagious, foulbrood,  I  cannot  say  anything 
about  it.  Elisha  Gallup. 

Osage,  Iowa.  July  5,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journ  al.] 

Diminutive  Queen. 


Mr.  Editor  : — Enclosed  I  send  you  the  "or- 
ganic remains  "  of  the  smallest  queen  bee  I 
have  ever  seen.  I  had  hoped  to  send  her  to  you 
living,  and  removed  her  from  a  colony  on 
Saturdny  last  (the  17th  instant)  for  that  pur- 
pose, and  put  her  in  a  good-sized  cage  for  safe 
keeping,  until  I  could  get  a  shipping  cage 
ready.  But  when  I  came  to  examine  her,  a 
short  time  after  being  confined,  I  found  her 
nearly  dead.  I  tried  diluted  honey,  but  in 
vain  ;  she  had  concluded  to  leave  this  wicked 
world. 

This  queen  was  reared  in  a  cell  taken  from  a 
full  stock,  when  transferring  it  to  a  frame  hive. 
She  was  fertilized  within  the  usual  number  of 
days,  and  her  progeny,  which  is  now  hatching 
out,  is  about  one-si.Kth  drones  in  worker  cells. 
How  is  this  to  be  accounted  for  ?  Does  it  not 
set  aside  the  compressability  theory  ? 

I  regret  very  much  the  loss  of  this  queen,  as 
I  should  have  liked  to  have  had  you  experi- 
ment with  her.  I  have  not  as  yet  introduced  a 
queen  to  the  colony  from  which  she  was  taken, 
and  will  not  do  so  until  I  see  whether  they  will 
raise  a  queen  from  her  eggs.  1  hope  they  will 
do  so,  and  that  I  may  get  another  living  smaller 
one,  to  send  to  you. 

My  bees  are  doing  finely  this  season.  I  have 
increased  them  fronr  sixteen  colonies  to  fifty- 
four,  all  in  good  condition  ;  and  have  emptied 
from  the  brood  chamber  (to  give  the  queen  a 
chance  to  deposit  her  etrgs)  about  eighteen  gal- 
lons of  honey,  with  the  centrifugal  machine— of 
the  working  of  which  I  will  say  more  in  my 
next.  J-  K-  Gardner. 

Fancy  Farm,  near  Christiansburg,  Va., 
July  19,  1869. 

(lI^"The  dead  queen  above-mentioned  was 
received  in  due  course  of  mail,  and  is  one  of 
the  smallest  we  have  ever  seen— measuring  only 
eleven-twentieths  of  an  inch  in  length,  and 
three-twentieths  of  an  inch  in  diameter  at  the 
thorax.     She  was  evidently  in  all  respects  in  an 


abnormal  condition,  and  if  preserved  alive 
could  only  have  been  an  object  of  curiosity,  as 
no  valid  argument  can  be  based  on  exceptional 
cases.  We  have  deposited  her  in  the  museum 
of  the  Agricultural  Department— there  to  re- 
main  until  superseded  by  a  still   smaller   speci- 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

A  Case  of  Self-Robbing. 


I  awoke  at  dawn  one  morning  in  July  and 
heard  a  tumultuous  humming  in  my  apiary,  as 
though  bees  were  swarming  or  being  robbed. 
It  being  rather  early  in  the  day  for  the  former, 
I  surmised  at  once  that  an  onslaught  was 
being  made  on  one  of  my  hives.  Hastily  dress- 
ing myself,  I  went  out  and,  passing  along  the 
stands,  found  all  quiet  until  I  came  to  a  popu- 
lous colony  whose  hive  was  provided  with  a 
ventilator  at  the  base  of  the  hinder  end,  which 
had  been  opened  a  few  days  before  to  moderate 
the  internal  heat,  and  was  still  open.  This 
colony  seemed  to  be  assailed  in  front  and  rear 
by  a  iiost  of  bees,  all  of  which  were  Italians. 
Great  numbers  were  constjintly  passing  in  and 
out,  noisily,  like  robbing  bees,  but  there  was  no 
figh'ting— no  bees  being  disabled  or  killed. 
There  was  no  perceptible  commotjou  or  excite- 
ment in  any  of  my  other  Italian  stocks,  and 
there  were  no  Italian  bees  but  mine  within 
many  miles.  Reflecting  on  the  singularity  of 
this  occurrence,  it  struck  me  that  the  colory 
was  simply  robbing  itself.  I  immediately  shut 
the  ventilator,  and  gradually  closed  the  front 
entrance,  having  previously  opened  one  of  the 
holes  in  the  hont-y-board  under  the  cap,  to  give 
the  bees  air  while  confined.  I  left  them  thus 
for  nearly  an  hour,  when,  the  hubbub  having 
ceased,  I  found  the  portico  crowded  with  bees 
and  a  large  cluster  hangiug  from  the  alighting 
board.  Another,  though  smaller  cluster,  was 
also  gathered  around  the  closed  ventilator. 
The  whole  seemed  quite  peaceably  disposed, 
with  none  of  the  fidgety  restlessness  of  bees  in- 
tent on  robbing.  I  now  gently  opened  the  en- 
trance, and  the  bees  on  the  portico  at  once  be- 
gan fanning  and  humming,  as  those  long  kept 
from  home  are  wont  to  do  on  their  return,  and 
none  rushed  out  as  robbers  do  after  being  con- 
fined. The  crowd  quickly  moved  forward,  en- 
tered the  hive  joyously,  in  a  continuous  stream, 
and  were  received  without  the  slightest  opposi- 
tion. In  a  few  minutes  perfect  order  was  re- 
stored and  work  resumed  as  usual.  I  kept  the 
ventilator  closed,  and  there  was  no  attetnpt  to 
rob  the  hive  thereafter.  Renewed  attacks 
would  certainly  have  been  made,  if  the  assail- 
ants had  belonged  to  some  other  hive,  for  rob- 
bing bees  are  not  apt  to  succumb  so  easily  after 
having  effected  an  entrance. 

Has  any  similar  case  been  observed  ?  And 
what  would  have  been  the  result,  provided  bees 
from  other  hives  or  apiaries  could  have  been 
kept  from  interfering  ? 

T.    WORDBOW. 

Nottoway,  Va. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


53 


[For  tlie  American  Bee  Journal. 

Stimulative  Feeding. 


As  I  have  received  a  number  of  inquiries 
about  bees  swarmint;  out  or  deserting  their 
hives  in  the  spring,  it  will  perhaps  be  as  well 
to  give  an  article  on  that  subject  in  the  Bee 
Journal  ;  and  at  the  same  time  answer 
another  question — "How  is  it  possible  to  start 
a  queen  to  breeding,  by  giving  the  colony  one 
or  two  tablespoonfuls  of  honey  or  other  sweets, 
every  other  evening  ?" 

If  you  have  weak  swarms  in  the  spring,  they 
should  be  set  to  breeding  early.  For  this  pur- 
pose, take  a  frame  containing  brood  and  eggs 
Jrom  a  strong  stock,  and  give  it  to  the  weak 
one.  This  gives  the  bees  a  hint ;  they  l)egin  to 
feed  their  queens;  and  she  commences  laying 
immediately.  In  the  meantime  stop  all  up- 
ward ventilation  from  the  br  oding  apartment  ; 
see  that  they  have  honey  or  are  fed  artificially  ; 
and  they  will  never  desert  their  hive.  The 
cause  of  their  deserting  is,  in  some  cases,  the 
want  of  honey  ;  in  others,  too  much  ventila- 
tion ;  and,  in  others  still,  not  sufficient  bees  to 
keep  up  the  necessary  degree  of  heat  to  hatch 
the  eggs.  But  by  stimulating  or  frequent  dis- 
turbance, a  very  small  quantity  of  bees  can 
create  an  increased  degree  of  heat,  and  hatch 
out  quite  a  large  amount  of  brood. 

Care  should  be  taken  not  to  give  a  weak 
swarm  too  large  a  supply  of  brood  at  the  start. 
If  I  have  any  weak  swarms,  I  usually  set  them 
to  breeding  from  one  to  three  weeks  before  set- 
ting them  out  in  the  spring,  by  taking  a  few 
bees  from  a  strong  stock  and  giving  them  to  the 
weak.  Two  or  three  hundred  bees  aresuflicient 
for  this  purpose.  A  few  strange  bees  coming 
in  contact  with  a  strange  queen,  under  such 
circumstances,  commence  feeding  her  the  ne- 
cessary food,  and  she  will  begin  to  lay  in  a  few 
days.  Of  course  all  upward  ventilation  must  be 
stopped  in  the  cellar. 

You  will  perhaps  wish  to  know  how  I  get 
bees  from  a  strong  stock  without  disturbing  it. 
M}'  honey-board  is  in  three  pieces.  I  lay  one 
piece  directly  over  the  cluster  of  bees  in  one  of 
my  strong  stocks  that  has  the  cap  and  honey- 
board  off,  and  the  bees  will  soon  cluster  on  the 
under  side  of  the  piece  thus  placed.  Now,  lift 
it  gently  and  turn  it  over  with  what  bees  are 
attached  to  it,  and  brush  or  shake  them  into  the 
stock  you  wish  to  set  to  breeding ;  and  the 
work  is  done.  There  is  no  danger  of  getting 
and  transferriag  the  queen  ;  for  if  the  bees  have 
not  been  disturbed,  the  queen  remains  among 
the  combs.  I  equalize  my  stocks  considerably, 
in  this  way,  in  the  cellar,  a  few  days  before  set- 
iiug  them  out. 

You  will  perceive  that  in  this  mode  you  cnn 
raise  the  brood  in  the  hive  where  it  is  needed, 
instead  of  having  to  transfer  it  from  another. 
But  it  you  are  used  for  a  bee-doctor  among 
your  neighbors,  as  I  am,  then,  if  the  brood  is 
not  already  in  the  hive,  give  them  a  little.  But 
I  always  prefer  to  raise  the  brood  in  the  hive  to 
transferring  it  from  another.  We  can  transfer 
seded  and  nearly  mature  brood  to  strengthen  a 


weak  swarm,  after  the  weather  becomes  warm 
enough.  But  I  do  not  do  so  until  the  weather 
becomes  warm  in  spring. 

Now  about  that  stimulating  or  feeding  the 
queen.  Here  comes  in  some  guess-work,  and 
I  am  Yankee  enough  to  have  a  perfect  right  to 
guess.  At  any  time  when  a  queen  is  breeding, 
the  bees  are  continually  offering  her  food  ;  and 
I  suppose  it  19  food  prepared  by  the  nursury 
bees,  perhaps  similar  to  that  fed  to  the  larvse. 
The  more  they  can  be  induced  to  feed  her,  the 
more  eggs  she  will  lay.  When  a  swarm  is  rais- 
ing queens  and  preparing  to  swarm,  they  cease 
feeding  the  old  queen,  or  paying  her  any  at- 
tention. Consequently  she  ceases  egg-laying 
at  least  partially  ;  otherwise  she  woukl  not  be 
able  to  fly  with'her  subjects  on  their  intended 
journey.  There  are  exceptions  to  this  rule;  but 
with  me  they  have  been  rare. 

At  any  time  in  the  summer,  when  there  is  a 
scarcity  of  forage,  the  bees  stop  feeding  their 
queen;  and  she  consequently  stops  breeding. 
In  the  fall  or  winter,  they  do  not  nppoar  to  pay 
any  attention  to  their  queen.  When  she  is 
hungry,  she  has  to  eat  honey  like  another  bee, 
or  like  a  young  queen  not  yet  fertilized,  which 
is  left  to  supply  herself  from  the  common  stores; 
but  as  soon  as  she  is  fertilized,  they  commence 
feeding  her.  For  this  reason  it  is  sometimes  a 
very  difficult  matter  to  introduce  a  strange 
queen  in  October,  or  at  any  time  when  bees  are 
not  raisiuii;  brood.  Mr.  Thomas'  plan  would 
fail  nine  times  out  of  ten,  in  October.  Four 
years  ago,  I  failed  three  times  out  of  five,  with 
Mr.  Alley's  plan  and  the  tobacco  smoke.  A 
colony  or  stock  deprived  of  its  queen  at  that 
season,  does  not  appear  to  discover  its  loss  un- 
der from  five  to  ten  days. 

The  reailer  will  find  that  a  very  small  quanti- 
ty of  food  administered  regularly,  induces  the 
bees  to  feed  their  queen,  and  this  causes  her  to 
lay  eggs,  more  or  less  freely,  according  to  cir- 
cumstances. But  when  the  queen  has  entirely 
ceased  laying,  as  was  the  case  last  seeson,  and 
honey  is  then  again  gathered  late,  the  bees  do 
not  feed  their  queen,  and  she  consequently  does 
not  re-commence  laying.  It  is  frequently  the 
case  even  in  summer,  that  a  stock  which  gets  rich 
with  stores,  ceases  paying  attention  to  its  queen; 
while  another  stock,  standing  by  its  side,  is 
brooding  rapidly.  By  drumming  out  those 
bees,  or  disturbing  them  by  taking  out  a  comb 
and  inserting  an  empty  frame  for  them  to 
j  fill,  they  will  be  impelled  to  feed  their  queen 
I  and  stimulated  to  activity.  I  work  on  the  prin- 
t  ciple  that  this  theory  is  correct;  and  the  results 
I  are  sure  to  follow.  Of  course  I  have  no  method 
of  knowing  that  it  is  chyle  or  prepared  food 
that  is  fed  to  the  queen  and  induces  her  to  lay  ; 
and  I  have  never  seen  anything  on  the  subject 
from  others.  Mix  up  your  bees,  or  "  punch 
them  up,"  as  Novice  says,  when  j'ou  want 
them  to  breed. 

E.  Gallup. 
Osage,  Iowa. 


None  except  the  mothe 
hornets  survive  the  winter. 
are  founded  solely  by  the  mother. 


wasps  or  mother 
The  new  colonies 


54 


THE   AMERICAN    BEE    JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Alley's  New  Style  Langstroth  Hive. 


Fig.  1. 

The  above  cxUs  represent  the  New  Style 
Langstroth  hive,  which  I  have  before  described 
in  the  Bee  Journal. 

Fig.  1  shows  tin;  outside  cover  or  cap,  which 
covers  the  surplus  honey  boxes  and  brood- 
chamber,  and  is  weather-proof  both  summer 
and  winter. 

This  hive  is  so  arranged  that  it  has  perfect 
ventilation  ;  and  bees,  when  at  work  in  the 
bo.xes,  will  not  leave  them  during  the  hottest 
weather — thus  giving  this  hive  the  advantage 
over  all  others  in  use.  During  the  warmest 
weather  in  the  summer  of  1868,  my  bees  kept  at 
work  in  the  boxes  ;  while  the  bees  in  all  other 
kinds  of  hives  were  clustered  ou  the  outside, 
leaving  the  boxes  entirely  empty.  Mj"^  bees  at 
that  time  collected  honey  rapidlj^  and  stored 
quite  a  quantity,  which  they  would  not  have 
done  had  they  been  in  boxes  like  those  of  my 
neighbors. 


Fig.  2. 

Fig.  2  shows  the  brood-cliamber  and  arrange- 
ment for  the  surplus  honey  boxes. 

The  boxes,  as  I  have  before  stated,  are  placed 
on  the  sides,  and  the  combs  in  the  brood  box 
run  from  side   to  side,  and   not  from   front  to 


rear,  as  they  do  in  all  other  movable  comb 
hives; 

Thirty-six  boxes  can  be  placed  in  the  hive  at 
one  time,  and  each  box  has  an  entrance  one  and 
three-fourths  ot  an  inch  in  diameter.  No  boxes 
are  placed  over  the  frames,  as  it  would  be  too 
far  tor  the  bees  to  travel  in  order  to  reach  them. 
Besides,  I  think  thirty-six  three  pound  boxeS 
are  as  many  as  any  good  colony  can  fill  in  one 
season,  unless  the  seasons  are  much  better  than 
we  have  had  them  in  my  experience,  here  in 
New  England,  since  I  have  kept  bees. 

The  brood-chamber  lias  room  for  ten  frames, 
and  has  the  same  number  of  cubic  inches  inside 
as  the  shallow  form  Langstroth  hive. 

These  hives  will  winter  a  stock  of  bees,  with- 
out extra  preparation,  better  than  any  other 
hive  in  use.  They  can  be  better  ventilated  than 
any  hive  yet  constructed,  without  having  a 
draft  of  air  up  through  the  bees  or  the  brood 
box.  The  sides  of  tlie  brood-chamber,  having 
eighteen  one  and  three-fourths  of  an  inch  holes 
in  each,  and  a  movable  top  or  honey  board,  it 
will  be  seen  at  once  that  the  entrance  can  be 
closed,  and  holes  for  ventilation  made  in  the 
outer  case,  near  the  top,  or  anywhere  to  suit  the 
fancy  of  the  bee-master. 

I  know  of  one  man  who  wintered  a  stock  of 
bees  in  this  kind  of  hive  last  winter,  and  all  he 
did  to  prepare  it  was,  to  remove  the  top  of  the 
brood  box  and  place  a  piece  of  woolen  carpeting 
over  the  frames.  This  spring  it  was  the  best 
stock  of  bees  he  had. 

These  hives  have  the  space  between  the 
frames  and  sides  of  the  hive  (as  is  the  case  in 
all  good  movable  comb  hives)  admitting  that 
cold  draft  which  some  of  your  correspondents, 
who  have  an  interest  in  close-fitting  frames,  do 
not  think  a  good  thing.  Now  I  consider  that 
space  one  of  the  best  features  about  Langstroth 
hives.  Who  ever  saw  an  old  box  hive  that  did 
not  have  room  for  the  bees  to  pass  through  be- 
tween the  ends  of  the  combs  and  the  sides  of  the 
hive  ?  This  story  about  the  cold  draft  of  air 
will  do  for  some  beekeepers  to  believe ;  but 
with  those  who  know  what  a  good  hive  is,  I 
rather  think  it  will  not  go  down.  The  new 
style  hive  has  a  deep  frame,  and  most  of  your 
correspondents  admit  that  deep  hives  will  win- 
ter better  than  sliallow  ones. 

The  honey  will  always  be  found  above  the 
bees  in  winter,  which  is  another  good  feature 
in  this  hive,  if  we  can  believe  what  we  read  in 
the  Bee  Journal  about  some  of  the  famous 
patent  hives  offered  for  sale.  Then,  again,  it 
will  be  found  on  examination  of  the  new  style 
hive  and  the  shallow  hive  in  Marcli  and  April, 
that  the  former  has  at  least  one-third  more 
brood  than  the  latter,  with  the  same  quantity 
of  bees.  I  examined  fifty  stocks  of  bees  in 
shallow  hives  last  spring  (and  many  of  them 
were  larger  colonies  than  any  I  had),  but  not 
one  of  them  had  as  much  sealed  brood  as  mine. 
The  brood-chamber  being  inside  of  a  case  or 
house,  and  the  ventilators  closed,  no  heat  can 
escape,  except  through  the  entrance.  The  ac- 
cess to  the  boxes  is  so  clear  that  the  bees  find 
themselves  in  them  befoie  they  are  aware  of  it. 
I  know  that  it  seems  most  natural  for  bees  to 
work  in  boxes  first,  when  placed   above  the 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL, 


55 


brood  ;  but  it  is  a  little  curious  that  my  bees 
conimeuced  in  the  bottom  tier  of  boxes  first. 
In  fact,  tliey  had  them  almost  full  before  I  was 
aware  that  they  bad  entered  them  at  all.  They 
had  the  top  tier  to  go  into  first  if  they  chose  ; 
and  there  I  was  looking  for  them  every  day. 

That  bees  will  work  in  side  boxes,  as  well  as 
in  those  placed  over  the  brood,  is  a  fact  well 
established  in  my  mind  ;  and  if  any  of  the  read- 
ers of  the  Bee  Journal  doubt  it,  let  them  test 
one  of  my  new  style  of  hives,  and  it  will  not 
take  more  than  one  season  to  convince  theni  of 
the  fact. 

I  know  that  some  will  object  to  this  hive  on 
account  of  the  cost  ;  but  they  can  be  made  for 
about  one-half  the  money  I  sell  them  for. 
When  I  make  a  hive  I  intend  to  make  a  good 
one,  and  must  of  course  have  a  good  price  for 
it.  In  this  part  of  the  world  lumber  is  very 
high,  as  well  as  everything  else.  The  surplus 
honey  boxes  are  what  makes  this  hive  cost  so 
much  more  than  some  others.  Thirty-six 
boxes  with  glass  sides,  is  what  I  use  with  this 
hive ;  but  it  should  be  remembered  that  any 
kind  of  a  box  can  be  used  on  this  hive,  and  any 
number  from  two  to  thiity-six  at  one  time. 

Those   who  raise   honey  for  market,    should  | 
use  the  small  boxes,  as  it  sells  much  more  readi- 
ly in  them,  and  at  prices  much  higher. 

Those  who  use  the  honey  machine  will  find 
these  boxes  very  convenient  to  use,  as  the 
glasses  can  be  slipped  out,  the  caps  removed, 
and  the  honey  thrown  out,  without  injury  to  the 
eomb  or  box  ;  and  the  same  comb  can  be  used 
year  after  year. 

Another  good  quality  of  this  hive  is  this— the 
frames  can  be  taken  out  of  the  brood-chamber, 
without  having  to  remove  the  surplus  boxes  ; 
and  this  one  feature  alone  is  worth  half  the 
price  of  the  hive. 

The  sides  of  the  brood  box  can  be  removed 
at  pleasure  ;  so  that  those  who  think  it  a  better 
plan,  can  place  the  surplus  boxes  within  one- 
fourth  of  an  inch  of  the  brood.  The  outside 
case  is  in  two  parts,  as  shown  in  figure  1.  The 
bottom  i^ortion  I  seldom  remove  ;  but  the  top 
must  be  removed  in  order  to  reach  the  boxes, 
and  see  the  bees  through  the  observing  glass  in 
rear  of  brood  chamber.  The  hive  is  made  in 
several  parts,  but  each  piece  is  held  firmly  in 
place,  so  that  the  bive  can  be  transported  as 
well  and  conveniently  as  any  other.  I  have 
sent  them  to  Pennsylvania,  New  York,  Ohio, 
New  Hampshire,  and  all  went  safely. 

This  hive  has  all  the  good  features  ot  the 
Langstroth,  and  all  who  use  them  will  have 
to  pay  Mr.  Langstroth,  or  the  owners  of  his  ter- 
ritory, for  the  right.  Persons  who  send  to  me 
for  them,  should  understand  this,  and  act  ac- 
cordingly. 

Mr.  George  O.  Tompkins,  of  White  Plains, 
New  York,  wrote  me,  sometime  in  June  last, 
that  he  had  one  hive  of  bees  at  work  in  all 
thirty-six  boxes.  Bees  have  done  so  poorly 
here,  this  season,  that  I  cannot  make  a  good  re- 
port of  these  hives  this  year ;  but  hope  to  be 
able  to  do  so  another  season. 

H.   Alley. 

Wen  HAM,  Mass, 


[For  tbe  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Replies  and  Comments. 


Querist  number  6  asks  seven  questions  which 
he  regards  as  practical  ones,  and  desires  practi- 
cal and  philosophical  replies. 

"1.  Some  beekeepers  take  the  position  that  natural 
swarms  will  gather  more  honey,  build  mne  comb,  and 
have  more  brood,  during  the  first  week  after  ttiey  are 
hived,  than   artificial  ones.     Is  this  true?    And,  If  so, 

why]" 

I  most  assuredly  take  the  affirmative  on  this 
question.  The  reasons  why  the  bees  gather 
more  honey  and  build  more  comb  in  the  natural 
swarms  than  in  artificial  ones,  is  simpljr  because 
when  we  make  artificial  swarms,  we  universally 
transfer  some  combs  which  are  the  full  size  of 
the  frames,  reaching  throughout  the  length  and 
depth  of  the  hive  ;  aud  these  combs  cause  the 
bees  to  cluster  in  an  unnatural  manner,  to  keep 
the  brood  warm,  in  consequence  of  the  comb 
being  so  large.  Did  ever  anyone  know  a  swarm 
of  bees  to  commence  and  build  a  single  comb 
from  top  to  bottom  in  a  common  full-sized  hive, 
and  then  go  back  and  build  another  single  one  ? 
It  cannot  possibly  be  done.  They  commence 
quite  a  number,  and  build  them  all  downward 
together,because  they  then  can  and  do  receive  the 
benefit  of  the  animal  heat  generated  in  the  clus- 
ter, and  which  they  must  have  to  build  comb. 
The  first  and  highest  law  of  nature  in  insects, 
as  well  as  animals,  is  self-preservation  in  caring 
for  the  offspring.  The  honey  bee  seems  to  be 
endowed  with  this  instinctive  impulse,  for  the 
purpose  of  preserving  the  brood  in  the  hive. 
Now  it  is  certainly  evident  that  if  the  combs 
that  are  transferred  from  the  old  hive  at  the 
time  the  artificial  swarm  is  made,  contain  brood 
(and  they  generally  do),  the  bees  will  cluster 
on  them,  for  the  purpose  of  saving  the  brood 
from  destruction  by  chilling.  This  causes  the 
bees  to  cluster  in  an  unnatural  manner.  If  your 
hive  was  an  oblong  square  perpendicular,  say 
eighteen  inches  long,  and  you  had  means  by 
which  you  could  take  the  combs  to  pieces  in 
lengths  of  say  six  inches,  and  insert  them  in 
the  top  of  the  hive  where  the  animal  heat 
(which  they  must  have)  naturally  ascends, 
then  the  bees  could  and  would  approach  a  per- 
fect natural  cluster  in  form,  and  the  heat  could 
be  economically  used.  Otherwise,  if  the  combs 
reach  from  top  to  bottom  of  the  hive,  say  from 
nine  to  eighteen  inches  deep,  perpendicular,  the 
time  of  perhaps  every  bee  in  the  hive  will  ne- 
cessarily be  taken  up  in  trying  to  keep  the 
brood  from  chilling,  owing  to  the  unnatural 
position  of  the  combs,  and  the  open  space  to  the 
side.  Hence  no  bees  could  be  spared  from  the 
lower  ends  of  the  combs  (on  account  of  the 
brood  chilling)  to  go  to  the  top  of  the  hive  and 
build  comb  there  ;  nor  could  any  be  spared  to 
go  out  to  gather  honey,  out  of  which  to  make 
comb. 

All  close  observers  understand  this  principle 
in  the  management  of  bees  :  if  you  have  a  small 
swarm  in  too  large  a  hive,  it  will  not  build  so 
much  comb,  gather  so  much  honey,  nor  do  so 
well  generally,  as  the  same  swarm  would  have 


56 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


done  had  it  been  placed  in  a  liive  of  cubic  con- 
tents proportionate  to  the  number  of  bees.  Now 
the  reason  is  simply  because  the  bees  are  una- 
ble, in  so  large  a  space,  to  generate  heat  and 
keep  up  the  internal  temperature  required  for 
their  prosperity.  This  last  observation  is  made 
for  the  purpose  of  showing  the  vital  importance 
of  animal  heat  and  its  economical  use,  for  the 
greatest  prosperity  in  artificial  swarming,  when 
combs  are  inserted  the  full  size  of  the  hive 
Again,  is  it  not  evident,  if  the  bees  cluster  from 
the  top  to  the  bottom  of  the  hive,  in  order  to 
cover  the  brood  at  the  bottom,  that  the  animal 
heat  will  ascend  to  the  top,  thus  passing 
away  from  the  cluster  ?  Hence  the  artificial 
colony  lingers,  while  the  natural  swarm  does 
not. 

There  is  one  other  reason.  It  is  this.  All 
artificial  swarms  should  have  the  swarming  pro- 
pensity excited  at  the  time  they  are  being  made. 
"When  that  is  done,  and  the  combs  properly  ar- 
ranged in  the  hive,  there  remains  no  other  rea- 
son why  an  artificial  swarm  will  not  gather  as 
much  honey  and  build  as  much  comb  as  a 
natural  swarm  will,  in  auy  given  time.  The 
swarming  propensity  produces  a  Avonderful  ef- 
fect in  causing  bees  to  work  with  energy. 

"2.  Suppose  we  liave,  at  the  beginning  of  the  honey 
harvest  two  colonies  in  the  same  apiary,  eacb  having 
twenty  or  thirty  thousand  bees— t^e  same  number  of 
young  and  old  ;  the  same  amount  of  worker  and  drone 
comb  ;  a  fertile  queen  equally  prolific  ;  the  same  quanti- 
ty of  honey  and  bee-bread  ;  in  the  same  style  of  hive; 
managed  alike  in  every  respect ;  and  one  gathers  lifty 
pounds  of  honey,  and  the  other  seventy-five  pounds. 
What  should  cause  the  difference?  Who  can  give  the 
solution?"  &c. 

The  answer  is,  in  and  in  breeding.  How 
many  beekeepers  have  bought  a  single  hive  of 
bees  to  get  a  start;  or  have  found  a  swarm  clus- 
tered on  some  shrub  or  some  branch  of  a  tree  ; 
or  perhaps  have  found  a  colony  in  tlie  hollow  of 
some  forest  tree  ;  and  have  thus  managed  to  get 
their  start  from  a  single  stock  ?  Perhaps  there 
may  not  have  been  another  hive  within  two  or 
three  miles  of  this  one.  His  bees  multiply 
rapidly  for  a  term  of  years,  and  increase  until 
his  apiary  contains  fifty  or  a  hundred  hives. 
Then  comes  the  certain,  sure  and  inevitable  re- 
tribution. Ten  years  or  perhaps  less  have 
passed,  and  how  many  hives  of  bees  do  you 
suppose  he  has  V  The  answer  is,  from  seven  to 
twenty.  Now  why  is  it?  The  same  man 
knows  perhaps  that  if  he  should  take  a  stock  of 
hogs,  sheep,  or  even  chickens,  upon  a  farm,  and 
n<^t  change  them  in  some  way  to  prevent  in  and 
in  breeding,  the  stock  would  run  down,  until 
they  would  have  no  physical  or  constitutional 
ability  to  Uve  and  multiply  profitably.  The  in- 
evitable seal  of  nature  is  stamped  upon  in  and 
in  breeding,  in  insects  and  animals  as  well  as 
the  human  race  ;  the  penalty  being  eventually, 
if  persisted  in  for  several  generations,  utter  and 
entire  destruction. 

In  the  case  alluded  to,  where  a  difference  of 
twenty-five  pounds  of  honey  is  made,  in  profit 
to  the  owner,  in  the  hive  containing  the  queen 
whose  progeny  failed  to  produce  as  much  hon- 
ey as  the  other,  was  caused  by  the  constitution- 
al vigor  and  ability  of  the  workers  to  perform 
the  labor  being  non  est.     The   queen   of  this 


colony,  through  all  her  previous  generations  may 
not  have  violated  the  law,  until  in  the  act  of 
her  own  fertilization. 

The  next  three  questions  seem  to  be  directed 
to  Novice  and  Bingham. 

6.  Except  hy  the  absorption  of  the  sun's  rays 
in  early  spring,  there  can  be  no  reason  why 
bees  would  be  more  contented  in  a  hive  of  dark 
color  than  in  a  wliite  one. 

7.  As  a  general  rule,  bees  never  decamp  be- 
cause the  queen  is  removed  from  the  hive,  if 
they  have  the  means  to  produce  another,  and 
their  hive  has  not  too  much  upward  ventila- 
tion, and  be  not  dispropoitionately  large,  leav- 
ing an  undue  amount  of  vacant  space.  Tliey 
almost  invariably  build  drone  comb  in  the  ab- 
sence of  a  fertile  queen.  J.  "W".  Seat. 

MoKROE,  Iowa. 

P.  S.  In  an  article  written  by  me,  on  page 
139,  volume  4,  first  column,  line  39,  for  rest 
read  risk,  and  in  the  same  line  for  queen  read 
owner.  The  article  should  also  be  signed  J.  W- 
Seay,  instead  of  J.  W.  Leay. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

How  I  Found  a  Black  Queen. 


One  of  my  hives  contained  one  frame  of  Ital- 
ian bees,  with  brood,  eggs,  honey,  and  a  fertile 
Italian  queen.  Anotiier  hive  contained  a  full 
black  colony,  with  a  feriile  black  queen. 

I  wanted  lo  f  nd  the  black  queen,  and  substi- 
tute the  Italian  queen  ;  but  could  not  find  the 
former,  after  a  search  of  three  days.  Being  a 
Yankee  I  invented  a  plan.  Making  a  few  Italian 
bees  my  agents,  I  found  her  by  application  of  the 
legal  maxim — ^'■quifacit  per  alia.,  facii  per  sfi." 

Exchanging  their  stands  when  tlie  black 
bees  were  flying  freely,  I  threw  one-third  irf  the 
black  bees  into  the  Italian  hive,  where  I  had 
caged  the  Italian  queen.  A  few  Italian  workers 
were,  by  the  same  operation,  thrown  into  the 
black  colony,  where  they  immediately  formed  a 
prison  cluster  about  the  black  queen.  Remov- 
ing the  cluster,  the  remaining  operation  of  uni- 
ting mj'^  Italian  nucleus  and  the  black  colony 
was  easy  enough. 

A  Chicago  Beginner. 

Chicago,  Aug.  13,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

The  Italian  Bees  on  Red  Clover. 


Mr.  Editor: — If  others  who  have  Italian 
bees,  and  red  clover  fields  around  them,  and  do 
not  find  them  working  freely  on  the  red  clover, 
surely  their  bees,  soil,  or  clover,  must  be  differ- 
ent from  mine. 

I  have  the  large  red  (perhaps  some  would 
call  it  the  large  Dutch)  clover,  mixed  with  the 
alsike;  and  the  common  kinds  of  red  clover 
grow  on  my  neighbors'  lands. 

Now  any  day  since  these  began  to  blossom, 
when  I  take  pains  to  observe,  I  see  a  portion  of 
the  bees  working  on  the  red  clover,  although 
the  alsike  and  the  common  white  may  abound 
all  around  them.  J.  W.  Truesdell. 

Warwick,  Canada,  July  80,  1869. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOUENAL. 


67 


[Forthe  Americau  Bee  Journal.] 

A  Queen  Mating  Thrice. 


Mr.  Editor  :— On  the  12tli  day  of  July,  in- 
stant, one  of  my  hives  of  bees  swarmed,  and 
returned  to  the  hive  after  partly  cluster- 
ing. Thinking  the  queen  was  probably  unable 
to  tiy  from  the  hive,  I  look  out  the  frames  and 
shook  most  of  the  bees  into  an  empty  hive  ; 
then  examined  the  combs  and  satisfied  myself 
tliat  there  was  no  queen  on  them.  My  artifi- 
cial swarm  remained  qniet  forawliile,  but  finally 
all  returned  to  the  old  stock.  On  the  20th  this 
liive  swarmed  again.  On  the  21sl  I  opened  the 
hive,  aud  found  two  queens  in  it.  I  tooli  out 
one  comb  with  queen  and  bees,  and  put  it  in  an 
observing  hive  in  my  bedroom  window.  On 
the  25th,  at  about  3  P.  M.,  I  missed  the  queen, 
and  at  ten  minutes  past  three,  I  saw  her  come 
back,  but  with  no  signs  of  having  met  a  drone. 
At  seventeen  minutes  afler  three  slie  again  went 
out,  and  nineteen  minutes  afterwards  came  in, 
with  a  whitish  mass,  about  half  the  size  of  her 
head,  attached  to  her  tail.  This  was  soon  re- 
moved by  a  worker,  and.  carried  out  of  the 
hive.  Next  day,  the  26th,  I  saw  this  queen  go 
out  again,  at  fifteen  minutes  after  four  P.  M.  ; 
and  twenty  minutes  after,  she  again  came  in, 
with  the  parts  of  the  drone  attached.  The  bees 
gathered  around  her,  as  before  ;  and  one  of 
them,  taldng  hold  of  the  object,  pulled  it  away 
aid  carried  it  out.  On  the  27th,  about  four 
o'clock,  a  commotion  was  observed  among  the 
bees,  and  on  examination  it  was  found  that  tlie 
queen  was  again  absent.  I  took  my  station  in 
front  of  the  hive  and  watched  it  closely,  fu 
about  twenty-nine  minutes  from  the  time  the 
queen  was  missed,  I  saw  her  come  in  with  the 
signs  of  copulation  precisely  as  in  tbe  two  for- 
mer cases.  The  bees  gathered  around  her;  one 
laid  hold  of  it,  pulled  it  away,  aud  carried  it 
out. 

Mr.  J.  T.  Langstroth,  in  the  January  number 
of  the  Bee  Journal,  says  that  when  impreg- 
nation is  one  effected,  we  have  no  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  any  subsequent  copulation  takes 
place.  Now  I  can  see  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
impregnation  of  this  queen  took  place  on  each 
of  these  three  occasions.  Any  person  seeing 
her  could  not  fail  to  notice  from  her  actions  that 
some  important  operation  had  been  performed 
upon  her.  For,  as  I  suppose,  an  hour  after  each 
copulation,  she  moved  slowly  and  with  her 
body  drawn  up,  as  if  feeling  very  uncomforta- 
ble. Alter  this  experience  I  must  say  that  the 
modes  yet  devised  of  securing  pure  impregna- 
tion appear  to  me  questionable,  if  not  worth- 
less. 

Thomas  C.  Hill. 

Sydney,  C.  B.,  July  28,  1869. 


It  is  well  known  to  breeders  of  poultry,  that 
the  fertility  of  a  hen  decreases  with  age,  until  at 
length  she  may  become  entirely  barren.  By 
the  same  law,  the  fecundity  of  the  queen  bee 
ordinarily  diminishes  after  she  has  entered  her 
third  year. — Langstroth. 


[For  tlie  Americau  Bee  Journal. 1 

Queens  Mating  Twice. 


Mr.  Editor  :— When  I  wrote   my  first  arti- 
cle on  this  subject,  I  had  no  other  motive  than 
to  get  at  facts  and  to  advance   bee-culture.     At 
that  time  I  was  not  raising  qneens  for  sale;  and 
j  I  would  not  have  written  to  tlie  Journal  then 
1  only  for  the  request  of  Mr.  Langstroth. 

Mr.  J.  E.  Pond,  Jr.,  must  no'^t  have  read  my 
I  article  very  carefully,  or  he  would  not  have  un- 
derstood me  to  say  tliat  queens  go  out  to  meet 
the  drones  after  they  commenced  laying  eggs.  I 
never  said  so,  nor  do  I  say  so  now  ;  for  I  do 
not  believe  they  ever  leave  the  hive  for  such 
purpose,  or  ever  mate  with  a  drone,  after  the)'- 
commence  laying.  But  I  am  still  of  the  opin- 
ion that  they  do  sometimes  mate  with  more  than 
one  drone ;  and  I  will  so  believe  until  it  is 
satistactorily  proi'era  that  they  do  not. 

I  do  not  wish  to  deter  anyone  from  purchas- 
ing Italian  queens.  On  the  contrary,  I  am  try- 
ing to  induce  all  I  can  to  purchase  ;  aud  I  wisli 
everyone  that  keeps  bees  would  have  no  others 
except  Italians,  for  then  we  would  have  no 
trouble  in  keeping  them  pure. 

Mr.  Pond  says— "  The  allwise  Creator  has 
designed  that  among  bees  impregnation  should 
take  place  high  in  the  air,  in  order  probably  to 
guard  as  much  as  possible  from  in  and 
in  breeding."  Would  it  not  be  a  more  effectual 
way  to  cross,  if  they  were  to  meet  two  or  more 
drones?  If  the  aliwise  Creator  devises  means 
for  them  to  find  their  way  home  safely  one 
time,  and  knows  it  is  necessary  that  they  should 
go  out  a  second  time,  He  cnn  easily  enable 
them  to  find  the  way  home  safe  a  second  or  a 
third  time.  Mr.  J.  L.  McLean  thinks  this  doc- 
trine is  only  a  shrewd  invention  of  queen-roisei'S, 
to  humbug  their  customers  and  sell  spurious 
queens.  So  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  gujLvrantee 
all  the  queens  I  sell,  and  tell  my  customers 
that  if  at  a7\y  time  the  queens  purchased  of  me 
should  fail  to  produce  workers  with  three 
stripes,  I  will,  when  notified  of  the  fact,  send, 
another  free  of  charge.  Does  this  look  like 
humbug  ? 

Mr.  McL.  thanks  Mr.  Langstroth  and  Gallup 
for  entering  their  protest.  As  I  said  above  I 
wrote  my  first  article  at  Mr.  Langstroth's  re- 
quest. Mr.  James  T.  Langstroth  says,  in  one 
of  his  articles,  that  he  has  observed  queens 
coming  in  more  than  once.,  bearing  the  signs  of 
having  mated  with  a  drone,  but  were  impreg- 
nated by  only  one.  But  he  does  not  produce 
any  evidence  that  they  were  not  impregnated 
more  than  once. 

As  for  Mr.  Gallup,  I  think  he  gallops  around 
after  us  all  oftentimes  just  for  argument's  sake  ; 
and  I  am  glad  too  that  he  does  so,  for  he  keeps 
things  stirred  up,  so  that  he  keeps  us  all  awake. 
Thanks  to  the  galloper. 

When  Mr.  Pond,  or  any  one  else,  proves  con- 
clusively that  my  theory  is  incorrect,  I  will  then 
give  in. 

H.  Nesbit. 

Cynthiana,  Ky.,  August  9,  1869. 


58 


THE    AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


[From  the  Prairie  Farmer,  Aug.  14, 

Pure  Progeny  and  Hybrid. 


I  have  a  colony  of  bees,  the  queen  a  pure 
Italian.  I  think  she  mated  with  a  black  drone, 
althouEch  there  were  Italian  drones.  She  is  a 
year  old,  and  I  had  clipped  her  wings,  for  fear 
she  might  steal  a  march  on  me,  and  leave.  I 
use  a  movable  frame  hive. 

On  the  19th  of  July,  they  sent  out  a  swarm, 
but  as  the  queen  could  not  fly,  tliey  went  back, 
and  I  captured  her  and  gave  her  to  a  black 
colony  I  had  just  bought.  I  opened  the  hive 
and  destroyed  all  the  queen  cells  but  one.  On 
the  30th  they  sent  out  another  swarm.  I  open- 
ed the  hive  and  cut  out  the  queen  cells,  and  put 
them  in  a  small  box;  and  in  fifteen  minutes  there 
were  eight  young  queens  out  of  their  cells,  and 
crawling  around  the  bos.  Two  of  them  were 
as  fair  Italians  as  I  ever  saw  ;  two  were  appar- 
ently pure  black  bees  ;  and  the  others  were  un- 
mistakably hybrids.  What  was  the  cause  of  the 
difference  ? 

Eli  Phillips. 

Coles  Co.,  Ills. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Gallup's  Notions  Considered. 


[From  the  London  Gardeners'  Chronicle.] 

Eastern  Melilot  or  Bokhara  Clover. 


I  have  received  seed  of  this  form  of  white 
clover  from  the  East,  under  the  names  both  of 
Bokhara  and  Cabool  clover.  It  is  longer  in  its 
stems  and  foliage  than  the  British  specif  s, 
frequently  growing  as  much  as  four  feet  in 
height.  Its  flowers  are  if  anything  smaller 
than  those  of  the  Melilotvs  alba. 

Having  grown  of  this,  I  find  it  to  be  greatly 
resorted  to  by  the  bees,  which  would  seem  to  be 
as  much  attracted  by  the  strong  smell  of  the 
foliage,  as  by  the  scent  of  the  ^flowers.  The 
flavor  of  the  whole  plant  is  due  to  the  same 
principle  as  that  of  the  Anthoxanthum  odoratum 
— sweet  vernal  grass,  a  grass  principally  con- 
cerned in  imparting  fragrance  to  good  meadow 
hay.  The  principle  is  called  by  the  chemists 
Gour  marine,  and  is  the  volatile  oil  that  gives 
fragrance  to  the  Tonka  bean. 

I  have  grown  this  Melilot  in  my  mixtures  of 
seeds  or  artificial  grasses,  with  the  view  of 
imparting  to  them  the  flavor  of  meadow  hay  ; 
and  in  as  far  as  my  experience  has  gone,  I  have 
found  such  hay  to  be  both  more  relished  and 
more  nutritious.  I  mixed  about  a  quarter  of  a 
pound  ot  Melilot  seed  with  the  seed  of  each  acre 
of  clover,  or  mixed  clover  and  grass  seed.  The 
bee-master  then,  who  farms,  may  improve  his 
artificial  fodder,  while  li'^  i)rovides  for  his  bees 
through  the  medium  of  Melilot.  B. 

May  29,  1869. 


No  hive  which  does  not  furnish  a  thorough 
control  over  every  comb,  can  give  that  substan- 
tial advance  over  the  simple  improved  or  cham- 
ber hive,  which  the  bee-keeper's  necessities 
demand. — Langstroth. 


"  Our  friend"  Gallup  reminds  me  of  an  anec- 
dote I  heard  when  a  boy.  A  cat  (not  the  "tom- 
cat," but  that  other  kind  of  cat),  asked  the  lion- 
ess how  many  times  in  the  j^ear  she  had  young? 
The  lioness  replied  but  once.  "How  many  at  a 
time  ?"  says  the  cat.  "But  one  at  a  time,"  says 
the  lioness.  "  P.shaw  !"  says  the  cat,  "that's 
nothing.  I  have  young  four  timos  a  year,  and 
four  or  five  at  a  time."  "  Well,"  says  the  lion- 
ess, "  they  are  nothiDg  but  cats,  after  all." 

In  my  article  referred  to  by  Gallup  in  the 
August  number  of  the  Beb  Journal,  page  27, 
I  had  reference  to  what  he  said  about  the  dysen- 
tery, in  the  January  number,  page  145.  I  had 
no  reference  to  his  management  of  his  bees  ; 
for  if  we  are  to  believe  rchat  he  says  ab,nit  that, 
of  course  his  bees  are  all  right,  and  "know  bet- 
ter than  to  have  the  dysentery."  But,  mark 
.you,  what  he  said.  He  started  out  by  saying 
there  was  no  such  disease  ;  and  then  went  on 
to  tell  what  produced  it,  and  how  to  prevent  it, 
&c.  I  would  like  to  know,  if  there  is  no  such 
disease,  how  it  can  be  produced.  I  should 
think  it  was  a  disease,  after  it  was  produced  ; 
but  Gallup  says  it  is  not,  and  it  is — both  ;  so 
you  can  believe  which  you  please  of  his  state- 
ments. 

Again,  Gallup  saj's  that  bees  do  not  make 
honey  !  Well,  suppose  they  do  not,  does  that 
prove  that  there  is  "  no  such  disease  as  dysen- 
tery ?"  But  let  us  see  if  they  do  make  honey  ? 
I  say  they  do  not  make  honey,  but  gather  it. 
Gallup  says  they  "  do  make  honey,"  and  then 
refers  me  to  the  "maple  sap,"  sai'iug  that  the 
bees  have  to  gather  twelve  drops  of  sap  to 
every  drop  of  honey.  At  those  rates,  on  a  fine 
day,  a  large  colony  would  have  their  hive  full 
of  sap  before  nigiit,  and  would  have  to  hold  ou 
for  want  of  storage  room,  and  wait  until  night 
to  reduce  it  to  honey.  Does  any  sane  man  be- 
lieve any  such  stuff  ?  No.  Gallup  himself  does 
not  believe  it,  I  suppose.  It  is  one  of  his 
"doses,"  given  merely  to  see  "  what  effect  it 
would  have."  There  is  no  person  Avho  ever 
paid  any  attention  to  the  Avay  bees  sip  at  maple 
sap,  but  knows  that  they  do  not  take  it  up  in 
its  watery  state,  aud  carry  it  in  their  hives. 
They  are  a  long  time  getting  what  they  carry 
away,  and  are  verj^  particular  to  crawl  around 
where  it  is  merely  wet,  and  where  the  wind  has 
reduced  the  sap  to  much  less  than  twelve  to 
one,  and  there  extract  what  sweet  they  carry 
ofi". 

Our  friend  Gallup  asks  me  to  answer,  through 
the  Bee  Journal,  whether  the  maple  sap  is 
made  into  honey  by  the  bees,  or  does  the  sap 
make  itself  into  honey?  Well,  Gallup,  neither 
one  of  your  questions  is  true.  The  bees  do  not 
make  the  sap  into  honey ;  nor  does  it  make 
itself  into  honey.  The  bees  gather  a  portion  of 
the  sweet  from  the  maple  sap,  the  same  as  they 
do  from  different  flowers.  As  for  Gallup's 
great  discovery  that  bees  mix  "a  portion  of  their 
saliva"  with  the  honey  they  make  from  the 
maple  sap,  to  keep  it  "  from  granulating."  Of 
course  it  is  so  with  Gallup's  bees  ;  but   t  doubt 


THE    AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


59 


very  much  whether  my  bees  have  that  power — 
Ihougli  tliey  may  have,  for  that  is  a  very  nice 
point  to  detect;  I)ut  Galkip  is  "tremendous"  on 
these  mysteries  of  the  honey  bee. 

Gallup  says  that  bees  do  make  a  very  nice 
article  of  honey  from  maple  sap,  and  then,  to 
prove  it,  says — "reduce  sugar  syrup  quite  thin 
and  feed  it  to  bees  in  July  or  August,  and  they 
will  make  it  into  thick  honey."  Well,  friend 
Gallup,  bees  do  not,  in  this  part  of  the  country, 
work  very  much  on  majile  sap  in  July  or  Au- 
gust. Maple  generally  flows  most  here  in  the 
spring  of  the  year,  when  it  is  fully  as  cool  as  it 
was  any  time  last  fall  when  the  bees  were  gath- 
ering that  thin  honey. 

If  bees  ran  gather  "maple  sap"  that  contains 
only  one  drop  of  honey  to  every  twelve  drops 
of  sap,  and  reduce  it  to  a  "good  article  of  hon- 
ey," could  they  not,  by  the  same  law,  reduce 
tiie  thin  honey  that  our  friend  Gallup  says  they 
gathered  last  fall,  and  which  gave  them  the 
dysentery,  or  the  disease  that  he  saj^s  don't  ex- 
ist ?  Friend  Gallup  says  he  would  like  to  say 
much  more  on  the  subject  of  dysentery,  but  his 
"dose"  was  large  enough  for  "friend  Puckett." 
Friend  Gallup's  "dose"  puts  me  in  mind  of  a 
quack  doctor  I  once  heard  of.  The  story  is 
thus  :  He  was  called  in  haste  to  visit  a  child 
that  was  very  sick  ;  but  being  unable  to  detect 
the  cause  of  the  trouble,  he  -went  to  work  and 
])repared  a  "dose,"  by  taking  some  of  all  the 
medicines  he  had,  which  made  a  large  "  dose." 
He  was  about  to  administer  it  to  the  child, 
when  the  anxious  mother  remarked — ''do  you 
think,  doctor,  that  this  '  dose '  will  cure  my 
child  ?"  '■'■Cure  your  child  I"  replied  he,  "why 
no,  but  it  will  throw  itintoj?/s,  and  I  am  h — 1 
on  fits  !"  But  as  I  never  take  friend  Gallup's 
"doses"  as  he  prepares  them  for  me,  I  get  clear 
of  his  "  fits." 

Now,  friend  Gallup,  as  you  have  much  more 
you  want  to  say  on  the  subject  of  "  dysentery," 
I  refer  you  to  y<}ur  article  in  the  February  num- 
ber of  the  Bee  Joukkal,  page  145,  where  you 
say  there  is  no  such  disease.  Is  it,  or  is  it  not 
a  disease  ?  This  you  can  answer  without  mak- 
ing your  "doses"  so  very  large.  But  never 
mind  the  size  of  the  "dose,"  only  confine  your- 
self to  the  proper  material  of  which  it  is  com- 
posed. There  is  one  prominent  article  in  all 
your  "doses"  that  might  be  left  out,  and  the 
"dose"  act  fully  as  well,  at  least  on  me.  The 
"m?/"  and  the  "i"  might  be  let\  out,  until 
there  are  more  indicitions  for  tlieir  peculiar  ac- 
tion. But  if  the  "dose"  is  merely  prepared  "to 
see  what  effect  it  will  have,"  regaidless  of  the 
life  of  the  patient,  you  need  not  offer  it  to  me, 
as  I  will  not  take  it  until  I  aualyze  it;  and  then, 
if  there  should  happen  to  he  any  goxl  in  the 
compound,  I  may  take  it — if  I  need  the  article. 

Is  there,  or  is  there  not,  such  a  disease 
among  bees  as  the  dysentery  ?  Gallup's  bees, 
of  course,  excepted— tliey  "know  better." 

B.    Puckett. 

Winchester,  Ind.,  Aug.  1869. 


How  oft,  when  wandering  far  and  erring  long, 
Man  might  learn  truth  and  virtue  from  the  Bee. 

BOWRIKG. 


[For  the  Amei-icaa  Bee  Journal.] 

How  to  Save  and  Clean  Alsike  Clover 
Seed. 


Mk.  Editor  :— In  the  last  number  of  the 
Bee  Journal,  I  noticed  an  article  from  the 
pen  of  Mr.  Nesbit,  of  Cyntluana,  Ky.,  in  which 
he  requests  those  having  knowledge  in  regard 
to  saving  and  cleaning  alsike  clover  seed,  to 
communicate  through  the  Bee  Journal.  I 
have  had  quite  a  number  of  years'  experience 
with  it,  and  will  freely  give  it  for  the  benefit  of 
those  having  seed  to  save. 

I  let  my  alsike  stand  about  two  weeks  longer 
than  I  should  for  a  hay  ciop  alone,  as  until  a 
majority  of  the  blossoms  have  turned  brown  or 
dark  (which  here,  in  Canada,  is  about  the  last 
week  in  July),  then,  if  the  weather  is  fine,  I 
cut  it  one  day  and  draw  it  in  the  next.  It  does 
not  do  to  let"it  get  too  dry,  as  it  shells  out  badly 
when  very  dry.  Then,  early  in  tiie  winter,  so 
that  I  can  have  the  hay  to  feed  after  it  is  thresh- 
ed, I  get  a  clover  tliresher,  the  same  as  is  used 
here  for  threshing  red  clover.  These  are  taken 
from  one  farm  to  another,  by  men  who  make  a 
business  of  threshing  clover,  the  same  as  other 
men  do  of  threshing  wheat  and  oats.  A  ma- 
chine will  thresh  from  twelve  to  twenty  bushels 
in  a  day,  charging  fifty  cents  a  bushel  for  thresh- 
ing. The  seed  comes  from  the  machine  sepa- 
rated from  most  of  the  chaff.  In  this  state  it  is 
left  by  the  thresher,  for  the  farmer  to  clean  fit 
for  market,  which  is  much  the  most  difficult  to 
do,  and  is  often  not  done  at  all,  but  the  seed 
taken  to  market  as  it  is,  full  of  dust  and  dirt; 
as  was  undoubtedly  the  case  with  that  which 
friend  Nesbit  and  others  got  from  various 
sources. 

M)^  plan  for  cleaning  the  seed  is  this  :  I  pass 
it  through  my  through  my  fanning  mill  and 
blow  it  hard.  A  portion  of  the  seed  comes 
down  under  the  mill  into  the  chess  or  seed  box, 
and  a  portion  is  blown  over  with  the  dirt  in 
front  of  the  mill.  That  I  take  up  and  put 
through  the  same  as  before,  and  repeat  it,  until 
all  comes  down  into  the  seed  box.  Then  you 
have  it  clean  from  dirt  and  dust  :  but  there  will 
be  fine  bits  of  hay  or  any  other  seed  that  may 
be  mixed  with  it  in  it  still.  These  I  take  out  by 
means  of  a  fine  wire  sieve,  that  will,  with  con- 
siderable shaking,  let  the  alsike  seed  through, 
but  retain  all  of  the  broken  hny  and  any  other 
seeds  larger  than  the  alsike.  This  part  I  do  by 
hand,  and  it  is  |quite  a  labor  to  sift  a  hundred 
or  two  hundred  bushels  of  seed,  as  I  have  done, 
and  shall  do  aga'n  this  winter,  if  spared.  But  I 
have  the  satisfaction  of  selling  the  pure  alsike 
seed.  Parties  cleaning  the  seed  for  their  own 
use,  if  there  be  no  other  seeds  in  it,  miglit  dis- 
pense with  the  hand  sifting,  as  for  their  pur- 
pose the  bits  of  hay  would  not  hurt  it  in  the 
least. 

This  has  been  a  bad  season  in  Canada  for 
bees.  There  is  not  much  surplus  honey,  and 
stocks  will  not  be  in  first-rate  condition  for  win- 
ter. But  they  would  have  been  much  Avorse,  if 
it  had  not  been  for  the  alsike  clover  pasturage. 
H.  M.  Thomas. 

Brooklin,  Canada. 


60 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal .] 

Large  Growth  of  Alsike  Clover. 


I  have  to-day  sent  you  a  sample  of  my  alsike 
clover.  It  measures  six  feet  seven  inches  la 
length.  I  have  a  remarkable  heavy  crop  ot  it 
this  season,  from  which  the  bees,  (both  native 
and  Italian)  extract  honey  as  readily  as  they  do 
from  the  small  white  clover.  I  am  saving  it  for 
seed,  and  it  consequently  affords  a  large  amount 
of  pasturage  for  my  bees.  It  has  been  in  full 
bloom  for  four  weeks,  and  will  be  for  a  week 
longer,  before  it  will  be  fit  to  cut  for  seed. 

There  is  a  farmer  about  one  mile  aud-a-ha1f 
from  my  place,  who  sowed  a  large  field  with 
alsike  for  pasturage  for  his  stock.  I  have  visited 
the  field  a  number  of  times,  and  always  found  it 
grazed  down  to  about  the  height  of  white  clover, 
but  still  producing  a  multitude  of  blossoms,  and 
literally  swarming  with  bees.  I  think,  if  it  is 
not  grazed  down  too  short,  it  will  blossom  until 
fall. 

Bees  have  not  done  as  well  as  usual  here  this 
season,  on  account  ot  it  being  so  wet  and  cold. 
H.  M.  Thomas. 

Brooklin,  Canada,  July  23,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Size  of  Hives. 


Mr.  Editor:— There  have  been  some  things 
written  in  the  Bee  Joornai.,  in  relation  to  the 
size  of  hives-,  and  I  wish  to  refer  to  a  few  of 
the  statements. 

Mr.  Gallup  says  that  it  is  an  established  fact 
that  hives  should  not  contain  less  than  two 
thousand  cubic  inches.  Mr.  Bingham  says  that 
in  the  latitude  of  New  York,  where  the  honey 
season  is  short,  a  hive  containing  less  than  tw^o 
thousand  cubic  inches  would  be  unsafe,  &c.  D. 
C.  B.  thinks  that  two  thousand  cubic  inches  is 
not  enough,  but  inclines  to  adopt  twenty-four 
hundred,  where  uo  buckwheat  honey  can  be 
made. 

Neither  of  these  writers  give  any  reason  for 
their  statements.  According  to  my  view  of 
the  matter,  the  reason  they  would  probably  as- 
sign for  a  hive  of  that  size,  I  should  give  for 
having  a  hive  of  smaller  size.  Will  bees  make 
much  more  box  honey  when  the  hive  is  two 
thousand  or  more  cubic  inches  capacity,  than 
in  one,  say,  of  a  cubic  foot?  Of  course  they 
must  be  longer  iu  filling  a  large  hive  than  a 
small  one  ;  and  it  follows  that  they  wdll  have 
less  time  to  work  in  boxes.  Will  not  a  hive 
containiug  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
inches,  or  a  cubic  foot,  be  sufficient  for  store 
honey  and  brooding  space  ?  According  to  my 
experience  bees  never  die  of  starvation,  in  this 
section,  in  such  a  hive,  other  things  being 
equal.  In  the  spring  of  the  year,  when  the 
brood  space  is  empty,  I  think  there  must  be 
room  enough  for  the  queen  to  operate  in,  and 
the  bees  will  have  less  comb  to  cover  and  pro- 
tect. If  this  be  so,  what  is  the  use  of  from 
three  hundred  to  six  hundred  cubic  inches  more 
of  space  'i    Why  not  reserve  such  space  for  box 


honey  ?  If  I  recollect  right  the  German  bee- 
keepers recommend  only  about  twelve  hundred 
cubic  inches.  I  have  had  hives  of  that  size  that 
have  done  well— so  well,  that  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  even  that  size  of  hivewnll  do. 

I  should  like  to  have  Mr.  Gallup  tell  us  why 
"  every  hive  should  have  about  two  thousanc. 
cubic  inches  in  the  breeding  apartment." 

Charles  S.  Paine. 

Randolph,  Vt.,  July  25,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal] 

Coal  Oil  for  Bee  Stings. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  have  a  new  remedy  for  a 
bee  sting.  A  gentleman  removing  from  South- 
ern Illinois,  this  spring,  told  me  that  coal  oil 
would  cure  the  bite  of  a  rattlesnake,  by  bathing 
the  bitten  spot  with  it. 

I  applied  the  oil  to  a  bee  sting,  and  it  gave  me 
immediate  relief  A  few  davs  after  I  bad  a  lit- 
tle boy  stung  on  his  knee.  His  mother  applied 
coal  oil  to  it,  and  the  boy  immediately  quit  cry- 
ing. Sometime  afterwards,  a  party  removing 
was  detained  at  my  house  by  high  water.  Two 
of  the  small  children  went  to  the  bee  gums, 
commenced  fighting  the  bees,  and  were  stung 
all  over.  I  do  not  know  how  many  bees  stung 
them  ;  but  suppose  aot  less  than  fifty,  probably 
more.  We  wetted  eveiy  place  with  coal  oil  ; 
and  as  soon  as  this  was  done,  they  ceased  cry- 
ing and  did  not  seem  to  sufi"er,  nor  did  any 
swelling  follow. 

One  of  my  neighbors  has  also  tried  it,  and 
reports  that  it  was  a  perfect  success. 

I  am  well  pleased  with  your  invaluable  Jour- 
nal, and  cannot  do  without  it. 

Peter  Brickey. 

Jones'  Tanyard,  Mo.,  Aug.  8,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Is  Tobacco  Smoke  Injurious  to  Bees  ? 


I  should  like  to  ask  whether  tobacco  smoke  is 
injurious  to  bees?  I  think  it  is  to  a  certain  extent. 
As  far  as  I  have  seen,  if  anyone  will  put  on  some 
sort  of  protection  for  the  face  and  hands,  he 
Avill  have  no  need  of  smoke.  The  first  reason 
I  have  for  thinking  that  tobacco  smoke  is  hurt- 
ful, is  this,  that  to  a  great  extent  it  stupefies  the 
bees,  and  this  generally  at  the  time  of  tlie  day 
when  they  need  all  their  force  for  gathering 
supiilies.  Now  it  must  take  them  considerable 
time  to  recover  from  its  effects,  which  I  con- 
sider would  be  better  spent  in  gathering 
honey.  In  the  second  place,  I  think  that,  in 
order  to  get  them  quiet  enough  to  handle,  you 
are  in  dang'ir  of  smothering  the  queen,  or  at 
least  of  injuring  her  very  seriously.  I  think 
that  any  other  smoke  has  the  same  effect  to  a 
certain  extent. 

I  also  find  that  it  makes  my  bees  cross,  as 
they  will  not  let  any  person  go  near  them  for 
two  or  three  days  after. 

Geo.  T.  Burgess. 

LucKNOW,  Ontario,  Canada. 


TEE  AMERICAN   BEE  JOUENAL. 


61 


[For  the  American 

Argo's  Proposal. 


i.Tounial.] 


Mr  Editor:— I  proposed  a  report  of  this 
season's  op.  ratious  wiUi  bees,  for  the  Septem- 
be?  nuinl.er  of  the  Journal,  in  comparison 
with  Novice,  but  as  the  quantity  ot  cup  houey 
well  as  the  increase  of  stocks,  was 


be   in- 


oluaecl,  I  shall  have  to  defer  it  until  October 
from  the  fact  that  I  have  not  taken  otf  d  he 
cftiKS  yet.  I  keep  an  exact  account  ot  all  honey 
taken,  as  it  will  be  as  interesting  to  myself  as 
to  the  readers  of  the  Journal,  to  know  what 
bees  cau  do  in  a  (rood  season,  mostly  ot  them- 
selves, as  I  did  not  do  much  to  assist  them,  i 
was  in  bad  health  all  the  season,  and  made  only 
two  artificial  swarms;  which  were  merely  started 
as  nuclei,  with  tAvo  frames  and  a  partition  board, 
to  raise  queens.  As  soon  as  the  queens  were  lay- 
ing. I  filled  out  the  hive  at  once  with  trames  ot 
brood  from  the  other  hives. 

I  am  pleased  to  see  Novice  maintain  his  en- 
thusiasm and  perseverance,  and  glad  to  hear 
of  his  success  up  to  the  3tli  of  July.  And  as  he 
•accepts  my  challenge  with  a  good  will,  this  will 
not  be  cimsidered  as  my  report.  He  suggests 
deferring  the  reports  until  April,  so  as  to  in- 
clude our  winter's  experiment,  and  as  I  have 
no  fears  on  that  head,  from  my  great  success  in 
wintering,  I  most  cheerfully  accept  his  sugges- 
tion. If  he  wishes  to  leave  the  hou(;y  out  of 
the  report,  and  conline  it  mainly  to  the  increase 
of  stocks  and  wintering,  I  accept  that  also. 

He  had  only  eleven  stocks,  and  I  had  only 
twelve  at  home,  one  stand  being  a  mile  off — due 
all(»wance  will  be  made  for  that.  He  says  he 
onl}^  had  comb  for  about  thirty  stands  iu  all. 
Well,  that  is  more  than  I  had,  for  when  my 
stocks  had  gone  up  to  twenty-eight,  my  last 
comb  was  used.  All  Irom  that  time  were  put 
in  without  combs;  or  merely  taking  a  frame  or 
two  from  other  stands  as  guide  comlis. 

Up  to  July  7th,  I  had  litty-two  stands  ;  and, 
but  tor  want  ot  hives.  I  should  have  had  titty- 
nine — having  turned  seven  swarms  baidv.  The 
one  of  tlie  7th  would  also  have  been  turned 
back,  but  for  tire  extra  large  size.  It  was  a 
maiden  swarm.  While  it  hung  on  the  limb, 
only  two  feet  above  ground,  I  hastily  repaired 
an  old  gum  tor  its  accommodation.  The  mai- 
den and  late  swarms  were  larger  than  the  prime 
swarms  ;  and  if  I  had  had  frame  hives  I  could 
have  saved  them  all.  Some  will  say,  how  fool- 
ish to  let  them  swarm  so  much.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  my  aim  was  the  increase  of 
stocks,  if  the  season  was  good  ;  though  I  was 
far  from  expecting  such  an  increase  as  this.  I 
cared  for  no  more  honey  than  enough  for  family 
use,  if  I  could  only  increase  my  stocks  to  thirty, 
six,  to  begin  the  next  year  with.  I  have  alrea- 
dy sold  over  220  pounds  of  honey  ;  and  to  guess 
at  the  balance  in  the  cellar  and  yet  on  the 
stands,  it  will  be  somewhere  about  400  pounds 
mall.  _  This  would  be  equal  to  three  swarms, 
and  thirty  pounds  to  each  of  the  thirteen  old 
stands.  Each  stand  is  in  good  condition  for 
winter,  except  the  last  three  or  four,  which 
may  require  a  little  feeding.  Next  season  I  do 
not  expect  to  allow  more  than  one  swarm,  and 


intend  to  try  Qninby's  non-swarmer  ;  as  honey 
is  the  main  profit  in  bee-keepiug  here.  People 
will  not  buy  bees  or  queens  ;  so  the  apiarian 
must  depend  on  honey  as  his  only  profit.  It 
always  finds  ready  sale  here. 

I  did  not  commence  raising  queens  this  sea- 
son until  about  the  15th  of  May,  as  I  did  not 
want  to  weaken  anjr  of  the  stands  by  taking 
away  bees.  I  thought  they  were  weak  enough 
until  they  commenced  swarming.  I  raised  very 
few  queens  this  summer,  and  not  one  of  them 
commenced  laying  until  June.  I  think  if  I  had 
had  a  strong  stand,  from  which  I  could  have 
raised  queens  iu  April,  and  used  them  to  make 
artificial  swarms  in  May,  I  could  have  done 
still  better.  But  other  and  more  urgent  busi- 
ness, aud  bad  health,  prevented  more  attention 
to  my  l)ees  than  just  to  hive  them,  put  on  and 
take  "olF  caps,  and  see  to  the  ventilation  in  hot 
weather. 

My  greatest  mortification  in  the  spring  was 
to  find  that  I  iiad  only  one  pure  Italian  queen 
left,  though  about  one-half  of  the  twenty-six 
stocks  larft  summer  were  pure.  In  wintering 
last  fall  I  had  but  little  leisure,  and  therefore 
did  not  take  time  to  hunt  up  aud  cage  the  pure 
queens  and  destroy  the  others,  which  would 
have  well  paid  for  the  trouble.  Now  I  have  to 
put  pure  queens  in  all.  for  I  am  not  satisfied 
with  hybrids  and  prefer  the  pure  stock.  I  suc- 
ceeded this  season  in  getting  pure  queens  in 
about  twenty-six  stands,  but  about  two-thirds 
of  these  were  not  purely  fertilized  and  produced 
hybrids.  Now,  as  very  few  black  bees  are 
within  three  miles  of  me,  this  is  very  hard  to 
accouut  for,  unless  drones  of  hybrid  queens  are 
impure,  as  several  apiarians  allege.  But  what 
surprises  me  still  more,  is  this  :  Two  second 
swarms,  hived  the  first  week  in  June  from  hy- 
brid stands,  have  now  turned  out  as  pure  Ital- 
ians as  I  ever  saw — not  a  black  bee  among  them. 
I  can  only  account  for  this  on  one  or  the  other 
of  two  suppositions.  A  queen  reared  from  a 
hybrid  queen,  mating  with  a  pure  drone,  will 
produce  pure  workers.  Or,  if  this  is  not  correct, 
can  it  not  be  that  one  of  the  young  pure  queens 
was  out  on  her  excursion  to  meet  the  drones, 
when  the  swarm  came  out,  and  in  returning 
got  mixed  with  it,  settled  with  them,  and  was 
accepted  in  preference  to  their  own  q^een.  If 
neither  of  these  suppositious  be  admissible,  will 
Gallui)  or  Thomas,  or  some  more  experienced 
hand,  give  the  explanation.  I  am  not  mistaken 
as  to  the  stands  these  swarms  came  trom.  I 
am  also  certain  that  they  did  not  mix  with  other 
swarms.  I  have  all  my  stands  numbered,  and 
keep  j,n  account  of  them  all. 

NovrcE  proposes  to  keep  all  his  stocks  on 
their  summer  stands  next  winter.  If  he  will 
read  volume  4,  page  109,  of  the  Journal,  he 
will  see  a  plan  that  has  been  tried  successfully 
further  north  than  where  he  resides.  That  plan 
does  difier  from  mine  on  the  opposite  page,  108, 
only  in  this  :  I  shelter  and  protect  the  outsides 
with  straw,  only  leaving  the  fronts  exposed  to 
sun,  and  fronting  south.  But  as  I  have  length- 
ened out  this  so  far,  I  will  reserve  further 're- 
marks on  wintering  for  another  number. 

R.  M.  Argo. 
Lowell,  Ky. 


62 


THE  AMEEICAN  BEE  JOU.RNA' 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.  1 

A  Letter   from  Windsor  County,   Ver- 
mont. 


Mr.  Editor  : — By  yonr  permissiou  I  will 
give  the  readers  of  the  Bee  Journal  a  short 
statement  of  how  the  bee  business  stands  in  this 
sect'on.  There  are  only  a  few  persons  in  this 
county  that  keep  upwards  of  fifty  stocks. 
Prcbably  there  are  more  tlian  three  hundred 
owners  of  bees,  and  a  majority  of  tlieni  do  not 
know  a  queen  from  a  drone.  We  have  only  a 
few  practical  bee  keepers  here,  Tliey  of  course 
use  movable  comb  hives,  make  artificial  swarms, 
have  Italian  bees,  and  make  bee-keeping  a  pay- 
ing business.  Langstroth's  hive  is  the  principal 
movable  comb  hive  in  use  about  here.  How- 
ever, a  few  of  K.  P.  Kidder's  hives  are  scatter- 
ed about  here  and  tliere ;  but  those  that  use 
them  soon  get  sick  of  them. 

I  have  thirty  swarms  of  bees.  A  majority 
of  them  are  in  Laugstroth  hives,  and  I  shall 
transfer  the  rest  into  tliem  next  s^pring.  Bees  did 
very  well  about  here  until  the  1st  of  July.  Since 
then  they  have  hardly  held  their  own.  Unless 
we  have  a  favorable  fall,  black  bees  will  gener- 
ally be  in  poor  condition  for  winter  feed- 

Bees  swarmed  here  generally  from  one  to 
three  times,  and  some  four  times.  I  had  only 
four  stocks  that  cast  off  swarms,  and  therefore 
have  about  oOO  pounds  of  surplus  honey.  This 
honey  was  made  befpre  July.  Stocks  that  cast 
o5"  swarms  have  ica^ariably  not  made  any  sur- 
plus honey.  . 

A  gentleman  in'  the  south'part  of  this  county 
has -fifty  stocks  of  black  bees,  and  up  to  this  date 
(August  lOtli)  has  only  two  finished  boxes  of 
surplus  honey,  A  lady  in  Reading,  Vermont, 
told  me  that  her  husband  took  up  two  swarms 
the  old  way,  with  brimstone,  and  only  got  three 
pounds  of  honey  from  the  two.  Unless  we 
have  an  unusual  amount  of  fall  pasturage,  prob- 
ably more  tlian  one-half  of  tlie  young  swarms, 
and  many  of  the  old  stocks,  will  starve  before 
next  spring.  Italians,  both  old  and  new  stocks, 
are  now  generally  well  supplied  with  stcres  for 
winter. 

I  close  by  wishing  success  to  the  Editor  and 
readers  cf  the  American  Beis;  Journal. 

Geo.    H.  D.  Kuggless. 

Hartland,  Vt.,  Aug.  10, 1869. 


•Journal.: 


[For  the  American 

A  Challenge, 

To  all  those   originating  or  using  hives  of 
description,    and    especially    those    ^1101^^^-- 
claimed  that  there  could  be  no  tunher  jm        *^" 
rnent  in  hives;  and    also    those  who   stat'^'^"^* 
bees  -will    store   as    much    in   one    hive  \  ^^ 
another  :    Likewise,  to  all  old  fogies  who  tt-'' 
a  lifetime  in  the  old  beaten  track   only  quai'fi 
one  for  success,  and  shut  their  eyes  to  all  • 
provements,    and    cannot    see    throun-ij  ^^^ 
cobwebs  that  the  world   is  moving  awav  f    " 
them  :  •'  "°« 

I   horew).th  challenge   all    manufactur 
ventors,  and  users  of  hives   of 


wer.s,l 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

A  Card. 


Quinby  and  some  others.are  so  veiy  sensitive  j 
on  t)ee -matters,  that  I  have  concluded  not  to  ' 
publish  my  little  work  on  straight  combs  and 
dividing  bees.  They  might  "possibly  learn  j 
something,  and  that  would  be  too  bad.  Nearly  ! 
all  the  money  that  was  sent  for  the  book  has 
been  returned  to  the  senders.  Should  anyone  j 
not  receive  his  money  prior  to  October  1st,  I 
please  notify  me  by  letter. 

M.  M.  Baldridge. 

St.  Charles,  Ills.,  Aug.  19,  1869. 


ny  kind  or 

scription,  to  put  up  a  sum  or  money,  from  tw 
ty-five   to   filty   dollars,    as   a  premium   to^ 
awarded  to  the  one  presenting  the  most  clai 
for  meritorious   points   in   the   construction 
tlieir  hives,  based  upon  those  well-knowanri 
pies  in   their   economy,  and    practical  in 
successful  management.     Those  points  to  be 
cided  by  a  committee   of  experienced,  and 
prejudiced  bee-keepers  ;  and  in  the  event  o^ 
unsatisfactory  decision,  to  be  left  for  final  l 
sion  to  the  Editor  of  the  American  Bee  Jqi 
NAL.     The  following  to  be   the   main  poini 
superiority  : 

Fii'st.  Best  hive  for  safely  securing  the 
and  best  surplus  honey. 

Second.  Best  hive  for  fitting  surplus  ; 
for   sliipment  aud   for   exliibillou,  and  in 
most  desirable  shape  for  the  wholesale  and  re. 
tail  trades  respectively,  aud   for  ready  and  rt- 
munerative  sale.  ,  ,>._ 

Third.   Best  ftivo  for  out-door  wintering.     ■  i^' 

Fourth.   Best  hive  for  spring  breeding.         \'v 

Fifth.  Best  hive  for  stimulating  bees  to  wort  " 
aud  affording  accessible  room  to  work. 

Sixth.   Best  hive,  in  its  adaptation  to  larjeor 
small  swarms. 

Seventh.  Best  hive,  in  the  control  of  veaii. 
tion  and  annual  heat.  ^jk 

Eighth.  Best  hive  for  wintering  i|^ 
swarms.  ■i,'":  ' 

Ninth.   Best  hive  for  raising  surplus  queew. 

Tenth.  Best  hive  and  arrangements  for  sear- 
ing desired  impregnation  of  queens. 

Eleventh.  Best  hive  to  equalize  stocks,  breei  - 
and  swarm  artificially. 

Txoelfth.  Best  hive  for  riddance  of  dro« 
comb. 

Thirteenth.  Best  hive  for  ease  and  conveni- 
ence of  handling  frames.  . 

Fourteenth.  Best  hive  for  the  cheapest  and  ; 
best  method  of  securing  straight  combs  is  f: 
frames. 

Fifteenth.  Best  hive  for  merits  of  simplicit' 
beauty,  cheapness  of  construction,  and  for  i^ 
eral  use. 

GeoRGE  P.  Kelloga. 

Waukegan,  Ills. 


If  a  colony  does  not  destroy  its  drones  at  tiie 
time  Avhen  they  are  killed  in  other  liives,  it  is » 
suspicious  indication  which  demands  immema'-     J 
investigation,  to  ascertain  the  presence  or  tur 
queen. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOUKNAL. 


63 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 

WASHINGTON,   SEPTEMBER,    IHGO- 


t^Want  of  room  for  long  articles  constrain- 
ed us  to  divide  several  communications  received 
from  correspondents  last  month-reserving  a 
portion  for  our  next  issue. 

Though  we  give  four  pages  extra  this  month. 
several  articles  intended  for  this  number,  have 
to  be  held  over  until  next  month. 


The  Long  Economic  Hive  described  by  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Truesdell  in  a  former  number  of  the 
Bek  JocRNAL,  and  again  referred  to  by  him  in 
the  present,  seems  to  be  substantially  a  more 
convenient  form  of  the  Dzierzou  twin  hive- 
that  is,  a  hive  that  may  be  used,  at  pleasure,  for 
the  rau/J.plicaliou  of  stock  and  the  storage  of 
honey  ;  or,  with  due  alternation,  as  a  nucleus 
hive  for  rearing  queens,  or  supplying  queen 
cells  continuously. 


We  have  received  from  Mr.  H.  M.  Thomas, 
of  Brooklln,  Canada,  the  sample  ot  alsike  clover 
grown  by  him,  and  referred  to  in  an  article  on 
a  preceding  page.  The  stulks  are  six  feet  seven 
inches  long,  with  numerous  and  well  developed 
heads  or  blossoms. 

Hay  made  of  this  clover  is  readily  eaten  by 
cattle,  and  bees  find  abundant  and  long  contin- 
ued pasturage  on  the  blossoms.  The  plant  is  a 
native  of  Sweden,  and  is  probably  best  adapted 
to  a  northern  climate,  though  it  has  been  suc- 
cessfully cultivated  in  some  parts  of  Virginia. 
It  is  not  a  hybrid,  as  English  agricultural  and 
botanical  writers  are  in  the  habif;of  miscall- 
ing it. 

We  have  deposited  the  sample  sent  to  us  in 
the  Agricultural  Department  at  Washington, 
trusting  that  we  may  some  day  receive,  from 
some  of  our  United  States'  farmers,  samples  of 
home-grown  alsike,  at  least  equal  to  this  from 
Canada. 


S3f"If  two  nucleus  hives  or  weak  colonies 
have  been  standing  adjoining  one  another, 
there  is  no  difficulty  in  uniting  them.  In  the 
evening  prior  to  the  intended  operation,  remove 
the  older,  less  fertile,  or  least  valuable  of  the 
queeng,  and  feed  each  colony  liberally  with 
•agar  synip  or  diluted  honey,  scented  with  pep. 


permint  or  grated  nutmeg.  Next  morning 
transfer  from  each  nucleus  to  a  larger  hive  all 
the  combs  containing  honey,  eggs,  and  brood, 
with  the  iulheriug  bi^es— placing  the  combs 
with  eggs  and  larvae  or  sealed  brood  side  by 
side.  When  all  have  been  transferred,  replace 
the  honey- board  and  cap,  and  set  the  hive  on 
the  stand,  midway  between  the  places  previous- 
ly occupied  by  the  nuclei.  Puffin  a  little  smoke 
if  any  disposition  to  be  quarrelsome  is  mani- 
fested. On  the  third  day,  if  the  bees  are' quiet 
and  seem  reconciled,  the  queen  may  be  released 
from  confinement. 

If  the  nuclei  or  colonies  intended  to  be  uni- 
ted have  been  standing  some  distance  apart, 
unite  them  as  above  described,  close  the  en- 
trance of  the  new  hive  with  a  piece  of  wire 
gauze  to  confine  the  bees,  and  place  it  in  a  cel- 
lar or  cool  dark  chainber  until  the  evening  of 
the  following  day.  Bring  it  out  a  little  while 
before  dusk,  set  it  where  it  is  intended  to  remain 
permanently,  and  allow  the  bees  to  fly.  After 
dark,  when  they  have  become  settled,  close 
them  in  again  and  return  them  to  the  cellar, 
until  next  evening.  Then  bring  them  out  and 
allow  them  to  fly.  Most  of  the  older  bees  will 
by  this  time  have  noted  their  new  location  and 
adhere  to  it.  The  younger  will  remain  of 
course. 


|^°It  is  now  thought  by  some  of  the  most 
observant  scientific  apiarians  in  Germany,  that 
fertile  workers  occur  only  in  hives  containing 
bees  that  were  still  in  the  larvae  state  while 
queen  raising  was  in  progress  in  the  colony.  It 
is  not  supposed  that  all  workers  bred  in  such 
conditions  become  capable  of  laying  eggs  ;  but 
that  all  that  do  become  so  qualified,  must  have 
been  reared  in  such  circumstances. 


It^"A  second  swarm  issuing  from  a  hive  in 
which  teetiyig  or  piping  has  been  heard  on  only 
one  evening  previous,  will  usually  be  very  dis- 
contented and  restless  for  -a  time  after  being 
hived,  and  may  possibly  decamp,  though  it  have 
only  one  queen.  But  if  teeting  was  heard  on 
three  or  four  evenings,  before  the  swarm  issues, 
it  usually  settles  down  quietly,  and  speedily 
despatches  any  supernumerary  queens  it  may 
contain.  By  lapse  of  time  the  first  emerged 
young  queen  has  become  familarized  to  and 
been  accepted  by  the  bees,  which  then  adhere 
to  her  very  unanimously,  and  reject  all  others. 


64: 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


Ontario  Bee-keepers' 
Canada. 


Convention . 


A  Bee-keepers'  Convention  will  be  held  at 
the  city  of  London,  Ontario,  (Canada),  at  the 
time  ot  tlie  Provincial  Fair,  on  Tuesday,  Wed- 
nesday, and  Thursday  evenings,  September 
21st,  22d,  and  23d. 

It  is  expected  that  there  will  be  a  lar^e  atten- 
dance of  the  bee-keepers  of  Ontario  and  Quebec, 
and  of  those  interested  in  bee-callure. 

A  warm  invitation  is  extended  to  the  bee- 
keepers of  the  United  States,  to  meet  in  Con- 
vention with  us. 

J.  H.  Thomas, 

Apiarian. 

Bkooklin,  Ontauio,  July  30,  18G9- 


I      Those  wishins;  to  join   the 


Those  wishing  to  join    uie   Associatini, 

please  write  to  the  Secretary,  givino-  t-u  •  ^ 

dress  in  full.  '  «=  '  eit  ^^ 

The  President,  at  Marengo,  Iowa,  orth  ^ 
retary,  at  St.  Charles,  Illinois,  winsupr  *' 
further  iufoimation  that  may  be  desired 

The  press  everywhere,  triendly  to  the  oh 
of  the  Society,  is  respectfully  requested  to^ 
lish  the  above  notice.  ' 

C.  V.  Gardner, 

M.  M.  Baldridge,  resideat. 

Secretarv. 


Michigan  Bee-keepsrs'  Convention. 


The  Michigan  Bee-keepers'  Association  will 
hold  its  Annual  Convention  at  Jackson, 
during  the  Slate  Fair,  September  21-24  Its 
sessions  will  be  held  at  the  Board  of  Trade 
Hall,  at  such  limes  as  will  not  prevent  atten- 
dance at  the  Fair.  Discussions  of  the  various 
matters  of  iuterest»to  bee-keepers  will  be  held, 
and  the  experience  of  the  pas-t  season  exem- 
plified. Premiums  of  various  grades  wdl  be  ot- 
ered,  for  the  best  samples  of  honey.  It  is  | 
hoped  that  the  bee-keepers 
make  this  session   one  of 

*^°''-  A,  J.  Cook, 

Sec'y  Michigan  Bee-keepers'  Associa'n 


will    attend,   and 
interest  and  instruc- 


North-Western 


Bee-keepers' 
tion. 


Associa- 


The  third  annual  meeting  of  the  North-West- 
ern Bee-keepers'  Association  will  be  held  at  De- 
catur, Illinois,  at  the  time  of  the  State  Fair. 

The  officers  for  the  ensuing  year  will  be 
chosen  on  the  third  day  of  the  fair,  which  will 
b*e  the  first  session.  This  will  be  on  the  29ih 
day  of  September,  some  time  in  the  afternoon. 
Printed  notices,  giving  the  place  and  hour  of 
meeting,  will  be  posted  about  the  grounds  on  the 
second  day  of  the  Fair.  _        „  .      •, 

We  earnestly  desire  our  bee-keeping  friends 
in  the  six  Norlh-Western  States  represented  by 
this  Association,  to  be  present  particularly  early 
at  the  annual  meeting.  There  will  be-  three 
or  four  sessions  during  the  Fair,  to  be  held  in 
some  suitable  room  on  the  Fair  Grounds,  or  in 
the  city  of  Decatur,  on  which  occasion  practi- 
cal questions  in  bee-culture  will  be  candidly  and 
thoroughly  discussed. 

We  also  desire  the  present  members  of  this 
Association,  and  those  desirous  of  visiting  it,  to 
bring  their  choice  samples  of  honey  for  exhibi- 
tion The  Secretary  will  be  on  the  ground  on 
the  second  day  of  the  Fair,  to  assist  in  taking 
charge  of  and  arranging  the  honey  lor  exhibi- 
tion. Suitable  prizes  for  the  finest  display  of 
honey,  will  be  awarded  by  the  Association. 


Correspondence  of  the  Bae  Jourcat^ 

Gonzales,  Texas,  July  6.— We  are  ma 
large  quantities  of  honey  this  summer; 
season  we  have  had  for  many  years. — L. 

Byron,  Mich.,  July  20. — Success  to  th 
Journal.    I  would  not  be  without  any  ( 
her  tor  wliai  it  costs  for  one  year,  as  I 
easy  for  weeks  before  I  get  it.   I  like  thet 
tion  on  page  17  of  the  July  number,! 
you  my  phdtograph.     If  the  idea  takes  tv« 
I  think  it  should,  I  will  get  that  of  my 
taken,  and  send  it  to  you.— 0.  E,  W. 

Winchester,  Ya.,  July  27.— You  will  ] 
enclosed  two  dollars,  for  which  continue  \ 
me  theBEE  JoUKMAL.  I  have  fifty  stands  of  I 
all  in  Langstrolh  hives.  We  had  a  line 
season  up  to  the  15th  of  July.  Since 
the  bees  have  made  very  In  tie.  I  cann 
along  without  the  Bee  Journal — B.  F. 

RooTSTowN,  O.,  July  29.— Can  two  sf 
of  bees  standing  a  few  rods  apart,  with 
between  them,  be  successfully  united, 
removing  them  to  a  distant  apiary  ?— 3. 

Snickersville,  Ya.,  Aug.  4.— Au  sm 
ance  of  mine  bad  a  hive  of  bees  swarm; 
the  eighth  day  thereafter  the  swarm  tlire' 
swarm.  I  trausferred  tliem  this  spring, 
had  filled  their  hive  wiih  comb  and 
ter  supply  of  honey;  the  combs  strai| 
they  evidently  had  but  one  queen  theft;, 
ry ,  did  they  have  two  queens  ?  Or,  if 
tbey  have  a  sealed  queen  when  the  lasl 
came  out  ?— M.  M-  M. 

Meredeth,  Pa.,  Aug.  5  —This 
wettest  season,  up  to  this  date,  thatle 
My  first  swarm  of  Italians  came  off  t^ 
advance  of  the  natives.— M.  W.         ' 

West    Troy,  N.   Y,,  Aug,    4.- 
men"  are  having  a  very  glorious 
section.     Along  the  river  black  bet 
ly  swarmed  at  all.      One   man  in 
only  two  swarms  out  of  thirty   stocMs 
condition  in  the  spring.      Another, 
did  not  have  a  swarm  from  his  tweij 
which  were  in  prime  condition  in  tlief 
little  back  fi  om  the  river,  however,ttieys 
considerably,  but  have  made  only  ii»" 
yet;  and  if    the   buck-wheat  s^iouia^Wj 
honeyless  as  the  white  clover  and  oinei;^ 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOUENAL. 


65 


h.Te,Ill.lQkinostoftbencwsw 
'»^.'>°lt!?.^^'have  aone  somewhat  beUer 


The  ItaliAn  bees  have 


ivcr,  thcyi-nmnien 


hink  if 


Fire  miles  buck  fnim  the  ri 

;;«nun«    about  the   muld  e   o    Ma> 

mine  did  aotcommence  ^'J  ^"/^^^'^.esl  stocks, 

I  had  n.>l  '»i.»'"''''.'-t'rrrrv  queens  two  or  three 

to  KKt  b€0»  for  raising  early  4"*'/-»»'  j       ^^ 

of  ^em  would  have  sv^-urinea  ni  May       ^" 

ontof  one  buodrfd  and  Qlty  htot,iv^.     " 

fhnl  I  sol.l  to  go  Imok  inlo  Uio  oimtry,  so      i 

iilia".  h.»?d  fro.n  H.em,  b^vo  all  swarn.cJ, 

•ingle  beu  on  it.— VY.  M.  S.  | 

B.iTATiA,  ILT..,  Auk.  0.— Bens  swarmed  here  ; 
till  AoBUSl  1.  Most  of  thorn  swurmcd  three  or  | 
four  timea.  It  rained  must  of  the  time  until 
Jaly  20tb  and  they  did  not  store  mueh  honey  : 
op  to  that  time.  The  prosp.-ct  is  now  that  the  ; 
old  and  the  yoane  colonies  will  all  till  up.  It  is 
a  good  »ea»«>n.  Thai  great  humbug  bee  disease 
ba«  disappeared  emirely  here;  aplenty  of  honey 
bM  put*  stop  to  It.  Black  bees  have  done  as 
wen  »»  tbe  ItJiUaQS  have.  I  see  no  difference— 
8.  W. 

TniDXl*,  III.,  Aug.  11,— We  have  had  a  good 
■eaaon/or  bees,  and  they  are  still  at  work  build-' 
ini?  c»mb«  ami  putting  out  brood, — which  is  uu- 
Comnum  for  tb«  month  of  August  in  this  local- 
ity, where  white  clover  is  the  j)rincipal  dcpend- 
fuce.  I  anticipate  a  good  fall  for  honey.  A 
»ccond  swarm  which  came  out  of  an  okl  box 
here,  June  15,  swarmed  on  the  7th  of  August, 
after  filling  twelve  frames  with  honey.  I  t()(d<: 
oat  part  of  their  full  frames,  filled  up  with 
empty  ones,  and  let  them  go  back;  and  ihey  are 
new  "building  pari  drone  comb. 

One  »warm.  which  had  all  worker  comb  in 
Kariy  »pring,  raised  one  frame  two-thirds  full  of 
dronei,  and  afterwards  workers  in  the  same 
contb.  They  had  a  good  queen,  and  no  appear- 
ance of  fertile  wi^ritera. — J.  L.  P. 

AwrniM,  Mich.,  Aug.  12.— I  have  four  colo- 
nies of  b«r«9  in  l>ox  htttfg,  two  of  which  swarmed 
thrwt  times  each.  They  issued  from  June  17th, 
to  July  lOlh.  The  A-ason  was  wet  and  cold, 
till  within  two  weeks  it  has  been  warm  and  fine. 
Bew  are  not  doing  Tery  well  on  the  buckwheat. 

— c.  w.  a 

Omaloo«A,  Iowa.  Aug.  13— I  have  one  hun- 
dred and  fitly  colonies  of  bees.  Owing  to  the 
wet  weather  wo  lost  our  best  honey  season— 
the  Linn-bloflnoms.  I  have  twenty  acres  of 
buckwheat  now  in  bloom,  and  the  bees  are  en- 
joying it  much.  Still,  I  fear  we  shall  not  get 
■ia«^h  attrplus  honey.— 8.  J.  ^ 

^rlVJ^^'  ^^°'  A"^-  13.-Thi8  has  been  a 
^r  honey  seaaon  here.  My  bees  swarmed 
more  than  twnal,  though  most  of  the  black  bees 


around  here  that  were  left  on  Ibeir  summer 
aliinds  wit,liout  pi'otection,  last  winter,  did  nut 
swarm.  I  have  taken  out  the  honey  with  the 
machine,  from  most  of  the  surplus  boxes,  as 
they  were  not  capped. 

I  think  it  is  time  we  had  an  English  name  for 
the  honey-emptying  machine.  We  might  as 
Avell  call  a  churn  a  butter-making  machine. 
The  French  name — mellextractexur — is  too  lour. 
We  Avant  a  short  appropriate  name.  Could  not, 
scmie  one  of  our  bee-men  appoint  a  committee 
to  select  one  ?  In  honor  of  the  celebrated 
Huber,  I  would  suggest  his  name,  and  call  it  a 
Huber'.— J.  W. 

lU^The  name  of  Huber  would  scarcely  be 
appropriate,  as  such  an  instrument  was  probably 
never  dreamed  of  in  the  philosophy  of  that  cel- 
ebrated apiarian.  Why  not  name  it  after  its  in- 
ventor or  originator  ?  Call  it  a  Ilruschka — pro- 
nouncing the  word  "  Rooshka  "  ! 

LucKNOw,  Canada,  Aug.  14. — Bees  in  this 
neighborhood  have  done  poorly  this  summer, 
owing  to  continual  wet  weather  I  believe  my 
Italians  had  come  to  the  conclusion,  before  the 
change,  to  take  it  wet  or  dry;  as  I  have  seen 
them  on  a  piece  of  alsike  clover  by  wholesale, 
before  it  had  quit  raining.  Since  the  weather 
changed  they  have  done  well. 
I  My  opinion  is,  the  three  best  paying  things  a 
beekeeper  can  lay  out  his  money  in,  are— the 
Amkkican  Bee  Journal,  Italian  bees, and  alsike 
clover.  But  I  cannot  get  some  of  my  young 
beekeeping  neighbors  to  believe  it — though 
they'll  come  to  their  milk  by  and  by. — J.  J. 

Lancaster,  Canada,  Aug.  11. — I  read  the 
Bee  Journal  with  very  great  interest.  It  is  just 
such  as  the  couutr}'  requires.  lu  this  place 
white  clover  grows  without  any  cultivation, 
and  is  so  abundantly  produced  during  the  whole 
summer  season  that  each  farmer  might,  if  he 
knew  the  nature  and  value  of  the  little  bee,  soon 
accumulate  an  independent  fortune.  Your 
Journal  is  evidently  doing  a  good  work,  where 
it  goes;  and,  with  its  aid,  anyone  may  keep 
bees  with  profit  and  interest. 

I  see  on  your  side  of  the  line  bee-culture  is 
far  in  advance  of  us.  But  we  are  beginning  to 
make  progi-ess.  The  Italian  bee  is  now  being 
better  known;  the  old  box  hive  is  now  disap- 
pearing; and  men  begin  to  think  that  bee-keep- 
iug  is  not  altogether  an  unprofitable  business. 
If  we  had  five  or  six  thousand  copies  of  the 
Bee  Journal  circulated  among  us  every  month 
we  would  tiien  be  on  a  fair  way  of  advance' 
Wishing  your  valuable  Journal  all  success,  I 
remain  yours,  &c. — J.  A. 

East  RocKPOET.  O.,  Aug.  20.— The  present 
season  has  been  distinguished  for  the  great 
number  and  size  of  swarms  sent  off  in  my  api- 
,  ary  Four  came  out  in  the  last  week  in  May 
I  and  tour  appeared  after  the  4th  of  July  Their 
prohficness  I  impute  in  a  great  measure,  to  a 
tree  supply  of  rye-flour,  which  was  fed  to  them 
in  March  and  April,  before  pollen  was  furnished 
by  flowers. 

More  than  one  hundred   pounds  were   taken 
It  J  ™y  "^»','"y  neighbors,'  and  the  woods- 
1  btes.     Before  the  vernal  flours  appeared,  it  was 


66 


TPIE    AMEEICAN    BEE  JOUENAL. 


seized  upon  with  the  greatest  avidity,  but  sub- 
sequent to  that  occuireuce  it  was  at  once  dis- 
carded. 

In  my  opinion,  attention  to  this  flour-feeding 
at  the  proper  time,  is  one  of  tlie  essentials  of 
success  in  bee-cuirnre,  at  least  in  tlie  vicinity  of 
this  lake.  In  earlier,  warmer,  and  less  chilled 
climates,  it  may  be  of  less  importance.— J.  P. 


[Foi-tl 


icanBeej,^, 


[From  the  "Prairie  Farmer.'']      | 

A  Honey  Machine.  j 

The  Messrs.  Marvin,  of  St.  Charles,  have  one  I 
of  the  most  extensive  and  bc^st  managed  apia-  j 
ripsin  the  West,  if  not  in  tlie  whole    country.  | 
They  have  over  three  hundred  hives  in  their 
apiary   over  half  of  which  are  tlie    increase  of 
this  season.     They  expect  to  market  two  and  a 
balf  tons  of  houpy,  if  the  flowers   continue  as 
plentiful  as  they  now  promise  to  do. 

Tins  season  they  have  introduced  a  novel  fea- 
ture into  their  apiary  in  tlie  form  of  a  centrifu- 
gal machine  for  removing  the  honey  from  the 
comb.  Tlie  idea  of  this  method  of  clearing  the 
cells  of  their  honey,  was  proposed  in  Germany, 
some  years  since,  though  little  has  been  done  to 
utilize  the  principle  lilUhe  present  season.  ■ 

The  machine  which  we  saw  in  operation  here, 
■was  constructed  by  Mr.  Baldridge,  and  answers 
an  excellent  purpose  where  many  swarms  ot 
bei-8  are  kept.  It  is  a  plain  box  of  wood  firmly 
secured  together,  trad  is  mounted  on  legs.  With- 
in it  is  a  frame  having  board  sides  and  bottom, 
and  the  ends  are  made  of  strong  wire  cloth 
This  frame  is  made  to  revolve  at.  any  ■  desited 
velocity  by  means  of  a  crank  and  multiplying 
cogwheels  which  are  placed  above  the  machine. 
The  combs  of  a  movable  hive  are  placed  against 
these  wire  cloths,  the  cnps  being  opened  by  a 
sharp  knife,  the  frame  turned  and  the  honey 
striking  against  the  end  of  the  outer  box  runs  to 
the  bottom  where  it  is  drawn  otf  and  put  in  jars 
for  the  market.  After  the  honey  has  been  re- 
moved from  one  side  of  the  combs,  they  are 
reversed  and  the  same  operation  repeated.  A 
nunute's  time  is  all  that  is  required  te  remove 
the  honey  from  one  set  of  combs. 

We  witnessed  the  experiment  of  removing 
honey  from  the  combs,  a  part  of  the  cells  of 
■which  were  filled  witii  larvae,  from  three  to  six 
days  old.  More  care  is  required  to  remove  the 
honey  from  these  combs  than  from  those  that 
are  all  filled  with  honey,  yet  at  least  eighty 
per  cent  of  it  may  be  removed  wiiliout  disturb- 
ing the  larvfE  in  the  least 

The  great  advantage  of  the  use  of  these  ma- 
chines is,  that  the  same  combs  may  be  used  over 
and  over  again  the  same  season,  and  thus,  ex- 
cept the  time  needed  to  repair  ihem,  the  bees 
may  gather  and  store  honey  continuously.  The 
Messrs.  Marvin  estimate  that  the  increase  of 
honey  by  the  use  of  this  invention,  will  be 
nearly  one-half.  Should  these  machines  meet 
with  the  fAvor  of  bee  keepers,  which  we  think 
they  may,  and  be  generally  introduced,  we  may 
look  for  cheaper  honey;  but  it  is  plain  that  we 
must  find  a  substitute  for  beeswax,  or  purchase 
it  only  at  a  greatly  increased  price. 


A  Voice  from.  West  Virginia^ 


The  past  season,  up  to  August  1st,  ^ag  p      ?* 
lent  for  the  "busy  bees."     They  made  a 
start  on   the  fruit  blossoms,  and"  then  -whe^^t! 
tulip  tree  expanded  its  thousands  of  honevV« 
ducing  pods,  they  had  a  glorious  feast  day  af 
day,  from   early   dawn    to  late    at  nia^t    ,V*' 
continued   for   about  a  month,  with  bm'  u,, 
interruption    owing  to  the  state  of  the  wcatli 
Then  came  in   bloom  the  linden  tree    y 
gave  them  rich  stores. 

Notwithstanding   the  favorable  season 
in  the  old  fashioned  gams  did  but  little  'b^ 
in  the  way  of  swarming.     Nearly  all  miuet 
in  Langstroth  hives,  at  their  different  localij 
some    eight  miles  distant   from  each  othe^ 
more  than  doubled  the  number  of  my  colon 
and  have   '■'■piles'''  of  honey,  which 
"  old  logy"  bee  neighbors  begin  to  conq 
that  "scientific"  bee-men  and   patent  hive;., 
not  such  a  "  nuisance"  as   they  once,  and'^ 
long  since,  thought. 

We  have  some"  wise  men"  here  in  Ueok 
Fome  who  still  contend  that  the  queen  is  ai 
that  the  drones  are  the  ones  that  lay  all  tliei 
and  that  when  a  colony  become  queenlesai 
is,  without  a  king),  if  a  large  wasp  be  cavg   ^ 
heel  in  the  top  of  the  hive,  they  wl.ll  go  to  worli] 
do  as  iDcll  as  ever!     Also,  that   the  motluvo; 
comes  in  the  honey  comb  without  any  egg  hi 
been  laid  there,  or  anywhere  else  near  it; 
many  other  such  nolinus. 

The    Italian   bee,    after   several  unsnccea 
attempts,  has  been  introduced    into  this  "dai. 
corner   by  the  writer,  and  caused  mnnyay 
citizen  to  shake  his  head  and   say  "humbug 
But  they  are  "working  out  iheir  own  salvatioft 
and  gaining  a  wortliy  name.    Their  superio" 
over  the  natives,  this  season,  with  me,  IiasJ 
more  than  two  to  one  ;  and  yet  1  have  noli 
show  for  them,  as  I  have  only  one  old  qiieei 
breed   from.     But  she   is  a  prize   to  me. 
astonishing  the  quantity  of  brood  comb  slidj 
filled   with  eggs.     I  gave  her  every  advaa 
to  do  all  she  was  able.     She  has  a  beautiful (      ^ 
and   her   progeny,   workers   and  drones,  sKi"^" 
well    markecras   any    lever    saw  in  the  Ws^ 

The  queens  I  have  raised  from  her  ar^fi  • 
color,  if  possible  more  beautiful  than  hen 
So  much  for  getting  queejfte  from  a  reliables 
and  from  one  that  knows  what  siie  isdoir 
has  special  care  Jioto  she  does  it  so  as  toj 
I  got  my  queen  from  Mrs.  E.  S.  TupperJ 
ton,  Iowa,  and  hope  to  get  more  from  m 

More  anoD,  relative    to  wintering   lieeiitts 

Langstroth  hive— having  b  een  very  sdttMaiu 

in  that  thing  ^    , 

J.  S,  FLORt 

Fatetteville,  West.  Va. 


As  the  life  of  the  drones  is  usually  cut  sho - 

by  violence,  it  is  difficult  to  ascertain  itspw  ;  ^ 

limit.     It  has  been  estimated  not  to  exceea  i  j 

months.  ? 


THE    AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL 


67 


[For  tho  American  Bee  Journal.] 

What  We  Lack ! 


-This  vicinity    is.    upon    uit 

oil  lioncy-in-uducin!;-  li)cality._ 

von-d  wi'Ui  a  goml   portion   ot 

Inciii''  iilauts,  in  abun- 


timu  into  a  strong  stock  liive,  and  the  bees  will 

j  clean  out  the  dead   cues   and    not    injure    the 

j  comb.     If  kept  in  a  damp  place  it  will  mould 

i  with  the  dead  bees   in.     In  summer  it  must  be 

j  k(;pt  from  the  moths.     If  moth  eggs  are  already 

in,  keep  the  comb  in  a  veiy -warm  room  until' 

they  hatcli,  then  set  it  out  ol  tioors  and  let  them 

freeze.     That  is,  in  the  winter— summer  would 

not  be  a  good  rime  to  frrc.-e  tiiem.      Mr.  Qniuby, 

in  his  Bee-keepers'  boc.k,    explains   how   lu   get 

them   nut  of  cornb  in  summer,    by  fumigating 

with  sulphur. 

I  still  think   that  bees  could  have  been  man- 

flrsl  week   in  June.     Durmg  the  reign  ot   me  ;  ^^^^^  ^^  .^^  ^^  j^.^^.^  stored  hnney  enough  to  wm- 

clover,   they  generaUy  fill    their  hives    ueaiJy  i  ^^^.  ^^^^ .  fj,i,i  th^  i^gt  summer's' operations  have 

All),  and  do  up  tlieir  swarming.  !  ^^^^  weakened  mv  faith.     A  swarm   of  bees    if 

Before    the    dovcr    is    g.me     '1>''    ''^sswooa  ,       ^^^^^  ^^^^^    ,j^^ -^^^^,.^.^^         j^   ^^^^.^  sufficient 

comes  in  bloom,  and  liists  until  about  the  mid-        '   .    .  °_  ., :„,'.  , ..  ,  __ 

die  »)f  July.     About  this  time  we  rsuaUy  have  a 
dioulh.      The    hasswoods    pass  ont  of  bloom  ; 


3In.    EniTou: 
whole,    a  very  p 
That  is,  we  are  favor 
the  princiiml  honeyi 

"^"Ourbees  do   v-rv  Hl'l^  ^x^'^Pt  to   ffet  their 
spiiiig,  nniil  iliewhite  clover 


own  living,  in  th 
mukf.'t  its  iippcarauee, 


■iiicli  IS   gene 


■ally 


winter  on  in  six  or  eight  days  of  honey  wea- 
ther. I  have  swarms  that  gathered  enough 
from  sumac  in  six  days,  to  winter  two  swarms. 
Still  1  Jiave  neighbors  whose  bees  starved  in 
December. 

Ei-isHA  Gallup. 
Osage,  Iowa. 


the  clover,  being  mostly  on  high  pasture  lane, 
dries  np;  and  from  this  time  until  tlK;  blossom- 
ing of  buckwheat  (which  is  about  the  middle 
of  August),  the  bees  remain  idle;  but  consume 
iT>o«'t  of  the  clover  and  basswood  honey  which 
Ihey  Inivo  on  hand. 

When  the  honey  fails,  the  queens  stop  breed- 
ing ;  the  coinl)s  become  nearly  empty  ;  and  the 
bees  rapid  y  decrease  in  numijcr. 

When  the  buckwheat  crop  does  come  in,  it 
comes  all  at  ouce,  and  is  of  a  comparatively 
short  duration.  But  there  is  now  such  abun- 
dance of  honey  that  the  empty  combs  are  rapid- 
ly refilled— ottVn  brood  r,,.mb.^''und  all. 

Of  course  this  is  not  always  the  case.  It  was  j  ted  in  a  late  number  of  the  '■'•Gountry  Gentle 
90  this  year  ;  it  was  so  last ;  but  a  season  giving  i  man,  of  bees  bghting  on  persons  wlii-n  swarm- 
a  yield  of  honey  between  the  middle  of  July  and  I  ing,  call  to  mind  an  occurrence  in  which  I  had 
the  midille  of  August,  is  the  exception,  and  not  I  a  prominent  part.  About  ten  years  ago  one  of 
*^*  "■"'<-'•  i  '"V  townsmen  bought  a  swarm  of  bees^in  an  old- 

riow,  is  there  not  something  which  we  can  I  fashioned  box  hive,  containing  about  one-halt 
«ow,  to  keep  up  the  supply  at  this  pei  iod  ?  If  |  bushel  of  bees,  wliich  he  desired  me  to  transfer 
not,_ we  must  resort  to  feeding.  The  alsike  clo- I  into  two  hives  of  L.  L.  Lanestroth's  patent 
ver  is  probably  gone  before  this  lime.  How  is  1  The  bees  were  drummed  ourinto  a  box  the 
«7.n  borage,  or  with  the  melilot  clover  ?  I  combs  transferred  to  the  two  hives  and  the'bees 
Will  some  one  who  has  raised  them,  and  who  |  divided.  While  hiving  the  first  h'llf  the  other 
has   not   an   axe  to   grind,  please   tell   us   and  1  half  arose  and  lit  on  the  back  of  mv'neck   hat 


[From  the  Country  Gentleman.] 

Courageous  Handling  of  Bees  under 
Difficulty. 

Messks.  Tucker  &  Son  :— The  cases  repor- 


oblige 

J.  F.  Tillinghast 
F.vcTORYvri.LE,  Pa.,  Aug.  25,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

To  Clean  and  Preserve  Combs. 


and  collar.  There  was  no  one  who  dared  come 
!  near  me,  and  you  may  imagine  I  had  to  carry 

a  steady  head.  I  finished  hiving  the  first  half 
!  and  look  off  my  hat  and  shook  off  the  bees  at 
I  the  entrance  of  the  second  hive-then  mv  coat ; 
I  carefully  brushing  the  bees  from  my  neck,  and 
:  hived  and  put  both  swarms  on  iheir  stands   and 

only  received  one  stiug  in  the  little  finger!  and 

then  the  bee  got  squeezed   between   the  fingers 

I  had  neither  bee-hat  nor  gloves  on 
The  transaction  wa;- 


•  n  ,.  .      ,  "f-^ssed  bv  the  owner, 

ith  some  friends  invited  to  see  the  operation 
om  the  windows  of  the  house.     He  said  it  was 


r  have  received  numerous  letters  from  differ-  ' 
^t  parts  of  the  country,  all  about  the  same  pur-  I 
port,    ami    making    simihir    inquiries,    thus-  ' 

Several  of  my  swarms  )f  bees  have  starved  to  !  „ 
death  already     What  shall  I  do  with  the  cum>.sv  i  ^^'^  S^'e^^test  ieat  he  ever  saw  performed 
and  now  shall  I  get  the  dead  bees  out,  where  I      ^t        t,                                        Joel  Curtis 
cor^hs^M  .'"  '''    n"''  ^-"''""^  destroying  the        ^^^^  ^^^•^^™.  Co^^N.,  Jtrnc  26,  1869 
a  d?v  mom . '«    V 1    ^  ':rP'y-l^<-'ep  your  combs  in                                 —«>___ 
a  dry  room;  and  by  all  means  preserve  them,  for  |      ^ver  


consider  combs  already  built  in  Quantiiv^Mffl    i      -'  -" 

cieut  to  tin  a  hive,  almoJt  if  not'quK;u.';-:St  '  ^"  "•^'^•'^-'' 


i-y  colony  which  has  a  new  queen,  should 
to  a  swarm  of  h..,.'=~"Tr."J'  ""^  4"oe  eciuivaieut  i  .f.ncnn.lhw     "^  ",' '  ^l^'^''  ^^^^   'ipiariau    may  be 


".Uinta,-,,.  „„!,-;  -„,.r—  ».o;- 


68 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE   JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Jour] 

Tke  Honey  Season,  &c. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Joumj,.J 


Tliat  Paper  Hive. 


The  season  in  this  part  of  New  Eugland  has 
been  the  most  unfavorable  for  honey  since  1863. 
The  spring,  np  to  the  first  of  June,  I  think  was 
better  than'  the  two  previous  ones.     At  this  time 
the  hives  -were  well  tilled  with  bees    and  brood  ;  , 
swarms  commenced  issuing,  and    swarmed   too  j 
much   generally.      Many   colonies  swarmed  as  | 
many  as  three  or  four  times  each  ;  and  some  of  : 
the  virgin  stocks  swarmed  also.  | 

June,  up  to  the  last  week,  was  very  favorable  1 
for  honey.  The  red  raspberry  blossomed  pro-  I 
fusely,  and  the  weather  was  such  that  the  bees  ; 
obtained  honey  Very  fast,  and  the  early  swarms  ^ 
filled  their  hives  with  comb,  while  the  queens  i 
worked  us  aiduously,  filling  their  combs  with  i 
eggs.  Consequently  there  was  not  much  honey  , 
sio"ied.  Since  the  first  of  July  bees  have  done  1 
noLliing— hardly  gathering  enough  for  their  daily  j 
consumptiou.  i 

While  clover  has  been  abundant,  and  bass- 
wood  blossomed  well  generally.  But  we  have 
had  a  severe  droun;]it ;  the  atmosphere  has  been 
dry,  and  the  nights  cool.  This  has  checked  the 
flow  or  the  secretion  of  honey  in  tbe  flowers. 
And  here  I  would  say  that  I  believe  unless  the 
atmosphere  is  right,  bees  will  secure  but  little 
honey,  although  there  mny  be  many  honey-pro- 
ducing blossoms  at  hand.  I  have  known  some 
seasons  when  bees  did  not  work  on  buckwlieat, 
which  I  believe  was  in  consequence  of  the  at- 
mosphere being  too  dry. 

To-day  (August  16th)  I  have  examined  some 
of  my  stocks.  In  the  old  ones,  I  found  a  good 
supply  of  honey  ;  but  the  young  swarms  thai 
have  filled  their  hives  witli  comb  are  very  difl'er- 
ent.  Many  of  them  have  probably  not  over 
one-half  enough  for  wintering  purpdses.  There 
is  little  uncapped  honey  to  be  seen  ;  and  the 
common  bees  are  uncapping  that  wliich  was 
sealed.  Unless  there  is  a  good  supply  of  lull 
forage,  or  feeding  is  resorted  to,  I  tear  many 
colonies  will  "  come  up  missing"  befure  next 
spring. 

1  see  by  the  correspondence  in  the  last  Bee 
JouiiNAL,  that  in  many  parts  of  the  country  bees 
are  swarming  too  much,  and  storing  but  little 
surplus  honey.  I  learned  from  Mr.  Langstroth, 
several  weeks  ago,  that  his  bees  were  storing 
remarkably  well— obtaining  large  quantities  of 
honey.  Last  season,  I  think,  bees  in  many 
parts  of  the  West,  did  but  little. 

Bee-keepers'  Conventions. 

As  I  read  the  doings  of  the  Conventions  in 
the  different  parts  of  the  country,  tbe  thougkt 
occurred  to  me — Why  cannot  New"  England 
have  something  of  the  kind.'?  Wbat  say  you, 
brother  bee-keepers  of  New  England  ? 

C.  B.  B:glot7. 

Pekkinsville,  Vt. 


Tbe  paper  hive  and  its  inventor,  as  getf« 
by  Mr.  Fairbanks,  in  the  August.nutnber  of^ 
Bee  Journal,  shows  the  doctor's  new  theorvj 
in  rather  unfavorable  light,  or  does  not  ah 
him  up  at  all.  I  dare  say  the  t'octor  might  ha 
played  sharp  on  some  of  the  GentileSj^hadl 
felt  so  disposed.  But  the  true  believer  ■  ' 
manded  to  watch,  and  this  is  quite  essemioil 
this  age.     Facts  arc  wbat  we  want. 

We  carefully  weighed  three  hives  on  tliet 
of  December,  1868— one  paper,  and  two  ^jl 
hives;  placed  one  wood  hive  in  the  cellar- 
the   other,  with  the  paper  hive,  was  left  omij 
doors.     We  weighed  them  again  on  the  fir 
April,  and  the  result  was  that  the  liivein 
cellar  had  lost  ten  pounds  ;  the  wood  hive( 
doors  (which  was  double-wall)  sixteen  pou 
while  the  paper  hive,  in  a  more  exposed  si^ 
tion,  had  lost  but  nine   pounds.     The  bees  i 
combs  in   the   latter   were    perfectly  dry 
healthy,  while  those  in  tlie  wood  hive  weraj 
from  it. 
,      The  paper  quilt  described  in  the  Aueusti 
j  ber  of  the  Journal,  we  hope  Mr.   Fairbi 
;  as    well  as  others,  will  test  the  coming -vyii 
j  It  will  not  kill  the  bees,  but,  on  tlie  other! 
protect  them  from  both  damp  and  cold.    ? 
I      We   do  not  approve  of  the  doctor's  foBJ 
i  hive,  or  style  of  top  bar,  as  we  think  we  | 
j  a   better   form    and   style  ;  but  papir  in  J 
I  form,  we  cannot  dispense  with.  ~ 

About  the  use  of  movable  top  bars, 
I  frames,  we  have  only  lo  read  the  JouRSi 
learn  that  some  of  the  most  eminent  Gei 
j  apiarians  prefer  them  to  frames. 
I      I   hope   the    doctor's   new   theory  of  i 
i  growth,  if  not  true,  will  lead  to  mure  lig 
I  we  believe  the  old  theory  is  wanting  foi^l 
i  dence  in  all  its  claims. 

Yours,  for  better  success  in  wintering, 
Chas.  Hasti] 
Dow^AGiAC,  Mich  ,  August  12,  1 


The  Orientals  call  the  honey-bee,  "  Deborah  : 
She  that  speaketh." 


It  may  generally  be  ascertained  so 
hiving  a  swarm,  whether  or  not- it  ' 
remain.  If,  on  applying  the  ear  to  tb 
the  hive,  a  sound  be  lieaid  as  of  gn 
rubbing,  the  bees  are  getting  ready  f^ 
building,  and  will  rarely  decamp— Lai 


The  hinder  legs  of  the  worker  , 
nished  with  a  spoon-shaped  hollow^ 
to  receive  the  pollen  which  she  gati 
flowers. 


The  queen  bee  usually  dies  of  o| 
fourth  year,  although  she  has  hei 
live  much  longer. 

'Notched    and  ragged  wings,  instead 
hairs  and  wrinkled   faces,  are  the  signs    ^ 
in  the  bee. 


American  Bee  JouR^SiiS'*^ 


EDITED  AND  PUBLISHED  BY  SAMUEL  WAGNER,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

AT  TWO  DOLLARS  PER  ANNUM,  PAYABLE  IN  ADVANCE. 


Vol.  v. 


OCTOBER,   1^60. 


No.  4. 


Practical  Bee-Cult\ire. 


Translated  for  the  Amertcan  Bee  Jour- 
nal, FROM  the  German  of  C.  J.  H.  Graven- 
horst. 


If  a  prnrtical  and  progressive  beekeeper,  hav- 
ing  a  well-appointed  apiary  in  common  hives, 
came  to  me,  expressing  a  desire  to  try  the  mov- 
able comb  system,  and  asking  my  advice  as  to 
the  best  mode  of  proceeding,  I  should  frankly 
say  to  him  :  "It  is  very  laudable  on  your  part  to 
be  unwilling  longer  to  lag  in  the  rear,  but  to 
aim  at  improvement  and  progress.  Still,  I  can 
on'y  consent  to  give  you  counsel  and  aid  on 
condition  that  you  pledge  y.-urself  to  follow 
implicitly  the  instructions  I  give  you  ;  not  devi- 
ating in  the  slightest,  either  to  the  right  or"  the 
left,°rrom  the  course  I  prescribe.  In  return  for 
th's,  however,  I  c-in  guarantee  that  your  exper- 
iment fhall  result  in  success  ;  that  is,  provided 
you  reside,  like  myself,  in  a  district  of  country 
offering;  moderately  good  spring  pasturage,  and 
the  blessing  of  heaven  be  not  wholly  withheld. 
But  if  the  district  in  which  you  reside  does  not 
present  such  spring  pasturage,  I  must  request 
you  not  to  apply  to  me  for  counsel.  In  such 
case,  there  are  o'hers  who  could  serve  you  much 
better  than  I..  Whether  movable  comb  hives 
are  adapted  to  such  a  district,  is,  in  my  opinion,  a 
yet  unsettled  question  ;  and  one  which^  other 
beekeepe's  will  doubtless  have  occasion  tg 
investigate  and  decide." 

Should  my  worthy  bee-friend  now  inquire 
how  I  accou'^t  for  the  fact  tliat  movable  comb 
hives  have  thus  far  found  so  little  favor  among 
ordinary  beekeepers,  I  would  simply  reply  :  "If 
the  matter  be  somewhat  more  closely  examined 
than  it  usually  is,  the  chief  reason  will  soon 
become  apparent— that  is,  if  we  have  an  oppor- 
tunity to  scrutinize  minutely  the  experiments 
with  movable  comb  hives  which  have  been 
made,  in  various  places,  by  common  beekeepers. 
In  the  results  of  tliese  experiments,  precisely, 
will  be  found  the  ground  of  the  prevalent  preju- 
dice against  the  new  system.     I  formerly  con- 


ceived that  the  greater  cost  of  movable  comb 
hives  was  the  chief  reason  why  they  found  so 
liitle  f\xvor  with  the  mass  of  our  beekeepers.  I 
am  still  of  opinion  that  this  is  one  of  the  reasons, 
but  by  no  means  the  chief.  Common  beekeep- 
ers judge  in  this  matter  by  the  results  attained,. 
If  in  these  their  anticipations  are  realized,  they 
are  quite  ready  to  disregard  the  enhanced-  cost 
or  the  increased  trouble  attending  the  adoption 
of  a  new  system  of  pr  ictice.  But,  on  the  con- 
trary, if  they  are  disappointed  in  results,  they 
will  cleave  all  the  more  pertinaciously  to  their 
old  usages.  This  is  rational,  and  quite  natural. 
The  greater  number  ot  ttie  experiments  made 
with  movable  comb  hives,  furnished  unsatisfac- 
tory results  ;  and  the  disappointed  beekeepers 
attributed  this  to  the  new  kind  of  hives  em- 
ployed. That,  however,  was  an  erroneous  con- 
clusion. The  fault  lay,  in  reality,  with  the  bee- 
keepers themselves. 

1 .  They  had  not  studied  and  of  course  did 
not  understand  the  new  system,  and  managed 
their  bees  in  movable  comb  hives  precisely  as 
they  did  when  they  kept  them  in  the  old- 
fashioned  straw  and  bos  iiives.  And  they  did 
this  under  the  impression  that  this  new  kind  of 
hive  was  of  itself  to  produce  the  results  desired. 
Was  it  surprising,  then,  that  the  experiments 
miscarried  ?  Tlie  new  system  is  essentially  dif- 
ferent from  the  old.  It  must  be  studied,  that  a 
knowledge  of  it  maybe  acquired;  but  for  a  bee- 
keeper of  ordinary  good  seose  and  tact,  tliere  is 
nothing  mysterious  or  magical  about  it;  and 
proficiency  in  its  processes  may  easily  and 
speedily  be  attained 

2.  They  generally  construct  their  movable 
comb  hives  according  to  their  own  whims  and 
notions,  deviating  from  the  model  hives  in  var- 
ious particulars,  which  they  conceive  to  be 
improvements;  and  then  attribute  their  failures, 
not  to  iheir  misconstructed  imitations  and  their 
blundering  management,  but  to  the  new  system 
and  the  movable  comb  hive. 

3.  They  commonly  commence  experimenting 
with  only  a  single  colony,  though  an  old  adage 
says  truly,  "One  hive  is  no  hive."  No  Uir 
judgment  can  be  deduced  from  a  single  colony 
in  a  common  hive— much  less  if  it  be  in  oue 
with  movable  frames  in  the  hands  of  a  begin- 


70 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOUENAL. 


ner.  Besides,  he  who  has  only  one  colony, 
must  necessarily  forego  many  of  the  advantages 
•which  the  new  system  possesses  and  obviously 
presents. 

4.  They  are  not  careful  to  provide,  especially 
for  tlie  second  year's  operations,  an  adequate 
supply  of  empty  combs  ;  and  thus  fail  to  secure 
one  of  the  essential  conditions  of  success  in 
reducing  the  new  system  to  practice. 

Now,  my  friend,  if  you  design  to  experiment 
with  movable  comb  hives,  and  desire  me  to  be 
your  counsnilor  in  the  premises,  you  must 
promise,  first,  to  make  yourself  well  acquainted 
with  the  principles  of  the  new  system  of  man-  { 
agenient ;  secondly,  to  select  and  adopt  for  prac- 
tical use  an  approved  form  of  movable  comb 
hive  ;  thirdly,  to  start  with  at  least  two  good  col- 
onies— it  were  better  to  begin  with  four\  nnd 
fourthly,  to  provide  for  the  sfcond  year  a  fair 
supply  of  good,  clean,  empty  combs.  As 
regards  the  latter,  you  will  be  apt  to  ask  me 
how  and  where  you  are  to  obtain  them,  and 
how  you  are  to  preserve  them  for  use  when 
obtained.  In  reply  to  this,  I  would  say — adopt 
the  course  I  pursued,  and  in  due  time  you  will 
be  as  well  supplied  with  such  combs  as  I  am  ; 
and  I  have  constantly  on  hand  a  store  of  them 
sutBcient  to  enable  me,  in  any  year,  to  give 
each  of  my  colonics  fifteen  additional  ccmbs. 
Nor  are  any  of  these  combs  more  than  three 
years  old,  because  whei  they  get  to  be  older 
than  that  they  become  friable  and  I  melt  them 
down  and  sell  the  wax.  My  process  is  as  fol- 
lows :  When  breakii\g  up  colonies  in  old  box 
or  straw  hives,  I  carefully  select  and  preserve 
every  good  worker  comb  or  piece  of  comb, 
adjusting  them  all  properly  in  frames.  And, 
secondly,  I  cause  new  combs  to  be  built  in 
frames  to  be  ready  for  use— availing  myself  for 
this  purpose  of  the  comb-building  propensity 
of  the  workers.  This  propensity  is  peculiarly 
strong  and  active  in  young  swarms,  and  in  col- 
onies reduced  to  the  condition  of  a  swarna,  by 
brushing  the  bees  from  their  combs  and  trans- 
ferring them  to  a  hive  containing  frames  fur- 
nished with  worker  comb  foundations  or  guide 
combs.  It  is  also  active  in  a  colony  having  a 
young  queen  just  become  fertile.  In  the  for- 
mer case — tbat  of  young  swarms,  or  of  bees 
brushed  from  the  combs  and  transferred — I  give 
guide  combs  only  in  so  many  frames  as  are 
suited  to  the  size  or  strength  of  the  colony.  In 
the  other  case,  I  give  them  at  most  only  three 
frames  with  guide  combs,  and  place  these  each 
alternately  between  two  full  built  frames.  While 
doing  this  I  am  careful  to  see  that  the  brooding 
space  in  the  hive  is  kept  entirely  free  from  drone 
comb.  In  hives  containing  frames  more  than 
ten  inches  long,  the  prevention  of  drone  comb 
building  is  more  difficult  to  be  accomplished 
than  in  such  as  have  shorter  frames,  or  frames 
not  exceeding  that  length.  Experience  has 
shown  that  in  long  frames  bees  are  exceedingly 
prone  to  build  drone  comb.  Thia  has  led  to 
the  adoption  of  shorter  frames,  by  practical  api 
arians  ;  and  it  will  be  found  that  among  the 
means  of  preventing  the  pioduction  of  drone 
comb,  the  selection  of  hives  not  more  than  ten 
inches  broad,  is  one  of  the  most  efficient.  In 
favorable  years,  swarms,  even  when   placed  in 


empty  hives,  will  completely  fill   eight  or  ten 
frames  with  worker   comb   exclusively  ;  and   if 
that  number  of  frames  of  such  combs   has   once 
been  obt;iined,  the  bees  may  then  be  al'owed  to 
build  drone  comb  also,  if  they  be  so  inclined  ; 
though  these  should  afterwards  be  transferred 
to    the    supers    or    the    surplus  honey  boxes. 
When  drone  comb  is  cut  out   or   removed  from 
the  brooding  apartment,  pieces  of  worker  comb 
should  at  once  be  inserted  or  substituted   for   it. 
There  is  anoiher  mode  of  obtaining  a  large  sup- 
ply of  worker  comb   for  future  use,  to  which  I 
sometimes  resort.     At  the  busiest  honey  season, 
I  brush  the  bees  of   a  strong  colony  from  their 
I  combs  into  a  hive   furnished  with   frames   con- 
i  taiuing  guide  combs  only — thus  constraining  the 
I  bees  to  build  aew  combs,  and  using  those  from 
I  which    they  were   brushed   to   strengthen  weak 
j  colonies.     Of  course  a  beginner  cannot   emplo)' 
this  method  ;    but  if    swarms    happen    to    be 
j  numerous  in  the  spring,  he  may  hive  tliem    all, 
j  stimulate   them   to   comb-building,  and   in  the 
I  fall  unite  the  bees  with   other    stocks,  and  pre- 
I  serve  the  combs  they  have  built  for  use  the  next 
spring.     I  never  had  any  difficulty  in  preserving 
empty  combs.     I  suspeud   them  in   my  garret, 
!  immediately   under  the  lidge  of   the  loof,    so 
j  placing  them  that  they  do  not  touch  each  other, 
[  and  allowing  a  current  of  air  (which  molhs  dis- 
I  like)  to  pass  fieely  among  them.     Thus  placed, 
j  neither  mice  nor  moths  ever  injure  them. 
j      Having  now  stated   my  stipulations,  and  also 
'  shown  that   they  may  easily  be   complied  with, 
1  I  proceed  to  explain  how  you  may  successfully 
1  engage  in  the  new  sj'^stem   of  bee-culture.     As 
already   premised,   I  would,  in   the   first  year, 
place  good  strong  swarms  in  four  movable  comb 
hives,  carefully  watching  to  see  that  they  regu- 
i  larly  fill  the  frames  with  combs,  and  that  those 
I  in    the    brooding    apartment    contain    worker 
comb  exclusively.     In   the   fall,  if  in   want   of 
empty  comb  for   next   season's  operations,  and 
you  have  no   other   source   of  supply,  I  would 
break  up  the  weaker  two  of  those  lour  colonies, 
uniting  the  bees  with  other   stocks,  and  preser- 
ving tlie  combs   for  future   use.     Next   year,  I 
should  devote  the  two   remaining  colonies   ex- 
clusively to  honey-gathering,   as  it  would  be 
injudicious  to  allow  Ihem  to  swarm  or  to  divide 
them.     We  can   only  hope   to  secure  one  thing 
at  a  time — either   honey  or   swarms  ;  to   secure 
both  would  require  an   uncommonly  good   sea- 
son and   superior  management.     Accordingly, 
the   storing   of   honey  must  now  be   our   chief 
'object— for,    remember,    we    are     making    an 
experiment  to  asceitain  whether  more   can   be 
gained  by  means  of  movable  comb   hives,  than 
by  the  old  kind  in  common  use.     The    old   sys- 
tem  has  taught  us  that    colonies   which,    after 
swarming,  are  still  populous,  and  are   speedily 
re-supplied  with  a  fertile   queen,  ever  prove  to 
be  richest  in  honey  stores,  if  pasturage  be   rea- 
sonably abundant.     And  why  ?    1.  Such  a  col- 
ony has  no   occasion   to  build   comb,  or  need 
build     very     little.       2.    For     a     considerable 
period  it  has  no  brood  to  nurse,  and  can   there- 
fore store   up   honey  as   fast   as  it  is  gathered. 
And,    3,  the  fertility    of   the   vigorous    young 
queen   inspires  the    bees    of    the   colony  wiih 
renewed  energy.     Now  that  which  such  a   col- 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


ony  accomplishes  in  the  natural  course  of 
thinss  and  by  native  impulse,  in  common  hives, 
we  must  endeavor  to  secnre  in  movable  comb 
liives  b}!-  skilful  iutcrference  and  judicious  man- 
agement. Hence,  the  primary  requisite  is  that 
the  colony  must  immediately  receive  a  young 
and  fertile  queen  ;  and  with  such  we  can  sup- 
ply it  artificially,  much  more  expeditiously  than 
a  colony,  having  sent  forth  a  swarm,  obtains 
one  by  the  natural  process.  Moreover,  we  pre- 
vent swarming — thus  maintaining  the  populous- 
ness  of  the  colony  unimpaired,  and  enabling  it 
to  take  full  advantage  of  the  honey  season,  in 
the  gathering  and  accumulation  of  stores.  Thus, 
though  a  colony  which  sent  forth  a  natural 
swarm  and  lias  in  due  course  obtained  a  young 
and  fertile  queen  can  accomplish  much;  another, 
in  a  movable  comb  hive,  which  has,  by  proper 
management,  been  placed  and  kept  in  similar 
conditions,  must  and  will,  in  an  equally  favora- 
ble localit}^,  unquestionably  accomplish  more  ; 
because  it  retains  all  its  working  force  uninter- 
uptedly,  and  is  more  speedily  supplied  with  a 
young  fertile  queen  This  certainly  will  be  the 
result,  with  proper  management.  But  to  pro- 
vide a  colony  with  a  young  queen,  it  becomes 
necessary  to  remove  the  old  one.  This  we  pro- 
ceed to  do,  as  soon  as  the  population  has  so 
increased  that  the  brood  extends  down  almost 
to  the  lower  margin  of  the  combs,  and  there  is 
reason  to  expect  plenty  of  pasturage  soon.  We 
must  previously,  however,  have  made  arrange- 
ments to  have  a  supply  of  nearly  mature  queen 
cells  ready,  on  the  day  prior  to  the  unqueeuing 
of  our  colony.  There  are  various  methods  of 
effecting  this.  One  of  the  simplest  is  to  prepare 
a  nucleus  colony  for  rearing  queens,  marking 
the  day  when  tlie  queen  cells  are  sealed,  and 
then  removing  them  at  the  proper  time.  From 
the  time  of  the  sealing  of  the  cells  to  the  emerg- 
ing of  the  queen,  seven  days  commonly  elapse  ; 
but  the  cells  are  usually  in  the  pioper  condition 
for  removal  on  the  fourth  day  after  sealing.  On 
the  second  or  third  d»y  after  the  sealing  of  the 
queen  cells  in  the  nucleus,  I  remove  the  queen 
from  the  old  colony.  In  a  populous  colony  it  is 
not  always  easj'  to  find  her.  In  such  case,  I 
proceed  thus  :  I  open  the  hive  and  lift  out  a 
brood  comb  from  near  the  middle  of  the  brood- 
ing space.  If  the  queen  is  found  on  that  comb, 
all  right ;  the  removal  is  quickly  effected,  and 
there  is  no  further  trouble.  But  we  are  not 
always  so  fortunate  in  our  search,  and  if  the 
queen  is  not  found  on  that  comb,  I  lift  out  the 
division  board  from  between  the  brood  combs 
and  the  store  comls,  introduce  the  removed 
comb  there,  and  insert  a  frame  with  empty  comb 
in  the  place  left  vacant  by  the  transfer.  The 
queen,  in  the  course  of  her  daily  perambula- 
tioHsin  the  hive,  will  find  this  empty  comb, 
and  having  already  felt  herself  cramped  tor 
room  to  deposit  her  eges,  at  once  takes  posses- 
sion ;  and  she  will  be  the  more  active  in  sup- 
plying the  cells  with  eggs,  as  she  has  an  instinct- 
ive desire  to  fill  up  all  vacancies  in  the  brood- 
ing space.  Hence,  on  lifting  out  this  comb 
next  day,  the  queen  is  almost  invariably  found 
on  it,  or  will  be  found  there  in  th»  course  of  an 
hour  or  two.  But  before  commencing  the  uu- 
queening  operation,  I  make  some  other  required 


preliminary  arrangements.  I  take  a  nucleus 
hive  adapted  to  rec  ive  four  combs  and  place 
therein  two  frames  furnished  with  guide  comb, 
and  one  frame  built  one-half  or  nearly  two- 
thirds  full,  containing  about  two  pounds  of 
honey  in  the  cells.  This  leaves  room  for  the 
insertion  of  a  fourth  comb.  I  place  this  nucleus 
hive  in  some  convenient  spot  near  the  colony 
to  be  unqueened.  When  I  find  the  queen  on 
the  inserted  decoy  comb,  I  remove  from  the 
hive  a  comb  containing  brood  nearly  mature, 
place  the  captured  queen  on  it,  and  insert  it 
with  all  its  adhering  bees  in  the  nucleus  hive. 
I  now  lift  out  several  other  frames  from  the 
parent  colony,  brush  off  the  bees  from  the 
coml)s  in  front  of  the  nucleus  hive,  and  return 
the  frames  to  their  place  in  the  old  hive.  The 
bees  brushed  off  readily  enter  the  nucleus  hive, 
and  rejoin  their  queen.  After  having  thus 
obtained  a  sufficient  stock  of  bees,  I  close  the 
entrance,  and  carry  the  nucleus  hive  to  my  cel- 
lar, wlieie  it  is  left  folir  or  five  daj'^s  ;  or  I  send 
it  to  some  distant  place  in  the  evening.  On  the 
fifth  day  I  return  it  to  the  apiary,  giving  it  a  new 
location,  and  allowing  the  bees  to  fly.  Some  of 
the  older  ones  will  return  to  their  former  quar- 
ters, but  the  greater  number  will  adhere  to  their 
old  queen  and  soon  begin  to  work.  On  the  day 
after  the  unqueeuing  I  again  open  the  parent 
hive,  lift  out  a  comb  containing  brood,  and 
insert  a  queen  cell  in  it,  without  brushing  off 
the  bees.  A  queen  CoU  thus  inserted  in  the 
middle  of  the  brood  spacB  is  almost  invariably 
accepted— none  have  ever  been  destroyed  for 
me.  But  still,  as  we  can  never  feel  entirely 
secure  that  the  bees  will  not  thwart  our  best 
devised  plans,  I  lilt  out  the  comb  again  in  the 
evening  or  next  morning,  to  assure  myself  that 
the  cell  has  been  properly  fastened,  or  to  insert 
another  in  case  it  has  been  destroyed'.  I  exam- 
ine it  again  on  the  day  on  which,  according  to  my 
ir.emorandum,  the  young  queen  should  emerge, 
to  see  whether  the  cell  has  been  regularly 
opened,  or  whether  the  embryo  queen  has  per- 
ished or  been  destroyed.  If  the  result  has  been 
favorable  the  colony  will  thus  have  received  a 
new  queen  in  three  or  four  days,  and  we  may 
expect  to  find  eggs  and  larvse  in  the  cells  within 
two  weeks  from  the  day  of  unqueening  ;  where- 
as a  colony  that  sends  forth  a  natural  swarm 
will  not  again  have  brood  to  nurse  until  after 
the  twenty-eighth  day.  If  the  requeeoed  colony 
were  now  left  undisturbed,  after-swarms  would 
almost  certainly  be  produced  by  it.  I  therefore 
open  it  again  on  'he  ninth  day  after  the  removal 
of  the  queen  and  destroy  all  the  queen  cells  I 
can  find.  Should  a  swarm  nevertheless  issue — 
that  is,  should  the  young  queen  leave,  with  a 
portion  of  the  workers,  I  simply  return  them, 
and  find  no  further  trouble.  During  the  period 
when  the  unqueened  colony  has  no  brood  to 
nurse,  and  even  for  some  days  after  the  young 
queen  becomes  fertile,  all  the  honey  gathered 
by  the  workers  will  be  stored  up  ;  and,  what  la 
of  no  small  miportance,  it  will  lor  the  most  part 
be  stored  and  capped  in  the  upper  section  of  the 
combs  in  the  brooding  apartment ;  and  so  long 
as  honey  can  be  obtained  abroad,  the  bees  will 
not  resort  to  this  store  of  sealed  honey  —their 
native  instinct  teaching  them  to  use  first  the 


72 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


honey  stored  in  the  lateral  cnmbs.  Hence,  if, 
when  dest'oyins  the  queen  chIIs,  I  find  one  or 
two  combs  neaily  filled  with  capped  honey,  I  do 
not  insert  the  divi&inn  board  between  the  "brood- 
ing apartment  and  honey  space,  but  place  one 
of  these  full  combs  of  sealed  honey  in  its  stead  ; 
and  if  there  be  more  than  one,  placing  the 
second  next  to  the  first,  on  the  side  towards  the 
honey  space,  and  then  fill  out  that  space  with 
empty  combs — using  drone  combs  in  preference 
for  this  purpose,  if  I  have  any.  The  Queen, 
when  ovipositing,  rarely  passes  beyond  combs 
filled  witii  capped  honey,  in  her  search  for 
empty  cells  ;  and  the  workers  will  use  the  space 
beyond  for  the  storage  of  honey. 

Were  all  the  brood  contained  in  the  combs 
now  permitted  to  mature  in  the  hive,  the  colony 
would  speedily  become  over-populous,  and  the 
multitude  of  workers  interfere  with  the  due 
storage  of  hone}'.  Too  dense  a  population  may 
thus  be  almost  as  disadvantageous  as  one  that 
is  too  sparse.  "We  must  therefore  be  careful  at 
all  times  to  have  the  hive  so  stocked  with  bees 
that  the  combs  are  duly  covered,  but  not  so 
crowded  that  the  masses  must  cluster  below  the 
frames  and  oh  the  front  of  the  hive.  To  pre- 
vent this  latter  we  must  seasonably  remove  two 
or  three  combs  with  sealed  brood  derived  from 
the  old  queen,  «nd  replace  them  by  empty 
worker  combs.  From  the  removed  combs,  I 
take  off  the  bees  in  the  following  manner:  I 
open  the  pnrent  hive,  take  away  the  hon^j'^  j 
board,  and  wiih  a  band  brush  sweep  down  the 
bees  on  tlip  tops  of  the  frames.  They  will  at 
once  re-unite  with  the  colony.  The  combs  thus 
deprived  of  bees  are  then  given  to  the  nucleus 
hive,  containing  the  old  queen  ;  and  to  make 
room  for  them  I  transfer  frames  from  the 
nucleus  to  "a  larger  colony.  Should  I  subse- 
quently deem  it  necessary  to  do  so,  I  take  some 
additional  combs  from  the  parent  hive,  now 
containing  tlie  young  queen,  and  insert  them  in 
a  nucleus  or  artificial  swarm.  It  is  wonderful 
to  see  how  prolific  such  a  young  fertile  queen 
will  prove  to  be,  when  placed  in  favorable  cir- 
cumstances. She  is  able  to  furnish  ecgs  for  at 
least  two  colonies.  But  the  old  queen  also,  if 
she  has  not  passed  her  second  or  third  year, 
will  once  more  display  her  productiveness  in  all 
its  pristine  amplitude.  He  who  has  a  lirge  api- 
ary, and  knows  how  to  avail  himself  of  this, 
can  readily  multiply  his  colonies  <is  though  by 
steam— quickly  building  up  nuclei  and  weak 
stocks  to  powerful  colonies.  Nor  need  any 
diminution  of  honey-gathering  and  storing  be 
apprehended,  while  this  rapid  multiplication  of 
stock  is  going  on.  The  presence  oF  brood  will 
only  incite  the  workers  to  increased  activity, 
and  honey  will  soon  be  seen  glistening  in  the 
cells,  if  pasturage  is  plentiful  ;  and  then  the 
honey  comb-emptier  may  come  into  play,  which 
in  poor  seasons  will  not  be  much  used  ;  though 
even  in  such  seasons  a  strong  colony,  managed 
as  it  should  be,  will  be  able  to  lay  up  stores 
enough  for  the  winter.  But  in  a  good  season, 
such  a  colony  and  its  artificial  swarms  will  be 
able  to  produce  splendid  results ;  and  he  who 
has  once  seen  them  achieve  these,  will  have 
learned  properly  to  appreciate  the  new  system 
of  management,  and  be  ready  and   anxious  to 


make  further  progress  in  the   course   on  which 
he  has  entered. 

It  is  of  course  understood  that  the  foregoing 
is  a  mere  hasty  outline  sketch  of  practical  oper- 
ations. He,  for  example,  who  engages  in  bee- 
culture  with  movable  comb  hives,  must,  as  his 
first  object,  endeavor  to  secure  the  multiplica- 
tion of  colonies ;  and  he  must  consequently 
proceed  in  many  respects  differently  from  -ft  hat 
is  indicated  above  as  proper  tor  a  different  pur- 
pose.    Of  this  more  hereafter. 


[From  the  Blenenzeitnng.1 

A   Companion    for  Hrusehka's  Ventila- 
ted Hive. 

(See  American  Bee  Journal,  vol.  3,  page  26.) 


When  a  second  swarm  issues  from  any  of  my 
hives  late  in  the  season,  I  usually  seek  for  and 
remove  the  queen  and  let  tlie  bees  return  to  the 
parent  Stock,  to  avoid  the  necessity  and  troulile 
of  re-uniting  them  in  the  fall.  I  'did  this  with 
one  issued  on  the  12th  of  July,  1867.  It  had 
hung  clustered  in  the  window  of  my  garden 
house,  when  I  shook  it  down  on  a  table  late  in 
the  afternoon,  hunted  for  tlie  queen,  removed 
her,  and  brushed  the  bees  out  at  the  window. 
One  portion  of  them  returned  to  the  parent 
hive,  but  another  portion — a  cluster  about  as 
large  as  my  two  fisis,  le-entered  through  a  small 
hole  in  one  of  tlie  window  panes,  aud  settled 
Avhere  it  bad  hung  before.  I  was  not  aware  of 
this,  however,  until  next  morning,  when  I  ag'iin 
brushed  them  out;  but  unwilling  to  be  thus 
summarily  expelled,  they  quickly  returned,  ia 
angry  mood,  and  clustered  as  before.  I  con- 
cluded to  let  them  have  their  own  way,  under 
the  impression  that,  after  they  had  gratified 
their  whim,  they  would  withdraw  of  their  own 
accord.  But  they  did  not  leave,  and  to  keep 
them  from  starving,  I  supplied  them  with  some 
small  bits  of  hon<'y  in  the. comb.  On  the  l!)th 
of  July  I  chanced  to  find  an  expelled  queen, 
which,  being  then  of  no  value  to  me,  I  intro- 
duced to  this  destitute  and  exposed  swarm,  and 
she  was  readily  accepted.  On  the  20th,  at  two 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  this  diminutive  swarm 
suddenlj  took  French  leave,  rushing  out,  and 
then  settling  on  a  lower  limb  of  a  tree  in  my 
orchard.  I  succeeded  in  catching  the  queen, 
removed  her,  and  left  the  bees  to  their  fate. 
But,  behold,  in  ten  minutes  after  they  returned 
in  a  body  to  their  old  location  in  the  garden- 
house  !  On  the  21st,  I  found  another  expelled 
queen,  which  being  young  and  yellow,  I.  gave 
to  the  now  queenless  colony,  where  she  was 
kindly  received.  They  now  remained  content- 
edly in  this  exposed  location,  and  began  to 
build  combs — passing  out  and  in  through  the 
hole  in  the  window.  On  the  28lh,  another 
second  swarm  issued  from  one  of  my  stoclis,  and 
being  secured,  was  carried  in  and  shaken  down 
on  the  table  at  the  window  in  the  garden  house, 
that  I  might  search  for  its  queen.  But  almost 
instantly  the  bees  began  to  ascend  the  window, 
in  orderly  procession,  aud  in  fifteen  minutes  had 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


73 


quietly  united  with  the  colony  already  located 
there.  Next  day  the  hees  flew  briskly,  using 
the  liole  in  the  window  as  a  comniou  pass.ige. 
On  the  Utli  of  Auaust,  I  found  tliat  they  had 
built  downward  live  fine  combs,  twenty-one 
inclies  long  and  ten  inches  broad.  I  now  left 
the  door  of  the  garden-house  constantly  open 
for  their  accommodation,  and  they  at  once  gave 
the  new  passage-way  the  preference — contiuu 
ing  to  labor  wiih  great  assiduity.  Judging  from 
appearances  that  they  had  not  a  pound  of  lioney 
in  store  in  the  combs,  I  gave  them,  on  the  20th 
and  21st  of  September,  seven  pouuds  of  granu- 
lated sugar  dissolved,  which  they  eagerly  and 
speedily  carried  up.  On  the  10th  of  October,  I 
covered  the  cluster  in  the  room  willi  three  folds 
of  woolen  blanl-Let,  and  protected  it  on  the  out- 
side with  a  stout  sack  nailed  against  the  win- 
dow ;  and  thus  left  it. 

On  the  17th  of  Jauu.ary  and  the  17th  of  Feb- 
ruary, when  bees  from  my  other  hives  were  fly- 
ing, none  made  their  appearance  from  this  col- 
ony, though  tliey  always  responded  promptly 
Willi  a  buzz,  when  I  tapped  on  their  domic  ile  to 
ascertain  whether  tliey  were  living.  On  the 
33d  of  February,  they  first  began  to  fly,  and  re- 
peated this  with  a  general  "turnout"  on  the 
29th.  No  dead  bees  were  carried  out;  and  from 
the  9th  of  March  on,  they  flew  regularly  and 
briskly,  showing  that  the  coiony  was  then 
alri-ady  populous — being  actually  the  most  lively 
and  vigoious  colony  in  the  apiary,  forwheie 
any  sweet  was  to  be  appropriated  they  were 
sure  to  be  first  on  hand.  I  now  resolved,  in  the 
first  place,  that  tliey  should  build  no  drone 
comb,  and  Avith  this  view^  I  attached  to  one 
side  eight  woiker  combs  built  on  bars — thus  the 
entire  window,  thirty  imhes  long,  was  filled 
out.  I  resolved,  in  the  second  place,  that  the 
colony  should  not  &warm,  if  it  could  be  pre- 
vented ;  and  to  that  end  I  removed  the  woolen 
blanketing  on  the  23d  of  April,  thus  leaving 
them  and  their  location  open  and  exposed,  as 
in  the  previous  summer.  Nevertheless,  they 
increased  so  rapiuly  in  numbers,  that,  on  the 
24th  of  May,  all  the  combs  were  densely  cover- 
ed, and  a  large  cluster  was  suspended  below, 
busily  building  drone  combs.  I  now  again  left 
the  door  of  the  garden-house  constant'y  open, 
and  they  soon  passed  in  that  direction  in  main 
force.  It  miiiht  now'be  tru'y  called  a  colossal 
colony.  But  to  my  great  regret,  and  in  spile  of 
all  my  precautions,  a  strong  swarm  left  oa  the 
22d  of  June.  I  then  determined  to  direct  all 
my  efforts  to  prevent  after  swarming.  As  soon 
as  I  hiard  tlie  flist  young  queen  teeting  and 
others  responding,  I  shut  the  hdle  in  the  win- 
dow and  closed  the  door  of  the  house,  prevent- 
ing yll  egress.  After  keeping  them  in  confine- 
ment four  days,  I  concluded  to  let  them  fly  for 
an  hour  or  two  ;  and  at  noon,  on  the  4th  of 
July,  I  opened  the  hole  and  the  door  ;  and  in 
eight  minutes  after  swarming  began.  I  closed 
the  hole  and  door  again,  darkening  the  chamber, 
but  nothing  could  now  restrain  them.  In  the 
darkness  they  pitched  down  on  the  table  at  the 
window  and  lolled  so  wildly  about  on  it  in 
dense  nr-isses  that  I  was  glad  to  set  them  free 
once  more.  Hastily  attaching  a  swarming  net 
to  the  window,  I  arrested  the  swarm  as  it  was 


making  its  exit  tliere,  and  transferred  it  to  a 
hive.  I  feared  that  the  parent  stock  was  now 
so  greatly  reduced  in  numbers  as  to  be  worth- 
less ;  yet  in  October  f-  llowing  it  again  hung 
there  as  before,  in  colossal  strength.  At  the  end 
of  October,  I  once  more  applied  the  protecting 
woolen  blankets.  In  the  course  of  tiie  winter, 
the  bees  flew  out  repeatedly,  and  to-day  (April 
30ih)  they  are  vigorous  and  active. 

Now,  what  have  I  learned  from  all  this  ? 

1.  In  wiut&riiig  hees,  it  is  neediest  to  be  so  exceed- 
ingly careful  and  anxious,  if  they  are  Avell  sup- 
plied with  stores,  and  their  hive  can  shield  them 
from  the  severiiy  of  the  weather.  Placing  them 
in  some  wintering  repository,  is  a  useless  and 
superfluous  labor;  and  is  less  conducive  to  their 
health  and  comfort,  than  when  wintered  out  of 
doors.  For  twelve  years  past,  I  have  wintered 
my  bees  alternately  in  a  cool,  dark,  dry,  and 
quiet  cellar,  and  in  the  open  air.  When  housed 
many  died,  dysen'ery  prevailed  among  them, 
and  the  stocks  weie  weak  in  the  spring.  When 
left  in  the  open  air,  on  the  other  hand,  none  of 
these  evils  weie  experienced. 

2.  Water  dearth  is  a  mere  imaginary  trouble, 
for  the  colony  liad  overhead  no  covering  on 
which  vaf  or  or  moisture  could  condense.  The 
window  recess  is  only  four  inches  broad,  and 
all  the  rest  was  covered  with  woolen  blanketing, 
which  certainly  absorbed  all  moisture.  During 
the  last  fourteen  years  I  have  kept  my  bees  in 
top-opening  hives.  In  the  first  four  years,  I  did 
not  close  the  interstices  between  the  slats  form- 
ing the  honey  board,  leaving  open  sucii  of  ihem 
as  the  bees  themselves  had  not  closed  ;  merely 
placing  thereon  a  sheet  of  Ihii  k  paper  and  a 
cushion  filled  with  hay  : — and  they  wintered 
well.  Then  the  idea  occurred  to  me  that  it 
might  be  better  to  close  all  these  interstices 
thoroughly.  Adopting  the  notion,  I  plastered 
them  shut;  with  clay.  But  the  bees  did  not  win- 
ter any  better  than  before.  As  this  plastering 
in  the  bee-house  was  attended  with  much  incon- 
venience, I  omitted  it  during  the  last  four 
years  on  the  six  colonies  wintered  there  ;  and 
these  not  only  passed  the  winter  as  well  as  any 
of  the  others,  but  came  out  last  spring  as  true 
colossal  colonies.  I  had  merely,  as  in  former 
years,  placed  a  sheet  of  thick  paper  on  the  hon- 
ey board,  laid  an  old  coffee  bag  on  that,  and 
covered  this  with  a  layer  (f  about  four  inches  of 
liay .  There  teas  no  trace  of  water  dearth  f  Only 
be  careful  that  your  bees  are  not  restricted  to  old 
candled  honey  for  winter  food. 

3.  Bees  icill  sicarm  when  so  dispised,  in  spite 
ot  all  the  preventions  the  hee-keeper  may  use. 
Give  them  -is  mueh  room  as  you  please,  and 
ventilation  to  reduce  the  temperature  ;  yet  go 
they  will,  if  the  swarming  mania  seizes  them. 
This  colony  had  the  entire  garden-house  as 
room  for  expansion  ;  and  that  it  is  a  cool  place, 
I  am  very  certain  ;  still  the  swarm  left.  Only 
by  removing  combs  of  maturing  brood,  and  in- 
serting empty  combs,  can  swarming  be  pre- 
vented. 

4.  That  a  colony  may  be  well  wintered  on  seven 
pounds  of  granulated  sugar.  In  the  first  year 
my  small  colony  had  not  one  pound  of  honey 
in  store.  Ignve  it  seven  pounds  of  granulated 
sugar  in  solution  ,  and  it  was  in  a  splendid  con- 


74 


THE  AMEEICAN  BEE  JOUHNAL. 


dition  in  Ibe  spring.  Granulated  sugar  is  pre- 
ferable to  sugar  candy,  first,  because  it  is 
cheaper;  and,  second 'j%  bceanse  it  is  onore 
s-AuUe.  On  Ibe  1st  of  October  I  placed  equal 
quanti'.ies  of  tbis  sugar  and  of  candy,  side  by 
side,  in  a  small  open  box  in  my  cellar.  On  tbe 
20tb,  tbe  granulated  sugar  was  completely 
liquified,  wbereas  tbe  candy  tbfn  merely  show- 
ed signs  of  moistncss.  A  saucer  of  dissolved 
granulated  sugar,  exposed  in  my  sitting  room, 
began  to  candy  only  aftei  tbe  lapse  of  nine 
weeks. 

Moreover,  I  apportioned  fifty  pounds  of  gran- 
ulated sugar  among  twelve  stocks  insufficiently 
supplied  witb  stores,  allotting  to  eacb  in  pro- 
portion  to  its  seeming  deficiency,  and  estimating 
one  pound  of  granulated  sugar  as  equivalent  to 
tbree  pounds  of  honey  ;  and  all  these  passed  tbe 
winter  in  excellent  condition. 

BOTTNER. 


[From  the  London  Gardeners'  Chronicle.] 

Honey  Dew. 


I  have  been  interested  in  a  discussion  on 
honey  dew,  which  has  lately  appeared  in  your 
columns.  As  a  beekeeper  I  have  often  paid 
attention  to  this  subject.  My  opinion  is  that 
honey  dew  may  be  caused  in  two  ways;  but 
that  it  is  generally  caused  by  aphides.  It  is 
extracted  from  the  under  sides  of  the  leaves, 
and  expelled  from  their  bodies  witb  considera- 
ble force,  much  of  it  naturally  falling  on  the 
upper  sidrs  of  tbe  leaves.  I  have  felt  the 
shower  on  my  face,  when  standing  under  a  tree 
which  was  affected  by  lioney  dew.  A  flagged 
pavement  in  oui  city  has  lately  been  quite  dark- 
colored  and  clammy  from  tiie  saccharine  show- 
er. But,  as  the  result  of  my  observation,  I  am 
convinced  that  honey  dew  is  also  frequently  an 
exudation  from  the  pores  of  the  leaves — 
a  sweating,  as  it  were,  of  .'acciiarine  matter,  total- 
ly unconnected  with  the  operations  of  any 
insects.  Some  years  since,  lioney  dew  exuded 
from  tbe  currant  trees  in  my  garden,  to  such  an 
extent  that  large  drops  formed  on  the  tips  of 
the  leaves.  The  bushes  were  almost  entirely 
free  from  aphides.  What  few  were  there,  were 
evidently  there  as  a  consequence,  and  not  as  a 
cause.  In  fact,  I  doubt  if  they  could  have  ex- 
isted on  the  leaves  to  any  great  extent,  as  the 
exudation  was  so  profuse  that  they  would  have 
been  completely  clogged  and  smothered  witb  it. 
The  weather  was  intensely  hot  for  several  weeks 
at  that  time.  I  have  on  various  occasions  since 
observed  tbe  same  sort  of  honey  dew  on  other 
fruit  trees.  I  have  taken  some  of  the  dripping 
leaves  to  tbe  entrances  of  my  hives  ;  but  the 
bees  did  not  seem  to  care  much  about  appropri- 
ating the  luscious  fluid.  The  probability  is  that 
bees  do  not  gather  so  much  from  honey  dew,  as 
is  generally  imagined  ;  but  that  while  the  con- 
dition of  the  juices  of  plants  and  the  state  of  tbe 
weather  are  peculiarly  favorable  to  its  produc- 
tion, flowers  generally  secrete  honey  more  plen- 
tifully than  at  other  times. 

I  believe  there  are  really  two  distinct  kinds 
of  honey  dew  ;  one  nearly  always  present  witb 


I  us,  produced  by  the  busy  pumping  organs  of  the 
'apbiles;    the   other   a   spontaneous   exudation 
from  the  leaves  of  tbe  trees.     Honey  dew,  when 
it  prevails  to  any  great  extent,  is   produced    by 
considerable  heat   and   dryness   of  the   atmos- 
phere.    Mr.  Eadcliff"e  is,  however,  right  in  sup- 
posing  that   cold   cutting  winds,   preceding   or 
;  alternating  wiih  hot  weather,  are   favorable   to 
j  its  appearance.     The  plants  become  to  a  certain 
I  extent  unhertltby,  and   consequently  tbe   leaves 
i  are  more  easily  affected  by  what  is,  in   truth,  a 
I  disease — whether  tbe  honey  dew  is   caused    by 
I  aphides,  or  whether  it  be   a  natural   exudation 
I  totally  independent  of  them. 
I      Dr.  Bevan,  the  author  of  the   "  Honey  Bee," 
!  says  :     "  I  believe  it  will  be  found  that  there  are 
\  at  least  two  kinds  of  honey  dew  ;  the  one  a  secre- 
i  tionffom  the  surface  of  the  leaf,  occasioned   by 
j  one  of  tbe  causes  first   alluded  to;  the  other  a 
deposition  from  the  body   of  the   aphis.''''     The 
italics  are  his  own. 

Erasmus   Darwin  and  other  naturalists   have 
regaided  honey  dew  as  an  exudation    or   secre- 
tion from  the  surface  of  those  leaves  upon  which 
it    is    found,    produced    by   some   atmospheric 
stroke,    which   has   injured   their   health.     Dr. 
Evans  and  others  have  believed  it  to  be  a   kind 
of  vegetable  perspiration,  which  the  trees   emit 
!  for  their  relief  in  sultry  weather.     Other  writers 
j  assert   that   honey   dew  is   an  excrementitious 
matter   voided  by  tbe   aphides,  and   that  it  is 
i  never  seen  unattended  by  aphides. 

From   this  latter   assertion  I  must,  with   all 

deference  to    tbe  opinion   lately  expressed   by 

Mr.  A.  Thompson  and  others  in  tbe  Gardeners^ 

Chronicle^!  beg  leave   to   dissent.     Dr.  Bevan's 

]  view  on   this   subject  is,  I  believe,  essentially 

i  tbe  correct  one. 

S.  Bevan  Fox. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Queen  Raising  and  Artificial  Swarming. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  have  received  so  many  good 
things  in  the  Bee  Journal,  that  it  seems 
wrong  for  me  to  keep  silent  any  longer,  and  not 
contribute  my  "  mite." 

Improved  beekeeping  is  yet  in  its  infancy  in 
this  section,  and  improvements  are  being  made 
so  rapidly,  that  it  is  about  all  I  can  do  to  keep 
up  with  the  teachings  of  the  Journal,  to  say 
nothing  of  making  any  faster  advancement,  or 
undertaking  to  teach  your  readers  anything. 
However,  I  have  a  few  ideas  that  I  wish  to  lay 
before  you,  in  order  to  get  tbe  opinions  of  some 
of  the  more  learned  and  experienced  apiarians 
respecting  them. 

First,  then,  in  regard  to  queen  rearing.  It 
seems  that  every  one  who  is  fortunate  enough 
to  learn  the  art  to  perfection,  is  smart  enough 
to  keep  it  to  himself,  and  profit  all  he  can  by 
his  knowledge.  Now  I  have  devoured  every- 
thing within  my  reach  on  this  subject,  as  well 
as  on  beekeeping  in  general.  And,  after  taking 
all  the  plans  I  could  get  hold  of,  and  boiling 
them  down,  I  have  ad  pted  the  following,  which 
I  propose  to  put  in  practice  next  season.  In 
the  meantime,  I  lay  it  before  your  experienced 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


75 


readers,  hoping  that  they,  one  and  all,  will  give 
their  candid  opinion  of  it,  through  the  Journal. 
I  cannot  claim  much  originality,  for  tljis  plan 
was  picked  up,  a  little  licie  and  a  little  there,  j 
Let  them  correct  and  revise  it  all  they  can  ;  or 
if  necessary  reject  it  altogether,  providing  they  j 
give  us  a  hetter  one.  i 

In  the  first  place,  our  frames  are  ahout  fifteen 
inches  by  eleven,  inside  measure  ;  witli  eight 
frames  to  each  hive.  I  now  have  constructed 
for  one  of  these  hives  thirty  two  smwll  frames, 
seven  and  a  half  inches  by  five  and  a  half,  in- 
side measure.  Four  of  these  are  now  placed 
into  each  of  the  large  frames  of  one  hive,  and 
filled  with  worker  comb,  which  I  transferred 
from  an  old  box  hive  tliis  summer. 

My  only  object  in  having  these  small  frames 
fitted  into  the  large  ones  in  this  manner,  is  sim- 
ply to  winter  bees  in  them  successfully.  I  pro- 
pose to  take  these  small  frames  out  of  the  large 
ones  next  spring,  and  place  them  in  two  rows, 
side  by  side,  having  sixteen  frames  in  each  row, 
in  a  low  hive  made  to  receive  them  in  that 
manner.  This  is  to  contain  a  full  swarm  of 
bees,  and  a  prolific  quefn.  I  will  then  make 
choice  of  three  strong  colonies  fjr  constructing 
queen  cells.  Supposing  No.  1  to  contain  the 
queen  from  which  I  wish  to  breed,  as  soou  as 
practicable  in  the  spring,  I  will  remove  the 
queen  trom  No.  2,  using  her  to  form  an  artifi- 
cial colony.  I  will  then  take  the  queen  from 
No.  1,  and  put  her  in  No.  2.  The  bees  in  No. 
1  vvid  now  proceed  to  construct  a  large  number 
of  queen  cells.  In  about  one  week,  I  will  take 
the  queen  from  No.  3,  using  her  sis  I  did  the 
one  from  No.  2.  Then  take  the  breeding  queen 
from  No.  2,  and  introduce  her  into  No.  3  ; 
whereupon  the  occupants  of  No.  2  will  also  pro 
ceed  to  construct  cells,  a'*  did  No.  1,  and  from 
eggs  laid  by  the  same  queen. 

By  this  time  the  cells  in  No.  1  will  be  ready 
for  removal.  I  will  now"  have  ready  some  nu- 
cleus boxes  of  a  size  just  sufficient  to  contain 
three  of  the  small  frames.  Take  the  frames 
from  their  hives,  together  with  a  sufficient 
quantity  of  adhering  bees,  honey,  and  sealed 
brood.  In  this  way  the  hive  containing  the 
sma'l  frames  is  made  to  furnish  bees,  brood, 
and  combs  for  a  dozen  nuclei,  if  broken  up  for 
that  purpose  ;  if  not,  a  small  portion  n\ay  be 
taken  at  a  time,  filling  their  place  with  duplicate 
frames  containing  worker  comb — thus  forming 
a  still  larger  number,  but  consuming  more  time. 
Into  each  of  these  nucleus  boxes,  I  will  now 
insert  a  sealed  queen  cell,  confine  the  bees  in 
them  for  a  few  days,  and  in  due  time  each  nu- 
cleus will  contain  a  queen.  I  am  confident  that 
it  would  be  a  paying  business  for  every  bee- 
keeper having  a  considerable  number  of  stocks, 
to  keep  on  hand  at  all  times  a  supply  o?  reserve 
queens.  For  directions  for  keeping  your  super- 
numerary queens,  see  American  Bee  Jour- 
nal, September,  1868,  page  45. 

I  have  also  a  plan  for  keeping  reserve  queens 
at  a  very  small  expense,  and  with  but  little 
trouble,  which  I  may  give  you  in  another 
article. 

It  is  unnecessary,  at  the  present  day,  to  dwell 
upon  the  advantages  of  artificial  swarming,  ;  but 
the  manner  in  which  it  is  performed  by  many, 


may,  I  think,  yet  be  improved.  T  wish  there- 
fore to  present  a  few  remarks  on  this  subject, 
as  it  is  of  vital  importance  that  every  one  who 
attempts  to  perform  this  operation  should  thor- 
oughly understand  his  business.  I  have  before 
now  followed  to  the  letter  methods  presented 
by  persons  who  have  their  names  before  the  bee- 
keeping world  as  learned  and  reliable  men  and 
women,  and  I  have  been  greatlv  disappointed  at 
times,  by  making  a  grand  failure  of  the  whole 
thing  !  For  instance,  I  was  directed,  in  a  very 
pretty' article  by  Mrs.  Tupper  (and  I  have  since 
seen  the  plan  recommended  l)y  others)  to  take, 
I  think,  two  full  frames  from  the  hive,  place 
them  in  an  empty  hive,  fill  out  with  empty 
frames,  and  set  this  on  the  old  stand.  This  of 
course  is  to  contain  the  old  queen.  Then  re- 
move the  old  hive  tQ  a  new  stand  in  the  apiary. 
I  never  tried  this  but  twice,  and  will  never  try 
it  again.  It  may  work  satisfactorily  for  others, 
but  it  did  not  for  me.  In  the  first  instance,  the 
bees  so  nearly  all  left  the  hive  removed,  that 
the  moth  worms  came  near  spoiling  it ;  and  in 
the  second  instance,  the  hive  had  so  few  bees 
left  a  few  days  after  beinsc  removed,  that  I  had 
to  change  places  with  another — a  strong  stock — 
in  order  to  equalize  ihem.  This  is  what  I 
should  have  done  at  first,  when  practising  this 
method. 

I  tully  believe  in  the  system  o^  reserve  queens. 
I  think  that  any  method  of  artificial  swarming 
which  compels  them  to  raise  a  queen,  after 
being  divided,  is  all  wrong.  Still,  if  we  make 
swarms  eafly,  we  cannot  always  have  a  queen 
on  hand.  A  plan,  which  I  prefer  to  the  above, 
is  to  take  a  stock  and  divide  it  equally — that  is, 
to  take  out  one-half  of  the  bees  and  combs,  and 
put  them  in  another  hive.  Then  put  in  one  or 
two  empty  frames  and  adjust  the  division  board 
until  tliey  need  more  room.  Notice,  if  conve- 
nient, into  wliich  liive  the  queen  is  put;  but  if 
you  c;innot  readily  see  her,  no  matter.  You 
can  open  them  the  next  moridng,  and  quickly 
ascertain  which  division  she  is  in,  as  the  queen- 
less  one  will  have  commenced  building  queen 
cells.  Now  introduce  a  fertile  queen  in  the 
queenless  part  ;  set  them  side  by  side  on  the 
old  stand,  with  not  too  much  room  at  first,  and 
you  are  all  right.  If  you  have  no  spare  queens 
I  at  command,  give  the  queenless  pan  aliout  five 
I  frames  filled  with  brood  and  eggs,  and  adjust 
I  the  division  board  to  the  five  friimes,  giving  no 
empty  frames  for  at  least  a  week.  About  the 
i  time  the  youns  queen  hatches,  exchange  some  of 
the  frames  with  those  of  another  hive  contain- 
ing sealed  brood — thus  keeping  up  their  num- 
bers until  the  queen  commences  laying.  The 
adjustable  division  board  I  consider  a  very  im- 
portant part  of  any  hive,  and  a  hive  without  it, 
is  by  no  means  complete.  The  hive  1  use  I  can 
readily  adjust  to  the  capacity  of  from  one  to 
twenty-four  frames,  thus  adapting  it  to  the  size 
of  any  swarm. 

Two  frames  of  comb,  with  a  good  queen  and 
bees  enough  to  cover  them,  makes  a  strong 
swarm,  if  placed  in  a  hive  with  but  little  spare 
room  ;  but  if  placed  in  a  full  sized  hive,  they 
will  do  comparatively  little.  This  is  the 
secret  of  building  up  artificial  swarms. 

Now  one  word,  if  you  please,  in  regard  to 


76 


THE    AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


patent  hives.  If  I  rightly  nuderstand  it,  the 
principal  point  covered  by  patent  in  the  Lang- 
stroth  hive,  is  space.  Take  that  space  and  ex- 
haust the  air.  and  there  is  nothing  left.  Conse- 
quently Mr.  Langstroth  has  either  patented  air 
or  notldng.  If  it  is  air,  we  must  liave  that,  even 
if  we  do  have  to  pay  fifty  cents  a  hive  for  it  ! 

But,  Mr.  Editor,  I  fear  you  are  getting  tired 
of  tills,  and  besides  I  have  exhausted  all  my 
space,  and  I  do.  not  suppose  I  can  get  any  more, 
as  Mr.  L.  has  got  it  all  patent ed  ! 

J.    F.    TiLTJNGHAST. 

Factokyville,  Pa.,  Aug.  20,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Superstitions. 


In  October,  1841,  my  father  died.  At  that 
time  he  bad  five  swarms  of  bees.  At  the  funer- 
al, I  was  told  that  I  must  certainly  inform  the 
bees  that  their  master  was  dead,  or,  which 
would  answer  the  purpose  as  well,  dress  each 
hive  with  some  of  the  crape  worn  by  the 
mourners,  or  the  bees  would  all  desert  their 
hives  ;  or,  if  they  did  not  desert,  they  certainly 
would  never  work  Mny  more. 

At  that  time  I  lived  at  a  mill,  three  and  a 
half  miles  from  bomp.  Father  was  at  the  mill 
when  he  received  his  death  wound.  I  went 
home  with  him.  and  remained  with  him  until 
his  death.  He  died  in  three  days  after  receiving 
his  wound  by  an  accident.  I  tipped  up  each 
hive,  and  the  bees  were  all  there,  and  as  I  sup- 
posed in  excellent  condition,  three  days  before 
the  funeral.  Of  course  I  did  not  inform  the 
bees  or  dress  ihe  hives  in  mourning,  for  I  never 
was  superstitious,  and  paid  no  further  attention 
to  what  was  said  on  the  subject.  However,  on 
the  third  day  after  the  funeral  1  was  home,  and 
of  course  went  to  look  at  the  bcs,  and  every  i 
bee  was  gone — neither  a  live  or  a  dead  one  was 
left  !  The  condition  of  the  hives  was  this,  I 
every  comb  was  filled  with  sealed  honey  from  { 
top  to  bottom,  scarcely  an  empty  cell  being 
left.  Obviously  the  superstitous  ones  had  the  [ 
advantage  of  me  then,  tor  at  that  time  I  could  i 
not  account,  on  rational  grounds,  for  the  deser- 
tion of  tlie  bees.  But,  since,  I  have  had  bees 
desert  at  different  tinif  s,  in  the  fall,  and  go  into 
other  hives.  When  their  bives  are  completely 
filled  with  honey,  if  the  bees  do  not  desert 
them,  they  will  all  perish  as  soon  as  the  weather 
gets  cold  enough. 

You  need  not  ask  me  whether  I  believe  in 
luck  or  in  any  superstitions  about  bees,  for  I  do 
not.  I  believe  that  everything  relating  to  them 
can  be  satisfactorily  explained,  when  well  un- 
derstood. One  day,  this  summer,  I  made  a 
dozen  artificial  swarms  for  different  individuals. 
On  the  third  day  after  making  them,  the  ther- 
mometer went  up  to  110^  F.  in  the  shade, 
aua  two  of  the  said  swarms  deserted  their  hives, 
one  of  which  belonged  to  Mr.  B.  C.  Whitacre 
The  fir^t  time  I  saw  him  after  the  occurrence, 
he  said  :  "Well,  Gallup,  you  need  not  tell  me 
there  is  nothing  in  luck.  I  tell  you  it  is  just 
my  luck  !"     Now,  friend  Whitacre,  if  you  had 


I  ventilated   your    hive  properly,    or    shaded  it 

j  well,  or,  if  you  could  not  have  thus   kept   them 

j  cool  enough,  sprinkled  the  outside  of  the  hive 

I  with  cold  water,  or  c^fivered   it  with  wet  cloths 

i  during  such  extreme  iTeat,  the  bees  would   have 

j  staid.     Your  luck  would   have   been   changed 

simply  by  knowing  how  to  manage.     We    have 

good  seasons  and  bad   seasons  for  honey,  and 

that  is  all  the  luck  in  bee-keeping.     Everything 

else  consists  in  knowing  how  to   do   the  right 

thing,  and  doing  it  at  the  right  time. 

The  sU|3erstitious  folks  have  all  sorts  of  queer 
questions  to  ask,  and  among  them  often  some  as 
simple  and  as  silly  as   any  you    could  possibly 
imagine.     Of  this  kiud  was  the  following  put  to 
I  me  seriously  one  day :    "Do    you  believe  that  a 
1  person  can    keep   bees,  or  have   any  luck  with 
I  them,  Avhen  man  and  wife  quarrel  or'are  at  log- 
gerheads all  the  time  ?"     The  same  person  said  : 
I"  I  should  like  to  keep  bees,  and  have  bought 
j  swarms  at  different   times,  but  never  had   any 
luck."     I  advised  liim.  of  course,  to  stop  quar- 
reling wiih   his  wife,  try  his  luck   again,  and 
above  all  all  things  subscribe  for  and  carefully 
I  read  the  Bee  Journal. 

Osage,  Iowa. 


E.  Gallup. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Wintering  Bees  in  Canada. 


There  seems  to  be  such  a  diversity  of  opiniou 
in  regard  to  wintering  bees,  that  a  novice  with- 
out experience  might  he  at  a  loss  which  method 
to  adopt.  My  opinion  is  that,  for  all  high  lati- 
tudes, or  in  latitudes  where  the  mercury  sinks 
to  20"  below  zero,  and  downwards,  a  special 
repository'-,  either  wholly  or  partially  under 
ground,  is  the  proper  place  for  them.  If  those 
beekeepers  who,  after  repeated  fdilures,  are 
still  anxious  to  know  how  they  can  winter  their 
bees  successfully,  will  construct  a  cellar  as  de- 
scribed by  Mr.  J.  H.  Thomas,  in  the  June  num- 
ber of  the  Bee  Joubkal,  they  may,  as  he  says, 
"  put  in  their  bees,  lock  the  door,  and  go  about 
their  business." 

Last  fall  I  prepared  such  a  receptacle,  only 
on  a  smaller  scale  and  without  the  cement 
floor — the  want  of  which  served  partially  as  a 
basis  for  the  following  experience  in  rPWAKD 
ventilation. 

My  cellar  is  six  and  a  half  feet  bro>id  by 
eighteen  and  a  half  feet  long,  and  about  seven 
and  a  half  feet  high  in  the  centre  ;  and 
being  on  a  hill  side,  I  did  not  expect  to  be 
troubled  with  water,  but  to  be  safe,  I  dug  a 
drain. 

I  put  my  bees  in  about  the  first  week  in 
November.  First,  T  placed  a  row  of  hives  on 
one  side  of  the  cellar,  sliding  the  honey  boards 
about  one  and  a  half  inches  forward,  and  re- 
moving the  slats  which  cover  the  entrances  to 
the  honey  boxes.  The  entrances  of  the  hives 
were  also  left  open.  The  cellar  was  ventilated 
in  the  roof  by  a  box  or  tube  four  inches  by  six  ; 
and  near  the  ground  by  the  drain  four  inches  by 
four.     I   shall  give  additional  ventilation  this 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


77 


year,  and  so  arranged  tliat  I  can  regulate  it  at 
pleasure.  At  first  I  was  afraid  that  I  had  given 
the  movable  comlt  hives  too  much  ventilation; 
but  the  result  will  show  tliat  I  did  right. 

I  visited  them  everj^  two  weeks.  Soon  after 
I  put  ihem  in,  I  b^gan  to  see  tliat  my  cellar 
was  too  damp.  Mould  began  to  collect  on  the 
Avails,  dead  bees,  and  damp  places  on  the  roof; 
but  I  could  give  them  no  more  ventilation  with- 
out giving  them  light  also.  I  examined  a  few 
honey  boards  and  found  the  under  sides  covered 
with  large  drops  of  Avater,  which  I  thought  at 
the  time  indicated  a  bad  condition.  After  this 
I  felt  anxious  as  to  the  final  result  of  it  all.  But 
the  worst  had  not  yet  come,  for  on  going  to  ex- 
amine them  one  day  about  the  middle  of  March, 
after  a  thaw',  I  found  a  stream  of  water  issuiug 
from  the  drain,  and  the  bottom  of  the  cellar 
covered  to  the  depth  of  one  or  two  inches.  Now, 
I  thought,  my  bees  are  "  gone  up  "  surely.  I 
could  not  take  them  out  until  the  loth  of  April  ; 
and  before  this  they  had  become  quite  restless 
from  the  high  temperature  of  the  cellar.  When 
I  took  them  out,  however,  instead  of  finding 
them  a  rotten  mass  in  each  hive,  such  as  one 
might  expect  would  be  produced  by  go  much 
heat  and  moisture,  I  found  only  two  mouldy 
combs  in  sixteen  movable  frame  hives  ;  while 
a  few  old  box  hives,  to  which  I  could  give  but 
little  upward  ventilation,  contained  considerable 
mouldy  comb. 

All  my  hives,  but  one,  contained  brood  in  all 
stages  and  plonty  of  bees  and  honey.  Not  a 
hive  was  lost  out  of  fifty-five,  which  included 
some  of  my  neighbors'.  My  opinion  is  that 
they  could  not  have  been  wintered  better,  and 
be  in  normal  condition.  Now  I  believe  the 
Avliole  matter  of  ventilation  is  this  :  If  bees  are 
wintered  in  a  damp  cellar,  give  plenty  of  up- 
ward ventilation. 

This  season  has  been  quite  unfavorable  for 
bee-keepers  lipre,  who  depend  on  surplus  honey 
for  profit.  The  weather  was  rainy  and  cloudy 
the  greater  part  of  the  summer  ;  and  the  bees 
lost,  nearly  all  the  clover  season.  Yet,  notwith- 
standing the  bad  season,  I  have  increased  my 
stocks  from  tw^euty  to  sixty-one,  both  by  natur- 
al and  artificial  swarming;  and  I  shall  have 
about  four  hundred  pounds  of  surplus  honey.  I 
have  practiced  three  methods  of  aitificial 
swarming,  and  shall  practice  artificial  swarming 
exclusively  next  year. 

1  use  movable  comb  hives,  thirteen  and  a 
half  inches  by  sixteen,  inside  measurement,  and 
t(-n  inches  deep — "the  shallow  things!"  I 
like  them  so  well  that  I  intend  to  make  one 
hundred  of  them  for  next  summer's  use. 

Don't  you  think,  Mr.  Editor,  that  tight-fittin 
frames  and  movable  top  bars  show  a  retrograde 
movement  ?  ("  Pitch  in,"  but  quietly,  friends 
Hastings  and  Benedict.)  What  do  you  think, 
Elisha  ?  For  my  part  I  am  sorry  to  see  any 
person  trying  to  do  away  with  frames. 

Georgu;  Cork. 

Bloomfield,  Ontario,  Canada,  September 
2,  1869. 


[For  tlie  American  Bee  Journal  ] 

From  Canada. 
"Wintering  Bees  ;  and  a  Wintering  House. 


Artificial  operations  of  all  kinds  are  most  suc- 
cessful when  bee -forage  is  abundant. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  have  been  an  attentive  rea- 
der of  your  valuable  paper  for  the  past  three 
years,  and  have  been  much  profited  by  the  in- 
formation received,  through  its  columns,  from 
your  many  obliging  correspondents.  I  often 
think  what  an  improvement  it  would  make  in 
the  agricultural  papers  if  farmers  were  a  little 
more  communirative  and  obliging  to  each 
other  ;  in  short,  if  they  would  follow  the  exam- 
ple of  the  apiarians,  in  tliis  respect,  their  papers 
would  not  be  so  dry  and  tasteless  as  they  fre- 
quentl}^  are. 

As  it  is  now  approaching  winter,  perhaps 
there  is  nothing  I  could  say  that  would  be  more 
interesting  than  to  describe  a  wintering  bouse 
that  I  have  in  course  of  erection  feu-  my  bees. 
There  is  nothing  more  important,  after  all,  than 
to  be  able  to  keep  our  bees  in  good  condition 
through  the  winter;  and  on  this  particular 
point  I  feel  myself  weak.  I  still  require  infor- 
mation, and  I  fear  there  are  many  others  like 
myself  in  this  respect. 

Some  advise  wintering  on  their  summer 
stands  ;  some  in  cellars  ;  and  some  say  bury  m 
the  snow,  or  in  the  sand,  or  in  a  clamp  ;  while 
others  say,  build  a  house  above  giouud  express- 
ly lor  the  purpose.  All  may  be  right,  and 
doubtless  are  in  their  special  locality,  as  the 
climate  varies  much  in  the  territory  over  which 
the  Journal,  circulates.  This  may,  in  some 
measure,  account  for  the  diff'erent  opinions  ex- 
pressed. I  have  tried  nearly  all  the  plans  above 
enumerated,  and  have  found  serious  objections 
to  nearly  all  of  them.  This  winter  I  propose 
to  winter  my  bees  in  a  repository  above  ground, 
built  on  purpose.  My  objection  to  cellars  is, 
they  are  frequently  too  damp,  and  it  is  difficult 
to  move  the  hives  down  and  up  ;  and  the  bees 
are  liable  to  be  disturbed  frequently  by  persons 
going  down  for  potatoes,  apples,  &c.  I  have 
tried  wintering  in  a  clamp  or  pit.  I  find  that, 
in  that  m  ay,  the  bees  eat  less,  but  the  combs 
come  out  mouldy,  and  sometimes  worthless. 
Wintering  on  the  summer  stands  requires  more 
honey,  nearly  twice  as  much,  as  the  bees  are 
roused  to  activity  every  fine  day  ;  and  a  great 
many  are  lost  in  the  snow,  while  many  others 
are  frozen  stiff  in  the  hive  during  long-continued 
cold  weather.  Besidt-s  being  hazardous,  it  looks 
careless,  to  winter  thus. 

The  house  I  am  building  is  12^  feet  by  14J : 
sills  raised  on  posts  8  inches  from  the  ground. 
The  lower  joists  are  3  by  10  inches,  and  run 
lengthwise.  The  centre  ones  are  1  inch  lower 
than  the  sills  A  rough  floor  is  laid  on  the 
under  side,  then  filled  with  saw-dust  to  the  top 
of  the  joists.  I  have  a  double  inch  floor  on  the 
top.  The  floor  is  cut  in  two  in  the  centre  and 
the  two  parts  do  not  meet  by  one  inch,  which 
opening  will  answer  the  double  purpose  of  win- 
ter ventilation  and  as  a  vent  to  let  water  off 
from  snow  that  I  intend  to  pile  in  towards 


T8 


THE    AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


spring,  (in  a  small  hall,  to  be  left  in  the  centre) 
iu  order  to  lower  the  temperalurewhen  the  cold 
begins  to  moderate. 

The  frame  is  put  up  with  2  x  10  scantling, 
■weather  boarded  and  battened  on  the  outside, 
and  lined  on  the  inside.  The  hollow  wall  all 
filled  up  with  saw-dust.  The  joists  above  are 
2x8,  lined  on  the  under  side,  and  8  inches  of 
saw-dust  laid  on  top,  through  which  an  upward 
rentilator  passes,  reaching  from  the  ceiling  up 
through  the  roof  of  the  house,  and  having  at 
bottom  a  regulating  valve.  I  have  a  small  win- 
dow in  one  end,  with  glass,  and  also  blinds  on 
both  inside  and  outside  ;  a  double  door,  one  on 
each  side  of  frame,  and  in  the  winter  a  straw 
mattress  will  be  placed  between  the  doors. 

Now,  Mr.  Editor,  if  any  of  the  friends  can 
sugeest  any  improvement  on  the  above  plan,  I 
would  feel  obliged. 

1  propose,  in  summer,  to  use  the  house  for 
working  my  honey  machine  in,  or  for  storing 
honey,  or  any  other  work  connected  with  bees 
in  sunmier.  I  have  seventy  swarms,  and  one 
hundred  can  be  stored  away  in  this  house,  if  in 
Thomas'  hive,  ("and  by  the  way  that  is  the  best 
hive,  and  is  all  the  go  in  Canada). 

"With  us,  the  past  season  will,  I  think,  prove 
to  be  the  poorest  we  have  had  for  some  time. 
It  has  been  just  the  reverse  of  last  summer — 
that  is,  too  wet  and  cold.  I  fear  very  little  sur- 
plus honey  will  be  obtained. 

A.  C.  Atwood. 

DuNCEiEFF,  Cakada,  Aug.  20,  1869. 


purpose,  we  shall  have  the  area  of  84.000  cells 
as  the  necessary  room  inside  of  the  frames  in 
movable  comb  liives. 

Now  every  square  inch  contains  fifty  worker 
cells;  and  if  we  divide   84,000   by  50,  we   shall 
have  1,650  square   inches,  or    somewhat   mo/e 
than  11  square  feet  on  the  total   surface  of  all 
the  combs  in  a  good-sized  hive.     That   surface 
is  the  same  as  that  indicated  as  the  proper  size 
iu  the  works  of  all  good  authors  on  bees— such 
as  Langstroth,  Quinby,  &c.     In  order  to  ascer- 
tain whether  so  much  room  is  necessary,  let  us 
compare  the  product   of  a  hive  holding   1,650 
square  inches,  and  that  of  another  holding  only 
j  1,050  ;  and  let   us   suppose  that   each   of  these 
I  hives  is  stocked  with  10,000  bees  on   the   1st  of 
!  April.     What  will  be  the  difiFerence  iu  the  num- 
ber of  workers  after  the  lapse  of  one  month  ? 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Size  of  Hives. 


In  answer  to  the  inquiry  of  Mr.  C.  S.  Paine, 
in  the  September  number  of  the  Bee  Journal, 
I  will  give  my  impressions   as  to   the  proper 

size  of  hives. 

Many  writers  have  suggested  that  the  size  of 
the  hives  should  be  proportionate  to  the  pastur- 
age of  the  district  in  which  they  are  used  ; 
small  sized  hives,  being  best  adapted  to  poor 
honey  countries,  and  larger  hives  for  sections 
yielding  hou(^y  more  abundantly. 

My  opinion  differs  widely  from  these  ideas  ; 
for  I  think,  whatever  be  the  honey-yielding 
quality  of  the  country,  the  capacity  ot  the  hives 
flU(  uld  be  in  relative  proportion  to  the  fecundi- 
ty of  the  queens. 

I  have  asceitained  that,  in  the  height  of  the 
brooding  season,  the  normal  fecundity  of  a 
healthy  prolific  queen  enables  her  to  lay  three 
thousand  eggs  daily,  if  she  is  supplied  with 
empty  worker  comb.  "We  know,  also,  that 
twenty-one  or  twenty-two  days  are  required  for 
the  developement  of  the  worker  bee,  from  the 
time  the  egg  is  hatched  until  she  leaves  the  cell. 
If  we  now  multiply  3,000  by  22,  we  shall  have 
64,000  as  the  number  of  empty  cells  required 
for  the  accommodation  of  a  queen  ordinarily 
prolific. 

But  there  is,  besides,  some  room  required  in 
the  combs  for  the  provisions— honey  and  bee- 
bread  ;  and  if  we  allow  20,000  cells  for  this 


Hive  of  1,050  square  inches. 

Population  on  the  1st  of  April 10,000  bees. 

Hatching,  IJOJ  bees  per  day,  for  30 

days 51,000     " 

61,000      •• 
Deduct,  for  mortality,  one-third 20,000     " 

Population,  on  the  1st  of  May 4i  ,000     " 

Hive  op  1,650  sqtjake  inches. 

Population  on  the  1st  of  April 10,000  bees. 

Hatcring,  2,50J  bees  per  day,  for  30 

days - 75,000      " 


Deduct,  for  mortality,  one-third 28,000       " 

Population  on  the  1st  of  May.......  57,000      " 

Let  it  be  noted  that  we  have  put  the  number 
of  eggs  in  the  1,650  inch  hive  at  only  2,500,  in- 
stead of  3,000,  the  product,  daily,  of  a  very 
prolific  queens. 

But  we  know  that  while  10,000  bees  gather 
one  pound  of  honey,  20,0"0  will  gather  four 
pounds,  and  30,000  nine  pounds  ;  for  the  in- 
crease is  to  be  calculated  by  the  square  of  the 
numbers.  Now  let  us  see  what  will  be  the 
probable  difference  between  the  weight  of  the 
honey  gathered  in  one  mouth  by  the  bees  of 
the  two  hives,  supposed  one  pound  is  gathered 
by  10,000  bees  in  one  month. 

Hive  of  1,050  square  inches. 
The  product  of  the  4  ten  thousand  bees  will  be 
four  times  four  pounds,  or  16  pounds. 

Hive  of  1,650  square  inches. 

The  product  of  the  5  ten  thousand  and  7,000 
bees  will  be  5  ten  7-10  by  5  pounds,  or  32 
pounds  49-100. 

Tlie  probable  difference  should  be  16  pounds 
49-100,  in  favor  of  the  larger. hive,  the  product 
of  which  will  be  double  that  of  the  smaller  one. 

"We  know  to-day,  by  experience,  that  the 
larger  the  hive  tlie  gi eater  the  product  ;  but 
the  large  hive  should  be  provided  with  a  divi- 
sion board  to  adapt  the  space  to  the  strength  of 
the  colony. 

Ch.  Dadant. 

Hamilton,  Ills. 


The  bee  moth  is  the  only  insect  known  to  feed 
on  wax. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOUENAL. 


79 


[For  the  Americaa  Bee  Journal.] 

Queens  Mating  Twic3. 


Mr.  Editor  : — Several  correspondents  have 
;ivea  instances  of  queens  mating  with  drones 
wo  or  tliree  times.  Now,  I  have  no  doubt  but 
that  queens  do  mate  with  drones  more  tlian 
once;  In  fact,  I  know  that  they  do.  But  that 
they  are  fertilized,  or  partially  fertilized,  more 
than  once,  I  do  not  believe.  In  the  tirst  place, 
it  must  l)e  admitted  to  be  contrary  to  nature. 
I  have  liad  several  queens  go  out  and  mate  with 
drones  twice  ;  but  they  were  not  fertilized  the 
first  time.  Had  they  been,  they  would  not 
have  left  the  hive  the  second  time  for  that  pur- 
pose. 

I  have  made  queen  rearing  my  only  business 
during  the  hot  weather,  for  several  years,  and 
have  reared  liundreds  of  them  (about  six  hun- 
dred this  season)  ;  and  I  am  satisfied  that  rot 
over  one  queen  in  one  hundred  ever  mates  with 
a  drone  more  than  once.  And  I  am  as  well 
satisfied,  also,  tbat  they  are  fertilized  but  once. 

I  usually  examine  my  hives  that  have  j'oung 
queens  on  the  fifth  day,  to  see  whether  they 
have  been  fertilized  ;  and  I  do  this  soon  alter 
they  have  been  out.  It  they  have  been  fertil- 
ized, tbe  proof  of  it  will  be  seen  adhering  to  the 
queen  for  hours  after  ;  and  in  one  case  I  had  to 
kill  a  queen  after  she  had  retained  it  over  a 
week.  When  the  queen  has  met  the  drone  and 
is  fertilized,  the  bees  cannot  remove  it,  as  they 
did  in  Mr.  Hill's  case  ;  hut  where  they  meet  the 
drone  and  axe  not  fertilized,  the  bees  seem  to 
know  it,  and  will  pull  it  away.  If  then  the 
next  day  is  pleasant,  such  queen  will  go  out 
again,  and  will  almost  certainly  be  fertilized. 
H.  Alley. 

Wenham,  Mass. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.; 

Queens  Mating  Twice. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  am  aware  that  the  above 
subject  has  been  somewhat  ventilated  in  the 
columns  of  tlie  "  Jotjunal,"  but  as  yet  it  is  far 
from  being  exhausted,  and  I  once  more  indite  a 
few  lines  in  deiense  of  the  side  of  this  important 
topic  wliich  I  have  heretofore  taken.  And  let 
me  say  here  that,  whenever  I  have  used,  or  may 
use,  the  word  mate,  I  use  it  only  in  the  sense  of 
copu'ation  resulting  in  impregnation. 

There  are  parties  who  take  \\\e  affirmative  of 
this  question,  who  would  have  us  believe  that 
the  spermatheca  of  the  queen,  like  the  inex- 
haustible bottle  of  the  conjurer,  is  full  of  parti- 
tions, well  defined  and  separate,  each  contain- 
ing the  seminal  fluid  of  one  of  the  different 
drones  cohabited  with,  so  that  by  her  own  will 
she  can  at  pleasure  fertilize  the  eggs  laid,  with 
the  semen  of  one  or  any  of  these  drones — thus 
producing  either  pure  Italians  or  pure  blacks,  as 
the  case  may  be. 

This  theory  is  certainly  new,  and  is  so  far 
contrary  to  the  recognized  laws  of  re[3ioduction, 
that  I  must,  in  the  absence  of  facts,  be  consi- 
dered on  the  doubting  side  ;  and  I  would  say 
to  Mr.  Davis  that  I  do  not  see  what/aci*  he  can 


bring  to  prove  his  position,  if  he  relies  wholly 
on  the  queen  mentioned  on  page  140,  volume  4 ; 
for  he  himself  says  she  only  mated  with  black 
drones,  consequently  her  progeny  in  no  case 
could  have  been  pure  Italians,  even  if  his  pro- 
position is  true. 

I  xcill  atdte  a  few  facts.  First,  so  far  as  I  can 
leai-n,  there  never  has  been  an  instance  where  a 
fertile  queen  has  left  the  hive  on  an  amatory 
excursion.  Second,  Italian  queens  mated  wi'h 
black,  drones  produce  all  the  phenomena  claimed 
liy  the  affirmative.  Third,  there  is  not  a  case 
to  be  shown  where  a  queen  raised  from  an  Ital- 
ian queen  mated  with  a  black  drone,  showed  in 
her  progeny  any  evidence  that  slie  was  pure. 
Fourth,  the  laws  of  reproduction  are  invariable, 
and  crossing  of  broods  must  either  improve  or 
deteriorate,  as  half  breeds  can  never  again  be 
made  pure  ;  return  to  the  original  stock  again 
after  once  crossing,  and  though  you  breed  "  to 
all  eternity,"  there  will  be  a  dash  of  impure 
blood  remaining.  This  law  as  much  applies  to 
the  worker  progeny  of  the  Apis,  as  to  any  other 
form  of  creation.  Consequently  it  would  be 
impossible  for  an  Italian  queen,  mated  with  a 
black  drone,  to  produce  any  worker  progeny 
which  was  anything  but  hybrid  ;  no  matter 
whether  such  progeny  has  three  bai^ds  or  not. 
It  is  not  by  the  bands  of  any  one  bee  that  we 
decide  the  purity  of  the  mother  ;  but  the  whole 
pro<;;eny  is  examined,  and  if  a  single  bee  native 
to  the  hive  is  found  wanting  a  band,  the  evi- 
dence is  certain  that  the  mother  is  impure. 

This  subject  is  one  to  which  I  have  given  con- 
siderable lime  and  study;  and  deeming  it  of 
the  utmost  importance  in  bee-culture,  I  have 
taken  strong  ground,  and  while  I  do  not  couit 
(riticism,  I  still  expect  it,  and  trust  I  shall  bear 
it  patiently,  hoping  that  goodwill  result  from 
it.  In  the  present  state  of  apicultural  science, 
it  will  be  very  easy  \,o  prove  conclusively  many 
of  the  points  of  theory  which  have  been  advan- 
ced on  this  question  ;  and  we  all  know  that 
unproved  and  non-practical  theories  have  been 
the  bane  of  bee-keeping  in  ages  past.  Let  us 
(the  readers  of  the  Bee  Journal)  see  to  it  that 
we   are  not  misled  by  such  in  future. 

If  the  doctrine  above  mentioned  is  true,  it 
will  be  impossible  to  introduce  and  keep  pure 
the  Italian  stock  in  this  country,  or  in  any 
oth'r,  where  the  black  bee  exists;  for  years 
must  elapse,  even  under  the  most  favorable  cir- 
cumstances, before  all  the  drones  within  a 
radius  of  three  miles  of  every  apiary  can  be 
killed.  And  though  you  use  the  "Kohler"  or 
any  other  system,  it  is  all  "knocked  in  the 
head  "  by  some  mistress  queen,  who  sees  fit  to 
leave  the  hive  at  any  unexpected  moment;  and 
the  result  soon  shows  itself. 

Hoping  this  subject  may  be  thoroughly  can- 
vassed, in  good  temper,  and  completely  exhaus- 
ted by  abler  heads  than  mine,  I  am, 
Yours  truly, 

j.  E.  Pond,  Jr. 

FoxBORo',  Mass.,  Sept.,  1869. 


Nearly  forty  pounds  of  honey  will  be  ordinar- 
ily used  by  a  new  swarm  in  filling  their  hive 
with  combs. 


80 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.") 

Alsike  Clover  in  Second  Bloom. 


Mr.  Editor  :— Mr.  Tillingliast,  of  Peiin?yl- 
vanin,  desires  to  kuow  what  honey-producing 
plants  Av ill  best  fil  the  vacancy  between  mid- 
July  and  mid-Augnst. 

I  liave  taken  some  pains,  during  the  last  three 
years,  to  test  mustard,  cleome,  borage,  melilot 
clover,  and  several  other  plants,  and  would_  de- 
cidedly give  the  preference  to  the  melilot,  if  it 
were  of  any  other  use  than  just  as  bee-pasturage 
and  to  enrich  the  land. 

If  a  piece  of  rich  land  were  sown,  late  in  the 
fall,  with  an  even  mixture  of  cleome  and  melilot 
seed,  it  would  furnish  excellent  pasture  for  the 
two  following  years,  far  more  than  filling  the 
vacancy  referred  to,  and  then,  if  plowed  under 
in  the  third  fall,  would  leave  the  land  very 
much  richer — and  if  improvement  of  the  laud 
■was  desired,  it  might  be  a  very  profitable  in- 
vestment to  a  bee-keeper. 

Melilot,  in  good  soil,  might  yield  in  the 
second  year,  an  amazing  quantity  of  sweet  flow- 
ers. I  have  it  now  seven  feet  high,  and  cover- 
ed with  flowers  from  the  bottom  up.  It  should 
be  understood  that  the  '■'■cleome  integrifoUa'''  is 
an  annual,  and  the  '■'melilntus  leucantlia''''  a 
biennial.  Hence  the  propriety  of  mixing  the 
seed,  to  get  a  crop  the  first  year. 

But,  ail  things  considered,  "  alsike  clover  " 
will  be  found  by  far  the  most  profitable,  and  can 
be  managed  to  cover  the  period  mentioned  by 
Mr.  Tiilinghast.  If  pastured  until  early  in 
June,  or  mowed  just  when  it  is  coming  into 
blossom  the  first  time,  it  will  bloom  largely  the 
second  time.  At  least  mine  has  done  so  this 
year.  I  have  near  my  barn  a  choice  piece,  a 
pvrt  of  which  was  mown  on  the  22d  of  June, 
and  turned  up  a  good  swath,  with  few  blos- 
soms ;  and  the  remainder  was  mown  on  the 
30lh  of  June,  when  in  full  blossom.  The  first 
part  began  to  bloom  again  in  about  ten  days, 
and  has  increased  in  the  number  of  blossoms 
until  the  present  time,  (September  10th).  The 
later  cut  Avas  longer  coming  into  second  blos- 
som, and  did  not  bloom  so  fully  ;  yet  it  is  quite 
nice. 

I  should  remark,  however,  that  this  was  a 
wet  season  Avith  us,  and  that  suits  the  alsike. 
This  clover  should  be  sown  with  wheat  in  the 
spring,  on  good  ground,  about  five  pounds  of 
clean  seed  to  the'acre.  Or,  if  for  general  farm 
purposes,  I  prefer  mixing  timothy  and  red  clo- 
ver seed  with  it.  Cattle  like  it  exceeaingly. 
J.  "VV.  Truesdell. 
Warwick,  P.  Q.,  Canada. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Novice. 


The  more  I  learn,  the  more  clearly  T  perceive 
how  much  more,  both  in  theory  and  practice, 
remains  to  be  learned  ;  and  that  in  reality  man 
never  gels  done  learning. — Dzierzon. 


Combs  having  no  brood,  may  be  smoked  with 
the  fumes  of  burning  sulphur,  to  kill  the  eggs  or 
worms  of  the  moth. 


Mr.  Editor,  and  all  the  readers  op  the 
Bee  Journal  : — When  avc  last  Avrote  you  (July 
5th)  we  meutioned  that  Ave  had  made  tAveuty- 
five  SAvarms  on  our  new  plan,  and  as  the  Imney 
seemed  to  slack  off  about  the  iHst  Aveek  in  July, 
as  it  usually  does  here,  we  mutt  confess  that 
we  began  to  think  that  bees,  for  1869,  were  not 
quite  up  to  our  anticipations,  and  we  were  al- 
most inclined  to  feel  a  little  discouraged.  But 
as  we  are  natually  hopeful,  we  soon  began  to 
think  that  perhaps  just  this  season  might  be  an 
exception  to  our  previous  experience,  and  that 
we  might  have  a  yield  of  honey  in  August,  as 
they  do  in  some  other  localities  ;  or  that  some- 
thing unusual  Avould  turn  up  in  our  favor  ;  or 
rather,  that  toe  could  turn  somelMng  up,  as  that 
is  the  Avay  we  usually  have  to  do.  According- 
ly, we  made  daily  visits  to  almost  every  hive, 
removed  all  weeds  and  grass,  levelled  things  up 
plumb  and  square,  and,  in  short,  made  everj'^- 
thiug  as  tidy  and  neat  about  the  hives  as  we 
could. 

By  the  way,  Mr.  Editor,  ycu  must  allow  us 
to  stop  long  enough  to  tell  you  how  we  have 
our  apiary  arranged.  We  could  never  bear  to 
see  a  straight  close  row  of  hives,  and,  as  is  too 
often  the  case,  under  some  rickety  old  sbed. 
So  we  commenced  making  separate  stands,  as 
Quiuby  recommends,  viz:  a  broad  square  board, 
Avith  a  heavy  piece  of  oak  scantling  across  each 
end.  (Empty  pine  boxes  Avill  often  furnish 
very  smooth  nice  boards  for  this  purpose). 
And  as  the  bees  need  shade,  Ave  have  planted 
Concord  grape  vines,  eight  feet  apart,  each  Avay, 
all  over  our  apiary,  and  Avith  a  stand  such  as 
first  mentioned,  set  on  the  north  side  of  each 
vine,  which  is  trained  on  a  proper  trel'is,  a  la 
"  Fuller  on  the  Grape."  Thus  we  think  Ave 
have  got  someihing  pretty  nice.  We  can  Avalk 
all  around  each  hive,  and  Avhen  in  a  hurry  can 
shake  bees,  queen,  and  all,  on  the  ground  al- 
most anyAvhere  in  front  of  the  hives,  and  they 
are  sure  to  get  in  safe,  provided  the  space  is 
kept  clean,  as  it  should  be  ;  and  this  we  accom- 
plish pailly  by  means  of  saw-dust,  and  more 
by  hoeing  up  the  weeds  by  main  strength  our- 
selves individually.  We  cannot  hire  any  gard- 
ener to  Avork  among  bee  hives — "iVo  sir,  e^." 

Well,  we  got  everytliing  in  the  best  shape  we 
knew  how,  and  Avalched  as  before  mentioned 
for  swarms  in  August ;  and  sure  enough,  after 
about  ten  days  rest,  the  bees  began  sTowly  to 
bring  in  honey  and  build  combs  again  ;  and, 
in  a  fcAv  days  more,  some  of  the  heaviest  hives 
were  about  full.  So  we  took  combs  out  of  the 
middle,  and  the  moie  we  took  out,  the  faster 
they  filled  the  empty  frames.  Pretty  soon  we 
bad  our  thirty-five  hives  making  a  comb  per 
week  ;  and  ten  frames  of  honey  and  brood  make 
a  good  SAvarm,  lacking  only  a  queen.  Then,  as 
the  drones  were  not  yet  killed  off,  Ave  started 
queen  cells,  which  seemed  to  produce,  fine,  yel- 
low, laying  queens  in  an  unusual  short  time, 
and  with  a  precision  we  were  quite  unaccus- 
tomed to.     It  was  but  a  few  days  before  the 


THE  AMEEICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


81 


s-warms  made  with  ten  full  frames  became  so 
filled  that  they  assisted  in  siipplyins;  full  frames 
for  other  new  swarms,  and  so  on.  At  that  rale 
of  progression  how  do  you  suppose  we  should 
liave  ended,  had  we  not  had  another  fessa'ion 
of  the  honey  crop  about  this  date  (Septem- 
ber 10th)  ? 

"VVe  have  now  forty-eight  (48)  hives  full  of 
bees  and  honey,  ami  we  should  like  awfully 
building  combs,  swarms,  and  queens  up  to  a 
hundred,  as  we  jusr,  begin  to  get  our  hand  in; 
and  now,  especially,  as  Argo  has  got  fifty-two 
(52).  By  the  way,  how  in  tlie  world  did  he 
manage  to  do  it  ?  We  think  it  looks  like  a  tall 
operation  to  make  forty-eight  stocks  from 
eleven  ;  and  so  it  is,  to  raise  all  nice  yellow 
queens,  as  we  have  done. 

■Now  for  the  facts  in  our  case.  The  black 
bees  have  done  mithing  here,  since  the  middle 
of  JulJ^  The  superiority  of  the  Italians  was 
never  more  apparent — as  the  black  bees  from 
our  neighbors  were  continually  trying  to  rob, 
while  the  Italians  were  so  busy. 

After  the  while  clover  had  failed,  we  went  to 
work  to  find  wliere  the  honey  came  from.  Part 
of  it,  we  think,  did  this  time  really  come  from 
buckwheat  ;  but,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  day, 
they  seemed  to  be  working  very  busily  in  a 
certain  direction,  and  the  hives  had  a  strong 
smell  of  something  like  humble  bees'  honey, 
which  we  thought  must  be  from  the  xkX  clover. 
To  make  a  sure  thing  of  it,  we  started  off  in  tbe 
direction  th<-y  went,  to  find  it.  After  a  long 
walk  we  did  find  some  red  clover,  but  not  a  bee 
on  it.  We  searched  further  in  that  direction, 
and  were  Ibrced  to  go  home,  finding  nothing 
fiom  which  bees  were  getting  honey.  But  the 
ne.\t  day  we  saw  them  so  busy  again,  until 
near  dark,  bringing  both  honey  and  pollen  al- 
most as  white  as  snow.  Then  we  resolved  that 
we  would  unravel  the  mystery;  and  as  we 
thought  it  might  possibly  be  something  from 
some  lorest  tree,  we  went  this  time  into  the 
woods,  and  there  the  riddle  was  solved.  A 
wbite  flowering  plant,  growing  from  two  to 
four  feet  high,  we  at  first  found  spaiingly,  and 
then  more  and  more  plenlilully,  until  further 
off,  from  one  to  two  miles  from  the  apiary,  we 
found  acres  of  it,  and  alive  with  little  "yellow 
pets"  as  happy  as  the  day  is  long,  "from  morn 
to  dewy  eye  "  bringing  their  htavy  loads.  As 
no  one  here  seems  to  know  tbe  name  of  the 
plant,  we  send  you  a  leaf  and  fiowers  inclosed 
in  this.  Any  information  as  to  what  it  is,  would 
be  a  favor.* 

Will  you,  Mr.  Editor,  or  any  one  else,  please 
tell  us  what  you  think  of  the  following  plan 
of  wintering  bees,  here,  in  our  open  uncer- 
tain winters,  when  there  may  be  summer  wea- 
ther in  January,  or  the  mercury  below  zero  in 
March  ? 

For  instance  : — take  forty  hives,  with  caps  and 
honey  boards  off,  pile  them  in  two  rows  four  feet 
long  and  five  leet  high,  with  the  entrances 
turned  outward,  in  the  middle  of  the  apiary. 
Put  a  good  roof  over  all,   board   up   the  ends, 


*We  sent  the  leaf  and  flowers  to  Professor  Porter,  of 
La  Fayette  College,  Easton,  Pennsylvania,  for  Identifi- 
cation, but  hava  not  yet  received  his  reply. 


and  have  the  sides  on  hinges  to  open  up  during 
mild  weather  that  the  bees  can  fly,  and  so  that 
they  may  be  shut  down  in  cold  weather.  So 
many  colonies  placed  thus  together  would  cer- 
tainly keep  warm  even  in  very  cold  weather, 
and  during  a  protracted  warm  spell  the  sides 
could  be  liited  up,  or  used  as  a  ready  means  of 
ventilation  at  any  time.  Would  not  this  secure 
nearly  all  the  advantages  of  being  in  a  cellar  or 
a  biuiilar  place  ;  and  al  the  same  time,  of  win- 
tering in  the  open  air  ? 

We  do  not  like  to  try  the  experiment,  until 
we  have  the  opinion  of  some  one  who  has  had 
more  experience  than  we  have.  A  vehement 
determination  not  to  lose  the  forty-eight  swarms 
we  have,  if  we  can  possibly  help  it,  by  winter- 
ing-in  a  cellar;  nor  to  have  them  weakened 
both  in  bees  and  honey,  by  the  inclemency  of 
"all  out  doors  "  (with  the  bars  down),  is  our 
present  "  frame  of  mind." 

And,  as  wc  lay  down  our  pen,  and  prepare  to 
go  home  because  it  is  almost  twelve  o'clo(  k  and 
Saturday  night,  we  make  our  best  bow  before 
closing  the  door,  and  wish  all  manner  of  success 
and  happiness  to  both  the  Editor  of  the  Bee 
Journal  and  all  its  readers,  from 

Novice. 

Sept.  11,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Another  Suggestion. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  see  some  one  has  suggested 
the  idea  of  a  bee-keepers'  photograph  album 
with  three  yellow  bands,  for  your  gratification. 
Would  it  not  be  more  appropriate  to  use  one 
iK\t\i  oneoY  tioo  yellow  bands,  for  the  pictures 
of  some  of  our  Italian  queen-iaising  brethr^-u  ? 

Allow  me  to  sugt^est  a  sort  of  semi-fraternal 
bee-business  directory.  Few  persons  make  api- 
culture a  speciality,  and  I,  (and  I  presun)e 
others)  am  often  curious  to  know  what  else  they 
do  tor  pastime.  Who  has  not  wondeied  what; 
"Gallup"*  does  ?  What  is  there  in  one's  men- 
tal composition  to  cause  "  bee-on-the-brain  ?" 
Then,  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  mutually 
curious,  let  all  correspondents  send  in  their  age, 
residence,  vocation,  and  the  extent  to  which 
ttiey  are  interested  in  bees,  and  let  the  same  be 
published  in  our  most  excellent  American  Bee 
Journal,  with  which  we  are  we  1  pleased. 

J.  W.  Greene. 

Chillicothe,  Mo.,  July  15,  1869. 

E^We  like  our  correspondent's  suggestion; 
but  think  he  should  have  set  an  example,  by 
carrying  out  his  idea  fully  in  his  own  case,  in 
his  communication. 


♦Gallup  is  a  hard-fisted,  hard-working   farmer,  who 
earns  and  eats  his  bread  '•  In  ihe  sweat  of  his  face.'' 


A  colony  that  contemplates  swarming  never 
seems  to  be  as  active  and  industrious  as  its  pop- 
ulousness  would  induce  us  to  expect. — Hofman. 


82 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Worker  Bees  in  Drone  Cells ! 


Mr.  Editor  :— Early  iu  July  I  put  tbree 
frames  of  di one  comb  itUo  a  hive  nine  Indies 
deep  by  five  inches  wide  and  twelve  inches 
from  front  to  rear.  I  also  put  in  two  pounds  of 
bees  and  a  very  handsome  queen,  iind  gave 
them  plenty  of  feed  all  the  time,  to  make  the 
queen  lny,  if  I  could.  In  a  few  days  I  exami- 
ned them,  and  found  an  egg  in  nearly  every 
cell.  About  the  time  for  the  drones  to  make 
their  appaaiaace,  I  looked  at  them,  to  see  how 
they  were  getting  along,  and  was  greatly  sur- 
piised  to  Iind,  instead'of  drones,  worker  bees 
hatching  from  those  drone  cells.  Not  over 
fifiy  sealed  drones  could  be  found  in  the  hive. 

I  let  them  work,  and  they  slill  continue  to 
rear  worker  bees  in  drone  cells  np  to  this  day. 
The  cells  are  sealed  over  even  with  the  surface 
of  the  comb.  Now  I  had  supposed  that,  if  eggs 
were  deposited  in  drone  cells,  no  hing  out 
drones  would  hatch  from  them.  At  any  rate,  I 
shall  not  allow  my  bees  to  cheat  me  again  in 
this  way.  I  know  how  to  fix  them  the  next 
time. 

Now,  Mr.  Editor,  this  experiment  is  some- 
thing new  to  me  ;  and  T  never  saw  anything  of 
the  kind  noticed  iu  luint.  Even  our  good 
friend  Gallup  never  said  anything  about  this 
thing,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  he  evt-r  dream- 
ed of  anyihinir  of  the  kind.  If  any  of  the  rea- 
ders of  the  Bjse  Journal  ever  saw  anything 
similar,  I  wish  they  a\  ould  report. 

H.  Alley. 

Wenham,  Mass. 

|[t^"The  case  stated  above  by  Mr.  Alley,  is  of 
very  rare  occurrence,  but  not  unprecedented. 
Gundehich,  iu  his  supplementary  treatise  of 
18r)2,  says  that,  on  the  10th  of  August,  1851,  he 
introduced  a  small  driven  swarm  into  a  glass 
hive  containing  only  a  single  comb,  twelve 
inches  square,  composed  of  drone  cells  exclu- 
sively. The  old  colony  from  which  tl\is  swarm 
was  taken  had  been  ftd  plentifully  for  a  week 
previous,  to  keep  the  queen  in  egg-laying  mood, 
as  Mr.  G.  was  curious  to  ascertain  how  she 
would  act  on  finding  hersell:'  restricted  to  a 
comb  containing  no  worker  cells.  She  seemed 
reluctant,  in  these  circumstances,  to  resume 
laying,  and  did  not  do  so  until  August  15,  or 
after  an  ioterval  of  five  days.  On  the  23d,  the 
larvae  were  sealed  ;  and  Mr.  G.  now  became 
anxious  to  see  whether  the  product  would  not 
\>c  uncommonly  large,  loorkerst,  &%  the  cells  had 
been  closed  with  flat  covers — the  bees  being 
evidently  conscious  that  workers,  and  not 
drones,  were  being  developed  from  the  eggs. 
Compelled  to  leave  home  on  the  5th  of  Septem- 
ber, whvn  none  of  the  young  had  yet  emerged, 
he  opened  a  number  of  the  cells,  and  found 
mature  workers  in  them  ;  and,  in  two  instances, 
the  inmates  had  already  begun  to  cut  their  way 
out  through  the  covers.  These  workers  weie 
examined  very  carefully,  and  not  the  slighest 
difft-rence  could  be  discerned  between  them  and 
those  reared  in  worker  cells— they  were  not  in 
any  respect  larger  than  ordinary  workers. 


Commenting  on  this  case,  in  February,  1853, 
the  Baron  of  Berlepsch  suggests  that,  the  deter- 
mination of  sex  being  the  voluntary  act  of  the 
queen,  she  can,  if  so  disposed,  lay  worker  eggs 
in  drone  cells,  Avorkers  beintr  still  the  product; 
but  that  drone  eggs  are  laid  by  a  normal  queen 
only  lohen  the  colony  coiitemplates  sicarming  or 
designs  to  discard  the  old  queen  and  rear  a  suc- 
cessor—nahhev  of  which  Mr.  G  's  small  colony 
can  be  supposed  to  have  intended,  and  hence 
no  drone  eggs  were  laid  or  drones  produ- 
ced.— Ed. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 

Wintering  Bees  on  Chicken  Meat! 


A  New  Thikg  Under  the  Sun  ! 


Mr.  Editor  :— Perhaps  I  am  wrong  in 
thinking  or  writing  as  above,  as  possibly  the 
matter  is  not  new  to  others  ;  but  to  me  it  is 
new,  and  it  maj^  not  be  without  interest  to  some 
of  your  readers,  who,  like  myself,  never  heard 
of  such  a  thing  before.  For  aught  I  know,  a 
goodly  number  will  saj',  when  they  read  this 
article,  just  as  I  said  when  I  first  heard  of  it — 
"  Pshaw,  tlial's  all  bosh!  I  don't  believe  one 
word  of  it!"  But,  dear  reader,  just  try  it  the 
coming  winter,  and  then  report  through  the 
Bee  Journal. 

But,  "  what  is  it  ?"  methinks  I  hear  you  ask. 
Well,  that  is  just  what  I  am  going  to  tell  you. 

Some  time  last  spring  there  was  at  our  house 
a  young  man  from  Hungary,  (and  he  came 
hungry,  and  tired  too;  but  that  is  jiot  what  I  atn 
going  to  tell  you).  He  seemed  to  be  quite  intelli- 
geut;  coulJ  speak  several  different  languages  ; 
and  was  a  very  pleasant  and  agreeable  talker. 
At  home,  in  Hungary,  he  was  a  lawyer,  and 
came  to  this  country,  as  be  stated,  to  learn  the 
English  language  and  observe  American  ways 
and  customs.  While  walking  about  in  our 
yard, 

Turning  this  way,  turn'ng  that, 
All  the  premises  to  explore, 

he  caught  sight  of  my  apiary,  and  coming  into 
the  house,  asked  what  those  things  were,  scat- 
tered around  in  the  yard  ?  I  told  him  they 
were  my  bees  in  Langslroth  hives.  He  made 
quite  ?ifoh  at  the  idea  of  keeping  bees  in  such 
looking  flings/  Then  he  went  on  to  tell  about  the 
kind  of  hive  used  in  his  country.  He  said  his 
father  kept  a  great  many  bees,  "hut  not  in  such 
shallow  unshapely  things  ;"  they  were  long  and 
deep.  He  told  also,  among  a  great  many  other 
matters,  how  they  kept  their  bees  through  the 
w'inter  ;  and  that  is  just  what  I  am  going  to  re- 
late to  your  readers  for  their  edification. 

He  said — and  I  quote  his  words,  as  nearly  as 
I  can  remember  them — "As  soon  in  the  fall  as 
it  is  cold  enougii  to  keep  the  bees  at  home,  we 
kill  a  chicken  and  cook  it  whole.  Then  we  dip 
it  in  honey,  and  hanir  it  by  the  legs  in  the  hive 
among  the  bees.  We  close  the  hive,  leaving 
room  for  ventilation  ;  and  let  it  remain  thus,  on 
the  stammer  stand,  during  the  winter.    In   the 


THE    AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


88 


spring,  when  the  bees  begin  to  G.y,  we  take  out 
the  bones  of  the  chicken  fron\  tlie  hxva,  the  bees 
haviufi  eaten  a.ll  the  meat  off !  Our  stocks  come 
out  siroug  and  healthy,  and  do  not  consume 
one-half  the  honey  that  those  do  which  are  not 
so  fed  Avilh  meat." 

Now,  I  will  warrant  that  nine  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  out  of  every  thousand  who  read 
this,  will  exclaim  just  as  I  did.  Bat  will  not 
some  one  try  this  mode  of  wintering  bees,  and 
report  success — or  failure  ? 

S.    C.  Palmer. 

Windham,  Ohio,  July  16,  1869. 

Dt^^A  full  account  of  this  alleged  Hungarian 
mode  of  provisioning  bees  for  winter  is  contain- 
ed in  Liittichau's  "Suggestions  for  the  improve- 
ment of  Bee-culture  in  Saxony,"  whicli  was 
published  in  Dresden,  in  1778.  Ltittichau  is  re- 
garded by  German  apiaiiaus  as  a  kind  of 
iVIunchhauseu  in  bee-culture,  and  is  commonly 
believed  to  h;ive  invented  the  story.  But  in 
this  they  probably  do  him  injustice,  as  it  is  al- 
ready givun  in  detail  in  the  "Transactions  of 
the  Economical  Society  of  St.  Petersburg,"  for 
1776,  and  is  there  said  to  be  the  method  employ- 
ed by  the  Tartars,  when,  in  unfavorable  }'ears, 
their  bees  have  failed  to  Ixy  up  sufficient  stores 
for  the  winter.  It  is  also  siated  that  the  Tartars 
feed  their  bees  with  putrid  fi.sh  in  defauU  of 
honey,  and  with  the  carcases  of  dead  rats,  mice, 
and  other  "such  small  deer." 

Lutiichau  likewise  recommended  feeding  des- 
titute bees  with  bread  saturated  with  honey. 
This,  he  says,  was  formerly  employed  by  the 
Hungarians,  Poles,  and  Saxons,  wiUi  great  ad 
vantage— six  or  seven  pounds  of  bread,  thus 
prepared,  sufficing  to  carry  a  populous  colony 
safely  through  tiie  winter,  however  poor  in  other 
stores  it  may  be.  But  it  would  seem  that  he 
did  not  feed  his  own  bees  in  this  manner,  for 
his  servant  Zschaller,  who  lived  with  him  sever- 
al years,  saj'^s  they  were  never  so  fed  in  that 
period.  Heidenreich,  who  published  his  "  Ex- 
periences and  Opinions  in  Bee-culture,"  in 
17!)6,  states  tliat  he  tested  this  honey-bread  pro- 
visioning, with  three  colonies,  iu  the  fall  and 
winter  of  1778.  The  result  w;is  a  complete  fail- 
ure— the  bees  dying  before  spring,  and  the  hives 
being  pervaded  by  dampness  and  mould. 
Others  also,  misled  by  Liittichau's  representa- 
tions, tried  it  in  1783  ;  bur,  as  maybe  supposed, 
with  no  better  success.  We  are  uut  aware  that 
any  one,  then  or  s  nee,  ventured  to  test  the 
value  of  spring  chickens  as  the  "staff  of  life"  in 
a  bee  community. — Ed. 

Pollen  gathered  by  the  bees  from  the  blos- 
soms of  sweet  cherry  and  from  those  of  cur- 
rants, is  orange  color  ;  gathered  from  those  of 
celandine  and  veronica,  it  is  cream-colored  ; 
pale  green  finch  coloied  fiom  those  of  plum 
and  pear  trees  ;  yellow  from  maples  and  wil- 
lows; bright  yellow  from  butter-cups;  SHflTron 
yellow  from  sour  cherry  trees,  wall  flowers, 
rape,  sloe,  and  buckthorn. 

The  egg-laying  of  the  queen  is  regulated  and 
controlled  bj' the  will  of  the'woikers.  When 
they  want  brood,  they  fted  the  queen  liberally. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 
Questions  by  Querist.    No.  7. 


Querist  is  still  alive  and  reads  the  Bee 
JouuNAL  as  much  as  ever  ;  in  fact  every  article 
is  faithfully  read.  He  desires  to  thank  those 
who  have  been  kind  enough  to  try  their  pens  at 
answering  his  questions  in  No.  6  ;  but  regreta 
that  some  of  those  questions  are  misunderstood. 
Henceforth  he  will  try  to  be  more  explicit,  so 
that  there  may  be  no  more  mistakes. 

On  page  55,  volume  5,  may  be  found  this 
statement:  "The  first  and  highest  law  of  na- 
ture iu  inserts,  is  self-preservation  in  eating  for 
offspring.  Tlie  honey  bee  seems  to  be  endowed 
with  this  instinctive  impulse,  for  the  purpose  of 
preserving  the  brood  iu  .the  hive."  Now,  is 
iliis  statement  correct  ?  If  the  preservation  of 
the  off'spring  is  the  strongest  instinct  that  gov- 
erns the  honey  bee,  then  why  does  she  remove 
unsealed  larvfE  from  the  cells,  to  make  room  for 
a  rich  harv«  st  of  honey  ?  Mr.  Otis,  of  Wiscon- 
sin, claims  that  the  strongest  instinct  that  con- 
trols the  working  bees  is  the  love  of  storing  hon- 
ey. So  it  seems  that  the  position  taken  by  Mr. 
Seay  is  at  variance  with  that  of  Mr.  Otis,  and 
one  or  the  other  must  from  necessity  be  in  the 
wrong  Again,  is  it  not  a  fact  that,  at  times, 
the  self-preservation  of  the  matured  bees,  is  far 
stronger  than  the  love  of  offspring?  Witness, 
f  )r  instance,  the  destruction  oi  drone  larvae  dur- 
ing a  dearth  in  the  honey  harvest. 

Mr.  Seay  has  much  to'say  about  brood  chill- 
ing. "V\  here  Querist  lives,  sealed  brood  is  not 
very  likely  to  chill  during  June  and  July — the 
swarming  months  ;  and  but  few  bees  are  neces- 
sary to  keep  it  at  the  proper  temperaluie  to  ma- 
ture. 

On  page  56,  same  volume,  I  find  this  : — "  All 
artificial  swarms  should  have  their  swarming 
propensity  excited  at  the  time  they  are  being 
made.  When  that  is  done,  and  the  combs  are 
properly  arranged  in  the  hive,  there  remains  no 
other  reason  why  ao  artificial  swarm  will  not 
leather  as  much  honey,  and  build  as  much  comb. 
!n  anv  given  time,  as  a  natural  swarm." 
Whether  there  be  any  other  reason  or  not,  ii  is 
nevertneless  a  fact  that,  durii<g  the  first  week,  an 
artificial  swarm  located  in  an  empty  hive,  will 
not  gather  as  much  honey,  nor  build  as  much 
comb,  as  a  natural  swarm.  Several  attempts 
have  been  made  by  the  Jotjknal  correspon- 
dents to  give  the  solution  of  this  problem  ;  but 
none  has,  thus  far,  given  one  that  is  satisfac- 
tory. There  are  those  among  the  Journal 
writers  who  can  give  the  solution,  and  on  tliis 
account  the  question  is  still  open  for  discus- 
sion. 

On  page  57,  Mr.  Nesbit  says  that  he  guaran- 
tees all  the  Italian  queens  he  sells,  and  notifies 
his  customers  that  if  they  fail  at  any  time  to 
produce  workers  with  three  yellow  bands,  that 
he  will  replace  the  queen  free  of  charge.  The 
object  of  making  this  extract  is  not  to  find  fault 
with  friend  Nesbit,  nor  to  be  personal  ;  but  to 
n)ake  an  inquiry.  The  present  standard  of 
purity  of  Italian  bees  is  the  three  yellow  stripes 
on  the  worker  progeny  ;  but  is  that  a  proper 


84 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


test  ?  Suppose,  friend  Nesbit,  you  should  raise 
a  hundred  Italian  queens,  and  all  should  pro- 
duce Avorkers  thus  marked,  how  many  of  those 
queens  would  yoii,  be  willing  to  use  for  queen- 
hreeding  purposes  ?  Would  ten,  yea  say  five,  of 
those  Iniiidreil  queens  be  satisfactory  to  your- 
self? Querist  desires  to  call  special  attention  to 
this  matter,  as  he  observes  that  several  parties 
are  oSL-rmg  pui'e  (?)  Italian  queens  by  the  quan- 
tify at  knock-down  prices.  The  uninitiated 
will  begin  to  think  that  Slmom  Pure  Italian 
queens  can  soon  be  bought  by  the  bushel,  same 
as  potatoes,  beans,  pumpkins,  &c.     More  anon. 

Querist. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Removing  Queen  Cells  no  Preventive  of 
Swarming. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Observations  and  Experience. 


Mr.  Editor  : — Having  been  a  bee-keeper 
upwards  of  twenty  years,  thougli  not  vcy  ex- 
tensivel}'-  in  the  business,  I  have  been  using  the 
common  box  hive  or  linn  gum,  uutil  witliia 
the  last  three  years,  when  I  introduced  the 
L  lugstroth  hive.  I  like  that  hive  about  as  well 
as  any  I  ever  bandied,  except  the  National 
Hive,  patented  by  Owen  Davis,  July  7,  1868. 
I  have  handled  different  i)atenl  hives,  and  find 
they  all  could  bear  a  little  improvement. 

From  my  experience,  I  shall  not  say  much  at 
present  about  pr:iclical  bee-keeping  ;  though  I 
will  say  a  liitle  in  regard  to  the  two  races  of 
bees.  I  have  handled  a  great  many  bees  ihis 
summer;  and  through  the  month  of  June  I 
found  the  black  bees  almost  entirely  destitute 
of  honey,  and  with  scarcely  any  unhatched 
brood.  In  fact  most  of  the  black  queens  had 
quit  depositing  eggs,  and  I  knew  several  co!- 
onins  to  die  of  starvation  about  the  last  days  of 
June.  Mine  being  all  Italian  bees,  thirty  hives 
in  number,  and  being  from  iiome  myself  at  this 
time,  I  became  anxious  to  know  their  condition. 
As  soon  as  I  returned  I  examined  my  hives, 
and  was  surprised  to  find  them  all  well  stored 
with  honey  and  in  fine  condition,  plent}^  of  eggs 
and  hatched  larvae,  and  thousands  of  sealed 
brood.  When  the  honey  harvest  set  in  now, 
my  bees  were  ready  for  the  rush  of  honey,  and 
they  made  good  use  of  it.  I  had  several  colon- 
ies tliat  gathered  ten  pounds,  ])er  day,  for  ten 
days  in  succession.  Right  ia  tlie  height  of  that 
harvest,  we  had  a  powerful  rain.  It  rained  for 
a  week  every  daj^,  which  Avas  a  great  drawback 
to  the  bees. 

My  bees  filled  the  lower  part  of  their  hives, 
and  a  number  of  top  boxes,  while  those  of  my 
neighbors  did  nothing  in  the  boxes  ;  and  yet  I 
have  raised  quite  a  number  of  queens  this  sea- 
sou,  and  had  to  draw  on  all  my  hives,  to  keep 
my  nuclei  strong.  Still  they  kept  up  finely  ; 
and  while  the  black  bees  killed  off  their  drones, 
the  Italians  did  not. 

I  have  been  reading  the  Bee  Journal  several 
years,  and  watching  other  men's  movements, 
and  will  give  my  experience  in  practical  bee- 
keeping more  fully  ia  a  future  article. 

James  W.  Seat. 

Monroe,  Iowa. 


Dear  Journal: — I  thought  it  was  a  fixed 
fact  that  if  we  examined  our  colonies  of  bees 
every  eight  days,  and  cut  out  all  queen  cells, 
that  it  M'ould  prevent  swarming.  Such,  how- 
ever, does  not  seem  to  be  the  case,  as  I  tried  it 
this  season  and  failed. 

I  had  a  nice  colony  of  Italians,  which  I  got 
from  Mr.  Thomas,  of  Brooklin,  Ontario,  and  I 
wished  to  see  how  many  ]3ouuds  of  surplus 
honey  I  would  get  from  them  by  preventing 
them  from  swarming.  Myself  and  Mr.  Georee 
Charles  examined  this  cohmy  every  week,  and 
cut  out  all  the  queen  cells.  Last  Friday  (23d) 
we  cut  out  all  therein,  (seven  in  number),  and, 
to  our  suprise,  yesterday  a  large  swarm  issued. 
After  hiving  the  s^varm  Ave  examined  the  old 
colony,  and  found  five  queen  cells  just  started, 
with  an  egg  in  each — queen  gone.  Can  you 
account  for  this,  or  is  it  a  common  occur- 
rence ? 

A.  Malone. 

Garden  Island,  Kingston,  Canada,  July 
26,  1869.  •    . 

Remarkable  Accident— i)isa.s/!ro?«.<  Effects. 
A  letter  received  at  Louisville,  from  Princeton, 
Kentucky,  speaks  of  a  fearful  accident  which 
occurred  on  tlie  20th.  A  man  named  Boot 
Crow  was  hauling  upon  a  wagon  two  immense 
millstones,  one  which  weighed  2,850  pounds. 
While  passing  along  the  side  of  a  high  hill  the 
heaviest  stone  rolled  from  the  wagon  and  down 
the  declivity  with  a  fearful  velocity,  crushiog 
small  trees  and  shrubbery  in  its  course.  The 
house  of  a  faimer,  named  Darwell,  was  situated 
at  the  foot  of  the  hill.  The  millstone  Avent 
crushing  tiirough  a  fence  and  into  tlie  yard  at 
the  farmer's  house,  where  were  a  number  of  bee 
hives.  In  the  yard  Avere  playing  a  bevy  of  chil- 
dren. The  bee  hives  were  upset,and  in  the  confu- 
sion tiie  bees  lighted  upon  the  children,  stinging 
every  one  of  them  in  a  frightful  manner.  The 
progress  of  the  great  stoue  Avas  not  impeded  in 
the  leaf^t  by  its  collision  with  the  hives,  and 
went  bounding  into  a  stock  pasture  beyond  the 
house.  It  dashed  into  a  herd  of  calves  and 
horses,  killing  tAVO  of  the  former  and  one  of  the 
latter  almost  instantly.  The  children  ia  the 
yard  had  been  comjiletely  covered  Avith  the 
bees,  and  each  one  Avas  stung  by  them  until, 
their  persons  were  entirely  covered  with  Avhite 
swellings.  One  of  them  died  a  fcAv  hours  after 
the  terrible  occurrence,  and  two  others  are  en- 
tirely speechless  and  blind.  They  can  hardly 
recover. 


Those  who  suppose  that,  Avhen  a  swarm  is- 
sues, the  ncAV  colony  consists  Avholly  of  young 
bees,  forced  to  emigrate  by  the  older  ones,  if 
they  closely  examine  the  neAV  swarm,  will  find 
that  Avhile  some  have  the  ragged  Avings  of  age, 
others  are  so  youn'g  as  to  be  hardly  able  to  fly. 
— Langstroth. 


THE    AMERICAN    BEE  JOURNAL. 


85 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


WASHINGTON.    OCTOBER,    1869. 


We  had  prepared,  for  this  number,  a  transla- 
tion of  the  certificates  issued  by  the  Committee 
appointed  by  the  Salzgitler  Apiarian  Associa- 
tion, to  test  Mr.  Lambrecht's  ability  to  cause 
and  cure  foulbrood  in  a  colony  of  bees,  together 
with  a  more  detailed  statement  of  the  action  of 
the  Committee,  from  the  pen  of  one  of  its  mem- 
bers ;  but  want  of  room  compels  us  to  defer  the 
publication  of  it  until  next  montli.  It  may  suf- 
fice for  the  present  to  say  that  Mr.  Lambrecht 
executed  his  assumed  task  to  the  satisfaction  of 
the  Committee  ;  though  we  learn  that  some 
others,  and  among  them  several  eminent  apia- 
rians, have  expressed  a  doubt  whether  a  fair 
test  case  had  been  made  up,  and  hence  claim 
that  the  result  cannot  be  regarded  as  conclusive. 
Our  readers  will  judge  for  themselves  on  review 
ing  the  proceedings. 


Cl^^Since  the  communication  from  Novice, 
in  this  number,  went  to  press,  we  have  received 
from  Professor  Porter  a  reply  to  our  inquiry 
for  the  name  of  the  plant  on  the  blossoms  of 
which  Novice's  bees  have  been  found  foraging. 
The  Professor  says  it  is  *'  the  Eupatorium  agera- 
toidesL.,  (white  snake  root).  It  abounds  in 
rocky  woods  and  hills  throughout  the  United 
States,  and  blooms  most  profusely  in  the  au- 
tumn. The  odor  of  the  flowers  somewhat  re- 
sembles that  of  buckwheat  blossoms.  To  me  it 
is  not  specially  agreeable  ;  but,  if  the  honey- 
gatherers  get  a  good  supply  of  honey  and  pollen 
from  them,  we  must  not  find  fault.  I  have 
never  observed  the  bees  working  on  them;  and, 
in  the  case  referred  to,  they  may  have  been 
driven  to  it  by  necessity.  Still,  they  exhibit 
no  little  caprice,  or  perhaps  instinct  ;  for  the 
same  flowers  may  not  in  all  seasons  and  in  all 
localities  produce  the  same  amount  of  honey." 

May  not  this  be  one  of  the  plants  neglected 
by  the  common  black  bees,  but  resorted  to  with 
splendid  results  by  the  Italians  ?  The  latter 
have  this  summer,  almost  everywhere,  where 
pasturage — in  the  usual  acceptation  of  the  term — 
was  apparently  very  scarce,  displayed  a  wonder- 
ful superiority  over  the  former  in  gathering  and 
garnering  stores.  This  surprising  result  may 
possibly  have  arisen  from  their  ability  to  resort 
to  and  derive  supphes  from  some — perhaps  from 
many — varieties   of  plants    whose  sweets   are 


either  inaccessible  to  or  have  no  attraction  for 
their  shorter-tongued  or  less  keen-scented 
cousins — though  these  have  the  probably  un- 
deserved reputation  of  being  universal  pillagers 
that 

"  Make  boot  upon  the  summer's  velvet  buds," 
and  gather  honey  all  the  day  from   every  open- 
ing flower. 


We  would  suggest  to  those  who,  in  preparing 
their  bees  for  wintering,  have  occasion  to  use  a 
solution  of  sugar  or  sugar  syrup  as  a  substitute 
for  honey,  to  mix  with  it  a  small  portion  of 
pure  glycerine,  to  keep  this  feed  from  candying 
in  the  cells.  As  it  does  not  evaporate  or  dry, 
we  think  it  would  have  that  efi"ect,  and  thus 
prove  beneficial  in  protracted  winters.  In  Ger- 
many, where  glycerine,  as  a  by-product  in  the 
arts,  is  sold  at  a  low  price,  it  is  largely  used  as 
bee  feed,  without  any  admixture;  and  it  may 
therefore  be  regarded  as  a  safe  addition,  when 
feeding  must  be  resorted  to,  though  it  cannot,  in 
this  country,  on  the  score  of  cheapness,  come 
in  commercial  competition  with  sugar  or  other 
substitutes  for  honey. 


We  have  received  a  copy  of  the  recently  pub- 
lished "Annals  of  Bee-Cultuke,"  for  1869, 
edited  by  D.  L.  Adair,  of  Hawesville,  Ken- 
tucky. It  contains  about  twenty  articles,  care- 
fully prepared  by  American  apiarians  and  natur- 
alists, and  conveying  much  useful  and  inter- 
esting information,  which  cannot  but  be  of  ser- 
vice to  those  engaged,  or  intending  to  engage, 
in  bee-culture.  The  publication  is  designed  to 
be  an  annual — this  being  the  first  of  the  series, 
and  will  yearly  present,  in  a  comjDact  form,  a 
-general  view  of  progress  and  improvement 
in  this  department  of  rural  economy.  May  it 
be  adequately  supported. 


The  '■'■  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Bee  Cul- 
ture^^''  on  the  Lower  Rhine,  Prussia,  have  had 
in  operation  for  three  years  past,  an  arrange- 
ment to  give  a  course  of  instruction  in  the 
theory  and  practice  of  bee  culture,  gratuitously, 
every  summer.  Lectures  on  the  general  subject, 
and  lessons  in  manipulation,  are  given  daily. 
The  course  continues  two  weeks,  and  at  the 
close,  a  public  examination  of  those  who  attend 
takes  place,  premiums  are  conferred,  and  prizes 
are  distributed  by  lot.  The  object  is  to  excite 
in  the  community  a  more  general  interest  in  bee 
culture ;  to  induce  the  formation  of  a  model 
apiary  in  every  parish  ;  and  to  provide  compe- 
tent .persons  to  take  charge  of  them. 


THE    AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


Correspondence  of  the  Bae  Journal. 


Council  Bluffs,  Iowa,  Ang.  22.— My  bees 
are  at  work  on  sunflowers   again   this   fall,  and 
are  making  more  honey  than   I  ever   knew  he- 
fore  in  my  life.     I  had  a  swarm  come  off  on  the 
12th  of  August,  and  on  the   21st   T   opened   the 
hive  and  found   every  frame   filled  with    honey 
and  brood.     This  is   a  half-blood   stock.     My 
half-bloods   have   done  better   than   the  black 
bees,  or  the   full   blood   Italians.     Mr.    Gallup 
thinks  the  hybrids  are  no  better  than  the   black 
bees.     Perhaps  he  has  some  queens  to  sell.  I  got 
three  swarms  from  one  hybrid  stock  this  season. 
The  old  stock  and  the  two  swarms  tilled  one  set 
of  boxes,  and  the  second  set  over   one-half  full.  | 
The  third  swarm  is  the  one   above   mentioned. 
My  hives  are   the    Langstroth   hive«with   three  i 
boxes,  each  holding  eleven  pounds  of  honey.     I  \ 
think  that  is  pretty  good  for  one   eolouy  in  one  ; 
season.      From     my   other    stocks,    that  only  ! 
swarmed   once,   I    have  taken   off    fifty -eight  \ 
pounds  of  honey  each  ;  and    I  think  they  will 
make  fifty  pounds  more  before  the   fall   flowers 
are  gone.     The  sunflower  has  been   in   bloom 
for  two  weeks,  and  my  bees  have  filled  some  of 
their  boxes  in   that  time.     AVe   find  it   a  very 
good  article  of  honey.    Last  year  the  honey  was 
strong,  and  we  thought  the   sunflower  was  the 
cause  of  its  rank  taste. 

We  have  some  old  fogies  here  that  are  in  the 
bee  business,  but  do  not  take  your  Journai-, 
though  they  borrow  it  of  me,  and  are  always  in 
a  hurry  to  see  it,  so  that  I  have  barely  time  to 
read  it  through.  So  I  thiak  when  they  read 
this,  they  will  perhaps  send  for  copies  for  them- 
selves.—H.  Faul. 

Osage,  Iowa,  Aug.  28.— My  bees  are  doing 
well,  and  have  been  since  the  8th  of  this  mouth; 
that  is,  all  stocks  that  were  in  a  condition  to  do 
anything.  I  was  from  home  on  business  fre- 
quently, and  thus  several  swarms  became  so  re- 
duced in  the  period  of  scarcity,  that  I  hardly 
think  they  will  get  in  condition  to  winter. 

When  I  have  leisure  I  must  give  the  readers 
of  the  Journal  a  history  of  the  season  for  bee- 
keeping. Any  number  of  swarms  perished 
here,  between  the  20th  of  June  and  the  20th  of 
July  ;  and  many  more  became  so  reduced  that 
they  are  entirely  worthless.  And  what  is 
curious,  nearly  every  bee-keeper  calls  it  foul- 
brood.  One  would  imagine,  from  the  local 
papers  and  talk  in  the  country,  that  Iowa  is  a 
terrible  region  for  foulbrood  ;  and  yet  I  have 
never  seen  a  case  of  real  foulbrood  in  all  my  ex- 
perience.—E.  Gallup. 

Fulton,  Ills.,  Aug.  30. — Bees  are  storing 
honey  more  rapidly  here  at  present  than  I  have 
ever  seen  them  do  before.  I  have  one  swarm 
storing  in  extra  frames  on  the  top,  which  I 
empty  with  the  machine.  It  has,  for  the  last 
two  weeks,  averaged  five  pounds  per  day  of 
strained  honey. 

Bees  are  swarming  here,  now,  as  much  as 
they  did  in  June  and  July.  Even  hives  that 
swarmed  once  already,  in  those  months,  are 
swarming  again ;   and   the   swarms  are  larger 


than  they  were  in  June.  Besides  there  is  no 
end  to  wild  flowers,  and  we  shall  get  a  good 
yield  yet  for  the  season,  if  fine  weather  holds 
for  three  weeks  longer. — R.  R.  Murphy. 

Wilfrid,  Ontario,  Canada,  Sept.  1. — This 
has  been  a  poor  season  here   for  honey,    but  a 

good  one  for  swarming ;  the  yield  of  honey 
being  just  enough  to  keep  the  bees  breeding 
and  swarming  all  summer.  From  eight  stocks 
that  I  had  last  spring,  I  hived  twenty-four 
swarms,  besides  three  sent  back.  I  had  a  young 
stock  cast  a  swarm,  and  on  the  eighth  day  I  cut 
out  the  queen  cells.  On  the  twelfth  day  I  in- 
troduced an  Italian  queen,  at  the  entrance,  in  a 
wire  cage  with  a  cotton  rag  tied  over  the  ends, 
and  the  bees  liberated  her  the  next  day.  I  paid 
no  further  attention  to  them  until  the  twenty- 
second  day,  (after  the  swarm  came  off,)  when  I 
observed  them  swarming  again.  I  then  opened 
the  hive  to  see  what  was  wrong,  and  fouud  eggs 
and  brood  from  the  introduced  queen  ;  and, 
moreover,  a  queen  cell  with  a  living  queeu  in 
it,  from  the  old  queen  that  left  with  the  swarm 
twenty-one  full  days  before.  The  queen  in  the 
cell  was  a  small  one,  though  not  smaller  than 
some  others  that  I  have.  There  can  be  no  mis- 
take about  the  time,  for  I  have  the  dates  noted 
of  every  transaction  in  my  apiary. 

I  cannot  do  without  the  Bee  Journal, 
which  I  prize  very  much.  Inclosed  you  will 
find  two  dollars  for  the  current  volume.— D. 
Reekie. 

Salem,  N.  C,  Sept.  5. — This  has  been  a 
tolerably  good  year  for  bees.  Out  of  forty-seven 
hives,  I  had  thirty-five  to  swarm,  which  cast 
between  seventy-five  and  eighty  swarms.  I 
had  two  swarms  ou  the  25th  of  August. 

The  Italian  bees  have  done  very  well  ;  but 
the  black  bees  have  done  poorly.  1  have  been 
enabled  to  take  about  sixteen  hundred  pounds  of 
surplus  honey  this  season. 

The  prospects  are  good  for  an  abundance  of 
honey  "this  year  from  the  aster.  Some  seasons 
bees  store  from  twenty -five  to  forty  pounds, 
from  this  source. — J.  W.  Hunter. 

Allenton,  Mo.,  Sept.  8. — Bees  have  done 
well  in  this  vicinity,  in  the  way  of  swarming  of 
stocks,  but  only  very  moderately  in  the  way 
of  storing  surplus  honey.  I  started  in  the  spring 
with  two  Italian  stocks.  I  now  have  nine  good 
ones — had  one  stolen,  and  five  good  swarms 
left  for  the  woods.  I  depended  on  natural 
swarming  this  year,  being  without  experience 
in  artificial  modes  ;  and  having  adopted  a  dif- 
ferent hive  from  the  one  I  commenced  with, 
could  not  change  from  the  old  ones  into  the 
new.  I  think  I  shall  have  to  adopt  the  artifi- 
cial mode  next  year,  seeing  the  swarms  have 
such  a  predilection  for  running  away. — T. 
R.  A. 

Madison,  Wis.,  Sept.  9. — The  season  in  this 
part  of  Wisconsin  has  been  better  than  the  last. 
Although  there  has  been  a  good  deal  of  rain, 
which  kept  the  honey  thin,  brooding  went  on 
nicely. 

I  have  a  honey  pump,  as  the  editor  of  the 
State  Journal  calls  it.     I  made  the   outer  case 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


87 


big  enongli  to  hold  the  inner  one,  and  I  revolve 
tlie  whoU^  It  worked  very  well.  I  could  take 
out  a  gallon  of  honey  with  it  in  about  ten  min- 
utes. But  for  a  large  number  of  hives  the 
stationary  outside  case  is  best.  Making  and 
material  cost  about  three  dollars. 

I  winter  my  bees  in  clamps.  The  worst 
trouble,  when  I  take  them  out  in  the  spring,  is 
that  they  rob  each  other,  and  the  robbers  kill 
the  queens.  I  had  ten  killed  in  that  way  last 
spring.  For  a  clamp  I  put  about  four  inches  of 
dry  leaves  on  top  of  the  frames.  They  wintered 
best,  nnd  kept  their  hives  the  cleanest,  and 
could  best  stand  the  changes  of  the  weaiher,  af- 
ter I  took  them  out  in  spring. 

When  the  basswood  blossoms  were  af  the 
best,  one  hive  gjive  me  fifteen  pounds  of  honey 
in  one  day — I  only  emptied  tlie  comlis  twice, 
for  after  the  basswood  blossoms  end,  the  honey 
season  for  surplus  is  about  over  with  us.  No 
honey  in  buckwheat.  What  the  bees  gather  now 
Avill  not  keep  them  going.  By  the  middle  of 
November,  the  hives  are  one-half  lighter  than 
they  were  on  the  1st  of  August. — S.  McL. 

Hamilton,  Ills.,  Sept;  9. — Bees  did  very 
well  here,  this  summer.  Some  of  my  stands 
have  gathered  not  less  than  one  hundred  and 
forty  pounds  of  box  honey,  each,  from  the  5th  of 
August  to  the  8th  of  September,  although  hav- 
ing had  eight  cold  and  rainy  days  meantime. 
— C.  Dadant. 

CniLLicoTHK,  Mo.,  Sept.  12. — Ever  since  the 
wet  weather  ceased,  about  July  30th,  the  sea- 
son has  been  all  the  bees  could  wish  for.  They 
have  swarmed  the  most  ever  known  here,  and 
kept  it  up  until  the  7th  of  this  month,  all  the 
usual  preventives  to  the  contrary  notwithstand- 
ing 

The  honey  season  is  now  as  good  as  it  has 
been  at  any  time,  and  bees  are  dropping  by 
thousands  before  their  hives,  completely  tired 
out. 

The  white  clover  is  still  in  plentiful  bloom  ; 
and  buckwheat,  smartweed,  "yellow  blossom" 
or  Spanish  nettle,  yield  honey  in  abundance. 

If  the  weather  should  continue  favorable  as 
late  as  it  did  two  years  ago,  the  bees  will  work 
a  month  longer  and  get  in  a  plentiful  harvest. 
1  put  two  natural  swarms  together,  and  they 
filled  their  hive  and  gave  me  sixteen  pounds  of 
honey  in  three  weeks.  Who  beats  this  ? — J. 
W.  Greene. 

Geddes,  N.  Y.,  Sept.  14. — Bees  have  done 
very  poorly  in  this  country,  having  made 
scarcely  anj^  box  honey.  I  had  six  stocks  in 
the  spring  ;  iucieased  one-third.  Have  not  got 
any  box  honey,  and  shall  have  to  double  up 
some  stocks  and  feed  to  winter  them. — H. 
O.  S. 

Dayton,  Ohio,  Sept.  14. — My  bees  have 
done  very  well,  although  this  has  been  a  poor 
season  here,  both  for  swarms  and  honey.  I 
have  wintered  bees  in  almost  all  the  ways  re- 
commended by  your  correspondents  from  time 
to  time,  but  can  only  recommend  "  out  door 
with  protection "  of  "matting"  or  "straw," 
as  safest  and  least  trouble  of  any  mode  yet  tried 


by  me.     I  think  your  paper  is  more  valuable 
every  month. — E.  D.  P. 

Rich  Valley,  Minn.,  Sept.  14— The  sea- 
son, though  rather  Avet,  has  on  the  whole  been 
quite  favorable  for  the  bees.  Mine  have  done 
well,  yielding  an  average  of  about  fifty  pounds 
of  surplus  honey  per  liive. 

I  am  glad  the  Bee  Journal  is  receiving  the 
support  of  all  intelligent  bee-keepers.  Every 
lover  of  bees  should  take  it  ;  and  though  I  have 
not  obtained  any  new  subscribers  for  it  yet,  I 
shall  not  fail  to  speak  in  its  favor  whenever  the 
occasion  offers. — L.  M.  L. 

New  Rutland,  Ills.,  Sept.  14.— Bees  are 
doing  splendidly  in  this  section  of  country,  this 
season. 

Could  not  do  without  the  Bee  Journal  for 
four  times  its  cost. — W.  G.  B. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Honey-Emptying  Machine. 


In  the  February  number  of  the  Bee  Journal 
I  noticed  a  description  of  a  honey-emptying 
machine,  but  it  was  so  inaccurately  described 
that  when  I  attempted  to  make  one  by  the  direc- 
tions I  found  that  it  would  be  necessary  to  bore 
an  inch  hole  through  a  three  quarter  inch  stick  ; 
and  divers  other  things  just  as  impracticable. 
So  I  gave  it  up,  and  made  a  machine  on  a  plan 
of  my  own.  I  hand  you  a  description  of  it  be- 
low, and  if  any  person  will  uaake  one  like  it,  he 
may  depend  upon  having  one  that  will  do  its 
work  to  perfection,  and  be  smaller,  neater, 
stronger,  cheaper,  and  in  every  way  better, 
than  the  one  referred  to.  Mine  cost  me  alto- 
gether about  three  dollars. 

Thomas  C.  Hill. 

Sydney,  C.  B. 


Bill    op    Stock    for    Honey-Emptying 
Machine, 

Bottom  Board,  |  |  inch  hole  in  ( 10|  x  10.i  x  ^ 

Midddle    Cleat,  j         centre.         (  10:^  x  1*  x  * 

2  Cleats Qi  x  l|  x  | 

4  Posts 19^  X  l|  X  4 

4  Side  Cross-bars 10^  x  1|  x  | 

4  End  Cross-bars 11  x  1^  x  § 

2  Braces,  halved  together,  hole  in 

about  centre,  pointed  ends 12^  x  1^  x  § 

4  Strips 163  X  i  X  I 

2  Pieces  Wire  Gauze 18  x  10^ 

1  Shaft,  Round  Iron  Rod, 30  x  | 

1  Piece  hard  wood  across  top   of 

can  with  a  |  inch   hole  in   the 

centre,  for  the  shaft  to  revolve,  18^  x  2^  x  1 

The  lower  end  of  the  shaft  is  pointed  and 
rests  in  an  indentation  in  a  piece  of  iron  solder- 
ed to  the  botton  of  the  can.  The  shaft  has  a 
hole  through  it,  two  inches  from  the  bottom  of 
the  can,  through  which  is  put  a  piece  of  stout 
wire  1|  inches  long  to  sustain  the  frames.  This 
wire  is  let  up  into  a  groove  in  the  cleat  so  as  to 


88 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL, 


turn  the  frame.  The  posts  are  let  into  the  sides 
of  the  bottom  board,  flush,  side  and  end.  At 
each  of  the  two  opposite  corners  of  the  bottom 
board  is  made  a  mortice  |  inch  deep,  1^  inch 
long,  and  |  inch  wide,  to  receive  the  projections 
on  the  ends  of  the  comb  frame.  Tlie  can  is 
21|-  inches  deep  and  15^  inches  in  diameter  ; 
and  the  ends  of  the  End  Cross-bars  (top  and 
bottom)  are  rounded  off,  to  make  the  frame  fit 
into  the  can. 


[For  theAmericanBee  Jouiual.] 

The  Italian  Fling. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

My  Bee-Feeder  Costs  Twelve  and  a  Half 
Cents. 


Here  is  a  description  of  it,  which,  if  you  place 
in  the  hands  of  a  tinsmith,  he  will  soon 


you  one. 

Take  a  piece  of  tin  ten  inches  squai  c  and 
make  a  square  pan  one  and  a  half  inches  deep, 
after  it  is  wired.  Punch  a  hole  through  the 
bottom  with  an  inch  and  a  half  hollow  punch. 
Make  a  tube  to  fit,  one  inch  long,  and  turn  a 
burr  on  the  bottom  end  ;  slip  it  into  the  pan 
from  the  bottom  and  solder  it  tight.  Now 
cover  one-third  of  the  pan  with  a  piece  of  tin. 
It  may  be  cut  the  size  of  the  pan,  then  lay  it  on 
the  top  and  solder  it  on.  Through  this  tin  there 
should  be  a  small  hole  punched  to  receive  a 
funnel.  Cover  the  remainder. of  the  pan  with  a 
piece  of  glass,  held  in  its  place  by  little  hooks  of 
tin  in  such  a  manner  that  it  may  slide  on  or  off;  j 
and  your  feeder  is  done. 

To  USE  IT.  Slide  off  the  glass,  and  put  in 
some  small  pieces  of  comb,  to  keep  the  bees 
from  being  drowned  in  the  feed.  Then  slide 
on  the  glass  ;  remove  the  honey  box  and  place 
your  feeder  directly  over  the  hole  in  the  honey 
board.  Now  insert  a  funnel  and  fill  up  your 
feeder ;  remove  the  funnel,  and  put  a  cork  in 
the  hole.  The  bees  will  rush  up  through  the 
tube  into  the  feeder,  but  cannot  escape.  Rob- 
bers cannot  reach  the  feed,  without  passing 
through  the  entire  hive.  The  glass  enables  you 
to  see  when  the  feeder  is  emptj^  and  by  remov- 
ing the  cork  the  bees  may  be  fed  without  dis- 
turbing them  in  the  least.     Try  it. 

J.   H.  Thomas. 

Brooklin,  Ontario,  Aug.  SO,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal] 

To  Prevent  Swarming. 

Mr.  F.  Daniels  complains  that  his  bees  swarm 
too  much,  and  do  not  give  him  honey  enough. 
Perhaps  that  is  his  own  fault.  Let  him  remove 
the  queens  from  his  colonies  at  the  opening  of 
the  full  honey  season,  and  destroy  any  queen 
cells  that  may  have  been  started  ;  examine  his 
liives  a  Aveek  later,  and  again  destroy  the  queen 
cells  ;  and  ten  days  after  that  introduce  a  young 
fertile  queen.  He  will  then  not  be  troubled 
with  swarms,  and  his  bees  will  store  honey,  if 
there  is  any  to  be  found. 

J.  Little. 

POESTENKILL.    N.    Y. 


We  often  hear  of  the  "  Highland  Fling,"  and 
sometimes  we  read  of  the  Italian  fling.  Mr.  S. 
W.  writes  thus: — "It  rained  most  of  the  time 
until  July  20th,  and  my  bees  did  not  store  much 
honey  up  to  that  time.  Black  bees  have  done 
as  well  as  the  Italians  have.  I  see  no  dift'er- 
ence."     See  Bee  Journal,  vol.  5,  page  65. 

Mr.  W.  has  an  apiary  of  not  less  than  tw^o 
hundred  hives  of  black  bees,  and  it  seems,  from 
his  own  confession,  that  they  did  not  store  much 
honey  prior  to  July  20. 

James  M.  Marvin  has  an  apiary  of  three  hun- 
dred hives  of  choice  Italian  bees,  only  six  miles 
from  Mr.  W.'s,  and  in  not  so  good  a  location  ; 
and  before  the  20th  of  July  he  had  more  than  a 
ton  of  machine  honey  put  up  in  large  crocks, 
and  his  hives  were  sull  so  rich  in  honey  that 
the  queen  could  only  now  and  then  find  a  few 
empty  cells  to  use  for  eggs.  This  shows  wheth- 
er the  black  bees  have  done  as  well  as  the  Ital- 
ians. 

Mr.  TV.  says  he  can  see  no  difference  be- 
tween the  working  of  the  two  varieties  of  bees. 
The  reason  is  obvious  ;  as  plain  as  the  nose  on 
your  face — much  the  same  as  the  blind  man's 
for  not  seeing  the  eclipse.  Mr.  W.  has  no  Ital- 
ian bees  in  his  apiary,  nor  ever  has  had  any, 
and  I  doubt  very  mucli  whether  he  has  seen  a 
lull  hive  of  them  during  the  past  season.  Fur- 
ther comment  is  unnecessary. 

M.   M.  Balbridge. 

St.  Charles,  Ills.,  Sept.  14,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 1 

The  Challenge  Accepted. 


In  the  Bee  Journal  for  September  last  (vol- 
ume 5,  number  3,)  a  very  broad  challenge  is 
given  by  Mr.  G.  P.  Kellogg,  of  Waukegan,  Illi- 
nois, to  inventors,  &c  ,  of  bee  hives. 

I  am  an  inventor,  manufacturer,  and  user  of 
a  hive,  and  will  accept  the  challenge  of  Mr. 
Kellogg,  with  the  following  conditions,  viz : 
Provided  the  hive  he  exhibits  is  his  own  inven- 
tion previous  to  this  date  ;  that  the  exhibition 
be  made  in  the  State  of  Wisconsin,  within  fif- 
teen months  from  date,  at  the  State  or  some 
County  Fair,  or  at  any  Bee-keepers'  Conven- 
tion in  the  North-western  States.  The  sum  put 
up  for  premium,  to  suit  himself,  not  exceeding 
his  limit  of  fifty  dollars ;  provided  this  is  not 
considered  belting.  If  Mr.  Kellogg  accepts  my 
proposition,  he  may  name  the  ijlace,  &c. 

A.  H.  Hart. 

Applbton,  Wis.,  Sept.  1869. 


It  is  one  of  the  laws  of  the  hive,  that  bees 
which  have  no  mature  queen,  seldom  build  any 
cells  except  such  as  are  designed  merely  for  stor- 
ing honey,  and  are  too  large  for  the  rearing  of 
workers. — Langstroth. 


American  Bee  Journal 


EDITED  AND  PUBLISHED  BY  SAMUEL  WAGNER,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

AT  TWO  DOLLARS  PEK  ANNUM,  PAYABLE  IN  ADVANCE. 


Vol.  V. 


INOVEMiBER,    l^OO. 


No.  5, 


The  Lambrecht  Foulbrood  Cure. 


In  the  Bee  Journal  for  August  we  mentioa- 
ecl  that  the  final  report  of  tlie  committee  ap- 
pointed to  test  Mr.  Lambreclit's  ability  to  cause 
and  cui'e  foulbrood,  had  not  then  reached  us, 
though  we  understood  it  had  been  made.  We 
have  since  received  it ;  and  as  we  know  that 
many  of  our  readers  feel  a  deep  interest  in  this 
matter,  and  as  every  apiary  is  liable  to  be  inva- 
ded by  the  devastiug  malady,  we  subjoin  a 
trauslation  of  the  four  certificates  issued  by  the 
committee,  showing  how  their  proceedings  were 
conducted,  and  stating  as  the  result  of  the  test 
that,  in  a  healthy  colony  of  bees,  the  disease 
had  been  produced  and  then  cured,  by  the  means 
employed  by  Mr.  Lambrecht. 

The  colony  for  experiment  was  selected  from 
the  apiary  of  Mr.  Gravenhorst,  thoroughly  ex- 
amined by  the  committee,  pronounced  to  be  in  a 
healthy  condition,  and  then  submitted  to  Mr. 
Lambrecht  for  treatment.    This  appears  from 

Certificate  No.  1. 

Brunswick,  April  1,  1869, 
The  undersigned  hereby  certify  that  the  col- 
ony of  bees  placed  at  our  disposal  by  C.  J. 
Gravenhorst,  in  one  of  his  own  hives,  was  found 
on  examination  to  be  in  a  healthy  state,  in  good 
condition,  populous,  and  with  brood  in  all 
stages.  After  this  examination  was  made,  A. 
Lambrecht  inserted,  near  the  brood,  a  comb 
containing  fermenting  pollen  and  honey.  The 
hive  was  then  placed  in  the  care  of  Mr.  Graven- 
horst, with  the  privilege  of  placing  it  half  a 
league  distant  from  his  own  apiary. 

(Signed.)  C.  J.  H.  Gravenhorst, 

H.  Herbst, 
Henry  Opperman, 
H.  Wiedenroth. 

When  the  committee  again  met  and  examined 
the  colony,  opinions  were  divided  as  to  the 
existence  of  foulbrood  in  it,  and  the  decision 
was  therefore  postponed  for  a  month,  to  await 
the  further  development   of  the  virus,  if  it   ex- 


isted; or  the  effect  produced  by  the  additional 
fermenting  pollen  inserted  by  Mr.  Lambiecht, 
as  shown  by 

Certificate  No.  2. 

Brunswick,  April  24,  1869. 
This  day  the  above-named  committee,  accom- 
panied by  Mr.  Lambrecht,  repaired  to  the  place 
where  the  experimental  hive  stood,  and  on  ex- 
amining the  colony,  regarded  it  as  being  only 
in  an  incipient  stage  of  foulbrood.  Though 
some  dead  and  Pome  suspicious-looking  pupae 
were  observed,  the  committee  was  divided  in 
opinion  respecting  the  existence  of  foulbrood. 
This  induced  Mr.  Lambrecht  to  insert  a  second 
portion  of  fermenting  pollen  and  honey,  and  to 
desire  permission  to  insert  also  two  frames  with 
old  combs;  which  Mr.  Gravenhorst  was  com- 
missioned to  do. 

Signed  by  the  Committee. 

On  a  re-examination  of  the  colony  at  the  next 
meeting  of  the  committee,  all  doubt  as  to  its 
foulbroody  condition  appears  to  have  baen  dis- 
sipated. It  was  evidently  suffering  from  the 
disease  in  a  highly  aggravated  degree  ;  and  the 
committee  so  state  in  their 

Certificate  No.  3. 

Brunswick,  May  23,  1869. 
This  day  the  undersigned  re-examined  the 
experimental  colony.  In  the  two  old  combs 
inserted  on  the  2d  of  May,  they  found  cells  with 
perforated  and  also  with  unperforated  collapsed 
caps;  and  from  these,  when  opened,  a  viscid, 
fetid,  brownish-grey  matter  could  be  drawn  ; 
and  the  committee  were  fully  convinced  of  the 
existence  of  foulbrood — especially  as  putrid 
larvae  were  also  found  in  the  newly  built  drone 
comb. 

Signed  by  the  Committee. 

The  experimental  hive  thus  found  to  be  infect- 
ed with  the  disease,  was  now  turned  over  to 
Mr.  Lambrecht  for  restorative  treatment  ;  and 
on  the  27th  of  July  the  committee  re-assembled, 
to  ascertain  the  result  of  Mr.  Lambrecht's  cura  - 


90 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE   JOURNAL. 


tive  process.  On  a  miuute  examination,  the 
colony  was  dec^a^^■d  to  be  again  entirely  free 
from  the  disease  and  in  a  prosperous  condition. 
This  apears  from  the  committee's 

Certeficate  No.  4. 

Brunswick,  July  27,  18G9 
At  nearly  four  o'clock,  this  afternoon,  the 
Investigating  Committee  met  to  examine  tlie 
experimental  colony.  Tiie  combs  were  taken 
out  separntely,  and  subjected  to  repeated  minute 
inspection  ;  and  to  make  the  examination  most 
thorougli,  the  bees  were  brushed  fiom  the 
combs,  and  every  cell  inspected.  According  to 
our  best  knowledge  and  belief,  we  found  "the 
colony  po|)ulous,  nearly  ready  to  swarm,  with 
queen  cells  prepared  for  capping,  and  the  whole 
colonj'  in  such  excellent  condition  tliatwe  could 
pronounce  it  entirely  free  from  malignant  foul- 
broud. 
(Signed.)  H.  Wiedenroth, 

H.  Oppeuman, 
C.  J.  H.   Gravenhokst, 
H.  Herbst. 

A  neighboring  beekeeper,  Mr.  Ahrens,  appri- 
sed of  the  intended  proceedings,  also  attended 
the  meetings  of  the  committee,  p;irlicipated  in 
the  examinations,  and  gives  the  following  state- 
ment of  what  took  place  : 

"Feeling  great  interest  in  the  experiment 
prosecuted  by  Mr.  A.  Lambrecht,  to  cause  and 
cure  foulbrood,  I  attended  the  examination  of 
the  experimental  colony,  when  it  M-as  found 
infected  with  foulbrood  in  the  highest  degree. 
I  was  again  present  today,  when  it  was  re- 
examined by  the  committee  and  pronounced 
perfectly  cured.  The  colony  was  nearly  ready 
to  swarm,  and  in  all  respects  in  admirable  con- 
dition. 

(Signed.)  "  C.  Ahrens. 

"Practical  Apiarian." 

"Brunswick,  July  27,  1869." 

In  addition  to  the  forogoing,  Mr.  Graven- 
horst,  a  member  of  the  committee,  himself  a 
highly  intelligent  and  experienced  apiarian,  and 
originally  disinclined  to  accept  Lumbrecht's 
theory  of  the  origin  and  nature  of  foulbrood, 
communicated  to  the  Hanover  Centrablatt  the 
following  more  detailed  account  of  the  acticm  of 
the  Committee  and  of  Mr.  Lambrecht's  process 
for  the  production  and  cure  of  the  disease.  It 
was  written  before  the  final  report  or  decision 
of  the  committee  was  made  ;  yet  manifestly 
under  the  conviction  that  a  perfect  cure  had 
been  effected  : 

"  It  is  well  known  to  the  reader  that  at  the 
fall  meeting  of  the  Salizgitler-Bruuswick  Union, 
I  expressed  my  readiness  to  place  one  of  my 
colonies  at  the  disposal  of  a  committee  tl)is 
spring,  to  test  Lambrecht's  theory  of  foulbrood. 
Accordingly,  when  the  appointed  committee  (of 
which  I  am  a  member,  and  two  members  of 
■which  are  practical  beekeepers,)  met  on  the  1st 
of  April,  I  selected  for  them  a  strong  colony, 
the  bees  of  which  covered  six  frames  in  a  hive 
built  two-thirds  full,  though  its  supply  of  hom-y 
and  pollen  was  quite  limited.     Alter  the  com- 


mittee had  thoroughly  examined  this  colony 
and  pronounced  it  eniirely  healthy,  Mr.  Lam- 
brecht introduced  in  it  fermenting  pollen  mixed 
with  honey,  and  the  hive  was  then  removed  to 
a  ph'ce  half  a  league  distant  from  my  apiary 

"  The  second  examination  of  tliis  experimen- 
tal colony  was  made  by  the  committee  on  the 
24th  of  April.  Lambrecht  and  Herbst  regarded 
it  as  being  in  an  incipient  s'age  of  foulbroodi- 
ness,  whereas  Wiedenroth,  Opperniiin,  and  my- 
self were  constrained  by  our  convictions  to  re- 
gard it  as  still  in  a  healthy  conditi(m.  Wieden- 
roth directed  his  attention  mainly  to  the  drone 
cells,  in  which,  according  to  l)is  experience, 
foulbrood  u.>uaHy  tirst  manifests  itself  ;  wliilst 
'I  could  not  allow  myself  to  admit  the  existence 
of  the  <liseuse  until  I  saw  all  the  indications  of 
it,  as  I  find  them  stated  in  the  writings  of  ac- 
knovvlediicd  authorities.  Lambrecht  then  re- 
q\iest(d  leave  to  insert  two  frames  with  old 
comb.  Tins  was  done  on  the  25th  of  April, 
and  next  day  eggs  were  discovered  in  the  cells 
of  these  combs.  On  a  revision  on  the  20th  of 
May,  I  discovered  the  firtt  decided  symptoms  of 
foul'-rood,  in  the  cells  of  these  old  combs,  some 
of  which  still  remained  capped,  though  from 
others  young  bees  had  emerged.  Minute  per- 
forations were  visible  In  the  collapsed  covers  of 
most  of  the  cells  slill  closed  ;  and  when  one  of 
these  cells  was  opened  a  browuish-grey,  viscid, 
fetid  matter  could  be  drawn  out.  Hereupon  I 
call'  d  a  nueting  of  the  committee,  which  assem- 
bled on  the  23d  of  May.  On  examination,  pu- 
trid brood  was  round  in  the  drone  cells  also,  and 
the  colony  had  consequently  to  be  regarded  as 
fouibroody.  But,  that  no  hasty  decision  might 
be  made  in  a  matter  so  important,  the  essay  to 
cure  the  colony  Wiis,  at  my  instance,  deferred  to 
a  future  day,  as  I  wished  previously  to  satisfy 
myself  fully  that  we  had  really  before  us  a  case 
of  contagious  tbulbrood.  Thenceforward,  bee- 
keepers who  visited  me,  and  many  of  whom 
were  acquainted  with  the  disease  from  sad  ex- 
perience, were  taken  to  see  the  experimentul 
colony  ;  and  all  of  them  were  satisfied  that 
foulbiood  existed  therein.  Still  not  content 
my -elf,  and  desiring  to  obtain  absolute  certainty 
if  possilde,  I  requested  Mr.  J.  of  Baden,  who  I 
knew  was  troubled  with  foulbrood  in  his  apiary, 
to  send  me  a  piece  of  infected  comb  ;  the  ap- 
pearance and  odor  of  which,  when  received, 
were  in  no  respect  more  marked  than  those  of 
the  infected  combs  iu  the  experimental  colony. 
Tiiere  were  diseased,  collapsed,  and  perforated 
cells  interspersed  among  others  still  healthy, 
and  putrid  larvae  among  others  not  affected  by 
the  disease.  "Verily,  a  fouibroody  comb  presents 
a  checkered  aspect,  grievous  to  behold,  and 
saddening  to  the  heart  of  every  beekeeper ! 
Melancholy,  too,  is  it  to  observe  the  perseveiing 
3'et  fruitless  efforts  made  by  a  slill  strong  colony 
to  subdue  and  eject  the  insidious  foe,  by  tearing 
out  and  removing  the  infected  brood — while 
the  disease  is  steadily  progressing,  the  popula- 
tion daily  diminishing,  and  the  entire  colony 
hastening  with  Mccelerated  speed  to  its  lament- 
able fate.  If  lielp  be  still  possible  here,  thought 
I,  it  is  hiiih  time  to  invoke  it  now.  Lambrecht 
was  accordingly  invited  to  Brunswick,  to  un- 
dertake the  cure  of   the   diseased   colony.     He 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


91 


came  ou  the  1 7th  of  June.  On  seeing  its  condi- 
tion, now  thoroughly  foull)roody,  he  exclaimed  : 
'  Here  extraordinary  means  mu>-t  be  resorted  to. 
A  week  atro  the  cine  wonld  have  been  easy  ; 
now  it  will  be  more  ditticult  ' 

•'The  hive  was  then  carried  into  a  chamber. 
Mr.  Lambrecht  took  out  all  tlie  combs,  phicing 
them,  with  the  adhering  bees,  in  a  box  prepared 
for  them  ;  shook  the  remaining  bees  out  of  the 
hive  on  a  sheet,  with  wliich  he  covered  the  box 
■when  the  bees  were  again  united.  He  now  em- 
ployed some  preparation  to  disinfect  the  hive, 
and  remove  from  it  the  matter  of  disease.  To 
this  end  he  placed  live  coals  in  a  dish,  sprink- 
led on  them  a  mixture  of  various  powders  pro- 
cured from  a  drug  store,  and  inverfed  tlie 
hive  over  it.  Though  it  was  a  very  compactly 
constructed  straw  hive,  and  well  coated  inside 
with  propolis  by  the  bees,  the  fumes  penetra- 
ted through  it,  and  issued  from  every  pore 
Lambrecht  then,  by  means  of  a  syringo,  wetti  d 
the  interior  of  the  hive  with  a  liquid  prepared 
by  him,  scoured  it  well,  and  furnished  it  witii 
frames  filled  about  three-fourths  full  with  combs 
built  last  summer,  placing  between  them  a  comb 
with  honey.  He  next  brus^hed  the  bees  from 
the  inft'cted  combs  into  the  hive,  fumigated 
them  sliLchtly,  and  replaced  the  hive  on  its 
stand.  Tlie  foulbroody  combs  w'ere  then  melted, 
though  I  retained  a  few  small  pieces  as  speci- 
mens. 

"If  Lambrecht  succeeds,  as  we  doubt  not  he 
will,  in  performing  the  second  part  of  his  as- 
sumed task — the  cure  of  the  foulbroody  colony 
— as  efft'CtUFilly  as  he  did  the  first  pa't — the 
origination  of  the  disease,  science  will  thereby 
have  achieved  for  beecuUure  a  triumph,  the  vahu- 
of  which  cannot  be  over-estimated.  None  will 
know  better  how  to  appreciate  its  importance, 
than  he  who  has  had  the  misfortune  to  become 
practically  acquainted  with  the  devastating 
malady. 

"  C.  J.  H.  Gravemhorst." 
"Brunswick,  June  18,  1869." 

In  a  subsequent  communication  to  \he  Bienen- 
zeiiung,  Mr.  Gravenho'-st  says  that  he  and  Mr. 
Lambrecht  examined  the  colony  on  the  18th  of 
July.  Sealed  worker  brood  was  found  in  the 
newly  built  worker  comb  extensions ;  sealed 
drone  brood  in  five  combs,  and  from  twelve  to 
fifteen  queen  cells  on  three  combs.  In  the  low- 
er part  of  the  combs  eggs  and  healthy  larvae  were 
se«-n  in  the  cells  with  no  further  trace  of  foui- 
brood.  The  queen  cells  and  dione  brood  were 
destroyed  to  keep  the  bees  from  swarming,  as 
it  seemed  likely  they  would  do  so  in  a  very  few 
days  ;  but  on  the  27th  <if  July,  when  the  final 
examination  aud  report  was  made  by  the  com- 
mittee, three  new  queen  cells,  nearly  ready  to 
be  sealed  over,  were  found.  Mr.  G.  refused  an 
offer  of  four  dollars  for  this  experimental  colo- 
ny, and  said  he  would  hardly  be  willing  to  part 
with  it  for  nine  dollars,  as  it  was  in  one  of  his 
best  hives,  and,  being  very  populous,  would 
probably  gather  considerable  surplus  honey  be- 
fore fall. 


Healthy  stocks  almost  always  destroy  their 
drones,  as  soon  as  forage  becomes  scarce. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

The  Native  Honey  Bee  of  Australia. 


I  nm  indebted  to  Mr.  F.  Smith,  the  distin- 
guished hymenopterist  of  the  Britisli  Museum, 
for  the  following  description  of  the  native  Au- 
stralian honey  bee,  a  nest  of  which  reached  me 
through  the  kind  ofliices  of  Messrs.  Veitch,  of 
Chelsea.  Although  the  bees  were  alive  when 
shipped  from  Biisiiane,  in  Queensland,  they 
had  evidently  perished  long  belore  the  termina- 
tion of  their  voyage.  This  fatal  nsult  is,  how- 
ever, less  to  be  regretted,  since  it  is  evident  that 
their  power  of  honey-gathering  must  be  per- 
ft  ct!y  infinitesimil  as  compared  with  those  of 
either  of  the  European  races. 

T.  W.  Woodbury, 
"A  Devonshire  Beekeeper." 

Mount  Radford,  Exetek,  England. 


Notes  on  the    Economy   op   Trigona   Car- 

BONARIA,     A     StINGLESS     HoNEY      P>EE     OF 

Australia,  with  a  Description  op  the 
Insect  and  also  of  its  Nest, 

The  beautiful  example  of  insect  architecture 
received  from  Brisbane,  in  Queensland,  Eastern 
Australia,  is  specially  interesting.  Judging 
from  its  structure,  it  apparently  indicates  the 
L-eonom}'^  of  a  genus  of  bees  intermediate  be- 
tween the  hive  bee  and  the  well-known  humble 
bee. 

Hitherto  we  have  possessed  very  little  infor- 
mation respecting  the  economy  of  the  genus 
Trigona.  The  females  are  unknown;  the  other 
sexes — male  and  worker — have  been  received 
from  Brazil.  The  closely  alLcd  genus  Melipona 
includes  in  the  opinion  of  some  authors,  the 
species  that  I  separate  and  retain  in  the  genus 
Trigona.  Of  the  former  genus  we  possess  a 
knowledge  of  all  the  sexes,  and  have  ascertained 
that  each  communiiy  contains  a  number  of 
females  ;  in  which  part  of  their  economy  they 
agree  with  the  humble  bee.  We  may  theie- 
fore  expect  to  find  tlie  economy  of  Trigona 
similar  in  that  resp<  ct;  such,  I  have  little  doubt, 
will  prove  to  be  the  case. 

On  examining  the  nest  from  Brisbane,  we  ob- 
serve another  particular  in  which  the  economy 
of  the  species  agrees  with  that  of  the  genus 
Bombus.  Numbers  of  semi-globular  recepfacles 
for  honey  are  found,  some  placed  side  by  side, 
others  over  each  other,  and  some  suspended  in 
the  ramifications  of  the  coral-like  shaped 
branchings  constructed  over  aud  above  the 
proper  nest,  that  which  contaius  the  combs  of 
the  hive.  These  receptacles  may  appropriately 
be  called  honey  pots,  and  serve,  I  have  little 
doubt,  to  contain  all  the  honey  collected  for  the 
requirements  of  the  hive;  no  honey,  so  far  as  I 
can  ascertain,  being  stored  in  the  ceils  of  the 
combs — these  being  apparently  appropriated 
solely  to  the  reaiing  of  brood. 

Ou  making  an  opening  at  the  back  of  the  box 
that  contained  the  nest,  and   against  which  it 


92 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


was  built,  a  sight  of  the  combs  was  obtained. 
They  proved  to  be  arranged  horizontally,  with 
the  mouth  of  tlie  cells  downwards,  as  in  the 
combs  of  wasps.  The  arrangement  of  the 
combs,  however,  cannot  l)e  compared,  in  regu- 
larity and  beauty,  with  that  of  the  wasp. 

No  sign  of  honey  in,  or  of  there  having  been 
any  in,  the  cells  could  be  traced.  All  appeared 
to  be  appropriated  to  the  rearing  of  brood. 
Such  I  also  found  to  be  the  case  in  a  large  mass 
of  comb  from  Panama. 

Much  still  remains  to  be  learned  respecting 
the  economy  of  these  bees.  The  nest  from 
Brisbane  has  thrown  much  additional  light 
upon  the  subject ;  and  will,  I  trust,  stimulate 
entomologists,  who  visit  countries  where  the 
genus  Trigona  is  found,  to  investigate  thorough- 
ly the  ecoLiomjr  of  these  bees.  AH  that  is  at 
present  known  amounts  to  little  that  is  satisfac- 
tory, being  principally  grounded  upon  conjec- 
ture. 

The  nest  of  the  Trigona  from  Brisbane  can- 
not be  looked  upon  as  a  perfect  example  of  the 
structure  usually  built  by  tliat  species.  It  was 
constructed  in  a  situation  forced  upon  the  bees  ; 
consequently  they  had  to  contend  with  the 
difficulties  of  the  situation. 

The  form  of  that  part  of  the  nest  which  con- 
tains the  combs,  is  that  of  half  a  fir-cone  ;  the 
flat  side  being  placed  against  the  back  of  the 
box.  The  external  surface  is  verj'  irregular, 
and  consists  of  a  multitude  of  flat  overlapping 
layers,  some  of  the  larger  ones  being  upheld  in 
their  position  by  upright  supports  or  columns. 
Branching  ofl'  in  various  directions  from  the 
external  plates  is  an  intricate  ramification, 
closely  resembling  the  roots  of  shrubs  or  plants; 
or  perhaps  most  like  the  beautilul  blanching  of 
corals.  As  the  nest  is  increased  in  bulk  in  tlie 
process  of  building,  the  flat  layers  described 
serve  as  tlie  foundation  whereupon  to  construct 
cells.  Some  of  the  hone}'  pots  previously  men- 
tioned are  suspended  on  the  branches  above  the 
nest;  but  the  majority  are  constructed  in  lieaps, 
frequenfly.over  each  other,  at  the  base  and  out- 
side of  the  proper  nest ;  others  in  niore  regular 
order,  side  by  side.  An  orifice  is  always  to  be 
found  on  one  side,  enabling  the  bees  to  obtain 
the  honey  stored  in  each.  The  general  color  of 
the  nest  is  a  reddish-brown.  A  portion  of  the 
old  nest,  taken  with  the  bees  and  placed  in  the 
box,  is  nearly  black. 

The  Trigona  carbonaria  is  a  small  bee, 
smaller  than  the  house-fly.  It  is  coal-black  and 
shining  ;  it  has  on  its  face,  on  the  thorax,  and 
beneath  and  on  its  sides,  a  covering  of  very 
short  down  or  pile.  The  tips  of  its  jaws  are 
obscurely  reddish,  tbe  wings  are  clear  and 
transparent,  and  the  abdomen  is  glossy  black. 
F.  Smith. 


In  arts  and  manufactures,  practice  almost  in- 
variably iirecedes  and  moves  in  advance  of 
theory.  The  latter  comes  limping  along  in  the 
rear,  scrutinizing  facts,  comparing  observations, 
elucidating  processes,  and  explaining  results,  in 
accordance  with  the  existing  state  of  science. — 
Dr.  Jahne. 


a^Those  of  our  readers  who  have  Inquired  about  the 
temper  of  the  East  Indian  hees—Apis dorsata^yrill  obtain 
the  desired  information  faom  the  subjoined  article. 

[From  the  London  Gardeners'  Chronicle.] 

Ferocity  of  East  Indian  Bees. 


Many  stories  have  already  been  related  by 
"  our  Journal,''''  illustrative  of  the  ferocity  of 
the  lart^e  Indian  honey  bee,  Apis  dorsata.  To 
these  I  now  add  the  following  : 

The  first  is  extracted  from  a  note  just  received 
from  an  Indian  officer,  at  present  residing  in 
my  neighborhood:  "In  my  last  letter  from 
India  I  hear  that  an  officer  of  my  regiment  has 
just  arrived  in  Cashmere,  after  a  fearful  march 
through  Cliumba,  Avhere  he  was  attacked  by  a 
swarm  of  bees.  He  took  off  his  coat,  and  tried 
to  defend  himself  with  it  as  long  as  he  could  ; 
but  the  venomous  brutes  got  around  him,  and 
he  had  to  execute  a  retrograde  stragetic  move- 
ment, followed  by  the  infuriated  insects  for  four 
miles  and  a  half,  when  his  powers  of  running 
drill  being  exhausted,  he  had  to  give  in  and  let 
them  have  their  wicked  will  of  him,  the  natural 
consequence  of  which  was  that  he  got  fever 
very  badly,  and  had  to  be  carried  into  Islama- 
bad in  a  jampan,  constructed  of  branches  of 
trees  and  grass  rope.  Not  a  bad  story  this  of 
the  gorgeous  Himalayas  !  Sweet  things,  our 
Indian  bees,  are  they  not  ?" 

Another  Indian  letter  says  : — "  The  wild  bees 
of  India  are  very  dangerous  customers,  as  they 
attack  any  animal  that  happens  to  disturb  them; 
and  it  is  even  said  elephants  have  died 
from  the  inflammation   caused  by  their   stings. 

Two  years  ago,  in  Agra,  the  R 's  lost  both 

their  carriage  horses  at  the  church  door  on 
Sunday  morning,  and  the  coachman  was  very 
nearly  killed  too.  Fortunately  the  other  people 
bad  all  left,  or  it  would  have  been  much  more 
serious.  Something  disturbed  one  of  the  nests 
in  the  church  steeple,  and  the  bees  all  settled 
on  horses  and  carriage." 

General  Sir  Andrew  6.  Waugh,  late  Surveyor 
General  of  India,  who  was  on  the  Committee 
of  the  Geographical  Section  of  the  British  Asso- 
ciation during  its  recent  visit  to  our  ancient  and 
loyal  city,  also  informed  me  that  these  bees 
were  the  great  enemies  of  tiger-shooters,  for  if 
by  any  chance,  during  their  progress  through 
the  forest,  the  elephant  happened  to  shake  a 
tree  in  which  was  one  of  their  nests,  down 
would  come  the  bees,  and  off  would  go  the  ele- 
phant crashing  through  the  jungle  in  uncon- 
trolable  terror,  whilst  the  overhanging  branches 
swept  everything  and  everybody  from  his  liack. 
On  mentioning  this  to  the  writer  of  the  note 
first  quoted,  he  fully  confirmed  it,  and  described 
how  on  one  occasion  a  gentleman,  weighing  at 
least  fourteen  stone,  and  therefore  as  remarkable 
for  his  bulk  as  his  bravery,  was  discovered  in  a 
most  unenviable  predicament,  clinging  for  dear 
life,  with  the  wind  knocked  out  of  him,  to  a 
branch  of  a  tree,  some  dozen  feet  from  the 
ground,  and  from  which  he  was  afraid  to  drop, 
as  much  out  of  regard  for  his  limbs  as  from 
dread  of  certain  imaginary  tigers,  which  he  fan- 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


93 


cied  were  prowling  around  him  in  all  directions 
After  assisting-  bira  to  deccnd  from  his  uncom- 
fortable perch,  it  w;is  found  that  he  had  heen 
incontinently  dei)()sited  thereon  in  the  course  of 
an  elephantine  stampede,  produced  by  bees. 

T.    W.    WoODBUliY, 

"A  Devonshire  Beekeeper." 
Mount  Radfokd,  Exeter,  England. 


Ohio  Bee-keepers'  Convention. 


Pursuant  to  arrangement,  the  bee-keepers  in 
attendance  at  the  State  Fair,  in  Toledo,  Ohio, 
met  on  the  evening  of  September  15,  1869,  and 
were  called  to  order  by  the  Vice  President,  Mr. 
J.  T.  Mcrriman.  The  Secretary  being  absent, 
Mr.  J.  T.  Martin  was  elected  Secretary  pro 
tern. 

The  first  question  proposed  for  discussion 
was — "The  practicability  of  artificial  swarm- 
ing." Mr.  Merriman  oi)ened  the  discussion  by 
explaining  his  method  of  propngiting  bees,  or 
the  advantages  of  artificial  swarming.  He  re- 
commendtd  but  one  division  of  each  colony  in 
a  season;  and  tliat  not  unless  they  are  in  a  good 
strong  condition. 

Mr  Martin  recommended  spring  feeding,  so 
as  to  stimulate  breeding,  and  by  this  means  to 
get  the  colonies  all  good  and  strong,  as  early  as 
possible  ;  and  by  the  time  the  raspberry  blos- 
soms open,  artifici>il  swarming  can  and  ought 
.to  be  resorted  to  by  all  bee-keepers  who  wish 
an  iccrtase  of  stocks.  If  cold  or  rainy  weather 
should  set  in,  the  young  colonies  must  be  fed. 

Colonel  Li^ffel  approved  of  artificial  swarming 
and  recommended  the  latter  part  of  May  or  first 
of  June,  according  to  the  season. 

Mr.  Wright  agreed  with  the  Secretary  in  his 
mode  of  treatment ;  urging  bee-keepers  to  in- 
vestigate the  subject,  and  with  little  trouble  they 
could  so  increase  their  st  )cks  as  to  make  bee- 
culture  remunerative. 

Mr  Benedict  gave  his  mode  of  spring  treat- 
ment, which  was  to  stimulate  breeding  by  cau- 
tious feeding  ;  and  so  soon  as  the  frames  are 
well  filled  with  brood,  then  is  the  time  to  divide, 
and  not  before. 

Dr.  Conklin  agreed  w'th  Mr.  Benedict,  in 
the  mode  of  treatment  ;  but  advised  putting  a 
division-board  in  tlie  centre  of  a  strong  colony. 
Tlie  queenless  half  will  then  rear  a  number  of 
young  queens,  which,  wlien  nearly  ready  to 
leave  their  cells,  can  be  taken  out  and  given  to 
colonies  that,  by  dividing,  are  left  queenless. 

Mr.  H.  M.  Thomas,^  of  Brooklio,  Ontario, 
would  not  think  of  keeping  bees  in  any  other 
■way.  Bee-keepe's,  to  be  successful,  must  learn 
the  process  of  artificial  colonizing.  It  is  the 
only  road  to  success. 

Mr.  Carpenter  never  made  artificial  swarms, 
and  could  not  speak  from  experience.  He  was 
there  to  learn. 

Mr.  Gray  believed  in  strong  stocks  ;  made 
strong  artificial  colonies  by  giving  all  the  bees 
to  the  young  stocka,  and  placing  the  old  hive, 
with  nothing  but  comb  and  brood,  in  the  place 
of  a  strong  colony  ;  or,  in  other  words,  making 
three   colonies  from  two.     Do  this  about   the 


time  nature  says  it  is  time  for  natutal  swarming. 
He  recommended  having  fertile  queens,  or 
royal  cells  capped  over,  to  introduce  to  young 
colonies. 

The  second  question  discussed  was— "The 
best  mode  of  introducing  Italian  queens." 

Mr.  .1.  H.  Tliomas,  of  Ontario,  Canada,  gave 
his  experience,  and  recommended  the  following 
plan  :  Fii-sf,  have  ready  a  shallow  dish  or  cup- 
plate,  with  a  wire  gauze  cover.  Second,  remove 
the  black  queen  from  the  hive,  and  then  empty 
two  drachms  of  chloroform  into  the  shallow 
dish.  Put  the  wire  gauze  over  it,  and  place  it 
immediately  under  the  bees  ;  leave  them  thus 
twenty  minutes,  when  the  Italian  c|ueen  can  be 
placed  either  at  the  top  or  bottom  among  the 
bees,  in  perfect  safety.  No  danger  of  injury  to 
the  colony  ;  if  the  bees  fall  they  will  recover. 

Mr.  H.  M.  Thomas  inquired  under  what  con- 
dition of  a  colony  it  was  most  difficult  to  intro- 
duce a  queen?  After  a  general  interchange  of 
views  between  Messrs.  Merriman,  Martin, 
Wright,  and  Gray,  Mr.  Thomas  gave  an  inter- 
esting account  of  the  difficulty  he  had  experi- 
enced in  introducing  a  queen  to  a  queenless 
colony  having  no  brood. 

He  was  of  the  opinion  that  the  greatest  diffi- 
culty would  be  found  in  colonies  having  fertile 
workers  ;  or  when  the  colony  is  queenless  and 
has  no  brood,  especially  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  season. 

Mr.  Wright  related  a  singular  sight  he  had 
witnessed  in  a  queenless  colony  of  his.  He  said 
he  found  as  high  as  fifceen  eggs  in  one  cell,  and 
believed  that  there  were  thousands  of  workers 
laying  eggs  in  the  colony.  On  one  frame  he 
discovered  dozens  of  workers  laying  while  he 
held  the  frame  out  of  the  hive. 

Mr.  Gi-ay  remarked  jocularly  that  the  Pro- 
fessor's/itjinig^reec  would  have  to  be  used  in  in- 
troducing a  queen  to  a  colony  in  that  condi- 
tion. 

Mr.  Benedict  would  like  to  hear  something 
about  ttie  honey-emptying  machine. 

None  present  had  used  it,  except  the  Messrs. 
Thomas,  and  they  recommended  its  use,  espe- 
cially when  honey  is  the  main  object  of  the  bee- 
keeper. The  newest  and  tenderest  combs  can 
be  emptied  without  injury,  and  returned  to  the 
hive  ;  thus  saving  the  necessity  of  building  new 
combs. 

Mr.  Thomas  remarked  that  the  standard  of 
bee-culture  was  higher  in  Canada  than  appear- 
ances indicated  in  Ohio  ;  and  extended  a  cor- 
dial invitation  to  all  present  to  attend  their 
Provincial  Fair,  to  be  held  in  London,  commen- 
cing September  25,  1869. 

Mr.  Gray  then  exhibited  specimens  of  bees 
from  Mount  Lebanon  and  the  Island  of  Ceylon; 
also  living  Egyptian  bees. 

A  vote  of  thanks  was  tendered  Mr.  J.  B. 
Hoag,  for  the  use  of  his  parlor  ;  whereupon  the 
Association  adjourned  to  meet  in  Cleveland,  at 
the  call  of  the  Secretary. 

J.  T.  Merriman,  President, 

J.  P.  Martin,  Secretary  pr(?  tern. 


It  would  be  interesting,  could  wc  learn  how 
bees  become  informed  of  the  loss  of  their  queen. 


94 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURANL. 


Michigan  Bee-keepnrs'  Conrention. 


The  MrcHiGAN  Bke-keefers'  AssocrAxioN 
met  Id  the  Boaid  of  Trade's  Rooms,  in  Jackson, 
Michigan,  on  Tuesday,  September  21,  1869, 
President  Rood  in  the  chair. 

On  motion,  Messrs.  Fhmders,  Baldridge,  and 
Moon  were  chosen  a  committee  to  report  topics 
fur  discussion. 

It  was  voted  that  a  committee  of  three  be  ap- 
pointed to  arrange  for  exhibition  of  honey  and 
to  judge  upon  the  merits  of  tlie  same.  Messrs. 
Cook,  Townley,  and  Beall  were  elected  as  such 
Committee. 

A.  F.  Moon  was  appointed  to  make  arrange- 
ments for  informing  people  of  our  mee'ings. 

Tlie  Committee  on  Topics  then  repo'ted  tlie 
following  question  for  discussion  :— "  How  can 
we  prepare  our  bees  for  wintering  the  most  suc- 
cessfully ?"  The  report  was  accepted  and  the 
question  discusssed. 

Mr.  Moon,  of  Paw  Paw,  preferred  out-door 
wintering;  would  place  his  hives  on  a  box- 
platform  and  fill  around  them  with  straw.  He 
would  shelter  his  bees  from  the  sun  ;  otherwise 
they  would  fly  when  the  weather  whs  too  cool 
for  a  return  to  the  hive.  Bees,  in  common  with 
all  animal  life,  require  plenty  of  pure  ;iir.  If 
well  ventilated  from  below,  he  considers  them 
safe.  Close  attention  should  be  given  to  the 
bees  in  the  fall,  and  the  honey  in  the  different 
hives  equalized,  the  bees  not  liaving  too  much 
or  too  little.  Twenty-five  pounds  is  enough  for 
a  good  colony;  and  no  attempt  should  be  made 
to  winter  any  other.  Some  empty  cells  are 
necessary  for  successful  wintering.  Honey  so 
thin  that  it  would  ooze  through  tiie  cap  was  to 
be  avoided.  He  thought  bees  never  froze  to 
death.  The  only  requisite  to  life  and  health 
was  plenty  of  food  and  air.  He  thought  hiving 
dangerous,  and  hence  looked  on  it  with  little 
favor. 

Messrs.  Marvin,  Rood,  and  Flanders  argued 
in  favor  of  depositories,  as  by  careful  housing 
much  honey  would  be  saved  ;  it  being  a  princi- 
ple in  the  economy  of  animal  life,  that  more 
food  is  required  to  keep  up  the  animal  heat  in  a 
low  temperature. 

Messrs.  Rood  and  Flanders  would  have  a 
double-walled  house;  the  walls  being  from  fif- 
teen to  twenty  inches  thick,  tilled  in  with  saw- 
dust. "Would  have  pipes  for  ventilating  above 
and  below,  arranged  witli'valves  so  as  to  con- 
tract or  expand  the  aperture,  and  so  made  as  to 
admit  no  light.  To  accomplish  this  the  upper 
pipes  were  long;  the  lower  in  the  saw-dust  fil- 
ling about  level  with  the  ground,  opening  to  the 
air  at  one  corner,  and  to  the  room  at  the  oppo- 
site corner  of  the  house.  By  having  the  hive 
open  above,  all  moisture  would  pass  off.  If 
thick  walls  would  not  keep  the  temperature  at 
about  35'^,  a  large  snow  bank  should  be  kept 
near  and  appropriated,  if  necessary  to  keep  the 
temperature  from  rising. 

Mr.  Marvin,  of  St.  Charles,  Illinois,  thought 
a  dry  sandy  cellar  was  good  for  wintering  bees; 
yet  he  preferred  to  house  as  described  above. 
With  the  emptying  machine  honey  could  be  ex- 


tracted if  the  combs  were  too  full;  and  if  the 
honey  was  ton  thick  or  too  thin,  it  could  be  ex- 
tracted, and  by  adding  water,  or  by  evaporation 
by  heat,  could  be  brought  to  the  proper  consis- 
tency. The  amount  of  honey  necessary  for 
wintering  depended  on  the  numlier  of  bee?,  age 
of  queen,  and  amount  of  young  bees— a  young 
queen  and  young  bees  requiring  more  honey. 
There  should  always  be  young  bees  present  for 
the  fall,  also  young  brood. 

Mr.  Campbell,  of  Rc.yal  0,ik,  believed  in 
housing.  Old  methods  would  not  avail.  To 
compete  with  progress  in  bee-keeping  we  must 
discard  old  ideas  and  be  up  vviih  the  times.  He 
thought  the  time  of  box  hives  and  out-door  win-  ■ 
tering  Avas  of  the  de  d  past. 

Voted  that  our  sessions  be  held  at  7^  o'clock, 
morning  aud  evening. 

September  22d  — Mokking  Session. 

Motion  prevailed  that  the  election  of  officers 
be  made  the  special  order  for  Thursday  eve- 
ning. 

Voted  that  members  only  be  allowed  to  com- 
pete for  premiums  on  honey. 

Resolution  pass?d  :  That  an  annual  fee  of 
fifty  cents  be  required  of  each  member  of  the 
association. 

The  ("'ecretary  related  a  case  of  transferring 
a  swarm  of  bees,  filling  all  the  frames,  except 
one  on  each  side,  with  combs  some  of  which 
contained  brood  ;  and  the  bees  all  leaving  the 
hive  and  going  away. 

Mr.  Baldridge  had  never  known  such  a  case. 
j  Proltai:>ly  the  bees  were  ready  to  swaim  and  did 
j  not  lose  the  impulse.  He  would  have  all  the 
I  empty  frames  on  one  side. 

I      Mr.  Marvin  thought  the  bees  had  become  too 
j  full  of  honey;  and  this,  with  the  heat,  caused 
them  to  leave. 

Mr.  Moon  had  knowm  one  or  two  similar  cases. 
He  thought  it  could  not  be  heat,  as  there  was 
abundant  empty  space  in  the  hive.  It  could 
not  be  swarming,  as  there  were  no  bees  left  iu 
the  hive.  He  thought  they  were  offended  at 
I  something,  and  would  nr)t  stay.  If  bees  were 
very  plenty  he  would  leave  space  in  the  middle 
of  the  hive. 

The  President  remarked  that  you  could  tell 
from  which  hive  a  swarm  issued,  as  there  would 
always  be  young  bees  laying  in  front  of  the 
hive. 

Evening  Session. 

The  Committee  on  Premiums  reported  in 
favor  of  two  premiums  of  $8.00  and  $2.00  on 
the  first  and  second  best  honey,  and  a  premium 
of  $2.03  for  the  best  hive  exhibiied  by  mem- 
bers. The  report  was  accepted,  and  the  recom- 
mendation adopted. 

Messrs.  Campbell,  McKee,  and  Wolcott  were 
appointed  judges  of  hives. 

The  Committee  on  Topics  then  reported  the 
following  questions  for  discussion  : 

1st.  What  is  the  best  location  for  an  apiary, 
and  how  should  the  hives  be  arranged  ? 

2d.  What  are  the  merits  of  Alsike  clover  as  a 
forage,  honey,  and  fertilizing  plant  ? 


THE  AMEEICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


95 


3d.  Is  the  houey-extracting  machine  a  suc- 
cess, and  will  it  extract  the  honey  and  not  injure 
the  brnod  ? 

4tli.  Is  the  American  Bee  Journal  worthy 
of  support  ? 

The  first  question  was  discussed  : 

Mr.  Baldridge  would  exercise  great  care  in 
the  selection  of  a  location  for  his  apiar}'. 
Would  wish  far  an  abundance  of  the  best  honey- 
producing  plants,  as  basswood,  willow,  white 
clover,  dandelion,  fruit  trees,  wild  plum  and 
thorn,  and  alsike  clover.  Would  have  his 
liives  front  southeast,  so  as  to  gain  the  earliest 
warmth  of  the  sun.  Would  have  the  board  on 
which  the  hive  set  not  more  than  four  inches 
from  the  ground,  resting  on  2  by  4  scantling. 
Would  have  his  hives  thus  low,  to  permit  easy 
insress,  and  to  avoid  heavy  winds.  He  thought 
hives  should  be  six  feet  apart,  and  the  stands 
.sliould  not'be  continuous,  as  the  handling  of 
one  hive  would  ihus  disturb  the  others.  A 
sheltering  grove,  to  protect  from  the  noou-day 
sun,  is  very  desirable. 

Mr.  Moon  would  have  his  apiary  surrounded 
by  good  pasture  lauds,  as  they  were  always 
near  to  flowers.  Would  have  his  stands  at 
least  a  foot  high,  to  protect  his  bees  from  toads, 
which  greatly  admired  bee-diet,  and  were  ever 
on  the  aiert  to  gratify  their  taste.  He  placed  his 
hives  on  a  stake.  Would  have  an  alighting- 
board  iu  front  of  his  hives,  always  keeping  the 
grass  closely  mown. 

Mr.  Peterman  would  keep  his  bees  low — had 
never  t^een  troubled  by  toads. 

The  President  kept  a  trough  with  water  near 
his  bees.  To  keep  the  bees  from  drowning,  he 
put  in  cobs  and  changed  them  often  enough  to 
keep  them  sw-eet.  He  thought  the  hives  should 
be  10  feet  apart  and  of  different  colors. 

Mr.  Marvin  thought  the  hives  should  be  a 
good  distance  apart.  He  would  save  bees  by 
keeping  his  hives  low.  We  could  cage  our 
toads. 

Mr.  Campbell  would  protect  his  bees  from 
west  winds ;  and  would  have  an  inclined 
alighting-board  reaching  from  the  stands  to  the 
ground. 

Mr.  Beall  would  have  his  hives  low,  as  he 
preferred  drones  to  the  king  bird,  whicli  he 
knew  to  be  a  voracious  feeder  on  both  vvorkers 
and  drones. 

Alsike  Clover. 

Mr.  Townley  had  had  one  j^ear's  experience. 
Had  a  field  of  H  acres,  which  commenced  to 
blossom  the  first  week  in  Jime,  aud  by  the  I5th 
it  was  iu  full  bloom.  It  was  still  in  flower  on 
the  22d  of  September.  He  cut  from  his  field  19 
loads  of  hay,  from  which  he  llireshed  IG  bushels 
of  seed.  His  cattle  would  not  feed  on  a  red 
clover  pasture,  if  they  could  get  alsike.  The 
hay,  unlike  red  clover,  is  good  after  the  seed  is 
threshed  from  it  ;  the  stalk  still  remaining 
green  after  the  seed  is  ripe.  It  could  be  thresh- 
ed in  a  common  clover  machine. 

Mr.  Baldri'.ige  said  it  would  live  for  days 
witli  the  ground  covered  with  water.  His  field 
was  iu  blossom  friim  the  1st  of  June  until  the 
1st  of  August,  and  covered  for  the  whole  time 


with  bees.  Bees  would  go  for  miles  to  obtain 
the  honey  from  alsike  clover.  He  thought  it  an 
admirable  thing  for  the  clover  that  the  bees 
worked  on  it,  as  it  was  thus  far  more  perfectly 
fertilized.  He  thought  the  clover  added  to  both 
pasture  and  hay,  as  it  imparted  flavor.  He  re- 
garded the  present  price  of  the  seed  as  not  ex- 
travagant, as  a  bushel  would  sow  three  times  as 
much  land  as  the  same  amount  of  red  clover 
seed. 

Dr.  Conklin  found  it  very  valuable  for  honey, 
and  said  it  must  also  rank  first  as  a  fertilizer. 

Mr.  Moon  not  only  got  a  better  growth  thau 
from  his  red  clover,  but  found  that  it  was  pre- 
ferred by  his  stock,  especially  his  sheep. 

Mr.  Marvin  said  four  pounds  was  quite 
enough  seed  to  the  acre.  DilTerence  in  soil 
produced  difi"ereuce  in  size,  and,  with  Mr.  Bald- 
ridge, thought  this  would  account  for  the  dif- 
ference of  varieties  as  grown  by  Mr.  Thomas. 
He  said  it  would  thrive  well  on  dry  clay  land, 
where  white  clover  would  do  nothing  at  all. 
He  tuouglit  it  better  to  harrow  iu  the  seed. 

Mr.  Wolcott  sowed  three  pounds  three  ounces 
of  seed  to  the  acre.  He  purchased  the  seed  from 
Mr.  Townley.  It  did  well,  blossoming  from 
the  loth  of  June  until  aoyv,  and  was  constantly 
covered  with  bees. 

Honey-Extractor. 

Mr.  Rood  had  tried  the  honey-extractor,  and 
believed  it  next  to  movable  frame  hives  as  an 
aid  in  bee-culture.  No  one  could  appreciate  its 
value  till  he  tries  it.  No  apiariau  could  afford 
to  do  without  it,  as  the  saving  from  the  rejDeated 
use  of  comb,  lor  storage,  "is  immense.  The 
quality  of  the  honey  is  much  better  thau  when 
obtained  by  straining. 

Mr.  Baldridge  said,  by  care  to  produce  a  slow 
uniform  motion,  the  larvas  could  all  be-  left  un- 
disturbed, and  the  honey  all  taken  clean  from 
the  comb.  He  could  remove  100  pounds  per 
hour.  He  had  taken  from  a  single  hive,  during 
the  present  season,  175  pounds  of  liquid  honey, 
and  forty  pounds  of  box  honey  ;  aud  could  have 
taken  still  more,  such  was  the  value  of  saving 
the  comb. 

Mr.  Marvin  said  this  machine  would  pay  for 
itself,  if  only  used  with  one  hive  for  a  single 
season.  The  honey  would  sell  rapidly,  as  soon 
as  known.  With  experience,  one  could  throw 
out  just  what  he  wished. 

September  23,  1869. 

Mr.  Beall  wished  that,  in  some  way,  we  might 
enligliteu  people  on  the  subject  of  beekeeping. 
He  believed  if  such  a  result  could  be  accom- 
plished, it  would  work  much  good,  not  only  to 
individuals  but  to  society. 

Mr.  Moon  said  all  should  send  names  of  per- 
sons who  would  be  interested  iu  the  subject  to 
the  Bee  Journal.  They  would  perhaps  sub- 
scribe. 

Dr.  Conklin  would  bring  a  li'tle  manual  of 
bee-keeping  before  the  pe  'ple.  givinar  a  succinct 
view  of  the  whole  matter,  and  written  in  a  siyle 
so  clear,  vigorous,  aud  sprightly  withal,  that  it 
would  gain  universal  attention. 


96 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


Mr.  Baldridge  thought  that,  by  skilful  man- 
agement, the  Association  might  be  able  to  dis- 
tribute such  a  work  at  a  very  cheap  rate,  if  not 
gratis. 

The  Secretary  thought  this  a  matter  of  great 
importance,  as  the  dissemination  of  truth  not 
only  aided  industry  and  increased  capital,  but 
also  led  to  higher  intellectual  attainments,  and 
■what  was  still  more  desirable,  raised  the  moral 
tone  of  the  people,  and  especially  was  this  true 
in  relation  to  truths  connected  with  natural 
history. 

Mr.  Marvin  said  our  Agricultural  College  was 
doing  efiicient  work  in  this  direction. 

Messrs.  Cook,  Baldridge  and  Townley  were 
chosen  a  Committee  to  give  the  subject  consi<l- 
eration,  and  to  confer  Avith  scientific  men,  and 
report  a  plan  of  procedure  at  next  meeting. 

The  Association  then  proceeded  to  discuss  the 
following  question  ;— Can  a  country  be  over- 
stocked witu  bees  ? 

Mr.  Baldridge  said  bees  at  St.  Charles,  Ills., 
work  for  five  miles  around  ;  flowers w^ere  plenty,  ) 
and  hundreds  of  colonies  might  be  kept., 

Mr.  Marvin  advised  killing  half  our  stock. 
We  could  care  for  the  remainder  enough  better. 
The  honey  and  comb  being  given  to  them  in 
spring,  would  stimulate  to  increased  labor  ;  and 
having  comb  already,  they  would  early  store  a 
great  quantity  of  surplus  honey  ;  and  they 
would  also  breed  faster.  He  would  only  kill 
if  stands  were  too  numerous  and  food  unob- 
tainable. 

Dr.  Conldin  inquired  why  destroy  the  bees? 
"We  have  plenty  of  food  for  all  ;  and  one  dollar 
will  furnish  a  hive  of  bees  with  all  the  food  that 
will  ever  be  needed  to  winter  Ihem. 

Evening  Session. 

The  Constitution  was  amended  so  as  to  make 
the  Executive  Board  consist  of  the  President, 
and  Vice  President  and  Secretary,  instead  of 
the  President,  the  Secretary,  and  an  Executive 
Committee  of  ten.  The  Associati(m  then  pro. 
ceeded  to  the  election  of  officers.  E.  Rood,  of 
Wayne,  wished  to  be  excused  from  longer  serv- 
ing as  President,  on  account  of  age  and  ill 
health.     The  election  resulted  as  follows  : 

President — A.  F.  Moon,  of  Paw  Paw,  Mich- 
igan. 

Vice  President— 'R.  Huff,  of  Jonesville,  Mich- 
igan. 

Secretary — A.  J.  Cook,  Agricultural  College, 
Lansing,  Michigan. 

Treasurer — R.  G.  McKee,  Laingsburg,  Mich- 
igan. 

The  Committee  appointed  to  judge  as  to  the 
merits  of  hives,  awarded  the  first  premium  to 
H.  Huff,  who  exhibited  the  Thomas  Hive.  This 
hive,  in  their  judgment,  being  the  most  simple, 
most  easily  constructed,  and  most  accessible  to 
the  apiarist,  possessing  also  the  merit  of  dura- 
bihty. 

The  judges  on  honev  awarded  the  first  prize 
to  E.  N.  Sheik,  of  Three  Oaks,  who  entered  a 
large  box  of  beautiful  basswood  honey  in  the 
comb.  The  second  prize  was  granted  to  M.  M. 
Baldridge,  who  exhibited  a  can  of  most  excel- 
lent honey  which  was  extracted  by  his  machine. 


Feeding  Bees. 

Mr.  Marvin  used  tight-bottomed  hives,  turn- 
ing the  honey  into  the  entrance. 

Mr.  Baldridge  preferred  upper  story  hives, 
and  would  feed  honey  in  frames  or  coml). 

Mr,  Moon  thought  it  often  paid  to  feed  sugar. 
He  dissolved  five  pounds  of  coflee  sugar  in  one 
quart  of  water.  Poor  sugar  should  never  be 
used  to  feed  bees. 

Mr.  Mason  thought  it  better  to  add  more 
water,  and  then  boil  down.  It  made  a  better 
syrup. 

The  Secretary  thought  the  best  way  was  to 
equalize  honey  by  changing  frames. 

The  President  and  others  thought  the  same, 
if  there  was  honey  enough  to  spare. 

President  Rood  wished  his  swarms  to  have 
twenty -five  pounds  of  honey,  each.  He  took 
fiames  of  honey  from  those  that  had -more  than 
this,  and  gave  to  them  that  had  less. 

Mr.  Bafdridge  said  he  would  only  feed  honey, 
and  if  there  was  none  to  spare,  he  would  de- 
stroy some  of  his  bees. 

Mr.  Moon  thought  it  far  more  profitable  to 
feed  sugar  and  save  all  the  bees. 

Amemcan  Bee  Journal. 

All  who  read  thip  Journal  spoke  in  the  high- 
est terms  of  its  excellence  ;  and  it  was  the 
unanimous  opinion  that  no  beekeeper  could 
afford  to  be  without  it.  Many  of  the  first  apia- 
rists present  coupled  this  with  "  Lnngstroth  on 
the  Honey  Bee,"  giving  to  both  the  highest 
meed  of  praise.  The  one  the  best  periodical,  the 
other  the  best  treatise  on  bee  culture,  in  the 
English  language. 

Upon  inquiry  it  w^as  found  that  more  than 
eleven  hundred  swarms  of  bees  were  owned  by 
members  of  this  Association. 

There  were  a  large  number  of  patent  hives  on 
exhibition. 

The  Secretary,  on  behalf  of  the  Society,  would 
thank  Messrs.  Rood  and  Baldridge  for  donating 
their  premiums  to  the  Association. 

A.  J.  Cook, 
Agricultural  Colltge, 

Lansing,  Mich. 


[For  the  Arncrican  Bee  Journal] 

Bees  and  Hives  at  the  New  York  State 
Pair. 


Mr.  Editor  : — While  being  at  the  State  Fair 
at  Elmira,  I  wished  to  learn  what  I  could  about 
bees  and  hives.  There  was  not  a  great  show  of 
either. 

Mr.  V.  Leonard,  of  Springfield,  Bradford 
couutji-.  Pa  ,  was  there  with  a  model  of  his  Na- 
tional Bee  Hive,  movable  comb,  or  non-mova- 
ble, swarming  or  non -swarming,  controlling 
worm-catching,  and  self-hiving  invention. 

Also,  J.  H.  Graves,  of  Rochester,  N.  Y.,  with 
the  Graves'  hive.  Of  him  I  tried  to  learn  some- 
thing about  the  management  of  bees,  and  of  the 
moth-miller.  He  said  that  "  by  breeding  the 
moth  under  the    hive,   it  cannot  get  into  the 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


97 


comb  ;  and  where  the   moth  gets  in  the  corah, 
the,  bees   cannot  get  them  out,    and   they  will 
cocoon  in  the  comb."     That    "the    miller  will 
hiy  and   hutch  a  thousand   eggs  in  the  cocoon, 
and  when  hatched  the  worm  destroys  Uic  bees." 
He  stated  also,  that  a  "  queen  Avill  not,  come  out 
to  pair  but  once,  and  if  she  does  not  meet   the 
7nale  bee^^  on    her  flight,  she  will  return  and  be-  | 
come  a  drone  laying  queen.''''     I  think  Ih  s  ques-  j 
tion  will  hear  invesLigation.     I  wished    him    to  [ 
tell    me   liow   the   miller   or  moth  paired.     He 
said,  ''■they  did  not  pair.''''     Is  ibis  according  to 
reiison  or  observation  ?    Is  there  not  male  and  j 
female  in  all  forms  of  creation  ?    And  is  it  not  j 
necessary  for  them  to  pair,    to   produce   living  ' 
beings  of  their  own  species  f     Can  a  queen  or  a  | 
moth  produce  life  or  living  beings  of  their  own 
kind,    unless   mated   with  the  male  ?     I  cannot 
make   the   contrary   of  this   comport   with  my 
reason  or  knowledge,    and   desire  a  more   satis- 
factory  explauaiiou.     Will  beekeepers  discuss 
the  question  ? 

The  season  here   has  been  very  unfavorable 
for  liees.  J.  H.  Hadsell. 

Breesport,  N.  Y. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Suggestions  and  Theories. 

KESERVE    QCKENS. 


Mr.  Editor: — In  another  article  I  promised 
to  give  you  an  original  plan  for  Iteeping  re- 
serve queens. 

I  need  not  dwell  on  the  many  advantages  to 
be  secured  by  Iteeping  on  hand  at  all  times  a 
good  supply  of  such  queens,  as  it  may  be  seen 
at  a  glance  Avliat  a  nice  thing  it  would  be,  in  all 
cases  of  artificial  swarming,  or  in  case  of  find- 
ing colonies  queenless. 

It  would  also  be  of  still  greater  use  to  those 
who  are  raising  queens  for  market.  But  the 
questions — "  Cun  it  be  done  ?"  and  "How?" 
are  what  we  want  to  consider  in  this  article. 

Before  giving  you  the  plan,  I  will  give  you 
an  idea  to  meditate  upon,  when  you  have  no- 
thing else  to  do.  I  originate  a  great  many 
plans  and  ideas  which  would  perhaps  lead  to 
great  discoveries  (?),  if  they  were  only  carried 
out — which  is  just  the  thing  that  I  never  get 
time  to  do  !  Therefore  I  propose  that  we  have 
some  responsible  and  capable  person  appointed 
or  elected  as  general  Bee-ologist  or  Apiologist, 
to  work  on  the  principle  of  the  numerous  State 
entomologists,  and  have  him  paid  (by  Uncle 
Sam,  or  some  State  Government,  I  suppose,  as 
I  don't  know  who  else  would  pay  him)  a  liberal 
salary  ;  and  then  just  let  him  experiment  upon 
and  carry  out  the  new  ideas  that  "we  bee- 
keepers" originate !  Why,  Mr.  Editor,  I  have 
dozens  of  them  already  waiting  for  a  trial  !  and 
I  presume  that  there  are  man}'  others  all  over 
the  United  States  in  exactly  the,  same  fix. 

Now  what  I  am  going  to  give  in  this  article 
is  nothing  more  than  ore  of  these  very  ideas. 
It  has  never  been  tried,  to  my  know^ledge,  and 
everybody  is  at  liberty  to  try  it  as  soon  as  he 
pleases  ! 

First,  then,  I  will  tell  you  how  the  idea  origi- 


nated. When  a  second  or  a  third  swarm  issues, 
it  is  of'en  HCCon>pnnied  by  at  least. two  or  liiree, 
and  sometimes  lialf  a  dozen  cr  moce,  young 
queens.  These  queens,  it  left  in  the  swarm, 
will  remain  there  until  killed  or  diiven  out  ly 
one  another.  The  worker  bees  will  not  kill 
them,  when  tliey  are  all  hatched  in  the  same 
hive. 

From  this  I  reasoned  that  if  each  queen,  m  ith 
a  few  workers,  were  put  into  a  sei)arate  cnge, 
and  these  cages  all  introduced  to  a  queenless 
colony,  they  would. ali  be  fed  or  cared  for. 
Thus  far  I  have  tried,  and  it  has  worked  well 
for  a  time.  But  these  workers  will  not  live 
forever  shut  in  those  cages.  So  to  remedy  this, 
I  devised  the  follinving  which  is  my  plan. 

Take,  for  instance,  a  Langstroth  frame,  say 
about  eighteen  inches  by  ten  ;  or,  rather,  take 
one  of  the  frames  that  you  are  using,  let  the 
shape  and  size  be  what  it  may — I  simply  give 
this  size  for  illustration.  Cut  a  piece  of  wire 
cloth— an  article  which  every  beekeeper  should 
possess — into  two  strips,  ench  eighteen  inches 
in  length  by  about  seven  in  width.  Tack  one 
of  these  pieces  on  the  middle  of  one  side  of  the 
frame — that  is,  letting  the  frame  extend  above 
and  below  the  wire  one  and  a  half  inches.  Now 
prepare  fifteen  slats  or  sticks,  ^  inch  by  |  (or 
the  width  of  the  end  pieces  of  the  frame);  lay 
these  slats  edgewise  upon  the  wire  cloth,  par- 
allel with  the  end  of  the  frame,  one  inch  apart. 
If  not  enough  divisions  are  thus  made,  each  one 
can  be  again  divided  crosswise  in  the  center, 
thereby  doubling  the  number.  Now  tack  your 
other  piece  of  wire  cloth  up<m  this  side  of  the 
frame,  and  you  will  have  a  frame  lull  of  queen 
cages.  Each  opening  is  to  have  a  separate 
stopper,  and  your  queen-keeper  is  ready  for  use. 

When  you  get  a  lot  of  surplus  queens  on 
hand,  put  one  queen  and  about  a  dozen  workers 
into  each  cage.  Now  divide  a  hive,  which  this 
frame  is  supposed  to  fit,  into  two  parts,  by  in- 
serting a  division  board  in  such  a  manner" that 
the  smaller  division  be  just  large  enough  to 
contain  three  similar  frames.  Two  of  these 
frames  are  to  contain  honey  and  sealed  brood, 
and  are  to  be  placed  one  on  each  side  of  your 
cage  frame,  and  a  goodly  number  of  bees  sup- 
plied. 

The  larger  division  of  this  hive  is  to  contain 
a  swarm  of  l)ees  wilh  a  fertile  queen.  Then  as 
often  as  the  combs  of  the  smaller  division  get 
empty,  they  should  be  exchanged  Avith  the 
larger  for  combs  containing  sealed  brood.  Or 
perhaps  after  these  queens  had  been  shut  in 
company  with  these  bees  for  a  week  or  so,  one 
of  them  might  be  liberated  to  supply  the  divi- 
sion with  eggs  Why  not  ?  What  are  they 
going  to  do  about  it?  The  bees  loose  in  tins 
liive  will  feed  the  bees  confined  in  the  cages, 
and  the}^  will  feed  their  respective  queens  !  Of 
course  the  bees  in  each  cage  should  be  changed 
occasionally,  as  they  might  die  !  Or,  what 
would  be  still  better,  make  an  opening  to  each 
of  these  cages  five  thirty  seconds  of  an  inch 
high,  as  spoken  of  by  Mr.  Lingstroth  and 
others,  to  prevent  swarming  ("  Hive  and  Honey 
Bee,"  page  174,  third  edition.)  This  will  allow 
the  workers  to  go  out  and  in  the  cages,  but  con- 
fine the  queens. 


98 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


I  will  again  repeat  that  this  is  all  theory^  I  not  } 
yet  having  had   a  chance   to  put  it  into  prac- 
tice.    I  W(mld  therefore  not  advise  any  one  to 
practice  it  on  a  large  scale  with  valuable  queens 
at  first. 

If,  after  trying  it,  it  does  not  work  satisfacto- 
rily, just  take  your  queens,  cut  off  their  siingn, 
put  them  all  together  in  a  queenless  colony,  and 
fit  on  your  queen  guage.  Then  if  thty  do  not 
want  to  dwell  together  in  sisterly  love,  lei  them 
do  the  other  thing  ! 

Factoryville,  Pa.,  Sept.  10,  1869. 

l!  F.   TiLLINGHAST. 

^W  This  matter  of  providing  and  preserving  j 
reserve  queens  has  engaged  the  earnest  atten- 
tion of  apiarians  ever  since  the  introduction  of 
movable  coml)  hives.  Dzierzon  early  perceived 
its  importance,  and  devised  various  modes  of 
elFecling  it ;  and  numerous  expedients  and  ex- 
periments have  been  sugt;ested  or  tried  by  others 
also.  But  nothing  altogether  satisfactory,  and 
embracing  the  wiiole  design,  has  yet  been  ac- 
ccmiplished  ;  and  the  proposition  of  our  corres- 
pondent, we  suspect,  will  be  found  to  go  no 
further  than  just  to  reach  the  real  difficulty. 

Queens,  in  any  number  may  be  readily  raised  ; 
but  it  is  not  quite  so  easy  to  have  them  ad- 
vnnced  to  a  serviceable  condition,  and  preserve 
them  thencetbrwavd  so  as  to  be  at  any  time 
available.  Bees  have  comparatively  little  re- 
gard for,  and  not  much  attachment  to,  virgin  or 
unfertilized  queens  ;  and  if  such  are  caged  and 
confined  amougihem,  even  in  a  populous  colony 
from  which  its  queen  has  been  removed,  tiiey 
will  in  most  cases  be  gradually  neglected  and 
soon  die  of  starviition — though  possibly  one 
among  them  nniy  find  favor  and  be  nursed  as 
the  pet  of  the  community.  We  have  quite  re- 
ceuil}^  known  repeated  instances  wliere  such 
queens  were  allowed  to  perish,  though  the 
work'  rs  to  whose  nursing  they  were  consigned 
had  plentiful  stores  in  comfortable  quarters. 
Hence  we  judge  that  the  proposed  queen-frnme 
will  prove  to  be  of  small  service,  if  it  be  in- 
teuded  that  yoting  queens,  still  unfertilized, 
shall  be  kept  therein  even  temporarily.  Again, 
if  the  purpose  be  toconfineand  preserve  queens 
already  fertilized,  other  and  m(jre  convenient 
modes  of  accomplisliing  that  may  be  and  are 
now  employed  ;  and  we  have  ourselves  been 
using  a  block  cage  somewhat  similar.  Such 
queens,  individually  caged  and  placed  among 
the  bees  in  a  queenlcss  colony,  will  always  be 
fed  and  well  guarded  by  the  workers — each 
speedily  attracting  her  own  special  corps  of  ad- 
herents. Nor  need  the  bees  have  access  to  the 
queens  within  their  cages :  intercommunion 
with  their  anenna;  and  probosces  being  a!]  suf- 
ficient. We  have  kept  ihem  thus  for  months, 
five  or  six  in  one  colony,  suspended  in  their 
cages,  in  a  row,  between  two  frames  — taking 
care  the  while  to  keep  tlie  colony  well  supplied 
with  honey  and  maturing  brood.  But  if  one 
queen  is  left  at  large  in  such  a  hive  or  nucleus, 
or  is  subsequently  released,  those  in  cages  will 
sooner  or  later  be  neglected  and  finally  aban- 
doned, or  the  bees  and  free  queen  swarm  out. 

Theie  is  then  no  difficulty,  more  than  ordi- 
nary, in  raising  queens,  having  them  fertilized, 


and  preserving  them  during  the  summer,  so  as 
to  be  always  at  command  when  required  for 
supplying  artificial  swarms  or  queenless  colo- 
nies. What  is  needed  is  some  convenient  and 
safe  mode  of  wintering  such  reserve  queens,  in 
numbers,  each  caged  separately,  and  the  wbole 
placed  in  one  hive,  so  as  to  have  them  in  readi- 
ness in  the  ensuing  spring  for  the  exigencies  of 
the  season.  Witli  ex^ra  caie  and  trouble  single 
queens  have  been  and  are  wutered  in  small 
nucleus  boxes.  But  that  is  too  slow  a  process 
for  these  days  of  railroad  rapidity  and  tele- 
graphic speed.  What  is  needed  is  some  simple 
and  efficient  mode  of  doing  it  with  a  dozen  or 
more,  ''at  one  operation."  and  with  no  greater 
trouble  than  is  now  incui-red  with  one. — Ed. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Jouraal.] 

Notes  from  Central  New  York. 


The  honey  harvest  for  1869  has  been,  in  this 
vicinity,  a  complete  failure,  owing  to  the  cold 
and  wet  weather  of  the  whole  honey  season 
from  April  to  August.  Nineteen  colonies  have 
given  me  only  three  swarms  and  less  than  thirty 
pounds  of  surplus  hone3^ 

Italian  colonies  have  shown  a  verj'-  decided 
superiority  over  the  black  bees,  during  this  poor 
season.  They  alone  made  any  surplus  honey, 
while  the  black  colonies  had,  up  to  September 
1st,  but  little  more  than  enough  to  support  the 
brood  from  day  to  day — some  of  them  sliowing 
not  three  pounds  of  honey  in  the  whole  hive. 

Brood  has  been  abundant  in  all  my  hives, 
throughout  the  season  ;  slill  the  colonies  have 
not  seemed  to  increase  in  numbers,  as  they 
usually  do  in  gool  seasons.  More  dead  bees 
have  been  seen  lying  around  on  the  ground  near 
the  hives  and  on  the  ncghboring  walks,  than 
are  usually  noticed — not  dead  from  disease,  but 
apparently  worn  out  with  unavailing  labor.  I 
must  confess  to  great  dif^appointment,  as  I  had 
confidently  expected,  judging  from  past  experi- 
ence, to  take  ofi'  from  these  nineteen  stands,  at 
least  twelve  hundred  pounds  of  box  honey. 
However,  I  hope  for  belter  success  next  year. 

September  18,  I  had  the  pleasiue  of  visiting 
the  apiary  of  Mr.  Langstroth,  at  Oxford,  Ohio, 
where  I  saw  quite  a  number  of  his  splendid 
Italian  queens— three  of  which  I  brought  away 
and  have  successfully  iutroiuced  iuto  my  own 
apiary.  Mr.  L.  also  opened  one  stock  of  Egyp- 
tian bees,  without  smoke  or  gloves,  in  my  pres- 
ence ;  and  I  must  say  that  the  little  beauties 
behaved  remarkably  well,  notwitlistanding  the 
bad  reputation  they  have  gained  in  Europe.  To 
be  sure  they  seemed  to  stand  on  tiptoe  a  little, 
with  wings  slightly  expanded,  ready  to  resent 
any  insult,  but  not  one  offi-rod  to  sting.  The 
workers  and  queens  are  handsomer  than  the 
finest  Italians  I  ever  s-avv.  I  took  home  one 
E.4yi)tian  queen,  just  to  try  her. 

While  examining  stocks  that  day,  we  found 
two  insstanccs  of  two  queens  in  one  liive.  In 
the  first  case  we  found  the  old  queen  with 
clipped  wing,  apparently  in  perfect  order,  with 
eggs  lu  the  comb   she  was  upon  ;  and  on  the 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


99 


next  comb  a  yonng  queen,  certainly  fertile  and 
apparen'ly  laying.  In  tiie  serond  case,  we 
found  two  young  queens,  both  fertile,  not  yet 
laying,  liut  apparently  on  ihe  point  of  begin- 
ning to  lay.  These  were  iu  a  hive  that  liad 
been  used  for  raisins  queen  cells,  and  from 
which  it  was  supposed  all  but  one  had  been  re- 
moved. 

1  iiave  just  received  from  the  bookbinder  the 
first  four  volumes  of  the  American  Bee  Jour- 
nal, bound  in  two  nice  volumes.  I  value  them 
ver}'  highly,  and  would  not  part  with  them  for 
several  limes  their  cost.  Can  you,  Mr.  Editor, 
furnish  nnother  full  set  of  the  back  numbers  for 
a  friend  of  mine,  who  has  been  a  subscriber  for 
a  few  months  only  ? 

Please  accept  the  enclosed  photograph  of  the 
subscriber,  and  the  stereoscope  view  of  his  little 
apiary  in  which  lie  finds  so  much  pleasure. 
Yours  truly, 

R.  BiCKFORD. 

Seneca  Falls,  N.  Y.,  Sept.  21,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

The  Rectangular  Movable  Frame  hung 
anglicg. 


Mr.  Editor:— I  invented  and  made  hives, 
nine  j^ears  ago,  similar  to  Mr.  J.  M.  Price's 
hive,  as  desciibed  iu  the  Bee  Journal,  vol.  4, 
page  87.  I  made  the  rectangular  frames,  and 
hung  them  iu  the  hives,  precisely  as  Mr.  A.  V. 
ConUlin  describes  the  making  and  hanging  the 
Diamr)nd  Movalde  Frame,  in  his  patented  hive, 
as  slated  in  the  Bee  Journal,  vol.  4,  page  186 
I  made  tbcshive  and  frames,  and  hung  the 
frames  as  he  describes,  with  the  intention  of 
getting  it  patented.  After  u^ing  them  five 
years,  tinkering  and  altering  the  frames  iu  vari- 
ous ways,  to  force  or  induce  the  bees  to  make 
their  combs  straight  in  them,  I  abandoned  the 
use  of  them,  and  the  idea  of  getting  the  hive 
and  frames  or  the  mode  of  hanging  patented  ; 
for  the  reason  that  that  mode  of  hanging  the 
frames  is  tlie  best  to  get  crooked  combs  of  any 
that  I  ever  tried  or  ever  saw  tried.  I  s^Id  out 
the  hives  and  bees  to  beekeepers  of  the  old 
school,  in  the  township  of  Hudson,  Summit 
county,  Ohio,  where  they  can  be  seen  by  any 
cue  who  chooses,  with  ihe  combs  m;tde  in  the 
frames  so  crooked  that  it  is  impossible  to  remove 
them,  without  cutting  them  literally  to  pieces. 

Now,  Mr.  Editor,  I  will  try  to  explain  to  you 
and  the  readers  of  the  Journal,  the  rule  that 
my  bees  followed  in  making  combs  iu  rectan- 
gular frames  hung  angling  to  the  plane  of  the 
horizon.  My  frames  were  made  of  triangular 
bars,  as  represented  by  Mr.  Conklin.  The  bees 
would,  as  a  rule,  start  two  combs  in  each  frame; 
one  on  the  sharp  under  angle  of  each  of  the 
two  upper  inclined  top  bars  of  the  same  frame. 
These  combs  would  be  made  by  two  sets  of 
workers,  and  when  worked  near  to  each  other 
one  set  would  be  curved  to  the  right  and  the 
other  to  the  left,  and  be  fastened  to  the  next 
frame  adjoining.  If  perchance  they  started  the 
comb  on  only  one  upper  bar  of  the  same  frame, 


they  would  as  often  curve  the  comb  and  fasten 
it  to  the  opposite  upper  bar  of  the  adjoining 
frame,  as  to  the  opposiie  upper  bar  of  the  same 
frame. 

After  learning  tliis  to  be  their  rule  for  making 
combs  in  these  frames,  I  tried  to  stop  it  by 
making  a  saw-cut  down  into  the  apex  angle  of 
the  frame,  and  slip  a  piece  of  veneering  into 
the  cut,  so  as  to  have  the  lower  edge  of  the 
veneer  straight  for  two  or  three  inches  long  and 
parallel  to  the  plane  of  the  liorizon.  I  thought 
that  by  this  device  I. could  induce  them  to  com- 
mence only  one  comb  in  each  frame,  and  that 
one  on  the  ^-Wfr  edge  of  (he  veneer  ;  and  frc  m 
thence  to  follow  down  the  two  inclined  upper 
bars  of  the  sime  frame.  Occasionally  they 
would  do  so  ;  but  it  was  the  exception,  and  not 
the  rule. 

Mr.  Conklin  says,  on  the  same  page  of  the 
Journal,  that  the  bees,  in  building  comb,  will 
follow  down  the  angle  of  the  frames,  commenc- 
ing at  the  upper  part  or  angle,  and  the  combs 
will  be  built  straight  in  the  frames  every  time  : 
no  exceptions.  I  say  to  Mr.  Conklin  (not 
doubting  your  statement)  that  if  you  have  bees 
that  know  their  duty  to  their  owner  and  will  do 
it  so  well,  or  if  it  is  by  some  peculiar  training 
of  yours,  that  you  are  enabled  to  get  such 
straight  combs  built  in  the  frame  every  time,  I 
would  like  to  purchase  some  of  your  kind  of 
bees,  or  yet  the  secret  of  training  them,  so  as  to 
obtain  the  same  results.  I  would  pay  bounti- 
lully  for  it,  but  nothing  for  your  patent ;  for  I 
claim  that  I  invented,  made,  and  uned  movable 
frames  hung  as  you  described  yours,  long  before 
the  date  of  your  patent.  M.  Miller. 

Peninsula,  Ohio. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Five  Questions. 


Mr.  Editor  : — Will  some  one  please  answer 
the  following  questions  through  the  Bee  Jour- 
nal ? 

In  counting  the  "three  yellow  bands"  on  the 
full-blooded  Italian  bees,  is  the  narrow  strip 
next  to  the  thorax  included,  or  should  they 
have  three  besides  that  ? 

What  should  be  done  with  a  good  colony  con- 
taining fertile  workers  ?  Could  an  unimpreg- 
nated  queen,  or  a  fertilized  one,  be  introduced 
successfully  ? 

Will  bees  with  fertile  workers  build  drone  or 
worker  comb  ? 

What  is  the  greatest  age  at  which  a  queen 
can  be  or  is  likely  to  be  fertilized  ? 

Aud  what  is  the  average  number  of  times  a 
good  bee-keeper  will  "go  into"  (open  the  hives 
and  examine)  his  bees,  in  the  course  of  the  sea- 
s  u? 

J.  W.  G. 

Chillicothe,  Mo.,  July  25,  1869, 


Careful  experiments  have  shown  that  pure 
air  is  necessary  not  only  for  the  respiration  of 
mature  l)ees,  but  for  hatching  the  eggs,  and  de- 
veloping the  lar.vse. 


100 


THE    AMEKICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

To  Novice,  on  Wintering  Bees. 

Novice,  in  the  October  number  of  the  Bee 
Journal,,  expresses  a  vehement  desire  to  get 
his  bees  tlirough  the  coming  winter.  I  have  no 
experience  in  his  Ifititude,  aod  but  little  in  tliis — 
and  that  only  witlibeea  on 'tlieir  summer  stands. 
But  th.it  little  has  been  completely  successful 
the  last  few  winters,  or  ever  since  I  tried  my 
plan.  The  very  fact  of  my  bees  all  getting 
safely  through  the  last  winter,  with  a  few  others 
belonging  to  my  neighbors,  that  w^re  i)ut  up 
on  my  ))lan,  while  a'mo-st  all  others  left  to  them- 
selves died,  speaks  in  the  highest  terms  of  the 
efficiency  of  the  method  adopted  by  me. 

I  do  not  like  the  plan  Novice  contemplates,  of 
putting  up  forty  stands  in  two  rows  four  feet 
wide  and  tive  high,  as  too  many  bees  will  get 
lost,  in  mild  days,  by  missing  their  hive.  I  re- 
quest him  to  try  at  least  ten  or  twelve  stands  as 
1  Avill  suggest.  If  he  fails,  then  condemn  my 
plan;  but  if  successful,  then  adopt  it  hereafter. 

Move  gradually  the  twelve  stands  until  they 
are  in  a  straight  row,  one  foot  apart,  fronting 
south — others  say  north,  but  I  prefer  south. 
Then  drive  down  stakes  and  board  up  planks  as 
high  as  the  top  of  the  hives,  at  the  ends  and 
back  of  the  hives.  Take  off  the  caps  and  honey- 
boards.  Spread  one  or  two  folds  of  any  sort  of 
dry  and  clean  woolen  cloth  directly  over  the 
frames;  or  any  old  woolen  ratrs  will  answer,  if 
clean.  Tlieu  stuff  the  caps  witii  hay,  straw,  or 
wood  shavings,  and  put  them  on,  leaving  off 
the  honey-boards.  Next  stuff  clean,  dry  sfraw 
between  each  hive,  at  the  ends  and  rear,  about 
as  high  as  the  hives,  only  leaving  the  fronts 
open.  The  straw  between  the  hives  should  pro- 
ject out  about  six  inches  in  front,  so  as  to  break 
the  force  of  the  wind.  Also,  at  the  west  end 
there  should  be  plank  set  up  four  or  five  feet 
high  and  loug,  as  a  protecton  against  tierce 
winds.  Cover  the  whole  witli  boards,  so  as  to 
exclude  dampness.  In  cold  spells  contract  the 
entrance  to  half  an  inch.  Be  careful,  also,  to 
fix  the  front  entrance  so  that  snow  cannot  block 
it  up.  All  this  should  be  done  against  Novepi- 
ber  15.     I  do  mine  sooner. 

Though  my  hives  generalljr  set  in  rows,  from 
three  to  four  feet  apart,  I  have  but-little  trouble 
in  m.tving  them  together,  and  back  again  in  the 
spring.  I  have  already  commenced  moving 
mine  together  ;  and  on  examining  them  to-day, 
October  6,  I  fina  them  all  in  trim  for  winter, 
except  one  stand,  a  late  thin  swarm  in  a  box 
hive,  which  will  require  a  little  feeding. 

We  had  a  very  dry  spell  of  six  or  seven 
weeks  continuance,  iu  the  latter  part  of  July 
and  in  August,  which  destroyed  all  bloom  and 
burnt  up  the  grass,  but  seasonable  rains  in  the 
last  of  August  and  first  of  September,  brought 
on  a  fresh  supply  of  bloom  on  the  smartweed 
and  several  others ;  for  it  is  a  fact  that  the  bees 
were  hard  at  work  two  weeks  in  September,  and 
filled  their  hives  with  brood,  but  gave  us  no 
swarms,  nor  any  surplus  box  honey.  During 
this  time  1  raisetl  some  very  beautiful  Itnliun 
queens,  from  one  which  I  had  just  received 
from  Aaron  Benedict,  but  which  I  was  unfortu- 


nate enough  to  lose  by  a  careless  accident.  The 
nu.'leus  I  had  put  her  in,  sat  on  top  of  another 
hive,  and  while  removing  a  small  frame  with 
eggs  and  brood  to  rear  queens,  I  dropped  the 
frame,  spilling  all  the  be(?s  in  front  of  the  hive 
below.  I  looked  to  see  whether  the  queen  was 
among  them,  in  order  to  put  her  back,  but  not 
finding  her,  concluded  she  was  not  on  that 
frame.  But,  to  my  great  regret,  the  next  time 
I  opened  the  nucleus  the  queen  was  evidently 
gone,  as  there  were  five  or  six  queen  cella 
started.  From  these  I  raised  five  fine  queens, 
and  have  already  introduced  them  safely. 
Lowell,  Ky.  R.  M.  Argo. 


[For  tte  American  Bee  Journal.] 

On  Last  Season,  and  Wintering. 


Mr.  Editoh  : — I  reside  twelve  miles  east  of 
Novice.  He,  in  company  with  another  bee- 
keeping friend,  vi^iied  me  last  week.  His  bees 
have  done  exceedingly  well  during  the  season 
just  past  (producing  forty-eight  from  eleven 
stocks  and  ten  queens,  as  I  think  he  told  me, 
and  heavy  at  that),  comparing  his  Italian  bees 
with  the  black  bees  in  this  or  his  own  vicinity. 

I  have  tried  this  summer  to  build  up  artificial 
swarms,  giving  them  four  sheets  of  full  combs  of 
honey,  young  bees,  and  eggs,  from  other  hives, 
removing  a  strong  stock,  and  setting  the  new 
one  in  its  i^lace.  With  all  that  advantage  they 
came  very  near  being  a  failure.  The  Italians 
must  be  a  superior  bee,  or  they  must  have  had 
great  advantage  in  location. 

About  three  hundred  stocks  are  kept  in  our 
township,  which  is  five  milt-s  square.  Box 
honey,  by  wholesale,  sells  at  thir.tj-four  cents 
per  pound  in  our  market.  A  few  boxes  are 
filled,  others  are  half  lull,  but  the  majority  have 
nothing  in  them.  We  had  whi'e  clover  in  atiun- 
dance,  but  the  bees  have  not  gathered  much 
from  it ;  they  gathered  more  Irom  red  clover. 
We  had  no  liasswood  honey  this  year,  and  there 
was  very  little  buckwheat  sown.  Natural 
swarming,  with  only  few  exceptions,  and  only 
about  one  half  of  the  old  stocks  swarmed.  The 
old  stocks  are  in  fair  condition,  while  the  young 
iu  general  are  poor  for  wintering.  The  fore 
part  of  the  season  was  cold  and  wet,  with  mea- 
gre secretions  of  honey  ;  the  latter  ]iart  rather 
better.  The  bee  moths  worked  like  Wall  street 
bulls.  The  bees  were  slow  in  killing  off  their 
drones.  My  bees  were  in  prime  condition  last 
spring,  but  did  not  realize  half  as  much  cap 
honey  as  last  year.  I  have  used  and  seen  used 
a  great  many  different  kinds  of  hives.  The 
Laugstroth  ten  inch  deep  hive  I  prefer  to  all 
others,  when  you  wintei  in  a  rejjository  rightly 
constructed  ;  but  for  out-door  wintering  from 
ten  to  fiiteen  inches  deep  is  better. 

During  the  last  ten  winters  I  have  kept  the 
principal  part  of  my  bees  in  a  house,  with  the 
best  results.  House  eleven  by  twelve  feet,  and 
six  feet  six  inches  between  floors.  Walls  tea 
inches,  tilled  in  with  sawdust,  and  clapboards 
outside  and  sealed  inside.  Double  door  in  one 
end  ;  window  in  the  other ;  shutter  inside,  and 
in  winter  the  space  between  window  and  shutter 


THE    AMERICAN   BEE  JOUENAL. 


101 


filled  with  Lay  or  straw.  Upper  floor  and  lower; 
ill  winter  covered  with  sawdust.  Ventilator  in 
lower  floor,  with  a  six  inch  stove  pipe  through 
middle  of  upper  floor,  extending  up  near  the 
roof,  with  elbow  on  top  to  keep  out  light — mak- 
ing considerable  draft;  and  when  door  and 
window  are  closed,  the  repository  is  as  dark  as 
a  dungeon.  If  colonies  are  strong  with  bees 
and  honey,  or  only  moderately  so  with  a  fertile 
queen,  and  well  ventilated,  I  would  not  be 
afraid  to  warrant  them  to  come  out  all  strong 
in  the  spring,  having  no  disease  whatever.  I 
often  throw  open  the  door  at  evening,  closing 
it  in  the  morning.  Keep  bees  in  a  dry,  even 
temperature,  say  from  35^  to  42^,  and  you  will 
not  have  a  sutfocated,  smeared,  stinking  mass 
of  dead  in  the  spring.  Bees,  like  man,  want 
God's  pure  fresh  air.  We  must  remember  that 
tlie  larger  the  number,  the  greater  the  heat. 
Build  large,  ventilate.  Read  Gallup  on  winter- 
ing. He  is  very  near  right  on  that,  according 
to  my  experience.  I  have  had  two  stocks,  one 
twenty-two  and  the  other  twenty-three  j'cars 
old,  in  well  made  and  painted  hives.  They 
always  had  plenty  of  ventilation  :  stood  at  the 
west  end  of  a  house,  without  protection,  ex- 
cept loose  boards  laid  on  top.  They  always  did 
well,  till  one  of  them  died,  and  the  other  was 
transferred.  Cold  does  not  kill  old  strong 
stocks  of  bees  in  cur  climate,  if  they  have 
plenty  of  honey  over  them.  Best  wishes  for 
the  American  Bee  Jouknal  and  its  readers. 
Thomas  Piekson. 
Ghent,  Ohio,  October  2,  2869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Loss  in  ■Wintering,  and  the  Bee  Cholera. 


I  propose  to  speak  in  general  of  the  reasons 
for  the  loss  of  almost  every  stock  of  bees  that 
dies  in  winter  ;  and  in  so  doing  I  think  I  can 
unearth  an  idea  or  two,  that  have  never  been  in 
print  before — at  least  I  have  never  seen  them  so 
myself. 

On  page  149  and  150  of  the  Bee  Journal, 
vol.  4,  Mr.  Truesdell,  of  Warwick,  Canada, 
says— "  On  looking  for  the  cause,  I  found  this 
hive,  which  was  a  well  made  one,  closely  sealed 
above,  and  the  melted  frost  had  run  down  and 
frozen  over  the  front  entrance  until  it  was  en- 
tirely closed.  So,  evidently  in  a  changing  tem- 
perature, their  own  breath  had  been  the  means 
of  scaling  them  up  to  destruction.  My,  bees 
need  ventilation." 

He  should  have  said — "  My  bees,  in  winter, 
need  npward  ventilation." 

The  custom  of  many  beekeepers  is  to  stop  up, 
with  mud  or  some  other  material,  every  crevice 
about  the  top  of  a  hive  (1  speak  of  common 
gum  and  box  hives),  at  the  approach  of  cold 
weather,  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  bees 
against  intense  cold.  This  is  a  sad  mistake  in 
practical  beekeeping.  Better  tar  be  opening  up 
small  crevices  abottt  the  upper  part  of  the  hive, 
for  the  escape  of  dampness  caused  by  the  breath 
of  the  bees  in  winter  ;  and  as  soon  as  the  bees 
begin  to  fly  in  the  fepring,  stop  up  every  crevice 


or  space,  however  small,  through  which  heat 
could  make  its  escape  from  the  hive,  in  its  nat- 
ural upward  tendency.  The  first  thought  of 
the  inexperienced  is  directly  the  reverse  of  this; 
and  really,  without  experience,  it  does  seem 
that,  in  order  to  keep  bees  warm  in  winter,  the 
hive  should  be  perfectly  air-tight  at  top  ;  and  to 
give  them  ventilation  in  warm  weather,  it 
should  have  open  spaces  about  the  top,  to  per- 
mit the  air  to  pass  through  the  hive.  But  the 
ditiereuce  is  in  this,  that  the  bees  will  them- 
selves, in  warm  weather,  ventilate  the  hive  be- 
low, at  the  place  of  ingress  and  egress  ;  which 
they  are  unable  to  do  in  cold  weather.  Except 
in  comparatively  only  a  small  number  of  cases, 
where  the  colonies  are  strong  and  vigorous,  the 
trouble  is  not  in  the  temperature  of  the  interior 
of  the  hive,  in  cold  weather,  unless  perhaps  it 
now  and  then  thaws  and  the  water  drops  down 
among  the  bees  and  makes  them  damp.  In 
such  case,  if  there  is  a  sudden  change  again  to 
I  intense  cold,  they  sometimes  freeze  in  conse- 
quence of  the  dampness.  Sometimes  too  it 
occurs  that  the  entrance  is  closed  by  ice  formed 
from  condensed  vapor  running  down,  freezing 
there,  closing  the  entrance,  and  causing  the 
death  of  the  bees  by  suffocation.  But  in  my 
experience  I  have  lost  more  bees  from  the  two 
other  causes,  than  from  all  the  rest  combined. 

There  is  a  principle  in  nature,  in  regard  to 
the  breathing  of  a^ir,  that  when  we  have  breathed 
all  the  air  in  a  given  space  (for  instance  an  air- 
tight room)  its  life-sustaiuing  power,  which  we 
understand  is  the  "oxygen"  is  consumed. 
Then  nothing  that  breathes  can  live  inside  of 
this  space.  It  is  somewhat  on  the  principle  of 
a  man  going  into  a  well,  where  what  is  called 
choke-damp  exists.  Men  who  have  been  in 
such  places  and  escaped  with  life,  invariably 
testify  that  there  is  not  the  slightest  pain  felt, 
but  a  sensation  of  pleasant  weakness  and  a  dis- 
position to  fall  asleep.  The  writer  once  knew 
three  young  ladies  to  place  some  live  coals  in  a 
sugar  kettle  and  carry  it  to  their  bed-room 
(from  want  of  a  stove)  for  the  purpose  of  warm- 
ing their  room,  which  was  not  ventilated.  They 
went  to  bed,  leaving  the  live  coals  smoldering 
in  the  kettle.  Some  time  in  the  night  they  all 
died,  without  even  the  appearance  of  a  struggle. 
This  same  separation  of  the  life-sustaining  part 
of  the  air — the  oxygen — by  the  use  of  burning 
charcoal  in  a  room  without  ventilation,  had 
taken  place  ;  or  if  the  room  had  been  very  small 
and  air-tight,  they  would  have  died  in  the  same 
manner,  when  they  had  breathed  out  all  the 
oxygen. 

Before  we  define  our  position  thoioughly,  we 
will  admit  that  there  is  a  tendency  in  the  law  of 
nature  to  an  equalization  ot  temperature,  and 
to  purify  the  air  by  its  own  effort  to  produce 
commotion.  But  there  seems  to  be  in  some 
cases,  perhaps  only  apparently,  an  inability  to 
perform  this  function,  resulting  in  inaction  or 
stagnation.  A  failure  to  produce  this  equaliza- 
tion of  temperature  in  a  hive,  and  supply  the 
bees  with  pure  air,  leaves  them  to  go  to  sleep  in 
death.  This  generally  occurs  in  hives  that  have 
plenty  of  honey  and  bees.  In  fact,  in  almost 
all  cases  where  you  find  a  large  number  of  bees 
in  a  hive  after  they  are  dead,  their  death   was 


102 


TAB  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


caused  in  this  way,  especially  if  the  hive  have 
a  great  quantity  of  honey  in  the  combs.  The 
more  honey  there  is  left,  the  more  certain  you 
may  be  that  their  destruction  was  brought  about 
in  this  way.  The  oxygen  of  the  air  being  ex- 
hausted by  an  excessive  number  of  bees  crowd- 
ed into  such  a  small  cubic  measurement  of  air, 
in  thin  layers  between  the  combs  filled  with 
honey,  or  having  comparatively  few  emi>ty 
cells.  The  remedy  is  upward  ventilation.  Of 
course  you  do  not  want  a  brisk  current  of  air 
passing  through  the  hives,  when  wintered  on 
their  summer  stands. 

There  is  still  another  reason  why  a  great 
many  bees  die  in  winter.  I  have  been  travel- 
ing through  southern  Illinois  and  Indiana, 
where  the  Bee  Cholera  Epidemic  is  said  to  have 
raged  last  fall,  and  propose  to  give  you  my  ver- 
sion of  it.  I  am  aware  that  others  will  diifer 
from  me,  but  think  that  time  will  demonstrate 
the  correctness  of  my  position. 

The  first  appearance  of  the  many  hives  I  ex- 
amined (and  which  amounted  to  almost  hun- 
dreds), was  that  the  hives  were  without  excep- 
tion filled  with  honey  to  the  very  bottom,  or 
sliowed  signs  that  the  honey  cells,  Avhere  any 
large  number  seemed  to  be  open,  had  been  torn 
open  by  robber  bees.  Robbing  bees,  in  their 
great  haste  to  obtain  honey,  leave  the  outer 
edges  of  the  cells  they  open  very  rough  and 
ragged.  An  expert  can  easily  tell  how  the 
honey  was  extracted  from  any  piece  of  comb. 

I  also  learned  on  inquiry  that  the  bees  had 
annoyed  every  grocery  store  that  cootaiued 
even  sorghum  molasses,  and  in  their  anxiety, 
impelled  perhaps  by  tlie  pangs  of  hunger,  had, 
in  the  fore  part  of  the  summer,  gone  into  the 
kitchen  and  pantries  in  which  there  were  sweets 
of  any  kind.  This  state  of  afl^'airs  existed  for 
somewhat  more  than  a  month.  Of  course  the 
bees,  where  such  hunger  existed,  could  not  rear 
any  brood  worth  mentioning. 

The  reader  will  here  call  to  memory  the  fact 
that  ninety  days  is,  in  the  working  season,  the 
lifetime  of  the  worker  bee.  He  will  also  remem- 
ber that  for  thirty  days,  up  to  this  period,  no 
young  brood  was  reared.  I  also  learned  that 
such  a  honey-dew,  as  occurred  then,  was  never 
known  in  those  parts  before.  One  man  even 
afiirmed  that,  in  driving  up  his  cows  in  the  morn- 
ing, his  clothing  became  (to  use  his  own  words) 
quite  stickey.  Others  told  me  such  unreasonable 
stories,  that  I  am  unwilling  to  communicate 
them.  I  found  that  this  condition  of  matters 
existed  in  that  locality  for  over  a  month.  Ten 
days  being  sufficient  for  a  good  stock  of  bees  to 
fill  its  combs,  where  surplus  honey  exists  in  such 
enormous  quantity,  the  bees  immediately  filled 
their  hives  so  full  that  no  empty  cells  remained 
for  the  queen  to  deposit  eggs  "in.  The  change 
from  intense  want  to  excessive  surplus  being  so 
sudden,  the  queen  did  not  have  time  to  supply 
the  cells  with  eggs  before  they  were  filled  with 
honey  ;  and  they  remained  so  for  perhaps  sixty 
days  or  longer.  Now  add  the  thirty  days  that 
the  colony  could  not  rear  any  brood  previously 
from  the  absence  of  honey  in  the  flowers,  to  the 
sixty  days  that  the  combs  were  so  full  of  honey 
that  the  queen  had  no  room  to  deposit  eggs, 
and  you  have  ninety  days,  the  natural   lifetime 


of  the  worker  bee  in  the  working  season.  Some 
men  said  the  bees  all  left ;  others  that  they  all 
sioarmed  out.  But  when  I  asked  them  whether 
they  had  seen  them  swarming  out  preparatory 
to  leaving,  the  invariable  answer  was,  No  ! 
When  I  asked  whether  any  of  the  family  had 
seen  them  swarm  out  and  leave,  the  answer  Avas 
the  same— though  they  would  insist  on  it  that 
the  bees  must  have  done  so,  as  they  were  all 
gone.  The  manner  of  their  disappearing  is  evi- 
dence that  the  expiration  of  the  term  of  the 
natural  life  of  the  bee  passed  them  off  the  stage 
of  life,  slowly  and  gradually  till  all  were  gone. 
In  a  great  many  cases  a  small  number  of  bees 
remained  up  to  ihe  first  cold  frosty  night ;  and  in 
some  instances,  a  larger  number  remained  till 
near  mid-winter,  and  then  died.  Some  owners 
saw  their  bees  crawling  out  of  the  hive  on  warm 
days  late  in  the  fall,  drop  down  to  the  t^roand, 
and  die.  In  not  one  instance  in  a  great  number 
was  any  Ihrge  quantity  of  dead  bees  found  in 
the  hive.     So  much  for  the  Bee  Choler%. 

The  same  principle  holds  good,  if  the  bees  fill 
their  combs  so  full  that  there  is  no  room  for  the 
queen  to  deposit  eggs,  for  thirty  days.  Then 
your  hive,  so  far  as  numbers  are  concerned,  is 
one-third  gone  to  destruction;  and  if  the  cells  are 
so  filled  for  sixty  daj'^s,  that  the  queen  has  no 
room  to  deposite  eggs,  then  your  hive  is  two- 
thirds  gone  to  destruction,  and  will  perish  soon 
after,  if  left  unaided. 

The  second  cause,  ihen,  of  bees  dying  in  win- 
ter, is  because  the  cells  were  kept  so  filled  with 
honey  or  pollen  for  say  sixty  days,  that  j'our 
colonies  go  into  winter  quarters  with  only  from 
one-third  to  tAvo-thirds  of  a  usual  sized  swarm 
i.i  a  hive.  The  bees,  in  consequence  of  their 
diminished  numbers,  not  being  able  to  with- 
stand the  rigorous  cold,  freeze  to  death,  leaving 
the  hive  filled  with  honey.  Sometimes  it  occurs 
that  a  colony  loses  i  s  queen  in  summer,  and  by 
the  time  the  cold  weather  approaches  the  bees 
are  few  in  number  and  perish  in  the  same  way  ; 
or  they  may  not  hold  out  till  winter,  the  moth 
destroying  them  previously. 

The  remedy  in  all  such  cases,  is  the  means 
adapted  to  intelligence,  ability,  and  wili.  In 
the  first  two  cases,  ihe  surplus  honey  must  be 
taken  out  of  the  way  of  the  bees,  without  if 
possible  producing  a  vacuum  above  them. 
Boxes  on  the  top  of  a  hive  are  an  intolerable 
nuisance,  for  three  reasons  :  first,  becauseof  the 
production  of  a  vacuum ;  secondly,  because  of 
the  loss  of  time  in  getting  the  bees  to  work 
readily  in  them  ;  and  thirdly,  because  of  the  loss 
of  comb.  Now,  my  beekeeping  friends,  do  not 
let  me  astonish  you,  l)ut  I  mean  what  I  saj'-  that 
such  boxes  are  an  intolerable  nuisance.  Our 
system  of  management  has  to  undergo  the 
ordeal  of  rigid  critical  iuvesiigation.  Bees  will 
produce  more  than  double  the  amount  of  sur- 
plus honey,  if  it  be  taken  from  the  main  hive, 
and  the  empty  combs  returned  below  instead  of 
above,  for  the  double  purpose  of  saving  the 
comb  and  furnishing  empty  cells  below,  pre- 
cisely where  the  instinct  of  the  queen  teaches 
her  that  the  eggs  should  be  deposited.  As  the 
brood  that  has  been  elevated  hatches,  the  empty 
cells  in  the  upper  part  of  the  hive  are  filled  with 
honey  by  the  bees,  according  to  their  instincts, 


i 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


103 


and  the  cnmbs  may  then  be  revolved.  The 
mere  art  of  emptying  a  comb  and  returning  the 
same,  and  allowing  it  to  occupy  the  same  posi- 
tion it  did  bffore  emptying,  does  the  queen  no 
good  service  for  the  purpose  of  depositing  eggs, 
for  the  reason  that  the  comb  emptied  where  the 
frames  are  not  combined  one  above  the  other, 
only  furnishes  room  for  storing  honey.  We 
must  have  means  by  which  we  can  keep  the 
colonies  strong,  by  furnishing  empty  cells  below 
the  brood.  J.  W.  Seat. 

MoNKOE,  Iowa. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

"Wintering  Bees. 


Mr.  Editor  :— I  this  morning  got  down  my 
ink  and  paper,  thinking  to  write  a  short  article 
for  the  Journal,  on  wintering  bees.  I  also 
took  down  a  ttundle  of  Bee  Journals,  and  I 
declare  I  got  so  much  interested  in  looking  over 
them,  that  I  almost  forgot  to  write.  It  does 
seem  to  me  that  the  Bee  Journal  is  becoming 
more  and  more  interesting  all  the  time.  But 
this  is  not  coming  to  the  point.  What  I  Avant 
to  write  about  is,  how  I  have  wintered  my  bees. 
I  have  tried  various  ways,  but  my  best  success 
was  by  placing  them  in  my  cellar.  We  fre- 
quently hear  some  of  our  friends  complain 
through  the  Journal,  that  their  bees  did  not  do 
well  in  the  cellar ;  but  I  must  say  that  mine 
have  always  exceeded  my  exi)ecfations. 

Last  winter  I  put  a  partition  in  my  cellar, 
which  made  a  place  about  til'teen  feet  square  on 
the  ground  and  about  six  feet  deep.  In  this  I 
placed  some  seventy  stocks,  most  of  which  win- 
tered finely,  though  they  became  very  uneasy 
in  the  latter  part  of  February,  on  account  of  a 
warm  sultry  spell  of  weather.  I  opened  the 
windows  and  door  at  night,  which  at  first 
only  seemed  to  make  them  more  uneasy  ;  but 
after  the  door  was  kept  open  for  some  lime, 
they  became  more  quiet.  After  two  or  three 
days  of  warm  weather,  it  got  cold  again  till 
some  time  in  March,  when  it  became  so  w^arm 
once  more  that  I  was  obliged  to  take  them  out 
in  a  drizzling  rain.  The  bees  flew  rapidly 
though  it  was  raining,  and  I  think  a  considera- 
ble number  were  lost.  Nevertheless  I  think  I 
never  saw  stronger  stocks  than  most  of  mine 
were  last  spring,  commencing  to  swarm  by  the 
middle  of  May.  I  would  remark  here  that  I 
discovered,  on  placing  my  bees  on  their  stands, 
that  they  remembered  their  old  locations,  for 
whenever  we  misplaced  a  hive  the  bees  imme- 
diately flew  to  their  former  locations. 

As  to  the  manner  of  placing  the  hives  in  the 
cellar.  I  use  the  Langstroth  hive,  and  mostly 
take  off  all  the  surplus  boxes,  leaving  part  of 
the  holes  in  the  honey  board  uncovered  ;  but 
last  winter  most  of  them  remained  on  the  hives. 
I  may  say  here  that  I  think  a  set  of  empty 
boxes,  not  sealed  up  tight  would  give  all  the 
ventilation  necessary.  As  a  general  thing,  I 
consider  it  more  important  to  have  the  cellar 
well  veniilated,  than  giving  too  much  to  the 
Live.     I  carried  quite  a  bed  of  straw  in  the  cel- 


lar, to  absorb  the  moisture,  in  addition  to  having 
my  cellar  well  ventilated.  Well,  says  some 
one,  how  do  you  manage  to  ventilate  your  cel- 
lar? I  ventilate  mine  by  a  seven  inch  stove- 
pipe running  from  the  cellar  up  to  the  flue  at 
the  roof  of  the  house  ;  and,  by  the  way,  I  think 
it  wrong,  in  this  age  of  improvement,  that  a 
good  house  should  be  built  without  ventilating 
the  cellar  propei-ly  ;  as  I  deem  it  very  import- 
ant both  to  the  health  of  the  family  and  that  of 
the  bees.  It  matters  not  how  you  ventilate  ; 
that  is,  whether  it  is  by  a  stone,  brick,  or 
wooden  flue.  A  ventilator  might  be  made  of 
inch  lumber  that  would  answer  very  well, 
though  you  could  in  that  case  not  use  any  fire. 
In  my  cellar  I  built  up  a  small  furnace  with 
brick  and  set  my  stovepipe  on  it.  Thus  I  can 
put  fire  in,  if  I  wish,  and  expel  some  of  the 
dam.pness  out  of  the  cellar. 

As  for  placing  my  hives  so  as  to  be  able  to 
see  such  stock  of  bees  as  Mr.  Gallup  suggests, 
at  any  time  in  the  winter,  I  have  not  room 
enough  for  that.  I  piled  the  hives  on  top  of 
each  other  till  I  had  my  small  apartment  as  full 
as  I  could  stow  it,  leaving  only  one  passage  way 
to  the  door.  With  my  cellar  ventilated  and  my 
bees  placed  in  it  in  this  manner,  they  are  com- 
fortable. By  removing  the  caps  of  the  hives  I 
might  stow  in  more  stocks ;  but  I  fear  they 
would  not  be  so  healthy.  If  the  necessary  ven- 
tilation is  given  to  both  cellar  and  bees,  I  think 
you  can  safely  pack  your  cellar  as  full  as  it  will 
iiold.  I  pref'.n-  to  set  them  up  a  little  way  from 
the  ground  ;  though  if  the  cellar  is  very  dry 
and  you  litter  it  well  with  straw  you  may  set 
them  on  that  without  risk  of  damage.  I  also 
have  an  outside  cellar  door,  which  is  servicea- 
ble when  carrying  your  hives  in  or  out.  The 
doorway  of  this  is  also  packed  full  of  straw. 
Now,  when  my  cellar  is  thus  packed  full  there 
is  no  chance  to  see  in  what  condition  the  bees 
are,  except  perhaps  some  of  those  in  the  outer 
tiers.  I  have  had  my  bees  in  the  cellar  four 
mouths  at  a  stretch,  and  they  did  well. 

Let  me  now  also  suggest  an  idea  about  win- 
tering bees  on  their  summer  stands  ;  and  that  is 
simply  by  placing  the  hives  in  a  box  large 
enough  to  enclose  the  whole  hive  and  leave 
space  all  around.  A  common  dry  goods  would 
answer  ;  and  I  am  satisfied  it  would  pay  ex- 
penses. I  have  two  stocks  or  swarms  that  I 
placed  in  such  boxes  this  summer,  and  think  it 
will  be  just  the  place  for  them  in  winter.  But, 
inquires  some  one,  how  do  the  bees  get  into 
your  hive,  if  you  enclose  it  in  a  box  ?  You 
must  of  course  make  an  entrance  corresponding 
with  the  entrance  of  the  hive,  Then  we  can 
pack  straw  or  any  warm  material  around  the 
hive,  and  make  the  bees  as  comfortable  as  maj'' 
be  desirable.  I  tried  these  two  swarms  as  an 
experiment,  and  I  think  it  has  worked  well ; 
the  one  being  a  prime  swarm,  and  the  other  a 
second  swarm — and  weak  at  that,  yet  it  has 
properly  filled  its  hive  and  is  very  heavy.  The 
prime  sw^arm  has  also  done  well,  filling  the  hive 
and  most  of  the  surplus  boxes,  and  building  a 
small  comb  outside,  though  we  have  had  the 
poorest  kind  of  season  here  for  bees,  it  being 
wet  most  of  the  time.  S.  Mat. 

Eddtville,  Iowa,  September  14,  1869. 


104 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOUENAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 
Novice. 


Dear  Bee  Journal  : — A  few  months  ago  we 
mentioued,  in  one  of  oui'  articles,  that  one  of 
the  subscribers  to  the  Journal  came  quite  a  dis- 
tance to  see  how  artificial  swarms  are  made, 
and  when  asked  if  he  did  not  understand  the 
plans  given  in  the  Journal,  replied  that  he  had 
not  had  time  to  read  them.  (We  feel  secure  in 
saying  all  this  about  him,  as  he  wont  have  time 
to  read  it.)  Well  we  did  not  think  at  the  time 
that  anybody  would  ever  say  that  had  we  read 
the  Journal  as  carefully  as  we  should,  we 
would  not  have  asked  the  question  in  regard  to 
wintering'that  we  did  in  tlie  last  number.  But 
such  we  really  believe  is  the  case,  and  we  here- 
by notify  all  correspondents  that  we  don't  want 
to  be  told  of  it,  as  we  know  it  now  already  ! 

The  fact  "leaked"  into  our  head  in  this  wise. 
The  next  Sunday  (if  it  is  wrong  to  read  the  Bee 
Journal  on  Sunday,  we  really  can't  help  it), 
we  gathered  all  our  Journals  from  No.  1,  vol. 
1,  up,  and  prepared  ourselves  to  collect  and 
classify  all  that  was  said  on  the  subject  of  win- 
tering. (Do  you  know,  Mr.  Editor,  whata|;j7<; 
of  valuable  experience  those  same  Journals 
furnish  on  that  subject?)  Before  we  could  get 
our  materials  in  order,  Ave  began  to  wish  that 
our  Journals  were  bound  ;  but  as  we  wanted 
them  "right  off  then,"  we,  after  placing  each 
volume  in  proper  order,  pushed  some  large  pins 
through  the  top,  bottom  nnd  middle  of  the  mar- 
gin of  each  one,  and,  after  clinching  over  the 
point,  found  we  had  a  very  fair  book  for  ouroton 
use,  (they  might  not  do  to  lend). 

The  index  we  find  very  convenient,  and  long 
before  we  got  to  Mr.  Gallup's  excellent  article 
on  page  129,  January  number,  we  understood 
that  it  was  quite  as  desirable,  or  more  so,  to 
keep  the  warm  rain  away  from  the  hives,  as  to 
keep  the  cold  out ;  and  in  the  article  just  men- 
tioned Mr.  Gallup  finishes  the  subject,  at  least 
to  our  notion. 

So  we  too  are  going  to  build  a  house  for  our 
forty-seven  (we  have  concluded  that  we  would 
rather  have  forty-seven  than  forty-eight) 
swarms  ;  and  as  we  may  be  so  unfortunate  as  to 
have  a  hundred  some  time,  we  are  going  to 
make  it  large  enough  for  that  number. 

Mr.  A.  0.  Atwood,  on  page  78  of  the  present 
volume,  describes  almost  exactly  what  we  have 
determined  on. 

The  pile  of  boards,  debris,  &c.,  which  Mr. 
Gallup  mentions  when  attempts  are  made  to  fix 
up  such  structures  cheaply,  has  made  us  feel 
that  we  must  have  a  nice  house,  where  we  can 
take  our  friends.  We  are  going  to  have  the 
boards  planed  and  painted,  and  ^me  kind  of 
neat  cornice  ;  and  would  like  some  one  to  sug- 
gest an  appropriate  emblem  to  top  it  off  with. 
We  want  a  large  window  and  a  large  double 
door,  so  that  our  "help"  wont  bump  the  hives 
against  the  door-posts,  as  such  a  catastrophe 
might  be  harassing  to  our  feelings.  And  we 
want  it  clean  and  nice  enough  inside,  so  that 
we  can  persuade  our  "better  half"  to  come  in 
and  "  take  a  turn"  at  our  melextractor  in  the 


summer  time.     Ten  inch    sawdust  walls  will 
make  a  nice  cool  place  in  hot  weather. 

We  find  a  statement  in  the  JouRNAL,that  a 
house  large  enough  for  one  hundred  stocks,  will 
not  cost  over  forty  dollars.  Why,  Mr.  Editor, 
our  carpenter  thinks  it  will  cost  about  two  hun- 
dred dollars  ;  but  as  the  bees  we  lost  last  Avinter 
were  worth  more  than  that,  we  sa}^  let  it  cost. 

We  have  been  to  pay  a  visit  to  a  friend  in  an 
adjoining  county,  who  built  a  house  we  think 
fourteen  years  ago  ;  and  he  says  he  never  lost 
a  bee  in  it  while  they  had  honey  left.  If  our 
house  Avill  serve  to  do  that,  we  shall  be  well  sat- 
isfied. Our  whole  f6rty-seven  stocks  have  got 
nice  queens,  and  we  are  sure  we  can  ji^  them 
honey  enough,  and  then  stand  out  of^k  way. 

Now  after  all  that  has  been  said  on  the  sub- 
ject, we  should  like  to  ask  the  following  ques- 
tions. Mr.  Gallup's  opinion  would  be  quite  a 
favor. 

How  can  the  most  honey  be  realized,  say  with 
the  melextractor,  in  a  season  ?  By  absolutely 
preventing  swarming  ?  By  an  increase  of  one 
lialf,  by  earljr  artificial  swarming  ?  Or,  by 
doubling  the  whole  number  of  strong  stocks,  as 
mentioned  ? 

Mr.  Jasper  Hazen's  figures  on  the  subject  we 
cannot  admit,  as  we  must  think,  even  if  it  seem 
harsh,  that  he  grossly  if  not  wilfully  misrepre- 
sents the  matter,  more  with  an  idea  of  getting 
people  to  inquire  about  his  hive,  than  of  com- 
municating one  real  fact. 

Our  experience  would  be  that  a  proper  in- 
crease of  stocks,  made  early  in  the  season,  in  a 
locality  not  overstocked,  Avould  give  more 
honey,  than  an  absolute  prevention  of  swarm- 
ing. 

We  forgot  to  add  that  we  intend  in  the  spring, 
as  soon  as  our  bees  are  removed  from  their 
house,  to  fix  in  it  a  suitable  stove  and  make 
some  further  experiments  on  artificial  incuba- 
tion. Such  a  room  once  warmed  up,  we  think, 
would  keep  warm  a  long  time. 

Now,  friend  Argo,  don't  let  your  fifty-two 
stocks  play  out  wintering,  or  we  shall  get  that 
queen  yet  ! 

Hurrah,  for  the  winter  !     Our  naturally  hope- 
ful disposition   begins  again  to   reassert  itself. 
Will  our  friends  on  the  subject  at  least  give  us 
their  sympathies,  and  in  return  receive  those  of 
^       Novice. 


A  large  fruit  grower  says  that  his  cherries  are 
a  very  uncertain  crop,  a  cold  northAvest  storm 
frequently  prevailing  when  they  are  in  blossom. 
He  had  noticed,  that  if  jthe  sun  shone  only  a 
couple  of  hours,  the  bees  secured  him  a  crop. 


In  winter,  if  bees  are  kept  in  a  dark  place, 
which  is  neither  too  warm  nor  too  cold,  they 
are  almost  dormant,  and  require  very  little  air  ; 
but  even  under  such  circumstances,  they  cannot 
live  entirely  without  it. 


A  sweaty  horse  is  detested  by  bees,  and  if 
assailed  by  them  is  apt  to  be  killed— being  in 
such  case,  a  very  helpless  animal. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


105 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 

WASHINGTON,  NOVEMBER,  1869. 


The  Foulbrood  Question. 

On  another  page  will  be  found  a  full  account 
of  the  proceedings  of  the  Committee  appointed 
by  the  Salzgitter  Beekeepers'  Union,  in  Bruns- 
wick, to#test  Mr.  Lambrecht's  ability  to  cause 
and  cure  foulbrood  in  a  colony  of  bees.  The 
result,  according  to  the  statement  of  the  Com- 
mittee, shows  that  Mr.  L.  really  performed 
what  he  professed  himself  able  to  do  ;  an6l  that 
this  formidable  disease  is  now  at  length  brought 
within  the  control  of  medical  or  rather  chemi- 
cal science. 

But,  doubts  have  been  expressed  in  distin- 
guished quarters,  whether  the  test  instituted  was 
in  reality  a  fair  one.  The  disease,  produced  in 
the  colony  under  consideration,  and  again  cured 
by  Mr.  Lambrecht,  it  is  now  alleged  was  an 
artificial  one ^  which  may  indeed  have  resembled 
foulbrood  in  some  of  its  more  prominent  mani- 
festations, without  being  in  fact  the  genuine 
malady,  such  as  originates  in  or  from  natural 
causes.  Hence  it  is  inferred  and  suggested  that 
the  cure  was  simply  empirical,  and  is  at  most 
adapted  only  to  cases  like  that  in  hand.  Con- 
ceding that  this  may  be  so,  the  fact  that  it  is  so 
still  remains  to  be  demonstrated  ;  and  if  that 
were  done,  it  would  not  be  an  occurrence  very 
marvellous  in  medical  science,  where  theory 
and  practice  are  so  perpetually  fluctuating,  that 
w^hat  is  lauded  to-day  as  a  panacea,  may  to-mor- 
row be  denounced  as  mere  worthless  charla- 
tanry.    'Tis  even  so.     Goethe  says — 

"  Der  Geist  der  Medicin  ist  leicht  zu  fassen  :— 

Ihr  durchstudirt  die  grosz'  und  kleine  "Welt 

Um  es  am  Ende  gelin  zulassen, 

Wies  Gott  gefallt !» 

Of  course,  under  such  circumstances,  we 
would  not  undertake  to  contend,  as  aeaiusthigh 
authorities,  that  Mr.  Lambrecht's  processes  are 
all  and  can  effect  all  that  he  claims,  or  that  may 
be  desired.  Yet  he  appears,  in  this  instance,  to 
have  done,  what  no  one  has  ever  done  before 
on  any  scientific  principles  whatever.  He  has 
cured  that  which  experienced  and  intelligent 
apiarians— experts— pronounced  to  be  foul- 
brood, even  though  it  was  artificially  produced. 
So  far  so  good.  Now,  to  meet  the  objections, 
let  him  take  in  hand  an  ascertained  case  of  foul- 
brood   undoubtedly  originating  from    natural 


causes  (and  many  such  can  readily  be  found); 
and  if,  in  addition  to  what  he  has  already  ac- 
complished, he  efftcts  a  radical  cure  in  such  a 
case,  we  may  certainly  regard  him  as  quoad  lioc 
a  doctor,  though  he  liave  no  di[)loma  !  He  is 
an  educated  chemist,  professes  to  regard  the  dis- 
ease as  subject  to  chemical  laws,  claims  that  he 
compounds  his  remedies  on  chemical  principles, 
and  applies  them  in  accordance  with  chemical 
theories;  and  if  he  chores  the  patient,  he  may 
certainly  be  supposed  to  do  it  rigidly  secundum 
artem  !  It  he  now,  to  make  the  matter  clear  to 
the  comprehension  of  ordinary  minds,  proceeds 
and  shows  that  he  can  cure  foulbrood  of  every 
kind  or  description — contagious  or  non-con- 
tagious ;  mild  or  malignant ;  accidental,  inci- 
dental, artificial  or  natural— i/mi/ac^  is  about  all 
the  beekeepers  will  care  to  know.  So  long  as 
doubts  may  be  fairly  or  even  plausibly  urged 
against  his  methods  or  pretensions,  it  behooves 
him  to  meet  and  dissipate  them  ;  but  mere  cap- 
tious fault-finding,  it  cannot  be  expected  that 
he,  or  any  one  for  him,  will  ever  heed. 

The  differences  between  Dr.  Preuss  and  Mr. 
Lambrecht  do  not  strike  us  as  being  so  great  as 
to  be  irreconcilable.'  Nor  does  it  matter  much 
whether  foulbrood  is  of  fungoid  origin,  or  finds 
its  source  in  putrefactive  fermentation,  promded 
we  are  put  in  possession  of  efficient  means  to 
arrest  and  cure  it.  That  is  here  "the  one  thing 
needful."  On  the  theory  of  Dr.  Preuss,  how- 
ever, we  cannot  see  how  the  disease  is  ever  to 
be  extirpated,  when  it  has  once  obtained  foot- 
hold in  an  apiary  or  a  district.  If  it  is  liable 
to  start  into  existence  and  action  whenever  and 
wherever  the  fungoid  sporules,  ever  floating  in 
countless  myriads  iu  the  atmosphere,  find  a 
suitable  nidus  and  fostering  heat  and  moisture 
to  aid  development,  no  colony  can  be  always 
safe  from  the  inroads  of  this  disease,  in  any 
locality  where  bees  can  be  cultivated.  This 
"noisome  pestilence"  that  hitherto  has  been 
literally  "walking  in  darkness,"  may  thus  be 
expelled  to-day,  only  to  reappear  to-morrow 
with  re-invigorated  virulence.  But  such  does 
not,  to  us,  appear  to  be  the  mode  of  its  diffu- 
sion ;  and  hence  we  are  inclined  to  infer  also 
that  such  is  not  the  manner  of  its  origination. 
Its  progress  in  an  apiary,  so  far  as  we  have  ob- 
served it  or  are  advised,  however  it  may  have 
originated,  can  always  be  traced  to  direct 
communication  and  actual  contact  ;  and  this 
accords  better,  it  seems  to  us,  with  Mr.  Lam- 
brecht's views  and  theory,  than  with  those  of 
Dr.  Preuss.  Between  the  two,  however — each 
an  adept  in  his  own  province — the  whole  subject 


106 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURANL. 


is  now  fairly  up  for  thorough  investigation  and 
the  test  of  practical  experiment ;  and  thus  it 
may  speedily  be  determined  who  is  right,  and 
which  of  them  can  cure  the  genuine  or  natural- 
ly produced  disease— if  either  can. 


We  sent  to  Professor  Porter,  of  Easton,  Pa., 
the  specimens  of  bee  plants  enclosed  to  us  by 
Mr.  Gardner,  of  Christiansburg,  Virginia,  and 
Mr.  Paul,  of  Council  Bluffs,  Iowa,  as  mentioned 
in  the  correspondence  of  the  Bke  Jouknal  for 
this  month.  That  received  from  the  former  is 
the  Aster  ericoides  L.,  noticed  in  a  former  num- 
ber of  the  Journal,  as  an  excellent  bee  plant, 
flowering  in  autumn,  and  abounding  almost 
everywhere,  especially  along  roadsides  and  in 
old  fields.  Those  received  from  the  latter  are 
Golden  Eods,  No.  1  being  Solidago  rigida  L., 
rather  rare  in  the  Eastern  States ;  and  No.  2, 
Solidago  Canadensis  X.,  common  in  all  parts  of 
the  country. 

Professor  Porter  rernarks — "North  America 
is  the  true  home  of  the  golden  rods  and  asters, 
which  are  poorly  represented  in  Europe.  By 
reason  of  their  great  numbers  and  profuse 
blooming,  they  form  a  striking  and  beautiful 
feature  in  our  autumnal  flora.  It  is  interesting, 
therefore,  to  know  that  the  bees  have  found 
them  out,  and  that  they  are  likely  to  increase 
the  yield  of  honey." 

We  have  often  heard  the  golden  rods  spoken 
of  as  superior  honey  plants,  and  have  examined 
many  varieties  of  them  ;  but  have  never  been 
60  fortunate  as  to  find  bees  working  on  any. 
We  suppose  the  secretion  of  honey  by  them  de- 
pends much  on  the  kind  of  soil  in  which  they 
grow  and  the  character  of  the  season. 


"The  Hearth  and  Home"  is  one  of  the 
best  illustrated  family  newspapers  now  issued. 
It  is  published  by  Messrs.  Pettengall,  Bates  & 
Co.,  in  New  York,  at  four  dollars  per  annum 
for  single  copies;  but  thi'ee  copies  are  sent  for 
nine  dollars,  five  copies  for  twelve  dollars,  and 
all  over  five  copies  at  same  rate,  alwaj's  in  ad- 
vance. These  are  strong  inducements  for  club- 
bing ;  and  those  desiring  to  take  a  paper  of 
this  class  cannot  fail  to  be  pleased  with  one 
so  carefully  edited  and  cheap  as  the  Hearth 
AND  Home. 


We  have  received  a  copy  uf  the  '■'■Illustrated 
Catalogue  of  Grapes,  Small  Fruit,  ^c,  published 
by  the  proprietors  of  the  Bushberg  Vineyards 


and  Orchards,  at  Bushberg,  Missouri.  Though 
regarding  ourselves  as  much  better  qualified  to 
judge  of  fruit  in  its  edible  state,  than  of  plants 
or  such  publications,  we  can  say  of  this  cata- 
logue that  it  appears  to  have  been  prepared  with 
judgment  and  care.  The  condensed  treatise jpn 
grape  culture  will  be  a  valuable  companion  to 
those  who  design  to  devote  attention  to  that 
subject. 


Just  as  this  number  goes  to  press,  we  receive 
a  copy  of  the  '■'  Beekeeper^ s  Jn.siructior0BooJc,^^ 
by  S.  B.  Eeplogle,  Roaring  Spring,  Pennsylva- 
nia. It  contains  practical  hints  for  the  general 
management  of  bees,  and  is  intended  for  begin- 
ners. It  is  written  in  simple  plain  language, 
and  is  very  brief.     Price,  15  cents. 


Correspondence  of  the  Bee  Journal. 


Council  Bluffs,  Iowa,  Sept.  19. — Inclosed 
find  two  specimens  of  flowers  that  grow  very 
thickly  on  our  bottom  lands.  Tliey  have  been 
in  bloom  for  two  montbs,  and  will  continue  in 
bloom  until  the  frost  cuts  them  off.  They  are 
the  best  lioney-producing  flowers  I  ever  saw  in 
any  country.  For  the  last  two  months  my  bees 
came  in  so  heavily  loaded  that  they  f  11  in  front 
of  the  stands,  and  sat  there  several  minutes  be- 
fore they  started  to  enter  their  hives. 

My  bees  have  averaged  thirty  pouuds  of  box 
honey  to  the  hive,  within  the  last  three  weeks, 
I  had  two  swarms  of  hybrids  come  out  on  tlie 
6th  ot  September.  They  issued  at  the  same 
time  and  united.  I  hived  them  together,  and 
to-day  they  have  their  hive  full — ten  frames, 
and  are  working  in  two  of  the  surplus  honey 
boxes.  If  the  frost  keeps  off  two  weeks  longer, 
they  Avill  fill  three  ten-pound  boxes.  As  soon 
as  the.se  bees  stop  working  this  fall,  1  will  weigh 
them,  and  an  empty  hive,  and  let  you  know  the 
amount  of  honey  stored  by  them  from  the  6th 
of  September  until  frost  comes.  Please  find 
out  the  names  of  those  plants. — H.  Paul. 

Christiansburg,  Va.,  Sept.  20.— Inclosed  I 
send  you  a  flowering  specimen  of  a  weed  grow- 
ing in  great  quantity  in  some  of  our  pastures, 
and  also  in  the  woodland,  and  which  proves  to 
be  the  best  honey  plant  that  I  am  acquainted 
wiih — always  excepting  the  white  clover.  The 
honey  stored  from  it  is  of  fliie  flavor  and  highly 
perfumed,  and  as  clear  as  that  gathered  from 
white  clover. 

My  bees  are  now  working  as  strong  as  in 
June,  and  had  it  not  been  for  the  severe  drouth 
which  prevailed  from  the  15th  of  July  to  the 
10th  of  this  month,  they  would  have  stored  a 
good  supply  of  surplus  honey  ;  but  during  the 
drouth  they  consumed  a  large  portion  of  their 
stores.  Now  they  are  gathering  honey  rapidly; 
the  queens  are  depositing  eggs  at  a  great  rate  ; 
and  the  hives  will  be  very  populous  at  the  close 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


101 


of  the  season,  mainly  with  young  bees.  They 
•will  thus  be  strong  and  vigorous  for  next 
spring's  work;  and,  like  Novice,  I  have  visions 
of  scores  of  swarms  and  lengthy  rows  of  jars 
filled  with  honey,  in  1870.  Give  me  the  botani- 
cal name  of  the  enclosed  plant  in  the  next 
Journal. — J.  R.  Gardner. 

Monmouth,  Ills.,  Sept. 20. — Bees  have  done 
finely  here  this  fall.  They  could  not  have  done 
better  than  they  did  for  a  month  past.  About 
three  weeks  ago,  I  took  sixty-eight  pounds  of 
box  honey  from  a  first  swarm,  wdiich  was  hived 
on  the  26th  of  June  ;  and  they  now  have  two 
thirty-pound  boxes  about  full.  I  had  a  swarm 
to  come  off  on  the  18th  of  August,  and  on  exam- 
ining them  a  day  or  two  past,  I  found  that  they 
had  filled  all  the  frames  in  the  hive.  I  expected 
to  have  to  feed  them  the  coming  winter. 

I  read  a  great  deal  in  the  Journal  about  the 
working  qualities  of  the  Italians.  I  liave  some 
stocks  of  each,  the  black  and  the  Italians.  For 
industry  I  would  prefer  the  hybrids,  but  would 
rather  not  handle  them  much  at  ihis  season  of 
the  year.  To-day  I  undertook  to  examine 
a  hive  of  Italians,  but  was  glad  to  get  away  from 
them  without  seting  the  inside.  I  thought  at 
the  time  I  should  have  liked  to  have  had  fiiend 
Baldiidge  to  try  his  hand  at  handling  them 
without  a  veil  or  bee-hat.  I  think  it  much 
pleasanter  to  feel  that  you  have  j'our  eyes  pro- 
tected when  you  hear  the  angry  buzzing  of  the 
bees  about  your  ears. — D.  M.  Dungan. 

Natchez,  Miss.,  Sept.  20. — I  have  now  forty- 
two  hives,  of  which  about  oue-half  a*e  the 
Langslrotli  pattern.  I  commenced  this  season 
with  eigliteen  hives  of  bees,  most  of  which 
were  in  good  condition  at  the  opening  of  spring. 
Our  past  winter  was,  as  is  usual  here,  a  not  very 
severe  one.  We  had  some  days  in  December 
and  January  during  which  some  of  my  bees 
were  able  to  fly  out  and  gather  pollen  to  a  limit- 
ed extent  from  a  species  of  wild  mustard,  in 
bloom  in  sheltered  places.  Plum  trees  com- 
menced blossoming  here  on  the  27th  of  Janu- 
ary, and  were  followed  on  the  11th  of  Feb- 
ruary by  the  peach,  and  at  the  end  of  March  by 
the  apple  ;  during  which  time,  for  the  most 
part,  the  weather  was  favorabe  and  the  bees 
availed  themselves  of  the  opportunity  most  as- 
siduously. 

My  bees  commenced  swarming  on  the  6th  of 
April,  during  the  height  of  apple  blossoming,  as 
is  the  case  yearly  here  ;  and  continued  swarm- 
ing until  the  end  of  May.  The  season  has  been 
a  very  favorable  one  here  for  honey  gathering. 
About  a  -iveek  ago  the  weather  changed  sudden- 
ly from  hot  to  cool,  and  I  perceived  a  decided 
cessatinu  of  gathering  immt-diately  afterward  ; 
although  previously,  during  the  entire  summer, 
sufiicient  was  to  be  gathered  to  supply  their 
needs,  without  drawing  upon  their  stores,  while 
comb  building  and  accumulating  of  honey  in 
surplus  boxes  had  not  been  going  on  since  the 
middle  of  July. 

I  have  some  stocks  of  hybrid  Italians.  I  am 
sorry  I  have  not  been  able  to  preserve  the  pure 
breed  thus  far  ;  though  it  is  my  intention  to 
procure  the  purest  next  season   to  breed   from. 


From  my  experience  with  those  I  have,  I  can 
add  my  testimony  to  their  superiority  over  the 
black  bees.  I  procured  two  queens  from  an- 
othnr  apiary  last  year,  but  did  not  succeed  in 
getting  those  raised  properly  mated.  In  De- 
cember one  of  the  old  queens  was  found,  on  a 
mild  day,  in  front  of  the  hive  in  a  dying  condi- 
tion, from  which  I  was  unable  to  revive  her, 
and  the  colony  raised  an  imperfect  queen  which 
laid,  only  drone  eggs,  and  was  broken  up  in  the 
spring.  The  other  old  queen,  whose  wings 
were  clipped,  came  out  of  her  hive  in  February 
to  die.  I  revived  Iier  by  warmth  and  dropped 
her  among  the  bees  at  the  top  of  the  hive.  An 
hour  after,  I  found  a  fine  young  queen  on  the 
ground  in  front,  benumbed'with  cold— revived 
her  and  returned  her.  The  old  queen  then 
airain  came  out,  and  I  destroyed  her.  Next  day 
I  found  a  young  queen  in  front,  in  the  same 
condition,  and  destroyed  her ;  for,  without 
opening  the  hive,  I  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  old  queen  had  failed  from  some  cause,  and 
the  colony  had  superseded  her.  It  happened 
fortunately  that  drones  from  the  first  hive  spoken 
of  were  fljiug,  and  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  see- 
ing this. queen  return  from  her  wedding  excur- 
sion on  a  fine  day  in  March,  having  without 
•doubt  mated  with  one  of  her  own  species,  for 
no  black  drones  had  yet  made  their  appearance. 
She  proved  to  be  fertile,  but  the  hive  did  not 
swarm  until  the  20lh  of  Miiy.  The  swarm  was 
a  very  large  one,  and  has  given  me  a  considera- 
ble quantity  of  surplus  honey,  besides  fil- 
ling tlieii-  hive.  The  bees  however  are  dark 
and  are  not  at  all  well  marked.  I  am  constrain- 
t;d  to  believe  that  the  queens  ori.i^inally  sent  to 
me  were  not  altogether  pure.  I  have  several 
hives  of  hybrids  showing  brighter  bees  tlian 
these.  My  hybrids  have  all  done  better  than 
the  black  bees.  One  first  swarm  of  thf>m,  hived 
May  3,  (which  is  late  here),  threw  off  a  swarm 
July  8th,  and  is  now  as  populous  as  any  of  the 
rest ;  whilst  none  of  my  black  bees  have  done 
the  like. — j.  II.  Rledsob. 

Lafargeville,  N.  Y.,  Sept.  28.— We  have 
had  here  the  most  lamentable  honey  season 
within  my  recollection  of  nearly  twenty  years' 
beekeeping.  The  weather  has  been  wet  and 
cold.  White  clover  blossoms  in  profusion. 
The  basswood  seems  not  to  blossom  every  year; 
this  year  the  trees  had  scarcely  any  blossoms. 
But  what  of  it— the  flowers  were  either  deficient 
in  honey-producing  faculties,  or  the  frequent 
rains  must  have  diluted  and  washed  the  honey 
away.  Instead  of  half  a  ton  or  a  ton  and  over 
of  surplus  honey,  as  I  have  been  used  to  harvest 
every  year  before,  I  shall  this  year  hardly  have 
any  to  speak  of.  My  apiary  numbers  now  one 
liundred  and  thirty  swarms,  fiftv-three  of  which 
are  new  swarms.  How  many  of  them  have 
gathered  honey  enough  to  winter  I  have  not 
had  time  to  ascertain  j'et.  Peaceable  times, 
however  ;  no  fighting  or  attempts  at  robbing. 

Inclosed  please  find  two  dollars  for  the  Bee 
Journal  for  1869-70— which  credit  as  usual. 
Bidding  you  success  in  your  devotion  of  spread- 
ing, through  your  columns,  the  knowledge  as  it 
advances  in  apiculture,  I  am  respectfully,  yours. 

—J.  N.  ROTTIERS. 


108 


THE    AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


North  Leverett,    Mass.,    Sept.   28. — Bees 
have  not  clone  much  in  this  place  this  season,  on  j 
account  of  the  cold  wet  weather,  until  since  the  [ 
1st  of  September.     Since  then  tliey  have  clone  i 
well.     There  has  been  quite  a  honey  dew,  and 
they  have  improved  it  nicely,  and  are  going  into 
winter  quarters  in  good  condition. — G.  W.  E. 

"West  Groton,  K  Y.,  Oct.  1.— Bees  have 
done  poorly  here  this  season.  Not  one-half  of 
the  stocks  swarmed  ;  and  they  have  not  all  col- 
lected honey  enough  for  winter,  and,  if  to  be 
wintered,  will  have  to  be  fed.  Beecuiture  is 
still  in  the  background  here,  but  I  am  in  hopes 
it  will  be  advanced  by  the  introduction  of  the 
Italian  bees  and  the  movable  comb  hives.— D. 
H.  C. 

Carthage,  Ind.,  Oct.  4— I  had  Ihirty-two 
stands  of  bees  that  lived  through  the  last  winter, 
and  bought  thirteen  stands  in  the  spring.  I 
have  now  one  hundred  and  ten  stands,  and 
1,300  pounds  of  surplus  honey.  The  increase 
in  bees  has  been  mainly  by  natural  swarming. 
I  use  the  Laugstroth  hive,  10^  inches  deep,  18 
inches  long,  and  14^  inches  wide.  My  bees  are 
nearly  all  Italians.  "  I  sowed  six  acres  of  buck- 
wheat on  wheat  stubble,  during  the  second  and 
tliu'd  weeks  in  July.  My  bees  worked  freely  oo 
the  red  'clover  in  the  neighborhood,  after  the 
harvest.  My  last  swarm  came  out  on  the  18lh 
of  August  ;  and  I  had  twelve  swarms  in  the 
previous  ten  days.— P.  W.  McFatridge. 

Burton,  Ohio,  Oct.  5. — Our  bees  have  done 
poorly  here  ;  no  surplus  honey,  and  fafJier  lit- 
tle for  winter  stores.  There  have  been  only  a 
few  swarms  in  these  parts.  We  had  a  Bee 
Convention  at  the  State  Fair  at  Toledo,  with 
good  results  in  feelings,  and  adjourned  to  Jan- 
uarj'  next.  I  will  see  that  the  notice  is  sent  to 
you  in  time  for  the  Bee  Journal,  as  we  give  a 
general  invitation  to  beekeepers  in  all  the 
States,  and  expect  a  general  turn  out.— J.  T. 
Meruiman. 

Decatur,  Ills.,  Oct.  5. — I  embarked  in  the 
bee  business  about  three  years  ago.  The  sum- 
mer of  1868  proved  very  disastrous  to  the  bee- 
keepers here,  on  account  of  the  "  bee  malady." 
Out  of  fifty-six  stocks  I  saved  only  four.  Most 
of  my  neighbors  lost  nearly  all  they  had;  Avbile 
some  living  six  or  eight  miles  from  here,  lost 
only  about  as  many  as  in  other  years.  But 
nowhere  in  this  section  of  country  clid  bees  do 
well  that  year.  This  has  l.'een  a  remarkably 
good  year  for  bees — none  better  has  ever  been- 
known  here,  both  for  increase  and  surplus  hon- 
ey. Some  of  us  have  picked  up  courage,  and 
are  trying  again.  While  the  Northwestern  Bee- 
keepers were  in  session  here,  we  had  some  in- 
teresting discussion?,  aod  we  hope  it  will  give 
a  new  impetus  to  the  business  here.  We  en- 
dorsed the  Bee  Journal,  and  secured  you  some 
new  subfciibers.  May  the  day  hasten  when  it 
shall  be  published  semi-monthly. — J.  B.  R.  S. 

Somerset,  Ohio,  Oct.  7.— My  bees  have  done 
well  this  season.  I  had  eight  stocks  to  com- 
mence with.  I  now  have  twenty-one.  I  got 
1,100  pounds  of  surplus  honey.  My  best  hive 
gave  me  250|  pounds  of  honey  and  one  swarm  ; 


and  that  swarm  gave  106  lbs.  9  ozs.— entire 
product  of  hive,  356  lbs.  13  ozs.  surplus  honey 
and  one  swarm  of  bees.  The  old  stock  and  the 
young  swarm  are  both  in  good  condition  for 
wintering.  I  had  a  good  supply  of  old  combs 
and  use  a  honey  machine. — L.  Edwards. 

Excelsior,  Minn.,  Oct.  5. — My  bees  have 
done  indifferently  well  this  season  ;  but  I  have 
had  strange  luck  in  my  attempts  to  Italianize  ; 
having  lost  $45  worth  of  ciueens,  without  Ital- 
ianizing a  single  hive — a  couple  of  cross  hybrid 
stocks  being  the  only  trace  they  have  left  behind 
them. 

I  find  the  Journal  as  valuable  as  ever,  and 
rely  almost  entirely  upon  it  now  for  instruction 
in  apiculture.  I  feel  as  though  I  could  hardly 
get  along  without  it. 

Flat  hives— eight  inch  frames— have  failed 
with  me,  on  the  score  of  breeding.  We  require 
higher  frames  for  this  high  latitude.  They 
should  be  at  least  twelve  inches  deep. — J.  W . 
Murray. 

Jefferson,  Wis.,  Oct.  5. — I  have  all  the 
stocks  of  my  home  apiary  at  home  again  now. 
They  have  gained  much  more  than  I  expected 
they  would."  The  whole  gain  of  two  hundred 
and  seventy-one  colonies  was  twenty-seven  hun- 
dred and  eighty  (2780)  pounds — a  very  good 
reward  for  four  weeks'  labor  for  two  men.  As 
matters  look  now,  I  can  winter  six  hundred  and 
fifty  (650)  colonies,  without  feeding.  I  will 
not  undertake  to  winter  more  than  twenty -five 
colonies  that  need  feeding. — A.  Grimm. 

Newton,  Iowa,  Oct.  8. — Bees  have  done 
nobly  since  the  middle  of  August,  filling  their 
hives,  storing  much  surplus  honey,  and  swarm- 
ing until  September  5th.  I  unexpectedly  had 
a  natural  swarm  on  the  1st  of  September,  and 
with  a  little  assistance  they  are  ready  for  winter 
quarters. — C.  J.  Housel. 

Worthington,  Pa.,  Oct.  13. — I  am  much 
pleased  with  the  Bee  Journal,  and  have  al- 
ready derived  more  benefit  from  it  than  its  cost. 
— J.  W.  B. 

Lettsville,  Iowa,  Oct.  14. — We  bought  a 
stand  of  bees  last  fall  for  $3.25.  It  and  the  in- 
crease are  worth  $35.00,  plus  72  lbs.  of  honey, 
at  25  cents,  $18.00  ;  making  $53.00  of  $3.25,  or 
1537  per  cent.— D.  D.  P. 


Are  Bees  Profitable  ? — This  question,  so 
often  asked,  is  answered  satisfactorily,  we 
think,  by  the  fact  that  Dr.  John  Dillard,  of  this 
county,  obtained  from  his  stock  of  Italian 
bees,  as  the  result  of  the  season's  work,  three 
thousand  (3,000)  pounds  of  excellent  marketa- 
ble honey,  and  also  eighty  new  and  healthy 
stands  of  bees.  This  is  an  attractive  showing, 
nnd  will  induce  many  of  our  readers  to  think 
more  favorably  of  this  branch  of  domestic  in- 
dustry.— Louisville  (K.  Y.)  Farmers'  Journal^ 
September  30,  1869. 


Never  blow  your  breath  on  your  bees.     They 
will  sting  3'ou  directly  if  you  clo. — Butler. 


American  Bee  Journal. 


EDITED  AND  PUBLISHED  BY  SAMUEL  WAGNER,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

AT  TWO  DOLLAKS  PER  ANNUM,  PAYABLE  IN  ADVANCE. 


Vol.  v. 


DECEMiBEBr,    lJ*i«0. 


No. 


Attempts  at  Bee-keeping  in  India. 


I  am  indebted  to  an  unknown  friend  in  the 
great  Asiatic  peninsula  for  a  copy  of  a  recent 
number  of  the  Saturday  edition  of  The  Indian 
Daily  Netos,  from  which  I  extract  tlie  following 
interesting  article. 

T.  W.  Woodbury, 
"A  Devonshire  Bee-keeper." 
Mount  Radford,  Exeter,  England. 


Amusements  op  a  Naturali.-t — Bees. 
Bees  that  collect  honey  are  found  in  almost 
all  countries.  Aud  wherever  Englishmen  go  to 
make  new  homes  for  themselves,  if  they  find 
there  are  uonp,  or  none  of  the  right  kind  to  meet 
their  wishes,  they  soon  manage  to  get  some  from 
home.  Bees  occupy  a  very  important  place  in 
creation,  and  perform  very  important  functions 
in  rendering  fruitful  the  seed-vessels  of  vegeta- 
bles and  flowers.  In  New  Zealand,  it  is  said 
that  the  Clover  taken  from  home  and  sown  there 
produced  beautiful  crops  of  fodder,  but  no  seed, 
till  the  English  honey  bee  was  imported.  In  In- 
dia there  is  no  lack  of  honey  bees.  There  are 
three  kinds  that  are  especially  interesting.  The 
large  bee,  that  constructs  its  combs  on  the  boughs 
of  trees,  makes  a  comb  about  the  size  of  the  half 
of  an  ordinary  carP-wheel.  The  bee  is  as  large 
as  a  hornet,  and  its  sting  is  fully  as  poisonous. 
I  began  amusing  myself  with  this  creature,  but  I 
thought  it  necessary  to  go  about  forming  an  ac- 
quaintance with  it  very  cautiously.  I  thought  it 
advisable,  first  of  all,  to  understand  the  extent 
of  its  ability  to  produce  hurt.  1  could  pretty 
well  judge  of  the  extent  of  its  honey- producing 
capacities  from  what  I  had  seen  of  its  comb, — 
3  inches  thick  near  the  bough  upon  which  it  was 
built,  and  indeed  at  times  thicker  if  the  bough 
were  a  thick  one,  and  in  the  thinnest  part  where 
the  breeding  was  carried  on,  fully  2^  inches  in 
thickness.  The  upper  part,  that  is  to 'say,  about 
a  depth  of  4  inches,  was  occupied  with  honey  ; 
and  a  full-sized  comb  would  be  about  3  feet  along 
the  bough,  that  is  to  say,  comb  filled  with  honey, 
3  feet  long  and  from  4  to  5  inches  deep.  A  goodly 
quantity  of  sweet-stuff  this,    to  be   bad  for  the 


I  gathering.     The  best  way  of  gathering  is  to  get 
!  a  quantity  of  rubbish  together,  put  it  under  the 
the  hive,  or  more  properly  the  comb,  and  set  fire 
I  to  it  in  the  evening.     Bees  cannot  bear  smoke, 
I  and  there  are   most  alarming  tales  told  about 
j  travellers  having  made  fires  under  trees  in  the 
j  daytime,  without  first  looking  up  to  see  if  the 
smoke  might  be  any  annoyance  to  any  one  up 
above.     I  remember  an  Arab  horse-dealer  once 
acting  thus  imprudently,  and  almost  before  his 
horses  were  picketed,  the  infuriated  saurungs — 
I  that  is  t^ie   native  name — began  to   sting  the 
I  horses,  and  in  the  course  of  ten   minutes  every 
i  horse  fled   from  the   encampment,   tearing  like 
!  mad  horses,  at  every  point  of  the  compass  ;  the 
j  syees  trying  in  vain  every  possible  dodge  but  the 
right  one  to  escape  the  infuriated  creatures.  Two 
i  of  the  horses  that  could  not  escape  early  enough, 
I  died  from  the  stings  they  received,  and  of  the 
,  men  several  were  ill  for  days.     I  did  not  know 
I  of  the  certainty  of  such  cases   as  this,  when  I 
;  sought  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  saurung 
I  honey  bee.     The  object  I  had  in  view  was  to  do- 
I  mesticate  them  ;  and  I  knew  I  could  not  do  so 
unless  I  could  establish  a  sort  of  friendship  with 
j  them      I  found  a  fine  large  hive  near  my  house, 
suspended  from   a   large   branch  on  a  mangoe 
tree.     My  first  object  was  to  get  hold  of  one  in- 
dividual bee  by  itself.  I  thought  it  safer  to  ascer- 
tain what  could  be  done  with  one  before  I  at- 
tempted a  number.     A  marble  from  a  goolail* 
soon  brought  down  about  half-a-dozen,  and  they 
were  rather  at  my  mercy  in  that  state.  I  quietly 
proposed  to  one,  that  we  should  make  each  oth- 
er's acquaintance  ;  he  offered  no  objection,  but 
when  I  took  hold  of  his  wings  he  protruded  his 
sting.     I  said,  "Exactly  so  !  what  is  its  value  ?" 
and  presented  the  little  finger  of  my  left  hand  in 
return.     In  an  instant  the  bee  was  under  my 
foot,  for  with  a  force  which  I  had  not  counted 
upon,  the  sting  was  thrust  home  into  my  finger. 
Fortunately  it  pierced  the  finger  sidewise,  and 
the  thickness  of  the  skin  had  saved  me  from  the 
full  effect  of  the  poison  ;  but  the  burning  heat  it 
had  engendered  in  my  finger,  running  right  up 
my  arm  in  an  instant,  quite  satisfied  me  that  I 
had  better  let  well  enough  alone,  and  drop  their 


Pellet-bow. 


110 


THE  AMEEICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


acquaintance.  I  had  carried  an  antidote  with 
me,  and  as  soon  as  I  could  get  the  cork  out  of 
the  bottle,  I  put  a  good  drop  of  ammonia  well 
saturated  with  opium,  on  the  place  where  the 
sting  was  taken  out,  and  that  soon  gave  me  re- 
lief. I  soon  afterwards  found  that  the  honey 
collected  by  this  large  kind  of  bee  is  very  coarse 
and  often  unwholesome.  My  readers  perhaps 
will  cry,  Sour  Grapes  !  Honor  bright,  however  ; 
what  1  say  is  correct. 

The  domesticated  honey  bee  was  always  a 
great  fiivourite  with  me  at  home,  and  indeed 
with  my  father  and  mother  before  me.  I  re- 
member how  often  I  used  to  get  stung  by  them 
in  our  garden,  when  as  a  small  boy  I  would  dis- 
obey orders,  and  wilfully  go  to  the  hive  and 
watch  the  little  creatures,  as  they  came  home 
with  tlieir  legs  laden  with  little  pellets  of  brown, 
green,  and  yellow  pollen,  which  my  mother  told 
me  was  honey,  but  which  I  found  when  I  caught 
one  was  not  sweet  at  all,  and  therefore  could  not 
be  honey — for  which  experiment  I  got  a  caning. 
I  remember  also  one  cold  frosty  night,  as  I  got 
into  the  chimney  corner,  how  all  the  household 
was  thrown  into  confusion  by  some  one  rushing 
into  the  room,  saying  that  there  were  thieves 
about,  for  that  they  had  heard  the  rustling  of 
their  steps  in  the  stubble  field  and  behind  the 
house.  There  was  at  once  a  careful  listening  by 
all  who  were  bold  enough  to  venture  out  of  doors; 
but  all  was  quiet,  not  a  footstep  not  the  least 
rustling  was  to  be  heard  even  in  the  stubble  field. 
My  fatlier,  however,  thought  he  would  make 
sure  by  walking  round  the  grounds,  and  as  he 
went  into  the  garden,  he  thought  in  the  starlight 
things  did  not  look  all  serene  about  the  bee-stall; 
and  sure  enough  when  he  walked  up  to  it,  there 
was  the  heaviest  hive  out  of  the  five  carried  oif. 
To  follow  the  rogue  or  rogues  on  the  way  to  the 
town  was  the  resolution  of  all  in  an  instant.  But 
before  they  had  gone  half  a  mile  from  the  farm- 
house, a  man  coming  from  the  town  assured 
them  that  he  had  met  no  one  since  leaving  the 
town,  and  they  all  returned  to  the  liouse.  The 
search  was  recommenced  the  next  day,  and  my 
father  hit  on  the  idea  of  going  through  the  town, 
and  looking  after  the  contents  of  his  Jiivc,  which 
he  shrewdly  conjectured  would  be  there  in  some 
window  exposed  for  sale.  He  returned  home 
full  of  joy,  for  he  had  found  his  honey — he  knew 
it  was  his — there  could  not  be  another  such  a 
hive,  it  must  be  his,  the  comb  was  two  years  ;ind 
a  half  old,  almost  as  black  as  ink,  and  the  honey 
the  best  in  the  world.  But  the  grocer  in  whose 
window  it  was  exposed  for  sale  refused  to  give  it 
up — he  had  bought  it.  He  did  not  know  the  per- 
son he  had  bought  it  of,  but  he  had  to  come  to 
his  shop  again  the  next  night,  which  was  Satur- 
day, and  if  my  f;ither  would  come  and  wait  in- 
side, he  would  let  him  see  who  he  was.  All  was 
arranged — and  what  a  rise  !  The  man  was  the 
very  man  that  returning  from  the  town,  told  my 
father  he  had  met  no  one  since  leaving  the  town. 
The  rest  may  be  imagined.  Nothing  could  be 
done.  The  other  four  hives,  however,  were  at 
once  chained  down  to  their  blocks. 

I  must  have  been  about  three  years  old  Avhen 
these  circumstances  occurred,  and  a  big  boy 
working  on  the  farm  put  me  up  to  a  way  of  mak- 
ing experiments  far  more  remunerative  than  the 


unloading  of  the  little  creatures  laden  with  pol- 
len. He  showed  me  how  to  hunt  out  the  humble 
bee,  and  to  rob  its  nest.  The  plan  was  to  take  a 
bough  of  hazel,  and  thrash  the  poor  bees  to 
death,  then  pulling  the  poor  creatures  asunder  at 
the  shoulder,  pick  out  the  houey-bag,  which  then 
lay  exposed.  There  was  no  amusement  in  this, 
and  I  never  tried  it  twice. 

And  now  to  return  to  my  India  tale.  As  soon 
as  I  saw  my  error  in  hoping  to  domesticate  the 
large  saurung,  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  find  a 
hive  of  the  true  honey  bee — like  the  <me  at  home- 
located  jn  a  hollow  mangoe  tree  in  my  compound. 
In  my  ignorance  of  the  Indian  bee,  I  concluded 
it  was  the  same  in  its  habits  as  our  home  bee, 
and  therefore  I  prepared  a  box  large  enough  to 
hold  the  bees  of  an  Engli.sh  hive.  The  next 
thing  to  be  done  was  to  get  them  out  of  the  tree. 
No  one  would  help  me,  for  all  were  afraid  of  the 
sting.  With  a  good  chisel  and  a  hammer  I  soon 
managed  to  open  a  way  into  the  hive,  but  while 
I  was  doing  this  the  inmates  had  been  singing 
excelsior^  and  had  marched  a  full  arm's  length 
further  up  the  tree.  I  took  out  all  the  combs, 
and  then  putting  my  hand  up  the  tree  as  far  as 
my  arm  could  reach,  I  took  out  a  handful  of 
bees,  and  put  them  with  the  comb  into  the  box  I 
had  prepared  ;  but  I  was  obliged  to  give  this  up, 
for  as  fast  as  I  put  the  bees  into  the  box  they 
fiew  out  again.  I  therefore  yielded  to  necessity, 
and  gave  up  that  plan  of  proceeding.  I  then 
filled  up  the  hole  in  the  tree,  as  far  as  I  could, 
with  clay,  and  fixing  my  box  up  upon  the  tree, 
made  such  arrangements  that  the  bees  could  only 
get  in  and  out  by  passing  through  ray  box.  I 
hoped  by  this  means  to  get  them  into  the  box 
with  their  own  comb  full  of  young  ones.  I  was 
disappointed  however,  for  at  five  o'clock  the 
next  morning  they  had  all  collected  outside  my 
box,  and  were  evidently  intending  to  emigrate  as 
soon  as  their  arrangements  were  matured.  I 
managed  to  be  beforehand  with  them,  for  I  at 
once  took  a  basket  and  whipped  them  all  into  it, 
by  the  aid  of  a  grey  goose-quill,  and  having  got 
them  there,  I  put  a  cloth  over  it,  and  kept  them 
prisoners  till  the  next  morning.  They  showed 
their  displeasure  with  my  arrangements  by  be- 
ginning to  fly  out  as  soon  as  I  opened  their  prison 
basket.  I  now  caught  sight  of  the  queen,  and 
picking  her  out,  clipped  ner  wings  with  a  pair  of 
scissors.  Knowing  that  the  hive  was  now  at  my 
mercy,  I  put  them  into  a  large  glass  dish-cover, 
such  as  is  used  for  protecting  cakes  and  such 
things.  A  small  piece  of  new  comb  was  fixed 
in  it.-^  proper  position,  and  another  day  in  the 
dark  was  to  produce  great  results.  It  did  so,  for 
the  next  morning  on  opening  the  covering  I  saw 
that  the  workers  had  repaired  the  comb  where  it 
had  been  injured,  and  the  queen  had  laid  a  few 
eggs,  so  that  I  felt  quite  sure  all  would  now  be 
well. 

The  colony  had  become  very  small.  I  do  not 
think  there  could  be  more  than  an  ounce  of  bees 
all  together.  Bees  are  a  very  delicate  people, 
and  the  least  extra  trouble  or  exertion  kills  them 
by  hundreds.  But  small  as  the  colony  had  be- 
come, for  six  days  it  was  very  quiet  and  prosper- 
ous, and  they  had  become  so  accustomed  to  my 
investigations  that  I  could  take  away  the  glass 
cover  altogether,  and  the  queen  herself  did  not 


THE  AMEKIOAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


Hi 


show  any  great  signs  of  feeling  the  indignity  if  |  tliat  had  shown  deci'led  musical  propensities  by 
I  piclted  her  out  and  puc  her  on  my  hand— the  l  taking  up  their  residence  in  a  tom-tom.*  This 
workers  seemed  most  anxious,  and  usually  one  |  was  a  greil  gift,  and  I  went  by  moonlight,  and 
or  two  would  accompany  her  upon  my  hand.  |  brought  it  home  with  great  pleasure.  I  so  nia- 
On  the  seventh  day.  all  my  amusement  seemed  nipulated  the  earthen  jar  over  which  the  skin  was 
to  be  at  an  end  ;  a  servant  came  to  tell  me  that  ,  drawn  to  make  a  tom-tom  of  it,  that  I  put  win- 
the  bees  were  on  the  wing.  True  enough,  there  j  dows  in  it,  and  so  got  free  liberty  to  look  at  my 
they  were,  but  what  was  the  cause  ?  And  the  |  friends  by  night  and  day.  Thea  I  made  a  door, 
queen  without  wings;  where  was  she?  The  I  and  so  in  time  got  free  admission  to  make  exper- 
cause  was  at  once  evident  ;  the  ants  had  dis-  |  iments.  After  watching  for  hours  during  several 
turbed  the  new  colony,  and  not  being  able  to  j  days,  I  managed  to  see  the  queen  laying  her  eggs, 
drive  back  the  enemy,  they  had  vacated  their  j  nearly  close  to  th*  door.  This  was  just  the 
works.  The  great  question  was  where  was  the  |  'ticket.  I  secured  her,  and  put  her  in  a  wineglass 
queen  ?  After  hunting  for  her  for  some  time,  I  j  with  a  piece  of  muslin  over  it.  And  then  I  waited 
found  her  with  only  two  or  three  attendants,  and  :  to  see  the  result.  Again  and  again  I  watched  for 
one  or  two  ants  were  i 
and  put  her  in  a  safe 


,wo  or  mree  aiieniianis,  anu  ;  lo  see  ine  resuii.  i^gain  ana  again  i  waicnea  lor 
upon  her.  I  picked  her  up  I  three  hours,  and  no  panic,  nor  yet  confusion  ; 
fe  place  where  the  workers    then  I  thought  there  was  a  slight  change  in  the 


could  get  to  her,  and  having  secured  her  person, 
I  set  to  work  to  drive  off  the  ants.  They  had 
attacked  the  young  grubs  and  had  killed  some  of 
them,  to  my  great  distress.  At  lent!;th  1  got  them 
all  clear  of* the  comb,  and  having  put  the  feet  of 
the  table  into  water,  I  thought  all  would  be  safe 
for  the  future,  and  put  the  colony  back  again 
with  their  work.  Things  did  not,  however,  at 
all  please  them.  I  fancy  an  odour  of  the  horrid 
little  ants  was  left  upon  the  comb,  for  every  now 
and  again,  an  offended  bee  would  buzz  in  the 
greatest  anger,  twizzling  itself  round  and  round 
for  a  second,  and  then  rush  off  to  another  place. 
A  great  reduction  in  numbers  had  taken  place, 
and  at  noon  every  day  the  few  that  remained 
took  wing — I  kept  them  in  my  room,  where  I 
could  constantly  watch  them — but  I  usually  in- 
terfered in  time  to  prevent  the  vacation  of  the 
hive.  At  last,  not  ctring  much  if  1  did  lose 
them,  I  thought  I  would  let  them  go  to  the  end, 
and  see  the  result  of  the  panic  whatever  it  might 
be.  The  queen  was  evidently  ill,  and  ceased  to 
rush  about  as  she  usually  does  when  there  is  ex- 


sound  from  the  workers ;  then  there  followed 
fiying  out  and  immediate  return  by  some  ;  their 
work  ceased,  and  in  place  of  its  merry  hum  there 
was  a  sort  of  hushing  sound  ;  then  a  rush  here 
and  there  in  disorder,  and  finally  a  general  rush 
to  the  aperture  of  the  hive,  and  most  of  the  bees 
took  wing.  I  knew  I  was  master  of  the  position, 
so  I  waited  p:itiently  tUl  the  panic  subsided,  and 
when  all  was  quiet  in  the  evening,  I  opened  the 
door  to  return  her  majesty  to  her  throne  and  peo- 
ple ;  but  as  I  was  putting  her  in,  I  observed  a 
lump  of  bees  about  as  large  as  a  hen's  egg  on  the 
comb  facing  me.  I,  therefore,  put  the  queen 
back  to  the  wineglass  again,  while  I  examined 
this  unusual  appearance  ;  and  I  was  well  repaid 
for  my  trouble,  for  the  little  creatures  seeing  their 
sad  misfortune,  had  begun  to  make  a  large  cell 
for  a  new  queen.  I  at  once  decided  to  keep  her 
majesty  a  prisoner,  to  see  whereunto  this  thing 
would  grow.  By  the  next  morning  the  cell  was 
complete,  and  all  attention  was  given  to  the  grub 
out  of  one  of  the  ordinary  cells  that  was  in  it. 
The  new  cell  was  placed  perpendicular  on  the 


citement  in  the  hive  uttering  the  long-continued  ■  face  of  the  comb,  and  I  have  since  observed  that 


pe-e-e-e.  The  workers  all  flew  to  and  fro  in  and 
out  of  the  hive,  and  to  my  astonishment  one  of 
the  workers  took  up  the  queen,  carried  her  out, 
and  fell  with  her  upon  the  grass.  This  was  the 
end  of  the  queen  and  of  my  colony  of  bees,  for 
the  queen  died  that  day  and  I  took  no  further 
notic>;  of  the  workers. 

I  was  not  long  left  without  other  hives,  for  the 
natives  of  the  city  had  taken  an  interest  in  my 
amusement ;  the  extempore  poets  made  and  sang 
songs  about  me  and  my  bees,  and  I  had  friends  i 
on  all  sides  who  daily  brought  me  news  of  new 
hives.  My  amusements  now  formed  a  reason 
for  morning  anil  evening  exercise,  either  on  foot, 
or  on  horseback,  or  by1i)uggy,  and  the  boys  of 
the  city  took  great  interest  in  the  little  folk  that 
afforded  me  amusement.  I  now  took  a  number 
of  hives  in  hand  ;  one  I  kept  in  the  hollow  tree 
where  I  found  it.  I  brought  it  home  for  a  dis- 
tance of  four  miles  on  a  cart  at  night.  I  filled 
up  the  aperture  by  which  they  passed  in  and  out, 
cut  off  the  timber  which  was  not  wanted,  and  so 
rendered  the  tree  manageable.  This  hive  did 
very  well  in  its  new  locality,  but  I  could  only 
look  at  them  going  in  and  out,  and  amufe  myself 
by  observing  their  wonderful  industry  in  work- 
ing. A  farmer  who  had  heard  of  the  eccentric 
sahib  who  tamed  bees  and  made  them  understand 
him,  came  and  offered  me  a  good  strong  hive. 


queen's  cells  are  always  in  a  perpendicular  posi- 
tion. I  could  not  afford  to  let  matters  go  too  far, 
because  I  should  have  lost  my  queen  by  so  do- 
ing, and  the  new  queen  would  have  been  unfruit- 
ful for  a  long  time,  if  not  altogether  barren,  in- 
asmuch as  she  must  have  gone  abroad  among  her 
neighbours  for  a  royal  consort.  There  were  at 
that  period  no  drones  in  the  hive.  Within  three 
hours  after  the  queen  was  returned  the  intended 
new  qneen  was  neglected,  and  the  next  day  the 
disfigurement  on  the  face  of  the  comb  had  dis- 
appeared. As  the  spring  came  on,  I  saw  the 
combs  day  by  day  enlarge,  and  immense  num- 
bers of  drones — males — came  out,  and  in  due 
course  queen's  cells  were  formed  upon  the  lower 
edges  of  the  combs,  to  the  number  of  twenty ; 
and  by  the  middle  of  February  I  had  seen  eight 
swarms  fiy  off  from  this  one  hive.  Some  of  the 
swarms  were  very  small,  and  in  the  end  the  hive 
was  so  weak  that  moths  got  in  and  laid  their  eggs 
in  the  comb,  so  that  the  few  that  remained  were 
eaten  out  of  house  and  home  by  the  grubs  of  the 
moths,  which  burrowed  the  comb  in  every  di- 
rection, filling  them  with  cobwebs  wherever  they 
went. 

Although  I  was  much  interested  in  my  amuse- 
ment, yet  I  must  confess  to  great  disappointment 


*  Native  drum. 


112 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


as  to  tlie  commercial  results.  I  had  hoped  that 
we  might  have  nice  little  rows  of  bee-bives  in 
our  gardens  in  India,  just  as  one  can  have  at 
home,  with  results  as  sweet  and  as  paying,  but 
so  far  as  1  could  see,  the  strong  instinct  for  emi- 
gration and  colonising  in  the  Indian  bee  seemed 
to  forbid  such  a  result.  As  I  could  now  get 
plenty  of  bees,  I  resolved  for  one  good  experi- 
ment in  the  interests  of  commerce.  1  thought  if 
I  could  put  five  or  six  hives  together,  I  should 
have  a  good  strong  one  to  begin  the  experiment 
with.  So  now  I  had  a  six-d<kzen  beer  chest  pre- 
pared for  a  hive,  and  a  noble  hive  it  was.  The 
thing  to  be  done  was  to  fill  it  with  a  working 
colony.  A  Mahomedan  gentleman  gave  me  free 
access  to  his  forest  and  zemiudary,  allowing  me 
to  take  any  liberty  I  pleased  with  those  trees  that 
had  bees  in  them  ;  from  cutting  off  a  limb  to 
felling  the  trunk.  I  selected  my  trees,  and  the 
first  was  an  old  jammum  pollard.  Two  good 
bhurrs  (woodcutters)  soon  brought  it  down  for 
me,  and  the  bees  being  within  1^  foot  of  the  bot- 
tom, I  was  able  to  reach  them  pretty  well.  But, 
do  what  I  could,  the  bees  would  not  remain  in 
my  hive,  as  fast  as  I  took  them  out  they  tlew 
back  again  into  the  tree.  I  ordered  the  tren  to 
be  split  open  in  the  middle — as  soon  as  it  wa.s 
opened  out,  "horror  of  horrors,"  there  lay  coiled 
up  a  large  khoreit  snake,  and  every  time  my 
hand  had  gone  in,  it  had  gone  over  this  snake. 
It  makes  me  shiver  when  I  think  of  it  now,  and 
the  sight  of  those  lookers-on  who  were  with  me 
is  a  picture  on  my  memory  still.  My  honest  and 
good  friend,  the  Mahomedan,  would  allow  me  to 
cut  no  more  trees,  unless  I  promised  in  future  to 
see  what  sort  of  a  nest  I  was  putting  my  hand 
into.  I  of  course  gave  the  promise,  and  kept  it. 
I  saw  my  friend  twenty  year.s  after  the  above, 
and  he  still  retained  the  clearest  possible  convic- 
tion of  the  goodness  of  my  kismut.  May  his 
shadow  never  grow  less  ! 

I  got  together  six  hives  without  any  further 
trouble,  and  then  how  were  they  to  be  united  ? 
I  made  short  work  of  it,  by  mixing  a  solution  of 
sugar  and  water,  and  poured  it  into  the  hive  that 
was  to  be  united  with  the  bees  already  in  the  new 
hive.  I  easily  managed  to  get  the  queen,  and 
the  workers  were  then  taken  to  and  claimed  by 
the  old  stock  as  a  matter  of  course.  And  thus  I 
filled  my  magnificent  hive.  It  was  a  sight  to 
see  them  work.  I  had  the  hive  in  a  house'^  with 
a  hole  in  the  wall  for  going  out  and  in,  and  I 
had  doors  and  widows  for  observation.  T  would 
have  no  tricks  with  these  to  interfere  with  the 
commercial  results.  My  heart  rejoiced  as  day 
by  day  and  week  by  week,  I  saw  the  combsgrow 
and  the  inmates  increase.  To  show  their  watch- 
ful care  and  strength,  I  may  relate  that  a  death's- 
head  moth  had  the  temerity  to  enter  an  air  cham- 
ber I  had  made  for  ventilation  ;  there  he  was 
waxed  down  to  the  board,  and  made  a  mummy 
as  a  warning  to  all  such  intruders.  As  the  in- 
mates increased  in  number,  I  was  alarmed  at  the 
unusual  heat  engendered,  and  I  did  all  in  my 
power  to  cool  them  down.  It  was  all  useless,  for 
the  heat  went  on  increasing,  and  the  ventilators 
were  covered  with  an  immense  amount  of  mois- 
ture that  collected  in  large  drops  as  the  vapour 
condensed,  and  soon,  to  my  utter  despair,  I  saw 
combs  forming  for  drones,  and  these  of  course 


were  followed  by  queens'  cells.  I  did  all  in  my 
power  to  put  an  end  to  both,  but  the  colony  out- 
witted me,  and  one  day  I  had  the  misfortune  to 
see  my  splendid  hive  denuded  of  more  than  half 
of  its  population.  I  caught  and  killed  the  old 
queen  who  was  leading  them  ofi",  and  the  queen 
being  killed  the  bees  returned  again  to  the  hive. 
The  excitement  never  subsided,  and  the  next  day 
many  took  wing  again.  I  saw  the  bees  were 
angry,  but  I  did  not  expect  the  mischief  which 
followed.  I  had  a  very  tame,  long-tailed,  black- 
faced,  white  monkey — a  longoor — and  my  angry 
bees  stung  him  to  death  before  I  was  aware  of 
his  danger.  On  the  third  day  from  the  jDrevious 
swarming,  a  new  queen  led  them  off"  again,  and 
this  time  they  flew  away  at  once.  I  now  gave  up 
all  as  useless  and  hopeless,  and  prepared  for  one 
final  experiment,  little  suspecting  the  good  for- 
tune that  awaited  me. 

I  removed  all  the  combs,  except  one  very  nice 
new  little  one,  and  sought  for  and  removed  the 
queen.     My  object  was  to   see   how  long  the 
workers  would  hold  together  and  keep  to  the 
hive  after  losing  their  queen.  At  first,  of  course, 
all   was  confusion  ;  but  they  soon  began  to  col- 
lect pollen,  though  their  wax  was   all  wasted. 
And   although   the    pollen    was    collected   and 
brought   home,  very   little   skill  was  shown  in 
storing  it,  and  most  of  it  fell  in  little  oblong 
flakes  at  the  bottom  of  the  hive.     After  six  days, 
I  was  surprised  to  find  a  number  of  eggs  on  the 
board  at  the  bottom  of  the  hive.     I  could  hardly 
believe  what  I  saw.     I  was  quite  sure  there  was 
no  queen,   and  yet  there  were  eggs.     I  made  a 
closer  search,  and  more  astonishing  still,  nearly 
all  the  cells  in  the  comb  I  had  left  them  had  eggs 
in  them  ;  not  one  egg  in  each,  as  the  queen  care- 
fully lays  her  eggs,  but  in  one  I  counted  a  dozen, 
and  there  was  every  proof  of  a  most  careless  and 
!  indiscriminate   laying.      I   was    determined  to 
i  give  up  any  time  and  attention  that  might  lie  re- 
I  quired  to  fathom  the  mystery  ;  and  in  a  short 
i  time,  I  saw  the  common  worker  bees  laying  eggs, 
}  Of  course  I  was  most  anxious  to  see  what  the 
'[  final  result  of  this  new  fact  would  be.     I  soon 
j  saw  that  the  eggs  were  fruitful,  for  the  little  worm 
I  floating  in  jelfy  appeared  in  some  cells  the  next 
1  day,  and  things  went  through  their  usual  course 
i  to  the  closing  up  of  the  cells.     My  patience  could 
not  wait  for  the  flying  insect  to  come  out,  and  I 
opened  a  cell  and  took  out  a  young  bee  nearly 
ready  to  come  out  ;  and  two  days  afterwards,  I 
was  gratified  by  seeing   some  half  dozen  little 
black  drones  fly  out  with  their  usual  heavy  buzz. 
This  was  highly  satisfactory  as  far  as  it  went.  It 
was  a  fact,  not  before  known,  that  the  workers 
could  turn  out  fruitful.     There  was  no  hope  for 
the  hive,  for  the  males  do  not  work.     Nothing 
more  was  to  be  learnt,  and  my  hive  died  out  in 
short  time.     And  here  was  an  end  to  my  amuse- 
!  ment  with  bees.        

The  Rev.  Henry  Oppermann,  chaplain  of  the 
German  legion  employed  in  British  Cafi'raria, 
says  that  in  the  season  when  the  bees  in  that 
country  gather  honey  chiefly  from  the  Aloe  blos- 
soms, it  is  of  a  poisonous  or  noxious  quality, 
causing  nausea  or  vomiting  when  eaten. 

Talk  that  does  not  end  in  any  kind  of  action 
is  better  suppressed  altogether. —  Carlisle. 


"^HE   AMEHIUAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


113 


Korth-western  Bee-keepers'  Association. 

Official  Eepokt. 


The  third  annual  meeting  of  this  association 
was  held  at  the  Young  Ladies'  Library  Rooms, 
in  Decatur,  Illinois,  on  Wednesday  evening  of 
the  State  Fair  week.  Three  sessions  followed 
the  annual  meeting,  two  on  Thursday  and  one 
on  Friday.  The  meeting  was  well  attended  by 
the  bee-keepers  of  Illinois  and  other  States.  The 
majority  were  practical  men,  largely  and  enthu- 
siastically engaged  in  the  culture  of  the  honej'' 
bee.  Several  infiuential  members  of  the  press 
were  present. 

Tlie  annual  meeting  was  called  to  order  byM. 
M.  Baldridge,  the  secretary,  none  of  the  other 
officers  being  present.  Dr.  J.  Blanchard,  of  Il- 
linois, was  then  made  chairman  pro  tern.,  but 
vacated  the  office  on  the  arrival  of  M.  L.  Dun- 
lap,  Vice  President  for  Illinois. 

Tlie  Vice  President,  on  taking  the  chair,  gave 
notice  that  the  Secretary  was  ready  to  record  the 
names  and  address,  and  to  receive  tae  member- 
ship fee  of  one  dollar,  of  those  wishing  to  join 
the  association.  Twenty-four  new  names  were 
added  to  the  list.  The  association  then  proceeded 
to  the  election  of  officers  for  the  ensuing  year  as 
provided  by  the  constitution.  The  following 
officers  were  unanimously  elected  : 

President,  M.  L.  Dunlap,  Champaign,  Illinois. 

Vice  Presidents,  Lucius  C  Francis,  Spring- 
field Illinois,  Elisha  Gallup,  Osage,  Iowa,  H.  P. 
Danks,  Fond-du-lac,  Wisconsin.  [No  Vice 
Presidents  were  chosen  for  the  States  of  Mis- 
souri, Nebraska  and  Minnesota,  they  not  being 
represented  in  the  associotion.  j 

Secretary,  M.  M.  Baldridge,  St.  Charles,  Illi- 
nois. 

Treasurer,  James  M.  Marvin,  St.  Charles,  Il- 
linois. 

The  time  and  place  for  holding  the  next  annual 
meeting  was  briefly  discussed.  The  constitution 
provides  that  the  annual  meeting  shall  be  held  at 
the  time  and  place  of  the  State  Fair  of  some  one 
of  the  six  Northwestern  States  represented  in  the 
association,  which  is  to  be  determined  by  a  ma- 
jority vote  of  the  members  present. 

Vice  President  Danks  stated  that  he  was  a 
member  of  the  Wisconsin  Bee-keepers'  Associa- 
tion, and  tiiat  he  hadbeenrequested  to  invite  the 
Northwestern  Association  to  meet  with  them  at 
the  next  Wisconsin  State  Fair,  so  there  could  be 
a  temporary  co-operation  of  the  two  societies. 
He  also  stated  there  was  quite  a  number  of  the 
Wisconsin  bee-keepers  who  would  like  to  join 
and  meet  with  our  society,  but  were  this  year 
prevented  fi'om  doing  so  in  conseciuence  of  the 
State  Fairs  being  held  the  same  week.  To  remedy 
this,  he  suggested  an  amendment  of  our  consti- 
tution, changing  the  time  of  holding  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  association. 

The  President  did  not  think  it  best  to  amend 
the  constitution  in  that  respect,  as  he  had  no  idea 
that  the  States  of  Indiana,  Wtsconsin,  and  Illi- 
nois would  be  so  short-sighted  as  to  hold  their 
State  Fairs  again  in  tlie  same  week. 

The  suggestion  of  the  Wisconsin  member  was 


not  supported.  The  secretary  stated  that  this 
society  held  two  annual  meetings  in  the  State  of  ' 
lowfc,  and  he  was  in  favor  of  holding  another 
meeting  in  Illinois,  before  changing  the  location; 
but  would  waive  any  objection  to  its  being  held 
in  any  other  State  the  Society  might  select. 

A  vote  was  taken,  resulting  in  the  choice  of 
Decatur,  Illinois,  as  the  place  for  holding  the 
next  annual  meeting. 

Dr.  Blanchard,  Rev.  A.  Salisbury  and  E. 
Daggy,  were  appointed  a  committee  to  ascertain 
how  much  surplus  honey  and  how  many  hives 
of  bees  are  represented  by  the  members  of  this 
society.  The  committee  was  also  instructed  to 
ascertain  the  kinds  of  hives  used,  and  the  num- 
ber of  each  kind  ;  also  the  number  of  hives  of 
bees  each  member  had  in  the  spring. 

The  main  object  of  tliis  report  is  to  convince 
the  public,  by  facts  and  figures,  that  bee-keeping 
is  profitable.  That  this  information  may  be  com- 
plete, the  Secretary  requests  those  members  who 
were  necessarily  absent,  to  forward  their  reports 
at  once  to  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee,  Dr. 
J.  Blanchard,  Brimfield,  Illinois.  The  Chairman 
will  then  forward  the  condensed  report  to  the 
Secretary  for  publication.  If  the  price,  per  pound, 
at  which  surplus  honey  is  sold,  is  also  given,  it 
will  add  much  to  the  value  of  the  reporrs. 

A  committee  was  then  appointed,  consisting  of 
the  President,  Vice  President  Francis,  and  the 
Secretary,  to  award  prizes  for  the  largest  amount 
of  honey  that  can  be  legitimately  secured,  next 
season,   from  a  given  number  of  hives  of  bees. 
This  committee  is  to  have  full  control  of  the  mat- 
ter.  They  will  fix  the  time  for  selecting  the  bees, 
and  when  the  season   shall  close,  the  number  of 
hives  to  be  used  in  competing  for  the  prize,  the 
number  of  prizes,  and  the  amount  of  each.     The 
The  committee  will  prescribe  rules  and  regula- 
tions in  regard  to  managing  the  bees,   and  will 
'  rec^uire  of  the  competitors  proper  evidence  of  the 
I  truthfulness  of  their  reports.     It  will  therefore  be 
'  for  the  interest  of  the  successful  competitors  not 
I  to  present  any  Munchausen  reports,  for  they  will 
j  be  carefully  investigated.     The  prizes  will  be  so 
liberal  that  they  will  be  worth  competing  for,  and 
it  is  thought  that  not  less  than  two  hundred  bee- 
keepers will  be  on  hand  as  competitors.  All  com- 
petitors must  first  become  members  of  the  asso- 
ciation, which  they  can  do  by  simply  sending 
their  names  and  address,  and  the  membership  fee 
of  one  dollar,  to  the  Secretary,     N'o  further  fee 
will  be  required. 

The  object  of  these  pr^es  is  to  ascertain  truth- 
fully how  many  pounds  of  honey  a  given  number 
of  bees  will  store  in  a  season,  when  managed  in- 
telligently and  in  the  best  possible  manner.  It 
is  now  claimed  by  our  best  bee-keepers  that  they 
can  easily  obtain  a  ton  of  lioney  as  surplus,  in  one 
good  season,  from  ten  hives  of  bees  ;  and  it  is 
thought  that  the  plan  adopted  by  the  Northwest- 
ern Association  will  bring  out  the  facts,  and  as- 
tonish the  uninitiated. 

The  committee  will  be  prepared  to  report  on 
the  subject  by  the  first  of  January  next,  and  per- 
haps before,  so  as  to  give  all  a  chance  to  make 
arrangements  for  entering  the  field  of  strife. 
!      Rev.  A.  Salisbury,  D.  L.  Adair,  and  James  M. 
I  Marvin,  were  appointed  a  committee  to  prepare 
1  or  receive  questions  for  discussion. 


114 


THE    AMERICAN    BEE  JOUENAL 


The  questions  submitted  during  the  meeting 
for  discussion  were  as  follows  : 

1.  What  is  the  best  way  to  market  honey  ? 
What  is  machine  honey  ?  How  should  it  be  put 
up  for  market  ?  And  at  what  price  can  it  be 
sohl  ? 

2.  Is  Alsike  clover  a  good  honey  plant  ?  Is  it, 
also,  a  good  clover  for  hay  and  pasture?  Does 
it  bear  pasturing  freely  ?  How  much  seed  should 
be  sown  on  on  acre  ?  Is  it  advisable  to  mix  the 
seed  with  other  grasses  ? 

3.  Can  bee-keeping  be  made  a  success,  so  as  to 
be  profitable  to  bee-keepers  ? 

4.  What  time  in  the  season  should  bees  be 
swarmed  ? 

5.  What  number  of  colonies  can  one  bee- 
keeper manage  with  success  ? 

6.  Has  the  bee  malady,  known  as  the  cholera, 
re-appeared  this  season  ?  If  so,  where,  and  to 
what  extent  ?  Is  it  contagious,  and  what  is  the 
cause  and  cure  ? 

7.  Docs  the  disease,  known  as  foulbrood,  still 
exist  in  the  Northwest  ?  If  so,  where,  and  to 
what  extent  ?  Is  the  disease  contagious  and  cur- 
able ?  Is  it  safe  for  western  bee-keepers  to  ob- 
tain queens  or  bees  from  infected  districts  ? 

8  Can  bees  be  wintered  safely  in  the  shallow- 
est hive  in  use  ? 

9.  How  many  pounds  of  honey  can  be  extrac- 
ted per  hour  with  the  centrifugal  machine  ? 
What  per  centage  of  honey  is  thus  removed  ? 
Can  thick  honey  be  readily  removed  without 
special  treatment  ?  If  not,  what  special  treat- 
ment is  necessary  ? 

[Conclusion  next  month.] 

[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Bees  in  Tompkins  County,  New  York. 


Mr.  Editor  : — As  the  honey  season  in  this  vi- 
cinity, for  the  jDast  summer,  has  closed,  I  propose 
to  report  briefly  the  result  of  this  season's  ope- 
rations with  bees  in  this  section.  Scarcely  any 
surplus  honey  has  been  gathered  by  them,  and 
many  of  the  few  swarms  that  issued  are  in  a 
starving  condition.  Some  hives  are  half  filled 
with  comb  for  the  most  part  empty,  while  others 
have  a  few  pounds  of  honey.  Old  stocks  that 
did  not  swarm  are  in  a  fair  condition  ;  but  tlie 
young  swarms,  if  not  fed,  will  perish  the  coming 
winter.  I  have  not  in  twelve  years  known  so 
poor  a  season  for  bee^in  this  section.  The  cold 
weather  we  had  in  June  did  the  mischief,  as  all 
strong  stocks  were  then  well  filled  with  brood  ; 
but  the  scarcity  of  honey  which  occurred  in  con- 
sequence of  the  protracted  cold  wet  weather, 
caused  the  bees  to  kill  their  drones,  and  the 
queens  ceased  laying.  Many  strong  colonies 
starved  at  that  period. 

Bee  culture,  in  this  vicinity,  is  still  in  a  very 
rude  state.  The  old-fashioned  box  hives  are  still 
most  commonly  used,  with  holes  in  the  top, 
where  boxes  are  placed  to  receive  tlie  surplus 
honey,  if  there  chance  to  be  any  stored.  In  the 
fall  most  of  the  best  stocks  are  taken  up.  These 
are  what  beekeepers  here  call  old  stocks,  such  as 
swarmed  in  the  spring  ;  and  thus  many  are  taken 
up  whose  combs  are  only  one  or  two  years  old. 


Now,  stocks  that  have  swarmed  usually  have 
young  and  prolific  queens,  and  are  much  better 
than  the  swarms  that  went  out  accompanied  by 
the  old  queens.  Stocks  here  are  rarely  spared 
over  three  years,  though  occasionally  you  may 
find  one.  You  see  that  most  beekeepers  here 
would  be  called  old  conservators.  A  patent  hive 
is  at  once  pronounced  a  humbug^  by  most  of 
them,  simply  because  they  have  had  a  friend  or 
some  relative  who  purchased  such  a  hive  years 
ago,  and  jjrobably  the  bees  did  not  do  well  in  it, 
and  they  of  course  laid  all  the  blame  on  the  hive. 
I  admit  there  are  many  hives  now  before  the  y 
the  public  that  are  not  worth  the  cost  of  the  lum- 
ber they  are  made  of  Improved  hives,  without 
improved  management,  are  no  better  than  old 
box  hives,  in  the  hands  of  a  great  many  people. 

Bees  in  this  vicinity  are  wintered  out-doors, 
and  little  attention  is  paid  to  them  from  Novem- 
ber till  April.  Then,  most  of  them  being  half 
dead  or  in  a  starving  condition,  few  stocks 
swarm,  and  the  cry  consequently  is,  "My  luck 
with  bees  has  vanished  !  I  will  take  them  up,  or 
sell  out,  and  quit  the  bee  business!"  Now  I 
think  the  bees  and  poor  seasons  are  not  near  so 
much  to  blame,  as  the  careless  and  negligent 
apiarian.  Last  winter  a  great  many  bees  died 
in  this  vicinity — not  entire  stocks,  but  perhaijs 
two-thirds  of  a  colony — leaving  the  survivors 
weak  and  dispirited  ;  and  by  the  time  these  had 
regained  strength  and  were  in  a  condition  to 
swarm,  the  better  part  of  the  brief  honey  season 
had  passed  away.  As  regards  wintering  bees 
I  out-doors,  in  frame  hives,  it  Was  a  great  mystery 
i  to  me  that  mj''  bees  in  such  hives,  with  honey 
1  boards  removed  and  a  good  layer  of  dry  corn- 
i  cobs  substituted,  died  out  much  faster  than  in  old 
box  hives  standing  side  by  side.  This  mystery 
was,  however,  exjilained*  b_y  Mr.  Aaron  Bene- 
dict, in  the  August  number  of  the  Bee  Journal, 
(vol.  V,  page  28.)  That  one  article  alone  is 
worth  to  me  the  price  of  many  years'  subscrip- 
tion to  the  Journal,  and  I  thank  friend  Benedict 
very  kindly  for  the  valuable  information  it  con- 
tains. 

I  like  the  Bee  Journal  better  and  better,  and 
would  not  be  without  it  for  ten  times  its  cost, 
and  sincerely  hope  it  will  be  properly  appreci- 
ated by  every  cultivator  of  bees,  and  all  give  a 
helping  hand  to  its  support. 

D.  W.  Fletcher. 

Lansingville,  N.  y. 


Bees  in  Cities. 


A  gentleman  in  Chicago,  whose  name  is  well 
known  to  the  readers  of  a  very  well-edited  re- 
ligious journal,  last  spring  became  interested  in 
beekeeiDing.  He  procured  a  hive  of  Italian  bees. 
From  this  he  had  two  swarms  ;  afterwards  he 
divided  the  original  swarm,  taking  away  a  full 
swarm  and  brood  enough  for  half  a  swarm,  tak- 
ing with  this  four  frames  of  honey.  He  has 
taken  forty  pounds  of  suriilus  honey,  and  has 
now  in  the  hive  more  than  the  bees  Avill  need. 
Remarkably  successful  as  he  has  been,  we  believe 
he  thinks  himself  best  repaid  in  the  interest  he 
has  taken  in  studying  the  mysteries  of  beekeep- 
ing.    We  commeud  his  example. 


THB:    AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


115 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

The  Honey  Season  at  Tolcno,  111. 

Please  allow  me  to  iaform  j^ou  what  we  have 
been  doing  in  the  bee  line,  in  this  place,  this 
season. 

I  wintered  thirty-two  stocks,  and  have  had 
twenty -two  increase.  One  colony  swarmed  three 
times,  and  in  seven  weeks  swarmed  again. 
Swarms  all  very  large.  The  bees  of  these  are 
Italians.  Tlie  same  colony  has  stored  over  60 
lbs.  of  nice  box  honey.  My  stocks  were  very 
weak  in  the  spring,  as  last  year  was  a  very  poor 
one  for  honey — young  swarms  starving  to  death 
on  their  stands  in  October,  1888.  But  this  year 
has  been  the  best  I  ever  knew.  Bees  swarmed 
until  August,  and  some  second  swarms  yielded 
swarms.  All  of  my  stocks,  except  about  ten, 
stored  honey  in  the  boxes,  giving  me  in  all  2,200 
lbs.,  nearly  all  from  white  clover,  as  there  is  no 
timber  nearer  than  four  miles,  too  far  for  the  bees 
to  fly  to  it. 

1  iiad  in  the  spring  fourteen  stocks  of  black 
bees,  and  eighteen  Italians — some  pure  and  some 
hybrid  ;  I  could  see  no  difference  in  these.  I  got 
more  honty  from  the  Italians,  and  not  one  of 
the  black  colonies  swarmed.  I  have  now  Italian- 
ized all,  except  eight,  and  will  Italianize  the  rest 
soon. 

We  hear  a  great  deal  said  about  the  Italian 
bees  not  being  superior  to  the  blacks,  and  I  know 
a  man  who  says  so.  He  got  two  or  three  queens, 
and  no  more.  They  soon  ran  out,  and  so  he 
condemns  them.  I  think  if  his  bees  were  all 
Italians,  he  would  soon  see  the  diflFerence. 

Bees  do  not  commence  to  swarm  here  as  early 
on  the  prairies,  as  they  do  near  the  timber  ;  but 
afterwards  I  think  they  do  better  ;  and  I  think 
the  honey  is  better,  as  we  never  have  any  bitter 
honey  here. 

I  will  describe  the  hive  I  use.  It  is  one  I  crot 
up  myself,  and  is  used  by  nearly  all  in  this  vici- 
nity. The  lower  part  is  made  of  li  inch  lumber, 
planed  on  both  sides.  It  is  fifteen  inches  square 
inside,  and  has  ten  frames.  The  inside  is  rabet- 
ted  down  at  top  |  inch,  so  that  when  the  frames 
are  in,  and  the  frame  that  the  boxes  set  on,  the 
edge  comes  up  so  as  to  keep  the  little  boxes  in 
place.  I  make  a  frame  ^  inch  thick  to  go  on  the 
top  of  the  frames  around  the  edge  and  across  the 
middle  each  way,  so  the  boxes  will  rest  on  it  and 
it  will  be  tight.  I  do  not  nail  the  bottom  board 
to  the  hive.  I  use  four  boxes  each  5  inches  high 
and  6f  inches  each  way,  so  it  is  square.  The  top 
and  bottom  of  the  box  is  wood  J-inch  thick,  with 
four  corner  posts  |  inch  grooved  for  the  glass  to 
set  in.  The  bees  begin  to  work  in  the  box  soon, 
as  there  is  no  honey-board,  and  the  passage  is  so 
direct  that  they  keep  up  the  heat  early  in  the 
spring  and  late  in  the  fall.  If  you  do  not  wish 
to  have  the  bees  go  into  the  boxes  they  can  be 
turned  over.  The  top  of  the  hive  is  made  of 
inch  stuff,  and  the  body  of  the  hive  is  rabbetted, 
so  the  top  part  sets  on  and  the  rain  cannot  get 
in.  When  the  hive  is  all  complete  with  hooks, 
handles,  and  painted,  it  costs  about  $1  50  for 
material,  and  a  carpenter  can  make  two  per  day. 
The  frames  are  Langstroth's.  Bees  will  winter 
first  rate  in  this  hive,  as  the  frames  are  11^  inches 


deep.  The  frames  are,  top  with  rib  to  guide  the 
bees  to  build  straight  combs  ^  inch  wide  and  ^ 
inch  tluck  ;  sides  ^  inch  wide  and  ^  inch  thick; 
bottom  J  inch  wide  and  ^  inch  thick.  In  open- 
ing the  hive,  take  off"  top  and  boxes,  then  the 
frame  that  the  boxes  set  on  ;  then  push  the 
frames,  and  they  are  easily  taken  out. 

The  honey  with  the  box  I  have  described,  sells 
in  Chicago  at  thirty-five  cents  per  pound. 

I  have  wintered  my  bees  on  their  summer 
stands  for  a  number  of  winters,  and  they  always 
came  out  all  right. 

I  have  taken  the  Bee  Journal  from  the  com- 
mencement, and  think  it  a  great  help. 

H.  Chaffee. 

ToLONO,  Oct.  3,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  .Journal.] 

Letter  from  New  Hampshire. 


Mk.  Editor  : — I  like  the  suggestion  that  we 
are  to  have  ages,  pursuits,  and  other  facts  of  in- 
terests in  regard  to  prominent  beekeepers,  not 
only  of  the  present  period,  but  of  past  times'.  It 
would  no  doubt  be  gri^tifying  to  many  to  have 
short  biographical  sketches,  from  time  to  time, 
until  the  leading  apiarians  of  the  past  are  record- 
ed in  a  prominent  form  in  the  Journal. 

Enclosed  is  a  photograph  of  your  humble  ser- 
vant, who  bought  his  first  swarm  of  bees  on  the 
day  he  was  eighteen  years  of  age,  sand  has  been 
in  the  bee  business  thirteen  summers  since  that 
time.  And,  by  the  way,  I  wish  to  remark  that 
most  of  those  of  my  acquaintance,  who  are 
largelj^  interested  in  bee  culture,  are  young  men; 
and  those  who  do  not  see  any  improvement  or 
undervalue  the  Italian  bee,  are  generally  older 
men.  A  few  weeks  ago  I  encountered  a  man 
apparently  fifty  years  of  age,  who  said  he  be- 
lieved the  Italian  bees  were  all  a  humbug,  and 
no  better  than  the  natives  ;  that  they  would  turn 
out  like  the  Rohan  potato ;  with  other  similar 
disparaging  remarks.  I  told  him  that  ten  years' 
trial  had  only  served  to  establish  their  reputation 
and  increase  the  demand  for  their  dissemination; 
that  I  had  this  season  sent  one  hundred  queens 
to  one  man  in  Pennsylvania;  besides  numerous 
others  to  parties  throughout  the  northern  and 
some  of  the  southern  States.  "Yes,"  said  he, 
"distance  lends  enchantment  to  the  view';  any- 
thing seems  to  be  better,  if  you  have  to  send  a 
good  way  for  it."  I  soon  learned  that  he  com- 
menced beekeeping  a  few  years  ago  with  great 
expectations  of  profits,  with  a  small  outlay  of 
time,  money,  or  talents.  This  has  been  a  poor 
season,  and  he  has  become  discouraged. 

In  this  section,  and  so  far  as  I  can  learn, 
throughout  New  England,  there  has  been  but 
little  surplus  honey  stored  this  season.  Cold 
weather  has  been  the  cause  of  this.  There  was 
a  great  abundance  of  white  clover,  but  when  in 
blossom  the  cold  prevented  the  secretion  of  honey. 
I  managed  to  get  about  twenty-five  pounds  of 
honey  per  colony,  by  using  a  machine  and  pre- 
venting the  production  of  new  swarms.  If  those 
of  our  friends  who  have  too  many  bees,  and  too 
little  honey,  will  follow  the  suggestion  on  page 
88  of  the  October  number  of  the  Bee  Journal, 
and  use  a  machine  for  extra<;ting  the  hofney,  they 


116 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


may  count  on  a  fair  yield  each  year,  whether 
other  beekeepers  get  any  or  not. 

The  farmer  who  has  a  flock  of  sheep  need  not 
necessarily  raise  a  lot  of  lambs ;  neither  need  the 
beekeeper  raise  swarms.  Bees  must,  however, 
have  room  to  work  freely,  if  we  would  get  the 
full  benefit  of  a  large  colony. 

For  several  j^ears  past  I  spent  about  half  my 
time  in  the  bee  business  :  but  the  past  season  I 
have  devoted  all  my  time  to  it,  besides  having  an 
assistant  occasionally,  and  have  yet  not  been 
able  to  do  all  that  ought  to  be  done. 

If  our  friend,  who  is  curious  to  know  what  a 
professional  beekeeper  can  find  to  do  in  the  win- 
ter, will  get  into  the  business  largely,  so  that  he 
will  have  full  occupation  for  his  time  during  the 
summer,  he  will  not  be  troubled  to  find  employ- 
ment in  that  connection  in  the  winter  also. 

The  past  season  has  served  to  demonstrate  the 
practicability  of  sending  queens  by  mail.  Out 
of  over  two  hundred  sent  by  me  in  that  way,  the 
loss  has  been  only  about  three  per  cent.,  and 
many  of  them  have  been  sent  a  great  distance. 
One  went  to  New  Orleans,  and  one  to  the  State 
of  Mississippi.  They  hav(!  been  in  the  mails,  in 
one  or  two  instances,  a  week  or  more,  though  I 
intended  to  have  them  all  go  to  their  destination 
tlie  same  week  they  were  put  up. 

With  many  a  wish  for  the  prosperity  of  the  Bee 
Journal,  I  remain,  as  ever,  yours, 

J.  L.  Hubbard. 

Walpole,  N.  H. 

[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Divers  Remarks, 


D.  C.  Hunt,  Yankee  born,   forty-three   years  of 

age,  a  mechanic  by  trade  ;  after  knocking  about 

the  world  over,  by  sea  and  land,  spending  six 

years  in  the  south,  and  being   driven  out  by  the 

^  rebellion,  have  settled  in  the  good  old  State  of 

j  Vermont,  and  own  a  farm,  yet  make  beekeeping 

I  a  speciality. 

I      Furthermore,  another  correspondent  suggests 

I  that  the  patrons  of  I  he  Bee  ,Tou'-nal  send  the  editor 

their  photographs,  that  he  miglit,  I  suppose,  be 

surrounded  at  least  by  the  shadows  of  congenial 

j  spirits.     I  wish  to  improve  upon  that,  and  have 

I  the  face  of  our  respected  editor  in  return — every 

I  one,  of  course,  not  forgetting  to  inclose  with  his 

own  photograph   twenty-five  cents ;  to  send  his 

photograph  to  all   his  .subscribers  would  be  too 

heavy  a  tax  for  us  to  ask  of  him. 

How  is  it,  Mr.  Editor,  will  that  arrangement 
be  agreeable  ? 

D.   C.  Hunt. 
NoiiTii  Trenbridge,  Vt. 


j  E^^The  incoming  photographs  are  always 
i  very  acceptable,  duly  prized,  and  carefully  pre- 
I  served  for  that  "  three  ba>ided  album"  in  posse. 
I  But  we  really  cannot  give  any  assurance  as  to 
I  rciturns — there  being,  as  yet,  no  such  thing  i/i  esse. 


[For  the  AnuM  ic:Lii  Bee  Journal.] 

The  Honey  Slinger. 


I  see  a  communication  in  the  October  number, 
from  Mr.  H-  Alley,  about  queens  meeting  the 
drones  twice.  Although  I  have  not  raised  as 
many  queens  as  Mr.  Alley,  yet  I  have  raised  a 
large  number  within  the  last  five  years,  and  have 
never  known  an  instance  when  a  queen  returned 
with  the  evidence  of  copulation  to  be  seen,  but 
that  she  was  fertilized. 

Three  years  ago,  in  the  forepart  of  June,  we 
had  a  week  or  more  of  cold  cloudy  weather, 
during  which  the  drones  in  my  apiary  hardly 
fiew  out  at  all.  On  the  20th  we  had  a  briglit 
beautiful  day,  and  they  were  out  in  great  num- 
bers. [Just  previous  to  the  commencement  of 
the  cold  spell,  or  about  the  12th,  I  found  my 
nuclei  boxes  were  well  supplied  with  young 
queens,  which  I  was  anxious  should  become  fer- 
tile, as  I  had  immediate  use  for  at  least  a  dozen.] 

On  that  day,  at  five  P.  M  ,  I  examined  my 
nuclei,  and  found  eight  queens  had  the  unmis- 
takeable  evidence  of  fertilization.  I  then  clipped 
the  wings  of  three  of  them,  and  in  a  few  days  had 
them  all  in  colonies,  or  used  them  in  making 
artificial  swarms.  They  all  proved  fertile,  as 
they  have  in  every  case  where  I  have  found  the 
genitals  of  the  drone  protuding  from  the  queen. 
I  have  rarely  seen  it  the  next  morning  after  the 
trip  ;  and  it  is  removed  somelioiD.  I  think  you 
are  mistaken  in  your  conclusions,  friend  Alley, 
although  I  wonder  at  it,  with  your  experience. 

And  now  for  Mr.  Green's  suggestions  on  page 
81.     For  one,  I  fall  in  at  once :  so  here  goes.     I, 


Ibelievethe  "  Melextracterer,"  "  Hruschka," 
"Honey-pump,"  or,  as  one  of  my  neighbors 
calls  it,  the  "Honey-slinger,"  is  going  to  be  used 
quite  extensively.  It  has  been  made,  thus  far, 
with  a  frame  work,  in  which  the  comb  frame  is 
placed,  and  this  frame  work  is  made  to  revolve 
with  cog-wheels,  crank  or  string,  within  a  bar- 
rel, tin  case,  or  wooden  box,  which  catches  the 
honey  as  it  flies  out  of  the  comb.  The  barrel, 
can,  or  box,  is  necessarily  large,  clumsy  to  han- 
dle, and  difBcult  to  keep  clean  ;  and  I  wish  to 
suggest  what  seems  to  me  to  be  an  improvement, 
doing  away  with  the  barrel.  I  would  use  the 
frame  work  and  shaft  precisely  as  now  construc- 
ted ;  then  have  made  a  tin  cylinder  that  will  be 
just  large  enough  to  drop  down  over  the  frame 
work,  and  as  long  as  the  frame  is  deep.  It  can 
be  held  in  place,  on  the  frame,  when  in  opera- 
tion, by  any  simple  device  ;  either  by  pins  at  the 
bottom  or  hooks  at  the  top.  Let  this  tin  cover 
revolve  with  the  frame  work.  The  honey  will 
he  thrown  out  against  the  inside  of  this  cover, 
will  run  down  to  the  bottom,  and  can  be  caught 
in  any  receiver,  as  a  tub,  a  large  tin  pan,  or  the 
like.  A  tin  pan  made  for  the  purpose  would  be 
best.  Let  it  be  two  inches  larger  in  diameter 
than  the  tin  cover,  and  six  or  eight  inches  deep, 
with  strong  handles  on  the  sides.  In  the  centre 
of  the  pan,  have  fixed  a  socket  for  the  foot  of 
the  shaft  to  rest  in  ;  and  support  the  top  of  the 
shaft  by  any  arm  fixed  in  a  convenient  place. 
The  advantage  of  this  arrangement  consists  in 
having  the  receiver  in  two  parts,  both  of  which 
are  light,  can  be  easily  handled,  readily  kept 
perfectly  clean,  and  cost  but  little. 

R.    BiCKFORD. 

Seneca  Falls,  N.  Y.,  Oct.  19,  1869. 


THE    AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


117 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Introducing  Queens. 


I  have  had  some  experience  in  introducing 
queens  last  summer,  some  of  which  may  not 
come  amiss  to  other  beekeepers. 

Desiring  to  remove  two  black  queens  from 
their  hives,  to  introduce  hybrid  queens  in  their 
stead,  I  searched  for  them  at  1  p.  m.,  giving  the 
bees  sugar  water  to  subdue  them.  I  failed  to 
find  the  queens  then  ;  hut  searched  for  them 
again  at  5  p.  m.,  on  the  same  day,  when  I  suc- 
ceeded in  finding  them.  I  removed  thom  and 
introduced  the  others  as  Mr.  Langstroth_  does, 
viz  :  remove  the  black  queen  and  let  the  hive  re- 
main quiet  six  hour.? ;  then  give  them  the  Italian 
queen  cagod,  and  in  forty-eight  hours  release 
lier.  In  ten  or  twelve  days,  in  looking  in  front 
of  one  of  the  hives  I  found  one  of  the  Italian 
queens  dead ;  and  at  the  other  hive  I  found  an 
imperfect  black  queen  dead. 

Now  what  seems  strange  to  uie  is  this,  that  on 
looking  for  the  queen  at  1  p.  m.,  there  was  no 
brood  in  the  hives,  and  I  supposed  there  was 
none  in  them  at  5  p.  m.,  when  I  removed  the 
queens.  Yet  on  examining  the  hives  after  find- 
ing the  dead  queens  as  above  stated,  I  found  a 
spot  of  brood  as  large  as  the  palm  of  my  hand, 
with  a  nuQiber  of  queen  cells  in  each  hive.  The 
queens  must  have  laid  the  eggs  in  the  interval 
between  1  p.  m.  and  5  p.  m.  the  same  day,  that 
is,  within  the  brief  term  of  four  hours — which 
looks  strange  to  me.  Can  bees  by  feeding  their 
queen,  have  her  develope  eggs  and  lay  them  in 
the  short  space  of  four  hours,  after  she  has 
stopped  laying  at  least  twenty-one  days  ?  If  so, 
she  must  have  a  powerful  ^oill,  for  the  old  saying 
is — "  where  there  is  a  will  there  is  a  way  ;"  and 
the  queen  must  be  able  to  find  that  way  wonder- 
fully quick  ! 

Perhaps  it  is  a  common  occurrence  to  find 
queen  cells  as  above,  and  for  queens  to  lay  eggs 
in  so  short  a  time  ;  but  as  I  am  a  novice  in  bee- 
keeping, I  would  like  to  hear  from  experienced 
beekeepers,  through  the  Journal,  whether  the 
like  occurrence  has  been  observed  by  them. 

D.    H.    OOGGSHELL,    Jr. 

West  Groton,  N.  Y. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Experience  in  Beekeeping. 


Mr.  Editor  : — In  renewing  my  subscription, 
it  occurred  to  me  to  give  you  a  little  of  my  ex- 
perience in  beekeeping.  My  father  bought  a 
swarm  of  bees  when  I  was  yet  a  little  boy.  It 
was  in  an  old-fashioned  cone-shaped  hive.  I 
used  to  watch  the  bees  very  diligently  and  with 
great  delight.  This  was  in  the  fore  part  of  the 
summer,  and  they  soon  began  to  hang  outside. 
One  day  we  were  away  from  home,  and  when 
we  came  back  I  went  out  to  the  hive  as  usual, 
but  the  cluster  was  missing.  My  father  said  they 
had  swarmed,  and  went  around  looking  on  trees 
and  bushes  ;  but  they  could  not  be  found.  Prob- 
ably they  had  decamped,  and  gone  to  the  woods. 

My  father  always  kept  his  bees  in  box  hives, 
as  he  knew  no  more  about  bees  and  beekeeping 
at  the  end  of  many  years,  than  he  did  when  he 


commenced.  I  came  to  Wisconsin  from  the 
State  of  New  York  some  fourteen  years  ago  ; 
and  went  to  beekeeping  for  myself,  on  a  small 
scale,  in  box  hives,  about  nine  years  ago.  But 
after  using  these  hives  several  years,  I  found  that 
they  were  not  the  kind  I  wanted,  as  I  could  not 
control  my  bees  in  them  as  I  wished  to  do. 

I  was  very  anxious  to  learn  all  I  could  about 
bees  and  their  management.  The  first  work  I 
got  hold  of  was  Weeks'  small  book.  At  that 
time  I  thought  it  was  a  great  work,  but  since  I 
have  more  experience  I  found  that  it  is  not  of 
much  account  after  all.  The  Agricultual  Ke- 
ports  contain  better  material.  Mr.  Quinby'sand 
Mr.  Laiigstroth's  books  furnish  more  ample  in- 
structions ;  and  then  the  American  Bee  Journal 
is  just  the  thing  for  the  practical  beekeeper  to 
keep  him  up  with  the  times  in  the  progress  of 
improvement. 

I  have  seventy  colonies  of  bees  in  frame 
hives.  All  have  been  Italianized,  except  a  few 
which  are  hybrids  yet.  I  like  the  Italian  bees 
very  much,  although  in  some  cases  rather  cross. 
One  word  about  barren  queens.  Last  year  I  in- 
troduced a  handsome  young  Italian  queen  to  a 
swarm  of  black  bees,  and  supposed  all  was  right. 
After  a  month  or  two  I  examined  them,  and 
found  no  brood.  They  were  pretty  well  reduced, 
and  I  obtained  a  swarm  from  one  of  my  neigh- 
bors and  put  it  in  with  them  ;  but  the  eggs  laid 
in  the  cells  would  not  hatch.  I  had  another 
stock  of  the  same  description  this  year.  Now, 
can  friend  Gallup,  or  any  one  else,  tell  us  the 
reason  ? 

In  1868,  the  bees  here  did  not  do  very  well  in 
surplus  honey,  though  they  gave  us  plenty  of 
swarms  ;  but  this  year,  1869,  they  gave  us  neither 
swarms  nor  surplus  honey  worth  mentioning. 
In  fact,  they  were  starving  with  me  at  the  begin- 
ning of  June,  and  I  had  to  resort  to  feeding  to 
save  my  weak  swarms.  I  actually  found  one 
swarm  on  the  point  of  starvation.  It  has  been 
\  a  poor  season  here  this  year,  there  having  been 
much  cold  and  wet  weather  ;  but  I  live  in  hopes 
that  next  year  will  be  better. 

Last  spring  I  built  a  high  board  fence  around 
my  apiary,  to  keep  the  wind  from  blowing  on 
the  hives.  I  also  took  out  the  frames,  cut  out 
the  drone  combs,  and  inserted  worker  combs  in- 
stead. I  think  it  pays,  as  it  conduces  to  the 
storage  of  surplus  honey.  I  stick  pieces  of  comb, 
five  or  six  in  number,  crosswise  in  the  boxes,  as 
they  come  out  easy  and  are  nicer  for  the  table. 
I  put  on  my  boxes  crosswise,  with  the  honey- 
board  off'.  I  think  the  bees  go  to  work  sooner 
when  this  is  done,  than  when  they  have  to  pass 
up  through  the  honey  board.  One  more  ques- 
tion :  How  much  drone  comb  should  be  left  in  a 
hive  with  a  strong  swarm,  to  satisfy  the  bees, 
and  keep  them  from  building  any  to  breed  in  ? 

The  beekeepers'  study  now  is  about  wintering. 
I  built  a  cellar  last  year,  in  which  to  store  my 
stocks.  It  was  made  as  follows  :  Dimensions  10 
feet  by  23,  inside  measure  ;  grouted  up  with  lime 
and  gravel  wall  7  feet  high.  Sills  laid  on  the 
top,  and  joist  piked  to  the  sills  ;  a  floor  laid  on 
that,  and  covered  with  one  foot  of  sawdust  ; 
rafters  put  up,  and  a  board  roof;  with  five  ven- 
tilators going  through  the  floor,  and  only  one 
through  the  roof,  each  having  a  slide  whereby  it 


118 


TEE  AMERICAN  BEK  JOURNAL. 


may  be  shut  or  opened  at  pleasure,  in  order  to 
control  the  temperature  of  the  interior  a^  much 
as  possible.  I  have  also  another  four  inches 
square,  inside  measurement,  running  under  the 
ground  some  three  rods  in,  that  the  air  may  be 
warmed  somewhat  when  it  comes  into  the  cellar 
under  the  floor.  I  saw  in  the  Journal  that  the 
flue  should  come  in  at  the  top ;  but  it  seems  to 
me  that  such  ventilation  in  some  such  days  as 
we  had  last  winter,  would  make  the  place  too 
warm  and  the  bees  uneasy.  The  sides  are  lined 
with  boards,  and  a  floor  in  the  bottom,  and 
shelves  arranged  along  the  outside  of  a  capacity 
to  accommodate  150  colonies.  I  have  a  partition, 
and  double  doors.  I  calculate  to  give  my  bees 
plenty  of  upward  ventilation. 

Now,  as  for  wintering  bees  out-doors,  and  sav- 
ing bees  and  economizing  houcy  in  this  northern 
climate,  I  do  not  believe  it  can  be  done  without 
more  trouble  and  expense  than  it  will  cost  to 
build  a  suitable  place  for  wintering.  I  have 
tried  wintering  out-doors  ;  in  dlumps  and  in 
trenches.  The  bees  do  not  keep  so  well,  and  the 
trouble  of  taking  them  in  or  out  in  a  hurry,  causes 
so  much  confusion  and  mixing  up,  that  t  became 
disgusted  with  it. 

If  I  should  wish  to  increase  my  stock  of  bees 
any  more,  I  would  swarm  them  artificially.  But 
as  I  have  got  about  as  many  colonies  now  as 
ought  to  be  kept  in  one  place  in  poor  seasons,  I 
should  like  to  learn  the  best  means  yet  devised 
to  keep  them  from  swarming. 

I  wish  the  Bee  Journal  came  once  in  two 
weeks,  instead  of  once  in  four. 

Albert  Potter, 
Eureka,  Wis. 


:  queen  in  the  hive,  although  I  repeatedljr  searched 
;  for  one.  There  were  no  eggs  of  any  kind  de- 
posited ;  the  bees  filled  the  hive  with  comb,  and 
!  deposited  a  good  deal  of  honey.  They  were 
j  liybrids. 

The    same    season    several    of   my    colonies 

I  swarmed  without  making  any  jireparationswhat- 

j  ever  for  sucli  an  event — nof  even  l)a.ving  an  egg 

j  in  an  embryo  queen  cell.     In  one  case,  I  opened 

the  hive  nineteen  full  daj's  after  the  first  swarm 

issued  (there  having  been  no  second  swarm)  to 

,  see  whether  the  young  queen  had  become  fertile  ; 

!  and  found,  to  my  surprise,  a  large   number  of 

j  sealed  queen  cells,  out  of  several  of  which  queens 

issued  while  I  held  the  frame  in  mj'  hand.     In 

this  case  tlie  bees  had  not  only  probably  made  no 

preparations  for  swarming  at  the  time  the  swarm 

'  left,  but   moreover,  nineteen  days  from  the  egg 

were  required  to  mature  every  one  of  the  queens 

;  they  reared — and  the  number  was  not  less  than 

I  a  dozen.     This  colony  was  liealthy  and  populous. 

The  only  writer  on  the  natural  history  of  the 

:  queen  be,  who  has  ever  allowed  nineteen  days  to 

j  mature  a  queen  from  the  first  laid  egg,  so  far  as 

,  my  reading  goes,  is  Mr.  T.  F.  Bingham. 

I      If  any  of  the  readers  of  the  Bee  Journal  have 

I  tested  the  method  of  introducing  queens  by  the 

use  of  grated  nutmeg,  will  not  they  report  their 

i  success  or  failure  in  the  Journal? 

j      Will  Mr.  Quiuby  please  inform  us,  through  the 

i  Journal,  how  he  uses  strips  of  tin  in  connection 

I  with  the  tops  and  ends  of  liis  comb  irames,  to 

form  the  top  and  sides  of  the  brood  chamber? 

I  Also,  describe  his  device  for  causing  frames  to 

:  stand  on  bottom  board  ? 

w.  c.  condit. 
Columbia  Center,  Ohio. 


[For  the  Amei-iean  Bee  Journal.] 

Concerning  Sundry  Things. 


[For  the  Americiin  Bee  Journ.-il.] 

Entrance  Blocks  to  Langstroth  Hives. 


As  a  rule  in  natural  swarming,  if  the  queen 
bee  cannot  fly,  so  as  to  unite  with  the  cluster,  the 
swarm  will  soon  return  to  the  hive  from  which 
it  issued  ;  but  I  had  a  case  in  the  summer  of  1868, 
which  was  an  exception  to  this  rule.  M}^  plan  of 
swarming  was  then  to  cut  the  queen's  wings  and 
when  a  natural  swarm  appeared,  catch  the  queen 
and  cage  her  till  the  swarm  began  to  return,  then 
liberate  her  at  the  entrance  of  the  hive  I  wished 
the  swarm  to  occupy,  when  all  would  enter  with- 
out further  trouble.  The  colony  alluded  to 
swarmed  in  a  natural  way,  and  clustered  clean. 
The  mother  was  not  found,  the  swarm  was  hived, 
but  soon  returned  to  the  parent  stock.  The  next 
day  it  issued  again,  and  clustered  <;lean ;  queen 
not  found ;  swarm  hived,  and  it  remained.  I 
was  sure  the  mother  could  not  be  with  them,  but 
waited  a  few  days  to  ascertain  whether  the  swarm 
had  not  a  virgin  queen.  1  saw  no  indications  of 
one  being  present,  but  the  contrary — most  of  the 
comb  built  being  drone  comb.  There  were  por- 
tions, however,  composed  of  worker  cells,  and 
there  was  considerable  pollen  deposited  in  the 
hive.  I  gave  them  a  sealed  queen  cell,  which 
was  immediately  destroyed.  This  was  repeated 
several  times,  with  the  same  result.  I  also  lost 
two  fertile  queens  in  my  attempts  to  supi)ly  them ; 
but  finally  succeeded  in  inducing  them  to  accept 
a  sealed  cell.    During  all  this  time  I  never  seen  a 


Formerly,  whilst  using  the  regular  entrance 
blocks  to  the  Langstroth  hive,  I  often  felt  the 
need  of  doing  something  that  I  could  not  accomp- 
plish  with  them.  The  blocks  I  now  use  are  about 
an  inch  square,  and  run  the  whole  length  of  the 
entrance.  I  nail  narrow  cleats  of  diff'erent  thick- 
ness across  each  end  on  two  adjoining  sides  of 
the  block,  the  cleats  being  put  on  flush  with  the 
ends.  The  other  two  sides  of  the  block  are  left 
smooth.  The  names  I  gave  these  blocks  will 
measurably  indicate  their  use.     Thus — 

The  Common  Block 
is  for  ordinary  use.     On  one  side,  No.  1,  of  this 
block  the  cleats  are  ^  inch  thick  ;  and  on  side  No. 
i  2,  they  are  the  sixteenth  of  an  inch  thick.    Either 
I  of  the  cleated  sides,  laid  on  the  bottom  board, 
with    the    corresponding    smooth   side    turned 
!  against  the  front  of  the  hive,  gives  a  long  shallow 
I  entrance  for  the  bees,  and  ventilates  the  combs  all 
alike.     This  block  I  use  all  the  year  round,  un- 
1  less  it  becomes  necessary  to  give  more  ventilation, 
{  or  remove  all  blocks  of  every  description.    With 
side  No.  2,  the  drones  are  shut  in  or  out  at  pleas- 
ure ;  but  when  the  stocks  are  strong  and  the 
weather  warm,  it  becomes  necessary  to  use 
The  Drone  Block. 
Both  sides,  No.  1  and  No.  2,  of  this  block  are 
provided  with  cleats  three-aixteenths  of  an  inch 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


119 


thick.  One  of  the  dented  sids  turneel  to  the 
bottom  board  aud  the  other  against  the  front  of  I 
the  hive,  gives  diul)le  the  amount  of  entrance  | 
and  ventilation.  With  the  smooth  sides  of  any  j 
of  the  blocks  bees  are  readily  shut  in,  to  remove  j 
to  and  from  their  winter  quarters,  or  otherwise  ;  ! 
also,  momentarily  in  case  of  robberj'.  But  in  the 
latter  case,  ventilation  must  be  given  ;  for  which  1 
I  use  1 

The  Robber  Block.  ' 

On  this  block  the  cleats  on  both  sides,  No.  1  , 
and  No.  2,  are  ^  inch  thick.  It  is  used  in  the  t 
same  manner  as  the  drone  block,  aud  gives  con-  I 
siderable  ventilation,  while  no  bees  can  pass  in  j 
or  out.  The  back  ventilators  of  the  hive  may  ' 
always  be  used  to  give  an  opening  corre-^pondiug  i 
with  that  given  by  any  of  the  blocks  in  use  at  i 
the  entrance. 

Both  drone  and  robber  blocks  should  be  fast  ] 
ened  with  a  thin  wedge  pushed  in  between  the  i 
ends  of  the  blocks  and  the  sides  of  the  hive. 
When  opening  hives  under  circumstances  likely  | 
to  induce  robbing,  I  find  it  a  good  plan  to  use  ; 
the  robber  block  until  the  bees  have  recovered  i 
from  their  confusion  and  are  ready  to  defend  j 
themselves.  i 

To  obtain  the  results  above  stated  the  measure  ■ 
of  the  cleats  must  be  exact,  aud  the  sides  of  the  ! 
block  as  well  as  the  bottom  board  aud  hives  all  i 
straight  and  true.  Blocks  made  on  the  same  j 
basis  can  be  used  also  on  some  other  kinds  of ; 
hives.  Of  the  common  blocks,  one  for  each  hive 
should  be  provided  ;  of  the  oiher  two  kinds,  a 
less  number  will  do  for  emergehcies.  I 

Henry  Crist.      i 

Lake  P.  O.,  Stark  Co.,  Ohio,  Nov.  1,  1869.  ! 

[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

My  Expei'ience.  j 

Mr.  Editor  : — As  I  am  a  clergyman,  you  will  | 
allow  me  to  follow  the  ruling  passion  of  the  min-  | 
isterial  fraternity,  by  dividing  my  remarks  into  j 
heads  and  horns.  I  shall  present  results  rather  i 
than  theories  :  } 

1.  Does  Beekeeping  Pay?  | 

I  keep  bees  for  my  own  recreation  and  table  ;  '■ 
hence  have  but  few  swarms.     I  commenced  the  ! 
present  season  with  three.   They  increased  to  six  ; 
and  have  yielded^ie  three  hundred  (300)  pounds 
of  cap  honey.  It  is  worth  thirty  cents  per  pound 
in  this  market. 

Suppose  I  had  paid  ten  dollars,  in  thti  spring, 
for  each  colony  (and  they  are  worth  that  or  more 
in  the  hive  I  use),  then  we  should  have  the  fol- 
lowing result : 

Dr. 

Three  colonies,  at  $10,  each $30 

Three  new  hives,  at  $5,  each 15 

Honey  boxes,  say 5 

Total $50 

Cr.  

By  6  colonies  in  good  condition  at  $10,  each    $60 
"  300  lbs.  honey  at  30  cts.  per  lb 90 

Total $150 

Net  profit $100 

or  two  hundred  per  cent,  on  the  investment. 


I  have  not  estimated  the  great  satisfaction  I 
have  had  in  attending  to  them. 

2.  What  kind  op  Hive  is  best  ? 

I  am  often  asked  this  question  ;  but  my  expe- 
rience is  not  sufliciently  extensive  to  furnish  a 
positive  answer. 

Two  of  my  three  stocks  in  the  spring  were  in 
J.  Hazen's  Eureka  hives.  One  of  them,  slightly 
tinged  with  Italian  blood  swarmed  and  went  to 
tlie  woods  or  lost  their  queen,  as  I  found  them 
queeuless,  with  queen  cells  capped.  This  swarm 
gave  me  67j  lbs.  of  cap  honey. 

The  other,  full-blood  Italian,  swarmed  May 
19th,  and  from  it  and  the  issues  of  May  19lh,  I 
made  another  ;  s.o  that  stock  increased  to  three. 
From  the  old  one  I  took  ninety-three  (93)  pounds 
of  cap  honey ;  and  from  the  issue  of  Aug.  19th 
I  took  seventy-two  (72)  pounds.  Thus,  from 
one  colony  in  the  Eureka  hive,  I  have  two  new 
swarms  aud  one  hundred  and  sixty-five  (165) 
poumls  of  honey.  Or,  from  the  two  old  stocks 
in  the  Eureka  hives,  I  have  an  increase  of  two 
swarms  and  two  hundred  and  thirty-two  (232) 
pounds  of  honey — an  average  of  one  hundred 
■and  sixteen  (116)  pounds.  Who  can  give  a  bet- 
ter show  this  year  in  Wisconsin  ? 

The  other  colony  of  the  tlireeold  ones,  is  in  a 
hive  similar  in  general  form  to  that  of  Mr.  Lang- 
stroth.  From  it  I  have  one  swarm.  The  old 
stock  gave  me  thirty -four  and  a  half  (34^)  pounds 
of  box  honey,  and  the  swarm  thirty-five  and  a 
half  (8o^)  pounds.  The  new  one  or  swarm  is 
in  the  Eureka  hive.  This  is  an  increase  of  one 
swarm  and  sixty-seven  (67)  pounds,  against  an 
increase  of  one  swarm  and  one  hundred  and  six- 
teen (116)  pounds  in  the  Eureka.  But  there  are 
so  many  contingencies,  that  I  am  not  prepared 
to  say  that  the  hive  made  all  this  difference  ; 
though  I  can  see  no  other  cause.  The  last  was 
Italian  also. 

3.  How  to  Prevent  Swarming. 

The  box  described  by  Mr.  Quinby  in  the  "Bee 
Journal,"  works  like  a  charm.  My  Italian 
swarm  that  issued  May  19th,  cast  a  swarm  six 
different  times,  during  the  season.  But  her  royal 
highness  being  secure  in  the  box,  returned  and 
of  course  the  bees  followed  her.  (I  ought  to  say 
that  the  last  time  they  hung  clustered  for  seven 
hours,  and  finally  returned.  Will  some  of  our 
bee  men  explain?)  I  am  much  obliged  to  Mr. 
Quinby  for  describing  it  in  the  Journal.  Cutting 
out  the  queen  cell  is  no  preventive  against 
swarming,  as  the  bees  sometimes  go  as  soon  as 
eggs  are  laid  in  the  cells  ;  at  least  my  May  19th 
swarm  did  that. 

4.  Wintering  Bees. 

Last  winter  I  put  mine  in  the  cellar,  which  is 
dry,  and  I  removed  the  honey-board,  nailing 
wire  cloth  in  its  stead.  I  also  closed  the  front 
entrance  with  wire,  and  let  the  bees  have  full 
ventilation  above  and  below.  They  came  out 
this  spring  in  very  fine  condition,  with  some 
brood  in  all  stages,  when  set  on  their  summer 
stands.     I  shall  try  the  cellar  again. 

And  now,  as  no  sermon  should  have  more 
than  four  heads,  I  close. 

A.  C.  Manweix. 

Whitewater,  Wis.,  Oct.  9,  1869. 


120 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 

Successful  Practice. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.^ 

Cominoii  Bees  and  Italians 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  wish  to  give  your  readers, 
through  tlic  Bee  Jourual,  my  practice  and  ex- 
perience witli  bees  during  the  last  five  months. 
I  live  in  the  district  of  country  where  the  bee 
disease  prevailed  last  year  ;  consequently  I  had 
no  bees  this  spring. 

On  the  17th  of  May  last  I  received  from  Mr. 
Grimm,  Wisconsin,  a  small  colony  of  Italian 
bees.  They  were  received  in  prime  condition, 
with  every  comb  entire. 

Now  for  my  practice. 

A  few  days  after  I  received  them,  I  took  out 
five  frames  with  the  adhering  bees  and  put  them 
in  another  hive,  leaving  three  frames  and  the 
queen  in  the  old  hive.  This  I  left  where  it  was, 
and  put  in  a  division  board.  The  other  I  filled 
up  with  empty  frames.  On  the  10th  day,  I  took 
a  frame  from  No.  '2  and  placed  it  with  a  queen 
cell  and  adhering  bees,  in  an  empty  hive,  insert- 
ing a  division  board,  just  leaviua:  room  for  the 
bees  to  pass  around  the  comb.  I  shut  them  in 
until  the  queen  was  hatched.  They  threw  off  a 
small  swarm.  I  now  had  four  colonies.  On 
examining  No.  2,  a  day  or  two  after  it  had 
swarmed,  I  found  it  had  no  queen.  I  gave  it  a 
frame  of  comb  out  of  No.  1,  and  gave  No.  1  a 
frame  of  comb  from  No.  3. 

I  now  felt  that  1  would  be  fully  satisfied  if  they 
made  honey  enough  to  winter  on.  I  gave  No. 
3  two  or  three  frames  of  combs  out  of  the  other 
stands,  and  took  out  the  division  boards.  They 
all  increased  finely  in  bees  and  stores. 

On  the  17th  of  August  No.  2  threw  off  a  very 
large  swarm.  A  few  days  later  two  others 
swarmed  at  the  same  time,  and  clustered  to 
gether.  It  was  now  so  near  the  last  of  August 
that  I  should  have  returned  them  to  the  parent 
hive  if  they  had  settled  separately.  But  ti.ere 
w^ere  so  many  bees  that  it  seemed  as  if  with  a 
hive  full  of  combs  there  would  not  be  room  for 
them,  so  I  placed  them  in  an  empty  hive.  It  is 
now  full  of  comb.  A  fcAV  days  later  the  other 
swarmed.  This  I  returned  to  the  parent  hive. 
It  came  out  only  the  one  time. 

A  few  days  previous  to  this,  I  put  on  the  honey 
boxes.  I  took  them  off  again  two  days  ago,  and 
got  about  fifty  pounds  of  beautiful  honey. 

If  any  of  your  readers  have  done  better  than 
this,  I  hope  they  will  report,  through  the  Bee 
Journal,  just  how  they  effected  it.  My  increase 
is  six  from  one,  all  full  frames  of  combs  and 
honey,  and  aboui  fifty  pounds  of  honey  in  boxes. 

This  is  the  second  year  that  I  have  had  Italian 
bees,  and  every  swarm  that  came  out  beiore 
July,  swarmed  again  in  August. 

My  bees  swarming  late  in  August  last  year, 
and  having  young  bees  very  late,  convinces  me 
that  the  old  age  theory  will  not  account  for  the 
bee  disease. 

A.    DUNLAP. 

Terre  Haute,  Ijsd.,  Oct.  9,  1869. 


!      Mr.  Editor  : — I  saw  an  article  in  the  October 
number  of  the  Journal,  headed,  "  The  Italian 
Fling."     I  am  not  interested  in  selling  Italian 
\  queens  or  honey-emptying  machines,  and  I  state 
matters  as  they  are. 
On  the  first  of  last  June,  I  had  one  hundred 
j  and  eight  colonies  of  bees,  and  Mr.  Marvin  had 
about  the  same  number.     His  were  all  Italians. 
One-half  of  mine  were  black  bees,  and  the  other 
I  half  were  crossed  with  Italians — some  of  them 
i  the  second  time.     J^ow,  I  have  two  hundred  and 
:  thirty  colonies,  all  of  which  will  winter  ;  and 
have  obtained  from  one  thousand  to  fifteen  hun- 
dred pounds  more  honey  than  Mr.  Marvin  has. 
Mr.  Marvin  used  the  emptying  machine.     I  took 
off  my  honey  in  boxes       His  is  worth  twenty 
cents  per  pound,  mine  thirty  cents. 

Now  I  do  not  wish  to  say  anything  against 
Italian  bees.  I  think  it  a  great  improvement  on 
the  black  bees  to  cross  them.  The  black  bees 
will  make  as  much  honey  as  the  Italian,  if  they 
receive  the  same  attention. 

I  have  been  in  an  Italian  apiary  not  less  than 

'  ten  times  the  last  summer,  and  watched  the  move- 

i  ments  of  the  Italians.     I  have  no  axe  to  grind 

in  the  matter,  and  state  the  matter  as  I  see  it.     I 

!  think  Mr.  M.  had  better  defend  his  own  case, 

and  then  we  shall  get  the  fiicts.     Mr.  Baldridge 

has  been  very  wild  in  his  statements,  and  I  think 

he  will  be  willing  to  correct  them. 


S.   Way. 


Batavia,  Ills. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Wintering  Bees. 


Bees  may  live  sometime  without  pollen  or 
water,  but  hardly  a  day  without  honey  or  a  suit- 
able substitute. 


Mr.  Editor  : — As  it  is  not  yet  settled  which 
is  the  best  plan  for  wintering  bees,  I  will  give  the 
way  I  have  wintered  mine  the  last  three  winters 
with  good  success  ;  and  I  do  not  think  a  better 
has  been  proposed  for  this  latitude,  (41 '^  north.) 
[I  pack  them  with  straw,  shavings,  sawdust,  car- 
peting, woolen  rags,  &c.,  bottom,  top,  side,  back, 
and  front,  putting  a  strip  of  board,  as  wide  as  the 
alighting  board  at  the  entrance  raised  three- 
eigTiths  of  an  inch,  to  keep  the  entrance  open. 
In  packing  the  top  of  the  hive,  I  first  cover  the 
frames  \rith  paper  to  keep  the  honey  clean  ;  then 
put  on  a  frame  of  boaixls,  one  to  six  inches  deep, 
and  fill  it  with  sawdust,  shavings,  chaff  or  straw. 
If  the  top  is  movable,  it  does  not  need  a  frame. 
If  the  hives  are  near  together,  fill  in  bottom  with 
straw,  &c.  If  they  stand  alone,  I  sometimes 
make  a  rough  case  and  put  it  over  the  hive,  with 
an  entrance  cut  for  the  bees  ;  and  between  the 
hive  and  the  case  a  board  with  an  entrance  cut 
in  the  lower  side,  to  keep  the  packing  from  the 
passage  way.  I  sometimies  leave  the  case  on  all 
summer.  In  that  case  I  have  an  entrance  at  the 
back,  to  let  air  in  when  necessary.  In  very  cold 
weather,  I  contract  the  entrance.  When  it  is 
warm  the  bees  fly  without  opening  doors,  as  No- 
vice proposes. 

John  Winpield. 

Canfield.  Ohio. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


121 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Wintering  Bees. 


Much  has  beeu  said  on  the  subject  of  -winter- 
ing bees.  Many  ways  have  been  tested  and 
many  plans  proposed.  So  much  so,  that  the  in- 
experienced arc  at  a  loss  to  decide  as  to  the  best 
mode  of  getting  their  bees  through  the  long  cold 
■winters  in  good  condition.  An  expensive  bee 
house  will  not  suit  the  mass  of  beekeepers  ;  as 
many,  like  myself,  have  their  bees  at  ditfereut 
locations,  and  on  premises  that  belong  to  other 
people,  and  they  consequently  do  not  wish  to 
build  houses  for  other  persons. 

I  will  give  my  plan  of  wintering  bees,  which 
I  prefer  to  any  I  have  tried.  First,  I  aim  to  pro- 
vide the  colony  with  sufficient  winter  stores,  if 
they  have  not  secured  a  sufficiency  for  them- 
selves. Have  the  hive  full  of  combs  if  possible, 
but  if  that  cannot  be  done,  put  in  a  partition 
board  so  that  the  chamber  where  the  bees  are  is 
full  of  comb.  I  then  take  off  the  honey-board, 
and  lay  a  strip  about  eight  inches  long  and  one 
inch  square  across  the  frames,  and  cover  the 
whole  with  pieces  of  blanket,  old  clothes,  coffee- 
sacks,  or  newspaper.-,  or  something  of  the  kind 
that  will  let  the  moisture  pass  through,  retaining 
the  heat  with  the  bees.  If  paper  is  used,  strips 
tacked  around  are  necessary  to  keep  it  to  its 
place.  The  strip  crosswise  of  the  frames  about 
the  centre  of  the  hive,  causes  a  good  winter  pas- 
sage for  the  bees  on  each  side  of  it.  I  then  fill 
the  cap  full  of  clear  dry  hay  or  straw  well  packed 
in,  and  put  it  on.  Then  close  the  entrance  by 
screwing  on  a  thin  strip  with  two  or  three 
notches  cut  in  its  lower  edge  to  give  passway  for 
the  bees  to  go  in  and  out.  I  am  never  afraid  of 
giving  too  little  ventilation,  if  there  is  space 
enough  for  a  dozen  bees  to  pass  in  and  out  at  the 
one  time.  The  stronger  the  colony  the  more 
open  sjjrico  is  left. 

1  now  put  scantling,  or  something  that  an- 
swers the  purpose,  under  my  hives  (if  they  have 
not  legs),  so  as  to  have  them  set  about  sis  inches 
from  the  ground.  Then  I  drive  a  few  stakes  into 
the  ground  on  each  side  of  the  hive  and  the  rear, 
some  eight  or  ten  inclies  from  the  hive,  and  fill 
in  around  the  hive  with  hay  or  straw  well 
tramped  down,  as  high  as  the  top  of  the  hive, 
cover  the  whole  with  hay,  fi  jjlder,  boards,  or 
something  that  will  keep  all  dry,  and  the  work 
is  done.  In  cold  climates,  where  the  thermom- 
eter would  frequently  range  below  zero  for  days 
in  succession,  the  front  end  should  also  be  pro- 
tected, by  putting  strips  on  each  side  of  the  en- 
trance, and  laying  on  a  board  under  which  "the 
bees  could  have  a  passway  ;  fill  above  the  board 
as  above  directed,  and  the  hive  would  be  com- 
pletely protected  from  the  cold. 

The  advantages  of  preparing  bees  in  this  man- 
ner for  wintering,  may  be  summed  up  as  fol- 
lows : 

It  is  cheap,  and  readily  done.  The  bees  re- 
main on  their  summer  stands.  The  preparation 
for  wintering  can  be  attended  to  at  any  time  after 
the  close  of  the  honey  season,  and  remain  in  such 
condition  until  after  the  cold  rains  of  spring, 
thereby  stimulating  early  breeding,  as  the  sud- 
den changes  of  weather  havelittle  effect  on  the 


interior  of  the  hive.  The  warm  rays  of  the  sun 
in  winter  do  not  induce  the  bees  to  come  out, 
unless  it  is  warm  enough  for  them  to  come  out 
with  safety.  They  can  be  examined  at  anytime, 
and  supplied  with  food  if  necessary.  I  have 
never  found  frost  on  the  inside  of  a  hive  so  pre- 
pared. Last  winter  I  had  a  -weak  colony  (to 
which  I  was  feeding  honey)  build  combs  in  Feb- 
ruary, which  is  an  evidence  that  the  hive  so  pre- 
pared keeps  warm.  In  feeding,  I  have  but  to 
raise  the  cap,  and  with  a  knife  cut  through  the 
covering  that  is  over  the  bees,  and  insert  the  tube 
of  my  bee-feeder,  replace  the  cap,  and  the  work 
is  done. 

Bees  prepared  as  above  directed  as  soon  as  the 
honey  season  closes,  are  in  no  danger  of  being 
robbed,  as  the  entrance  is  small  ;  and  it  thus  also 
excludes  mice,  &c.  Can  any  other  system  of 
wintering  foot  up  as  many  advantages  ?  If  so, 
let  us  have  it  through  the  Bee  Journal.  I  use  the 
Langstroth  hive. 

J.   S.  Flort. 

Fayetteville,  West  Va. 


[For  the  American  Bcic  Journal.] 

Something  Strange.— Honey  Dew. 


Mr.  Editor  : — There  has  been  much  said  in 
the  columns  of  the  Journal  about  honey  dew. 
Some  affirm  that  this  strange  phenomenon  is 
caused  by  insects  (aphides)  ;  while  others  believe 
it  to  be  falling  vapor,  or,  in  other  words,  genuine 
honey  dew.  I  am  one  of  the  latter  class.  I  ad- 
mit the  existence  of  insects  which  discharge  a 
fluid  that  bees  will  work  on.  But  a  case  in  point 
recently  transpired  in  this  city,  which  more  fully 
convinces  me  of  the  falling,  at  times,  of  real 
honey  dews. 

A  few  rods  from  my  residence  there  are  three 
large  cottonwood  trees.  On  the  12th  of  Septem- 
ber last,  one  of  my  ueighboi's  came  to  me,  to 
inform  me  tliat  my  bees  were  swarming,  and  that 
they  were  trying  to  alight  on  one  of  those  cotton- 
wood  trees.  On  examination  I  found  the  bees 
were  working  on  the  leaves  on  one  side  of  the 
tree  which  stood  near  the  street.  In  a  short 
time  quite  a  crowd  of  passers-by  had  congregated. 
Some  wanted  to  know  who  had  poured  honey  on 
that  ti-ee ;  while  others  wislied  to  know  if  bees 
made  honey  from  cottonwood  leaves?  Well,  I  did 
not  know  what  to  make  of  it.  I  climbed  the  tree 
and  cut  branches  from  all  parts  of  it,  to  ascertain 
whether  the  cause  originated  from  insects.  After 
carefully  examing  the  leaves,  one  by  one,  I  found 
no  insects,  nor  any  trace  of  insects  of  any  kind. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  found  the  leaves  presenting 
evidence  that  looked  much  as  if  some  power  had 
showered  strained  honey  over  the  leaves  and 
branches  of  the  tree.  Now  if  this  fluid  came  out 
of  the  leaves,  why  is  not  the  honey  found  on  the 
lower  as  well  as  on  the  upper  side  of  the  leaf  ? 
My  opinion  is  that  it  came  from  abeve,  in  the 
shape  of  honey  dew. 

I  would  like  to  know  what  your  unbelievers 
think  of  this  case. 

H.  Faul. 

CotTNciL  Bluffs,  Iowa,  Oct.  8,  1869. 


122 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURANL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Winter  Protection. 


Here   is  a   -winter  protection   wortli  trying,  i 
Take  tliree  boards  about  a  foot  longer  tlian  your 
hive  ;  lean  them  against  your  hive  even  with  the 
top,  and  fill  out  the  space  so  made  with  hay,  lit-  \ 
ter,  evergreen  tops,  &c.     In  front  where  the  fly- 
hole  is  you  can  set  a  board  also,  if  the  colony  is  : 
very  weak,  and  leave  a  small  space  open  for  the  i 
bees  to  fly  out  of.  j 

Last  February  I  set  my  bees  out-doors.     In 
March  the  thermometer  sunk  below  zero.     My 
stands,  then  very  weak,  so  protected  did  not  die.  j 
The  same  boards  I  use  in  summer  for  shading.       ! 

When  wintered  in  the  cellar,  Mr.  Thomas  says  j 
it  does  not  matter  whether  you  shut  the  fly-hole  i 
or  not.     When  the  temperature  rises  above  fifty, 
my  experience  is  that  the  bees  leave  the  hives,      ; 

Last  spring  I  had  three  stands  left  out  of  fifty-  ! 
five.  The  rest  died  of  the  diseasie  prevalent  here  | 
last  year.  I  used  the  same  frames,  hives  and  j 
honey  this  summer ;  bought  four  colonies,  and  i 
now  have  thirty-eight.  Last  year  at  this  time  i 
they  had  commenced  dying  ;  this  year  none  have 
died  as  yet.  Old  age  did  not  kill  my  bees  last  , 
year,  for  I  raised  bees  all  summer  and  till  late  in  [ 
the  fall  ;  nor  was  the  disease  contagious,  as  some  : 
one  thought.  Neither  did  the  black  bees  alone  i 
die,  for  mine  were  all  Italians,  except  a  few  ;  and  ' 


the  three  stands  that  survived  were  hybrids 


lost  some  young  queens  this  year,  after  they  had 
commenced  laying,  and  last  year  likewise — which  1 
I  think  may  have  some  connection  with  the  dis-  ] 
ease.  They  left  the  hive,  and  were  not  accepted  i 
when  put  m  queenless  colonies.  Can  anybody  ] 
explain  this  ?  j 

The  season  here  was  a  very  good  one  ;  but  un-  j 
fortunately  for  me,  my  bees  had  to  multiply,  in-  { 
stead  of  storing  honey.     Once   this   summer,   I  j 
opened  a  hive  that  had  an  Italian  queen  intro- 
duced about  ten  weeks  before.     The  black  bees  | 
seemed  to  have  ^11  gone  ;  but  suddenly  I  was  | 
stung  on  t\u'  hand,  and  on  looking,  I  saw,  to  my  | 
great  surprise,   that  it  was  by  a  black  bee.     All  i 
the  other  bees  in  sight  were  Italians.     This  cer- 
tainly speaks  well   for  the  good  temper  of  the 
Italians.     It  "was  the  best  proof  I  have  ever  had. 
The  bees  and  queen  were  very  fine,  and  the  lat- 
ter came  from  Mr.  Gray's  apiary. 

T.  HuiiMAN,  Sr. 

Terre  Haute,  Ind. 


[For  t!ie  American  Bee  Journal.; 

A  Horizontal  Queen  Cell. 


When  raising  queens  to  Italianize  my  bees 
this  season  I  found  a  queen  cell  placed  in  a  hori- 
zontal position,  and  for  curiosity's  sake  I  saved 
the  cell,  and  succeeded  in  raising  a  perfect  queen, 
which  mated  with  a  black  drone  and  produced 
bastard  progeny.  Some  apiarians  think  that  the 
vertical  position  of  the  cell  with  the  opening 
downward  materially  affects,  in  some  way,  the 
developement  of  royal  larvae.  A  fact  like  the 
above-mentioned  furnishes  conclusive  evidence 
that  the  position  of  the  queen  cell  does  affect  the 
developement  of  the  queen. 

In  his  work  on  the  '■'Hive  and  Honey  Bee,''^ 
third  edition  page  63,  Mr.  Langstroth  says — 
"  While  the  other  cells  open  sideways,  the  queen 
cells  alwaya  hang  with  their  mouth  downwards, " 
and  further  on  says — "  Thejr  open  downwards 
simply  to  save  roomy  Mr.  L.  says  the}''  always 
open  downwards.  I  think  he  is  mistaken  in  this, 
as  I  have  found  one  in  a  horizontal  position. 
Perhaps  I  may  never  find  another  so  placed.  I 
think  he  is  right  in  saying  that  they  open  down- 
ward simply  to  save  room.  The  queen  cell  I 
speak  of  was  in  a  nucleus  hive,  with  plenty  of 
room  either  downward  or  sidegways.  Have  ex- 
perienced queen-raisers  had  a  like  experience  or 
is  this  an  exception  ? 

D.    H.    COGGSHALL,    Jr. 

West  Groton,  N.  Y. 


i 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Wliy  Natural  Swarms  Excel   Artificial 
Swarms. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Sugar  Candy.— An  Inquiry. 


As  pure  sugar  candy  is  considered  good  feed 
for  bees,  by  Mr.  Langstroth  and  other  apiarians, 
I  would  like  to  have  some  of  those  who  have  had 
experience  in  making  candy,  give  us,  through 
the  Bee  Journal,  the  receipt  for  making  it.  This 
would  grr  atly  oblige  me  and  others,  as  bees  in 
this  section  need  feeding,  and  a  good  receipt 
would  come  in  play.  We  have  obtained  no  box 
honey,  and  very  few  swarms,  this  season,  in  this 
neighborhood. 

D.    H.    COGGSHALL,    Jr. 

Wbst  Groton,  N.  Y. 


Querist  says  (and  truly)  that  an  artificial 
swarm  located  in  an  empty  hive,  will  not,  du- 
ring the  first  week,  gather  as  much  honey,  or 
build  as  much  comb,  as  a  natural  swarm  ;  and 
asks  the  reason  why.  Several  reasons  have  been 
given  in  the  Bee  Journal  with  which  Querist  is 
not  satisfied  and  calls  for  further  reasons.  Here 
is  mine : 

An  artificial  swarm  will  not  prosper,  at  first, 
like  a  natural  swarm,  because,  as  generally  made, 
they  have  not  a  supply  of  young  bees,  while  a  na- 
tural stcarm  has.  A  natural  swarm  is  made  up 
of  all  the  bees  i'-  the  hive  at  the  time  the  swarm 
comes  off,  from  the  oldest  with  their  ragged 
wings,  to  the  youngest  that  can  fly.  Many  even 
too  young  and  weak  to  fly  come  out,  or  are 
crowded  out,  with  the  swarm,  and  may  be  seen 
on  the  ground  near  the  hive,  after  the  swarm  has 
settled.  Having,  in  a  natural  swarm,  bees  of 
all  ages,  we  have  therefore  bees  qualified  to  per- 
form all  the  duties  necessary  for  the  prosperity 
of  a  new  colony,  viz :  we  have  the  younger  bees 
whose  occupation  within  the  hive  is  to  generate 
the  wax,  to  build  comb,  and  to  find  the  larvae, 
wiien  developed  from  the  eggs  of  the  queen. 
Then  we  have  all  the  older  bees  of  the  hive,  ex- 
cept those  that  were  out  foraging  at  the  time  the 
swarm  came  off,  and  these  last,  together  with 
the  just  hatching  bees,  are  now  the  sole  occu- 
pants of  the  old  hives. 

The  older  bees  of  our  new  swarm  are  the  out- 
door workers,  who  gather  the  honey  while  the 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


123 


young  bees  generate  wax,  build  comb,  and  feed 
the  larvfE.  Thus  we  have  in  our  natural  swarm 
an  abundance  of  bees  exactly  suited,  by  their  va- 
rious ages,  for  performing  every  duty  essential  to 
perfect  success. 

Now,  what  bees  have  we  in'an  artificial  swarm? 
In  all  the  plans  with  which  I  am  acquainted  for 
making  artificial  swarms  we  obtain  mainly,  for 
such  swarms,  only  those  bees  that  have,  by  re- 
peated flights  from  their  hive,  become  so  accus- 
tomed to  its  location,  that  they  will  return  to  the 
same  spot,  even  if  the  old  hive  be  removed  and 
a  new  one  put  in  its  place  ;  that  is,  we  have 
mainly  old  bees.  Now,  if  every  such  bee, 
namely,  those  accustomed  to  fly,  and  no  others, 
be  taken  from  a  strong  colony,  how  many  bees 
will  be  left  in  the  colony  ?  Oi,  in  other  words, 
how  many  bees  of  the  old  colony  shall  we  fail  to 
get  in  our  new  artificial  swarm  ?  And,  again, 
what  would  be  the  value  of  those  bees  in  our  ar-  j 
tificial  swarm,  if  we  could  secure  them,  as  we  do 
in  natural  swarming  ?  It  has  been  found  by  care- 
ful examination  that  a  young  bee  does  not  leave 
the  hive  for  honey  gathering  until  it  is  about  six 
teen  days  old.  From  this  established  tact  it 
would  follow  that  in  a  populous  colony  where 
two  thousand  young  bees  are  hatching  daily, 
there  must  be,  after  making  an  artificial  swarm, 
about  thirty  thousand  young  bees  remaining  in 
the  old  hive,  which  we  therefore  fail  to  get  in  our 
artificial  colony  ;  and  a  very  disastrous  failure  it 
is,  too,  for  these  are  the  wry  bees  we  need  in  our 
new  colony  for  building  the  new  combs,  and  are 
in  fact  the  only  ones  in  the  whole  hive,  qualified 
by  age  and  instinct  for  doing  this  important 
work. 

To  make  an  artificial  swarm  a  success,  there- 
fore, I  would  drii-e  out  all  the  bees  from  a  popu- 
lous colony,  brushing  every  bee  from  every  comb 
with  a  new  hive  placed  on  the  old  stand  ;  letting 
the  old  hive,  with  a  fertile  queen  (caged  two 
days)  on  the  s'^and  of  a  second  populous  colony — 
removing  the  second  to  a  new  location  ;  or  I 
would  drive  from  five  or  six  colonies,  setting  the 
driven  swarmsin  empty  hives  on  their  old  stands 
respectively,  and  supply  workers  to  protect  the 
brood  of  the  old  hives"  by  dividing  among  the 
bees  from  a  single  colony  brought  from  a  dis- 
tance, inserting  caged  queens  as  before  men- 
tioned, closing  the  entrances  of  the  old  hives,  so 
that  only  a  single  bee  could  pass  at  a  time.  If  I 
had  combs  to  spare,  I  would  insert  two  in  each 
side,  at  one-thir  .  or  at  one-quarter  of  the  width 
of  the  hive,  from  each  side.  This  arrangement 
would  cause  the  swarm  to  cluster  mainly  between 
the  two  combs — would  give  the  queen  a  place  to 
continue  the  deposition  of  eggs  without  interrup- 
tion, and  would  furnish  a  temporary  supply  of 
food  for  the  youngest  bees,  and  would  iucluce 
the  building  of  straight  combs,  throughout  the 
hive — four  rather  important  items. 

If  I  wished  to  make  artificial  swarms,  I  would 
do  it  as  above,  believing  it  to  be  the  nearest  pos- 
sible approacii  to  natural  swarming.     But  /  do 
not  wish  to  make  such  swarms.     In  fact,  I  do 
not  wish  my  bees  to  swarm  at  all.     I  make  my 
Mv^s  very  large,  to  prevent  swarming  as  much  j 
as  possible.     I  prefer,  if  I  want  more  stock,  to  j 
purchase  them  of  my  neighbors,  and  keep  my  ! 
own  sA  work  making  box  honey.      One  large  I 


colony,  if  kept  from  swarming  till  late,  will  in  a 
good  season  (not  one  like  the  present)  make  sur- 
plus honey  enough  to  pay  for  five  or  even  six 
swarms.  But  if  allowed  to  swarm  early,  the  rule 
is  with  me  for  neither  old  stock  nor  new  swams 
to  make  any  honey.  There  have  been  a  few  ex- 
ceptions to  this  rule.  Notwithstanding  the  large 
size  of  my  hives,  and  my  wish  to  prevent  it,  my 
bees  have  generally  swarmed,  but  not  till  after 
making  seventy-five  or  a  hundred  pounds  of  sur- 
plus honey  ;  and  then  the  swarms  are  so  immense 
in  size  that,  although  the  season  may  be  nearly 
past  for  surplus  honey,  they  manage  to  fill  their 
hives  in  a  remarkably  short  time  with  a  sufii- 
cieiicy  for  winter. 

R.   RlCKPOUD. 

Seneca  Falls,  N.  Y.,  Oct.  3,  1869. 

[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

That  Proposition, 


Friend  Gallop  reminds  me  of  the  Irishman 
that  was  spoiling  for  a  fight,  and,  after  other 
means  failsd,  he  put  on  a  long-tailed  coat  and 
went  dragging  it  through  the  crowd,  daring  any 
one  to  step  on  it.  In  the  September  number  of 
the  Bee  Journal,  page  49,  friend  Gallop  says,  "if 
friend  Puckett  accepts  my  proposition,  you  will 
in  all  probability  get  reasons  pro  and  en.''''  To 
what  proposition  friend  Gallop  has  reference,  I 
am  at  a  loss  to  know,  unless  it  is  in  regard  to  the 
Langstroth  hive.  Friend  Gallop  says  it  needs 
two  inches  more  in  depth  of  comb,  in  Iowa, 
w^here  he  uses  them.  This  may  be  so,  and  it 
may  not  be  so.  There  is  at  least  a  possibility  that 
friend  Gallop  may  be  mistaken.  At  all  events  he 
has  not  yet  proved  it  to  be  true.  But  I  never 
said  that  the  Langstroth  hive  is  perfect.  Yet  I 
have  said  that,  so  far  as  I  have  tried  it,  it  has 
answered  all  the  purposes  that  could  be  expected 
of  any  hive.  My  bees  passed  the  last  winter  on 
their  summer  stands,  in  Langstroth' s  hives,  and 
did  well.  My  Italian  stocks  began  to  throw  off' 
(natural)  swarms  on  the  15th  of  May,  notwith- 
standing the  cold  and  backward  spring,  whereas 
my  neighbors'  bees,  in  other  form  of  hives,  did 
not  swarm  till  late  in  June.  I  use  the  Lang- 
stroth hive  in  Northern  Illinois  ;  winter  my  bees 
in  them  on  their  summer  stands,  and  they  do 
well. 

During  my  visit  this  fall  to  the  west,  I  met  a 
man  named  Salisbury,  in  Northern  Illinois,  a 
very  intelligent  man,  that  understands  his  busi- 
ness. He  had  over  three  hundred  stands  of  bees. 
He  informed  me  that  he  was  using  the  Lang- 
stroth hive,  with  but  seven  inch  frames;  and  he 
thought  bu'.  ,six  inches  would  be  better  still.  But 
he  winters  his  bees  in  a  cellar. 

There  are  two  extremes.  Mr.  Gallup  says 
deeper  "frames,"  and  Mr.  Salisbury  says  shal- 
low frames.  So,  if  Mr.  Gallup  is  still  spoiling 
for  "  fun,"  as  he  calls  it,  I  turn  him  over  to  Mr. 
Salisbury — hoping  that  friend  Gallup  will  stick 
to  the  truth,  and  not  state  things  merely  to  see 
"  what  effect  it  will  have." 

Friend  Gallup,  is  or  is  not  the  Langstroth  hive 
"  rejected  all  over  the  west  ?"  Again,  is  there 
oris  there  not  such  a  disease  as  dysentery  amf)ngst 
bees — your  bees  excepted  ?  These  are  questions 
for  you  to  settle,  before  you  invite  me  to  anything 


124 


THE    AMERICAN    BEE  JOUENAi. 


further,  especially  when  it  is  merely  to  gratify 
your  great  desire  for  "fun,"  regardless  of  fiicts. 
b.  puckett. 
Winchester,  Ind. 

iW  Several  errors  occurred  in  Dr.  Puck(!tt's 
last  article,  in  the  September  number.  On  page 
58,  second  column,  line  26,  for  G-allup  says  that 
"bees  do  not  make  honey,"  read  '■'•hecs  do  make 
honey  ;"  and  in  the  next  line,  for  "  suppose  they 
do  not,"  read  "  suppose  they  c^d."  Some  other 
errors  in  that  number  of  the  Journal  escaped 
correction,  as  we  had  no  opportunity  to  read  the 
proofs,  and  could  only  glance  hastily  over  the 
revise. — Ed.  

A  Profitable  Apiary, 


A  correspondent  of  the  Prairie  Farmer  gives 
that  paper  an  account  of  a  visit  to  the  apiary  of 
Messrs.  Fi-ancis,  not  far  from  Springfield,  111. 
They  have  one  hundred  and  twenty  swa^-ms  ot 
bees— Italians  and  crosses  of  Italians  with  black 
bees.  They  think  the  crossed  bees  are  the  best 
workers.  From  a  hive  of  half  Italians  they  have 
taken,  this  season,  one  hundred  and  si.Kty  (160) 
pounds  of  honey,  whicli  netted  about  thirty  cents 
per  pound.  From  the  whole  apiary  they  have 
taken  about  four  thousand  (4,000)  pounds  of 
honey,  an  average  of  33^  pounds  or  $10,  to  the 
hive.  The  sale  of  bees  paid  all  expenses  of  the 
apiary,  leaving  the  honey  net  profit.  They  use 
the  Langstroth  hive  exclusively. 

Bees'  Wax. 

American  beekeepers  are  perhaps  not  generally 
aware  of  the  enormous  consumption  of  bees' 
wax  in  Europe,  and  the  pre-emiuoit  value  of 
the  article  produced  in  the  United  Stat'\s.  In- 
dependently of  the  very  large  yield  of  mineral 
and  vegetable  waxes,  England  alone  must  con- 
sume more  than  two  thousand  tons  a  year,  to  the 
value  of  $2,100,000!  Its  wonh  is  assessed  by 
color,  purity,  and  the  melting  points;  and  the 
latter  process  readily  exposes  adulteration  by 
foreign  matter.  To-day's  quotations,  takinggold  i 
at  131,  are  as  follows,  viz  : —  ■ 

Cents  per  lb.  [ 

American,  bright  pressed  yellow 45    to  51     i 

American,  rough  mixed  yellow 43     "  43|  1 

West  Indian,  yellow 4U  "  43| 

East  Indian,  yellow U^  "  43^ 

African 36;^  "  41^ 

As  an  instance  of  the  consumption,  it  may  be 
mentioned,  that  one  European  palace  alone  is  ; 
said  to  burn  ten  thousand  wax  candles  nightly. 
The  method  of  lighting  them  is  ingenious.     The 
respective  apartments  being  prepared  with  the 
candles,  an  inflammable  and  scented  web-like 
link  (gun  cotton)  runs  from  wick  to  wick.     Im- 
mediately one  end  of  the  link  is  lit,  the  flame 
rushes   round  the   connected   wax  lights  with  , 
lightning  rapidity,  and  in  a  moment  they  are  all 
simultaneously  inflamed  !     As  the  link  consumes 
and  lights  each  candle,  an  agreeable  scent  is 
emitted,  and  the  apartment  at  once,  from  one  : 
end  to  the  other,  are  thus  not  only  illumined, 
but   perfectly   refreshed   and  perfumed,    as  by  ' 
magic. — A.  L.  Macrae's  {Liverpool)  Courier. 


I  [For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 

Bee  Feed. 

In  the  October  number  of  the  Journal  a  cor- 
respondent calls  chicken-meat  as  food  for  bees 
"something  new  under  the  Sun."  To  many  it 
may  be  so.  I  heard  of  it  being  so  used  several 
years  ago.  My  informant  told  me  he  often  fed 
his  bees  on  chicken-meat,  to  take  them  through 
the  winter.  I  was  quite  diverted  at  the  idea, 
and  having  a  good  opportunity  to  test  the  new 
and  to  me  doubtful  theory,  I  slily  (for  fear  of 
being  laughed  at)  put  into  my  feeding  boxes  a 
"dainty  mess"  of  well  cooked  chicken;  and, 
strange  to  tell  the  bees  did  "go  for  it,"  actually 
licking  the  bones  ! 

That  same  winter  I  was  driven  to  many  ex- 
periments in  bee-feeding,  as,  like  many  a  new 
beginner,  I  was  in  haste  "to  get  rich  ;"  so  that 
I  had  a  number  of  colonies  and  but  little  honey, 
and  as  the  fall  was  very  unfavorable,  I  could 
get  no  honey  conveniently.  I  fed  a  number  of 
these  weak  colonies,  from  January  to  April,  with- 
out honey.  The  principal  feed  I  used  was  pre- 
pared as  follows.  I  had  bread  baked  of  rye, 
buckwheat,  or  wheat  flour,  light  as  possible,  cut 
into  thin  slices,  and  well  soaked  in  brown  sugar 
syrup.  The  bees  used  up  the  greater  portion  of 
the  bread  as  well  as  the  syrup.  Sweet  apples 
and  peaches,  stewed  and  well  sweetened,  they 
ate  eagerly.  In  the  spring  they  were  much  re- 
duced, and  seemed  to  have  no  disposition  to  hunt 
stores,  until  I  supplied  them  with  a  quantity  of 
genuine  honey.  Then  they  seemed  to  "  wake 
up,"  and  went  to  work;  and  by  fall  they  were 
not  more  than  in  good  wintering  condition. 

Since  that  time  I  am  fully  persuaded  that  it 
does  not  pay  to  put  weak,  or  sparely  supplied 
colonies  into  winter  quarters  ;  and  I  have  learned 
to  adopt  the  motto — "strong  colonies,  or 
NONE."  I  am  assured  that  the  best  bee  feed  for 
all  practical  purposes,  is  good,  pure  HONEY. 
J.   S.  Flory. 

Fayette  Co.,  West  Va. 


[For  the  American  Beg  Journal.] 

"  Golden  Rod  and  Aster." 

Mr.  Wagner  says,  in  the  November  Bee  Jour- 
nal, that  he  has  never  seen  bees  at  work  on  the 
golden  rod.  Two  years  ago  I  should  have  said 
the  same,  and  was  surprised  to  see  it  mentioned 
as  an  excellent  honey  plant  in  several  "bee 
books,"  for  there  was  a  field  of  some  twelve  or 
fifteen  acres  covered  with  it,  within  less  than  an 
eighth  of  a  mile  of  my  bees,  und  they  took 
not  the  slightest  notice  of  it.  The  field  is  high 
and  dry,  and  the  golden  rod  was  the  small  spa-  a 
cies,  from  a  foot  to  eighteen  inches  high,  which  ■ 
always  grows  in  such  situations.  " 

But  summer  before  last,  as  I  was  crossing  a  "* 
low  marshy  piece  of  ground,  at  least  a  mile  from 
home,  I  found  the  bees  very  hard  at  work  on  a 
large  species  of  golden  rod,  which  I  had  never 
noticed  before,  but  have  seen  several  times  since 
in  similar  places.  It  was  very  different  froi^i  the 
common  kind,  being  from  four  to  six  feet  high, 
and  bearing  flowers  of  a  lighter  and  more  green- 
ish yellow.     As  many  of  the  bees  at  work  on  this 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


125 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Several  Items. 


patch  were  Italians,  they  must  have  come  from 
my  hives,  for  no  one  else  in  this  neighborhood  j 

has  them ;  and  to  get  there  passed  directly  of  the  j  „  ,..  ,       .       . 

field  already  mentioned.  !      Smoking  Bees. -Many  persons  who  try   to 

I  think  from  this,  and  from  what  I  have  since  I  manage  bees,  I  fear,  do  not  fully  understand  the 

seen   that  the  common  golden  rod  secretes  very    value  of  smoke,  nor  the  best  method  of  apply- 


little  if  any  honey,  while  the  marsh  variety 
yields  large  quantities.  It  is  probable  Mr.  Wag- 
ner has  seen  only  the  former  kind,  which  is  the 
most  abundant. 

In  this  section  of  the  country  the  asters  are  in- 


When  I  began  to  use  frames,  although  I  had 
read  "Langstroth"  and  "Kidder"  attentively,  I 
did  not  practice  smoking,  as  I  believed  that  it 
was  injurious  to  the  brood,  if  not  to  the  bees ; 


valuable  as  fall  forage  for  bees.  Let  the  season  !  and  I  am  still  rather  mclmed  to  that  opinion  in 
be  wet  or  drv  cold  or  hot,  we  are  certain  to  have  ^  regard  to  tobacco  and  puff-ball  smoke.  I  had 
a  continuous  bloom  of  them  from  early  in  Sep-  :  some  laughable  scenes  m  trying  to  open  hives 
tember  until  a  reallv  hard  frost  occurs.  The  i  without  the  use  of  smoke,  especially  during 
light  early  frosts,  which  kill  the  buckwheat  ,  times  of  scarcity  of  honey.  Since  ihen  I  have 
andotherhoneyplants,donotaffecttheminthe:tned  every  method  that  I  have  seen  recom- 
jgj^g^  J  p         '  I  Qieuded,  and  some  that  1  have  not ;  and  have 

Mv  Italian  bees  have  never  failed  to  secure  'finally  settled  upon  the  use  of  fine,  dry,  pine 
enough  honey  from  asters  to  carry  them  through  saioclust.  This  answers  the  best  purpose  ot  any- 
the  winter,  even  when  there  was  hardly  a  pound  j  thing  that  I  have  tned  ;  and  is  always  acces- 


sible.    I  burn  it  in  a  sheet  iron  "smoker"  three 
inches  in  diameter  and  about  six  inches  long, 
which  has  already  been  described  by  some  one 
in  the  Bee  Journal.     Fire  it  up  with  a  hot  coal 
mine' have* Wintered  on"it"ibr  Two  'seasons""past  \  ft'om  the  stove  ;  and  by  removing  the  cover  before 
and  came  out  in  excellent  order  in  the  spring.      ;  laying  it  down,  it  will  retain  fire  nearly  an  hour 
Daniel  M   Worthington.       i      Wintering  Bees.— Last  winter  we   carried 
I  all  our  bees— about  twenty  swarms — into  a  room 
;  up  stairs  in  the  house.     It  is  a  tight-plastered 
~  "      '      '  '      The  windows 


in  their  hives  at  the  end  of  August.  The  honey 
is  rather  dark  and  has  a  peculiar  flavor,  which 
some  persons  dislike,  but  I  think  rather  pleasant. 
It  evidently  agrees  with  the  bees  perfectly,  for 


Elkridge,  Md.,  Nov.  20,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

My  Experience  with  Alsike  Clover. 


When  I  visited  Germany  and  Italy,  two  years 
ago,  I  bought  an  imported  fifty  pounds  of  Swed- 
ish or  Alsike  clover  seed.     This  seed  was  for  the 


room — dimension^  12  feet  by  14. 
were  let  down  for  ventilation,  but  darkened  with 
boards,  which  nearly  spoiled  it  all.  The  hives 
were  set  upon  the  floor,  and  ventilated  at  top 
and  bottom.  They  did  not  winter  well,  although 
only  one  died.  That  was  a  common  "box  hive," 
and  from  appearances  must  have  been  about 
dead  iu  the  fall,   as  it  contained   over  twenty 


most  part  given  to  my  nearest  neighbors,  free  of  ,  pounds  ot  honey  and  no  bees,  in  the  spring.  _  lu 
charge  hopin-  that  tlie  honey  gathered  by  the  :  swarmed  three  or  lour  times  during  the  previous 
bees  from  the  blossoms  of  the  clover,  would  com-  I  summer,  and  was  probably  put  in  the  room  weak 
pensate  me  for  the  cost  of  the  seed.  It  was  sown  i  and  ciueenless.  _  _ 

at  the  rate  of  about  four  pounds  to  the  acre,  and  1  The  mam  difficulty  in  the  wintering  of  these 
did  not   germinate  well,    though  it   ultimately    bees,  seemed  to  be,  a  lack  ot  ventilation,  as  they 


proved  to  have  been  sown  thick  enough.  It  win 
tered  well,  and  grew  nicely  to  a  length  of  from 
twelve  inches  to  thirty  last  spring.  It  commenced 
blooming  about  the  oth  of  June,  or  at  the  same 
time  with  common  white  clover.  It  remained  in 
bloom  till  about  the  25th  of  July,  when  it  was 
cut  by  me  and  my  neighbors. 
I  was  of  course  anxious  to  see  the  great  piles 


would  fly  out  into  the  room  some  during  the 
mildest  weather,  and  consumed  too  much  honey 
to  suit  me.  I  was  surprised  at  the  amount  of 
heat  generated  by  those  twenty  swarms.  A  bit 
of  snow  or  ice,  put  iu  for  the  purpose  of  cooling 
them,  would  melt  in  the  course  of  a  week,  any 
time  during  the  winter. 

The  hives  we  use  are,  as  nearly  as  I  can  ascer 


of  honey  my  bees  would  gather.  They  seemed  ;  tain,  similar  to  Quinby's  improved,  although  I 
to  like  the  blossoms  very  well,  and  worked  on  do  not  know  the  exact  plan  of  his  _  In  one  thing 
them  whenever  the  weatlier  was  fair.  But,  alas  !  i  I  think  ours  are  superior.  It  is  in  not  having 
after  examining  about  a  dozen  of  my  hives  every  :  the  frames  connected  in  any  way  with  any  part 
day  during  the  whole  season,  I  could  never  dis-  '  of  the  hive.  The  interior  dimensions  ot  our 
cover  more  than  about  a  hundred  cells  filled  with  '  hives  are  28  inches  by  16,  and  12^  inc  les  deep, 
a  very  thin  watery  honey,  and  these  were  regu-  i  The  ends  are  used  for  surplus  honey  boxes  or 
larly  found  empty  again  next  morning.  My  fond  ■■  frames.  In  winter  we  turn  the  frames  bodily, 
expectation  of  being  able  to  improve  the  honey  |  facing  the  front  entrance,  put  in  an  extra  divi- 
pasturage  of  the  poor  location  of  my  home  api-  I  sion  board,  and  fill  the  empty  spaces  which  are 
ary,  was  therefore  sadly  disappointed;  and  if  the  i  thus  formed,  with  old  woolen  clothing,  hay,  or 

no  mc      ■ 
season  than  they 


pasturage  of  the  poor  location  of  my  home  api 

ary,  was  therefore  sadly  disappointed  ;  and  if  the  j  ilivio  xv^x...^-.,    „ .- —  o,     ^,  - 

bees  gather  no  more  honey  from  this  clover  next  !  any  material  which  is  not  a  good   conductor  ot 
season  than  they  did  iu  the  last,  I  shall  be  forced  j  heat.     Thus  they  are  left  upon   iheir  summer 


to  the  conclusion  that  neither  the  white  nor  the 
Alsike  clover  yield  any  honey  in  the  location  of 
my  home  apiary. 

Adam  Grimm. 
Jefferson,  Wis. 


stands,  with  entrance  facing  southeast.  I  can- 
not tell  how  it  will  work  until  spring,  as  this  is 
the  first  time  we  try  them  so.  Will  report  in 
the  spring.  I-  F.  Tillinghast. 

Fagtoryville,  Pa.,  Nov.  6,  1869. 


126 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


Alsike  or  Swedish  Glover. 


Wilhiu  the  past  few  years,  Alsike  or  Swedish 
clover  has  been  somewhat  cultivated  in  tliis  coun- 
try, and  higlily  lauded  as  a  forage  plant.  Some 
eight  or  ten  ytiars  ago,  I  received  a  small  pack- 
age of  the  above-named  variety  of  clover  seed  ; 
sowed  it  early  in  the  spring,  on  a  good  and  well- 
prepared  soil.  A  large  portion  of  the  seed  failed 
to  germinate,  but  such  as  did,  made  a  good 
growth,  which  was  mown  in  the  fall,  and  the 
land  top-dressed.  The  second  year  I  got  two  fair 
crops.  The  third  year  June  grass  was  largely 
mixed  with  the  clover.  On  the  fifth  year  the 
Alsike  was  missing  ;  the  tough-swarded  June 
grass  rooted  it  out  entirely. 

In  the  spring  of  1867, 1  obtained  one  pound  of 
Alsike  clover  seed,  which  was  sown  early  in 
May,  with  a  thin  seeding  of  barley.  I  gave  the 
land  a  heavy  dressing  of  .superphosphate.  Both 
the  barley  and  the  clover  did  finely.  In  1868, 
mowed  the  clover  twice  ;  first  crop  badly  lodged. 
This  year  (1869),  first  crop  very  good,  with  quite 
a  show  of  other  grasses,  which  showed  more 
largely  in  the  second  crop.  The  intruding  grasses 
are  red  and  white  clover ;  timothy,  red-top,  and 
June  grasses ;  and  probably  in  1871,  the  Alsike 
will  have  disappeared. 

It  makes  the  finest  quality  of  clover  hay,  yields 
a  large  amount  of  seed,  gives  a  good  yield,  and 
while  in  blossom  is  a  favorite  resort  of  honey 
bees  and  all  other  houej'^ -loving  insects.  If  this 
clover  could  be  kept  free  from  other  grasses,  I 
think  it  would  prove  an  admirable  dry  forage  for 
milch  cows  and  sheep  at  yeaning  time. 

L.  Ba,rtlett, 
In  "  Country  Gentleman." 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

My  Experience  with  Alsike  Clover. 


When  I  visited  Germany  and  Italy,  two  years 
ago,  I  bought  and  imported  fifty  pounds  of  Swe- 
dish or  Alsike  clover  seed.  This  seed  was  for 
the  most  part  given  to  my  nearest  neighbors,  free 
of  charge,  hoping  that  the  honey  gathered  by  the 
bees  from  the  blossoms  of  the  clover,  would  com- 
pensate me  for  the  cost  of  the  seed.  It  was  sown 
at  the  rate  of  about  four  pounds  to  the  acre,  and 
did  not  germinate  well,  though  it  ultimately 
proved  to  have  beea  sown  thick  enough.  It 
wintered  well,  and  grew  nicely  to  a  length  of 
from  twelve  inches  to  thirty  last  spring.  It 
commenced  blooming  about  the  Sth  of  June,  or 
at  the  same  time  with  common  white  clover.  It 
remained  in  bloom  till  about  the  2oth  of  July, 
when  it  was  cut  by  me  and  my  neighbors. 

I  was  of  course  anxious  to  see  the  great  piles 
of  honey  my  bees  would  gather.  They  seemed 
to  like  the  blossoms  very  well,  and  worked  on 
them  when  ever  the  weather  was  fair.  But, 
alas  !  after  examining  about  a  dozen  of  my  hives 
every  day  during  the  whole  season,  I  could  never 
discover  more  than  about  a  hundred  cells  filled 
with  a  very  thin  watery  honey,  and  these  were 
regularly  found  empty  again  next  morning.  My 
fond  expectation  of  being  able  to  improve  the 
honey  pasturage  of  the  poor  location  of  my  home 
apiary,  was  therefore  sadly  disappointed ;  and 
if  the  bees  gather  no  more  honey  from  the  clover 


next  season  than  they  did  in  the  last,  I  shall  be 
forced  to  the  conclusion  that  neither  the  white 
nor  the  Alsike  clover  yield  any  honey  in  the 
lacation  of  my  home  apiary. 

Adam  Grimm. 
Jefferson,  Wis. 

[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

The  Dzierzon  Theory. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  will  reply  once  more  to  J. 
H.  Thomas's  statement  in  the  June  number  of 
your  Journal.  In  that  statement  he  expresses 
his  surprise  at  the  mistake,  as  he  terms  it,  made 
in  an  article  I  wrote  for  the  Journal  some  time 
before,  concerning  the  reproduction  of  the  honey 
bee.  Dzierzon  was  the  first  discoverer  of  the 
true  system  and  theory  concerning  the  propaga- 
tion of  the  bee.  He  says,  if  an  Italian  queen 
meets  a  black  drone,  her  drone  jjrogeny  will  be 
pure  Italians,  but  her  worker  progeny  will  be 
hybrids.  And  also  if  a  black  queen  meets  an 
Italian  drone,  her  drone  progeny  will  be  blacks, 
and  the  worker  progeny  will  be  hybrids. 

The  above  theory  agrees  with  my  experience 
in  every  respect. 

J.  H.  Thomas's  new  theory,  as  set  forth  in  the 
Journal,  is,  that,  if  an  Italian  queen  meets  with 
a  black  drone,  her  whole  system  becomes  im- 
pregnated with  the  black  blood,  and  hence  her 
drones  would  not  be  pure.  And  if  such  a  drone 
would  meet  with  a  pure  Italian  queen,  her  worker 
progeny  would  lose  one  or  more  of  their  yellow 
bands. 

Now,  if  this  theory  is  correct,  I  w^ould  hold 
Mr.  Thomas  right  here — 1st.  That  the  drone 
progeny,  as  well  as  the  workers,  must  show  evi- 
dent marks  of  black  blood  ;  and  so  long  as  Mr. 
Thomas  fails  to  show  this,  his  new  theory  must 
fall  to  the  gi'ound,  and  stay  there. 

I  will  here  give  a  little  of  my  experience  in 
this  matter.  In  the  year  1867,  I  bought  a  full- 
blood  Italian  queen  of  Mr.  Langstroth  for  twenty 
dollars;  and,  after  seeing  her  progeny,  I  was 
convinced  I  had  the  worth  of  my  money.  That 
year  I  raised  twelve  fertile  queens,  and  every  one 
was  fertilized  by  a  black  drone  ;  and  I  was  con- 
vinced that  the  drone  progeny  was  pure,  while 
the  workers  were  hybrids.  In  the  year  1868,  I 
bought  another  full-blood  Italian  queen,  and 
raised  sixteen  fertile  queens.  Of  these,  all  but 
two  met  Italian  drones.  The  worker  progeny 
of  the  fourteen  which  met  Italian  drones,  were 
all  alike  marked  full  Italian.  These  queens  must 
have  been  fertilized  by  drones  which  were  pro- 
duced by  the  queens  bred  the  year  before  and 
which  were  fertilized,  as  already  stated,  by  black 
drones.  Hence  the  case  is  clear  that  Dzierzen'a 
theory  will  stand  unscathed,  firm  as  the  rock  of 
Gibraltar. 

Inclosed  please  find  two  dollars  for  your  ex- 
cellent Journal.  It  is  edifying  to  read  it,  as  one 
writes  a,  6,  c,  and  another  c,  5,  a ;  hence  we 
have  a  thorough  discussion  of  every  intricate 
question. 

H.    ROSENSTIEL. 

Lena,  III.,  Oct.,  1868. 

Bees  gorged  with  honey  never  volunteer  an 

attack. 


THE  AMERICAN.  BEE  JOURNAL. 


127 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


WASHINGTON,  DECEMBER,  18<5!). 
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culturist and  American  Bee  Journal  on  club  terms 
together,  for  So  7.5,  full  price  being  $i  .30,  nacli  club 
subscriber  being  entitled  to  a  choice  steel  plate  en- 
graving. Country  Life,  and  a  copy  of  Adair's  An- 
nals OF  Bbe  Culture. 

We  commend  The  Horticulturist  to  the  atten- 
tion of  lovers  of  fruits,  flowers,  and  rural  embellish- 
ments. Having  been  greatly  improve.d  this  year,  it 
will  bo  found  one  of  the  best  and  most  valualile  hor- 
ticultural journals  published  in  the  Unitei  States. 

The  Triangular  Comb  Guides. 

4®-  We  understand  that,  in  various  quarters,  per- 
sons are  endeavoring  to  collect  a  "royalty"  from 
beekeepers  Avho  use  the  bevel  edge  or  triangular 
comb  guide,  alleging  that  the  device  is  patented,  and 
that  they  are  agents  of  the  patentee 


jm-  We  have  a  number  of  communications  from 
valued  correspondents,  the  publication  of  which  cir- 
cumstances beyond  our  control  constrain  us  to  defer 
till  next  month 

Correspondence  of  the  Bee  Journal. 


Sterling,  Ills.,  Oct.  14.— I  am 
of  beekeeping,  bavin--  hcvu  .'nu-; 
years,  but  nocliing  has  ailractol 
much.  I  have  succceiii'd  toliTui 
season,  18GS.  In  the  spriiiH- ot  t! 
colonies,  most  of  them  purcb; 
When  I  bought  them  they  wen 
hives,  and  in  jjoor  condition.  I 
to  Lani;--lroth  hives,  and  came 
them,  lic:MJisi'tliere  was  1  hen  no 
Most  oftbc^  colonics  could  QOt  l'^ 
which  %v.Tc  traiisfcnvd.  Only 
cccd.-d    in    ;^aliirrin-    hnury    .■■.. 


veil-  I  iiai;  lovty 
[  of  a  uci!^bb..{-. 
till'  oil!  style  of 
isfi'vicd  them  in- 
ir  ;uinin;;-  all  of 
cyinthcilowers. 
rcnair  the  combs 
V\v  of  them  suc- 
i,  to  carry  them 
ri'Pd,and  some  of 
iuL:-  of  l.SoO,  1  had 


i-t 


my  1 
part 
labo 


L-omi 


We  do  not  be- 
lieve that  there  is  any  valid  patent  on  the  article, 
and  think  those  thus  engaged  in  levying  'Ijlackmail" 
are  rendering  themselves  liable  to  prosecufion  for 
obtaining  money  under  false  pretences.  Mr.  Lang- 
stroth,  (who,  we  regret  to  learn,  is  again  suffering 
from  an  attack  of  the  disease  to  which  he  has  for 
many  years  lieen  subject  at  Intervals,)  prepared  a 
full  history  of  these  comb  guides  shortly  before  thi'. 
return  of  his  illness,  which  is  now  in  our  hamls  and 
will  appear  in  the  January  number  of  the  Bee  Jour- 
nal. Meantime  we  advise  beekeepers  to  be  on  their 
guard,  and  not  suffer  themselves  to  be  imposed  on  by 
swindling  landloupers. 


4®=  In  our  last  issue  a  selected  article  was  inad 
vertently  and  erroneously  credited  to  the  "  Louis 
ville  {Ky.)  Farm  Journal,"  of  which  name  there  is  no 
paper  in  existence.  Credit  should  have  been  given 
to  the  "Farmers  Home  Journal,"  an  excellent  agricul- 
tural and  family  paper,  published  at  Lexington,  Ky., 
by  James  J.  Miller,  esq.,  at  three  dollars  per  annum, 
and  which  well  merits  a  liberal  patronage. 


jSSf  Of  the  two  specimens  of  bee  plants  sent  to  us 
from  Kew  Cumberland,  West  Virginia,  the  first  is 
Aster  ericoides,  already  repeatedly  noticed  in  the 
Journal  as  furnishing  excellent  fall  pasturage.  The 
second,  or  "blue  blossoming"  is  Aster  cordi folia, 
widely  diffused  and  common  species  found  in  groves 
and  copses,  and  bearing  an  abundance  of  flowers. 
The  writer  (who  neglected  giving  us  his  name)  says 
of  this  latter  plant—"  I  never  saw  it  here  till  this 
fall.  It  is  growing  all  along  the  river  hills,  among 
the  rocks,  and  on  the  poorest  land  we  have.  It  com- 
menced blooming  about  the  20th  of  September,  and 
Is  in  bloom  yet  (Nov.  8).  It  grows  about  as  tall  as 
buckwheat.    Early  frosts  hurt  it  very  little." 


loi-  coinlillon.  ISiit  1  I'nl  thnn  and  did  all  in 
■IT  11,  krcji  thcin  alive.  The  siniiiii- and  fore- 
t  lie  ■^uiinniT  were  viT\-  unfavorable.  My  bees 
,  un:|'.T  rviTv  ill-advantage,  my  place  being 
il  aftoi--iim-  ii'i)  iirotielion.  Wh'en  the  apple 
■  clci-ry  li.-cs  wen-  in  lilossom,  the  Ijees  were 
led  to  remain  in  their  hive-,  on  account  of 
prevalent  cold  v.iud-  and  rain.  I  i)ei  ame  very  much 
diseouragcd,  but  during  the  months  of  July  and 
\mfust,  things  began  to  assume  a  more  favorable 
asiiect.  ,  .     ^ 

My  colonies  are  mostly  Italians,  and  in  Langstroth 
hives.  1  use  two  kinds  of  hives,  the  shallow  chamlier 
and  the  deep  ;  and  prefer  the  former,  believing  that 
the  bees  will  store  nion;  snii)Uis  honey  when  kept  in 
the  shallow  chamber  hi'.es,  1  ueiieridiy  remove  the 
houev  boanban.l  have  mv  honey  Mox-s  >o  tl'.at  three 
will  cover  the  whole  surface  of  the  traiues.  By  so 
doing,  bee.s  will  work  up  quicker  and  store  more 
honey.  .  ,  -,       , 

I  have  increased  my  stock  from  nineteen  old  colo- 
nies to  thirty-eight;  and  if  I  had  desired  it,  I  might 
have  increased  them  more.  The  swarming  propen- 
silie-  of  bees  were  greater  this  year,  than  I  have  ever 
known  it  to  lie  be'fore.  I  was  constantly  guarding 
against  ovcr-iwarniiiig.  If  1  had  nor  Iiad  sucli  bad 
siicce^s  las1  year,  I  should  probably  have  allowed  my 
bees  toswaian  a- mueli  as  they  weie  inel  iiied  lodo, 
and  would  undoubtedly  liave  ealled  it  givat  >ueeess. 
!<'!-oin  1  iuhteen  old  i.-olonies  and  int-rease,  1  took 
lliirteen  hundred  and  seventy-nve  (l,;i7a)  ))Ounils  of 
surplus  honey.  One  old  colony  gave  me  a  swanii  and 
one  hundred'and  idglit  (lOS)  i)Oands  surplus  honey  ; 
and  the  young  swarm  gave  me  nine-ty  (Ou)  pounds, 
six  yfiung swarms  average  seventy-live  (7.5)  pounds  lo 
the  hive.  1  hail  one  luitural  swarm  (second  swarm) 
on  the  .'id  of  August,  that  filled  its  hive  below,  and 
stored  forty-seveu  (47)  pounds  of  surplus  honey. 

We  have  "not  had  much  frost  yet,  and  on  the  9tli  of 
October  my  bees  were  still  depositing  honey  in  the 
boxes. 

Enclosed  find  two  dollars  for  your  valuable  and 
interesting  Journal.  I  have  read  every  volume  since 
its  publication,  and  am  convinced  that  no  beekeeper 
can  succeed  without  it. — George  Mohler. 

Fair  Dale,  Oswego  Co  ,  N.  Y.,  Oct.  20.— Bees  in  this 
section  have  done  but  little  up  to  the  first  of  Septem- 
ber, onlv  securing  provision  enough  to  supply  present 
necessities.  But  when  the  liackwheat  began  to  blos- 
som, the  weather  became  fine,  and  bees  gathered 
honey  and  bee-bread  verv  fast,  so  that  one-quarter 
to  one-half  the  stocks  will  winter.  I  will  have  to  feed 
two  or  three  black  colouii^s.  to  cany  them  through. 
The  Italian  bees  have  proved  their  superiority  with 
us  this  season.  I  have  just  commenced  Italianizing.— 
M.  a.  Dumass. 


Fbiopbricktown,  Mo.,  Oct. 
couraged,  but  have  dom-  w 
moved  last  spring  carrying 
sold  four,  and  now  have  t 


10.— 1  was  somewhat  dis- 
ell,  consalering  1  re- 
eight  hives  with  nic.  I 
ty-six  in  good  condition 


for  winter.  Inclosed  find  two  ilollars  lor  the  Ameri- 
can Bee  Journal,  which  welcome  visitor  I  still  want. 
I  remain  a  friend  to  all  beekeepers,  and  particularly 
to  the  Journal.— J.  B.  Dinks. 


128 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


Council  Bluffs,  Iowa,  Oct.  20.— I  promisea  to  let 
you  know  how  much  honey  mj'  swarm  that  came  otf 
on  the  0th  of  September  made  from  that  time  till 
frost  cut  down  the  flowers.  They  made  just  seventv- 
two  (72)  pounds.  WJio  can  beat  that  so  late  in  tlie 
season?— H.  Faul. 


Sandusky,  N.  Y.,  Oct. 25.— This  has  Ijeen  the  poorest 
season  for  bees  that  we  ever  knew.  We  started  in 
the  spring  witli  one  hundred  and  forty-three  (143) 
colonies,  and  increased  them  to  two  hundred  and 
fifty  (2.50).  This  fall  we  have  reduced  them  to  two 
hundred  and  ten  (2i0),  and  fed  them  l,S5u  pounds  of 
coffee  sugar.  We  hope  we  shall  not  see  another  sea- 
son like  this  very  soon.— Baldwin  Bros. 

RiPON,  Wis.,  Oct.  28  —I  liave  to  report  to  you  the 
poorest  season  for  bees  1  have  seen  iu  this  State  for 
thirty  years.  In  lodkinii-  over  my  si'venty  stocks  the 
fore  part  of  this  mont  !i,  l  found  thirty  of  them  not  to 
have  honey  enou;;ii  to  can  \- 1  lieni  throuijcli  iJeeember, 
and  fortyof  tlieiii  needinLi'fiHM  tocany  them  to  May. 
Taking 'up  tliirty,  and  feeding  forty  to  make  tliem 
strong  for  winter,  is  the  work  I  did.  My  old  stock 
hives  were  in  the  pool■e^l  eondition.  One  of  them— 
an  oM  box  hive,  I  h  tve  had  bcs  iii  for  sixteen  years, 
and  the  eondxs  were  in  line  eondit  ion— this  being  the 
first  year  in  sixteen,  that  it  has  hei^n  in  j)fi')f  ^^■inter- 
ing  condition,  or  omitted  to  cast  a  swaiin,  or  init  as 
much  honej'^  in  boxes  as  any  of  the  best  prime  swarms 
In  the  yard.  1  think  this  shows  us  plainly  that  if 
combs  are  kept  in  good  order,  they  can  be  used  for 
twenty  year§,  as  store  combs  and  for  breeding 

Last  year,  lf68,  from  eightj^  swarms  I  had  no  honey 
put  In  boxes;  this  year  no  honey,  and  lose  almost 
half  of  my  bees  !  Question— Zv  this  a  good  country  for 
beesf—B,.  Dart. 

Fair  Grove,  Mo.,  Oct.  i:5.— Dees  have  done  well  in 
this  section,  the  present  year,  in  swarming.  The 
hou'^y  season  was  good  for  a  wliilt!,  but  cut  sliort  by 
thedry  w(^ather.  '1  he  Ijees  in  this  region,  are  natives. 
Heretofore  the  distanee  from  railroad  has  been  so 
great  that  it  was  difHeult  to  procui  e  Italians  ;  but  as 
we  now  have  railroad  advantages,  ).  think  another 
season  will  materially  change  the  breed.  At  least  1 
shall  make  the  change  in  tliis  vicinity. 

I  have  lieen  carefully  reading  the  Bee  Journal  for 
a  few  months  past,  anil  am  so  well  pleased  with  it 
that  1  shall  not  sever  my  connection  with  as  a  reader 
while  it  maintainsits  standingand  J  am  ableto  raise 
two  doUais  for  it  annually. — I).  U.  "WiiBSTER. 

RocKviLLK,  Conn.,  Nov.  3.— Bees  have  done  very 
poorly  in  this  vicinity  this  season.  Not  more  thaii 
half  the  stocks  are  in  condition  to  winter,  unless  fed. 

I  prize  the  Bee  Journal  very  much,  and  should  be 
sorry  to  lose  a  number.  I  look  for  it  eagerly,  and 
seldom  leave  it,  until  I  have  read  it  through.— K. 
Bill. 

East  Haedwick,  Vt  ,  Nov.  2.— The  honey  season 
here  has  been  the  poorest  for  ten  years  past.  The 
frequent  rains  and  cold  winds  almost  prevented  any 
secretion  in  the  flowers ;  consequently  there  are 
many  hives  not  well  provisioned  for  winter. 

1  commenced  the  season  with  sixty-five  colonies, 
and  have  obtainefl  1,450  pounds  of  surplus  honey, 
with  only  an  increase  of  ten  swarms.  I  have  mainly 
loUowed  Mrs.  Tupper's  plan  of  artificial  swarming, 
as  given  in  the  Report  of  the  Department  of  Agricul- 
ture for  1865.  I  consider  this  a  safe  way  if  a  fertile 
queen  is  given  to  the  new  swarm  at  the  time  it  is 
made ;  otherwise  it  becomes  too  much  reduced  be- 
lore  they  can  raise  one.  1  find  oue  objection  to  it. 
In  taking  away  the  full  ronibs  and  replacing  them 
with  empty  frames,  especially  if  the  drone  comb  was 
all  or  nearly  all  taken  away  in  the  spring,  the  bees 
are  quite  sure  to  build  all  drone  comb,  even  if  guide 
-worker  comb  is  given.  Will  some  one  who  is  posted, 
tell  us  how  to  prevent  this?— J.  D.  Ct. 

Emine^^k,  Kt.,  Nov. 5.— I  lost  all  inybees  theseason 
previou;-  \o  this,  "of  that  bee  disease."  Last  spring 
i  purchased  one  stand  of  Italians,  and  now  have  six 
strong  colonies  and  have  taken  forty  pounds  of  sur- 
plus honey.  There  are  about  a  dozen  colonies  of 
black  bees'  within  ffve  miles  of  me  that  survived  the 
"bee  disease;"  and  they  all  together  have  done  no 
more  than  mv  single  stand  of  Italians.  I  cannot  do 
without  the  See  JCumal.— E.  C.  Beisht. 


East  Bethel,  Vt.,  Nov.  4.— The  honey  season  was 
very  favorable  here,  up  to  the  close  of  clover  bloom- 
ing. The  basswood  blossomed  veiy  beautifully,  but 
did  not  yield  any  honey.  The  consequence  is  that 
new  swarms  are  veiy  light,  and  have  to  be  fed. 

1  have  i)een  troubled  with  queens  laying  eggs  in 
honey  boxes.  On  one  iiive  I  put  three  boxes,  and  by 
the  20th  of  June  they  were  filled.  Then  I  put  three 
more  under  them,  by  raising  them  up.  1  soon  found 
that  two  of  the  boxes  were  nearly  full  of  drone 
brood.  I  spoiled  all  of  it  by  running  a  knife  through 
it.  But  as  the  honey  season  wound  np  soon  after, 
the  bees  did  not  repair  damages  by  filling  them  up 
with  honey.  The  boxes  I  put  under  were  partly 
filled  with  comb,  also  with  brood  in  one  of  them.  I 
learn  that  a  great  many  beekee]:)ers  in  this  vicinity 
have  been  troubled  in  tin;  same  wav.  I  never  saw 
anything  of  the  kind  before  in  my  ap"iai-y.  The  hive 
above-mentioned  did  not  send  o"ut  a  swarm.  Wish- 
ing -success  to  the  Bee  Journal,  1  subsciibe  myself, 
Charles  S.  Paine. 

Appleton,  Wis..  Nov.  6.— 1  have  travelled  most  of 
the  time  for  about  four  weeks  this  fall,  calling  on 
manj'  beekeepers  in  northern  Wisconsin,  and  find  a 
general  complaint  that  Ijceshave  donepoorlyin  that 
part  of  the  State.  No  surplus  honey  has  been  ob- 
tained ;  many  arc;  discouraged,  and  will  sell  all  the 
bees  tluy  have  tor  one  dollar  a  swarm.  I  have  a 
neighboi-  that  from  eighty  stocks  last  .spring,  had 
only  four  swarms  come  out  during  summer,  and  is 
now  taking  up  many  of  his  stocks  that  have  not 
honey  enough  to  winter.  But  we  will  hope  for  bet- 
ter days ;  we  have  two  poor  seasons,  perhaps  the 
next  will  be  better ;  "  three  times  and  out "  is  the 
motto.— x\.  il.  Hart. 

PocoHoNTAS,  Mo.,  Nov.  12.— The  first  part  of  the 
past  season  our  bees,  in  this  section  of  country,  gath- 
ered just  enough  honey  to  keep  them  brooding  and 
swarming  for  an  unusual  length  of  time.  Then  the 
liry  hot  weather  set  in,  and  by  the  first  of  September 
they  Avere  nearlj'  out  of  honey.  But  our  fall  season 
was  the  best  we  have  hatl  for  some  years.  They  are 
now  in  better  condition  for  wintering  than  they  have 
been  for  the  last  two  years. — I.  C.  Wallace. 

WoRTHiNGTON,  Pa.,  Nov.  19.— Bees  have  only  done 
on  an  average  in  this  locality.  Too  much  rain.  Be- 
sides, the  buckwheat— whicli  is  our  fall  pasturage- 
was  only  a  light  crop,  and  mostly  of  the  gray  kind, 
which  scarcely  has  any  honey  in  it.  Please  change 
my  address,  l  cannot'do  without  the  Bee  Journal  : 
wish  it  came  oftener.— J.  W.  Barclat. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Wintering  Bees. 


I  have  often  read  that  the  cellar  is  the  best 
place  for  winteriug  bees,  provided  it  is  kept  dry 
and  from  freezing.  I  have  had  some  experience 
in  this  diixctiou,  and  find  the  cellar,  when  kept 
from  freezing  is  too  warm,  so  that  the  bees  get 
uneasy,  many  getting  lost  by  coming  out  of  their 
hives.  Last  winter  I  put  into  the  cellar  sixty 
swarms  iu  box  hives.  They  were  put  in  about 
the  first  of  December.  The  hives  were  set  in 
rows,  two  feet  from  the  bottom,  the  entrances 
being  left  open.  In  a  short  time  the  air  of  the 
cellar  was  very  warm — in  fact,  warmer  than  in 
the  upper  part  of  the  house  in  which  we  live  I 
The  combs  molded  rapidly,  and  the  bees  died  so 
fast  that  I  removed  them  from  the  cellar  in  about 
four  weeks.  I  then  made  bee-houses  for  them, 
so  constructed  that  the  bees  could  leave  the  hives 
at  pleasure. 

It  is  my  belief  that  a  cellar  is  a  poor  place  for 
bees.  Of  all  the  places  I  have  tried,  I  find  the 
open  air  much  the  best.  The  fresh  air  keeps 
them  healthy. 

A.  J.  Brundage. 

Ottawa,  Ills. 


American  Bee  Journal. 


EDITED  AND  PUBLISHED  BY  SAMUEL  WAGNER,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

AT  TWO  DOLLARS  PER  ANNUM,  PAYABLE  IN  ADVANCE. 


Vol.  V. 


JA.3VXJA.RY, 


[f^TO. 


No.  7. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.; 
A  Leaf  from  History. 


In  Maj-,  1869,  my  father,  tlien  in  the  enjoyment 
of  a  temporary  relea.se  from  ill  liealth,  com- 
menced the  preparation  of  the  foUowino;  article. 
The  pressure  of  affairs  in  tlie  apiary  delayed  its 
completion,  and  returning  illness  left  it  in  its 
present  condition.  Being  led  to  believe  that  the 
facts  therein  contained  should  be  given  to  the 
public  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  I  have 
taken  his  notes  and  copied  them  in  precisely  their 
present  order.  I  Avill  add  that  the  almo.sl  con- 
tinual bodily  prostration  of  my  father  by  dis- 

ease,  has  prevented  any  application  on  his  part  ''ZZrZ  '"^  fP/^f^ioP'  ^-^y.P^ 
to  the  Patent  Office  for  the  independent  patent  I  P^?„'r"red  a  Patent  for  his  device 
referred  to  in  the  extract  from  our  circular,  and 
to  vs'hich  we  believe  him  justly  entitled.  I  much 
regret  that  the  article  cannot  receive  the  finish- 
ing touches  he  designed  for  it ;  but,  as  it  is,  it  is 
an  interesting  and  valuable  piece  of  reading  to 
all  using  the  triangular  or  bevel-edge  guide  in 
his  movable  frames. 

J.  T.  Langstroth. 

November  8,  18G9. 


Office  declared  an  interference  between  my 
claim  and  those  subsequently  made  by  Mi-.  Geo. 
H.  Clark,  of  East  Washington,  New  Hampshire. 
Testimony  was  taken  by  both  parties,  and  be- 
fore the  matter  was  decided  by  the  Commission- 
er, a  new  application  for  a  Patent  on  the  same 

dcAlce  was  made  by May,  of  Elinois ;  who 

claimed  a  secret  use  of  the  same  two  or  more 
years  before  Clark,  and  the  Commissioner  de- 
clared an  interference  between  the  three  parties 
and  required  testimony  to  be  taken.  Before, 
howe\-er,  the  time  of  hearing  came,  he  decided 
that  substantially  the  same  de\ice  Mas  shown  in 
a  note  to  the  English  edition  of  Huber,  and  that 
neither  of  the  parties  was  entitled  to  a  Patent. 
Subsequently  Mi-.  Clark,  after  repeated  rejec- 
^:,.„,   Qf  j.^jg  application,  by  persistent  eiforts, 


The  testimony  taken  in  Mr.  Clark's  case 
shows  that  he  \\as  led  to  the  use  of  the  sharp 
edge  by  seeing  bees  build  a  small  piece  of  comb 
on  the  edge  of  a  square  stick  accidentally  put 
into  a  hive  in  such  a  position  as  to  present  a 
sharp  edge.  From  the  testimony  of  his  brother 
and  sister,  his  only  witnes.ses,  it  appears  he  kept 
the  matter  a  profound  secret ;  and  they  testify  to 
his  making  only  two  hives  with  sharp'  edges  on 
the  bars — and  to  only  one  in  which  bees  were 
put.  Now,  as  bees  sometimes  pay  no  attention 
to  the  guides,  but  build  their  combs  at  ilght- 
HiSTORY  OF  Triajjgular  OR  SHARP  EDGE  i  angles  to  them,  the  fact  of  their  once  building 


Comb  Guides. 


It  may  be  inteivstiiig  to  many  readers  of  the 
Bee  JoiTRNAL,  to  know  the  leading  facts  in  tlui 
invention  of  the  triangular  or  sharp  edge  .so  gen- 
erally used  for  securing  straight  combs. 

In  my  movable  comb  frames,  (Patent  applied 
for  in  December,  1851,  and  granted  October  5,  rule  then  existing,  which  did'not  aTlow  him 
18o2),  I  used  small  pieces  of  worker  comb  for  |  testify  in  his  case, 
guides.  After  many  unsuccessful  attempts  to 
secure  straight  combs  Avithout  such  guides,  I  de- 
vised in  February.  1852.  the  triangular  edge, 
(see  note  A).  These  guides  were  extensively 
used  and  sold  by  me  in  hives  made  in  Greenfield, 
Massachusetts,  in  the  spring  of  that  vear.  Find- 
ing them  to  an.swei-,  substantially,  the  ends  in- 
tended. I  applied  for  a  Patent  for  the  device  be- 
fore it  liad  bcf  n  in  public  use  two  vean  .     The 


them  on  the  line  of  the  guide,  though   a  very 
strong    presumptive    evidence    that    they    Mill 
usually  do  so,  seems  hardly  to  be  that  absolute 
proof  which  is  nece,«sary  to  constitute  an   "in- 
vention."    It  may  be,  however,  that  Mr.  Clark 
used  the.se  guides  in  more  than  one  hive,  and 
that  h(;  Avas  prevented  from  proAing  this  by  the 
"    ""  "'      ,  Avliich  did  not  allow  him  to 
case. 
Since  the  matter  was  before  the  Patent  Office, 
I  have  discovered  that  the  celebrated  English 
surgeon,  Hunter,  in  an  article  published  in  the 
,  vei-y  clearly  shoAvs  that  he  a\  as  well  ac- 


quainted Avith  the  sliarp  edge  device  for  making 
the  combs  run  in  any  desired  direction-     It  could 
therefore  only  be  patented  on   some  new  and 
u.seful  combination. 
In  my  original  application  in  1854,  supposing 


130 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


myself  to  be  the  flrst  inventor,  I  claimed  the  de- 
vice abpolutely  for  bars,  frames,  and  all  Idnds  of 
hives  and  surplus  honey  receptacles,  the  guides 
beino-  either  lartje  or  small  bevel,  (see  note  B). 
Had^I  then  known  of  Hunter's  device,  I  should 
have  confined  my  claim  to  bars  and  frames. 
Mi-,  Clark,  in  his  original  application,  made 
some  six  months  after  mine,  did  not  claim  the 
sharp  edges  absolutely,  but  the  beveled  bars  ni 
combination  with  a  saw  kerf  running  parallel 
with  the  bars,  to  which  the  bees  could  chng 
when  hived,  and  which  he  thought  rendered 
them  more  disposed  to  follow  his  guides. 

That  the  Patent  Office  did  me  a  great  wrong 
in  declaring  an  interference  between  my  claun 
and  ]VIi-.  Clark's,  will  be  admitted  by  all  familiar 
with  Patent  matters.  They  ought  to  have 
o-ranted  mv  claims,  and  also  those  of  Mr.  Clark, 
whose  Patents  then  \\ould  have  been  subordi- 
nate to  mine,  and  could  not  have  been  used 
without  license  from  me.  It  would  then  have 
become  necessarv  for  me,  after  discovering  what 
Hunter  had  done,  to  have  had  a  re-issue  of  my 
Patent,  limiting  my  claim  to  the  use  of  the  tri- 
ano-ular  edge  On  bars  or  movable  frames.  If  Mr. 
Clark  had  felt  that  his  invention  was  prior  to 
mine  and  covered  the  same  thing,  he  could  have 
applied  for  a  re-issue  of  his  Patent ;  and  it  he 
could  have  proved  priority,  the  Office  would 
have  been  obliged  to  grant  him  a  re-issue  cover- 
ino-  the  claim  of  my  Patent ;  and  it  would  have 
remained  for  the  courts  to  decide,  when  asked, 
whose  Patent  was  valid. 

The  state  of  my  health  has  delayed  me  m 
making  such  statements  as  the  case  seems  to  de- 
mand, so  as  to  show  why,  after  Clark  has  ob- 
tained a  Patent,  wliich  his  friends  claim  covers 
the  use  of  the  sharp  edge  in  frames,  (see  note  j 
C.)     I  still  persist  in  using  such  an  edge  in  my 
hives,  without  procuring  a  license   under  his 
Patent.     From   the  article  of  Dr.  Hunter  it  is 
very  evident  that  neither  Clark  nor  myselt  were 
the  first  inventors  of  this  sharp  edge  comb  guide, 
although  we  ot  the  time  supposed  we  were.     All 
that  Ave  can  claim  is  the  combination  of  the  edge 
with  bars  or  movable  frames.     Mr.  Clark's  testi- 
mony is  that  he  invented  liis  device  some  years 
before  I  claim  to  liave  invented  mine ;  but  that 
he  kept  the  matter  secret  from  all  except  his 
near  relations.     He  made  liis  invention,  as  he 
admitted  to  myself  and    others,    accidentally, 
from  obserbing  the  bees  building  a  small  piece 
of  comb  in  the  line  of  such  an  edge.     In  niy 
Journal  for  February  12,  1853,  is  the  following 
record: — "Let  triangular  pieces  be  fastened  to 
frames,  to  serve  instead  of  guide  combs.     These 
may  be  an  inch  on  the  top  or  smaller,  according 
as  experience  shall  determine.     *     *     *     I  feel 
a  «trono-  perstiasion  that  these  will  dispense  with 
all    gufde  combs,   and  yet  not  interfere   witli 
fastening  on  combs."     Those  wiio  learn  that  I 
'    had  been  experimenting  for  a  long  time  to  get 
straiglit  combs  without  using  pieces  of  worker 
combs  as  guides,  can  easily  conceive  w^th  what 
impatience  I  waited  for  bees  to  swarm,  and  with 
what  delight  I  found  my  triangular  guides  trans- 
lated out  of  the  airy  regions  of  theory  and  con- 
jecture into  the  solid  domain  of  demonstrated 
facts. 

I  give  anotlier  extract  from  my  Journal,  -Tune 


4,    1853:— "Examined    frames    in    two    new 
swamis,  in  each  comb  quite  regular  without  any 


guides— in  one,  wax  eaten  oft'  the  edge— think 

that  the  new  frames  "  (that  is,  the  frames  with 

;  triangular  edge)  "wiU  answer,  without  any  wax 

'  or  comb  as  guides."     These  observations  were 

^  made   in   Greenfield,   Massachusetts,    and  that 

i  same  season  a  large  number  of  liives  were  sold, 

the  frames  having  the  triangular  guides.    Having 

i  used  this  device  publicly  nearly  two  y^ars,  and 

]  demonstrated  its  success,  I  applied  for  a  Patent, 

as  above  narrated.  . 

Now,  neither  Mr.  Clark  nor  any  of  his  friends 

will  say  that  it  was  possible  for  me  to  have  bor- 

I  rowed  from  liis  device,  used  secretly  and  never 

'  communicated  to  any  one  outside  of  his  family, 

i  until  more  than  two  years  after  I  had  used  and 

sold  the  same ;  nor  will  I  even  intimate  that  his 

apphcation  was  an  after  thought,  when  he  saw 

the  success  and  importance  of  the  invention,  tor 

1  I  have  no  reason  to  doubt  that  he  was  truthtul 

i  in  asserting  his  prior  use  of  the  same.     But  I  do 

\  assert  most  undoubtedly  that  his  Patent  on  this 

'  guide  has  no  validity,  and  will  give  the  reasons 

which  led  to  the  publication,  in  the  circular  of 

I  L.  L.  Langstroth  &  Son  for  1867,  of  the  foUow- 

"As  parties  are  frequently  asldng  information 

1  about  the  right  of  G.  H.  Clark  to  the  absolute 

1  control  of  the  triangular  comb  guide,  we  would 

I  caution  the  public  against  pacing  any  fees  tor 

I  the  use  of  this  device  in  our  frames,  as  we  be- 

'  lieve  that  L.  L.  Langstroth  is  clearly  entitled 

I  to,  and  will  soon  obtain,  an  independent  Patent 

I  on  its  use  in  movable  bars  and  comb  frames. 

I  We  are  so  confident  that  the  Clark  Patent  caii- 

'  not  be   sustained,  so  as  to  control  the   comb 

oaiides  used  in  the  Langstroth  frames,  tliat  we 

hereby  expressly  guarantee  aU  parties  purclias- 

ino-  of  us  under"  our  Patent,  against  any  costs  or 

damages  that  may  be  awarded  by  tlie  comts,  it 

suits  are  brought  against  them  for  using  this 

guide." 

It  is  important  to  state  that  Mr.  Clark  was 

re^idino-  in  East  Washington,  New  Hampshire, 

not  over  one  hundred  miles  from   Greenfield, 

Massachusetts,  my  place  of  residence,  where  my 

frames  with  guides  had  been  made,  used,  ana 

sold,  more  than  two  years  before  he  applied  for 

i  Ms  Patent.     Kepeated  decisions  of  the  Supreme 

I  Court  of  the  United  States  show  that  by  his  de- 

i  lav  he  had  forfeited  all  right  to  obtain  a  Patent ; 

i  aiul  that,  had  the  Office  known  the  facts,  tliey 

'  would  never  have  issued  it.     I  do  not  question 

i  that  he  was  entirely  ignorant  of  this  fatal  defect, 

and  that  had  he  knovvai  it,  he  would  have  made 

no  appication.    Justice  to  myselt  and  to  the  bee- 

kppmna-  public,  who  are    constantly  asked  Dy 

parties^who  have  pmchased  Clark's  Patent  to 

nay  for  the  guide   in  my  hive,  and  on   other 

hive's  compels  me  to  make  these  facts  known. 

I  shall  close  this  article  by  a  few  extracts  from 
the  decisions  of  the  United  States  Comts,  which 
make  it  perfectly  plain  that  Clark's  Patent  has 
no  validitv.  These  extracts  are  all  taken  from 
Law's  well  known  "  Digest  of  American  Cases 
relating  to  Patents  for  Inventions,''  &c.,  puDlisn- 
ed  by  Baker,  Voorhees,  &  Co.,  New  York, 
1866. 


tub:  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


131 


"No  matter  by  wltnt  infaiis  an  Tuveiitiou  maj' 
be  coinmnnicated  to  the  public  iK^fore  a  Patent 
is  obtained,  any  aeqiiit'scfucc  to  the  imblic  use, 
by  the  inventi^r,  will  he  an  abaiKloimient  of  his 
rio:ht.  If  the  right  were  asserted  liy  him  who 
fraudulently  obtained  it,  perhaps  no  lapse  of 
time  could"  give  it  validity.  But  the  public 
stand  in  an  entirely  difierent  relation  to  the  in- 
ventor." Shaw  vs.  Cooper,  7  Peters,  320,  Mc- 
Clean  J.,  Sup.  Ct.,  1833. 

"A  strict  construction  of  the  act,  as  regards 
the  public  use  of  an  invention,  before  it  is 
patented,  is  not  only  required  by  its  letter  and 
spirit,  but  also  by  sound  policy.  The  doctrine 
of  presumed  acquiescence,  where  the  public  use 
is  known,  or  might  be  known,  to  the  inventor, 
is  the  only  safe  rule  which  can  be  adopted  on 
this  subject,"     IMd.,  321,  322. 

"The  question  of  abandonment  does  not  turn 
upon  tlie  intention  of  the  inventor.  AVhatever 
may  be  his  intention,  if  he  sidfers  his  invention 
to  go  into  public  use,  througli  any  mieans  what- 
ever, without  an  immediate  assertion  of  his 
right,  he  is  not  entitled  to  a  Patent ;  nor  will  a 
Patent  obtained  mider  such  circumstances  pro- 
tect his  right."     JMd.,  B.,  23. 

"S.  made  an  invention  in  1854,  but  did  not 
make  an  application  for  a  Patent  until  Septem- 
ber, 1858.  L.  invented  the  same  in  January, 
1858,  and  made  application  for  a  Patent  there- 
for in  August,  1858,  and  had  manufactm-ed  the 
articles  and  put  them  in  market.  An  interfer- 
ence was  declared  between  such  applicants. 
Held,  that  S.  had  forfeited  his  right  to  a  Patent." 
Saverey  us.  Louth,  MS.,  (App.  Cas.)  Morsell  J., 
D.  C,  1859. 

"There  can  be  no  doubt  that  where  a  party 
has  made  an  invention  and  buried  the  secret  in 
his  own  bosom,  he  may,  aftei-  a  lapse  of  years, 
come  forward,  and  upon  maldng  a  secret  known 
by  an  application  for  a  patent,  obtain  a  monop- 
oly." Bey  m.  Thistle,  MS.,  (App.  Cas.)  Mer- 
ricks  J.,  D.  C,  1860. 

"But  if  in  the  meantime  another  has  made 
the  same  invention,  and  has  obtained  a  Patent, 
and  the  public  has  tlicrol)y  Ix'conic  ixxsesscd  of 
the  discovery,  when  the  tirst  iuvciitor  ;i[iplit's  he 
mil  be  met  with  the  inquiry  whether  he  has  used 
due  dilligence  in  communicating  his  discovery. 
In  such  case  the  th-st  inventor  forfeits  his  claim." 
Ibid. 

These  ami  other  decisions  to  the  same  effect, 
which  can  be  given  if  necessary,  clearly  show 
that  Ml-.  Clarke's  Patent  has  no  validity  what- 
ever— in  law — and  that  he  has  not  the  slightest 
claim  in  equity  to  step  in  and  attempt  to  pro- 
Mbit  au  original  inventor,  who  had  used  and 
sold  his  invention  more  than  two  years  before 
Clark  applied  for  a  Patent,  from  using  his  own 
independent  invention. 

L.  L.  Langstboth. 

Oxford,  Ohio. 

NOTES. 

A.  I  have  since  1851  kept  a  Jom-nal  in  Avliich 
are  minutely  recorded  my  experiments,  obser- 


vations, thoughts,  and  devices,  pertaining  to 
bee-matters,  by  wliieh  I  can  show  the  date  of 
my  inventions  and  discoveries. 

B.  ilr.  Clark's  guide  is  a  large  triangle.  I 
tind  that  such  a  triangle  gives  a  much  less  firm 
support  for  the  combs  than  one  only  i  of  an 
inch.  Ish:  Clark  used  hollow,  tubular  winter 
passages,  at  right-angles  to  his  bars,  so  that  the 
combs  were  not  moA^able  at  will. 

C.  I  have  never  been  willing  (o  admit  that 
Clark's  claim  to  these  guides  on  bars  covers  my 
use  of  them  in  movable  frames.  His  original 
application  very  clearly  shows  that  he  intended 
to  claim  them  only  in  his  saw  kerf  combina- 
tion. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Novice. 


Dear  Bee  Journal  :  We  taice  the  liberty,  in 
conse(iueuee  of  our  present  location  at  the  exact 
time,  1)  o'clock  P.  ^M.,  Nov.  8,  1869,  of  summon- 
ing the  Editor  and  all  the  readers  of  the  Bee 
Journal,  en  masse,  to  examine  our  new  Bee 
House,  just  completed,  in  which  we  are  very 
comfortably  ensconced,  now  writing.  In  fact, 
if  the  bees  find  it  half  as  comfortable,  they  cer- 
tainly ought  not  to  complain. 

It  is  a  cold,  snowy,  freezing  night  outside;  yet 
we  are  in  our  shirt  sleevt'S,  and  with  the  aid  of 
only  a  very  small  fire  in  a  "  wee  bit"  of  a  stove, 
we  have  the  most  even  summer  temperature; 
not  confined  ah-  like  that  of  so  many  rooms. 
Neither  have  we  any  chilling  sensation  from  the 
walls  and  corners,  so  suggestive  of  coughs  and 
colds  at  this  time  of  the  year,  but  a  qiuet  stream 
of  fresh  though  not  cold  air  from  our  ventilating 
arrangement  to  be  presently  described.  In  fact 
om- "better  half"  is  rather  more  than  "half" 
disposed  to  dispute  possession  of  it  with  the  bees  \ 

and  appropriate  it  for  herself  and  tlie  children, 
through  the  coming  winter,  as  being  far  more 
pleasant  and  comfoi'table  than  any  room  in  our 
dwtiliiig  house.  The  children  already  find  it  an 
admiralJe  play-room,  as  the  walls  and  even 
fioor  are  so  clean  and  warm,  they  can  lie  dovvra 
at  pleasm'e,  with  no  fear  of  the  before-mentioned 
colds,  and  the  ventilator  in  the  floor  fm-nishes  a 
rare  place  for  sport  with  windmills  and  experi- 
ments in  pneumatics. 

Now,  if  you  are  all  listening,  we  will  tell  you 
how  we  built  it,  and  what  it  cost. 

To  commence  at  the  bottom,  we  had  a  stone 
foundation  laid,  10  by  14  feet,  with  two  rows  of 
brick  on  top,  with  holes  in  the  opposite  sides  of 
the  wall,  by  omitting  two  bricks,  to  admit  air 
under  the  house  for  ventilation.  Sills  6  by  10 
inches,  studding  I2  by  10  inches,  eight  feet  long, 
set  one  foot  apart,  plates  2  by  6  inches,  rafters  2 
by  3  inches,  sleepers  Ij  by  10  inches;  these  w-ere 
raised  on  blocks,  sills  and  all,  high  enough  for  a 
man  to  go  under  to  nail  boards  on  the  under 
side,  to  hold  the  sawdust  under  the  floor,  and 
then  let  carefully  down  on  the  walls. 
Best  quality  of  pine  siding  for  outside,  and 


132 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JoilENAL. 


inside  covered  completelj'  with  inch  pine  himber 
planed  and  grooved,  so  as  to  have  a  tifjht  wall  to 
hold  the  ten  inches  of  sawdust,  without  its  sift- 
ing through  in  the  way.  One  -window  in  one 
end,  and  a  door  in  the  other  or  rather  double 
doors,  and  tight  shutters  for  the  window  ;  and  if 
necessary,  we  are  going  to  have  a  straw  cushion 
to  fill  in  both.  As  we  shall  want  a  stove  in  it  in 
the  spring,  after  the  bees  are  removed,  for  "•arti- 
ficial incubation,"  we  had  the  top  ventilator 
made  of  galvanized  iron,  and  in  dimensions  7 
inches  in  diameter,  so  that  it  can  be  used  as  a 
stovepipe  when  desired.  It  just  comes  below 
the  ceiling  inside,  and  at  the  "top  is  made  so  as 
to  exclude  light,  snow,  and  rain.  The  lower 
ventilator  is  simply  a  square  box,  7  inches  across, 
through  the  lioor,  covered  ^vith  wire  clotli  to  ex- 
clude mice,  and  a  nice  piece  to  just  fill  the  top 
in  summer  time,  when  it  is  not  needed. 

We  have  had  one  rather  weak  swarm  in 
already,  to  test  oui'  house.  We  noticed  them 
one  quite  cold  night  making  a  very  loud  hum- 
ming, such  as  weak  swarms  make  when  ver}' 
cold ;  and  in  two  hours  after  carrying  them  in, 
they  were  so  still  that  you  could  7io't  hear  a  sound, 
unless  the  hive  was  struck.  Is  not  that  the 
proper  test  for  the  right  amoiuit  of  ventilation — 
a  temperature  that  the  bees  should  be  perfectly 
still  ?  We  think  we  can  do  it  every  time,  mth 
any  one  of  our  hives  singly ;  but  it  may  be  moi'e 
difficult  with  them  all  together. 

We  have  had  some  very  cold,  freezing  weather 
in  October  here,  and  many  of  ovu*  hives  brought 
out  more  dead  bees  after  it  than  we  reallj^  like 
to  see.  They  had  probably  strayed  out  of  the 
cluster,  and  there  were  no  passages  through  the 
combs.  The  weather  has  been  cold  enough  for 
the  past  three  or  four  Aveeks,  so  that  we  think 
we  should  have  found  no  difficulty  in  keeping 
our  bees  cool  enough  in  here  ;  but  we  dislike  to 
house  them  befoi-e  about  the  middle  of  this 
month  (November.) 

Well,  we  found  in  front  of  one  of  onr  heaviest 
hives  (a  swarm  made  artificially  entirely,  in  Sep- 
tember), quite  a  number  of  dead  bees,  perhaps 
half  a  teacupful,  and,  worst  of  all,  among  them 
one  of  ouF  finest,  largest,  and  yellowest  queens. 
The  bees  were  maldng  an  unusual  fuss,  which 
was  in  fact  what  first  atti-acted  our  attention  to 
them,  so  that  thej'^  had  c\idently  just  discovered 
their  loss.  On  opening  the  hive,  we  could  find 
no  trace  of  brood  in  any  stage.  Did  the  queen 
get  frozen,  like  the  bees,  or  was  it  some  disease? 
And  is  it  common  for  young  queens  to  die  so  ? 
She  had  raised  fine  workers,  and  her  liive  was 
quite  populous.  Thus  we  had  to  take  the  queen 
from  the  light  stock  we  were  experimenting 
with,  Avhich  we  regi-et,  for  two  reasons.  First, 
our  number  is  now  only  fortj^-six,  and  we  are 
afraid  friend  Argo  ^vill  surely  beat  us.  Second, 
our  stocks  are  all  strong  now,  and  we  always 
want  one  to  experiment  with  and  build  up. 
Some  of  our  best  swarms  have  been  made  in 
that  way.  Could  not  a  small  nucleus  hive  be 
wintered  in  a  house  like  this,  and  so  save  yom* 
reserve  queens  ?    Has  any  one  ever  tried  it  ? 

Mr.  Editor,  do  you  know  that  your  compositor 
and  proof  reader  between  them  managed  to 
make  a  great  part  of  our  last  article  all  non- 
gense?    Perhapp  it   was  so  already,   but  they 


j  made  it  worse.     They  made  me   say   "warm 
rain,''''  whereas  I  wrote  "warm  sunf' 

We  will  try  again  to  give  our  ideas  on  Annter- 
ing,  so  far  as  experiments  and  what  we  liave 
been  able  to  gather  from  the  whole  series  of  vol- 
umes of  the  Bee  Journal,  and  from  those 
ha\ing  tested  the  matter  largely. 

There  are  two  distinct  Avays  of  wintering,  and 
they  cannot  vreU  be  combined  in  any  way  that 
we  have  heard  of,  if  we  understand  the  matter. 
They  are — 

Outdoors,  on  summer  stands,  and 
Indoors,  in  frost  and  sun-proof  repository. 
I      By  the  first  plan  we  would  give  them  all  the 
sun  possible,  to  enable  them  fo  prepare  in  suc- 
cession for  each  cold  snap.     And  we  can  see  no 
plan   so  good  as  to  give  them  a  hive  that  wiU 
warm  through  quicldy.     We  cannot  understand 
how  a  liive  standing  alone,  Qut  doors,  can  be 
coA^ered  or  packed  to  Iceep  out  the  frost  entirely, 
as  they  are  in  a  special  repository,  A\ith  tlie  bene- 
fit of  the  Avarmth  from  a  number  in  a  room 
I  together ;  and  if  it  is  attempted  at  all,  the  bene- 
I  fit  from  the  sun  is  necessarily  cut  off  more   or 
I  less.     That  bees  do  Avinter  in  that  manner  is  no 
j  proof,  as  they  usually  Avinter  AA'ell  Avhere  nothing 
j  is  done,  if  they  liaA'e  \entilation  sufficient. 
j      Tlie  object  to  be  gained  by  having  a  special 
j  repository  is,  first  and  foremost,  a  great  saving 
of  honey ;  and  second,  a  gi-eat  saAing  of  bees  iii 
each  liiA-e.     When  they  are  wintered  out  of  doors, 
everj^  cold  snap  Idlls  oft"  a  fcAv ;  and  from  the 
frequency  of   tins,   the  aggregate  in    the  end 
j  amounts  to  nearly  three-fourths  of  their  AA'hole 
number.     Xay,  we  liaA^e  knoAvn  them  to  build 
up  Avhen  not  more  than  a  pint  of  Italians  AA'ere 
left  Avith  the  queen,  and  it  took  nearly  the  Avholp 
season  to  do  it.     It  is  easy  to  see  that  one  full 
stock  of  bees  in  the  spring    is    of  far    more 
utility,  than  many  of  such  as  are  nearly  played 
out. 

HoAv  man,y  times  has  it  been  discovered  or 
recommended  to  have  the  hive  enclosed  in  a 
large  box,  or  made  double  Avith  a  dead-air  space 
all  round  ?  And  the  reason  of  failure  of  such 
plan  has  been  many  times  glA'en — that  all  benefit 
usually  derived  from  the  sun  is  cut  off,  which 
more  than  counterbalances  the  protection  ob- 
tained against  frost.  Why  do  not  all  methods 
of  out-door  pacldng  come  under  the  same  head 
— even  the  one  gi\-en  bj^  -VIi'.  I^angstroth,  to  say 
notliing  of  prepaiing  the  hives  as  he  advises? 

We  may  be  mistaken,  but  aa'c  cannot  think 
that  any  protection  of  tliat  kind  Avould  be  suffi- 
cient to  alloA\'  a  bee  to  go  around  a  comb,  or  go 
to  any  part  of  the  hive  for  honey,  when  the  mer- 
cury is  beloAv  zero,  as  they  could  if  housed  in  a 
building  like  om'S. 

Many  have  said  to  us  that  five  inches  of  saw- 
dust Avould  be  plenty;  but  in  a  building  in  AA'hich 
Ave  expect  no  aid  at  all  from  the  sun — but  all 
from  their  oAvn  animal  heat  collectively — Ave 
shall  find  full  as  much  trouble  in  keeping  the 
eftect  of  the  sun  out  (as  Ave  tried  to  tell  last 
month)  as  in  guarding  against  frost.  And  even 
though  our  room  is  as  dark  as  midnight,  we  do 
not  expect  our  bees  to  be  as  quiet  as  they  should 
bo,  unless  the  temperature  is  kept  not  higher 
than  40"  or  45° :  and  when  Ave  cannot  do  tliat 
we  shall  exnect  to  set  them  out. 


'HE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


133 


Our  house  has  cost  us  as  follows  : — 

Stones  for  the  wall,  delivered S4  oO 

Laviii'4'  sanie 4  50 

Bricks  S2  SO,  mortar  $2 4  80 

Lumber  for  frame 29  98 

Shingles 8  00 

Roof  boards 3  60 

Siding-  and  ceiling,  best  quality,  inside 

and  outside r. 40  40 

Carpenter  22  davs,  at  $2  25 49  50 

7  loads  sawdust,  62 14  00 

Ventilator,  galvanized  iron 6  50 

Painting 18  00 

Eave  spouting 5  00 

N"ails,  door  fastening,  &c 7  35 

$196  13 

We  may  add  one  weelc's  personal  supervision, 
$24,00,  were  we  not  afraid  that  it  would  flavor 
of  Horace  Greeley's  tui-nips,  that  cost  him  61  12 
each;  thougii  he  thinks  tliat  by  more  careful 
management,  next  year,  he  can  raise  them  for 
$1  each. 

If  you  find  this  too  tedious.  Mi-.  Editor,  or 
that  you  have  matter  of  more  value  on  hand,  do 
not  let  anything  of  importance  be  crowded  out 
to  raalie  room  for  Novice. 


I  [For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Parthenogenesis  in  the  Honey  Bee. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 

Honey  Emptying  Machine. 


On  page  87  of  tlie  Ajvierican  Bee  Journal, 
Mr.  Thomas  C.  Hill  criticises  somebody's  de- 
scription of  a  honey  emptying  machine  in  tlie 
February  ISTo.,  and  says  that  wlien  he  attempted 
to  make  one,  he  found  it  would  be  necessary  to 
bore  an  inch  hole  tlu-ough  a  three  quarter  incli 
stick,  and  divers  other  tilings  just  as  impractica- 
ble. He  then  goes  on  to  give  a  liill  of  stoclv  to 
make  one  of  his  own  invention,  but  does  not  say 
a  word  about  how  to  put  it  together — whether 
we  must  bore  an  inch  hole  tlu-ougli  a  three 
quarter  incli  stick,  or  a  lialf  inch  hole  through  a 
quarter  inch  stick.  1  think  if  a  man  were  to 
undertake  to  build  one  from  the  bill  of  stock 
given  by  Mr.  Hill,  without  any  directions  as  to 
how  to  put  it  together,  he  would  find  it  an  up- 
Hill  business. 

Come,  friend  Hill,  tell  us  how  to  put  it  to- 
gether. I  am  anxious  to  have  a  machine,  as 
many  of  my  bees  have  too  mucli  honey  to  win- 
ter well,  and  I  have  not  empty  combs  enough  to 
exchange  witli  them.  I  therefore  want  a'ma- 
chine  to  empty  some  of  them.  But,  for  my  life 
I  cannot  see  how  to  put  your  machine  to^etlier. 
I  am  somewhat  of  a  meclianic,  and  hav^  put  to- 
gether many  sorts  of  machinery,  but  alwaj's  had 
some  drawing  or  directions  to  go  by.  Consider, 
it  is  not  an  easy  task  to  take  twenty-tive  or 
thirty  pieces  of  different  dimensions  and  mate- 
rials, and  put  them  up  so  as  to  make  a  thing  hke 
something  never  seen  before.  How  is  it  to  be 
turned?  You  said  something  about  any  gear- 
ing, or  crank,  or  cord,  to  turn  it  with ;  or  is  your 
machine  so  constructed  as  to  extract  the  honey 
without  any  nv>tion  ? 

H.  JSTesbit. 

Cynthiana,  Ky.,  Nov.  1869. 


Wlien  Herr  Dzierzou,  the  clever  Geraian  Bee 
Master  and  JSTaturalist,  first  called  attention  to 
this  extraordinary  doctrine  of  true  parthenogen- 
esis, or  production  by  the  queen,  Avithout  hav- 
ing any  intercourse  with  the  male  or  drone  Bee, 
he  raised  such  a  swarm  of  opponents,  in  nearly 
all  the  Naturalists  in  Europe,  who  scouted  the 
very  idea  of  such  a  production,  and  raised  such 
a  liost  of  objections  against  sucli  a  tlieory  being 
true,  that  Dzierzou  liimself  began  to  doubt  the 
correctness  of  what  lie  had  seen  ^\\\h  his  own 
eyes.  A  nranber  of  them  set  to  work  to  prove 
the  fallacy  of  such  a  statement,  but  every  ex- 
periment that  was  properly  conducted  only  con- 
firmed tlie  correctness  of  Dzierzon's  theory,  and 
Professor  Theodor  Von  Siebold  (one  of  the  most 
distinguished  German  Naturalistss  and  Physi- 
ologists) fully  conflrnTed  tliis  doctrine,  after  a 
laborious  dissecting  and  microscopical  investiga- 
tion, he  discovered  a  set  of  voluntary  muscles 
for  imparting  some  of  the  male  element  which 
is  stored  up  in  the  spermatheca,  to  every  worker 
ngi^.  during  its  passage  thi'ougli  the  common 
ovifUiet.  He  also  discovered  lively  spermato- 
zoids  in  the  semen  of  the  drones,  as  well  as  in 
tlie  contents  of  an  impregnated  spermatheca, 
and  detected  the  same  spermatozoids  in  worker 
eggs,  uliilst  they  were  entirely  wanting  in  those 
eggs  that  would  produce  drones. 

Tills  long  and  acrimonious  dispute  was  at  last 
conclusiveiv  settled  ;  all  lionor  be  to  Herr  Dzier- 
zou for  liis  laborious  oljservations,  as  it  has  ex- 
plained many  of  tlie  mysteries  of  the  hive,  in 
which  the  great  King  of  Bee-Masters,  the  illus- 
trious Huber,  after  discussing  the  effects  of  re- 
tarded impregnation,  exclaimed,  "It  is  an  abyss 
Avlierein  I  am  lost."  All  other  great  Bee-mas- 
ters have  been  equally  lost  in  this  abj^ss,  until 
Dzierzon  discovered  the  doctrine  of  true  parthe- 

1  nogenesis,  and  it  is  now  a  confirmed  fact  that 
the  queen  has  the  power  at  will  to  lay  ch'one  or 

j  unfructified  eggs,  or  fertilized  worker  eggs. 

I      It  has  been  stated  by  a  number  of  "writers  on 

I  bees,  that  the  queen  has  to  lay  worker  eggs  a 
certain  length  of  time,  and  then  a  quantity  of 
drone  eggs.  But  I  have  seen  the  queen  in  my 
glass  observatory  hives  lay  worker  eggs,  then  a 
few  drone  eggs,  and  immediately  worker  eggs 
again,  all  in  a  few  minutes ;  and  I  saw  these 
worker  and  drone  eggs  hatched  out  into  perfect 
bees,  which  conclusively  proves  that  the  queen 
has  the  power  to  fructify  the  eggs  or  not,  at  will. 
I  always  like  to  confirm  or  not,  all  these  theo- 
ries about  bees,  by  my  own  experiments.  So, 
having  received  some  beautiful  Ligurian  queens 
direct  from  Switzerland,  on  the  22d  day  of  Sep- 
tember, I  thought  a  few  days  after  that  it  would 
be  a  very  coiiclusive  confirmation  of  this  won- 
derful doctrine  if  I  could  raise  a  queen  so  veiy 
late  in  the  season,  as  every  drone  had  disap- 
peared several  weeks  before.  So,  on  the  7th 
day  of  October  I  examined  the  combs  in  one  of 
the  stocks,  to  which  I  had  joined  one  of  the 
imported  I^igurian  queens,  on  the  23d  day  of 
September,  a'nd  found  a  very  large  quantity  of 
eggs  laid  in  three  combs.     I  removed  one  of  the 


134 


THE    AxMERICAN    BEE  JOURNAL 


combs,  and  put  it  into  another  stock,  from  which  [For  the  American  Bee  JonrnaU] 

^  "SZSi  ^f^Snk  the  combs  and  tbund  !  ^^oduet  of  Honey,  Location,  and  Size  of 
live  royal  cells  sealed  (11th  day.)  i  Hives. 

October  22,  examined  the  combs  about  three  {  

o'clock,  and  found  one  of  the  queens  just  ready 

to  leave  its  cradle  (15tli  day.)  j      When  I  read  friend  Hazen's  articles  about  his 

October  23,  found  fom-  young  queens  thrown  |  beehive,  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  he  writes 
out  on  the  ahghting  board.  I  under  the  impression  that  it  is  only  necessary  to 


October  26,  examined  the  combs  and  saw  the 
splendid  virgin  Ligm-ian  queen. 

j^ovember  14,  again  examined  all  the  combs 
and  could  not  find  a  single  egg  laid.     I  saw  the 
splendid  virgin  Ligurian  queen,  now  tw 
three  days  old. 

February  24,  I  found  a  drone  pupa  on  the 
alighting  board. 

Febrirary  27,  examined  all  the  combs  and 
found  drones  hatched  and  brood  in  all  stages  of 
development  in  two  combs,  containing  only 
worker  cells.  1  sa\\'  drones  emerge  from  these 
oells.  Removed  these  combs  as  specimens,  also 
a  few  of  the  small  drones  that  were  hatched.  I 
put  into  the  hive  bar  frames  containing  drone 
combs.     I  sa^^'  the  beautiful  wgin  queen. 

March  6,  exahiined  the  combs  and  found  eggs 
and  brood  in  two  combs. 

March  31,  a  number  of  ch'ones  flj'ing  out. 

April  7,  examined  all  the  combs  and  found 
about  one  quarter  of  the  bees  Mere  clrones.  I 
supplied  the  stock  with  several  worker  brood 
combs,  taken  out  of  other  stocks,  and  I  saw  this 
virgin  queen  frecj,uently  from  April  to  June,  and 
she  continued  to  lay  eggs  that  produced  only 
drones,  not  in  the  order  that  a  fertile  queen  lays 
eggs,  but  here  and  tliere  one,  so  that  the  combs 
with  the  sealed  di'one  brood,  with  its  conical 
covers,  had  a  very  singular  appearance.  She 
also  sometimes  laid  two  eggs  in  one  cell,  which, 


gi\-e  the  honeybee  a  roomy  habitation  and  ample 
space  for  storing  honey,  to  obtain  in  any  loca- 
tion from  100  to  300  pounds  of  sm-plus  honey 
from  a  single  colony  of  bees.  If  this  were  so, 
enty-  ;  why  do  we  not  get  up  a  beehive  as  large  as  a 
'  gooti-sized  barn  Y  We  might  then  get  honey  by 
the  thousand  and  the  hundred  thousand  pounds, 
without  being  compelled  to  oversee  and  manage 
a  large  number  of  stocks.  Other  beekeepers, 
too,  seem  to  write  under  the  conviction  that  no 
other  hive  than  one  of  their  own  invention,  can 
give  us  a  large  amount  of  honey. 

iSTow,  I  am  a  beekeeper  of  no  inconsiderable 
experience.  I  am  forty-five  years  old,  and,  "v\ith 
the  exception  of  one  year,  when  I  came  to  tliis 
country,  I  have  kept  bees  from  my  seventeenth 
year,  in  numbers  varjang  from  a  single  colony 
to  eight  hundred.  I  have  kept  bees  in  tall  hives 
and  in  low  ones  ;  in  wide  ones  and  in  narrow 
ones  ;  in  wooden  liives  and  in  straw  hives ;  and 
in  hives  with  inside  measmement  var}ing  from 
700  to  4,800  cubic  inches  in  the  main  apartment. 
I  have  used  hives  with  only  one  cap-box  for  sm- 
plus  honey,  and  others  with  boxes  varying  in 
number  up  to  twelve .  I  experienced  what  I  con- 
sidered extra  good  honey  seasons,  and  also  some 
so  poor  that  my  stocks  had  on  an  average  not 
more  than  five  pounds  of  honey  on  tlie  first  of 
November.  And  I  must  say  that  I  never  ob- 
tained so  large  an  amount  of  surplus  honey  from 


in  some  cases,  came  to  maturity;  the  bees  en-  i  one  or  from  many  hives,  as  I  notice  reported  in 
larging  the  entrance  to  the  cell  to  the  size  of  i  the  Journax,  by  some  beekeepers.     I  often  ask 


two  cells,  and  thus  covering  the  two  larvae  with 
one  large  conical  cover. 

In  June  I  removed  this  virgin  di-one-breeding 
queen,  and  placed  her  in  my  entomoligical  col- 
lection, and  gave  the  stock  a  beautiful  yoimg 
liigurian  queen. 

There  never  was  a  clearer  confirmation  of  this 
wonderful  doctrine  of  true  Parthenogenesis,  as 
I  nevei'  i-ead  or  heard  of  a  queen  being  hatched 
so  late  in  the  season  as  the  22d  of  October,  and 
afterwards  kept  until  the  June  foUomng,  pro- 
ducing only  drones. 

Altogether  tlie  experiment  was  very  success- 
ful and  most  interesting,  as  it  was  the  fii'st  time 
I  had  ever  seen  or  heard  of  two  bees  coming  to 
maturity  and  being  hatched  out  in  the' same  ceD, 
perfect  "drones. 

William  Care, 
Clayton  Bridge,  Newton   Heath,  near 

Manchester,  England. 


myself  why  is  this  so  ?  It  cannot  be  on  account 
of  tlie  hives  I  used,  as  I  have  used  and  tried  an 
immense  number,  of  diftei-ent  shapes  and  sizes. 
And  I  conceive  it  cannot  be  owing  to  tlie  man- 
agement, as  I  have  tried  natural  swarming  and 
artificial ;  I  have  fed  the  bees  with  rye  flour  and 
honey  in  early  spring  up  to  the  time  when  thej^ 
could  gather  supplies,  for  themselves.  I  had 
them  populous  enough  to  tm"n  oft'  strong  swarms 
in  May.  I  have  placed  swarms  in  empty  hives, 
and  in  hives  filled  vvith  combs ;  in  tall  luves,  as 
well  as  in  shallow  ones.  I  put  on  smplus  honey 
boxes  before  swarming  and  after  s\\'arming.  I 
put  boxes  on  large  prime  swarms  immediately 
after  hiving  them,  or  soon  afterwards ;  but,  Avith 
the  exception  of  about  a  dozen  cases,  I  obtained 
no  greater  yield  of  surplus  honey  than  twenty- 
five^'pomids  from  any  single  hive,  or  an  average 
of  about  fifteen  povmds  each,  from  the  whole 
number;  and  this  yield  was  secured  in  a  few 
seasons  only,  and  since  I  keep  the  Italian  bees. 
Is  it  not  a  shame  for  me  to  acknowledge  such 
results  as  these  ?  Would  it  not  better  advance 
my  interest,  as  a  dealer  in  bees,  to  get  up  a 
I  statement  of  an  immense  yield  of  honey  secured 
I  by  Italian  bees,  native-bred  or  imported  ?  Some 
The  very  essence  of  all  profitable  beekeeping  1  of  my  beekeeping  friends  will  be  ready  to  ex- 
mav  be  condensed  into  Oettel's  Golden  Enle  : —  |  claim — "I " 


The  Italians  call  the  lioney-emptying  machine 
a, '■'■  smelatore^'  How  will  that  name  siut  the 
fastidious  who  desire  brevity? 


Keep  your  Stocks  Strong. 


know  where  the  trouble  is  with  you. 
You  keep  too  many  stocks  in  one  place."     And 


THE  AMBEICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


135 


is  this  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  my  failure  to 
obtain  a  large  amount  of  su)plus  honey  ?  I  am 
constrained  to  say  Xo! 

When  I  commenced  beekeeping-  in  this  coun- 
try, I  had  only  one  colony,  which  doubled  itself 
the  fii'st  summer,  but  gave  me  no  honey.  In 
ten  seasons,  dmlng  which  my  stocks  had,  by 
natural  and  by  forced  swarming,  increased  to 
fifty-three,  I  obtained  surplus  honey  from  hives 
and  caps  only  in  two  seasons.  My  swarms  then 
were  kept  in  standing  hives  of  from  2,000  to 
2,600  cubic  inches  contents,  with  caps  for  svu-- 
plus  honey  ;  and  they  were  always  wintered  on 
their  summer  stands.  In  some  of  tliose  seasons, 
even  good,  strong,  early  swai-ms  did  not  do  more 
than  gather  a  winter's  supply;  and  second 
swarms  I  was  able  to  winter  only  in  one  season. 
Some  beekeeping  friend  will  now  be  ready  to 
ask — "  Had  yom-  beekeeping  neighbors  no  better 
success  the  while?"  And  the  reply  is — "they 
fared  neither  better  nor  worse."  jS'ot  one  of 
them  was  able  to  increase  the  number  of  his 
stocks  to  equal  mine,  thoiigh  they  seemed  to  be 
equally  ambitious.  All  of  them,  except  one, 
have  now  abandoned  beekeeping,  and  that  one 
has  onlj^  two  stocks  left.  A  few  other  stocks, 
kept  six  miles  from  me  in  an  easterly  direction, 
have  not  giwn  any  surplus  lioney  for  a  number 
of  seasons,  and  have  not  increased  in  ntimber. 

It  is  different,  however,  only  three  miles  ofi', 
south,  west,  or  nortli,  from  the  location  of  my 
home  apiaiy.  There  bees  are  yielding  some  sm- 
plus  lioney,  even  in  common  seasons ;  and  a  few 
who  kee})  their  stocks  in  cellars  over  winter,  are 
doing  quite  well.  At  the  distance  of  onlj'  three 
miles  the  weatlier  cannot  be  much  different;  and 
the  question  presents  itself,  why  do  bees  do  so 
much  better  there  ?  It  doubtless  is  not  because 
of  their  management,  as  they  are  nearly  all  kept 
in  common  box  hives  and  left  to  natural  swarm- 
ing, witliout  any  more  interference  than  hi\ing 
tlie  swarms  and  piitting  on  boxes.  The  bees 
tind  about  tlie  sa^ie  kinds  and  quantity  of  flowers 
in  botli  quarters ;  but  the  yield  of  honey  must 
be  very  diti'ej-eut.  In  twenty-one  years,  the  bees 
in  my  111 )nif  apiary  have  not  gathered  a  pound 
of  white  clover  honey;  nor,  with  the  exception 
of  one  season,  have  they  stored  any  in  boxes 
from  iKickwIieat ;  while  some  of  my  neighbors, 
three  or  four  miles  off,  have  had  white  clover 
and  buckwheat  honey  stored  in  most  seasons. 
I  saw  four  acres  of  buckwheat  for  three  seasons, 
within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  my  apiary ;  but 
noticed  the  bees  at  work  on  the  blossoms  only 
about  two  days  in  a  season.  Dining  white  clo- 
ver and  buckwheat  time,  my  bees  are  as  busy  as 
they  can  be.  They  gather  large  amounts  of 
pollen,  and  rear  gi-eat  quantities  of  brood,  but  do 
not  seem  to  increase  in  number  or  in  weight. 
Wlien  compelled  to  go  three  or  fom-  miles  in 
quest  of  pasturage,  tliey  doubtless  lose  a  large 
number  of  workers,  and  use  all  the  honey  they 
gather  in  sustaining  the  brood. 

Now,  wiiat  is  the  cause  of  the  difference  in 
locations?  It  doubtless  arises  from  the  differ- 
ence in  the  soil,  that  induces  a  poorei'  or  a  more 
plentiful  secretion  of  honey  in  the  plants  or 
flowers  growing  in  each.  Xo  amount  of  room 
in  a  hive  or  in  siu-plus  honey  boxes,  will  make  a 
difference   of  more  than   a   fev;  pounds   in   the 


yield  of  honey  by  any  one  hive.  On  the  con- 
trary, I  have  for  the  last  six  years  obtained  all 
my  surplus  honey  from  hives  that  have  not  over 
1,700  cubic  inches  room  inside  the  eight  frames 
they  contain,  the  spaces  between  the  combs 
counted  in ; — and  from  hives  considerably  smaller 
than  these. 

A  Wve  containing  4,800  cubic  inches,  has  not 
given  me  more  than  one  natural  swarm  and  two 
forced  ones  in  six  seasons,  and  not  a  pound  of 
sm-plus  honey,  either  from  the  liive  or  in  caps. 
From  hives  with  eleven  Langstroth  frames  I 
scarcely  ever  get  any  surplus  box  honey ;  and  in 
most  seasons  the  bees  do  not  fill  those  hives  mth 
combs  before  they  swarm.  Under  such  circum- 
stances, would  it  be  advisable  to  procm-e  those 
hives  with  the  large  amount  of  room  for  surplus 
honey,  which  friend  Hazen  recommends?  Or 
will  hives  that  in  every  ordinary  season  contain 
honey  enough  to  winter  a  swarm  on,  be  large 
enough  ?  For  my  part,  I  came  to  the  conclusion 
some  years  ago  that  the  hive  with  eight  Lang- 
stroth" frames^  onlj^,  A^itll  room  for  six  5-lb  sur- 
plus honey  boxes,  are  large  enough  for  my  loca- 
tion. I  am  of  opinion  that  it  is  the  duty  of  every 
beekeeper  to  find  out  wiiat  honey  resources  he 
has  in  his  location,  and  get  up  a  hive  propor- 
tioned in  size  to  the  yield  of  lioney,  and  wiiich 
wiU  contain  honey  enough  to  keep  his  bees  in 
good  condition  at'aU  times.  Tliat  a  queen  bee 
will  lay  as  many  eggs  in  a  large  hive  in  a  pom- 
season  as  in  a  good  one,  is  something  that  is 
contradicted  by  experience,  at  least  in  my  loca- 
tion. Witli  me  large  hives  liave  proved  unprofit- 
able, both  as  regards  swarming  and  as  yielding- 
surplus  honey.  Experience"  and  obsei-vation 
have  not,  with  me,  proved  that  30.000  worker 
bees  wiU  store  up  nine  pounds  of  honey,  wiiile 
10,000  will  not  store  more  than  one.  To  my 
knowledge,  I  have  not  yet  seen  it  stated  that  a 
queen  ever  has  laid  or  w^ould  lay  three  thousand 
eggs,  or  even  two  thousand,  per  day  for  thirty 
consecutive  days.  If  a  queen,  in  some  few^  in- 
stances, was  coaxed  to  lay  nearly  three  thousand 
eggs  per  day,  it  does  not  follow  that  she  will  do 
so  for  a  month  or  a  season.  My  advice  to  l^ee- 
keepers,  therefore,  would  be — study  the  honey 
resources  of  yom-  location,  and  get  up  a  hive 
adapted  to  them.  A.  Grimm. 

Jefferson,  Wis.,  Xov.  1869. 

[For  tlie  Araericau  Bee  Journal.] 

Worker  Bees  in  Drone  Cells. 


Ml-.  J.  M.  ]V??ir\in,  in  the  Bee  Journal  for 
January,  1869,  page  140,  tells  us  that  bees  put 
in  a  luve  containing  ^di-one  comb  exclusively, 
changed  the  cells  to  the  size  of  worker  cells,  by 
making  them  funnel-shaped  inside,  in  order  to 
raise  workers. 

In  the  October  number,  page  82,  Mr.  H.  AUey 
reports  the  same  experience ;  but  does  not  say 
whether  the  bees  narrowed  the  cells,  as  in  the 
Marvin  experience. 

In  so  uncommon  a  case,  an  accoimt  of  all 
attending  cii-cumstances  will  be  welcomed  by 
beekeepers,  as  the<e  may  throw  some  light  on 
tlie  determination  of  sex  in  the  eggs  of  bees. 
.Charles  DADARxr 

Haihilton.  Ills..  Xov.  4.  1869. 


186 


TjBE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal  ]      | 

Extra  Profits  of  a  Hive  ef  Bees.         | 

I 


Extracted  with  a  macliiiie 190  lb. 

Box  honey 60  lb. 


250  lb. 


Number  1. 

I.arge  profits  of  a  hive  of  bees,  belonging  to  a 
man  in  the  dairy  region  of  Kane  connty,  Illinois. 
Increase  of  stocks,  ten ;  making  eleven,  count- 
ing the  old  hive,  jdelding  twenty-five  pounds  of 
box  honey,  and  leaving  enough  in  the  hives  to 
winter  the  entire  stocks.  Six  hives  of  empty 
combs  were  used  in  makii;ig  tlie  new  swarms. 
This  experiment  by  a  beekeeper  having  only 
twelve  mouths'  experience,  shows  partly  the 
value  of  empty  combs.  Wliat  will  mechanics, 
arts,  and  science  do,  when  beekeepers  cease  the 
sale  of  wax?  It  is  worth  at  least  quadi-uple  as 
much  to  the  beekeeper  as  he  gets  for  it  after  the 
combs  are  melted  into  wax ;  that  is,  if  he  has  or 
will  acquire  tlie  knowledge  of  using  comb 
properlj^ 

Value  of  stock  liive $25  00 

Cost  of  10  hives,  for  swarms,  $3 80  00 

One  set  of  boxes 30 

Value  of  set  of  empty  combs,  if  melted  i 

in  wax,  6  K)  @  40  cts 2  40  i 

Feed  in  spring,  30  lb  sugar  @  20  cts 4  00  I 

Time  in  management,  40  half-hours,  or 

2  days®.  $3 G  0 


$67  70 


Value  of  Present  Stock. 


The  one  hundred  orighial  stocks  and  one  hun- 
dred increase  gave  3,000  lb  of  honey  extracted 
by  machine,  and  3,000  ft)  box  honey  as  surplus — 
total,  six  thousand  (6,000)  pounds. 

Number  4. 

A  hive  of  bees  sent  last  spring  to  Cook  county, 
Illinois,  increased  two.  The  old  one  and  two 
new  ones  gave  Itfty  pounds  extracted  honey  as 
surplus. 

A  Hint  worth  knowing. 

Use  pure  beeswax  in  preparing  for  sei-vice  all 
wooden  ware  tliat  is  used  in  the  dairy,  aud  all 
pails  for  drinking  water.  Put  in  a  lump,  then 
use  a  hot  iron  to  melt  the  wax  and  diive  it  in 
the  pores  of  the  wood.  Thus  your  milk  pails, 
butter  bowls,  churns,  and  "water  pails  wiU  be 
kept  from  absorbing  moisture  or  impmities. 

Profits  of  Buckwheat. 

The  bees  in  our  farm  apiarj',  in  the  vicinity  of 
buckwheat  fields,  liave  done  better  than  those  at 
our  home  apiary.  Twenty-two  stocks  increased 
to  forty-six ;  and  gave  seven  hundi-ed  and  fifty 
pounds  extracted  iioney  and  one  tliousand  and 
sixty-four  pounds  of  box  honey — total  eighteen 
hundred  and  fomleen  (1814)  pounds. 

J.  M.  Marvin. 

St.  Charles,  Ills. 


11  hives  of  bees,  $20 $220  00 

25  lb  surplus  honey,  @  30  cts 7  50 


$227  50  i 


Balance,  or  profit,  one  hundi-ed  and  fifty-nine 
doUai-s  and  eighty  cents,  ($159  80). 

Number  2. 

A  hive  of  bees  sent  to  Mnnesota  has  increased 
to  tU'tj^-four  in  three  years,  besides  one  sold  the 
fii-st  year  and  eight  lost  the  second  winter  by 
trying  to  winter  them  on  their  summer  stands. 
The  yield  of  honey  should  have  been  and  proba- 
bly was  large,  as  frequently  there  was  too  much 
of  it  in  the  hives  for  the  bees  to  do  extra  well. 
This  is  doing  well  for  a  beginneiV  and  a  woman  ; 
and  shows  "the  value  of  "the  American  Bee 
Journal  that  gives  the  knowledge  to  get  large 
profits. 

Nu:viber  3. 

A  hive  of  bees  sent  to  Chicago,  increased  to 
four ;  and  gave  forty  pounds  of  box  honey  as 
surplus.  They  were  managed  by  a  new  begin- 
ner. 

Extra  Yield  of  Honey. 

Amount  of  honey  taken  from  one  stock  hive 
in  an  apiary  of  one  hundred  inci-eased  to  two 
hundi-cd  : 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Blossoming    of  Trees  and  Plants  at 
Carthage,  Indiana,  in  1869. 


Soft  maple,  February  12 ;  red  elm,  April  2 ; 
\\illov»',  April  3 ;  water  elm,  April  4 ;  lombardy 
poplar,  April  5 ;  ground  i-sy.  Apiil  IG ;  sugar 
maple,  April  23 ;  peach,  April  23 ;  pear,  April 
25 ;  goosebeny,  April  27 ;  red  currrants,  April 
28 ;  buckeye,  April  29 ;  apple,  May  2 ;  tulip  pop- 
lar. May  28 ;  linden  or  basswood,  June  30. 

The  above  constitute  most  of  our  bee  trees  and 
plants.  The  date  of  the  blossoming  of  white 
and  red  clovei',  I  neglected  to  note.  My  Italian 
bees  worked  freely  on  the  second  crop  of  red 
clover.  Not  much  buckwiieat  is  seen  in  this 
connty. 

My 'first  swarm  issued  May  15;  my  last  one 
August  18. 

I  have  my  hives  so  arranged  that  I  can  re- 
move my  bees  from  one  honey  location  to 
another,  in  the  hottest  weather.  I  move  them 
on  spring  wagons.  I  removed  twenty-five  hives 
of  my  bees  twenty  miles,  to  a  poplar  grove,  on 
the  26tli  of  May,  and  brought  them  back  on  the 
26th  of  July.  I  obtained  a  little  over  twelve 
hundred  poimds  of  liquid  honey  from  them 
during  that  time. 

P.  W.  McFatridge. 

Carthage,  Ind. 


THE    AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


137 


[For  the  Aniericau  Bee  Journal.] 

Letter  from  Iowa. 


;Mb.  Editor  : — I  suggest  that  your  corres- 
pondents who  keep  bees  give,  t)) rough  the  "Bee 
JOUBNAL,"  their  modes  of  ai-tificial  swarmhig, 
and  how  they  keep  their  combs  straight ;  in  fuct 
let  us  have  tlieir  entire  management  of  bees. 
Also,  how  they  pack  honey  for  siilpment  to  mar- 
ket; wliere  they  sell  it;  the  prices  obtained; 
tlie  present  and  the  prospective  demand.  There 
are  but  few  beekeepers  that  would  not  receive 
some  benefit  from  such  communications,  if  hon- 
estly and  laitlifuUy  WTitten.  Let  us  liave  the 
facts — no  theories. 

I  came  through  the  \\inter  -i-slth  fifteen  .stocks. 
Eigiit  of  the  best  were  selected  for  the  collection 
of  honey.  Tlie  spi-ing  being  so  very  wet  made 
me  afraid  to  di\'ide  tlie  ^^•hole.  Two  of  the  eight 
swarmed,  and  the  swarms  went  off  into  the 
woods.  1  Imd  taken  five  frames  of  brood  and 
honey  from  one  of  these  stocks,  and  two  frames 
of  brood  and  about  half  a  gallon  of  young  bees 
from  the  otlier. 

My  Ijangstroth  hives  are  fitted  for  two  sets  of 
boxes,  the  American  for  same  box,  and  other 
small  frames  for  surplus.  Two  of  the  Lang- 
stroths  gave  me  fifty-six  (56)  5-pound  boxes 
gross.  One  of  the  eigiit  failed  to  gi\'e  me  a 
swarm  or  any  surplus,  througli  some  aciM(l(  i;;  to 
the  queen.  I  have  now  twenty-iiiiir  stocks. 
The  amount  of  surplus  honey  was  clcxcu  hiiu- 
di'ed  (1100)  pounds  box  honey,  except  four  gal- 
lons of  strained  lionej'.  These  results  are  qiute 
satisfactory,  if  I  could  only  sell  the  honey  at  a 
reasonable  price.  All  I  have  sold  as  yet  has 
been  for  twenty  cents  a  pound  in  store  goods. 

My  favorite  mode  of  di\itliug  is,  to  take  the 
parent  stock  and  place  it  two  or  three  feet  on 
one  side  of  the  old  stand ;  get  an  empty  hive 
with  all  the  frames  in  place  except  one ;  open 
the  parent  stock,  take  out  a  frame  of  brood  '\^  itli 
the  adhering  bees,  paying  no  attention  to  the 
queen,  and  place  it  in  the  emptj^  hive ;  then  lift 
out  the  frames  one  at  a  time,  shake  ott'the  bees 
in  front  of  your  new  hive,  replace  the  honey 
board,  and  the  division  is  made.  If  the  old  Mve 
gets  too  many  bees,  move  it  a  little  further  oft', 
and  vice  versa. 

Another  way  is  to  hunt  out  the  queen  and  re- 
turn her  to  the  parent  stock.  The  old  bees,  not 
finding  their  queen  ^\ill  return  to  their  old  stand. 
The  young  bees  will  remain  and  raise  queens 
better  than  the  old  ones.  Vvlien  making  swarms 
in  tliis  way,  the  old  stock  must  be  put  on  the 
old  stand.  The  "nucleus"  can  be  put  any- 
where you  clioose.  When  the  young  queen  be- 
comes fertilized,  give  frames  of  capped  brood. 
If  made  at  the  proper  time,  the  parent  Mve  will 
hardly  miss  what  is  taken  from  them.  More 
anon,  if  this  suits. 

Frederick  Crathorne. 

Bethlehem,  Iowa. 


The  common  locust  and  the  honey  locust  are 
very  desirable  trees  for  the  vicinity  of  an  apiary, 
yielding  mucli  honey  at  a  time  when  peculiarly 
valuable  to  the  bees. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 


Burying  Bees. 


Some  j-ears  ago  a  friend  informed  me  that  he 
had  kept  bees  in  Massachusetts,  and  the  better 
to  winter  some  young  swarms  that  were  short  of 
honey,  he  had  buried  them.  He  said  he  always 
selected  those  that  he  judged  would  not  winter 
in  the  common  waj\  He  had  bmied  some  at 
difterent  times,  he  judged  as  many  as  twenty 
stocks  in  all,  and  never  lost  any  liy  so  doing. 
They  always  did  well. 

rollo^\ing  his  instructions,  I  that  winter 
buried  tAvo  weak  colonies  ir  a  coarse  sand  bank. 
I  put  tliem  beneath  the  frosi,  gave  them  novent- 

I  ilation,  and  filled  the  gravel  in  against  and  on 

I  top  ot  the  hiA'es.  Some  space  was  left  beneath 
the  luves,  to  secure  them    against    damage  by 

!  water.     The  bees  were  put  in  on  the  18th  of 

j  December,  and  taken  out  on  the  14th  of  April 
following— being  as  early  as  the  ground  thawed 

j  over  them.     The  combs  were  not  badly  molded, 

j  and  there  were  only  about  a  dozen  dead  bees  on 
each  bottom  board,  which  I  presume  were  there 
when  the  hives  were  put  in.     Those  bees  did 

!  well  the  next  summer. 

Last  fall  I  buried  fom-  hives  in  the  same  way, 
except  that  I  put  them  in  fine  compact  sand. 
Two  of  these  hives  were  well  tilled.  They  all 
iiiolded  jiretty  bafl ;  tlu^  two  full  ones  were  lo.st 
a-  a  roiiseiiuiMiCf.  and  lirsidc^.  tlie  i»:a^s  of  the 
otlier  hives  died  as  niucU  as  vttliers  wintered  on 

I  their  stands.  Both  the  .stocks  that  survived  did 
very  well  for  the  season  this  summer. 

As  the  honey  season  here  has  been  very  poor, 
and  I  have  a  number  of  young  swarms  that  have 
but  little  houey,  I  have  resolved  to  bmy  ten  of 
them  in  a  gravel  bank,  but  shall  give  them  vent- 
lation  this  time.  I  mean  to  put  them  in  just 
before  ^Ainter  sets  in. 

I  use  the  Coltoii  hive.  Movable  comb  hives 
and  Italian  bees  are  scarce  here. 

The  fact  that  bees  can  be  wintered  well  a 
number  of  feet  under  ground,  without  ventila- 
tion, and  Willi  the  ground  frozen  over  them,  is 

;  (with  me)  good  evidence  that  bees  need  but  little 
air  in  winter. 

Alonzo  Barnard. 

'     Bangor,  Mb..  Nov.  5,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Borage  Seed  Wanted. 


We  frequently  find,  in  reading  woiics  on  bees, 
that  Borage  is  highly  recommended  as  a  bee 
pasturage. 

Why  do  not  some  of  those  who  cultivate  this 
plant  advertise  the  seed  for  sale  through  the  col- 
umns of  the  Bee  journal,,  as  they  do  their 
Alsike  clover  seed? 

We  feel  confident  that  any  one  so  doing  would 
be  well  repaid,  as,  in  some  sections,  it  is  im- 
possible to  find  this  seed,  though  we  have  heard 
it  inquired  for  times  a\  ithout  nmiiber. 

December,  1869. 


138 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal .  ] 

Peabody's  Honey  Extractor. 


The  above  engTa-\ing  is  a  perspective  \1ew  of 
a  new  honej'  extractor,  which  has  been  practi- 
cally tested  during  the  past  season,  and  is  no^^- 
ready  to  be  introduced  to  the  beekeeping-  pub- 
lic. 

The  machine  consists  of  a  tin  case,  in  shape 
somewhat  res(nnl)ling  a  common  wash  boiler, 
adapted  to  receive  honej"  frames  of  any  size, 
across  either  end,  and  is  made  to  revolve  upon  a 
central  stationary  spindle,  set  in  the  cast  h-on 
base. 

The  bottom  of  the  case  is  made  sloping 
towards  the  centi-e,  and  has  a  metal  casting  of 
peculiar  form  soldered  into  the  centre  of  the 
same,  througli  the  centre  of  which  passes  the 
spindle  on  which  the  case  revolves,  and  in 
which  are  also  formed  outlet  passages,  tlu'ough 
which  the  honey  is  discharged. 

A  cast  iron  bar  is  securely  attached  to  the  top 
of  the  case,  extending  across  the  same  from  side 
to  side,  in  the  centre  of  which  is  formed  tlie  up- 
per bearing  of  the  spindle,  and  which  is  also  in- 
serted tlie  handle  by  which  the  case  is  i-evolved. 

A  frame  of  wood,  resembling  a  common  hon- 
ey frame,  and  covered  on  one  side  mth  wire 
gauze,  is  suspended  across  either  end  of  the  case, 
upon  bracl\''ts  pro^1ded  for  the  pm-pose,  with 
the  wire  gauze  towartls  tlie  centre,  and  a  frame 
of  honey  is  suspended  by  the  side  of  it  with  one 
face  of  the  comb  resting  against  it,  in  the  usual 
manner. 

Wlien  the  case  and  contents  are  set  in  motion 
by  means  of  the  handle,  the  honey  will  be  dis- 
charged into  the  space  between  the  whv  gauze 


and  the  cm'ved  end  of  the  case,  and  when  the 
I'otary  motion  ceases  the  honey  will  floM'  to  the 
centre  of  the  bottom  of  the  case,  aud  through 
the  openings  in  the  central  casting,  and  through 
similar  openings  in  the  hub  of  the  cast  iron  base, 
and  be  delivered  into  the  pan  seen  in  the  cut. 

This  machine  was  invented  by  H.  O.  Peabody, 
of  Boston,  Massachusetts,  brother  of  the  under- 
signed, and  patented  October  26th,  1869. 

"For  fm-ther  infomiation,  send  stamps  for 
circulars  to 

J.  L.  Peabody, 
Virden,  ^lacoupin  County, 

Illinois. 

Bee  Thieves  about. — ]\ir.  Geo.  H.  Knight, 
who  resides  on  Front  street,  near  Columbia, 
takes  a  great  interest  in  raising  bees.  He  has  a 
large  luunber  of  hives;  but  every  now  and  then 
some  rascally  person  steals  one.  Last  night  Mr. 
Knight's  premises  were  visited  by  thieves,  who 
lulled  all  the  bees  in  one  hive  by  introducing 
chloroform  into  it.  They  then  carried  off  about 
twenty-five  pounds  of  honey. — Newport,  Ey., 
paper. 

The  blossoms  of  onions  abound  in  honey,  the 
odor  of  which  is,  however,  oft'ensive  when  fu'st 
gathered,  but  with  the  lapse  of  time  this  gradu- 
ally disappears. 


Caie  should  be  taken    to  shelter  hives  from 
piercing  winds  diu'ing  Avinter. 


THE     AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


13» 


For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 
Conklin's  Diamond  Hive. 


Dr.  Conldin  having- patented  the  hive  invented 
and  made  public  property  by  my  surrendering 
my  rights  of  invention,  I  submit  the  following 
staternent  of  facts : 

I  made  the  invention  public  property  on  or 
about  tlie  1st  of  March,  1868.  The  description 
and  dr;u\  ing  w.'re  made  on  the  2!2d  of  February. 
I  was  MuMi  going  to  make  a  claim  for  a  patent ; 
but  on  consideration  I  concluded  to  abandon  the 
invention  to  the  public,  which  I  (Ud  on  the  1st 
of  March,  by  sending  desci-iption  and  drawing 
to  the  "■  American  Agriculturist,^''  Xew  York, 
American  Bep:  .Journal,  Washington,  and 
Western  Rural,  Chicago. 

The  following  letter  was  received,  in  reply, 
from  the  office  of  the  Ainerican  Agriculturist: 

Office  of  American  Agricultukist, 
No.  41  Pabk  Row, 
New  York,  9th  March,  1868. 
To  John  M.  Price,  Buffalo  Grove,  Iowa: 

Dear  Sir;  The  letter  to  Mr.  Judd  was  put  into  my 
hands  on  the  7th  inst.  I  fear  now  that  it  will  be  hardly 
possible  for  us  to  use  the  description  of  your  hive  sent 
for  the  May  number. 

You  may  or  may  not  be  aware  that  there  is  another 
hive,  almost  exactly  on  tlie  same  principle  as  yours, 

?iatented.  The  man  had  his  model  in  our  office  only  a 
ew  months  ago,  and  I  understood  then  it  was  patented. 
It  may  be  that  this  is  the  same  hive.  Will  you  have  the 
goodness  to  let  me  know  when  the  hive  was  invented ; 
when  first  used ;  if  it  infringes  any  patent  you  know  of. 
The  plan  struck  me  as  an  admirable  one ;  but  I  should 
think  it  would  be  worthless  as  a  movable  frame  hive, 
unless  it  employed  Langstroth's  patent. 

If  you  answer  so  that  we  can  get  your  letter  by  the 
17th,  it  will  be  in  time  for  the  May  number. 
Vei7  respectfully, 

Mason  C.  Wells, 
Agricultural  Editor,  for  O.  Judd  &  Co. 


Office  American  Agricultctrist,  . 
No.  41  Park  Bow, 
New  York,  3d  April,  1868. 
To  John  M.  Price,  Buffalo  Grove,  Iowa: 

Dear  Sir:  The  name  of  the  man  who  has  patented  a 
beehive  similar  in  principle,  as  I  view  it,  to  tjie  one  you 
send,*  which  was  duly  received,  is  Bingham.  I  cannot 
give  vou  his  first  name.  However,  if  you  write  to  Mr. 
Bingham,  owner  of  Bingham's  Patent  Bee  Hive,  Cassa- 
daga,  Chautauque  Co.,  N.  Y.,  you  will  probably  hear  from 
him.  Ask  him  for  a  circular,  send  a  few  cents  in  post- 
age, and  say  you  heard  about  his  invention  through  a 
friend.  Mason  C.  Wells,     i 

I  also  sent  a  description  and  drawing  to  Mi\  I 
E.  Gallup,  of  Osage,  Iowa,  which  he  mentions  j 
on  page  'Si)  of  the  August  numberof  the  Ambri-  j 
CAN  Bee  Journal,,  1868,  article  on  Bee  Feeding,  j 

In  April,  >Ii-.  James  Cotant  made  and  used  | 
two  of  these  hives,  at  Buffalo  Grove,  Iowa.  I 

In  May  Mr.  Charles  Jackway  had  in  use  two  i 
of  them  at  Buffalo  Grove,  Iowa.  i 

In  May,  Mr.  F.  ^M.  Hunt,  of  Independence,  I 
Iowa,  had  in  use  one  of  them.  , 

I  had  in  use  thirty-two  of  them,  by,  I  think,  i 
the  first  of  June.  i 

In  August  I  received  the  following  letter  from  i 
Mr.  Samuel  Wagner,  in  reply  to  one  of  mine.      i 


*  I  answered  his  first  letter,  and  sent  him  a  working 
model,  which  is  duly  acknowledged  In  this  letter  of 
April  3. 


Washington,  D.  C,  July  31, 1868. 
John  M.  Price,  Esq.: 

Dear  Sir:  I  deferred  noticing  your  description  of 
your  hive,  as  it  re(iuires  a  wood-cut  tor  illustration,  and 
we  have  no  wood  engraver  here  now.  The  cuts  for  the 
Mechanical  Report  of  the  Patent  Office  are  engraved  at 
Buffalo,  N.  Y.  If  I  cannot  procure  a  cut,  i  will  still 
endeavor  to  use  your  description  at  an  early  day. 
Yours  truly, 

Samuel  Wagner. 

On  receiving  the  above  letter,  I  made  a  work- 
ing model  and  sent  liim  a  better  description  and 
draA\ing,  whicli  he  mentions  in  tlie  followins: 
letter : 

Washington,  D.  C,  September  26, 1868. 
J.  M.  Price,  Esq.: 

Dear  Sir:  I  duly  received,  per  express,  the  model  of 
your  hive,  and  am  much  pleased  with  its  arrangement, 
though  it  is  of  course  not  possible  to  judge  properly  of 
its  adaptedness  and  value,  except  on  actual  trial.  The 
drawing  and  description  came  to  hand  likewise.  I  had 
a  reduced  copy  of  the  former  made,  and  expected  to 
have  a  cut  engraved  in  season  for  the  October  number 
of  the  Bee  Journal,  but  regret  to  say  it  it  could  not  be 
finished  In  time  for  the  printer,  so  that  It  will  have  to 
be  delayed  a  month  longer. 

Yours  truly, 

Samuel  Wagner. 

All  of  the  above  correspou<lence  took  place 
before  the  1st  of  October,  1868,  and  on  the  20th 
of  October,  1868,  a  patent  was  issued  to  Dr.  A, 
V.  Conklin  for  his  Diamond  Frame  Hive.  See 
his  "claims." 

The  one  hundred  or  more  readers  and  sub- 
scribers of  the  Bee  Journal,  who  have  written 
to  me.  expressing  their  desire  to  use  the  hive, 
can  see  by  the  above  correspondence  their  per- 
fect right  to  do  so,  subject  only  to  Mi-.  Lang- 
stroth's claims  on  the  principle. 

J.  M.  Price. 

Buffalo  Grove,  Iowa. 


For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 


The   Rectangular  Frame.— Rejoinder. 


Mb.  Editor  :— (I  cannot  help  feeling  sorry 
for  Ml-.  Editor,  who  has  to  hear  everybody's  at- 
tacks and  everybody's  defence;  but,  as  Mr. 
Editor  really  means  all  his  readers,  I  say  Mr. 
Editor  too.)  In  the  November  number  of  the 
Bee  Journal,  Mr.  Miller,  of  Peninsula,  Ohio, 
directs  his  battery  against  the  Rectangular  Frame 
Hive  and  myself.  In  comtesy  to  him  I  answer 
his  request.  First,  let  me  say  to  Mr.  Miller,  it 
is  too  late  in  the  day  to  make  that  kind  of  attack 
on  the  rectangular  frame  hive  as  I  liave  them,  as 
they  are  too  widely  circulated  and  too  many  of 
them  are  in  use  to  do  it  any  injury.  Since  read- 
ing your  article  I  have  exaniined  hunch-eds  of 
the  "Diamond  Frame  Hives"  in  this  section 
that  were  filled  the  past  season,  and  here  is  the 
certificate  of  the  owners,  "since  you  doubt  my 
statement." 

"Dr.  Conklin  showed  us  Mr.  Miller's  attack  of  him 
and  his  Diamond  Frame  hive.  He  then  opened  our  hives 
and  removed  all  the  frames  (some  of  them  had  not  been 
opened  since  the  bees  were  put  in  them),  without  cut- 
tmg  or  breaking  a  single  comb.  We  have  handled  the 
Langstroth,  American,  and  several  other  frame  hives, 
but  never  saw  a  hive  that  the  combs  were  always  so 
straight  in  the  frames.  Mr.  Miller's  attack  does  not  ap- 
ply to  Dr.  Conklin's  Diamond  Fiurae  Hive.    He  then 


140 


THE  AMEEICAN  BEE  JOUKNAL. 


took  us  to  his  apiai-y,  and  opened  forty  of  his  hives. 
Each  comb  was  built  straight  in  the  frame. 
(Signed)       H.  L.  Osborn, 
B.  Wood,  P.  M. 


G.  J.  Wood,  Justice  of  Peace, 
Aarok  Benedict,  Italian  queen  breeder, 
Bennington,  Ohio. 

"I  take  stock  in  the  Diamond  Frame  Hive.  The 
combs  are  all  straight  in  the  frames." 

(Signed)  A.  J.  Cook, 

Agripultural  College, 
Lansing,  Mich." 

Now,  Ml".  ^Miller,  my  bees,  as  -well  as  the  bees 
of  all  the  above-named  parties,  with  many 
others,  '■'■'know  their  duty  to  their  owners  and 
will  do  it  just  so  well,'"'  in  the  Diamond  Frame 
Hive,  which  you  or  anybody  else  can  purchase 
for  a  reasonable  compensation.  Or  you  can 
"get  the  secret  of  training  them' '  in  the  Diamond 
Frame  Hive  mth  the  same  results,  if  you  pos- 
sess "compos  mentis"  enough  to  set  yom*  own 
hive  level.  The  hives  you  made,  or  the  bees  in 
them,  must  have  been  very  inferior  and  should 
have  been  destroyed,  instead  of  selling  them  to 
the  beekeepers  of  the  old  school,  since  the  peo- 
ple have  been  kept  in  doubt  and  darkness  long 
enough  by  the  "would-be  kno^^ing  ones."  Let 
us  have  "more  light"  approaching  from  the 
East,"  and  more  "substitute"  retm-ning  from 
the  West,  in  compensation  for  tlie  Jouknax.. 
So  hurrah  for  the  Bee  Joubnal,  and  tlie  one 
that  can  obtain  the  most  bees  and  honey,  in  the 
best  hive,  during  the  season  of  1870. 

a.  v.  conklin. 

Bennington,  Ohio. 


For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 
Bees   in   J.   M.    Price's   Square   Frame 
Double-Cased  Bee  Hive. 


Mr.  31.  Miller,  of  Peninsula,  Ohio,  having 
given  in  liis  experience  with  bees  in  square 
frames  hung  angling,  I  have  only  to  say  tliat 
what  he  says  on  page  99,  No.  5,  vol.  5,  of  tlie 
American  Bee  Journal,  is  absolutely  true, 
anA  \\\\\\)e  no  invariably  in  any  liive  made  as 
Ms  or  Dr.  Conklin's  Diamond  hive  is.  But  if 
Mr.  Miller  ^\\\l  make  a  liive  like  mine,  with  its 
two  movable  sides  or  di-\ision  boards,  (No.  20,  of 
description),  and  then  read  3Ir.  Gallup's  article 
"How  to  Ventilate,"  on  page  8,  vol.  4,  of  the 
Ajniebican  Bee  Journal,  he  will  get  a  good 
idea  of  my  management  to  get  straight  combs ; 
the  rule,  not  the  exception— straight  combs  every 
time;  impossible  to  be  otherwise.  I  generally 
start  a  swarm  vdth  two  full  frames  of  comb  and 
brood,  and  three  empty  frames,  placed  alter- 
nately, with  a  division  board  placed  close  to 
each  of  the  outside  empty  frames ;  thus  forming 
a  tight  hive  of  five  frames' capacity.  When  the 
bees"  have  filled  the  three  empty  frames,  I 
move  the  division  boards  out  towards  the  outside 
and  put  in  two  more  empty  frames ;  and  repeat 
until  the  hive  is  full  of  frames.  By  having  every 
alternate  frame  only  empty,  the  bees  cannot  do 
otherwise  than  make  the  comb  straiglit. 

My  hive,  as  described  in  the  Bee  Journal  is 
free  to  all,  to  make  and  use,  who  have  paid  Mr. 


Langstroth  for  a  right  to  use  his  principle  in 
bee  hives,  as  I  have  done.  I  have  in  use  both 
forms  of  hive,  his  and  mine,  and  I  think  mine,  , 
made  according  to  description,  is  a  little  ahead  \ 
of  any  other  hive,  except  my  own  last  invention 
— my  Movable  Casket  Bee  Hive.  For  ease  of 
management — stimulating  the  queen  in  early 
spring,  for  the  early  production  of  brood ;  or  to 
stimulate  the  queen  to  keep  up  the  production  of 
brood  during  a  temporary  th-outh  in  the  sum- 
mer; and  for  the  more  ett'ectually  wintering 
bees  in  any  climate,  I  believe  my  Casket  Hive  is 
without  an  equal.  All  wlio  have  seen  it,  pro- 
nounce it  perfection  reached. 

John  M.  Price. 
Buffalo  Grove,  Iowa. 


For  the  American  Bee  Journal, 
Shallow  iLangstroth  Hives. 


I  began  beekeeping  with  "box  hives."  but 
soon  found  that,  in  order  to  have  control  of  my 
bees,  they  must  be  in  movable  comb  hives. 

As  the  Langstroth  hive  w  as  the  only  mova- 
ble comb  hive  used  to  any  extent  in  tills  section, 
I  procm-ed  the  right  to  use  it,  and  have  used  it 
witli  great  success. 

My  hives  are  mostly  of  the  shallow  form, 
being  85  inches  deejD  inside  of  tlie  frames,  or  10 
Inches  including  space  above  and  below  the 
frames. 

I  have  taken  nearly  double  the  amount  of  sur- 
plus honey  from  my  hives  of  the  above  depth  the 
past  season,  that  I  liave  from  otlier  hives  that 
were  14  inches  deep  and  upwards  and  contained 
equally  prolific  queens  with  a  similar  amount  of 
bees  in  the  spring  and  did  nor  swarm.  The  bees 
worked  more  diligently  in  the  shallow  hives  than 
in  the  deep  ones.- 

My  experience  thus  far  teaches  me  that  I  can 
obtain  more  honey  from  a  hive  of  the  fh-st  named 
depth,  than  I  can  from  one  of  gi-eater  depth  of 
frame,  if  the  frames  hang  square  in  the  hive  and 
the  siu'plus  boxes  are  placed  above  the  frames. 
But  as  for  bees  v\intering  in  such  liives  on  their 
summer  stands,  in  northern  districts,  as  well  as 
they  will  in  a  more  compact  form  of  hive,  such 
as  Mr.  Alley's  form  of  the  Langstroth  hive,  or 
Mr.  J.  M.  Price's  double  cased  hive,  I  do  not 
think  they  will. 

To  winter  bees  with  good  success,  on  their 
summer  stands,  in  the  nortliern  distiicts,  it  is 
necessary  that  the  heft  of  the  honey  should  be 
directly  above  the  cluster  of  bees,  and  the  tw'o 
hives  named  above  greatly  facilitate  that  ob- 
ject. 

I  am  in  favor  of  3Ii-.  Greene's  suggestion.  So 
here  goes.  I,  George  M.  D.  Kuggles,  twenty- 
four  years  old,  was  born  in  Washington  county, 
Vermont;  lived  ten  j^ears  in  New  York,  and 
have  resided  nine  years  in  Hartland,  Vermont ; 
am  a  farmer,  and  keep  bees.  The  enclosed 
needful  will  enable  the  Editor  to  take  the  hint, 
and  continue  to  send  the  Journal  to  my  ad- 
dress. 

George  M.  D.  Kuggles. 

Hartland,  Vt.,  Dec.  14,  1869. 


THE    AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


141 


For  tlie  American  Bee  Journal. 

J.  W.  G.'s  Five  Questions  Answered. 


1.  In  counting  the  "three  yellow  bands"  on  full-blood- 
ed Italian  bees,  is  the  narrow  strip  next  to  the  thorax 
included,  or  should  they  have  three  besides  that  ? 

The  Italian  bee  bred  in  Italy  has  generally  but 
two  yellow  bands,  and  including  the  narrow 
strip  next  the  thorax,  three.  But  Dzierzon  has 
raised  a  much  more  beautiful  race.  The  work- 
ers of  liis  full-blooded  bees  have  three  yellow 
bands,  exclusive  of  the  narrow  strip. 

2.  What  should  be  done  with  a  good  colony  contain- 
ing a  fertile  worlier  ?  Could  an  unimpregnated  queen, 
or  a  fertilized  one  be  successfully  introduced  ? 

A  good  colony  has  no  fertile  workers,  and  as 
soon  as  such  make  their  appearance  the  colony 
must  be  regarded  as  diseased.  Colonies  without 
queen  and  with  fertile  workers,  behave  various- 
ly. Some  accept  introduced  queens,  and  some 
do  not.  In  any  case  a  fertiUzed  queen  will  be 
more  easily  received. 

3.  Will  bees  with  fertile  workers  build  drone  or  work- 
er comb  ? 

Such  colonies  generally  do  not  build  at  all ; 
but  when  they  do,  they  build  drone  comb,  witli 
very  rare  exceptions. 

4.  Wliat  is  the  greatest  age  at  which  a  queen  can  be  or 
is  fertilized. 

Generally  it  may  be  said  that  she  is  able  to 
be  fertilized  so  long  as  she  continues  to  fly 
out.  In  Germany  there  are  unquestionable 
cases  on  record,  where  queens  which  were 
forty  days  and  more  old,  still  became  fertil- 
ize(l. 

5.  What  is  the  average  numbei-  of  times  a  good  bee- 
keeper will  "go  into"  (open and  examine)  his  hives  in 
the  course  of  a  season  ? 

This  question  is  not  to  be  detinitely  answered, 
for  the  opening  of  liives  depends  on  cu'cuni- 
stauces;  and  tlie  special  purposes  of  the  bee- 
keeper. For  instance,  if  he  is  desirous  of 
multiplying  stock,  he  opens  his  hives  more  fre- 
quently than  when  he  simply  wishes  to  obtain 
much  honey. 

LiNA  Baroness  von  Berlepsch. 

Munich,  Nov.  20,  1869. 


For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 

Bee  Peed. 


I  have  used  the  following  for  a  number  of 
j^ears :  About  one  quart  of  water,  two  tea- 
spoonsful  of  starch,  made  the  same  as  ladies  pre- 
pare it  for  starching  clothes.  Wlien  boiling, 
add  five  pounds  of  white  sugar ;  stir  it  until  it 
boils  again;  take  it  ofl"  the  tire,  and  add  as 
much  honey  as  you  can  spare. 

John  Winfield. 

Canfield.  Ohio. 


For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 
Querist's  Question,  No.  7,  Answered. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  beg  leave  to  answer  one  of 
Querist's  questions  on  page  83  of  the  Bee  Jour- 
NAXi.  He  says  that  I  guarantee  all  tlie  Italian 
queens  I  sell,  and  if  any  fail  to  produce  workers 
with  three  yellow  bands,  that  I  will  replace  them 
free  of  charge.     So  I  do,  and  will. 

My  reason  for  saying  this,  is — I  liave  often  had 
queens  of  my  own  rearing,  and  some  I  have 
bought  and  paid  high  prices  for,  that  produced 
workers  witii  three  stripes  for  some  months,  and 
then  failed  to  produce  all  three  striped  workers, 
as  occasionally  there  would  be  a  two  striped  fel- 
low. Such  queens  I  consider  not  pure.  As  my 
customers  are  generally  in  a  great  hurry  to  get 
their  queens,  I,  like  many  others,  and  perhaps 
all  queen  raisers,  send  queens  to  those  that  are 
in.  such  a  hurry,  after  the  worker  progeny  of  the 
queen  has  been  hatching  a  week  or  ten  days ; 
and  if  all  have  the  three  yellow  stripes,  they  are 
considered  pm-e  and  sent  off  to  the  customer, 
and  in  case  they  are  pm-ely  fertilized,  are  pm-e. 
But,  as  it  is  evident  that  the  queens  often  mate 
with  two  or  more  drones,  their  progeny  may  all 
show  the  marks  of  purity  for  a  time,  and  after- 
wards show^  the  mixed  blood,  as  one  of  the 
di-ones  may  have  been  of  the  black  race. 

Querist  asks  are  three  yellow  bands  a  proper 
test  ?  That  is  considered  a  proper  test  by  the 
best  apiarians,  both  in  America  and  in  Em-ope. 
So  what  further  test  does  Querist  want? 

Querist  says,  suppose  I  was  to  raise  a  hundi-ed 
Italian  queeiis,  and  should  produce  workers 
thus  marked,  how  many  of  those  queens  would  I 
be  willing  to  use  for  queen  breeding  pm-poses  ? 
Well,  sir,  I  would  give  them  all  a  thorough  trial 
(pro^'ided  I  needed  so  many  to  breed  from),  and 
if  all  continued  to  produce  workers  with  the 
three  yeUow  stripes  for  some  months,  and  no 
variation,  I  would  be  willing  to  breed  from  all 
the  hundi-ed. 

I  think  bees,  like  all  other  stock — sheep,  cat- 
tle, &c — are  susceptible  of  improvement,  though 
they  are  thorough  blood;  and  to  improve 
my  bees,  I  would  select  such  queens  as  produce 
workers  most  quiet  to  handle  and  most  prolific, 
and  produced  young  queens  that  were  all  like 
their  mother  in  color,  or  lighter. 

Querist  seems  to  take  exception  to  me  and 
some  others,  for  selling  queens  at  knock-down, 
prices,  by  the  quantity.  I  explained  in  my  cir- 
cular the'  reason  why  I  coidd  afford  to  seU  queens 
so  cheap  this  season.  It  was  because  all  the 
black  bees  had  died  last  winter  for  some  miles 
around  me,  and  of  course  I  had  no  trouble  in 
getting  my  queens  impregnated  by  my  own 
drones.  Don't  grumble,  ]VIi-.  Querist,  I  wiU  not 
sell  any  more  queens  so  cheap,  as  some  black 
bees  have  emigi-ated  from  parts  unknown,  and 
located  in  the  woods  around  me;  and  I  wiU 
cliarge  higher  prices  next  season,  just  in 
proportion  to  the  trouble  I  have  in  raising 
them. 

I  hope  to  have  my  queens  all  fertilized,  next 
season,  by  the  cb-ones  I  may  select,  by  the  new 
process  which  I  suppose  ^yiW.  soon  be  published. 


142 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


I  should  liave  written  this  for  the  November 
number  of  the  Jouknax,  but  did  not  get  uiy 
October  number  number  till  yesterdaj'.  So  do 
not  think  I  am  asleep,  Mr.  Querist^  but  like 
yourself,  I  read  every  article  in  the  Bee  Joub- 
NAL  with  care,  and  then  lay  them  away  to  have 
them  bound,  as  I  have  the  first  four  volumes  in 
two  books ;  and  when  I  have  notlilng  else  to 
read,  I  often  re-read  many  articles  in  them,  with 
much  interest.  Hoping  tliis  viill  satisfy  fi-iend 
Querist,  I  am,  yours  truly, 

H.  Nesbit. 

Cynthiana,  Ky.,  ISTov.  7.  18(59. 


For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 
Experimenting, 


For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 

Natural  Swarms. 


I  clip  the  wings  of  all  my  queens  as  soon  as 
they  commence  laying;  tllen,  when  a  natm-al 
swarm  issues,  the  queen  falls  to  the  ground.'  I 
seek  for  her  carefully,  and  as  soon  as  most  of  the 
swarm  is  out,  I  move  the  hive  away  ten  or  fif- 
teen feet,  and  set  an  empty  hive  \vith  frames  all 
in  proper  position  in  the  place  where  the  hive  that 
has  swarmed  stood.  I  keep  the  queen  till  the 
swarm  begins  to  return,  which  it  always  will  do 
when  the  queen  is  not  with  it,  even  if  it  has 
meantime  alighted  and  clustered.  In  a  little 
while  back  they  will  come.  'Now  place  the 
queen  on  the  alighting  Ijoard,  and  watch  her 
till  bees  enough  come  back  to  induce  her  to 
enter  the  hive,  and  all  is  right. 

Then  take  a  fertile  reserve  queen,  cage 
her  and  put  her  between  two  of  the  brood 
combs  in  the  old  hive  from  which  the  s^varm 
issued,  after  removing  or  destroying  all  the 
queen  cells.  Keep  her  caged  two  or  three  days, 
then  release  her,  and  the  work  is  done.  Egg- 
laying,  in  the  old  hive,  is  stopped  only  thi-ee  or 
four  days,  and  in  a  little  while  the  old  hive  will 
again  be  strong  in  bees.  This  season,  nine 
treated  in  this  manner  nearly  all  swarmed  again, 
sending  off  good  strong  swarms. 

P.  W.  McFatridge. 

Cakthage,  Ind. 


For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 
Profits  of  B&ekeeping. 


From  seven  full  swarms  (ten  frames  of  comb 
each)  wintered  through  last  winter,  I  have  ob- 
toained  seven  hundi-ed  (700)  pounds  sm*plus  hon- 
ey, and  have  on  hand  twenty-five  swarms  of 
bees.  I  used  the  revolving  honey-emptier,  and 
had  no  honey  stored  in  boxes.  Whole  amount 
of  full  frames  of  combs  and  honey  on  hand  350 
pounds,  making  an  increase  of  four-fold. 

ISnewswanns,  (^  $10  each , $180 

700  K)  honey,  @,  25  cts.  ~fj  pound 175 

Total $355 

Which  is  $50  on  each  of  the  seven   swarms. 
Tliey  were  mostly  liybrid  Italians. 

J.  L.  Feabody. 
ViRDEN,  Ills. 


On  the  10th  of  July.  18G8,  I  hived  in  my 
northern  apiary  a  middle-aged  swaiTU  of  bees,  in 
a  hive  nearly  filled  with  comb,  and  caged  the 
([ueen — suspending  her  between  the  two  central 
combs.  This  swarm  filled  the  combs  about  two- 
thirds  full  of  honey  while  the  bassAvood  trees 
were  in  blossom,  closing  July  25th.  At  that 
time  I  found  the  combs  of  a  hive  which  I  had 
stored  away  in  my  bee-chamber,  and  which  con- 
tained about  fifteen  pounds  of  honey,  were 
largely  infested  by  Avorms,  and  I  had  concluded 
to  let  the  bees  carry  out  the  honey.  Fearing  I 
might  cause  robbing,  I  carried  both  hives  to  "the 
cellar  and  placed  them  on  the  floor,  about  three 
feet  from  the  cellar  door.  In  order  to  start  the 
bees  immediately  I  shook  them  oft'  from  one  of 
the  frames  into  the  hive  I  intended  to  ha^e 
cleaned,  moved  the  two  hives  close  togetlier. 
and  closed  the  cellar  door.  When  thus  closed, 
the  cellar  Avas  perfectly  dark,  except  that  be- 
tA\een  the  bottom  and  the  door  frame  there  Avas 
a  small  opening  about  a  quarter  of  an  inch  wide. 
I  had  no  idea  that  the  bees  AA'Ould  cravvd  three 
feet  over  the  sandy  floor  of  a  cool  cellar,  and 
make  use  of  that  small  opening  for  an  entrance. 
Two  weeks  later,  to  my  great  surpi-ise,  I  found 
that  this  colony  had  actually  become  accustomed 
to  its  ncAv  location  and  entrance,  and  had  gone 
to  Avoi-k.  They  had  carried  nearly  all  the  honey 
from  the  AA'orm-infected  hive  to  their  own,  and 
built  some  new  comb. 

To  ascertain  hoAV  long  a  colony  Avould  surAaA^e 
witliout  an  addition  of  brood  or  bees,  with  its 
queen  caged,  I  left  tliis  colony  in  this  condition, 
in  the  cellar,  till  the  20th  of  September,  aa  hen  I 
found  it  had  increased  its  stores  somcAA-hat,  and 
still  contained  about  three  pints  of  workers. 
AAlth  the  caged  queen  apparently  in  perfect  health . 
It  had  not  become  drone-breeding,  and  had 
gathered  and  stored  very  little  pollen.  During 
the  period  of  the  bassAvood  blossoms  it  had 
gathered  only  about  as  much  honey  as  otlier 
SAA-arms  of  the  same  size,  although  it  had  no 
combs  to  build ;  and  in  the  montli  of  August  it 
stored  scarcely  one-fourth  as  much  honey  as 
other  swarms  AAith  queens  at  liberty.  I  could 
not,  therefore,  say  that  it  would  be  advisable  to 
keep  the  queen  of  a  colony  caged  for  the  pur- 
pose of  saving  all  the  honey  that  bees  gather. 
It  Avonld  seem  that  the  Avorker  bees  do  not  labor 
AAith  the  same  energy  and  perscA^erance,  as  Avhen 
they  have  brood  to  nurse  and  proAide  for. 

Adam  Grimm. 

Jefferson,  Wis. 


ChXiOROFORMING,  Bees! — "Sometime  after 
this,  I  attempted  to  quiet  an  angTy  SAvarm  of 
bees  bj^  slipping  under  the  gum  a  sponge  con- 
taining something  over  half  an  ounce  of  chloro- 
form, and  succeeded  admirably.  When  they 
had  become  quiet,  I  removed  AAiiat  honey  could 
be  spai-ed  from  their  stores,  and  left  them  all 
quiet.  Tliey  are  quiet  still,  for  the  chloroform 
killed  the  last  bee !" — Dr.  A.  Love,  in  Southern 
Cultivator. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


143 


For  the  American  Bee  Journa.l. 


I  thus  passes  out  for  feitilization,  can  be  caught  in 
the  "(lueen  catcher'"  and  confined  witli  choice 
di-Qiies,  as  described  in  tlie  American  Bee 
Journal,  vol.  5,  No.  1,  page  19. 

To  operate  the  niu'sery,  cut  from  the  combs  as 
many  sealed  queen  cells  as  required  to  suspend 
in  one  cage,  (with  the  sealed  end  downward,  as 
found  in  the  combs) ;  place  also  the  honey  for 
feed  between  the  tins  in  the  cages ;  close  the 
doors;  remove  a  central  comb  from  a  strong 
colony  of  bees,  and  put  the  nursery  into  its 
place — letting  it  remain  there  till  all  the  queens 
are  hatched  and  matured  for  fertilization.  Then 
they  can  be  liberated  as  above  directed.  See 
figure,  for  further  explanation. 

Jewell  Davis. 
Indianapolis,  Ind. 


The  Queen  Nursery 

is  a  new  invention  for  raising  queen  bees  at  less 
than  one-fourth  of  the  former  expense  of  raising 
them,  besides  securing  then*  perfect  safety  up  to 
the  period  when  they  should  pass  out  to  meet 
the  drones. 

It  is  secm-ed  to  tlie  inventor  by  letters  patent, 
dated  November  23,  1S69.  It  is  composed  of  a 
frame  m  de  of  tlie  size  of  a  frame  in  any  mova- 
ble comb  hive,  divided  into  compartments  con- 
sisting of  one  or  a  series  of  c  ges,  covered  and 
open  ways. 

The  cages  (permanent,  or  movable  at  will  from 
the  frame),  are  made  in  a  square  form,  with  a 
right-angled  triangular  piece  of  tin  on  each  side 
of  them — making  a  place  between  the  tins  to 
secure  the  feed  for  the  young  queens  while  in 
confinement.  This  feed  consists  of  honej^in  the 
comb,  or  a  sponge  saturated  with  it.  One  side 
of  each  compartment  is  covered  with  fine  wove 
wire  cloth  tacked  fast.  The  other  side  of  the 
luu-sery  over  part  of  the  ways,  is  covered  in  the 
same  manner ;  but  the  cages  on  this  side  of  the 
nursery  are  covered  with  the  wire  cloth  cut  into 
pieces  2J  inches  square,  rimmed  with  tin, 
hinged,  and  hung  as  doors.  The  open  Avays  are 
for  tlie  purpose  of  letting  the  woi-ker  bees  pass 
from  comb  to  comb,  on  each  side  of  tlie  nursery, 
when  it  is  placed  in  the  centre  of  a  strong  colony 
of  bees,  hi  jthifi'  of  one  of  the  centre  combs  re- 
moved for  the  p'.irpose. 

The  cages  and  ways  are  covered  with  wire 
cloth  to  protect  the  queen  cells,  incipient  young 
queens,  and  their  food,  as  long  as  they  are  re- 
quired to  be  kept  in  confinement.  Also,  to  se- 
cure the  equal  dissemination  of  the  heat  required 
to  hatch  and  matm-e  the  new  queens.  The 
apertures  from  the  cages  into  the  covered  ways 
are  for  the  purpose  of  liberating  tlie  queens  at 
the  proper  time.  This  is  done  by  remoAdng  the 
tin  slides  which  close  the  apertures.  But  one 
queen  should  be  liberated  at  a  time.  They  may 
also  be  liberated  by  opening  tlie  doors  of  the 
cages,  or  if  the  cages  are  removable  from  the 
nursery,  they  can  (whenever  desired)  be  re- 
moved to  any  hive  where  a  queen  is  wanted,  and 
there  liberated. 

The  covered  ways  are  thus  arranged  so  that 
the  young  queen  can  pass  clear  to  the  entrance 
of  the  hive  without  danger  of  being  destroyed  as 
she  soes  out  to  meet  the  di'ones.    And  as  she 


For  the  Americau  Bee  Journa). 

Italians,  &q. 


In  the  December  number  of  the  JOURNAL  we 
notice  an  article  from  S.  Way,  in  which  he  makes 
the  point-blank  assertion  the  "  black  bees  will 
make  as  much  honey  as  the  Italians,  if  they  re- 
ceive the  same  attention;"  and  tlie  only  reason 
we  can  find  for  the  statement  is  a  little  fm-ther 
on,  that  he  has  "  no  axe  to  grind  in  the  matter." 

]VIi'.  Editor,  do  you  not  'think  tliat  it  would 
have  sounded  much  more  respectful  to  tlie  hun- 
dreds, nay  thousands,  who  are  keeping  the  Ital- 
ians, had  he  qualified  his  remark  by  saying  '-such 
was  liis  opinion,"  or  that  "from  his  own  experi- 
ence he  judged  so?" 

Is  the  opinion  of  one  man  in  one  locality  to 
decide  the  matter?  Are  the  nianj^  noble  hearts 
(for  we  are  sure  there  are  such)  who  write  for 
the  Journal',  and  who  have  spoken  entliusiasti- 
cally  of  their  success  with  the  Italians,  all  to  be 
considered  as  liaAdng  "axes  to  grind:''"  or  as  not 
having  tested  black  bees  side  by  side  with  the 
Italians  ? 

We  presume  Mi-.  Way  to  be  an  honest,  upright 
man  ;  but  we  really  fear  he  thinks  himself  the 
only  one  engaged  in  the  bee  business,  as,  with 
one  exception,  he  is  tlie  only  person  we  ever 
knew  to  declare  the  Italians  no  better  than  the 
common  bees.  The  rxception  was  Mr.  Jasper 
Hazen,  wiio  from  a  careful  experiment  given  in 
the  Rural  New  Yorker^  with  less  than  a  half 
dozen  hives,  declared  to  the  world  that  black 
bees,  vdth  some  care,  can  make  a  little  the  most 
honey.  We  cannot  remember  positively,  but 
think  the  black  bees,  in  his  hive,  made  over  200 
pounds  per  colony,  and  the  Italians  some  less — 
which  latter  we  tliink  is  so. 

Why  does  Mr.  Hazen  fuss  with  half  a  dozen 
stocks?  Had  he  such  an  apiary  as  Mr.  Quinby 
and  some  others,  two  hundred  pounds  per  swarm 
would  be  a  large  business  with  his  hive — but  per- 
haps patent  iii'ves  pay  still  better. 

Novice. 


FouLBROOD  is  a  disease  exclusively  of  the 
larvae,  and  not  of  the  mature  bees,  nor  of  brood 
sufficiently  advanced  to  be  nearly  ready  to 
emerge. 


144 


THE    AMERICAN    BEE  JOURNAL. 


For  tlie  American  Bee  Journal. 

How  to  treat  the  Fertile  Workers. 


For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 

Recollections  of  the  ITew  York    State 
I  Fair. 


^Lr.  Editor  : — T  see  in  the  Xovember  number 
of  the  Bee  Jourxal.  page  99,  J.  W.  G.  asks 
what  should  l)e  done  with  a  good  colony  contain- 
ing a  fertile  worker,  ttc. 

Xow,  it  may  be  interesting  to  J.  ^Y.  G.,  and 
perhaps  to  others,  for  me  to  relate  a  few  experi- 
ments I  have  tried,  the  past  season,  with  such  a 
colony. 

Early  in  the  season  I  drove  a  swarm  out  of  a 
cross-bar  hive,  for  the  purpose  of  making  an  arti- 
ficial colony.  In  twenty-four  hours  after  the 
operation,  supposing  I  had  succeeded  in  securing 
the  old  queen  in  the"  new  colony.  I  introduced  a 
queen  cell  to  the  old  hive.  On  examining  the 
same  hive  twenty-fom*  hours  afterwards.  I  found 
the  inserted  queen  cell  all  destroyed.  I  then 
went  to  my  new  colony  and  found  they  had  com- 
menced building  tkone  combs,  and  on  taking 
out  some  of  the  combs  I  found  eggs  in  quite  a 
number  of  the  cells ;  and  from  the"  irregularity 
of  the  manner  in  which  they  had  been  depos- 
ited— some  cells  have  a  number  of  eggs,  (as  I 
many  as  eigiit)  and  some  none  at  all — ^I  was  sat-  | 
isfied  I  had  a  worker  to  contend  with,  for  I  have  | 
had  them  to  contend  with  before.  I  now  thought  ( 
I  would  try  a  few  experiments  with  this  colony.  | 
In  the  tii'St  place  I  introduced  a  capped  queen  j 
cell.  On  examining  again  twenty-four  hours  \ 
afterwards,  I  found  'that  tlie  bees  bad  covered  j 
this  cell  completely  all  over  with  drone  comb,  j 
I  let  them  remain  until  it  was  past  the  time  for  i 
the  queen  to  hatch,  and  finding  it  did  not  hatch,  j 
I  next  introduced  a  queen  in  a  wire  cage,  and  I 
on  examining  the  hive  again  in  the  com-se  of ! 
twenty-fom-  hours,  I  found  my  queen  dead  in  the 
cage,  with  two  of  her  legs  torn  otf. 

I  now  turned  the  hive  "bottom  up  and  tacked 
some  %\ire  cloth  over  the   bottom,  set  it  back 
again  on  its  stand,  and  fumigated  the  bees  with 
putf-ball.     I  allowed  tliem  to  reuiain  just  fifteen  j 
minutes   (liaving  raised  tlie   Mve   up  on  little  ! 
blocks,  so  that  the  air  could  pass  under  it);  then  { 
removed  the  cap  and  honey-board,  and  dropped 
a  young  fertile  queen  in  on  the  top  of  the  bees. 
She  was  well  received,  and  to-day  that  stand  is 
as  prosperous  as  any  colony  in  my  yard. 

Wliat  etfect  the  fumes  of  the  putt-ball  had  on 
the  worker,  either  mentally  or  physically.  I  am 
unable  to  teU.  AMiether  it  turned  her  •"hate" 
into  "love,"  or  whether  it  killed  her,  others  can 
judge  as  well  as  mj'self,  but  sucli  was  the  restfit 
of  my  experiment. 

My  impression  is  that  the  fertUe  queen  intro- 
duced as  above  stated,  not  bein^  stupified  with 
the  fumes  of  the  puft-ball,  was  in  a  state  suc- 
cessfully to  encounter  any  rival  she  might  dis- 
cover in  performing  the  maternal  duties  of  the  i 
hive.  •  I 

One  thing  more ;  Mr.  Thomas  says  we  can  | 
successfully  introduce  queens  with  chloroform,  i 
after  removing  the  old  queen.  Xow,  may  we  ! 
not  do  it  before  remo\ing  the  old  queen,  on  the  i 
principle  before  stated,  allowing  the  introduced  | 
queen  to  kill  her  rival.     Let  some  one  report. 

John  T.  Rose.     | 

Petersburg.  Moxroe  Co..  Mich.  ' 


In  the  last  number  of  the  Bee  Journal,  Jtlr. 
Hadsell.  of  Breesport,  X.  Y.,  gives  a  brief  ac- 
count of  what  he  saw  and  heard  concerning 
bees,  at  the  State  Fau*  at  Eknira,  in  September 
last. 

I  also  had  the  pleasm-e  of  attending  that  Fair, 
and  must  confess  that  I  found  it  a  very  poor 
place  in  \vliich  to  learn  annhing  about  bees.  I 
saw  there  the  ^Ir.  Graves,  referred  to  by  ^Ir. 
Hadsell.  and  although  he  is  a  man  who  devotes 
his  whole  time  to  bees  and  luves.  selling  -'rights," 
transferring.  »S:c..  I  must  give  him  the  credit  of 
having  some  of  the  most  absurd  ideas  pertaining 
to  the  subject,  of  any  man  I  ever  talked  with, 
who  pretended  to  know  anything  about  it.  If 
he  did  not  profess  to  know  evernhing,  and  at- 
tend such  gatherings  for  the  piupose  of  lecturing 
to  the  multitude,  he  would  be  excusable ;  but  as 
it  is.  I  think  he  is  not. 

For  the  edification  of  any  readers  of  the  Jour- 
nal who  may  not  have  been  present  on  this 
noted  occasion.  I  will  relate  a  portion  of  the 
teachings  of  this  "grave"  man. 

He  had  on  exhibition  a  hive  which  he  called  the 
"Graves  Hive."  It  was,  I  should  judge,  about 
two-tlurds  full  of  coml).  built  moderately  straight 
upon  the  frames ;  and  when  asked  if  he  had  not 
selected  them  from  ditfenMit  hives,  he  answered — 
"  Why.  no.  sirl  You  could  not  do  it.  It  would 
be  impossible!"  "Don't  you  see,"  he  con- 
tniued,  "that  the  tops  of  the  combs  are  thicker 
in  some  places  than  in  others ;  and  that  they  are 
built  wa^'ing  from  one  side  of  the  frame  to  the 
other.  How  are  you  going  to  change  them  ?" 
All  the  answer  we  coidd  make  to  this,  Avas  that 
we  had  been  performing  impossibilities  all  siun- 
mer,  for  what  would  frames  amount  to,  if  you 
could  not  change  them? 

He  then  informed  me  that  though  he  very  sel- 
dom made  use  of  smoke,  and  ncAer  used  a  bee- 
dress,  his  bees  "never  stung  him."  .Just  then, 
a  bee  (which  must  ha-re  belonged  to  some  one 
else,  I  suppose,  as  his  own  had  been  taught  bet- 
ter manners)  gave  him  a  smart  "  dab"  under  the 
eye,  which  caused  Mm  to  suspend  operations  for 
a  few  minutes.  He  said  that  he  had  kept  Italian 
bees,  but  would  have  notlung  more  to  do  ^ith 
them,  as  the  other  bees  would  soon  "rmi  them 
all  out ;"  and  when  asked  to  give  his  reasons  for 
forming  this  opinion,  he  said — "because  there 
are  so  many  more  of  them. 

He  also  informed  us  that  he  practised  artificial 
swarming  altogether,  and  when  requested  to 
give  his  method  of  performing  tlus  operation, 
said  he  simply  "  took  h;xlf  the  combs  and  bees 
from  the  hive,  and  just  put  them  in  a  new  Mve, 
fining  out  with  empty  frames."  We  rather  ob- 
jected to  this  on  account  of  the  amount  of  drone 
comb  that  would  surely  be  built,  if  any  was  built 
before  the  yomig  queen  hatched.  Whereupon 
he  exclaimed  that  tnis  "theory"  was  all  non- 
sense; that  "bees  would  build  worker  comb  just 
as  Avell  without  a  queen  as  with  one!"  This  was 
too  much,  so  we  asked  Mm  if  he  read  the  Bee 
Journal.     "  Xo."  said  he  "  vou  may  read  Bee 


THE    AMEKICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


145 


JoURNAli  all  j'oiu'  life,  and  you  only  get  other 
people*-  ideas:    when,  if  >-i>u   learn  an^-thiug 
about  bees,  you've  got  to  learn  it  yourself  from 
actual  experience.     It  won't  do  to  believe  every-» 
thing,  because  somebody  says  its  so."     We  par-  ' 
tially  agreed  with  him  here,  believing  that  he 
was  "one  of  the  company  referred  to  by  himself  | 
as  "everybody,"  and  hence  took  his  own  Avord  j 
tliat  it  would  not  do  to  believe.  &c.  I 

I.  F.  Tellinghast.      I 

F ACTOR YATXLE.  PA.  | 

For  the  American  Bee  Journal 

Wintering  Fertile  Reserved  Queens. 


For  the  American  Bee  Journal 

The  Honey  Extractor. 


In  the  November  number  of  the  Bee  Jour- 
XAX,  page  9S,  in  the  editorial  appendage  to  I.  F. 
TiUinghast's  communication,  the  editor  says — 
'•  What  is  wanted  is  some  simple  and  efficient 
mode  of  doing  it  AA-itli  a  dozen  or  more  at  one 
operation,  and  A\ith  no  greater  trouble  than  is 
now  incurred  with  one."' 

I  think  it  can  be  done,  and  the  modus  operandi 
is  simple. 

Heretofore  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  Avinter- 
ing  queens  in  their  nucleus  hives,  made  to  hold 
three  frames  from  a  large  hive,  doubling  the 
nucleus  swarms  tAvo  into  one,  and  placing'them 
in  a  Avarm  repository,  3.5°  or  40°  Falu-enheit,  and 
all  was  right. 

But  I  am  now  preparing  to  Avintei;  scA'eral  in 
one  large  colony,  having  more  queens  than  I  can 
make  strong  nucleus  swarms.  The  cages  are 
made  in  a  frame  AAith  strips  half  an  inch  thick, 
and  as  broad  as  the  frame  pieces,  and  placed  Ij 
inches  apart.  Put  the  tii'st  strips  horizontal 
^^ith  the  frame.  Ik  inches  either  from  the  top  or 
bottom  of  the  frame,  and  nail  through  the  end 
pieces  of  the  frame  into  the  ends  of  the  strips. 
In  the  same  manner  fill  the  frame  v^ith  strips  1^ 
Inches  apart.  Xoav  cut  yoiu-  cross  bars  1^  inches 
long,  and  side  them  standing  on  end  betAveen 
the  horizontal  strips.  lA  or  tAA'o  inches  apart,  as 
you  like  best,  until  the  frame  is  full,  or  as  fuUas 
you  dare  cage  queens,  approaching  the  ends,  top, 
and  bottoni  of  the  frame. 

NoAV  cover  the  frame  on  one  side  Avith  wire 
cloth,  tacking  it  fii-mlytoeach  strip  to  hold  them 
in  place. 

As  the  queens  are  caged,  a  square  piece  of 
\vire  cloth.  coA^ering  the  mouth  of  each  cage  on 
the  opposite  side  "of  the  frame  is  tacked  on. 
"VMien  the  cages  are  all  full  except  one.  capture 
the  queen  of  a  Aery  populous  colony  in  a  large 
hiAe.  and  put  her  in  the  empty  cage.  Xow  re- 
moAC  a  fi-ame  from  the  center  of  the  hiAe,  and  if 
necessary  to  cause  the  bees  to  cluster  from  end 
to  end  of  the  frames,  condense  them  by  croAvd- 
ing  them  to  one  side  of  the  hiA-e  Avith  the  diAid- 
ing  board,  and  insert  your  frame  of  caged  queens 
in  place  of  the  one  reiuoAed:  and  as  soon  as  the 
weather  is  sufficiently  cool,  place  the  liive  in  a 
Avarm.  dry  repository,  of  the  temperature  of 
about  3.5°  or  40°  F..  and  I  will  risk  the  queens 
coming  out  right  in  the  spring.  Should  the  re- 
sult be  different.  I  shall  exclaim-^"  As  in  all 
other  things,  theory  must  fjxU  when  practice 
demonstrates  the  opposite.'' 

A.  SALISBrRT. 

C  AMAR(K).  Llls..  Nov.  8.  1869. 


I  had  my  fii-st  experience  A\ith  this  macliine 
last  season,  and  found  that  it  is  just  the  thing  for 
beekeepers. 

I  employed  it  but  little  in  my  own  apiaiy,  but 
used  it  for  other  beekeepers  enough  to  satisfy 
myself  that  all  Avho  keep  bees  should  haA'e  one 
of  them,  if  they  desii-e  to  make  a  sure  thing  to 
liaAe  honey  enough  for  their  OAvn  use. 

A  beekeeper  called  to  see  me  one  day  in  June 
last,  and  said  his  bees  Avould  not  Avork  in  the 
boxes,  and  desired  me  to  bring  my  machine  and 
take  the  honey  out  of  aU  his  hives.  I  tUd  so.  I 
opened  every  M\e  he  had,  took  out  all  the 
frames,  brushed  the  bees  off  into  the  cap,  and 
AA'ith  a  sharp  knife  uncapped  all  the  cells  of  the 
combs.  I  then  reraoAcd  the  honey  with  my  ex- 
tractor, which  Avorked  like  a  charm. 

The  hives  operated  upon  Avere  the  shalloAv 
Langstroth  form ;  some  of  the  combs  were 
crooked,  and  eight  out  of  every  ten  contained 
sealed  and  unsealed  brood;  but  neither  the 
brood  nor  the  combs  AAcre  injured,  and  the  bees 
worked  next  day  just  as  though  nothing  had 
happened. 

This  fall  I  examined  those  Ma'cs,  and  all  of 
them  had  enough  honey  to  keep  them  ten 
months.  Each  of  the  hives  Avas  heavier  than 
some  that  Avere  not  touched  at  all  diu-ing  the 
season. 

My  adAice  to  beekeepers  AA'ho  have  trouble  in 
getting  surplus  honey,  is,  to  purchase  or  make 
and  use  a  honey  macliine.  With  the  aid  of  my 
fumigator.  I  have  no  trouble  in  opening  the 
largest  stock  of  bees,  and  taking  the  honey  from 
them.  Hexry  Ajlley. 

WENHA3I,  :^LA_SS. 


For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 

Artificial  Swarms. 


I  make  artificial  SAvarms  thas  :  Take  a  luA'e 
of  bees  strong  enough  in  nimibers  to  make  a 
strong  sAvarm^  On  a  pleasant  day,  AAhen  large 
numbers  are  out  at  work,  remoA-e  it  from  its 
stand,  and  set  the  new  hive  in  its  place  Avith  the 
frames  all  in  the  right  position.  Then  take  out 
the  combs,  one  by  one,  and  A\ith  a  feather  brush 
all  the  bees  and  the  queen  oil'  of  all  the  combs, 
doA\-n  on  a  sheet  or  board  in  front  of  the  neAv  or 
prepared  hive,  so  that  they  may  run  up  hill  into 
it.  Put  the  comb  frames  depriAed  of  bees  into 
an  emptA'  hive  as  they  are  brushed  off,  being 
careful  not  to  leave  a  single  bee  on  them. 
AMien  all  are  in,  remoA'e  some  other  strong  hive 
from  its  stand  to  some  other  place,  and  in  its 
stead  set  the  hive  containing  the  combs  A\'ithout 
bees.  Then  put  a  fertile  queen  caged  betAA-een 
tAvo  brood  combs  in  this  hive,  near  the  centre, 
and  let  her  remain  thu-  two  or  thi-ee  days., 
Then  release  the  queen,  and  the  Avork  is  done. 
Bees  enough  Avill  come  from  the  removed  hiA-e 
to  the  old  stand  to  take  care  of  the  brood  and 
queen.  In  a  few  days  the  old  hive  aaIU  be 
strong  in  bees.  The  swarm  brushed  oflf  the 
combs  AA-ill  of  course  be  a  strong  one.  The 
brushing  ofl'  of  all  the  bees  was  suggested  to  me 
by  Mr.  K.  C.  Otis.  P.  W.  McFatridge. 

Carthage.  Ikd. 


lU 


TEE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


For  the  American 


Introducing  Queens,   and    he  Honey-    | 
Emptier.  | 


For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 

A  Non-fertile  Queen  Bee. 


^Ir.  Editor  : — As  your  correspondent,  W. 
C.  Condit,  wishes  some  of  the  correspondents  of 
the  Bee  journal  to  give  their  experience  in 
introducing  queens  with  grated  nutmeg,  I  would 
inform  him  tliat  I  have  introduced  a  good  many 
queens  this  season  in  that  manner.  If  done  in 
the  morning  or  evening  I  liave  been  very  suc- 
cessful ;  taut  in  the  middle  of  the  day,  or  when 
there  were  maiiy  taees  out  in  the  field,  I  have 
not,  been  so  successful. 

Bees  liere  have  done  very  well  the  latter  part 
of  the  season,  or  dm-ing  August  and  September. 
The  early  part  of  the  season  having  been  wet 
and  cold,  there  was  no  white  clover  or  basswood 
honey  secured  in  surplus  boxes ;  taut  the  taees 
gathered  enough  to  keep  the  queen  tareeding 
very  rapidly,  and  taees  generally  swarmed  a 
great  deal.  Stocks  that  did  not  swarm  gave 
good  returns  in  surplus. 

I  used  the  honey  machine  on  one  hive,  and 
got  two  hundred  and  eighteen  (218)  pounds  of 
honey,  as  follows : 

July  7 16J  K) 

'^    28 6  " 

August  14 27}  " 

'?       21 351  ^• 

"       27 34  " 

September  G 33  " 

11 28^  " 

21 37  " 


And  I  could  have  got  more  if  I  had  emyloyed 
tlie  machine  oftener.  I  would  not  be  without 
the  lioney  machine  for  three  times  what  it  cost ; 
but  it  should  be  made  of  tin  or  zinc,  because 
wood  absorbs  so  much  honey  that  it  will  soon 
som-  in  warm  weather,  however  careful  you 
may  be  with  it. 

I  can  say  to  friend  GaUnp  that  there  are 
plenty  of  tiiose  "  sliallow  things  "  in  use  in  this 
part  of  the  west,  and  some  as  sliallow  as  seven 
inches — that  is,  seven  inches  depth  of  frame. 
These  shallo^v  things  give  more  surplus  in 
boxes  than  the  deep  hive ;  taut  the  shallowx'st 
ones  have  to  be  vdntered  in  doors. 

R.  K.  Murphy. 

Fulton,  Ills.,  Dec.  9. 


•  While  Huber  resided  at  Cour,  and  after- 
wards at  Vevay,  his  bees  sull^red  so  much  from 
scanty  pasturage,  that  he  could  only  preserve 
them  by  feeding,  although  stocks  that  were  taut 
two  miles  from'  him  were,  in  each  case,  storing 
their  hives  ataundantly. 


Small  ants  sometime  make  their  nests  about 
hives,  to  have  the  benefit  of  their  warmtli,  and 
neither  molest  the  bees  nor  are  molested  by 
them. 


At  the  beginning  of  August,  tlfis  year,  I  re- 
moved an  extra  nice  queen  from  a  colony  of 
Italian  taees,  for  the  purpose  of  getting  queen 
cells  started.  On  examination,  on  the  ninth 
day,  I  found  only  two  sealed  queen  cells,  with 
quite  a  large  amount  of  tarood  still  unsealed. 
To  ascertain  whether  the  taees  would  taiuld  any 
more  queen  cells  and  could  raise  a  good  queen, 
I  took  away  both  of  those  sealed  cells.  Two 
days  later,  I  found  only  one  more  sealed  queen 
cell,  from  which  in  due  time  a  fine  large  queen 
hatched ;  but  she  never  laid  an  egg,  thougli  all 
the  other  young  queens  matui-e  at  that  time 
became  fertile  in  due  season.  I  therefore  con- 
cluded to  kill  her,  to  make  room  for  a  better 
one.  On  catching  her  by  the  mugs,  however, 
she  made  a  motion,  tlie  same  as  workers  do,  to 
sting  me — thrusting  out  lier  sting,  from  which 
was  suspended  as  large  a  drop  of  poison  as  is 
seen  on  tlie  sting  of  a  worker  in   sucli  case. 

On  several  other  occasions,  queens  raised  in 
such  post  festum  built  royal  cells,  became  fei-tile 
indeed,  but  soon  tm-ned  drohe  layers.  And  in 
a  number  of  instances  J  have  had  queens  super- 
seded when  onlj^  a  week  or  ten  days  old,  for 
some  similar  reason  undoubtedly. 

Adam  Grimm. 

Jefferson,  Wis.,  Dec.  8.  1869. 


For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 


Chilling   Brood. 


jVIr.  Editor: — I  think  that  young  brood  is 
not  so  easily  chilled,  by  exposure  to  cold,  as 
many  suppose ;  as  I  have  taeeii  told  tay  experi- 
enced taeekeepers  tiiat  it  would  not  do  to  take  a 
sheet  of  tarood  out  of  a  hive  luiless  the  Aveather 
was  quite  v\'arm. 

Having  in  one  of'  my  hives,  last  season,  a 
sheet  of  drone  comta  filled  witli  young  larvae,  I 
thouglit  I  would  kill  the  brood,  in  order  to  have 
the  comb  tilled  with  iioney.  So  I  put  it  into  an 
ice-chest  and  left  it  there  for  about  thirty  hours, 
where  the  temperature  was  not  far  from  the 
freezing  point.  Supposing  everything  dead,  I 
put  it  into  the  Mve.  But  oil  looking  at  it  next 
day,  I  found  tliat  not  one  was  hurt. 

T  then  ])laced  it  in  an  empty  hi^-e,  and  in  that 
burned  a  piece  of  brimstone,  leaving  it  for  about 
an  liour.  On  close  examination  I  found  that 
there  were  still  a  few  live  larvae  in  it.  I  then 
gave  it  auotlier  brirastoning,  which  finished 
them.  I  returned  it  to  the  hive,  and  in  a  few 
hours  the  taees  had  it  cleaned  out,  and  were 
putting  in  honey. 

Lester  Carpenter. 

Kelley's  Island,  Ohio. 


Huber  demonstrated  that  taees  have  an  ex- 
ceedingly acute  sense  of  smell,  and  that  un- 
pleasant* odors  quickly  excite  their  anger. 


THE  AxMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


147 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 
washi:n'gton,  January,  isro. 

Special  Premiums  and  Club  Terms. 

THE  HORTICULTURIST  AND  THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


By  special  arrangement,  we  offer  The  Horticultur- 
ist, published  by  Henry  T.  Williams,  New  York,  as  a 
premium  for  Ave  new  subscribers  to  the  American  Bee 
Journal  ;  or  will  offer  The  Horticulturist  and  the 
American  Bee  Journal  on  club  terms,  together,  for 
$3  75,  (full  price  being  $4  50),  each  club  subscriber  being 
entitled  to  a  choice  steel-plate  engraving.  Country 
Life,  and  a  copy  of  Adair's  Annals  of  Bee  Culture. 

We  commend  The  Horticulturist  to  the  attention  of 
lovers  of  fruits,  flowers,  and  rural  embellishments. 
Having  been  greatly  improved  this  year,  it  will  be  found 
one  of  the  best  and  most  valuable  horticultural  journals 
published  in  the  United  States. 


Ohio   Bee-keepers'  Convention. 


We  are  requested  to  announce  that,  in  accordance 
with  the  adjournment  at  Toledo,  the  Ohio  Beekeepers' 
Convention  wU  meet  in  Cleveland,  Ohio,  on  Wednesday, 
January  13, 1870,  at  10  o'clock  A.  M.,  at  the  City  Hotel, 
where  rooms  have  been  offered  free  for  the  accommoda- 
tion of  the  meeting.  A  general  attendance  of  Ohio 
beekeepers  is  solicited ;  and  persons  engaged  or  inter- 
ested in  bee  culture  in  other  States  are  cordially  invited 
to  be  present  and  participate  in  the  proceedings. 


The  Poulbrood  Controversy. 


We  have  received  from  the  Baroness  of  Berlepsch  and 
Mr.  Lambrecht,  some  additional  communications  re- 
specting the  foulbrood  theories  of  the  latter  and  Dr. 
Preuss;  but  having  already  published  in  detail  the 
views  of  the  subject  entertained  by  both  parties,  we 
cannot  afford  to  devote  further  space  to  discussions  in- 
volving no  direct  practical  results.  Mr.  Lambrecht,  in 
addition  to  his  theoretical  speculations,  gave  what  he 
regarded  as  a  practical  domonstration  of  the  correct- 
ness of  the  position  assumed  by  him,  and  of  the  efficacy 
of  his  curative  process.  Tins  we  promptly  submitted  to 
the  judgment  of  our  readers,  stating  at  the  same  time 
that  its  validity  was  questioned  by  those  who  do  not 
accept  the  theory.  If  now  Dr.  Preuss.  or  any  of  his 
apiarian  friends,  will  favor  the  beekeeping  community 
with  evidence  of  his  ability  to  cure  the  disease  in  accord- 
ance with  his  theory  of  its  cause  or  source,  we  shall 
take  great  pleasure  in  placing  the  facts  before  the  read- 
ers of  the  Journal,  and  do  so  promptly.  We  desire  to 
see  both  theories  so  subjected  to  the  test  of  actual  ex- 
periment that  the  issue  may  clearly  and  conclusively 
settle  the  validity  a»d  availability  of  the  mejins  em- 
ployed; and  we  shall  certainly  not  withhold  cordial 
commendation  from  him  whose  remedial  process  suc- 
cessfully abides  this  test— and  if  both  prove  efflcacions, 
the  benefit  accruing  therefrom  to  practical  bee  culture 


wiU  be  only  the  greater  and  more  gi-atifying.  It  is  a 
homely  adage,  but  none  the  less  pointed,  that  ''the  proof 
of  the  pudding  is  in  the  eating  of  it.^' 

4®^ Just  as  we  write  this,  we  receive  from  an  esteemed 
distant  correspondent  the  following  statement  of  the 
occurrence  of  foulbrood  in  his  apiary,  and  of  tlie  mode 
of  its  origination.  Without  stopping  now  to  investi- 
gate the  bearing  of  the  facts  in  this  case  on  the  several 
theories  in  question— we  hope  to  hear,  early,  that  the 
malady  has  been  arrested  and  subdued. 


Mr.  Editor  :— I  have  foulbrood  in  six  hives.  I  am 
sure  of  it,  although  I  never  saw  it  before.  And  the 
worst  of  all  is,  I  am  confident  I  produced  it  myself.  I 
cut  a  bee  tree  in  September  last.  The  tree  was  a  large 
oak— mashed  up  badly.  I  scooped  up  out  of  the  hollow, 
several  buckets  of  comb,  dead  bees,  pollen,  &c.,  intend- 
ing to  have  it  strained  up ;  but  putting  it  in  a  store- 
room, overlooked  it  for  several  days;  at  the  end  of 
which  time  it  was  reported  to  me  as  being  in  a  state 
of  fermentation.  I  ordered  it,  without  thinking,  to  be 
thrown  out— which  was  done.  Passing  near  the  place 
some  hours  afterwards,  I  noticed  thousands  of  bees  at 
work,  cai-rying  it  awav.  I  did  not  think  of  what  I  had 
done,  until  several  weeks  afterwaros,  I  noticed  in  open- 
ing a  hive  near  this  place  a  horrible  stench,  unlike  any- 
thine  in  the  odor  line  I  had  ever  met  with  before.  Upon 
examination,  I  found  the  hive  full  of  dead  brood.  I  ex- 
amined  and  found  six  in  the  same  condition.  I  removed 
a  comb  to  a  study  hive,  and  placing  a  very  prolific 
queen  in  it,  found  that  only  a  few  bees  matured  of  the 
many  hundreds  that  were  sealed  up  apparently  in  good 
condition.  This  study  hive  I  placed  in  my  parlor  window, 
and  the  stench  arising  from  it  was  so  great  that  I  could 
scarcely  remai  n  in  the  room.  I  can  now  distinguish  the 
peculiar  odor  several  feet  from  the  hives  affected,  al- 
though there  is  no  young  brood  at  this  time  in  any  of 
them.  What  shall  I  do?  I  have  written  to  Mr.  Lang- 
stroth.  He  says,  burn  hives  and  all.  But  as  these  are 
the  only  frame  hives  I  have,  or  have  ever  seen,  I  am  loth 
to  burn  them.  I  have  tnem  three  miles  from  any  others, 
and  would  be  glad  if  you,  or  any  of  your  readers,  could 
suggest  a  cure  by  which  I  may  preserve  both  bees  and 
hives.  I  am  willing  to  sacrifice  the  comb.  Our  bees 
are  out  now  almost  every  day.  They  are  not  often  con- 
fined in  this  latitude  longer  than  a  week  at  any  time 
during  the  winter. 

W.  H.  MOKGAN. 

Shell  Blutf,  Yazoo  Eiver,  Miss.,  Dec.  3, 1869. 


Correspondence  of  the  Bee  Journal. 


Lima,  Ohio,  Nov.  22.— Bees  have  done  poorly  again 
this  season,  it  having  rained  almost  constantly  up  to 
July  20.  But  August  was  good,  and  bees  have  generally 
filled  their  hives  and  are  in  good  wintering  condition. 
The  Italians  swarmed  enough,  and  made  some  surplus 
honey;  while  of  the  black  bees  not  one  stock  in  twenty 
have  swarmed  at  all,  and  made  nosui'plus.- S.  Sanford. 

Monmouth,  Ills.,  Nov.  22.— We  have  had  a  severe 
snow  storm  here  during  the  past  ten  days.  To-day  it 
began  to  thaw.  Bees  are  In  fine  condition  for  winter- 
ing, in  regard  to  the  amount  of  honey.  I  increased  my 
stock  one  and  one  third,  and  made  them  average  me 
one  hundred  and  ten  (110)  pounds  to  the  stand— which 
I  think  is  doing  preity  well.— T.  G.  McGaw. 

Upperville,  Va.,  Nov.  22.— I  intended  a  rather  curi- 
ous present  for  you  a  few  days  ago.  A  colored  man 
found  a  swarm  of  bees  which  had  built  a  considerable 
quantity  of  comb  on  the  under  side  of  a  limb  of  a  tree, 
It  must  have  gone  there  very  early  in  the  spring,  judg- 
ing from  the  quantity  of  comb  built.  I  made  a  glass 
box,  intending  to  saw  the  limb  off  on  each  side  of  the 
comb  and  fasten  it  in  the  box.  But  unfortunately  some 
one  went  there,  and  as  a  matter  of  course  broke  it  to 
pieces.  The  foliage  on  the  trees  prevented  it  fi'om  being 
found  sooner.  I  should  have  been  pleased  if  I  could 
hav«  procured  it  all  safe,  and  sent  it  to  you  as  a  curi- 
osity.— H.  W.  White. 

JSS'We  knew  of  a  similai'  instance  about  twenty  years 
ago,  and  in  that  case  also  the  combs  were  broken  and 
the  ewarm  destroyed  in  the  attempt  to  remove  it.— Ed. 


148 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE   JOURNAL. 


Glendale,  Ohio,  Nov.  25.— Bees  have  done  remar^fflft/;/ 
well  with  us  the  past  season,  making  a  very  large  yield 
of  honey.  I  notice  that  mine  have  their  combs  so  full 
of  honev,  that  1  fear  there  is  not  enoufih  empty  comb 
for  them  to  winter  on.  I  have  the  Italian  bees,  which  I 
obtained  from  Mr.  Langstroth,  and  find  them  greatly 
superior  to  the  common  bee.  In  the  neighborhood  of 
my  bees  one  could  see  scores  of  them,  at  almost  any  spot, 
on  the  red  clover,  in  July  and  August.  During  that 
time,  which  is  unusual  here,  comb-building  went  on 
briskly,  and  much  honey  was  stored. 


I  shall  have  to  defer  my  report  ou  bee  pasturage  to 
another  season,  on  account  of  losing  my  memoranda. 
It  is  to  be  hoped  that  we  shall  have  manr  other  reports 
on  bee  pasturage,  in  addition  to  the  valuable  ones  we 
have  already  had,  in  the  Journal,  from  several  sources. 
I  hope  to  ada  mine  another  year.— John  Husset 


CONSTANTiA,  N.  Y.,  Nov.  29.— Bec  culture,  in  this  part 
of  the  State  of  New  York,  has  been  a  failure  the  past 
season,  on  account  of  so  much  wet  weather :  and  a  num- 
ber of  beekeepers  will  have  to  feed  their  bees  this 
winter.  From  eighteen  good  swarms  of  black  bees  I 
did  not  get  ten  pounds  of  honey.— W.  Sheldon. 


Watebville,  Vt.,  Nov.  30.— Bees  have  not  done  very 
well  around  here  this  season,  on  account  of  the  weather 
being  so  cold  and  wet  during  tke  entire  period.  Swarms 
ware  late;  few  coming  off  before  July  1st.  Box  honey 
is  scarce,  there  having  been  little  taken  off  in  this 
neighborhood.  There  is  quite  a  number  of  beekeepers 
around  here,  whose  be«3  are  now  dying  from  starvation. 
The  bees  have  been  living  on  their  winter  stores  since 
August  16th— consuming  on  an  average  about  twelve 
(12)  pounds,  each,  since  that  date ;  and  unless  fed  many 
will  starve  before  spring.  We  have  now  fully  four 
months  to  keep  our  bees  in,  before  they  can  fly. 

Bee  culture  is  in  a  rude  state  about  here.  There  are 
only  two  persons  in  this  neighborhood  keeping  bees  in 
movable  comb  hives— myself  being  one  of  them.  I 
made  me  a  "honey  emptying  machine"  last  \vinter,  and 
people  looked  upon  it  with  wonder,  and  wanted  to  know 
where  I  found  such  a  thing  as  that,  saying  they  had 
kept  bees  for  twenty  years  and  never  heard  of  the  like 
of  it  before.— O.  P.  Codding,  Apiarian. 


Albany,  Ills.,  Nov.  17.— My  bees  have  done  very  well 
this  season.  I  had  ten  stocks  in  the  spring,  and'  now 
hare  twenty-flve,  all  in  good  condition  for  winter.  My 
best  stock  swarmed  twice  and  filled  fourteen  six-pound 
boxes.  The  first  swarm  came  off  June  4th.  I  filled  the 
hive  with  empty  combs.  The  second  swarm  came  off 
June  12th,  and  filled  eight  six-pound  boxes.  The  first 
swarm  swarmed  twice  and  filled  eight  six-pound  boxes. 
The  first  of  tliese  swarms  came  off  July  9th,  and  filled 
three  and  almost  the  fourth  six-pound  boxes.  The  sec- 
ond came  off  August  5th. 

The  four  swarms  at  85  each  make  S20 :  and  two  hun- 
dred pounds  of  box  honey  at  25  cents  per  pound  make 
$50— the  increase  of  stock  and  the  honey  making  to- 
gether 870.  If  I  had  a  iioney  emptying  machine,  I  could 
take  iO  or  75  pounds  more. 

T*ie  bees  in  this  vicinity  gathered  honey  abundantly 
up  to  the  2(5th  of  September.  The  original  stock  above- 
mentioned  commenced  storing  honey  while  th«  cherry 
trees  were  in  blossom.— Andrew  Bters- 


DO'S'ER,  N.  H.,  Dec.  3.— Next  in  importance  to  my  reli- 
gious papers,  do  I  consider  the  Bee  Journal.  I  am 
unwlfing  to  do  without  it.  Bees  have  not  done  as  well 
this  season,  as  for  two  seasons  previous:  y»t  the  intelli- 
gent beekeeper  can  receive  ample  compensation  in  sea- 
sons like  this  for  his  time  and  expenses.  Within  please 
find  two  dollars  for  the  Bee  Journal.— Jesse  Meader. 


Birmingham,  Iowa,  Nov.  29.— I  neglected  to  toll  you 
in  my  last  note,  that  although  my  bees  did  well  this  sea- 
son, and  have  atpresent  more  honey  than  they  need  for  ■ 
winter,  yet  the  colonies  contain  fewer  bees  "than  they 
did  at  this  time  last  season.  The  honey  harvest  was 
very  abundant  here  from  August  13th  bill  October  1st, 
and  the  queens  had  very  little  space  to  lay  in  during 
that  time:  hence  the  small  colonies  at  present.  I  have 
always  wintered  my  bees  out  of  doors,  but  1  reallv  fear, 
from  tne  present  condition  of  my  stocks,  that  if  the 


coming  wintei-  is  very  severe,  I  shall  lose  a  goad  many. 
—John  Locke. 


Niagara.  Canada,  Dec.  10.— I  found  the  last  a  very 
poor  season.  The  bees  increased  sutBciently,  but  honey 
was  very  scarce.  I  had  not  one  box  filled,  and  had  to 
reduce  my  stock  to  the  number  I  started  with  in  spring. 
F.  G.  Nash. 

Hartland,  Vt.,  Dec.  14  —The  past  season  was  the 
poorest  that  we  have  experienced.  Bees  have  been 
dying  about  here  ever  since  the  10th  of  August.  We 
have  kept  bees  four  years,  wintered  them  in  our  house 
cellar,  and  have  lost  only  one  swarm  since  we  began 
keeping  bees.  We  have  now  upwards  of  thirty  stocks 
in  our  cellar :  but  I  am  afraid  that  we  shall  not  be  able 
to  say  next  spring  that  we  never  lost  but  one  swarm. 
As  we  were  anxious  to  keep  our  number  full,  we  fed 
tliose  that  needed  it  instead  of  un'ting  them  as  we 
should  have  done.  Breeding  not  having  been  carried 
on  to  any  great  extent,  about  here,  alter  the  20th  of 
July,  our  colonies  are  not  as  populous  as  they  usually 
were  in  the  fall  of  the  year.  The  past  season  will  un- 
doubtedly prove  rather  discouraging  to  many  new 
beginners,  out  not  to  us.  Beekeeping  always  has  bee» 
attended  with  now  and  then  a  poor  season;  and  there- 
fore we  anticipate  to  have  plenty  of  box  and  machine 
honey  next  .season.— Geo.  M.  D.  iltrGGLES. 


North  Bennington,  Vt.,  Nov.  14.— I  have  read  your 
valuable  Journal  for  the  last  two  years,  with  a  great 
deal  of  interest,  and  prize  it  very  much.  I  would  not 
do  without  it  for  double  the  cost :  all  the  fault  is,  it  does 
not  come  often  enough. 

I  have  been  very  much  interested  in  bees  tor  a  num- 
ber of  years,  but  never  owned  any  till  the  fall  of  1868. 
I  then  bought  fourteen  colonies  in  box  hives,  all  Ital- 
ians but  six,  and  those  were  liybrid.  I  had  those  six 
Italianized  by  Mr.  Carey,  of  Coleraine,  Mass.  They 
produced  finely  marked  workers,  but  the  queens  did  not 
seem  to  be  very  prolific.  Five  of  them  have  died  off. 
I  wish  to  tell  you  of  a  caper  one  of  those  swarms  played 
last  spring,  in  May,  when  there  was  only  about  a  quart 
of  black  bees  left  in  the  hive,  the  rest  being  Italians  I 
went  through  the  apiary  in  the  afternoon,  and  just  at 
night;  and  all  was  quiet  enough.  Next  morning,  when 
it  was  hardly  light,  I  came  to  this  hive,  and  lo !  the 
Italians  had  gone  to  work  in  the  night  and  killed  every 
black  bee  in  the  hive.  When  they  had  got  through  they 
went  to  work  as  quietly  and  regularly  as  though  civil 
war  was  perfectly  right.  I  know  toey  were  not  robbed, 
for  my  other  bees  were  not  out,  nor  those  of  my  neigh- 
bors. 

I  wintered  my  bees  in  the  house,  or  tried  to;  but  in 
February  I  had  to  take  them  out,  as  they  had  become 
uneasy— it  being  very  warm  for  two  or  three  days.  I 
carried  them  out  in  the  evening  and  gave  them  air,  but 
did  not  let  them  fly  till  next  day :  then  they  did  not  all 
rush  out  at  once.  I  have  had  a  building  erected  to 
house  them  in  this  winter.  It  is  14  feet  by  18,  with 
eleven  feet  posts,  thus  giving  me  a  nice  warm  room  to 
work  in  when  bees  are  not  in,  and  a  place  overhead  to 
store  hives,  boxes,  lumber,  &c.  It  i'<  vei"y  handy,  and  I 
would  not  do  without  it  for  the  8126  which  it  cost.  Nov- 
ice will  agree  with  me  when  his  beehouse  is  built. 

I  am  going  ro  adopt  frame  hives,  for  1  see  plainly  that 
we  are  behind  the  times  in  beekeeping  here,  where  no 
such  hives  are  yet  used.  The  bee  fever  ran  very  high 
here  last  spring,  as  bees  did  well.  There  being  an 
abundance  of  fruit  blossoms,  they  began  to  swarm 
early;  then  followed  a  cola  and  rainy  spell,  raining 
about  all  the  time  the  white  clover  was  in  bloom.  My 
Italians  got  a  chance  to  work  on  red  clover  a  few  days, 
and  they  lugged  in  honey  lively.  That,  I  think,  was 
what  saved  them.  I  do  not  get  any  box  honey ;  but  I 
know  of  some  beekeepers— not  apiarians  by  any  means 
—who  have  brimstoned  from  ten  to  twenty  swarms  of 
black  bees  at  a  time,  for  want  of  honey.  By  the  way, 
prices  of  bees  are  vei-y  low  in  this  vicinity  this  fall.  I 
heard  a  man  offer  46  swarms,  200  boxes,  and  a  lot  of 
hives,  for  $4  50  per  swarm.  He  could  not  give  them  to 
me.  He  has  kept  bees  a  nmnber  of  years,  and  supposes 
it  is  time  for  him  to  run  out ;  and  I  guess  he  or  any 
other  man  will  that  buys  bees  up  North  cheap,  where 
they  get  foulbrood  as  they  have  it  in  that  yard. 

I  send  you  this,  as  I  have  never  seen  any  article  from 
beekeepers  in  this  quarter,  in  the  Bee  Journal.  In- 
closed you  wll  find  two  dollars,  for  renewal  of  subscrip- 
tion. Wishing  you  and  all  beekeepers  success,  I  am 
yours  truly. 

C.  H.  Babsett. 


American  Bee  Journal. 

EDITED  AND  PUBLISPIED  BY  SAMUEL  WAGNER,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

AT  TWO  DOLLARS  PER  ANJS^UM,  PAYABLE  IN  ADVANCE, 


Vol.  V. 


riE:BR,XJA.I^^%     IS^O. 


No.  8. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Experiences,  Observations,  Experiments, 
and  Results. 


The  readers  of  the  Journal  will  recollect  that, 
in  the  fall  of  1868,  I  put  thirty-three  colouies  of 
bees  in  winter  quarters,  and  also  one  queenless 
stock  which  had  been  reduced  to  about  a  pint  of 
bees.  Some  of  the  said  colonies  were  badly  re- 
duced in  numbers  on  account  of  the  unfavorable 
season.  However,  all  wintered,  and  wintered 
well,  Aviththe  exception  of  two  strong  ones,  which 
I  came  very  near  losing  about  the  first  of  March, 
with  what  some  people  would  call  constipation. 
This  was  in  consequence  of  those  two  colonies 
having  a  large  quantity  of  sumac  honey,  which  is 
of  a  peculiar  bitter  taste  and  a  very  waxy  nature. 
The  remedy  I  used  was  to  give  each  of  them  a 
couple  of  cards  of  good  houej^  from  other  colo- 
nies. This  sumac  honey  answers  a  good  purpose 
at  any  time  when  the  bees  can  fly  out ;  but  is  in- 
jurious if  consumed  when  they  are  confined  to 
their  hive  for  any  length  of  time. 

On  the  24th  of  March,  1809,  I  commenced  set- 
ting out  my  bees.  Every  colony  was  thoroughly 
examined,  and  I  found  two  with  two  qvteens  in 
each.  One  of  these  queens  had  apparently  just 
been  hatched,  as  the  cap  of  the  cell  was  still  at- 
tached to  one  side  of  it,  and  she  looked  very 
young.  The  other  two  queens  were  both  fertile, 
and  I  took  one  of  them  away  to  suppl}'  the  little 
queenless  colony.  This  made  an  increase  of  one 
swarm  during  the  winter.  I  think  this  queenless 
stock,  consisting  of  only  about  a  pint  of  bees,  v.-as 
a  fair  test  of  my  plan  of  ventilation.  I  will  here 
ako  remark  that,  from  observations  made  in  the 
last  two  years,  I  am  satisfied  that  when  we  come 
to  .nvestigate  the  matter  closel}'',  the  presence  of 
two  queens  in  one  hive  will  be  found  not  to  be  so 
rare  an  occurrence  as  was  formerly  supposed.  I 
could  give  several  instances  which  came  under  my 
own  notice  within  said  time. 

Alter  setting  out  the  bees,  equalising  stores,  &c., 
I  commenced  feeding  wheat  flour,  and  they  worked 
on  it  for  thirty  days  in  succession,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  two  days,  when  confined  on  account  of  a 
light  snow.  They  began  carrying  in  pollen  on 
the  17th  of  April,  though  they  still  kept  at  the 


flour  a  while  longer.  On  the  18th  they  carried  in 
a  considerable  quantity  of  honey  from  elm  tree 
blossoms,  and  pollen  from  the  willows  and  pop- 
lars. In  this  time  the  thirty-four  colonies  used 
up  nearly  two  hundred  pounds  of  flour. 

I  kept  on  equalising  brood  and  honey,  and  on 
the  20th  of  May  had  every  colony  in  excellent  con- 
dition. Here  I  will  give  my  memorandum,  just 
as  I  find  it  in  my  diary  : 

April  18. — Bees  gather  large  quantities  of  pollen 
and  some  honey  from  rock  elm  blossoms. 

April  26  and  27.— Cold  rain. 

May  6  to  10. — Rock  or  sugar  maple  in  full 
bloom,  with  excellent  weather  for  bees. 

May  11.— Early  wild  plums  and  wild  red  cher- 
ries in  bloom  ;  weather  excellent.  Then  follows 
a  succession  of  cold  rains,  from  the  north,  to  the 
0th  of  June.  Thus  we  lost  nearly  all  the  benefit 
of  the  wild  plum  and  wild  apple  blossoms. 

June  8. — Nearly  every  colony  has  commenced 
preparations  for  swarming.  Though  not  one  of 
them  had  gathered  sufficient  honey  at  an}-  time  to 
build  a  particle  of  comb,  yet  they  kept  up  brood- 
ing to  the  highest  point.  I  bought  four  swarms 
from  a  neighbor,  and  several  hives  of  empty 
comb.  On  the  ISth  of  May  I  allowed  an  Italian 
swarm  to  issue,  and  gave  it  a  hive  furnished  with 
empty  comb.  On  the  11th  I  allowed  a  swarm  of 
mixed  blood  to  issue,  and  gave  it  likewise  a  hive 
supplied  with  comb.  On  the  18th  I  was  com- 
pelled to  commence  feeding  all  my  blacks  and 
bees  of  mixed  blood  ;  and  continued  feeding  more 
or  less  for  tliirty-five  days  in  succession.  Our 
sumac  was  all  blighted,  and  so  M'ere  the  bass- 
wood  blossoms,  -which  are  our  main  dependence 
for  bee  pasturage  in  July.  The  basswood  pro- 
duced abundantly  from  the  24th  to  28th  of  July — 
just  three  days.  August  was  good  ;  September 
was  better  ;  yet  a  great  proportion  of  the  black 
bees  perished  in  midsummer  for  want  or  food. 
One  of  my  neighbors  had  nine  colonies  last  spring, 
and  has  now  one  good  and  two  poor  ones ;  an- 
other had  six,  and  now  has  three  ;  a  third  had 
thirteen,  and  now  has  three  ;  while  a  fourth  had 
three  stocks  of  nearly  pure  Italians,  and  now  has 
seven,  though  he  lost  two  swarms  by  flight.  He 
also  returned  five  or  six  swarms  to  their  parent 
stocks.  They  kept  issuing  up  to  the  10th  of  Sep- 
tember.    To  my  own  Italians  I  did  not  feed  a 


8 


150 


THE   AMERICAN  BEE   JOURNAL. 


particle,  Avith  the  exception  of  their  using  their 
share  of  the  flour  in  early  spring. 

All  this  time,  while  the  blacks  and  the  mixed 
bloods  were  starving  unless  fed,  my  Italians  were 
rearing  brood  in  abundance,  and  would  have 
swarmed  if  I  had  allowed  it ;  but  they  did  not 
gather  enough  to  induce  them  to  build  a  particle 
of  comb.  If  away  from  home  two  days,  I  would 
find  my  blacks  and  mixed  bloods  helpless  on  my 
return  ;  and  one  strong  stock,  which  by  some 
hocus  pocus.  happened  to  be  overlooked,  was  on 
the  third  day  found  dead  past  redemption.  In 
the  whole  forty  stocks,  Italians  and  all,  there 
■would  on  some  mornings  not  be  a  single  ounce  of 
honey  ;  yet,  in  the  evening,  the  Italians  would 
have  three  or  four  hundred  cells  filled  with  the 
shining  nectar.  My  black  swarm,  that  came  out 
on  the  11th  of  June,  I  returned  to  its  parent  stock 
after  feeding  it  fifteen  days,  as  the  parent  stock 
had  lost  its"  queen.  The  Italians,  that  came  out 
on  tiie  10th,  filled  their  hive  and  stored  forty 
pounds  of  excellent  surplus  honey  Avithout  a  par- 
ticle of  feeding. 

This  was  the  worst  season  for  queen-raishig 
that  I  ever  knew.  Out  of  one  batcli  of  thirty  young 
queens  I  had  four  tliat  were  partially  fertilized, 
three  drone-egg  laying  queens,  and  four  barren 
ones— all  the  rest  were  lost.  Now,  you  will  want 
to  know  about  the  partially  fertilized  ones.  Well, 
they  laid  all  their  eggs  in  worker  cells  and  in 
regular  order  ;  but  a  large  proportion  were  drone 
eggs,  and  all  mixed  promiscuously— say  two  or 
three,  and  sometimes  five  or  six  w^orkers,  and 
then  from  eight  to  ten,  or  at  times  fnnii  fifteen  to 
twenty  drones  ;  and  occasionally  a  solitary  worker 
entirely  surrounded  by  drones,  and  vice  versa. 
Among  this  lot  of  queens  I  had  one  tiuit  laid  an 
abundance  of  eggs,  but  not  one  ever  hatched  !  I 
kept  these  partially  fertilized  queens  forty-five 
days,  and  their  worker-egg  laying  ability  regu- 
larly th  finished,  and  uitionitely  failed  altogether. 
My  disposition  to  experiment  cropped  out  in 
full  force  during  this  time  of  scarcity  ;  and  I  will 
give  the  reader  the  results,  without  going  into 
detail  :  ,  ,  ., 

First.— I  found  that  a  strong  colony,  whjle 
breeding  rapidly,  consumes  two  quarts  of  sweet 
water  per  day. 

Second.— That  sealed  brood,  not  mature,  intro- 
duced into  a  strong  stock  fed  just  sufiicient  to 
keep  the  bees  alive,  would  perish  and  become 
putrid  in  three  days. 

Third.— That  queens  started  in  such  circum- 
stances did  not  mature  under  eighteen  or  twenty, 
and  in  one  case  twenty-four  days. 

Fourth. — That  eggs  introduced  into  a  strong 
colony  fed  barely  sufficient  to  keep  it  trom  starv- 
ing, would  not  hatch  until  the  bees  commenced 
gathering  honey,  or  until  they  were  fed  more 
plentifully. 

Fifth.— Th&t  a  colony  deprived  of  its  queen 
during  such  time  of  scarcity,  and  while  there  was 
no  brood  in  the  cell,  could  not  be  induced  to  ac- 
cept a  queen  cell  in  any  other  manner  than  by 
introducing  eggs,  larvae,  and  unsealed  brood,  and 
feeding  them  abundantly  for  forty-eight  hours. 
Then  the  queen  cell  would  be  accepted.  Under 
other  circumstances  I  kept  colonies  without  a 
queen  eight  days,  and   the  cells  would  be   de- 


stroyed,   in    every    instance,    soon    after    being 
introduced. 

The  result  of  the  season's  operations  is  that  I 
have  made  a  miserable,  and  I  may  say  an  almost 
total,  failure  in  my  endeavor  to  Italiauize  all  my 
stocks.     My  blacks  and  mixed  bloods  have  been 
a  bill  of  expense  to  me  ;  and  I  liave  had  to  use  all 
the  force  and  energy  of  my  Italians  to  get  my 
other    stocks    into   wintering    condition.      Two 
stocks  of  Italians  that  I  did  not  allow  to  swarm, 
and  from  which  I  took  very  little  brood,  have 
stored,  tlie  one  thirty-five  and   the  other  forty 
pounds   of  surplus  honey.     My  Italians  are  all 
extra  heavy  ;  while  the  blacks  and  mixed  bloods, 
after  all  my  feeding  and  strengthening,  are  only 
in  fair  condition,  and  some  of  them  rather  indiff'er- 
ent.     What  I  mean  by  my  mixed  bloods  is,  a  ma- 
jority of  them  are  two-striped.     My  workers  from 
pure  queens,  or  queens  reared  from  pure  mothers 
and  fertilized  by  impure  or   black  drones,  have 
required  very  little  feeding  ;  but  those  raised  from 
impure  mothers,  or  the  two-striped  fellows,  were 
the  greatest  pests,  as  robbers,  I  ever  saw.     They 
intruded  into  the  house,  into  the  pans  of  milk,  on 
the  table,  into  your  pies,  sauce,  and  everything 
eatable.     They  even  endeavored  to  rob  the  pure 
three-striped  Italians,  and  were  eager  to  rush  into 
all  manner  of  mischief;  whereas  I  would  ahnost 
warrant  a  pure  colony  to  mind  its  own  business. 
I  will  remark  here  that  I  think  it  is  the  impure 
Italians  that  have  given  the  pure  their  bad  name 
for  robbing,  &c.     The  reason  why  I  have  kept 
such  fellows  heretofore  was  because  prominent 
bee-keepers  have  informed  me  that  on  the  whole 
they  considered  them  the  most  profitable  ;  and 
the  seasons  of  1867  and  lbG8  had  almost  con- 
vinced me  that  they  were  correct.     But  tliis  season 
has  got  me  altogether  out  of  conceit  of  the  little 
rascals.     Mr.  H.  Faul,  of  Council  Bluffs,  thinks 
I  may  have  queens  to  sell.     Well,  I  will  sell  him 
some  of  those  hybrids  mighty  cheap  next  spring, 
since  he  likes  them  so  well  and  I  do  not  ;  or  I 
will  trade  with  him  for  pure  ones.     (See  what  he 
says  about  Gallup  in  one  of  the  back  numbers  of 
the  Bee  Journal.)     Understand  that  I  arn  by 
no   means   discouraged ;    for   if    I   have   gained 
nothing   else,  I   have   become   satisfied  on  some 
points  that  I  have  long  felt  an  interest  in  solving 
for  my  own  satisfaction.     See  my  second  state- 
ment above.     I  have  long  thought  that  brood 
perishing  as   there   stated,  in   consequence  of  a 
lack  of  animal  heat,  might  be  what  some  people 
call  foulbrood,  or  might  be  the  cause  and  source 
of  that  disease.  Elisha  Gallup. 

Osage,  loica. 

[For  tlie  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Pollen  as  Bee  Feed. 


I 


Mr.  Editor  :— I  beg  leave  to  clip  from  our 
country  dail}^  if  you  think  it  Avorth  insertion 
in  your  columns,  the  following  article  on  bee 
feeding : 

FEEDING  BEES. 

"  It  is  sometimes  very  difficult  to  enable  bees 
to  live  through  the  Avinter,  OAving  to  the  ex- 
haustion of  their  store.  The  bee-bread  is  their 
special  feed,  and  that  is  decidedly  better  for  them 
than  the  pure,  liquid  honey.      It  appears  to  be 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


151 


more  nutritious,  and  the  same  quantity  sustains 
them  longer.  Tliey  do  not  feed  ui)on  the  honey 
till  the  bee-bread  is  consumed.  When  they  do 
begin  upon  the  honey  they  devour  it  very  rap- 
idly. The  following  experience  may  be  of  advan- 
tage to  apiarians  : 

"  Some  years  since,  during  the  latter  part  of 
■winter,  the  bees  were  discovered  to  be  dying.  No 
cause  could  be  detected  for  some  time.  In  the 
loft  of  the  kitchen  there  was  a  quantity  of  the 
honey  locust.  One  day  the  bees  were  seen  fall- 
ing from  the  garret  to  the  floor  beueatli.  This 
suggested  the  idea  of  their  trouble.  They  were 
perishing  for  food,  and  had  found  the  locusts,  and 
were  trying  to  feed  upon  them.  Closer  examina- 
tion showed  that  they  were  very  week  and  poor, 
appearing  unusually  small.  Tlie  spring  was  so 
near  at  hand  with  its  flowers  that  they  did  not 
need  to  be  pensioners  long.  They  were  saved 
with  the  following  food  :  Water,  sweetened  with 
molasses,  dried  fruit  stewed  and  cut  into  small 
pieces,  and  put  in  the  water.  Take  out  the  empty 
comb  carefully  and  fill  it  Avith  this,  and  put  it  in 
the  gum  or  near  the  entrance.  Tli^  little  creatures 
seemed  to  appreciate  the  kindness  chat  saved  them 
in  their  extremity.  They  would  gather  around 
the  kind  friend  as  their  little  repast  was  brought 
to  them,  just  as  chickens  gather  about  the  one 
who  feeds  them,  and  they  showed  no  disposition 
whatever  to  sting  their  rescuer.  As  soon  as  the 
season  opened  they  ceased  to  run  to  the  hand 
that  fed  them,  preferring  to  go  abroad  and  glean  a 
support  by  their  own  industrious  toil.  The  neces- 
sity of  regularity  in  feeding  was  proven  in  this 
case.  The  molasses  being  consumed,  one  clay 
passed  before  any  more  was  obtained.  Intermit- 
ting the  feeding  that  one  day  caused  the  loss  of 
one  hive.  By  the  use  of  two  gallons  of  molasses 
Ihirteen  hives  were  saved  through  the  famine  un- 
til the  opening  season  rendered  Uiem  self-support- 
ing.    They  didn't  need  to  be  fed  long." 

The  idea  is  not  entirely  new  to  me.  I  have 
always  had  my  doubts  whether  bee-bread  or  pol- 
len, collected  in  such  large  quantities  in  the  hive, 
should  be  used  merely  to  nourish  the  embryo 
bees  or  to  facilitate  the  elaboration  of  wax,  and 
whether  bee-bread  did  not  also,  enter  for  a  good 
share  in  the  daily  food  of  the  bees  in  the  hive. 
Is  not  the  want  of  it  the  cause  of  dysentery  during 
the  latter  days  of  winter,  after  the  store  of  bee- 
bread  has  been«exhausted  in  the  hive  ?  Swarms 
with  plenty  of  honey,  but  destitute  of  bee-bread 
or  pollen,  will  not  thrive  (U-  winter  well.  Let 
practical  and  observing  bee-keepers  study  and 
experiment,  and  report  to  the  Bee  Journal  their 
further  investigation  on  the  uses  of  pollen  in  the 
liive.  John  N.  Rottiers. 

Lafargeville,  N.  Y. 


[For  the  .iiuerican  Bee  Jourual.] 

Trials  and  Queries  of  a  Beginner. 

Mr.  Editor  :— I  have  for  a  lone:  time  promised 
myself  to  write  something  for  the  Bee  Journal, 
but  have  often  found  that,  like  other  promises  we 
hear  of,  they  are  made  lo  be  broken,  thousih  I 
liave  made  up  my  mind  for  once  to  keep  mine- 
so  here  goes.    To  begin,  I  Avill  give  you  an  abridged 


biography.  I  yfas  born  in  the  year  1836,  and 
consequently  am  in  the  large  side  of  thirty-three 
years  old.  I  am  a  native  of  New  York  Slate  ;  re- 
moved West  in  1844  ;  received  my  eariy  training 
in  a  fruit  and  ornamental  garden,  but  for  the  last 
fourteen  years  have  been  ^engaged  in  mechanical 
busmess  (a  mason  by  trade)  ;  stand  five  feet  nine 
mchesin  boots  ;  weigh  one  hundred  and  fifty-nine 
pounds  ;  in  temperament  am  always  ready  to  re- 
ceive truth,  but  not  credulous  enough  for  theories 
logo  down  without  evidence;  am  a  great  lover  of 
honey,  and  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  the  honey- 
bee. But,  Mr.  Editor,  this  is  as  much  as— per- 
haps more  than— will  interest  your  readers  ;  sol 
will  try  and  give  a  little  of  my  experience  in  bee- 
keeping. 

Having,  as  I  supposed,  a  splendid  offer  of  a 
swarm  of  bees  in  a  barrel,  I  bought  them,  paying 
the  very  moderate  sum  of  thirty  dollars  ($3U)  for 
them.  They  were  very  heavy,  and  some  of  mv 
bee-keeping  neighbors  assured  me  that  I  should 
without  doubt  get  four  or  five  large  swarms  frcni 
them  that  year.  This  I  believed,  of  course ; 
brought  them  home,  with  hia;h  hopes  of  a  "  hon- 
eyed future. "_  But,  alas!  that  we  should  all  be 
doomed  to  disappointment.  You  may  imagine 
how  eageriy  I  watched  them  night  and  day.  and 
with  what  pleasant  anticipations!  looked  forward 
to  the  time  when  the  first  swarm  (of  the  dimen- 
sions of  a  two-bushel  basket,  or  more,)  should 
make  its  appearance.  In  the  meantime,  I  had 
expressed  to  some  of  my  bee-keeping  neighbors 
my  determination  to  send  for  "  Quinby's  Myste- 
ries," which  I  had  seen  advertised  in  the  Af/ri- 
culturist.  This,  of  course,  displeased  them  very 
much,  for  it  gave  evidence  of  two  facts  :  1st,  that 
I  was  losing  confidence  in  their  counsel  ;  and  2d, 
that  I  was  determined  not  to  fool  away  my  time 
and  money  running  after  new  "  Mys'teries  and 
Isms."  However,  Quinby  came  to  my  relief  in 
time  to  assure  me  that  I  need  not  look  for  an  end- 
less number  of  "large  swarms"  out  of  my  old 
barrel.  Also,  that  it  was  useless  to  try  to  get 
them  to  colonize  themselves  in  empty  boxes,  at 
sides  and  real-,  connected  with  the  main  hive  by 
tin  tubes,  &c. ;  of  which  facts  I  had  become  pretty 
well  satisfied  alieady. 

You  may  guess  that  I  soon  made  up  my  mind 
that  I  knew  very  little  about  bee.s,  and  I  lost  no 
time  in  telling  my  boasting  neighbors  that  they 
knew  less  than  I  had  given  them  credit  for.  I 
immediately  went  to  work  and  made  a  frame 
hive  with  nine  frames  of  the  Quinby  pattern  (for 
I  then  considered  him  thoroughly  posted  on  bee 
matters,  and  of  course  must  be  correct  as  regards 
form  of  hive  as  well  as  theory)  ;  and  on  the  7th  of 
July,  in  the  evening,  after  it  had  got  dark  enough 
that  the  bees  could  not  see  to  s^ing,  I  went  at 
them  with  hammer  and  tongs,  &c.,  and  some- 
time before  daylight  next  niorning  had  robbed 
them  of  all  their  honey  and  got  them  in  my 
empty  hive,  with  a  few  pieces  of  worthless  comb, 
gue>^dng  they  were  all  right.  But,  to  all  wJiom  it 
may  concern,  I  may  certify  that  that  job  effect- 
nally  cured  me  of  all  desire  to  handle  live  bets  in 
the  dark.  The  summing  up  of  the  matter  was 
that  I  had  about  sixty  pounds  of  poor  honey, 
eight  pounds  of  wax,  and  a  large  swarm  of  bees 
in  an  empty  frame  hive  ;  with'a  countenance  so 
disfigured  next  day  that  my  friend's  didn't  "know 


152 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


me."  If  the  remainder  of  the'season  had  been 
xmfavorable  this  would  probably  have  been  the 
end  of  my  experience  in  bee-keeping  ;  but  fortu- 
nately the  weather  subsequently  proved  to  be 
favorable,  and  at  the  close  of  the  honey  harvest  1 
could  make  the  following  footing  up : 

BARREL  OF  BEES,  CR. 

By  60  lbs.  honey  from  swarm $15  00 

"  90    "    choice  box  honey 31  50 

"     8    "    wax 3  20 

"  Swarm  No.  1  in  frame  hive 10  00 

Total $59  70 

BARREL   OF  BEES,  DR. 

To  cash  paid $30  00 

"  new  hive 2  00      32  00 


Balance,  profit  for  the  season. 


.827  70 


Thus  you  see  that  after  all  I  had  nothing  to 
complain  of  Avith  the  footing  up  of  tlie  season's 
work  with  one  swarm.  But  what  I  valued  more 
than  all  the  rest  was  that  I  liad  learned  some  val- 
uable lessons— the  best  of  which  was  that  I  was 
ignorant  of  the  habits  of  the  honey-bee,  and  that 
the  necessary  knowledge  was  within  my  reach. 

My  experience  in  bee-keeping  only  dates  back 
four  years  ;  but  I  am  still  determined  to  press  for- 
w^ard  in  the  good  cause  (as  they  say  at  meetings), 
feeling  myself  well  paid  for  my  trouble  in  the 
pleasure  if  there  were  no  profit  in  the  business. 
The  last  two  seasons  have  been  very  unfavorable 
f>)r  bees  in  this  locality  ;  yet,  so  far  as  I  am  ac- 
quainted, Ihose  that  had  a  reasonable  chance  have 
yielded  a  fair  profit  this  year. 

Now  that  I  have  given  a  pretty  thorough  ac- 
count of  my  first  year's  experience,  I  will  notice 
a  case  or  two  that  came  under  my  observation  the 
past  season,  and  would  like  to  have  some  one 
that  is  thoroughly  posted  furnish  an  explanation. 
About  the  first  of  June  I  formed  two  nuclei  by 
placing  in  small  hives,  each,  a  frame  of  brood 
and  adhering  bees,  and  setting  them  away  in  a 
dark  cellar  for  three  days.  In  due  time  I  exam- 
ined them,  and  found  in  one  three  fine  looking 
queen  cells,  nearly  ready  to  hatch;  in  the  other  I 
found  none — the  bees  having  evidently  neglected 
to  start  one.  I  then  went  to  the  one  that  had  the 
three  and  carefully  removed  one,  giving  it  to  the 
other  that  had  started  none.  On  examination 
next  day  I  found  this  cell  destroyed.  I  then  gave 
them  a  comb  containing  eggs  and  larva?.  Three 
days  later  I  examined  them  again,  and  to  my 
surprise  could  find  nothing  that  looked  like  a 
queen  cell.  I  was  then  called  from  home,  and 
on  my  return  I  opened  my  nucleus  and  found  a 
queen  cell  torn  open  at  the  side,  the  embryo  queen 
having  evidently  been  destroyed.  On  looking  a 
little  further  I  found  a  very  diminutive  black 
queen,  with  unmistakable  signs  of  having  just 
mated  w-ith  a  drone.  This  was  eleven  days  after 
the  brood  comb  was  given  them,  and  eight  days 
after  I  examined  and  could  find  no  cells.  In  two 
days  more  this  queen  was  depositing  a  few  eggs. 
Meantime,  my  other  young  queen  had  commenced 


to  lay  freely.  I  then  divided  a  full  stock  and  set 
the  new  swarm  on  the  old  stand,  without  a  queen — 
having  left  the  queen  in  the  old  stock,  which  I 
removed  to  the  stand  of  another  strong  stock 
transferred  to  a  new  place. 

As  soon  as  the  new  swarm  exhibited  signs  of 
queenlessness  I  went  to  the  nucleus  that  con- 
tained the  good  queen  and  looked  for  her,  to  give 
to  my  new  swarm  ;  but  just  at  that  time  she  did 
not  propose  to  be  found.  So  I  gave  up  the  search, 
and  went  and  caught  my  dAvarf  and  placed  iier  in 
front  of  the  new  swarni.  But  she  did  not  deign 
to  go  in,  but  took  wing,  and  aAvay  she  went.  I 
then  went  to  the  other  nucleus,  found  the  queen, 
and  gave  her  to  the  SAvarm.  Next  morning  both 
the  nuclei  were  in  commotion,  and  were  evidently 
queenless.  The  following  morning,  being  the  sec- 
ond day  after  I  removed  the  queen,  I  again  ex- 
amined the  nucleus  from  which  I  had  taken  the 
perfect  queen,  and  found  the  bees  had  built  a  few 
inches  of  drone  comb,  Avhich  Avas  nearly  filled 
with  eggs.  I  also  found  my  little  black  queen,  or 
her  ghost,  as  quiet  as  though  she  had  always  be- 
longed there.  A  few  days  later  she  was  laying 
Avorker  eggs  again,  and  continued  to  lay  worker 
eggs  the  "rest  of  the  season.  For  experiment,  I 
am  trying  to  Avinter  her  in  her  nucleus.  Question 
1st.  Was  she  one  of  Gallup's  eight-day  queens? 
and,  if  so,  had  she  failed  Avhen  she  commenced  to 
lay  drone  eggs,  and  Avas  she  fertilized  or  revived 
in  some  other  way  ?  Question  2d.  Where  had  she 
kept  herself  for  at  least  twenty-four  hours,  before 
she  found  the  other  nucleus  V  I  am  aware  that 
some  Avill  say  I  was  mistaken  about  this  being  the 
same  queen  ;  but  my  evidence  is  so  good  that  you 
will  not  make  me  doubt  it. 

The  other  case  is  as  follows:  About  the  25th 
of  September  Mr.  W.  H.  Furman,  of  Cedar  Eap- 
ids,  loAva,  was  at  my  place  Avith  two  Italian 
queens.  One  of  these  Ave  gave  to  a  full  stock,  the 
other  we  inserted  in  a  small  nucleus  (from  which 
I  had  just  taken  the  queen)  to  keep  her  over 
night.  The  night  Avas  cool,  and  the  bees  did  not 
cluster  around  the  queen.  The  consequence  Avas 
that  the  queen  and  her  attendants  Avere  so  chilled 
in  the  morning  that  they  could  scarcely  move  a 
leg.  We  Avarmed  and  revived  her,  and  then  in- 
serted her  in  a  black  colony.  Three  days  later  I 
examined,  and  found  both  these  queens  laying 
freely.  In  two  Aveeks  I  found  brood  in  both 
hives,  in  all  stages,  and  saAv  both,  queens.  About 
three  weeks  after  I  introduced  the  queens  the 
weather  turned  so  cold  that  I  took  my  bees  in. 
After  they  had  been  in  the  cellar  for  near  two 
weeks  we  had  a  day  so  warm  andfinethat^I  took 
these  two  SAvarms  out,  to  see  the  young  Italians 
fly.  From  the  one  a  goodly  number  of  nicely 
marked  Italians  floAV  ;  while  from  the  other,  which 
contained  the  queen  that  had  been  chilled,  not  an 
Italian  bee  fiew  out.  I  then  made  a  careful  ex- 
amination and  found  the  queen  as  yellow  as  ever, 
but  not  a  bee  could  I  find  in  the  hive  with  even  a 
mark  of  a  hybrid.  Query.  Did  the  chilling  of 
this  queen  cause  her  eggs  to  hatch  entirely  black 
bees  ? 

But  I  have  already  spun  my  yarn  as  long  again 
as  I  intended  when  I  began,  and  will  close  by 
wishing  success  to  the  Bee  Journal. 

J.  E.  Benjamin. 

Rockford^  Iowa. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOUENAL. 


153 


[For  tlie  Aiuerioau  Bee  Journal  ] 

How  to  Cleanse  Mouldy  Comb. 

A  mouldy  comb,  if  not  rotten,  may  readily  be 
iung  ,t  up  til    It  IS  thoroughly  dry ;  then  brush 
off  as  much  of  the  mould  as^possible  without  cu 
tu^g  or  muti  ating  the  cells.     When  so  piipared 

bees   in  f/^'  '"''l^'"  ''''''''  °^"  ^  ''^---S  stocL  of 
a  t '  /3  *^'  ''^n^'"-  ''^^^«'^'  '^"'1  i"  the°course  of 
a  week  or  so  the  bees  will  usually  cleanse  and 
renovate  it  so  completely  that,  to  all  appearance 
Its  f(,rmer  mouldiness  will  be  gone.     If  howeve? 
a  portion  of  the  comb  should  contain  b'eS 
lat   has  become  hardened  and  turned  white  in 
"ni  or  win  ""   '''''  ,r''^  somethnes   fen     o 
celKtPnd      T  "'-n '^"''^"^  """^  ^^=^y  "1^  ^"tire 
cells  m stead      In  either  case  of  failure,  such  por- 
ous shouW   be  cut  out  and  the  vacancy  fi  led 

b     di,?'"t""  '""^-'^   1^^"^^"^^  the  beelfrom 
building  drone  cells  instead 

By  the  above  method  I  liave  had  some  combs 

cleansed  that  had  been  literally  covered  over  w  th 

loi   the  last  fifteen  years,  usually  wintered  some 

Permit  me  to  correct  the  following  error  in  i 
previous  communication.  The  cleats  on  side  So 
2  ot  my  common  entrance-blocks  to  tlie  Lano.; 
s,  oth  hive  ai-e  three-sixteenths  of  an  inch  thicd 
The  types  makes  me  say  "the  sixteenth  of  an  inch 
hick."  See  page  118  of  the  December  numbei  of 
the  present  volume  of  the  Bee  Jodenal 

I^ake  P.  0.,  OMo,  Jan.  4,  mo^^""''^  ^''''^■ 


winter  I  put  them  in  my  cellar,  and  thev  came 
out  all  right  next  spring.  "^la  1808  they  nL'a  "d 

fit i\  r  ?"r''^''"'^  "^^^■'^«  f»^-  ^vintering.  One  of 
a  1  walit  T  ''■'  ^  ^^^^««--'-»  their%veaknes 
IroiS  •  .  ?^^»«  s-^^en  weak  swarms  I  brought 
h  ough  by  feeding.  On  the  first  of  Januarv 
l.%9,  the  weight  of  the  eleven  stocks,  excliAve 
30  1o'' Jr"?J  rr  ^f  l^tively  as  follows  :lo' 
^eshl^;,^t^L^Joli^^'l'b^^-,i;S^^ 

Now  for  the  result.  They  gave  me  one  thou- 
sand and  twenty-five  (1025)  pounds  of  surp]  s 
lioney,  and  sixteen   new  swarms.     My  twe  i  v- 

a?r,-?oS°'"f  "'■'  "^'^'^  '^"t  ''^^^'''^•>^  "^  '"y  cellal 
all  light.  I  am  a  regular  subscriber  to  the 
Amekican  Bee  Jourkal,  and  it  pa,..      More 

cLUUll,  "Vy        TXT        TT 

MeMota.,  III.,  Dec.  1809.  ''''''• 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal,] 

Novice. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Experience  of  Another  Beginner. 

fi,?;"^i^'  -^^.^^^^^--l  will  now  contribute  my 
first  effort  for  your  numerous  readers  givin-  n  v 
experience  in  bee-keeping,  hi  18G0  purciras'ed 
five  colonies  (black  bees)  of  one  of  my  i  t h 

hiTWinf  ;"f '''"^"/f  ^""/''^^^-  I'^  tl^^^  follow- 
ing winter  two  ot  them  died,  leaving  me  three 
stocks  for  a  start  in  1807. 

Being  a  novice  in  apiculture,  I  was  puzzline 
rny  brain    how   to  proceed,  for  failure  was     2 

tire  im  i,?"^  """^  "\'  "^"^'  «^'  "'°«^  '^'^^^  ^^^^^n 
the  bUMuess,  and  who  were  using  only  the  com 
mon  hive,  or,  worse  still,  some'  woAlliss  pa' 
tented  substitute.     While  in  this  state  of  mind   I 

nom  KuRAL,  giving  an  account  of  his  visit  to 
the  apiary  of  J.  M.  Marvin,  of  St.  Charles    111 

stioth   hive,    and   the   Italian    bee.     I   immedl 

k  n  [i;"!,nd  f'-  ''^"""^;  ^''"  --'-'^  ""v-y 
T  n  •  1  ■  I  ^  '''™  "'"^^»  indebted  to  him  for 
H  'l  '!f'^""^t^°"  i»  tl'«  treatment   of  bees 

three  hnh'l^^'f^'''"^''^  ^^'^^'  ^"^^  '^'"l  about 
se  ^o.  t\  '  colonies,  mostly  Italians.  That 
en  ivi;  t1"^''  V  '^^'^^V^^'^  the  blacks  almos 
n ist  time.  I  purchased  from  him  an  Italian 
queen  and  six  Langstrotli  hives;  came  hone 
to"S'a7iii'r"^  cohniies-thus  inc?"sing  t£ 
to  six,  all  m  Langstroth  hives.     The  foirowing 


Dear  Journal  :-Our  bee  house  is  of  course 

abited  b3^    his  time,  by  half  a  million  or  so  of 

l.f    S  f^"'-?''  ^''^''  ^"'^  '^^  ^'^  I>appytosay 

as  the  li'T  "'  ^"  "•''  -'^"^  «^'  November,  and 
wor  r1  ITff!  ?'  ^'''^  '"'^''  ^'"^  ^"^^  ^"'•e  that  it 
would  have  been  a  great  gain  to  have  housed 
hem  about  a  month  sooner.  The  day  we  p  t 
hem  in  happened  to  be  quite  cold,  and  L  we  d  d 

SandT"  M'^'  f  if  ""'  r  ''^'  "-"^  -^  thei 
stands.  Most  of  the  stocks  behaved  quite  well  • 
but   two  of  the   hybrid   colonies   marfp    1^; 

se  son  7h''?  ^'^^  extremely  cross  all  th? 
season,  and  that  day  po^Uimly  objected  to  anv 
assistance  of  any  kind.  Fron/ one  of  them  we 
removed  the  hon.y-board,  thinking  that  the?  eez- 
mg  air  would  drive  them  down  amono-  the 
tZ  n'i^"'  ""''  '"""'?»  ^^^^"^  ^""^  till  after  a? 
nlLf  ♦  T,';T''''^^'^'  ^^'^  f^^^'i^^^'^I  that  they 
must  be  treated  like  refractory  children,  and  put 
in  by  main  strength.  '  ^    ^ 

We  are  not  in  the  habit  of  being  intimidated 
by  bees,  but  the  battle  array  on  top'of  the  fn  mes 
was  rather  fiercedookingf  and  when  we  p! 
oached  they  came  more  than  half  way  to  meet 
ihl  JT''''^  bailstorm.  S^ioke  was  of  no  use 
then,  as  they  seemed  to  be  all  out  of  the  hive 
before  we  got  within  ten  feet  of  th.m  •  y.t  we 
Ik' f.iLTf'^'r''  "^^^^'  ^'''  "^"^««t  t''e  ""IV  time, 
fort  Im  w"^'''"';'  ''''''\''^  *"  "'^^'^  no-terror; 
foi  them.     We  might  smoke  them  until  they  lay 

b^ownT^'''''•;^'"^'}^"  "^"•^^^"t  '''  stopped 
fin,Ti  °'  '^  P'^"^  '"'^  "^  ^'ith  fresh  vigor,  and 
t,  :  1?'  '"^^'"^  Y'  '°'t  ^"  patience,  and  carried 
the  hive  in,  and  let  the  bees  come  along  or  stay 

J  rS  \'''T' -7',  ^''-"'^  ''^^^"t  t^^  ^'^"'•^^st  exhibition 
of  real  hybrid  bee  fury  that  perhaps  is  ever 
displayed.  They  buried  themselves  in  our  shoes 
trowsers,  coat,  vest,  hair,  collar,  waistband,  and 
everywhere  else.  They  did  not 'any  of  theni  ge 
lost,  as  they  were  so  busily  engaged  in  bestow- 
tLIVI  ^I'^'f  .attention  to  our  precious  self. 
Thus  Ave  all  got  mto  the  bee  hou.^e  ;  but  instead 


irA 


THE   AMERICAN  BEE   JOURNAL. 


of  tikincr  their  places  orderly  in  a  row  as  we 
hll  pKnnel  thJy  should,  and  very  parUcularly 
^iM^ysho^<Id  jvM  then,  they  kept  pitching 
Urniore  fuV.ously  than  ever  until  we  began  U> 
think  we  should  a  "  leetle  rather  "  take  a  bacK- 
seat  "  and  be  a  spectator  awhile. 

Well  these  bees  raised  such  a  "howling 
th  Iwe  really  began  to  ffV'^'\""L''a;uUhe 
was  gohig  to  be  anything  but  quie  ness  and  the 
other  colonies  seemed  to  be  rapidly  getting  de- 
moralized as  well.  We  left  the  door  open  on 
?old  Sts,  until  the  thermometer  went  down 
a?most  to  freezing;  still  they  persisted  m  prome- 
nading constantlfon  the  tops  oi  t^e  frame^  a  d 
scolding    away    worse   than   a   lot   of       setting 

^'We'read  Gallup,  but  he  advised  more  ventila- 
tion ■  and  as  we  had  the  honey-boards  off  ot  the 
wo  St  stocks,  and  the  entrances  all  open  we  chd 
not  know  any  better  way  to  ventilate,  ^f\^^lJ? 
put  them  in  the  middle  of  a  ten  acre  lot,  with 

^^fSv ""om"  business  became   so  pressing  at 
the  appiolich  of  the  holidays,  that  we  pof  ively 
had  no  time  to  see  to  the  bees.     (We  had  I  ee 
visiting  them  once  or  twice  every  day.)     Am 
after  they  had  been  neglected  abc.ut  a  Aveek,  wc 
were  su/prised  to  find   them  quite  orderly,  al- 
Uiough  the  cross  rascals  did  " »'«'  .^^^^  «y^^^  ^\'.^^ 
top  '^  as  soon  as  we  showed  our  phiz.     (We  aie 
no    bad-looking  at  all,  Mr.  Editor,  as  you  will 
see  bv  the  photograph  which  we  are  going  to 
send  you   when  we  get  a  little  older  in  bees.) 
We  tS  went  off  in  a  huff,  and  shut  them  up  in 
tot^l  d'lrkness,  for  not  having  any  better  appre- 
ciation of  our  kindness  to  them.    .    ,      ,      ^ 

Since  then  we  have  slipped  in  quietly  about  once 
a  week  and  for  the  last  four  weeks  the  theimom- 
etl  has  not  varied  one  degree  from  40o,  although 
the  weather  outside  has  been  cold  and  waim 
alternately;  and  once  so  warm  for  several  cays, 
?hat  we  could  hardly  understand  how  it  could  be 
so  much  colder  insiJe.  We  ^^o^ot  think  the^i 
produces  any  effect  at  all  on  the.interioi  The. 
bees  in  most  of  the  hives,  behave  just  as  Mi. 
Sup  describes  them.  Were  it  not  for  their 
bt^ght  colors,  and  their  moving  when  touched, 
OTf»  mio-ht  think  them  dead.  _  ,       ,  . 

"midair  and  some  others,  we  .think,  claim 
that  bees  cannot  be  taught  anything.     Is  not 
this  a  mistake  ?    If  they  can  be  made  cross,  can- 
not thev  as  well  be  made  tame  ?     Again,  cannot 
Ihcv   leco'i^ze  thfeir  keeper?     We  have  otten 
hacf  them%auglit  to  fly  to  us  and  light  on  our 
fino-ers    for  honey  which  they  had  been   m  the 
Sbit  of  finding  tfiere  ;  and  a  very  few   essons  o 
that  kind  will  suffice  to  make   hem  veme^nbei  it 
for  some  time.     We  succeeded  so  well  in  aious- 
in-  the  ire  of  the  colony  mentioned    tha    they 
m  not  get  over  it  for  some  weeks      Could  they 
not  b(3  induced  to  remember  kindness  as  long? 
Pei-haps  they  would  too  much  resemble  human 
be0in  tlfat  respect;  yet  we  feel  certain  tha 
we  can,  by  direct   experiment    show  tl'^t  Ijces 
reco-ni^e  one  person  from  another,  and  shall  try 
something-  of  the  kind  next  season, 
''we  shSuld  have  remarked  that  our  bees    so 
far,  have  consumed  very  little  honey.     With  so 
litt  e  action  going  on  among  them  we  do  not  see 
how  they  caS  eat  much.     It  may  be  argued  that 


there  is  consequently  little  brood  being  raised 
Th  S  we  think  may  be  so  ;  nor  is  it  iiecessary 
the  e  should  be,  for  we  have  no  bees  dying  ofi 
as  they  do  when  kept  out  of  doors-at  least  we 

^^Te':i^T;:T7e,  .nd  fear  we  always,shall 
"count  chickens  before  they  are  hatched.  bo 
heTc^oes:  With  forty-six  stocks,  having  lots 
o  bees,  and  plenty  of  honey,  won  t  we  have  an 
array  of  laborers  in  the  spring.^  And  won  t 
we  — —  then  !  There,  it  is  eleven  o'clock  at 
nisht,  and  we  had  almost  forgotten  that  we^are 
as  yet  only  a 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal  ] 

Responses  and  Remarks. 

T  have  been  repeat«ny~asked  by  correspond- 
ents how  isTt  tlit  you?  doctors,  (meaning  bee 
doctors  of  course,)  disagree  so  much  on  various 
Ss^'  Whereas,  the  fact  is  wc  do  not  disagree 
so  much  as  some  suppose. 

Mr  J  H.  Thomas  says,  on  page  228,  vol.  4 
Xo  12  "  If  Gallup  will  quietly  lay  his  piece  of 
wh-e  cloth  over  hil  bees,  he  -[^y^-^^j'f^^^^^^, 
to  he  true"  Now,  the  truth  is,  Mr.  Ihomas 
uses  a  Serent  form  of  hive  from  mine,  and  lives 
rrSrent  climate.  I  "-ally  /-je  -oi-o 
thnn  half  of  my  swarms  so  full  of  bees,  tliai 
vh  n  I  set  them'ln  the  cellar,  I  raise  «p  the  hive 
Tt  the  bottom,  on  the  front  side  ari  mdi  and 
remove  the  honey  board  entirely,  befoie  I  can 
let  them  in  the  semi-dormant  state  he  speaks  of 
fvenXn  the  bees  will  be  festered  from  tie 

•I„.i„V  ntlRTS  with  perfect  success  lyitliont  the 
wLfguS;  he  would  te  yery  apt  to  come  to  my 

^-V^'Tno  1    page  14,  C.  D.  says,  ■■Gallun's 
sy*m  oVtasiCc  Wintering,  &c.,  aM>ljes  to  steady 

tt^v'r:d"oeL-;,rt«7«>3j; 
'>z",;::;i^ro/srsiT^i.tme'\'rhL^^^ 

PF    Smith  thinks  "Gallup  is  mistaken,"  &_c. 

S;"ow Ibees  did  not  have  access  to  h.jct«h  a^ 
t  T  .r>T5r.tprprl  pverv  swarm,  liut  wneib  u'^j 
5  d  laT  a  cess  to  luckwheat,  or  were  fed,  m 
e^try'nstance  that  came  under  my  obscnwaton 
^1  y,„orP  in  excellent  condition  ;  or,  in  other 
t>rd^there^^l^  no  bee  disease.  ^Mr.  Adair,  m 
his  innaS  o7Bee  Culture,  attributes  the  ch- 
easeto  diseased  or  decayed  fruit  in  l"f  ^oca  ty. 
That  could  not  possibly  have  been  the  cause 
heS,  a  "we  have  no  fruit  of  any  description  for 
the  bees  to  meddle  with.  „,-,n-ibpr 

On  page  10  of  the  same  volume  and  number, 
Mr.  H.  M.  Thomas  asks  a  question,  and  I  an 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


swer— yes,  I  have  observed  at  least  a  dozen 
cases  of  the  kind  iu  my  experience.  I  had  one 
case  last  winter. 

Mr.  Aaron  Benedict  calls  Gallup  to  task,  in  one 
h!  i'  iT*^;  numbers  of  the  Jouknal,  and  others 
bave  called  hmi  an  old  fogy,  A:c.  Now  Gallup 
never  said,  or  intended  to  say,  that  there  could 
be  no  improvement  m  hives.  But  he  cannot  see 
the  necessity  or  propriety  of  having  those  im- 
provements patented.  Why  not  give  the  benefit 
of  those  improvements,  if  they  are  improve- 
ments, to  the  public  free  of  charge  ?  In  many 
cases  thoseso-called  improvements  are  yet  dis 
sCalTknrr'  ^"^./"^'^^^y  of  them,  (1 1  not 
say  all, i  look  to  me  like  mere  quibbles  to  avoid 

f.ll'^l]^'^'^^''  >'"*'"*•     ^"  ^  ^'^^^  ""Jority  of 
cases,  the  advantages  claimed  are  only  imagin- 

tL  .V      ]     ""'  ^^'^'"P''^.    tlie   Diamond   hTvc. 

Ihe  advantages  claimed  over  Mr.  Lancrstroth's 
original  pattern  are  real,  without  a  doubt  in  my 
mind  Yet  with  the  form  of  Langstroth  hive^ 
^hich  I  use,  and  with  my  method  of  mana-ing 
It,  he  advantages  would  scarcely  be  perceiVed 
But  put  a  swarm  m  each,  without  any  after  care 
whatever  and  I  do  not  doubt  that  in  a  majority 
ot  cases  the  Diamond  Hive  would  excel,  espe- 
cially in  increase.  But  that  kind  of  bee-keep ino- 
is,  or  ought  to  be,  played  out.  ^tepin^ 

Osag/',  Iowa.  '  ^^^' 


155 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Stimulative  Spring  Feeding. 

vou?"T)]If  If -T^i^^  .3-0"  be  so  kind  as  to  give  us 
your  plan  of  stimulative  feeding  bees:  aiviuo-  the 
time  of  commencement,  the  quality  of  fold  "how 
often  aud  what  quantity  at  a  feedino-  and  at  what  time 
of  day  you  feed?  Do  you  feed  r}^' mea  and  J  s' 
how  large  a  quantity,  and  at  what  time  is    t  liven  i 

stock  ot  bees  winter,  in  the  house,  or  in  a  cellar^ 

T,  .  ^-  I^-5   Tl«Z/we,  Mich. 

It  requires  at  least  five  pounds  of  honey  to 
winter  a  stock  of  bees,  containing  an  ol  1  oieen 
or  one  t^hat  has  had  work  durin|  the  seasou  a^ 
she  needs  rest,  and  is  not  easily  fattened   ready 

£n"f  Trf  f  «gg-i^ying;  but  ti  fi  iVe  ^^n 

bear  to  be  looked  to  often  on  that  allowance  A 
stock  containing  a  young  queen  is  not  safe  witlt 
out  constant  watchiulness,  and  probaby ICb/e" 

truTTl^  "^  ''''''''  '"'^y  be\eedecl  Se 
spiing  as  the  queen  requires  no  rest  havin- 
done  little  or  no  work.  It  requires  at  e •  s t  n 
pounds  of  honey  or  feed,  to  sustain  a  1  i  ve  o?  bee 
Wl  spring  in  this  section;  and  they  sho  d  be 
watched  closely,  on  that  alIowance,^to  see    hat 

flt^ei^^iX^rii?^--"-^^-- 

sell  bees  at  a  higher  price  than  we  can  a^ 
present,  in  this  section.  When  thlbees 'are 
aken  out  of  the  house,  or  spring  opens  phJe 
dishes  of  unbolted  rye  or  oat-meaf  inTeV^ry 


If  the  neighbors  have  bees,  and  do  not  feed  or 
care  for  tliem,  and  their  stocks  carry  away  half  a 
pound,  each,  every  working  day,  fbr  fiW  or  six 

back  in  honey,  sometime  when  their  stocks 
need  the  proper  protecting  care  of  a  watdiful 
bee-keeper.     Some  stocks  do  not  need  tlie  feed 

?e"ed  'amf  '^"^'^f ,"«.  ^^^^'^^  ^eed  the  artificial 
teed,  and  cannot  be  induced  to  take  it  at  all 
It  any  h  ye  or  hives  need  bee-b  e  d,  ,k  Ue 
weather  ,s  bad,  feed  a  mixture  of  diluted  honey 
and  lye,  or  oat  meal  mixed,  or  either  separately  • 
also  the  middle  of  hard-boiled  eggs  n  ixcS  to  a 
paste.  Feed  in  a  piece  of  old  comb  placed  on 
the  frames,  or  near  the  cluster  of  bees.^  Dis  u?b 
?;ruTeTeV'"  «f^^«"«"gb  to  have  them  at 
all  he  feed  given  to  them,  and  all  tliey  have  in 
tl  r'  '  ^"\  ''"  ""'  ^''  them  lack  food  for  even 
one  day,  as  that  would  nearly  spoil  all  the  pre 
v.ous  work,  and  involve  the  loss  of  the  f?ed 
Better  have  some  stored,  than  have  too  little,  as 
there  may  be  a  rainy  day  at  hand. 

h.U  %TI\^'T'^  *'"^  ^'"''  '^P""'?  "s^'  n^"l  be  only 
balf  and  half  sugar  and  water.  The  better  the 
qua  ity  the  less  odor  to  attract  robbers  But  as 
we  feed  only  near  night,  and  only  what  is  secured 
by  the_  bees  of  the  hive  fed,  and  all  hives  are 
equal  in  number  of  bees,  it  is  not  neceiary  o 
have  more  than  a  medium  quality  of  sugais  as 
wo  t  litt?^  "^^  ^°°'^  '^"^  immediate  use,  and  we 
we  dp  If  t'^'i"''"'  ''"'"'^^  "^  the  cells,' because 
Me  desiie  to  have  young  bees  raised  in  them. 
We  want  eac^  hive  of  bees  to  eat,  after  bein- 
egu  ated  for  feeding-that  is,  by  cleansing  out 
the  hives  equaising  the  bees,  combs,  and  b?ood, 
and  elevating  the  front  end  of  the  tight-bottomed 
b.ves,  so  that  they  will  hold  the  fcW  poured  in 
roin  the  kettle  in  which  it  is  boiled.^  As  we 
i-al  wate?  iJ'  ''''  ^""^^tency  of  half  sugar  and 
all  water,  it  runs  under  the  combs,  and  the 
bees  can  stand  on  each  side  of  the  comb-frames 

well  '''^'W\'  ^'^^^'  ^^^^  ^"^^^^^  workei-s,  as 
wel  as  outside  honey  gatherers  can  and  do  c  ean 
up  the  spil  ed  feed  instcmter.  We  have  the  best 
of  the'hiil  baying  the  bees  feed  from  the  bottom 

t  the  hives,  standing  on  their  own  combs,  unless 
he  eel/'  '"'.  'f^ '  ''''''  ^urn  the  feed  direc  ly?n 
fre.l  fi  '  ''"'  f  ^  spr  nkler,  or  a  teapot.  As  we 
feed  fifty  or  a  hundred  stocks  half  a  pound  each 
every  evenmg,  the  teapot  or  other  feeders  are  too 
slow  for  us      It  a  hive  takes  less  feed,  we  give 

combs  of  brood   or  bees  from  some  other  Mve 
thacan_  spare    them.     If  tlicre  is  a  yield    or  a 

Si-dingi;        '^  ^""'^  "'  "'^  ^^'""'i  ^''^^^^ 

nn?  wf  !V'"^^  '^'  '^'?"  ''^^^<^  to  disturb  our  bees, 
?oon/ff  ""  ""'1^  "^  t'leir  own  stores,  to  mak^ 
hv  In  ^""i"f  ^'''  '^  the  cells  now  occupied 
the  V  ^  T^  bee-bread.  It  is  done  by  opening 
tl  e  hives  often,  uncapping  a  portion  or  all  of  the 

S  In/,  f  1  ''^"'  'I'^'y  ^^^  ^"^^  sometimes  feeding 
uted  honey  or  feed.  If  there  is  any  honey  tS 
in  erfere  with  brood-rearing,  use  the  honey- 
emptying^  machine,  and  then  feed  the  honey 
again,  or  its  equivalent  in  feed,  if  needed. 
.  tt  IS  best  not  to  feed  bees  to  stimulate  breed- 
ing, unless  it  is  carried  out  until  there  is  enough 
feed  to  be  procured  from  natural  sources  the 
nowers,  and  those  are  continuous  long  enouo-h 
to  make  it  pay.     We  used  to  aim  to  have  our 


156 


THE   AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


stocks  extra  strong  only  at  the  yielding  of  the 
cloY  s -S 1  bass-wSod,  (linden  ;)  but  the  nicrease 
of  Iruit-blossoms  and  dandelion  i^ra.ucu^m)  the 
last  two  years,  has  induced  us  to  save  the  old 
bees  and  get  the  stocks  on  the  swarming  ponit, 
at  least  a  month  earlier.  We  M^ant  the  expe- 
lience  of  others  on  this  branch  of  bee-keepmg ; 
and  more  on  the  hotbed  and  forcing  b^use  o 
outside  heating  arrangements,  as  ^ve  ^'"^y^^}^'^ 
but  few  experimental  trials  on  outside  stiniu  at- 
ino-  •  but  enough  to  convince  us  there  is  protit  in 

^^^ef\S;:'r^Ss  will  be  kind  enoughnot 

sum  cannot  be  obtained  again    clear  of  expense 

The  word  patent^  keeps  many  f^;«»J^"^!^^  .^^^^  in 
even  making  any  iniproyement  foi  feai  o  n- 
fringing  on  some  one^s  right.  Had  tbe  honey- 
machine  been  patented,  it  would  have  kept  t^  e 
bee-keepers  back  at  least  ten  years,  and  no  pel - 
son  wo  lid  have  been  benefited  more  than  they 
may  be  now,  by  accepting  and  keeping  up  wjth 
the  improvements  made.  We  know  ot  but  fe^v 
SentJthat  pay  to  educate  the  buyer  how  to  use 
Ihein  with  Slice' gs  ;  and  without  such  ^o^^^ 
acquired,  they  do  not  generally  succeed,  till  thty 
have  used  up  one  or  more  of  the  ^^J-^^^les  or  go 
discouraged-saying  the  article  is  ofno  use,  and 
thereby  discouraging  others  from  ^^J^^^^fJ^ 
the  detriment  of  the  inventor,  and  the  gieat  dis- 
advantage of  the  public.  _^    ^^    ^^^^^^^^ 

Si.  Charles,  III. 

[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Trouble  with  Queen  Cells. 


Mr  Editor  -.—Will  you,  or  any  of  your  kind 
and^uunemus  correspondents,  tell  me  whether 
queen  cells  require  to  be  inserted  in  the  same  po- 
sitiou  again  as  they  were  before  removal,  and 

ow  thel  should  be  fastened.  The  mtormatum 
would  be  important  to  me  as  well  as  perhaps 
many  others.  Up  to  this  time  I  never  could  tmd 
Siything  in  any  writings  on  apiculture  very  p- 
cise  on  this  point.  It  is  true,  some  state  that  he 
bees  will  sometimes  destroy  such  "^«e,f  f^^J^^^^^' 
and  others  again  say  that  the  bees  w>  toste  a 
inserted  ce'.l.  Now,  both  these  points  have  failec. 
with  me,  but  I  am  more  particularly  interested  in 

'^ofexamining  a  colony,  I  foundthat  it  had 

lost  its  queen  sometime  previous  as  it  conUxined 

queen  cells  sealed  over,  but  neither  eggs  nor  lai- 

?a,  in  the  cells-nothing  but  sealed  ^vorker  broody 

I  removed  all  the  queen  cells,   as  I  had  some 

sealed  Italian  queen  cells  m  a  nucleus  box   and 

the  colony  I  am  speaking  of  were  black  bees.     I 

took  out  a  comb,  cut  a  hole  in  it,  just  fitted  to  re- 

ceve  aqueen  cell  taken  from  the  nucleus  box, 

and  acfjusted  jt  nicely,  so  that  in  [act,  it  fitted  as 

naturally  as  if  placed  thei-e  by  the  bees.     But 

these  soon  gnawed  away  all  a^und  it,  ?«  that  I 

expected  to  see  them  make  a  ^tiH  better  job  of   t^ 

But  lo  !  they  soon  brought  it  to  the  bottom  of  he 

hive,  and  there,  s^u'roumling  it   acted  as  though 

they  did  not  mean  to  destroy  it.     bo  I  took  up 


the  cell,  and  first  cutting  a  little  wedge  out  of  the 
comb  which  held  it  before,  cutting   downward 
from  the  opening  made  by  the  first  insertion,  and 
put  it  between  the  crotch.     The  cell  was  now 
clear  above  and  below,  and  attached  only  by  ita 
sides,  as  when  cutting  it  out  I  had  left  it  encir- 
cled by  a  course  of  worker  cells.    The  bees  acted 
iust  as  before,  and  soon  got  the  cell  down  on  the 
floor  attain,  though  without  mutilating  it  m  any 
wiv      I  was  now  almost  at  my  wit's  end  ;  so  i 
took  up  a  piece  of  comb,  three  inches  square, 
and  cut   out  a  hole  to   receive  the  cell  again 
After  inserting  it  I  had  a  wirecloth  cage  so  inade 
that,  put  in  the  piece  of  comb  with  the  cell,  it 
iust  filled  the  cage,  except  leaving  suflicient  space 
for  the  bees  to  get  to  the  cell  between  is  sides 
and  the  comb  surtace.    I  now  though  if  the  bees 
act  as  before,  the  cell  will  at  least  no   fall  to  the 
bottom  of  the  hive.     They  really  did  p^w  till 
the  cell  reached  the  bottom  ol  the  cage,  by  which 
time  it  was  discovered  that  the  inmate  was  dead, 
caused,  I  suppose,  by  the  fall  it  received     I  then 
procured  another,  and  to  keep  it  trom  tailing  also 
I  caa-ed  it  in  the  same  manner  as  before,  leaving 
the  narrow  side  open  for  the  access  of  the  bees. 
These  acted  as  on  the  former  occasion,  gnawing 
awtiy   portions  until  they  could  go  no  turthei. 
Sometimes  tbey  would  have  the  cell  \aymg  on  its 
side,  and  then  again   sta^iding  on  its  end-     in 
fact,  they  kept  rolling  and  rocking  it  constantly, 
yet  never  mutilatin.^it  in  the  least  till  the  time 
when  its  inmate  should  have  left  the  prison      It 
was  then  found  to  be  dead.    I  now  tried  a  thud 

time,  with  no  better  success.  

All  this  is,  to  me  at  least,  exceedingly  stiange. 
Is  there  any  special  mode  of  introducing  a  queen 
cell  that  will  a?wa2/s  prove  successful?  1  so,  i 
should  be  very  much  gratified  to  be  instructed 
hrio  do  it,  for  future  use.  After  these  repeated 
failures,  I  gave  the  bees  a  piece  of  hroad  comb 

inserting  it  in  the  same  "P^'^^g  ^^^^^  t  f^^?ened 
queen  cell  was  placed  ;  they  immediately  fastened 
it  well,  and  proceeded  to  rear  a  queen  vvuy 
would  they  not  foster  and  use  the  sealed  queen 
cell  that  was  ofiered  to  them  ?      ^   ^^^^^^^^^ 

Kleinhurgli,  Canada. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Sugar  Candy. 


In  the  Bee  Journal  for  December,  D.  H. 
Co-sl  all  inquires  how  sugar  candy  should  be 
made  for  feeding  bees.  I  always  buy  the  com- 
mon sugar  sticks,  sold  by  confectioners. 
Liquid  Bee  Feed,  or  Syrup. 
I  consider  a  thick  syrup  made  of  white  sugar, 
fully  equal  to  honey  for  bee-feed. 

^    ^  J.  H.  Thomas. 

Brooklin,  Ontario. 


Bees  have  about  sixteen  thousand  eyes,  or 
eiiht  thousand  in  each  of  the  compound  organs 
placed  laterally  upon  the  head. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOUENAL. 


157 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 


Musings  of  the  Evening. 


The  honey  bee  must  be  one  of  the  special  bles- 
siD.irs  coulerred  by  God  upon  man ;  for  we  learn 
tliat  when  He,  in  infinite  wisdom,  did  provide  the 
means  of  salvation  for  His  fallen  creatures,  lie 
provided  lor  John,  the  forerunner  of  Christ,  the 
means  of  subsistence  from  the  treasured  stores  of 
tliis  most  wonderful  insect.  Thus  we  read : 
"and  his  meat  was  locusts  and  wild  honey." 
How  conclusively  does  this  show  that  the  bee 
performed  a  noble  part  in  consummating  the  plan 
of  redemption  ! 

The  bee  possesses  many  characteristics  worthy 
of  the  imitation  of  man.  It  teaches  lessons 
which,  if  obeyed,  will  advance  man's  interest 
morally,  physically,  mentally. 

Morally^  for  the  bee  is  an  observer  of  eveiy  law 
given  it  by  its  Creator.  Phyncally,  for  notliing 
so  small  is  capable  of  laying  up  in  store  for  the 
use  of  man  so  delicious  a  food  ;  and  its  rights  it 
defends  with  a  power  and  skill  that  Avould  as- 
tound any  one  unacquainted  with  the  nature  of 
this  insect.  Mentally,  for  in  all  her  labors  the 
bee  manifests  great  wisdom.  First,  she  gathers 
nectar  from  the  flowers,  secretes  it  through  the 
pores  of  the  skin,  and  thus  forms  scales  of  fat  or 
wax,  which,  taken  in  small  particles,  is  put  to- 
gether in  a  mechanical  manner  that  defies  the  art 
of  man;  raising  the  temperature  to  eighty  de- 
grees Fahrenheit,  and  the  pieces  are  sealed 
together  into  what  is  called  comb.  This  most  won- 
derful task  completed,  they  next  turn  their  atten- 
tion to  their  mother  ;  with  some  of  this  same  nec- 
tar or  saccharine  matter  mixed  with  the  pollen  of 
flowers,  and  partially  digested  in  the  stomachs  of 
the  fema],e  worker-bees.  With  this  the  mother  is 
fed  directly  from  the  proboscis  of  the  workers. 
Thus  fed,  her  fertilized  organs  of  reproduction 
stimulated  by  the  food,  she  produces  eggs  just  in 
proportion  to  the  amount  of  food  taken.  See 
with  what  judgment  the  eggs  are  warmed  and 
hatched,  and  the  larvse  fed.  Of  the  same  eggs 
they  are  able  to  make  some  to  "honor  and  some 
to  dishonor."  That  is  to  say,  they  can  feed  the 
larva?  from  one  egg  on  a  compound  food,  which 
makes  that  so  fed  to  grow  large,  fully  developing 
the  female  organs,  and  thus,  in  the  imperfect 
judgment  of  man,  entitling  it  to  the  name  of 
"  queen."  But  the  name  slanders  the  character 
of  the  mother  bee  ;  for  in  no  case  does  she  at- 
tempt to  assume  the  position  of  a  dictator.  She 
simply  assumes  the  duties  of  a  mother,  and  is  at 
all  times  and  under  all  circumstances  entirely 
subject  to  the  will  of  the  populace.  The  larvse 
from  anutj^er  egg  they  feed  on  a  ditferent  or  less 
nutritious  food,  and  sealing  up  the  embryo  in  a 
cell  that  dwarfs  it,  or  prevents  the  full  develop- 
ment of  the  female  organs.  Hence  the  worker- 
bee  is  not  capable  of  being  fertilized,  and  is  thus 
nominally  no  mother,  but  destined  to  be  a  servant 
of  the  household  for  life,  which  position  she 
cheerfully  accepts. 

How  like  unto  man,  too  !  Nothing  seems  to 
afford  so  much  pleasure  as  the  storing  up  of  trea- 
sure ! 

But,  to  their  credit,  be  it  no  longer  said  that 
theirs  is  a  monarchial  government,  for,  among 


them,  numbers  universally  rule,  even  to  the  put- 
ting to  death  of  one  that  all  creatures  hold  dear 
— the  mother.  They  do  not  even  suffer  their  own 
fathers  to  live,  wlien  their  presence  does  not  add 
to  the  wealth  of  the  community.  Still,  the  many 
lessons  of  industry  and  of  mechanical  ingenuity, 
together  with  their  strict  obedience  to  each  and 
every  law  which  God  has  given  them  for  their 
government,  are  worthy  the  admiration  and  imi- 
tation of  the  most  devout  theologian  or  the  pro- 
foundest  philosopher. 

James  D.  Meador. 
Independence.,  Mo. 


[For  the  Americaa  ' 

Wintering  Bees. 


Journal.] 


Mr.  Editor  : — As  the  winter  season  ap- 
proaches, (and  in  fact  it  has  been  freezing  with 
us  ever  since  the  middle  of  October,)  it  reminds 
us  to  look  after  the  care  of  stock,  to  see  that  they 
have  comfortable  quarters,  with  a  supply  of  food 
at  command,  because  we  understand  that  animal 
heat  is  kept  up  at  the  expense  of  food  and  exer- 
cise. Now,  if  we  give  them  ]n"oper  protection 
when  not  in  exercise,  they  will  require  propor- 
tionally less  food  to  maintain  the  required  heat. 
This  rule  holds  good  with  bees  as  well  as  other 
stock ;  and  if  they  are  weak  in  numbers  and 
light  in  stores,  they  must  certainly  perish,  here 
in  the  North,  if  they  are  not  protected. 

I  became  practically  convinced  of  the  advan- 
tagres  of  protecting  bees  from  cold,  in  the  winter 
of  1806.  Among  my  stock  were  eight  stands  in 
the  American  hive.  The  Bees,  comb,  brood  and 
honey  in  them  weighed  only  from  six  to  eight 
pounds  to  the  hive — the  heaviest  not  exceeding 
ten  pounds  in  weight.  No  practical  bee-keeper 
should  ever  allow  his  bees  to  commence  the  win- 
ter so  light  as  this,  but  I  was  tlien  more  engaged 
in  medical  practice  than  in  apiculture,  and  had 
not  watched  them  as  closely  as  I  should  have 
done.  I  knew  from  former  experience  that  they 
were  too  light  to  winter  on  their  summer  stands  ; 
but  what  was  I  to  do  ?  My  village  lot  was  too 
flat  for  a  cellar,  or  even  to  trench,  as  Mr.  Langs- 
troth  describes  in  his  valuable  work,  so  I  did 
what  any  Yankee  would  do  under  the  circum- 
stances, that  is,  /  did  the  'best  I  could  !  I  levelled 
the  ground  in  a  part  of  the  garden,  laid  down  two 
l^ieces  of  4  by  4  inch  scantling,  eight  inches  apart, 
filled  the  space  between  and  each  side  of  them 
with  straw,  to  absorb  the  moisture  from  below, 
set  the  eight  hives  on  the  scantling,  close  to- 
gether, with  cups  and  surplus  boxes  removed, 
and  entrance  open;  drove  a  board  into  the 
ground  at  each  end  of  the  row  of  hives ;  laid  a 
pole  on  top  for  a  ridgepole,  set  boards  slanting 
from  the  ground  to  ridgepole,  each  side ;  put  a 
little  straw  over  the  boards  to  help  shed  the 
water,  and  covered  all  with  dirt  from  six  to  ten 
inches  deep — leaving  the  space  around  the  hives 
under  the  boards  vacant.  I  put  them  into  these 
winter  quarters  Nov.  25,  1866. 

They  remained  undisturbed  until  the  third  of 
January,  when,  it  being  quite  warm  for  a  week, 
I  was  anxious  to  know  how  the  bees  were  getting 
along  ;   so  I  opened  one  end  of  the  cave  and 


8* 


158 


THE    AMEEICAN   BEE   JOUENAL. 


crawled  in.  All  -was  still  as  death,  and  I  con- 
cluded my  bees  were  surely  dead;  but  when  I 
rapped  each  hive  they  quickly  responded.  A 
truant  mouse  had  tried  to  gnaw  into  the  entrance 
of  one  hive.  I  supposed  he  was  hungry  and 
Avanled  something  to  eat ;  so  I  prepared  a  dish  of 
corn  meal  and  arsenic,  and  for  his  convenience, 
lest  he  should  be  thirsty  after  dinner,  I  set  a  dish 
of  water  handy,  and  closed  the  cave  again. 
The  bees  were  left  thus  till  the  20th  of  March, 
when  the  frost  was  all  out  of  the  ground,  and  my 
other  bees  flying  livaly.  I  opened  the  cave,  all 
was  quiet  ;  but  the  bees  soon  run  to  the  door  to 
see  if  it  was  indeed  daylight.  I  set  them  on  their 
summer  stands,  all  alive  and  well,  with  combs 
clear  of  mould  and  in  good  order.  Two  large 
rats  and  about  a  dozen  mice  had  dined  on  the 
prepared  meal,  and  laid  down  to  rest. 

As  the  bees  were  gathering  pollen  from  the 
willows  and  elms,  I  did  not  have  to  feed  any  in 
the  spring  to  get  them  through.  They  filled  up 
their  liives  during  the  summer,  and  were  strong, 
heavy  stocks  in  the  fall,  with  nearly  as  much  box 
honey  as  any  of  the  rest  of  the  hives. 

I  was  satisfied  that  protection  had  saved  these 
bees.  I  therefore,  the  next  winter,  built  a  house, 
fourteen  feet  by  eighteen,  weatherboarded  and 
ceiled,  with  a  ten-inch  wall  filled  in  with  sawdust, 
floored  overliead,  with  ten  inches  sawdust  on  top, 
and  carpeted  Avith  four  inclies  of  sawdust.  Two 
ventliating  pipes,  four  inches  by  six,  were  inserted 
— one  from  the  upper  floor  up  ;  the  other  from  top 
of  sawdust,  over  the  upper  floor,  down  to  within 
a  foot  of  the  bottom  of  the  room.  In  this  room 
we  kept  our  canned  fruit,  apples,  potatoes,  cab- 
bages and  bees,  for  the  last  two  winters,  with 
success.  I  have  just  put  them  up  in  it  again  for 
the  winter,  except  a  few  hives  which  I  have  left 
out  for  experiment.  I  am  satisfied  that  protec- 
tion pays. 

Now,  Mr.  Editor,  if  you  think  this  article  will 
add  anything  serviceable  to  the  already  large 
correspondence  in  the  Journal  on  protection  in 
winter,  and  thei'eby  induce  other  novices  to  house 
or  cave  their  bees  during  the  cold  weather  in  the 
North,  you  can  put  it  in  print  if  you  like.  So, 
hurrah  for  protection,  tlie  Amekican  Bee  Jotrn- 
NAL  and  the  successes  of  1870  !  Enclosed  find 
the  needful  for  three  old  and  three  new  subscri- 
bers. 

A.  V.    CONKLIN. 

Bennington,  Ohio,  Nov.  18G9. 


[For  tlie  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Bees  in  Jefferson,  Wisconsin,  in  1869. 


The  entire  economy  of  the  hive  seems  to  ema- 
nate exclusively  from  the  two  most  prominent 
attributes  of  instinct — that  of  self-preservation, 
and  tliat  other  more  important  axis  of  the  vast 
wheel  of  creation,  the  secured  perpetuation  of  the 
kind  by  the  conservative  and  absorbing  love  of 
the  olTspring. — Shuckard. 


"  If  you  listen  by  a  hive  about  nine  'colock, 
[on  a  summer  evening,]  you  will  hear  an  orato- 
rio sweeter  th;in  at  Exeter  Hall.  Treble,  tenor, 
and  bass  are  blended  in  richest  harmony.  Some- 
times the  sound  is  like  the  distant  hum  of  a  great 
city,  and  sometimes  it  is  like  a  peal  of  halle- 
lujahs."— Rev.  Wm.  C.  Cotton. 


I  commenced  wintering  out  the  stocks  of  my 
home  apiary  on  the  28th  of  March.  They  had, 
all  of  them,  consumed  a  very  small  amount  of 
honey,  and  came  out  nearly  as  strong  as  when 
put  in  the  cellar.  In  most  of  the  hives  no  brood 
was  found,  and  those  that  had  any,  had  very  little. 
On  the  od  and  4th  of  April  a  cold  snow  storm 
occurred,  witli  a  spell  of  cold  weather  for  three  or 
four  days,  during  Avhich  time  one  of  my  strongest 
colonies  perished  for  want  of  honey  near  the 
cluster,  though  having  plenty  of  honey  in  the 
hive.  This^was  the  fourth  colony  I  had  lost  out 
of  three  hundred  and  sixty-five,  since  winter- 
ing them  in.  Good,  warm  weather  did  not  set 
in  till  the  16th  of  April,  and  a  few  days  later 
the  bees  commenced  bringing  in  some  pollen. 
Between  the  6th  and  12th  of  May,  large  numbers 
of  workers  hatched,  and  everything  relating  to 
bees  gave  promise  of  a  good  honey  season. 
On  the  10th  of  May  I  found  some  colonies  that 
had  their  hives  full  of  honej^,  brood,  and  bee- 
bread  to  the  last  cell.  They  were  very  strong, 
and  had  built  queen  cells,  so  that  it  was  evident 
they  could  not  keep  together  long.  But  the 
weather  became  unfavoraljle  again,  and  the  bees 
could  gather  little  from  the  blossoms  of  hard 
maple.  On  the  20th  the  weather  changed,  and 
the  fruit  blossoms  furnished  fine  pasturage  for  the 
bees.  My  fiist  swarm  issued  on  the  2yth,  and 
on  the  cid  of  June  I  had  three  more  swarms. 
Nearly  all  my  colonies  had  become  strong  by 
this  time,  and  I  had  reason  to  expect  numerous 
swarms.  White  clover  never  appeared  more 
abundant,  and  was  just  getting  into  bloom,  and 
there  were  fourteen  acres  of  Alsike  clover  sowed 
within  half  a  mile  of  my  apiary  Avhich  was  also 
just  beginning  to  blossom.  Nearly  every  colony 
had  a  good  supply  of  old  honey,  besides  some 
lately  gathered.  If  ever  things  looked  promising, 
it  was  now,  but,  alas,  the  prospect  suddenly 
changed.  Cold  wet  weather  set  in,  and  rain  lell 
on  twenty-three  days  in  June.  Neither  white 
clover  nor  Alsike  yielded  any  honey.  The 
swarms  I  got  during  the  month  of  June  had  to 
be  fed  continuously  to.  keep  them  from  starving. 
They  could  build  no  combs,  and  all  the  progress 
they  made  was  in  rearing  some  brood  in  the 
combs  I  had  given  the.m.  The  stores  of  honey 
in  the  hives  gradually  disappeared,  and  about 
the  10th  of  July— the  time  when  the  basswood 
usually  begins  to  bloom — I  had  to  feed  nearly 
one-half  of  my  old  colonies  to  keep  them  alive. 
But  as  all  my  stocks  were  quite  populous  by  this 
time,  I  had  not  lost  courage  yet — thCj^basswood 
might  3'et  supply  sulBcient  winter  stores  to  my 
hungry  colonies.  There  were,  however,  only  a 
small  number  of  trees  that  blossomed,  and  those 
yielded  honey  abundantly  only  one  day,  and  less 
abundantly  lor  only  two  days  more.  With  the 
failure  of  the  basswood  blossoms  vanished  all 
prospect  that  the  bees  of  my  home  apiary  could 
gather  a  winter's  supply.  On  examining  a  large 
number  of  colonies  I  became  satisfied  that  not 
one  had  secured  stores  enough  to  carry  them 
through  the  winter — having  less  than  five  pounds 
of  honey  per  colony.     It  was  now  evident  that  I 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


159 


would  have  to  resort  to  some  extraordinary 
means  for  their  preservation.  I  concluded  to  do 
what  I  had  never  done  before,  namely,  remove 
to  different  locations  a  large  number  of  colonies. 
I  hunted  up  buckwheat  fields  and  commenced 
hauling  one  hundred  and  six  colonies  to  the 
town  of  Oakland,  half  a  mile  from  my  home, 
where  about  sixty  acres  of  highland  had  been 
seeded  with  buckwheat.  There  were  about  thirty- 
five  colonies  of  bees  in  this  neighborhood  before. 
With  the  exception  of  six  colonies,  those  which 
I  took  from  home  from  the  Gth  to  the  10th  of 
August,  had  gained  on  an  average  fifteen  and  a 
half  pounds  in  weight  when  I  brought  them  back 
on  the  20th  of  September.  The  last  six  colonies, 
Avhich  were  taken  there  on  the  24th  of  August, 
were  the  only  ones  that  had  not  gained  anything. 
Some  very  strong  colonies  gained  more  than 
thirty  pounds  in  sixteen  days.  Fifty-seven 
colonies  which  I  hauled  to  the  town  of  Aztalan, 
northwest  from  my  residence,  and  which  had 
over  twenty  acres  of  buckwheat  to  work  on, 
gained  only  on  an  average  about  seven  pounds 
per  hive.  Most  of  the  buckwheat  here  was 
sowed  on  low  ground,  and  one  day  when  look- 
ing after  the  colonies,  I  was  surprised  to  see 
nearly  all  the  bees  flying  in  the  direction  of  a 
four-acre  lot  sowed  on  high  ground,  while  only 
very  few  of  them  went  to  the  fine  ten-acre  field. 
Tlie  soil  of  this  field  was  heavy  clay;  another  par- 
cel, of  fifty-seven  colonies,  carried  to  a  location 
only  tliree  miles  west  of  my  home,  which  had 
not  much  buckwheat  to  work  on,  gained  about 
eight  pounds  per  hive,  on  an  average  Of  this 
lot,  as  well  as  of  the  former  one,  some  hives  had 
lost  in  weiglit, — the  highest  gain  by  any  hive 
was  seventeen  pounds  in  the  one  lot,  and  eighteen 
pounds  in  the  other.  Twenty-five  coh)nies, 
taken  to  the  town  of  Hebron,  about  five  miles 
from  my  home,  in  a  southeasterly  direction,  set 
'  out  in  lots  often  and  fifteen  hives  respectively, 
gained  about  eleven  pounds  per  hive,  on  an 
average.  Twenty -nine  other  colonies,  removed 
three  and  a  half  miles,  in  an  air  line,  south  from 
my  home  apiary,  and  placed  in  the  neighborhood 
of  three  acres  of  buckwheat  and  a  large  patch  of 
thistles,  gained  eight  and  a  half  pounds  per  hive, 
on  an  average.  Nine  of  these  were  removed 
thither  on  the  24th  of  August,  and  had  not  in- 
creased in  weight.  The  average  gain  of  ail  the 
colonies  removed  was  ten  pounds  per  hive, 
making  a  total  of  twenty-seven  hundred  and 
sixty-nine  and  three-quarter  pounds,  ascertained 
by  actual  weighing.  The  time  spent  in  removing 
them  and  bringing  them  back  was  nearly  four 
Aveeks,  employing  two  men  with  a  horse  and 
wagon.  Three  colonies  were  smothered  while 
being  tr«isported,  as,  in  order  to  expedite  the 
removal,  we  kept  on  hauling  in  day-time,  in  very 
hot  weather,  and  those  colonies  were  exceedingly 
populous.  The  bees  clustered  thickly  on  the 
wire  gauze  in  front  of  the  portico,  creating  im- 
moderate heat  in  the  hive  and  thereby  melting 
down  the  combs. 

By  this  experin\ent  I  have  found  that  there  is 
in  ditTerent  localities  much  difference  in  the  yield 
of  honey  from  buckwheat  blossoms ;  that,  at 
least  in  this  season,  it  yielded  most  honey  on 
high  ground,  particularly  in  sandy  soil  ;  that  a 
distance  of  three  or  four  miles  may  change   a 


•location  from  a  poor  to  a  good  one  ;  and  that  it 
pays  very  well  to  distribute  colonies  in  various 
directions  at  a  time  when  the  pasturage  is  or  is 
expected  to  be  scant  in  proportion  to  the  number 
of  colonies  to  be  supplied. 

On  examination  of  a  number  of  colonies  after 
bringing  them  home,  I  found  that  the  strong 
ones  had  nearly  all  sealed  honey,  while  the 
weaker  had  theirs  mostly  unsealed.  Some  of  the 
latter  lost  nearly  nine  pounds  each  in^weight  from 
September  20lh  to  November  lOt'h  ;  whereas 
none  of  the  strong  ones  with  scaled  honey  lost 
over  five  and  a-half  pounds.  This  loss  was,  of 
course,  not  all  hone}',  as  all  the  colonies  had  a 
considerable  amount  of  brood  when  brought 
home  ;  and  the  greater  loss  by  the  weaker  ones 
was  doubtless  occasioned  by  the  thin  unsealed 
homy. 

After  feeding  three  hundred  pounds  of  rock 
candy  and  two  hundred  pounds  of  coffee  sugar, 
and  uniting  about  thirty  colonies,  I  think  the  two 
hundred  and  eighty-eight  colonies  of  my  home 
apiary  have  food  enough  to  serve  them  till  May. 
Then,  if  necessary,  T  shall  feed  them  with  honey, 
a  supply  of  which  I  have  still  on  hand  from  my 
last  year's  crop.  I  fear,  however,  that  those  col- 
onies which  I  have  been  feeding  will  be  troubled 
with  dysentery,  and  that  some  of  them  may  die 
before  spring  comes  on,  as  they  appear  very  un- 
eas}?-  at  the  present  time,  and  the  bees  of  some  of 
tliem  now  discharge  fceces  outside  the  hive.  This 
feeding  was  by  way  of  experiment,  which  I  hope 
I  may  not  be  compelled  to  repeat  at  any  time 
during  n\y  life.  I  really  do  not  believe  in  win- 
tering bees  that  have  not  food  enough  in  the  fall 
to  last  them  to  the  first  of  May. 

While  compelled  to  make  so  poor  a  report 
about  the  bees  of  my  home  apiary,  I  feel  happy 
to  say  that  those  ot  my  southern  apiary  are  in 
much  better  condition.  They  not  only  needed 
no  feeding  last  summer,  but  were  constantly 
gaining  a  little  in  weight ;  so  that,  with  the  sur- 
plus which  some  of  them  gave,  I  could  winter  in 
every  colony  that  was  strong  enough  and  had  a 
good  queen.  I  had  one  hundred  and  seventeen 
colonies  in  that  apiary  in  the  spring,  and  have 
wintered  in  one  hundred  and  seventy-seven. 
The  increase  in  number  was  nearly  all  by  natural 
swarms. 

One  hundred  and  twenty-two  colonies  which  I 
had  in  my  northern  apiar}^  in  the  spring,  in- 
creased to  one  hundred  and  eighty-nine — all  of 
which  I  have  wintered  in.  With  the  expendi- 
ture of  about  one  thousand  pounds  of  honey  since 
spring,  this  lot  is  in  a  fair  condition  to  winter. 
Twenty-eight  additional  colonies,  which  I  keep 
in  the  town  of  Oakland,  seven  miles  from  my 
residence,  are  also  in  very  fine  condition  for  win- 
tering. 

Adam  Grimm. 

Jefferson,  Wis. 


It  often  happens  that  flowers  which  even  con- 
tain within  themselves  the  mean^of  I'eady  fructi- 
fication cannot  derive  it  from  the  pollen  of  their 
own  anthers,  but  require  that  the  pollen  should 
be  conveyed  to  them  from  the  anthers  of  j^ounger 
flowers.  In  some  cases,  too,  the  reverse  of  this 
takes  place. 


160 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL 


Bee  Hives,  &e.,  Patented  in  1869.      • 

Patentees.  Date  of  Patent.        Invention. 

A.T.Wright Jan.    5,  Beehives. 

Theron  Webb "    12,  "         " 

A.  T.  Wright "    13, 

Juo.  Wood "    12, 

B.  F.  Lee "    1^,  " 

C.  R.    C.  Hasten   & 

A.  D.  Van  Vleck...  "    19,  " 

T.  S.  Eno-lc^dow "    J'J, 

Wm.  Black , "    2G, 

Jesse  Pearson Feb.    2,  "         " 

James  D.  Meador "      2.  "         " 

David  S.  Gray "      2,  "      lionse. 

James  A.  Cameron...  "      !),  "      hive, 

A.  S.  Layton "      0,  "      ." 

R.  P.  Buttles "      9, 

J.C.Gaston "    1(5,  "         " 

G.  J.  Flansburg "    IG,  "         " 

James  P.  Praul "    IG,  "         " 

Peter  Miller,  Jr Marcli  28,  "      feeder.s. 

J.  J.  &  A.  J.  Frey...  "    2d,  "      hives. 

G.  W.  Umbaugh "23,  " 

T.  F.  McCafferty "    30,  "         " 

Ole  Osmundson April  20,  "         " 

James  H.  Crandell....  "20, 

Jno.  E.  Finley May    4,  "         " 

Chas.  E.  Spaulding...  "    11,  "         " 

Thomas  Atkinson "    H,  "         " 

N.  B.   Sebring "    18, 

R.  B.  Starbuck "    18, 

J.-B.  Farquhar June    1,  "         " 

M.  Easley "      1,  "         " 

James  M.  Robnett "      1,  "         " 

J.  fl.  Bassler "      8,  "        " 

E.  B.  Redfield  &  E. 

C.   Hubbard "    15,  "         " 

H.  Berix "    lo, 

Jno.  E.  Finley "    1;"*,  " 

Solomon  Stevens "    IT),  "         " 

Geo.   Cnlvert "    22, 

D.  G.  Watt "    20, 

Jos.  Croner "    20,  "         " 

J.  A.  Paddock  &  J. 

S.  Estep July     G,  "         " 

S.  Vreeland "    20, 

G.  A.  Robinson "    27,  "         " 

H.  Filsom "    27, 

M.  Graliam "    27,  "         " 

R.  S.  Torrey Aug.    3,  " 

Richard  Pearson. ...  ..  "      3,  "         " 

Thos.  Atkinson "    10,  " 

Saml.  B.  Crawlord...  "    10,  "         " 

T).  Collum  "    31, 

H.  M.  Dunham  &  B. 

Addington Sept.     7,  "         " 

H.  11.  Flick "    21, 

E.  K  Sliedd "    21, 

L.  H.  Critchfield Oct.    5, 

H.  O.  Peabody "  2G,  Cetttrifugal  ma- 
chines lor  ex- 
tracting ho- 
ney from  the 

%  comb. 

D.  Burbank Nov.    9,  Bee  house. 

G.  W.  Lowery "      9,  Bee  hives. 

Riley  Sanford "    23,  "         " 

Jewell  Davis "  23,  Hives  for  rais- 
ing queen  bees. 


Patentees.  Date  of  Patent.        Invention. 

W.  A.  Elam "    23,     Beehives. 

R.  P.  Buttles "  23,  Bee  moth  in- 
strument. 

H.  O.  Peabody Dec.  7,  Centrifugal  ma- 
chines for  e.x- 
tracting  ho- 
ney from  the 
comb. 

Peter  Campbell "    14,     Beehives. 

W.  T.   Kirkpatvick...        "    14,        "       " 

Thomas  L.  Gray "    21,     Miller  trap  for 

bee  hives. 


■   [For  the  American  Bee  Joui-nal.] 

Bees  North  and  South. 


1.  In  what  latitude  in  the  United  States  does  the 
bee  do  best — that  is,  collect  most  honey,  and  of 
the  best  quality  ? 

2.  Why  will  "bees  not  collect  more  honey  in  the 
South  where  the  season  is  longer,  tlian  in  the 
North  ?  I  have  the  general  impression  that 
their  instinct  to  store  Jioney  south,  is  only  for 
their  present  wants— that  is,  they  do  not  lay  up 
stores  for  winter  as  in  the  north.     Is  this  so  ? 

3.  Why  is  it  tliat  the  largest  apiaries  in  the 
United  States  are  north  of  latitude  40°— such  as 
Quinby's,  Grimm's,  Marvin's  and  olliers?  Will 
those  wlio  have  experience  in  different  latitudes 
answer  through  the  Bee  Journal,  and  oblige. 

West  Groton,  M.  Y. 

D.  H.  COGGSHALL,  Jr. 


[For  the  American  Bee  .Tournal.] 

Italian  Queen  and  Alsike  Clover. 

For  the  benefit  of  the  public  generally  and  the 
encouragement  of  M.  J.  H.  Townley,  of  Tompkins, 
Michigan,  I  would  say  that  liaving  dealt  largely 
with  him  in  the  purchase  of  Italian  queen  bees, 
I  am  satisfied  that  they  are  bred  from  the  purest 
and  most  reliable  stock  in  the  United  States, 
being  second  to  none.  I  have  purchased  also 
from  various  other  breeders,  all  of  wliom  have 
pure  stock,  but  have  not  b(^cn  more  satisfactory 
served  by  any  than  by  Mr.  Townley. 

I  have  also  bought  from  him  more  than  a  hun- 
dred pounds  of  xVlsike  clover  seed,  out  of  which 
I  sowed  eighteen  acres,  selling  the  balance  to  my 
neiglibors — all  of  whom  pronounced  it  to  be  the 
genuine  article,  free  from  any  foul  seed  whatever. 

As  Mr.  Townley  is  striclly  honest  and  very 
prompt  in  dealing,  orders  sent  to  him  will  no 
doubt  be  properly  filled,  and  purchaser!  find  that 
they  have  made  a  good  investment. 

0.  E.  WOLCOTT. 

Byron,  Midi. 


Antonine  the  Martyr,  in  the  seventh  century, 
speaks  of  the  honey  of  Nazareth  as  being  most 
excellent;  and  in  the  present  day,  bees  are 
extensively  cultivated  at  Bethlehem,  for  the  sake 
of  the  profit  derived  from  the  wax  tapers  supplied 
to  the  pilgrims. 


THE   AMEEICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


161 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

A  Cheaper  Bee  House. 


Mr.  Editok  : — I  have  just  been  readinir  the 
January  number  of  the  Bee  Journal.  I  think 
Novice's  bee  house  is  so  expensive  that  verj'  few 
persons  will  be  induced  to  put  so  much  money  in 
so  small  a  building.  My  brother  and  I  built  one 
last  fall,  ten  feet  by  twenty-one  inside  measure- 
ment, eight  feet  high  in  Uie  cellar  part,  with 
shelving  to  contain  one  hundred  and  twenty 
stocks  of  bees,  and  a  shed  overhead  six  feet 
liigh  in  the  clear,  in  which  to  store  out  empty 
hives,  caps.  &c.  The  entire  cost  of  it  was  less 
than  twenty-six  dollars.  We  did  all  the  labor 
ourselves.  "We  have  now  in  it  more  than  one 
hundred  and  twenty  colonies  of  bees,  in  tip-top 
condition. 

The  past  season  was  the  poorest  ever  known 
in  this  part  of  the  country.  More  than  half  the 
bees  will  starve  to  death.  Natural  swarming 
commenced  very  late,  and  after  the  15th  of  July 
I  do  not  think  the  bees  gathered  as  much  as  they 
used  from  day  to  day. 

I  swarmed  my  bees  artificially,  and  as  soon  as 
the  pasturage  failed  I  stopped.  We  increased 
our  stocks  about  one-half,  and  have  had  the  larg- 
est share  of  surplus  honey  that  has  been  taken  in 
tliis  county.  We  use  the  shallow  form  of  Laug- 
stroth's  hive.  I  have  examined  several  liundred 
stocks,  in  different  styles  of  hive,  this  fall,  and 
have  tbund  none  that  are  near  as  heavy  as  those 
in  the  shallow  form. 

Henry  S.  Wells. 

Lisle,  Broome  Co.,  N.  T. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Experience  with  Eoulbrood. 


Several  years  ago  I  purchased  two  stocks  of 
Italian  bees  of  a  man  in  the  State  of  Maine,  for 
Avhich  I  paid  him  forty  dollars.  They  were  in 
Langstroth  hives.  I  opened  both  hives  after  I 
received  them,  as  I  was  anxious  to  know  what 
kind  of  a  bargain  I  had  made.  On  removing  the 
top  board  I  detected  a  peculiar  smell,  such  as 
had  never  come  in  contact  with  my  olefactorj^ 
nerves  before.  Although  I  liad  never  seen  a  case 
of  foulbrood,  I  at  once  pronounced  the  two  hives 
infected  with  this  disease. 

It  was  then  early  in  the  month  of  June,  and  I 
let  the  bees  work,  to  see  what  would  be  done.  I 
examined  them  every  day,  to  ascertain  how  the 
disease  was  progressing.  The  stench  grew  more 
intolerable,  as  the  disease  spread  in  the  combs. 
I  did  nothing  the  first  year  to  check  it  from 
spreading.  Early  the  next  spring,  I  opened  my 
hives,  to  see  if  the  disease  was  still  there,  and  of 
course  found  that  it  was,  and  quite  as  much  so 
as  ever.  Very  little  brood  was  to  be  seen,  and 
all  my  stocks  showed  unmistakeable  signs  of  be- 
ing foulbroody.  I  now  commenced  to  experi- 
ment, and  every  comb  containing  brood  was  re- 
moved, the  brood  cut  out  and  buried  deep  in  the 
ground,  and  new  combs  that  contained  no  brood 
were  given  to  each  hive.  In  a  short  time  these 
combs  had  brood  in   them,  and  were  likewise 


infected  ;  and  so  I  went  through  with  tlie  same 
operation  of  cutting  it  out ;  and  towards  the  hit- 
tor  part  of  summer  no  brood  hatched  out  at  all — 
my  stocks  being  so  badly  infected. 

I  know  of  but  one  way  to  cure  this  disease,  and 
I  strongly  advise  others  who  are  troubled  with 
this  malady  to  adopt  my  remedy,  namely — de- 
stroy all  the  hives,  combs,  and  everything  about 
the  apiary  that  came  in  contact  with  the  foul- 
brood.  I  melted  all  tlie  combs,  and  burned  all 
my  hives,  and  had  a  thorough  cleaning  out  of 
everything  that  would  induce  the  disease  to  re- 
turn. I  then  purchased  a  new  stock  of  bees, 
hives,  &c.,  and  have  not  seen  any  traces  of  foul- 
breed  since. 

That  this  disease  is  so  contagious  as  some  wri- 
ters allege,  I  do  not  believe.  One  of  my  neigh- 
bors had  at  that  time  fifty  hives  of  bees,  and  none 
of  them  were  more  than  twenty  rods  distant 
from  mine;  yet  not  one  of  his  stocks  was  in- 
fected. Perhaps  some  bee-keepers  will  not  agree 
with  me  so  far  as  l)urning  the  hives,  but  I  am 
certain  that  this  is  the  cheapest  and  surest  way 
in  the  end. 

My  experience  with  foulbrood  cost  me  about 
two  hundred  dollars,  and  I  am  not  srfrry  that  I 
had  something  to  do  with  it.  Should  it  again 
make  its  appearance  among  my  bees,  I  know  just 
what  to  do,  in  order  to  subdue  it ;  but  I  do  not 
expect  ever  to  see  anything  of  the  kind  again. 
H.  Alley. 

Wenliam,  Mass. 

re?"  Wc  entirely  concur  with  ^.Ir.  Alley  in  advising 
the  immediate  and  complete  destruction,  by  Are,  of 
hives  and  combs,  after  siiflbcating  the  bees  with 
the  fumes  of  I.n-imstoue,  whenever  a  colony  is  found 
infected  with  foulbrood.  Tliis  should  be  done  in 
every  c.-ise,  unless  perchance  the  owner  is  disposed  to 
avail  himself  of  the  opportunity  :o  study  the  disease, 
and  is  in  a  location  remote  from  all  other  bees.  This, 
of  course,  will  be  a  rare  case,  and  in  every  other  we 
advise  a  prompt  resort  to  tlie  ordeal  by  fire. 

The  character  of  this  disease  is  now  ]n-obably  un- 
dergoing a  more  thorough  scientific  investigation 
than  ever  before  ;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  an  effi- 
cient remedy  will,  ere  lonir,  be  devised,  fully  tested, 
and  then  given  to  the  public  "without  money  and 
without  price." 


[For  the  Am 

The  Toad. 


Bee  Journal.] 


Me.  Editor:— As  almost  all  the  principal 
i.ssues  in  the  science  of  a])iculture  have  been 
pretty  well  discussed  through  the  columns  of  the 
Journal,  books,  &c.,  there  seems  but  little  left 
about  which  to  write.  But,  as  is  often  the  case, 
one  gets  his  curiosity  as  fully  gratified  in  the  "  side 
show"  asunder  the  main  canvas;  and,  as  "va- 
riety is  the  spice  of  life,"  we  propose  for  a  moment 
to  look  in  upon  the  performance  in  the  "  smaller 
rig."  ";. 

In  nearly  all  the  books  on  apiculture  we  have 
a  chapter  treating  on  the  enemies  of  bees ;  and, 
amongst  others,  the  toad  comes  in  for  his  share 
of  "  blessings."  Now,  to  thiswe  object.  In  our 
humble  opinion  the  toad  is  one  of  the  most  harm- 
less, yet  useful,  assistants  we  have.  But  some 
one  says  "his  very  looks  ought  to  condemn  him." 


162 


THE   AMEEICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


Not  too  fixst,  friend,  lest  we  prove  too  muc*. 
Truly  he  has  not  much  whereof  to  boast.  If  no- 
ble origin  is  to  be  taken  into  account,  it  must  be 
eon'u'ssed  that  his  parentage  is  most  humble. 
But  why  banish  him  on  that  account  ?  How 
often  do  we  find  the  richest  kernel  enclosed  in  a 
rough  shell,  or  a  manly,  loving  heart  beating 
under  a  tattered  waistcoat  I 

It  has  been  said,  and  forcibly,  too,  that  "an 
ounce  of  prevention  is  worth  a  pound  of  cure  ;" 
and  now  if  Ave  can  use  our  hero  as  an  assistant 
ag:unst  known  and  acknowledged  apial  enemies 
we  surely  have  gained  another  point,  and  shall 
save  from  banishment  an  humble  occupant  of  a 
nook  in  our  domain — one  which,  by  the  way,  has 
the  same  right  to  "life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness"  as  a  great  many  bipeds  who  not 
unfrequently  ape  the  characteristics  of  a  certain 
quadruped.  But  this  is  going  away  from  the 
point.  The  question  is,  can  the  toad  be  of  use  in 
apiculture  ;  and  if  so,  how  ? 

That  the  moths  are  among  our  worst  enemies 
no  one  doubts  ;  and  if  any  plan  can  be  devised  to 
extirpate  them  ])artially  or  entirely  it  will  be 
hailed  with  pleasure.  And  that  our  hero  is  fond 
of  jMadam  Bee  is  certain  ;  also,  that  he  is  par- 
tial to  moths,  ants,  bugs,  &c.  Now,  if  it  be  pos- 
sible to  prevent  him  from  seizing  the  former,  and 
allow  full  scope  to  his  propensity  to  capture  the 
latter,  he  certainly  will  redeem  himself  from  re- 
proachful aspersions.  That  he  was  created  to 
be  of  service  in  the  world,  and  that  a  part  of 
his  duties  are  to  assist  the  apiculturist,  we 
feel  quite_  certain.  We  know,  too,  that  he  is 
a  special  friend  to  the  horticulturist,  destroying 
myriads  of  insects  that  prey  on  his  cherished  pro- 
ductions. And  from  the  fact  that  he  is  frequently 
found  in  proximity  to  Madam  Bee's  domicile,  and 
knowing  his  predilection  for  small  game,  can  we 
not  secure  his  services  by  simply  placing  a  wire 
fender  around  the  entrance  of  hives,  and  then  al- 
lowing him  full  range  of  the  premises  ?  Place 
your  hives  near  the  ground,  and  the  pedestal  will 
form  a  good  retreat  for  him  during  the  heat  of  the 
day,  and  when  "still  evening"  comes  on  you 
will  find  him  on  hand,  and  alert  as  a  trusty  senti- 
nel. Let  your  bottom  boards  be  wide  enough  to 
allow  a  seat  by  the  sidf  of  or  beneath  your  colo- 
nies, and  he  will  make  short  work  ofthe  moth 
that  attempts  to  deposit  her  eggs  under  the  edges 
of  the  hive. 

And  now,  as  friend  Quinby  hands  him  over  to 
the  judge  with  a  "recommendation  to  mercy," 
I  will  assume  that  officer's  functions  pro  tern., 
and  charge  the  "jury  to  bring  in  a  verdict  of — 
"  Zeke,  you  let  that  wood-chuck  go/" 

J.  "\V.  Barclay. 

Worthington,  Pa.^  Jan.  12,  1870. 


In  some  occasional  cases,  where  the  nectarium 
of  the  flower  is  not  perceptible,  if  the  spur  of  such 
a  flower,  which  usually  becomes  the  depository  of 
the  nectar  that  has  oozed  from  the  capsules  secret- 
ing it,  be  too  narrow  for  the  entrance  of  the  bee, 
and  even  beyond  the  reach  of  its  long  tongue,  it 
contrives  to  attain  its  object  by  biting  a  hole  on 
the  outside,  through  which  it  taps  the  store. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Maple  Sugar  for  Bees. 

As  I  was  thinking  of  Mr.  Langstroth's  recom- 
mending sugar  candy  for  bees,  to  feed  them  in 
the  absence  of  honey,  the  thought  struck  me 
that  mai)le  sugar  might  be  as  good  a  substitute. 
Accordingly  I  took  some  small  cakes  of  it, -as 
they  were  prepared  in  the  spring  when  the  sugar 
was  made,  and  placed  them  where  the  bees  could 
get  to  them  and  cluster  thereon.  They  immedi- 
atelv  collected  on  it  and  commenced  eating,  as  a 
flock  of  hungry  hens  would  attack  a  pile  of  corn. 

I  am  feeding  quite  a  number  of  colonies  on 
pure  maple  sugar.  I  do  not  mean  the  black 
stuff  that  is  generally  made  in  caldrons,  which  I 
have  seen  so  black  that  you  could  not  tell  it  from 
the  muck  in  the  swamps.  I  should  think  such 
stuff  (for  stuff  I  should  have  to  call  it)  would 
be  poor  food  for  bees.  But  sugar  made  in  'sheet- 
iron  pans,  as  we  make  it,  is  far  superior,  and 
my  bees  seem  to  devour  it  with  insatiable  appe- 
tite. Sugar  can  be  made  much  purer  in  sheet- 
iron  pans  than  in  iron  cauldrons  or  kettles.  My 
bees  seem  to  be  doing  well  on  it  up  to  this  date, 
(Jan.  1,  1870,)  and  I  think  it  will  prove  to  be  as 
good  feed  as  sugar  candy.  In  fact,  in  one  sense 
of  the  word,  I  think  maple  sugar  is  candy. 

As  this  is  a  new  experiment  with  me,  I  should 
like  to  have  other  bee-keepers  who  see  this,  and 
have  bees  to  feed,  to  try  the  maple  sugar,  and 
report  results  through  the  Bee  Journal.  I  fear 
there  are  many  colonies  that  need  feeding,  as  the 
decrease  in  colonies  next  spring  may  show.  I 
am  well  pleased  with  the  Bee  Journal,  and 
would  not  be  without  it  for  twice-  its  cost. 

D.  H.  CoGGsnALL,  Jr. 

West  Groion,  N.  T. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Non-swarming  and  Queen-eatehing. 


Great  efforts  are  being  made  to  secure  the  con- 
trol of  queens,  in  order  to  control  the  swarming 
of  bees.  For  evidence  of  the  supposed  import- 
ance of  having  such  control,  I  need  only  refer  to 
the  many  efforts  being  made  by  different  indi- 
viduals to  attain  it. 

Mr.  Quinby  says  :  "  First  and  most  important, 
I  want  to  control  swarming  and  to  prevent  it — 
not  by  giving  extra  room  and  then  guessing  they 
will  not  swarm.  I  want  to  be  certain."  See 
American  Bee  Journal,  April,  1860,  page  184. 

No  one  knows  better  than  Mr.  Quinbv  that  a 
swarm  will  return  to  the  parent  hive,  unless  at- 
tended by  a  queen.  May  I,  through  the  Jour- 
nal, tell  him  and  all  the  readers  of  that  excellent 
medium,  of  a  little  contrivance  for  catching 
queens,  whether  at  swarming  time  or  any  other 
when  it  is  desired  to  catch  one. 

I  have  no  interest  whatever  in  the  trap,  ex- 
cept such  as  may  be  in  common  with  any  bee- 
keeper who  may  use  one  ;  but  having  used  one 
two  seasons,  I  feel  confident  in  referring  to  it  as 
a  desirable  thing  for  any  one  who  wants  to  catch 
queens  for  any  purpose. 

This  trap  is  about  three  inches  wide  by  nine 
inches  long,  and  is  made  by  Mr.  V.  Leonard,  of 


THE   AMEETCAN    BEE   JOURNAL. 


163 


Spring-field,  iu  tliis  (Bradford  Co.,  Pa.,)  upon 
the  principle  spoken  of  by  Mr.  Lnngstroth,  page 
174,  third  edition  of  '■'■Hire  and  Honey  Bee.''''  It 
is  true  that  this  trap  will  not  catch  a  queen  unless 
she  goes  into  it  ;  but  at  swarming  time  she  will 
do  this  in  attempting  to  go  out  of  the  hive  with 
the  swarm,  the  trap  being  placed  at  the  entrance. 
And  no  bee-master  will  be  at  a  loss  for  ways  to 
cause  her  to  attempt  to  go  through  at 'almost  any 
time  when  it  is  proper  to  open  a  hive.  If  the 
queen  can  be  seen  at  once  on  the  combs  as  we 
handle  them,  there  is  no  better  way  than  to  catch 
her  with  the  fingers.  But  if,  as  is  often  the  case, 
especially  iu  populous  colonies,  she  keeps  out 
of  sight,  the  trap  makes  sure  work  of  it,  if  we 
place  it  at  the  entrance,  and  shake  the  bees  from 
the  combs  in  front  of  the  hive.  They  will  return 
to  the  hive  through  the  trap,  and  if  the  queen  is 
among  those  shaken  off,  she  will  be  caught  in  her 
attempt  to  return,  and  can  be  disposed  of  as  you 
please. 

With  this  trap  all  after-swarms  can  be  made  to 
return  ;  and  then  queens,  whether  one  or  many, 
can  be  caught  and  used  as  you  please.  Drones 
being  larger  than  workers  or  queens,  are  ex- 
cluded by  the  adjustment. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  that  when  a  swarm  is 
on  the  wing,  the  queen  of  which  has  been  caught 
in  the  trap,  if  you  remove  a  parent  hive  and  set 
an  empty  one  in  its  place,  the  sw^arm  will  return 
to  the  place  whence  they  came,  and  finding  the 
queen  there  caged,  will  enter  the  new  hive  of 
their  own  accord.  The  swarm  may  then  be  set 
elsewhere,  and  the  parent  hive  returned  to  its 
former  place,  if  you  so  choose. 

P.  Peck  HAM. 

Columbia  Cross  Boads,  Pa.,  Jan.  14,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  .Journal.] 

Two  Queens  in  One  Hive. 

In  opening  some  hives  to-day,  (Jan.  6,)  I  was 
much  surprised  to  hear  piping  from  one  of  them, 
to  which  I  had  given  an  Italian  queen  about  the 
middle  of  September.  I  supposed  that  the  queen 
I  had  then  introduced  was  dead,  and  that  the 
bees  had  raised  another  to  supply  her  place. 
But,  on  taking  out  the  first  frame  occupied  by 
bees,  I  savf  a  young  queen,  perfect,  able  to  fly, 
or  to  do  anything  else  required  from  a  young 
queen  ;  and  on  the  next  frame  I  found  the  old 
queen,  looking  as  well  as  possible.  Both  this 
frame  and  the  next  had  considerable  brood,  just 
hatching  ;  and  nearly  in  the  middle  of  the  one 
on  which  the  old  queen  was,  I  saw  the  cell  from 
which  the  young  one  had  just  been  hatched. 
Everything  appeared  to  be  ready  for  swarming, 
and  had  it  been  at  the  i^roper  season,  I  should 
have  supposed  that  the  presence  of  two  was 
caused  by  the  old  queen's  inability  to  fly,  and 
her  consequent  detention  till  the  young  queen  was 
Latched.  But,  as  it  is,  it  is  all  mystery  to  me. 
If  any  of  your  readers  has  observed  anything 
like  it,  I  should  like  to  hear  from  them,  as  I  can 
see  no  reason  for  bees  wishing  to  supersede  a 
queen,  which,  to  all  appearance,  is  perfectly 
healthy  and  not  six  months  old. 

Bees  have  not  done  well  here  the.  last  two  sea- 


sons— last  being  very  short.  We  had  not  ove'" 
fifteen  day's  good  weather  in  June  and  Jul}',  and 
if  the  bees  had  not  stored  honey  as  fast  as  bees 
ever  did,  in  those  days,  they  would  have  fared 
badly  this  winter.  But,  as  they  are  all  old  stocks, 
they  are  wintering  well.  Many  late  swarms, 
however,  will  die  if  not  fed.  I  doubled  all  mine 
at  swarming  time,  and  they  arc  all  right,  while 
those  not  doubled  are  short  of  hoijey. 

I  have  been  troubled  with  skunks  last  fall  and 
fore-part  of  winter,  trying  to  get  at  the  bees  or 
honey,  or  both,  bj^  digging  under  the  ends  of  the 
hives  and  scratching  about  the  entrance,  thus 
keeping  them  in  an  uproar — sometimes  all  night. 

I  have  generally  had  best  success  in  introduc- 
ing queens  in  October,  but  found  it  did  not  wuirk 
this  .year,  as  the  bees  would  hardly  accept  them 
after  being  caged  ten  days. 

IIow  many  stocks  can  be  kept  in  one  place, 
when  white  clover  is  abundant,  with  consider- 
able locust,  whitewood,  basswood,  &c  V 

Three  years  ago  I  obtained  from  one  colony 
$37.50  tsoriJi  of  honey.,  and  a  good  sicarm  of  bees. 

E.  M.  JOHKSON. 

Mentor,  Ohio,  Jan.  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

The  Italians  and  the  Blacks. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  saw  an  article  in  the  Decem- 
ber number  of  your  valuable  Bee  Journal,  page 
130,  headed,  "Common  Bees  and  Italians." 
What  I  have  to  say  in  regard  to  that  article  is 
this  : — I  have  had  the  Italiaus  and  the  natives 
both  in  one  ajiiary  for  the  past  five  seasons ;  have 
paid  equal  attention  to  both,  giving  each  the 
same  style  of  hive,  same  management,  &c., 
throughout  each  season,  and  have  decided  thus: 
FirsC'm  good  seasons  for  honey-gathering,  both 
do  Avell.  Second,  in  seasons  like  the  one  just  past, 
as  it  has  been  with  me  and  many  others,  the  na- 
tives have  all  they  can  do  to  gather  sufiicieut 
stores  for  wintering,  and  yield  no  surplus  ;  while 
the  Italians  gather  sutflcient  for  wintering,  be- 
sides giving  a  surplus  of  from  twenty  to  seventy- 
five  pounds  per  hive.  Third,  in  certain  locations, 
in  seasons  like  the  past,  wh'en  there  was  no  honey 
to  gather,  neither  kind  can  do  well.  Fourth,  the 
only  correct  way  to  give  the  Italians  a  lair  trial 
is  to  keep  both  in  the  same  a;>iary,  in  the  same 
style  of  hive,  and  with  tlie  same  kind  of  manage- 
ment for  a  number  of  years  iu  succession,  and 
then  compare  the  result  of  each  season.  Where 
this  has  been  done,  I  do  not  know  of  a  single  in- 
stance where  the  decision  has  not  been  highly  in 
favor  of  the  Italians.  There  are  bee-keepers  in 
my  neighborhood  who  have  heretofore  stated 
that  the  Italian  bee  Avas  a  mere  speculation,  car- 
ried on  by  a  few  individuals  only,  such  as  Mr. 
Quinby,  Mr.  Laugstroth,  Mr.  Stratton,  Mr.  Cary 
and  myself,  or  a  few  others  ;  and  that  only  those 
capable  of  rearing  the  Italian  queens  were  the 
chaps  to  derive  profit  from  the  Italians,  all  others 
paying  dear  for  the  whistle,  and  so  on.  This  was 
the  ge'neral  talk  among  inexperienced  bee-keepers 
in  my  vicinity,  from  the  first  introduction  of  the 
Italians  until  the  year  1867.  Since  that  time  their 
conversation  has  changed  somewhat  in  favor  of 


164 


THE   AMEEICAN   BEE  JOUENAL. 


the  Italians.  The  past  season  has  convinced  many 
of  their  superiority  over  the  natives,  which  gave 
no  surplus,  when  the  Italians,  in  the  same  apiary, 
yielded  twenty  pounds  and  upwards,  besides  end- 
ing the  season  witli  larger  stores  tor  wintering. 
This  I  fiiid  to  he  the  case  generally  througliout 
my  neighborhood,  and  in  many  other  localities 
where  the  season  was  such  as  it  was  here.  In 
fact,  the  Italians  proved  their  superiority  over  the 
natives  every  season  since  I  had  them  in  my 
apiary ;  and  in  the  past  one  gave  me  several 
swarms  and  a  goodly  quantity  of  surplus  honey. 
The  natives,  on  the  contrary,  gave  me  neitlier 
swarms  nor  surplus  honey-  proving  almost  a 
total  failure  as  regards  profit.  As  for  myself,  I 
keep  bees  for  profit,  as  many  others  do.  Then 
why  not  keep  the  kind  that  bring  us  the  great- 
est income  for  the  same  care  and  labor  bestowed, 
and  same  capital  invested  ?  This  is  my  motto, 
and  I  shall  continue  to  cultivate  the  Italian  bees 
as  decidedly  preferable. 

P.  J.  Severson. 
Knowersmlle,  W.  T. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Bee  House. 

Mr.  Editor  :— As  you  have  adopted  the  very 
liberal  policy  towards  the  bee  fraternity,  oflctting 
every  man  who  has  made,  or  fancies  he  has 
made,  an  improvement  in  any  dei)artment  of  api- 
culture, publish  a  description  of  it  in  your  jour- 
nal, I  desire  to  avail  myself  of  your  liberality  to 
describe  an  improvemeiit  in  Bee  Houses,  for 
which  Letters  Patent  No.  96,G08,  w^ere  issued  to 
mc  November,  9th,  1869. 

You  and  your  readers  are  aware  that  the  best 
manner  of  wintering  stocks  of  bees,  and  also  re- 
serve queens,  are  two  objects  to  which  bee- 
keepers have  of  late  devoted  much  attention.  I 
have  been  studying  to  solve  the  same  problems. 

The  design  of  my  improvement  is  to  furnish  a 
good  and  cheap  means  of  wintering  bees  on  their 
summer  stands,  (and  of  wintering  reserve  queens,) 
without  sacrificing  the  convenience  of  separate 
hives,  for  performing  the  various  operations  re- 
(luired  by  the  most  advanced  system  of  apiculture. 
It  consists  of  a  square  box  with  an  entrance  for 
bees  in  each  side,  to  contain  four  hives  of  any 
description  in  use.  I  prefer  the  Langstroth  hives, 
using  the  shallow  forms  with  two  sets  of  frames 
to  obtain  honey  in  frames  ;  and  the  brood  chamber 
ofHenry  Alley's  "  New  Style  Langstroth  Hives," 
(cut  of  which  appears  in  the  Bee  Journal,  Vol.  5, 
page  54,)  for  obtaining  box  honey.  The  bottom 
is  made  of  two  thicknesses  of  pine  flooring  wath 
a  space  between,  filled  with  any  non-conductor 
of  heat.  The  top  is  made  in  the  same  way,  (k)f 
thinner  material,  to  make  it  light,)  and  shaped 
like  the  roof  of  a  house.  The  walls  consist  of 
inch  boards  lined  with  several  thicknessess  of 
roofing  paper  or  anything  else  that  may  be  pre- 
ferred. The  house  is  divided  horizontally  into 
two  sections  of  about  equal  depth.  The  upper 
section  is  on  hinges,  so  as  to  open  like  a  chest. 
The  sea,m  between  the  two  sections  is  made  air 
tight  with  listing  or  rubber.  Openings  tor  ven- 
tilation are  provided  through  the  floor  and  roof. 


Around  the  inside,  about  two  inches  above  the 
floor,  is  nailed  a  narrow  strip  on  which  rest 
boards  fitting  close  to  the  hives  and  forming  a 
second  floor,  Avhich  may  be  permanent  or  re- 
movable according  to  convenience.  If  I  used  a 
hive  having  honey  boxes  placed  on  the  sides,  I 
would  make  it  removable,  otherwise  permanent. 
The  object  of  this  is  to  give  free  circulation  of  air 
around  the  entrances  of  the  hives  but  exclude  it 
when  desired  trom  the  upper  chamber  till  it  has 
passed  through  the  hives  and  been  warmed  by 
the  bees.  This  upper  chamber  is  the  most  im- 
portant feature  of  the  house.  When  the  weather 
is  unsuitable  for  bees  to  fly,  the  lighting  boards 
are  made  to  turn  up  and  close  the  entrance  per- 
fectly tight  and  dark.  Then  the  warmth  arising 
from  four  stocks  of  bees  is  combined  in  the  upper 
chamber  and  retained  by  proper  adjustment  of 
the  ventilators,  so  that  no  signs  of  frost  or  damp- 
ness appear  in  the  coldest  weather. 

This  chamber  also  furnishes  a  very  coiivenient 
place  for  Avintering  reserve,  queens  in  nucleus 
bi'xes.  It  is  better  to  winter  the  nucleus  stocks 
if  it  can  be  done  conveniently,  because  it  saves 
the  trouble  and  loss  of  breaking  them  up  in  the 
fall  and  making  them  anew  in  the  spring.  These 
boxes  may  be  made  with  openings  in  one  side, 
corresponding  to  the  openings  in  the  hives  for  the 
honey  boxes.  When  the  honey  boxes  have  been 
removed  in  the  fall,  the  nucleus  boxes  can  be  set 
in  their  places,  with  wire  cloth  to  keep  the  bees 
from  passing.  Thus  they  will  not  only  have  the 
benefit  of  the  genial  warmth  of  the  chamber,  to 
which  they  each  will  contribute  a  share,  but  they 
will  have  a  current  of  warm  air  direct  from  the 
hives.  Each  house  will  easily  keep  in  this  way 
sixteen  reserve  queens,  four  to  a  hive ;  enough 
probably  lor  all  practical  purposes.  But  if  the 
boxes  are  made  eight  inches  long,  seven  inches 
wide  and  nine  or  ten  inches  high  and  set  two 
tiers  deep,  thirty-two  can  be  accommodated. 

The  dimensions  of  this  bee  house  are  forty  to 
forty-two  inches  square  and  tw^enty-four  to 
twenty-six  inches  high,  inside  measure.  It  can 
be  furnished,  with  four  hives  containing  ten 
frames  each  complete  for  $25.  This  includes 
a  good  lock  to  secure  its  contents  against  thieves, 
the  most  dangerous  foul  brood  we  have  to  con- 
tend with  in  this  State. 

D.  BURBANK. 

Lexington,  Ky.,  January  QtJi,  1870. 


[For the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Query  Respecting  Drones. 


Are  drones  capable  of  fertilizing  queens,  if 
raised  from  an  unfertilized  queen,  or  from  a  qeeen 
past  the  power  of  laying  eggs  which  will  hatch 
into  workers  ? 

J.  L.  H. 

January,  1870. 

Experiments  made  by  the  Baron  of  Berlepsch 
show  that  drones  i)roduced  by  fertile  workers 
are  virile,  and  it  may  hence  fairly  be  inferred 
that  those  above  releried  to  are  so  likewise. 
There  may  still  be  a  question  as  to  the  quality  of 
the  progeny. 


THE   AMERICAN  BEE   JOURNAL. 


165 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Workei'  Comb  changed  to  Drone  Comb 
and  Vica  Versa. 


As  Mr.  Dadant  thinks  that  the  fiict  of  the  bees 
chaDging-  drone  cells  to  worker  cells,  as  commu- 
nicated bj'  Mr.  Marvin  and  Mr.  Alley  to  the  Bee 
JouRNAiv  might  "throw  some  light  on  the  deter- 
mination of  sex  in  the  eggs  of  bees  ;"  it  may  not 
be  out  of  place  to  state  that  during  the  past  season 
1  had  two  instances  in  which  the  bees  done  just 
the  reverse,  and  changed  worker  cells  into  drone 
cells. 

The  first  was  by  a  colony  of  black  bees  that  I 
transferred  from  a  large  box  hive,  and  having 
plenty  of  straight  -Nworker  comb  in  it,  I  filled  every 
section  (or  frame)  with  only  worker  comb.  I 
was  particular  to  exclude  the  drone  comb,  because 
I  did  not  wish  to  raise  black  drones.  About  the 
last  of  May  I  noticed  a  large  number  of  drones 
in  the  hive,  and  as  I  had  been  so  particular  to  put 
no  drone  comb  in  it  I  was  surprised.  I  opened 
tlie  hive  and  the  first  shut  I  examined  had  a  patch 
of  drone  comb  on  it  as  large  as  my  hand  and 
there  Avas  nearly  as  mnch  on  four  others.  The 
cells  were  full  size,  four  of  them  measuring  an 
inch 

I  examined  them  closely,  after  cutting  it  all 
out,  and  found  that  the  Avails  were  composed  of 
a  mixture  of  old  and  new  wax.  Without  further 
proof  I  might  haye  concluded  that  I  was  mistaken, 
but  on  closer  examination  I  found  that  the  fouri- 
dation  had  not  been  disturbed  and  had  the  regular 
size  and  angels  of  worker  cells.  The  drone  cells 
were  built,  on  it,  the  bees  paying  no  attention  to 
the  original  plan  of  the  foundation,  the  new  cells 
frequent!}^  including  a  part  ot  the  foundations  of 
four  old  ones. 

The  second  instance  was  also  in  a  colony  of 
black  bees,  from  which  all  drone  comb  had  been 
taken  and  its  place  filled  with  worker  comb,  and 
as  it  was  on  the  sheet  of  comb  next  to  the  glass 
and  paralled  with  it  I  had  the  privilege  of  seeing 
it  done.  The  whole  sheet  was  of  worker  comb, 
and,  with  the  exceptions  of  a  small  spot  of  brood, 
was  full  of  honey  and  capped  over.  The  first 
thing  I  noticed  unusual  was  that  the  bees  were 
removing  the  honey  from  one  end.  By  the  next 
day  they  had  removed  the  honey  from  about  one 
fourth  of  the  sheet  and  had  cut  away  most  of  the 
cells  down  to  the  foundation  and  had  commenced 
building  up  the  drone  cells.  In  two  da3^s  more 
the  job  was  completed  and  every  cell  had  an  egg 
in  it. 
^  A  neighbor  of  mine,  Mr.  T.  M.  Newman,  had 
an  instance,  last  season,  of  drone  comb  being 
used  to  rear  workers.  He  had  taken  new  white 
drone  comb  and  transferred  it  to  a  section  honey 
box,  filling  all  the  sections.  He  placed  it  on  a 
newly  hived  natural  swarm.  The  queen  estab- 
lished her  brood  next  in  it  instead  of  the  brood 
chamber,  and  when  I  saw  it,  it  was  full  of  worker 
brood.  I  did  not  examine  the  comb  closely,  but 
think  that  the  cells  were  cut  down  and  rebuilt 
and  not  filled  up  funnel  shaped  as  in  Mr.  Marvin's 
instance.  The  queen  finally  went  below  and 
when  the  brood  was  all  out  of  the  comb  the  bees 
filled  it  with  honey. 


In  the  second  instance  a])ove,  I  had,  a  few 
days  before  added  a  half  inch  section  to  the  brood 
chamber,  as  the  bees  had  built  the  comb  so  near 
the  glass  that  there  Avasnot  room  enough  to  build 
full  length  Avorker  cells.  This,  extra  room  was 
taken  advantage  of  to  rear  drones,  as  it  was  per- 
haps the  only  place  in  the  hive  that  they  could 
have  done  it  without  cutting  dov/n  the  opposite 
cells. 

In  the  first  instance  no  doubt  more  space  was 
left,  in  transferring,  betAveen  the  sheets  of  comb, 
than  could  be  filled  by  worker  brood  comb. 
D.  L.  Adaik. 

Hawesville  Ki/.,  Jan.  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Straight  Combs. 


Quinby  says  the  bees  did  not  work  straight  in 
sectional  hives,  and  a  writer  in  the  last  Journal 
says  he  could  not  make  them  build  straight  Avith 
the  corner  of  frame  up.  The  reason  is  obvious. 
Short  frames  involve  too  manj'^  fractional  cells, 
and  too  near  the  brood. nest.  If  two  combs  are 
started  at  one  frame,  they  turn  one  or  both  to 
avoid  these,  and  make  the  range  as  long  as  they 
can.  A  prime  SAvarm  Avill  present  the  edge  of 
the  comb  to  the  fly  hole,  for  free  passage  and 
ventilation  and  the  longest  breadth  of  cavity  to 
favor  compact  construction.  In  a  circular  cavity, 
the  side  combs  narrow  and  convex,  they  leave  the 
side  combs  with  going  away  from  the  heat.  With 
flat  brood  side  combs,  they  must  go  farther  from 
the  heat,  which  is  not  natural ;  so  they  gather  in 
center  and  perish.  Angular  frame  tops  are  a 
want  of  heat  and  space.  One  strip  of  comb  stuck 
to  the  top  bar  of  frame  secures  a  straight  comb 
in  most  cases.  They  cut  off  most  of  these, 
because  they  cannot  enter  the  fractional  cells, 
but  use  the  impressions  left  for  the  ncAV  founda- 
tion. A  small  swarm  Avill  build  across  the  cavity 
presenting  the  side  of  the  comb  to  the  fly  hole, 
to  protect  themselves  from  cold.  In  square  hives 
with  short  brood  combs  in  a  corner,  fencing  in 
their  work  with  thick  store  combs,  sometimes 
turned  at  right  angles,  v.n-ying  tlioir  action  Avith 
circumstances.  Tliey  have  fought  the  stupidity 
of  man  for  ages.  Lately  I  found  where  two  small 
swarms  had  been  taken,  the  cavities  were  narrow 
in  both  cases,  and  extended  several  feet  above 
and  beloAV  the  fly  hole,  the  baes  being  in  each 
case  just  above  the  fly  hole.  Upward  ventilation 
is  right  in  winter,  but  Avrong  in  summer,  cannot 
have  both  naturally  ;  therefore  cannot  succeed. 
This  is  human  authority. 

F.  H.  Miner. 

Lemont,  III. 


Many  plants  could  not  be  perpetuated  but  for 
the  agency  of  insects,  and  especially  of  bees;  and 
it  is  remarkable  that  it  is  chiefly  those  which  ac- 
quire the  aid  of  this  intervention  that  have  a 
nectarium  and  secrete  honey.- 


166 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOUENAL. 


[For  the  American  Bi 

Alsike  Clover  Again. 


In  the  Deceiuber  number  of  tlie  Journal  for 
1869,  page  125,  there  is  an  article  from  Mr.  Adam 
Grimm,  on  Alsike  clover.  It  seems  from  it,  that 
he  is  not  very  favorably  impressed  with  this 
clover,  as  a  honey-yielding  plant,  in  the  vicinity 
of  his  home  apiary.  The  conclusion  he  has 
arrived  at,  however,  is  c^uite  different  from  what 
mine  would  have  been,  under  the  circumstances. 
He  says  he  and  his  neighbors  sowed  fifty  pounds. 
Sowing  four  pounds  per  acre,  this  would  be 
twelve  and  a  half  acres  ;  but  we  will  call  it 
thirteen  acres.  He  says  further,  "  it  commenced 
blooming  about  the  5th  of  June,  and  remained 
in  bloom  till  the  25th  of  July."  And,  still 
further  on,  "after  examining  about  a  dozen 
hives  every  day,  during  the  w^hole  season,  I 
could  never  discover  more  than  about  a  hun- 
dred cells  with  a  very  thin,  watery  honey." 

We  have  no  means  at  hand  of  ascertaining  the 
exact  number  of  colonies  Mr.  Grimm  had  in  his 
home  apiary  at  the  time  these  examinations  were 
made  ;  but  by  referring  to  the  Journal,  Vol.  5,  No. 
2,  page  35,  we  find  that  he  had  three  hundred 
and  sixty-two  colonies  the  spring  previous,  be- 
fore any  were  sold.  How  many  were  sold,  Mr. 
Crowfoot  does  not  state  (he  bought  forty  col- 
onies), but  we  will  suppose  that  sixty-two  colonics 
were  disposed  of.  It  would  be  fair  to  presume 
that  the  increase  in  stock  would  equal  the 
number  sold  ;  but  we  will  leave  them  out  of  the 
account,  and  suppose  that  Mr.  Grimm  had,  in 
round  numbers,  at  the  time  his  examinations 
were  made,  just  three  hundred  colonies.  The 
number  of  worker  bees  in  a  good  colony  is 
variously  estimated  at  frora*25,000  to  50,000. 
Some  writers  estimate  the  number  much  above 
the  figures  here  given  ;  but,  as  we  wish  to  be  mod- 
erate, preferring  to  be  below  the  actual  number 
rather  than  above  it,  we  will  call  it  30,000. 
Supposing  that  one-half  of  them  remained  in  the 
hives,  while  the  other  half  were  out  on  the 
Alsike,  there  would  be  4,500,000  bees  at  work  on 
his  thirteen  acres  of  clover — equal  to  346,154  bees 
per  acre,  or  2,103  per  square  foot.  Some  twenty 
years  ago  there  was  a  gentleman  living  in  Jack- 
son, Michigan,  by  the  name  of  Chapman.  He 
had  been  a  judge  and  also  a  member  of  the 
Legislature.  A  neighbor,  living  several  miles 
from  Jackson,  who  in  addressing  another  is  apt 
to  give  him  all  the  honors  he  is  entitled  to,  had 
occasion  to  ask  a  favor  of  the  judge  and  wrote  to 
him,  addressing  the  letter  to  the  "Hon.  Judge 
Chapman,  Esq."  He  sent  his  son  to  Jackson 
with  the  letter.  Tlie  judge  took  it,  read  the 
direction,  and  looking  up  at  the  boy  said  — "  the 
deacon  has  spread  it  on  rather  thick,  liasn't  he  ?" 
Well,  it  is  somewhat  so  with  Mr.  Grimm's  Alsike 
clover,  the  bees  have  been  spread  on  there  rather 
thick.  If  the  weather  was  not  as  wet  in  Wiscon- 
sin, in  June  and  July,  as  it  was  here  in  Michigan, 
raining  almost  every  day,  and  he  was  able  to 
find  any  new  honey  in  the  cells  at  anj^  time, 
though  ever  so  thin  and  watery,  I  tliink  it 
speaks  wonders  for  the  Alsike  clover. 

I  have  now  thirty  acres  seeded  to  tliis  clover. 
I  had  intended  to  sow  only  sixteen  next  spring  ; 


but  since  reading  Mr.  Grimm's  article,  I  think  I 
will  not  only  sow  the  rest  of  the  farm,  100  acres, 
with  it,  but  will  also  give  all  the  seed  to  my 
neighbors  that  I  can  induce  them  to  sow.  If 
three  hundred  swarms  of  bees  can  collect  and 
store  honey  enough  in  each  hive,  to  make  a  show 
from  thirteen  acres  in  such  a  season  as  the  past 
has  been,  what  will  thirteen  swarms  of  bees  do 
on  three  hundred  acres  in  a  good  year  ?  Novice's 
vision  of  rows  of  jars  of  honey  miles  in  length, 
is  tame  in  comparison. 

In  conclusion,  I  think  if  friend  Grimm  would 
reduce  the  number  of  colonies  in  his  home 
apiary  from  three  hundred  to  sixty  or  seventy,  he 
would  find  that,  in  good  years,  they  would 
collect  some  honey  from  ichite  clover  if  not  from 
Alsike,  even  in  his  poor  locality. 

One  word  more  about  tiie  Alsike  clover.'  Bees 
will  always  be  found  in  the  greatest  number 
where  honey  is  the  most  ahunddnt ;  and  during 
the  time  my  Alsike  was  in  bloom,  it  was  alive 
with  bees,  (not  quite  eight  to  the  square  foot 
though,)  on  all  fair  days — which,  by  the  way, 
were  like  some  visits  we  read  of  "few  and  far 
between,"  If  I  remember  rightly  there  were 
here  only  eight  days  in  June  without  rain,  and 
July  was  a  continuation  of  the  same  subject, 
without  any  perceptible  improvement,  and  the 
only  wonder  is  that  anything  in  the  shape  of 
honey  was  stored  at  all,  let  alone  its  being  thin 
and  watery.  Honey  from  the  Alsike  is  not  more 
watery,  however,  than  that  collected  from  white 
clover. 

J.  H.  TOWKLET. 

Parma,  Mich. 


[For  tbe  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Artificial  Pasturage  for  Honey. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  see  in  the  Bee  Journal  vari- 
ous statements  ofsurplus  honey  obtained  this  year 
in  different  sections  of  the  country,  and  am  in- 
duced to  send  you  mine.  This  is  the  first  year 
since  I  engaged  in  bee  culture  that  I  tried  to  ob- 
tain honey. 

My  apiary  contains  forty-five  stands  of  bees, 
old  and  young,  -and  I  have  taken  two  thousand 
three  hundred  and  thirty-nine  pounds  of  surplus 
honey.  All  this  is  the  product  of  bees  gathering 
on  artificial  pasture.  I  live  on  a  very  new  place 
six  miles  from  any  timber,  and  there  is  no  white 
clover,  except  what  I  have  sown.  I  have  sown 
white  clover,  alsike,  and  melilot.  Of  all  these,  the 
melilot  produces  the  most  honey,  and  the  best.  ^ 
My  bees  gathered  honey  from  it  this  fall  up  to  the  • 
5th  of  October.  I  sowed  three  acres  for  my  bees, 
and  also  some  buckwheat. 

The  above  stated  yield  was  the  product  entirely 
of  artificial  pasturage.  My  bees  are  all  hybrids, 
and  my  honey  was  all  box  honey.  Of  my  two  best 
stands,  No.  5  gave  one  hundred  and  seventeen 
pounds,  and  No.  26  gave  one  hundred  and  eleven 
pounds.  This,  I  think,  is  doing  pretty  well  for 
a  new  beginner.  My  hives  are  all  numbered, 
the  honey  all  weighed,  and  each  hive  credited 
with  the  amount  taken  from  it. 

R.  Miller. 

Bochelle,  III. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


167 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

What  Caused  our  Bees  to  Die? 

Tlie  Slimmer  of  1868  was  uunsnally  dry,  more 
so  than  any  for  the  fifteen  years  previous.  Clover 
yielded  little  honey ;  hut  on  carrying  in  the  hives 
they  were  of  fair  weight.  In  Fehruary  the  hees 
commenced  dying  in  cellars,  attics,  bee-houses, 
and  on  their  stands,  with  occasionally  an  excep- 
tion of  a  dolouy  that  nearly  escaped.  Almost  all 
the  bees  in  this  vicinity  were  lost.  The  winter 
was  unusiially  long  ;  and  many,  say  one-tenth,  of 
the  surviving  colonies  died  on  their  stands  in  May 
and  June,  after  being  carried  out.  My  Lang- 
stroth  hives  weighed  from  sixty  to  eighty-five 
pounds  each  on  the  2d  of  September,  when  my  first 
(heavyj  swarm  died.  From  that  time  they  emptied 
their  combs  with  great  rapidity,  and  covered  them, 
as  also  their  corn  cobs  and  hives,  with  Uicir  loath- 
some evacuations,  and  died,  still  leaving  more  or 
]ess  honey — some  as  much  as  tliirty  pounds. 

My  hives  were  then  in  a  bee-house  or  cellar  in 
a  hill  side,  rather  damp,  though  well  ventilated. 
Fearing  the  damp  air  might  aggravate  the  diffi- 
culty, i  removed  my  bees  to  my  house  cellar,  which 
I  ventilated  by  means  of  a  stove  pipe  running 
through  the  ceiling  and  connecting  with  a  main 
pipe  in  the  rear  of  a  stove,  thus  giving  the  bad 
air  a  continuous  circulation  and  draft  through 
the  chimney  in  the  attic. 

We  have  had  more  rain  than  snow  so  far  this 
winter,  and  my  cellar  is  damp.  The  corn  cobs 
mould  some.  The  mouths,  of  the  hives  are  open  ; 
honey  boards  off;  caps  raised  half  an  inch  for 
ventilation  ;  still  the  cobs  are  too  moist. 

Did  our  bees  die  with  dysentery  ?  If  so,  what 
caused  it  ?  Could  it  have  been  prevented  ?  Will 
they  be  likely  to  suffer  from  the  effects  of  the  old 
honey  which  was  put  in  for  the  new  colonies, 
eight  or  ten  pounds  to  a  hive,  at  swarming  time  ? 

Is  comb  ruined  by  mould  under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances ?    Should  it  be  cut  out  ? 

Would  it  be  better  in  my  case  to  take  off  the 
caps  entirely  from  mj^  hives  where  the  mercury 
is  kept  up  at  40°,  leaving  only  the  corn  cobs  for 
protection  ?  or  will  the  escape  of  heat  prevent  the 
bees  from  breeding.?  Some  think  it  is  as  well  for 
them  not  to  breed  much  untjl  the  honey  season 
approaches ;  but  my  stocks  are  now  deficient  in 
bees. 

The  last  season  was  unfavorable,  being  very 
wet,  with  cold  nights.  We  had  an  abundance  of 
white  clover,  but  it  produced  very  little  honey. 
My  bees  collected  most  of  their  stores  from  a  patch 
of  Alsike  clover,  which  was  thronged  constantly 
while  in  blossom.  I  have  no  seed  to  sell,  all  of 
mine  being  burned  in  my  barn.  I  consider  this 
clover  invaluable  for  hay  and  honey,  and  hope 
to  see  it  raised  extensively.  O.  C.  Wait. 

West  Georgia,  Vt.,  Jan.  1870. 


[From  the  Western  Farmer.] 

The  Bee-Comb  Guide    Patent  —  How    -, 
$500,000  Law-Suit  was  Managed. 


Instinct  indicates  to  bees  and  other  insects 
their  enemies,  and  the  wrong  tliese  may  intend, 
and  shows  them  how  they  may  be  repulsed  or 
evaded. 


Honey  is  a  very  favorite  food  and  medicine 
with  Bedouins  in  Northern  Arabia. 


In  a  telegram  sent  from  Madison,  Tuesday 
evening,  Jan.  0,  it  was  stated  that  a  Bee-IIive 
case,  said  to  involve  SoOOjOOO,  had  been  tried  in 
the  U.  S.  Circuit  Court  in  Madison,  the  plaintiff 
being  K.  P.  Kidder,  the  defendant  M.  Trask. 

Some  facts  concerning  this  case  ;  how  it  was 
brought  and  how  it  was  managed,  we  propose 
giving  the  public,  as  in  the  question  at  issue 
thousands  of  bee-keepers  in  all  parts  of  the  coun- 
try are  directly  interested,  and  the  estimate  of  the 
amount  involved,  given  above,  is  probably  not 
too  high. 

The  question  is  simply  whether  a  certain 
patent,  granted  to  one  George  H.  Clark  in 
the  year  1859,  giving  him  the  right  to  control 
the  putting  of  triangular  shaped  sticks  (or  a 
bevel  edge)  in  bee-hives  to  serve  as  comb  guides 
for  the  bees,  is  a  valid  one.  The  parties  princi- 
]ially  interested  in  ]->roving  the  invalidity  of  the 
patent  are  Messrs.  Langstroth  &  Son,  the  pro- 
prietors of  a  latent  hive  in  which  this  comb 
guide  is  used,  and  of  which  many  thousands  have 
been  sold.  Mr.  Langstroth,  senior,  claims  that 
he  invented  the  device  in  February,  1852,  that  he 
made  and  sold  a  large  number  of  hives,  with  this 
triangular  guide,  in  1853,  and  that,  in  1854, 
before  it  ha"d  been  in  public  use  two  years,  he 
applied  for  a  patent  on  it.  He  also  claims  that 
subsequently  an  application  for  a  patent  on  the 
same  device  was  made  by  Mr.  Clark,  and  an 
interference  between  the  claims  was  declared. 
Before  this  ma,tte;-  was  decided,  it  is  claimed 
that  a  gentleman  in  Illinois  made  an  application 
for  a  patent  for  the  same  invention,  and  an  inter- 
ference between  the  three  claims  was  declared, 
and  that  the  Commissioner  finally  decided  that 
none  of  the  applications  would  be  allowed— as  an 
English  work  had  described  substantially  the 
same  device.  Mr.  Clark,  wdio  claimed  a  prior 
invention,  kept  secret,  renewed  his  application, 
and  in  1859,  after  it  had  been  rejected  several 
times,  secured  a  patent. 

This  is,  in  l)rief,  the  claim  of  Langstroth  & 
Son,  except  that  they  additionally  claim  that  Mr. 
Clark  having  origiiially  api^lied  for  a  patent  on 
this  sharp  edge  in  connection  with  bars,  the  use  of 
it  in  connection  with  movable  frames  as  in  the 
Langstroth  hive  is  not  covered  by  this  claim. 
The  Langstroths  have  persistently  used  this 
device,  and  the  agents  of  Mr.  Clark,  or  his  assign 
Mr.  Kidder,  continuing  to  claim  that  this  use 
was  an  infringement  on  the  Clark  patent,  they 
issued  a  circular  in  18G7,  cautioning  the  public 
against  paying  any  fees  for  such  use,  and  ex- 
pressly guaranteeing  all  purchasers  from  them 
against  any  costs  or  damages  awarded  by  the 
courts. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  history  that  the  ques- 
tion is  one  to  be  decided  by  the  courts,  and  that 
it  is  in  a  high  degree  desirable  that  it  should  be 
fairly  tried  and  definitely  settled.  That  it  was 
not  so  tried  in  the  suit  referred  to  above  ;  that  it 
was  a  case  of  collusion  between  the  plantiff  and 
defendant ;  that  the  counsel  for  the  defence  was 


168 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


not  fiiniislied  with  all  the  facts  in  the  case,  we 
think  is  clciir. 

The  case  was  brought  by  K.  P.  Kidder  as  the 
assignee  of  Clark,  against  Mr.  Trask.  The  case 
w^s  not  a  calendered  case  ;  the  papers  were  filed 
on  Jan.  d,  and  the  first  opportunity  the  public 
had  of  knowing  there  was  such  a  case  was  when 
it  was  called  for  trial,  Jan.  5.  Mr.  J.  R.  Bennett 
appeared  for  the  plaintiff,  although  the  name  of 
13.  S.  Senator  M.  H.  Carpenter  appears  as  one  of 
the  attorneys,  and  we  understand,  the  case  was 
really  managed  b}^  one  May. 

Mr.  Gregory,  of  the  firm  of  Gregory  &  Pianey 
appeared  for  the  defendant.  He  stated  to  the 
court  that  it  was  an  agreed  case  :  that  he  had 
only  just  been  retained  and  had  not  had  time  to 
investigate  it ;  that  he  felt  it  due  to  the  court  and 
himself  that  these  facts  should  be  known  before 
he  would  consent  to  try  the  case.  And  here  we 
wish  to  state  that  we  believe  Mr.  Gregory  acted 
iu  good  faith  ;  that  he  believed  the  full  case  had 
been  furnished  him  and  that  it  was  brought  as  an 
amicable  suit  to  settle  a  disputed  point — in  other 
words  we  believe  he  was  deceived.  While  we 
think  it  to  be  regretted  that  he  allowed  himself  to 
try  a  case  of  the  kind  without  more  full  personal 
investigation,  we  do  not  for  a  moment  believe  he 
acted  in  a  way  that  the  strictest  sense  of  honor 
would  not  approve,  with  the  light  he  then  had. 
He  is  an  able,  widely  known  and  deservedly  es- 
teemed attorney. 

We  do  not  understand  that  Senator  Carpenter 
appeared  at  all  iu  the  case,  and  from  what  we 
knoAV  of  Mr.  Bennett  we  do  not  believe  he  was  a 
party  to  any  deception.  We  know  nothing  of 
Mr.  May. 

Several  witnesses  appeared  for  the  plaintiff,  a 
hive  v.'as  shown,  and  the  case  was  evidently 
well  ]n-epared  on  that  side.*  No  witnesses  ap- 
peared for  the  defence,  and  we  understand  the 
only  evidence  offered  on  that  side  was  a  copy  of 
Langstroth's  original  patent,  in  which  there  is  no 
reference  whatever  to  this  device.  The  defence, 
as  we  have  heard  it  reported,  consisted  mainly  of 
an  ingenious  and  able  attempt  to  prove  tliat  the 
device  was  not  patentable,  and  that  its  use  here 
was  in  consequence  of  the  discovery  of  an 
instinct  of  the  bees,  which  discovery  was  not 
patentable. 

Seeking  for  that  which,  had  he  known  all  the 
facts  in  the  case  he  would  have  not  needed  to 
have  sought,  we  understand  that  Mr.  Gregory 
asked  each  witness  if  he  had  kuown  of  any  use 
of  this  device  before  the  date  of  the  Clark  patent, 
1859,  and  that  each  testified  that  he  had  not. 
If  this  be  true  we  can  explain  such  an  answer  by 
no  satisfactory  supposition. 

Tlie  case  went  to  the  jury,  who  returned  a  ver- 
didt  for  the  plaintiff,  awarding  him  damages  for 
the  use  by  the  defendant  of  the  Laugstroth  frame 
with  this  triangular  comb  guide 

No  one,  we  suppose,  claims  that  the  defendant 
expected  or  wislied  to  gain  the  case.  We  are 
informed  he  has  used  the  "Kidder  Hive"  for 
years,  and  has  defended  his  claim.  He  stated, 
soon  alter  the  close  of  the  case,  that  he  had 
expected  to  lose  it,  and  thought  he  ought  to. 

The  plaintiff  was  in  our^othce  for  an  hour 
on  Jan.  4,  and  again  on  Jan.  5,  but  the  first 
intimation  we  had  of  the  case  was  after  it  had 


been  decided,  on  Jan.  6  ;  althougb,  Avhen  we 
were  so  informed,  it  occurred  to  us  that  we  had 
heard  of  it,  and  we  so  informed  the  plaintiff. 
A  gentleman  interested  in  the  defence  was 
informed  by  a  prominent  witness  for  the  defence, 
the  morning  the  case  was  called,  that  it  would 
not  be  tried.  A  "remarkable  coincidence"  is 
found  in  the  fact  that  Mr.  Kidder,  when  he  first 
called  at  our  office,  asked  if  we  had  received  the 
January  number  of  the  American  Bee  Journal, 
and  on  being  informed  that  it  had  just  arrived, 
but  that  we  had  not  yet  read  it,  asked  for  it; 
carefully  read  a  minute  statement  in  it  by  Mr. 
Langstroth  of  his  claim  ;  asked  permission  to 
take  the  paper  with  him  for  a  day  ;  took  it ; 
returned  next  day,  and  asked  permission  to  keep 
it  another  day,  and  finally  returned  it  within  an 
hour  of  the  rendering  of  the  verdict.  This'copy 
was  probably  the  only  one  in  the  city.  It  may 
have  comported  with  his  sense  of  honor  to  sit 
through  the  trial  of  an  agreed  case,  where  it  was 
understood  that  all  the  facts  were  presented, 
with  this  statement  of  the  claims  of  the  defence 
snugly  stowed  iu  his  pocket. 

Another  very  singuhir  circumstance  Avas  that, 
very  soon  after  the  decision,  we  were  called  upon 
by  two  gentlemen  and  requested  to  publish  a 
"report"  of  the  trial,  which  was  read  to  us — 
most  of  it  having  obviously  been  written  before 
the  close  of  the  trial.  We  were  gravely  informed 
that,  as  the  case  was  one  of  much  importance, 
and  as  they  had  noticed  we  were  not  at  the  trial, 
they  would  like  to  have  us  publish  this  "  report," 
and  that  the  writer  of  it  had  no  interest  in  the 
case.  We  stated  that  we  would  publish  it  and 
would  call  editorial  attention  to  it.  This  we  do 
by  stating  that  its  author  has  been  for  years  an 
agent  for  Mr.  Kidder  ;  was  a  prominent  witness 
for  him  in  the  case  ;  has  asked  persons  to  settle 
with  him  for  the  use  of  this  device  ;  that  his 
name  is  not  the  one  signed  to  the  report,  and 
that  the  whole  thing  is  a  very  clumsy  attempt  to 
produce  a  false  impression. 

We  can  conceive  of  no  profit  which  Mr. 
Kidder  hopes  to  accomplish  by  his  course,  that 
will  prove  it  wise  for  him  to  have  taken  it.  He 
cannot  suppose  that  this  decision  will  be  quietly 
allowed  to  stand.  The  case,"  we  repeat,  is  one 
for  the  courts  to  decide,  and  we  do  not  attempt 
to  say  which  claim  ought  to  be  allowed,  but  we 
would  refuse  to  pay  for  infringement  in  the  use 
of  this  device,  until  the  case  had  been  fairly  and 
fully  tried ;  and  it  certainly  was  not  so  tried  iu 
this  suit,  and  our  faith  in  the  strength  and 
rightfulness  of  the  plaintiff's  case  is  certainly  not 
strengthened  by  the  course  he  has  pursued  in 
relation  to  this  trial. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

A  Request. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  propose  building  on  the  sur- 
face of  the  ground,  for  winter  use,  a  bee  house 
large  enough  for  sixty  stands.  I  wish  to  know 
the  best  plan  for  ventilating,  and  also  the  proper 
size  of  ventilators.  Suggestions  based  on  ex- 
perience or  experiments  will  oblige. 

John  Clarke. 

Liberty,  Ind. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


[For  the  Americau  Bee  Journal.] 

Novice's  Metextrator. 

Mr.  Editor  : — "We  thought  we  gave  directions 
sufficient  before,  but  have  received  so  many  in- 
quiries on  the  subject  that  we  have  concluded  to 
to  try  again. 

"We  would  say  here,  however,  that  we  have  no 
idea  that  our  machine  is  the  best  that  ever  was 
made  ;  but  we  do  think  it  is  superior  to  the  wooden 
machines  about  which  several  correspondents 
have  had  so  much  trouble  in  boring  larf/e  holes 
through  small  sticks.  Having  the  machine  made 
all  of  metal  we  certainly  think  it  is  clieaper,  and  if 
your  readers  could  all  take  a  look  at  ours,  we  fear 
tliey  would  laugh  at  its  simplicity.  They  would 
certainly  not  find  trouble  in  getting  it  together. 

"W^ell,  any  tin-smith  can  make  you  a  can  or 
tin  tub,  twenty  inches  high  and  twenty  inches 
across  the  top,  or,  if  that  does  not  suit  3'our 
frames,  tlien  of  any  dimensions  you  like.  Cut 
out  two  pieces  of  wire  cloth  (fine  or  coarse,  as 
j^ou  prefer,  will  answer,)  about  half  an  inch 
larger  than  j^our  frames,  all  round.  Take  white 
galvanized  inm  wire,  so  that  it  can  be  soldered 
readily  ;  the  kind  used  so  extensively  for  white 
wire  clothes  lines,  about  an  eighth  of  an  inch  in 
diameter,  is  just  the  thing.  Bend  this  wire  so  as 
to  run  around  your  pieces  of  wire  cloth  close  to 
the  edge,  and  solder  it  at  about  every  inch  or  two. 
These  two  frames  of  wire  cloth  are  to  be  attached 
to  the  sJiaft  in  the  centre,  so  as  to  revolve  as  near 
the  outside  as  they  can  convenientiy  without  any 
danger  of  touching  it.  They  should  stand  the 
longest  way  up  and  down,  with  the  side  the  wire 
is  soldered  on  next  to  the  sides  of  the  can.  To 
fix  them  in  that  position,  take  two  pieces  of  the 
same  wire,  thirty-five  or  forty  inches  long,  bend 
each  of  them  in  the  middle  around  the  shaft  near 
the  bottom,  so  as  to  leave  the  four  ends  sticking 
out  like  the  spokes  of  a  wheel.  As  your  shaft  is 
iron  you  can  solder  them  firmly  in  place.  Fix 
four  more  similar  arms  near  the  top.  Now  turn 
the  ends  of  the  arms  around  in  a  curve  so  as  to 
solder  on  the  back  side  of  the  frames,  one  to  each 
corner,  and  it  is  all  ready  to  spin.  The  bearings 
to  the  shaft  3'ou  can  fix  as  you  like.  "We  made 
the  bottom  bearing  by  soldering  a  piece  of  saw- 
plate  in  the  centre  of  the  bottom,  and  a  blank 
iron  nut  .on  top  of  that,  so  it  turns  very  easy,  and 
there  is  no  danger  of  wearing  a  hole  through. 
The  top  is  a  thick  piece  of  wood,  notched  in  for 
the  sides  of  the  can,  and  a  hole  in  the  centre  for 
the  shaft.  For  convenience  in  taking  out  and  put- 
ting in  the  frame,  the  piece  is  made  quite  narrow 
onlj^  at  the  ends.  "We  think  a  crank  on  the  top 
of  the  shaft  would  give  speed  enough,  although 
we  use  tiie  gearing  of  a  common  apple-parer. 

Yv"e  forgot  to  mention  that  some  bearers  will 
be  needed  to  keep  the  frames  from  sagging  with 
heavj"  combs.  These  are  easily  made  by  solder- 
ing a  wire  from  each  of  the  four  lower  corners  to 
the  shaft,  where  the  upper  arms  are  fastened. 
Put  a  Avire  cloth  across  the  bottom  if  you  wish 
it ;  it  is  very  handy  to  lay  broken  combs  on.  If 
tho  wire  cloth  should  be  too  light,  put  another 
wire  across  the  middle.  Of  course  the  comb 
must  be  turned  as  soon  as  one  side  is  emptied. 

"We  consider  it  much  less  trouble  than  taking 
off  the  boxes,  and  have  sold  readily  all  we  could 


get,  for  twenty-five  cents  per  pound.  "We  would 
rather  furnish  it  at  twelve  and  a  half  cents  per 
pound,  if  we  could  get  no  more  for  it,  than  box 
honey  at  twenty-five  cents.  Boxes  are  among 
"  the  things  that  were  "  with  Novice. 

January,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Multiplication  of  Colonies. 

Several  correspondents  are  anxious  to  know 
what  I  think  of  Novice's  increase  of  colonies 
the  past  season,  and  some  of  them  appear  to 
doubt  the  truth  of  his  statements.  Now,  it  cer- 
tainly would  not  answer  for  me  to  doubt  their 
truth  after  all  my  experiments  in  that  line. 

When  I  first  came  here  I  obtained  a  swarm 
of  bees  which  the  person  from  whom  I  pro- 
cured them  supposed  were  entirely  worthless.  I 
wintered  them  through,  and  early  i-i  Ajuil  I 
transferred  them  to  one  of  my  hives,  that  is,  I 
transferred  enough  comb  to  fill  two  frames, 
the  remainder  being  worthless.  I  soon  found 
that  the  queen  Avas  old  and  almost  useless  for 
breeding,  and  she  had  very  little  over  a  quart  of 
workers  with  her.  However,  by  stimulating  and 
coaxing,  I  succeeded  in  getting  the  hive  filled 
with  combs  and  bees  by  the  20th  of  July.  I 
used  to  carry  them  in  and  set  them  near  the 
stove  at  night  to  keep  up  warmth,  and  carry 
them  out  in  the  morning.  On  the  20th  of  July 
I  received  an  Italian  queen  from  a  friend  in 
"Wisconsin.  I  removed  the  old  queen  and  one 
frame  of  brood  from  the  hive;  introducad  the 
Italian  queen;  raised  five  queens;  superseded 
the  old  one,  and  made  four  swarms.  AH  were 
large  and  strong,  with  one  exception,  which  had 
only  six  combs.  All  this  was  down  after  the 
20th  of  July,  by  keeping  up  the  temperature 
of  the  hives  by  covering  at  night,  or  carrying 
them  in  to  the  stove  when  it  was  cool,  and  by 
feeding  whenever  the  bees  could  not  gather 
enough.     All  of  them  wintered  well. 

You  will  see  that  taking  a  worthless  swarm 
and  increasing  it  to  five,  was  fully  equal  to,  if 
not  more  than  Novice  accomplished  the  past 
season.  "With  the  same  care  and  attention  I 
could  have  taken  a  good  strong  swarm  and 
increased  it  to  fifteen,  easier  than  to  do  what  I 
did  with  the  miserable  poor  one.  The  reason  for 
starting  with  such  a  swarm  was,  that  I  could  get 
no  other,  and  I  moved  that  one  more  than  forty- 
five  miles  in  Februarj^. 

This  matter  or  question  of  increase  there  can 
be  no  doubt  about  when  rightly  understood.  A 
great  many  people  attempt  a  large  increase  with- 
out understanding  the  true  principle  of  increase, 
and  therefore  ruin  the  whole— original  stock  and 
all.  If  a  person  has  a  few  good  stocks  to  begin 
with,  and  can  obtain  the  comb  already  built,  I 
consider  such  comb  equal  to  a  swarm  ;  that  is,  if  I 
have  comb  sufficient  to  fill  the  hive.  Of  course  the 
comb  would  be  of  no  practical  value  without  bees. 

I  repeat  that  a  queen  can  be  made  to  breed  to 
any  desired  extent  by  proper  management,  pro- 
viding she  is  a  good  one,  and  if  she  is  not  a  good 
one  she  ought  -to  be  replaced  by  a  good  one  as 
soon  as  possible,  whether  your  object  is  increase 
of  stock  or  surplus  honey.  E.  Gallup. 

Osage,  loioa. 


170^ 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


WASHINGTON,   FEBRUARY,   1870. 


A  change  in  our  arrangement  for  publication  may 
dela.y  the  appearance  of  this  number  a  tew  clays,  and 
constrains  us  to  retain  till  March  several  articles  in- 
tended for  its  pages — among  them  some  interesting 
communications  from  old  correspondents. 


We  feel  assured  that  it  will  be  gratifying  to  its 
friends  to  hear  of  the  steadily  increasing  patronage  of 
the  American  Bee  Joukkal.  At  no  time  since  it 
was  commenced  has  its  subscription  list  grown  so 
rapidly  and  largely  as  within  the  past  month;  and  flat- 
tering evidence  of  the  warm  interest  felt  in  its  success 
by  intelligent  disinterested  beekeepers,  is  constantly 
reaching  us  from  all  parts  of  the  Union,  the  British 
provinces,  and  Europe.  As  we  have  ever  scorned  to  re- 
sort to  clap-trap  and  humbug  to  extend  its  circula- 
tion, may  not  claim,  to  some  extent  at  least,  that 

"The  force  of  its  own  merit  makes  its  way?" 
while  we  fully  appreciate  and  gratefully  acknowledge 
the  aid  and  countenance  received  from  many  long- 
tried  and  steadfast  friends. 


Wc  have  received  the  tenth  or  concluding  part  of 
Dr.  Packard's  "  Guide  to  the  Studt  of  Insects." 
The  work  is  now  completed,  and  constitutes  a  popular 
introduction  to  this  important  branch  of  natural 
his  ory,  such  as  has  long  been  needed. 


The  second  volume  of  Adair's  "Annals  of  Bee- 
cdi.tuke,"  or  that  for  1870,  we  understand,  may  be 
looked  for  early  in  the  spring. 

Many  practical  beekeepers  are  of  opinion  that 
pollen  is  indispensably  necessary  for  bees  during 
winter,  but,  experiments  have  shown  that  all  the 
essential  operations  of  the  colony  may  proceed  from 
October  to  May,  fully  six  months,  though  the  hive 
do  not  contain  a  particle  of  pollen.  It  seems  certain, 
nevertheless,  that  ordinarily  bees  do  consume  it  in 
all  the  winter  months,  excepting  November.  Dr. 
Donhoff,  when  analyzing  the  contents  of  the  viscera 
of  bees,  found  traces  of  pollen  therein  at  all  times, 
except  in  November.  Communicating  this  fact  to 
Prof.  Leuckart,  the  latter  said  it  was  corroborated 
by  his  OAvii  independent  observations.  Shortly  there- 
after, however,  the  Professor  discovered  that  the 
mucous  tissue  lining  the  stomach  and  intestines  of 
bees,  undergoes  decomposition  or  is  sloughed  off  an- 
nually, and  renewed,  in  the  interval  between  the 
latter  part  of  October  and  the  beginning  of  December, 
corresponding  precisely  with  the  p^'iod  in  which  tlie 
consumption  of  pollen  is  pretermitted.  Hence  the 
non-use  of  pollen  during  the  interval  results,  probably 
from  the  abnormal  condition  of  the  insect  at  the  time. 


After  much  delay  in  its  transit,  we  received  by 
mail,  from  Mr.  H.  M.Thomas,  of  Brooklyn,  Canada, a 
package  of  Alsike  clover  hay,  showing  its  condition 
and  quality  as  fodder,  after  the  seed  has  been  re- 
moved by  threshing.  We  referred  the  subject  to  an  ap- 
propriate cow  committee,  by  which  it  was  thoroughly 
discussed,  evidently  cum  gitsto—end'mg  in  a  very  in- 
telligble  motion  for  more ;  but,  deeming  eager  man- 
ducation  and  deglutition  a  satisfactory  rq^ort,  we 
discharged  the  committee  without  awaiting  further 
rumination. 


We  publish  on  another  page  a  complete  list  of  the 
patents  on  beehives,  &c.,  issued  during  the  year  1869, 
for  which  we  are  indebted  to  Mr.  Grinnell,  Chief 
Clerk  of  the  Patent  Office.  The  number  is  large,  nay, 
considering  how  ancient,  wide-spread  and  common  is 
the  pursuit  to  which  they  relate,  it  may  be  regarded 
as  very  large.  We  apprehend  however,  that  the 
sanguine  expectations  of  most  of  the  inventors  are 
doomed  to  disappointment :  for  according  to  our 
observation,  patents  on  beehives  and  cognate  contri- 
vances, like  those  on  velocipedes  and  bouquet-holders, 
are  not  profitable  investments.  About  nine-tenths  of 
them,  being  based  on  exploded  notions  or  miscon- 
ceved  theories,  prove  to  be  practically  failures  ;  and 
of  the  comparatively  few  that  are  really  new  and 
useful,  the  miserable  crew  of  infringers  and  modi- 
fiers speedily  contrive  to  divert  the  emoluments  from 
the  origirftil  and  meritorio\;s  patentee.  The  inventor 
of  a  truly  new  and  useful  device  certainly  deserves  the 
protection  and  remuneration  which  a  patent  is  in- 
tended, but  usually  fails,  to  secure ;  but  at  this 
advanced  period  in  the  history  of  bee  culture,  and  in 
view  of  the  improvements  made  in  the  last  thirty 
years,  he  must  be  a  genius  indeed  who  contrives  and 
constructs  a  hive  of  preeminent  and  permanent  value. 
It  is  sheer  folly  to  rush  to  the  Patent  Office  in  hot 
haste  to  secure  a  patent  for  every  whim-wham  that 
strikes  the  fancy , of  one  laboring  under  a  paroxysm 
of  "bee  on  the  brain."  Better  far,  save  your  money 
and  charitably  suppose  that  others  also  may  have  had 
the  same  or  similar  ideas,  and  have  tested,  or  be  testing 
their  value,  though  the  Chiefs  of  the  Patent  Office  arc 
unaware  of  the  fact.  Obtaining  a  patent  is  the 
smallest  part  of  the  affair.  Time,  labor  and  money 
are  required  to  introduce  it,  more  time  and  money, 
must  be  spent,  and  much  annoyance  and  vexation 
endured,  in  litigation  with  infringers;  and  if  in  the 
end  you  succeed  in  establishing  your  rights,  it  gen- 
erally proves  to  be  an  empty  and  bootless  victory. 


We  received  a  few  day  ago,  per  mail,  from  Mr. 
Henry  Alley,  Wenham,  (Mass.)  an  Italian  queen  bee 
and  about  a  dozen  workers.  They  were  caged  and 
provisoned  as  Mr.  A.  usually  prepares  them  for  trans- 
mission by  mail  in  the  summer,  with  some  special 
protection  from  cold.  When  first  opened  they  were 
somewhat  sluggish  as  bees  are  when  clustered  in  the 


TEE   AMERICAN  BEE   JOURNAL. 


171 


hive  in  winter,  but  they  quicldy  revived. — It  thus 
appears  that  queens  may  be  safely  sent  in  this  manner 
in  cold  weather  ;  though  it  is  rather  difficult  to  pre- 
serve and  properly  dispose  of  them  when  received  at 
this  season. 


We  copy  from  the  "  Western  Farmer  "  an  account 
of  how  matters  were  managed  in  the  "  triangular 
comb  gtiide"  case  recently  tried  in  the  U.  S.  Ch'cuit 
Court  at  Madison,  Wis.  ;  from  which  it  will  be  seen 
how  mere  a  sham  the  whole  suit  was.  The  decision 
will  probably  be  used  to  frighten  timid  or  ignorant 
parties  into  paying  for  the  use  of  the"  guide,"  though 
we  do  not  believe  that  suit  Avlll  be  brought  against 
any  who  refuse  to  pay  and  show  a  determination  to 
resist  and  bring  out  the  facts. 

We  shall  next  month  publish  an  extract  from  a 
paper  read  by  Dr.  John  Hunter  before  the  Royal  Society 
in  1783,  showing  that  the  use  of  such  a  guide  was 
known  to  him,  and  published  to  the  world,  three- 
quarters  of  a  century  ago. 


Correspondence  of  the  Bee  Journal. 


Independence,  Mo.,  Dec.  17,  1809. — The  season  in 
this  part  of  the  country  has  been  only  moderately 
favorable.  Up  to  the  5th  of  August  there  was  too 
much  rain  ;  but"  from  that  on  the  bees  did  very  well. 
We  had  an  unusually  good  crop  of  white  sumac,  and 
a  very  heavy  one  of  fall  bloom.  Colonies  gave  from 
twenty  to  sixty  pounds  surplus.  Bees  unattended  to 
suffered  much  from  the  moth.  Many  persons  lost  all 
they  had,  whilst  those  who  gave  their  bees  proper 
attention,  obtained  a  handsome  profit. 

As  I  did  not  give  you  my  age,  &c.,  with  my  photo- 
graphs, I  will  now  give  it.  I  am  a  native  of  the  State 
of  Tennessee  ;  born  in  Sumner  County,  in  September, 
1819;  removed  to  Jackson  County  iu  1839;  am  a 
practical  mechanic  (builder  and  joiner,)  have  been 
experimenting  with  bees  eighteen  years,  and  have 
now  about  130  stocks  in  good  condition. 

In  view  of  the  advantages  that  may  be  derived  from 
comparing  notes,  facts,  and  practical  results.  I 
would  suggest  that  the  bee-keepers  of  the  United  States 
hold  an  annual  meeting,  at  some  convenient  point,  iu 
the  interest  of  bee-culture  alone  ;  and  that  such  steps 
be  taken  as  will  secure  the  attendance  of  inventors 
with  all  the  different  models  of  hives,  that  the 
practical  utility  of  these  may  be  investigated  and 
facts  noted  which  will  be  advantageous  to  the  public, 
shielding  them  from  impositions  that  bring  reproach 
on  men  who  ai'e  honestly  endeavoring  to  advance 
science  and  remove  the  superstitions  that  have  so 
long  enslaved  the  minds  of  those  who  hav<'  been 
imposed  upon.  St.  Louis,  iu  this  State,  is  about  as 
near  central  as  any  other  point,  and  the  State  Fair 
will  come  off  in  October  next ;  aud  as  all  the  railroads 
leading  into  the  city  are  accustomed  to  giving  half- 
price  fair  tickets,  for  ten  days,  during  the  time  of 
going  'to  and  returning  from  the  fair,  I  would  sug- 
gest that  as  the  time  and  place  of  said  mee'ing. 
James  D.  Meddor. 

Newbury,  Ohio,  Dec,  18. — Bees  have  done  but 
little  here  the  past  season,  and  very  few  bees  are  kept. 
I  am  just  starting  in  the  bee  business,  with  only  three 
swarms  in  Langstroth  hives,  which  I  purpose  to 
Italianize  as  soon  as  possible  in  the  spring.    I  sliould 


like  to  know  through  the  Journal,  if  any  have  tried 
lining  hives  with  paper  as  a  non-conductor  and  ab- 
sorbent ;  and  if  so,  what  success  they  h'ave  had  with 
it.  J.  L.  Way. 

Newton,  Ohio,  Dec.  18.— Bees  have  done  poorly 
with  us  through  this  season,  not  having  swarmed 
much,  and  many  of  the  young  stocks  arc  short  of 
stores.  I  removed  only  about  1000  lbs.  of  surplus 
honey  from  my  colonies,  which  should  have  given  me 
i  five  times  as  much.  They  are  in  good  condition  for 
winter,  as  I  doubled  all  m}'.  young  swarms,  so  that 
they  are  all  right  and  wintering  finely. 

E. M.  JonNSON. 

Bloomfield,  Iowb,  Dec.  18.— Bees  did  but  little  in 
the  way  of  storing  honey  this  season,  up  to  the  first 
of  August ;  but  from  that  time  till  the  frost  killed  the 
blossoms  we  had  a  continuous  honey  harvest. 
Some  stocks  cast  swarms  as  late  as  the  1st  of  Sep- 
tember, which  filled  their  hives  with  nice  rich  honey. 
My  stocks  (swarms  included  gave  me  41  j  lbs.  each,) 
of  box  honey.  Each  stock  went  into  winter  quarters 
rich  in  stores  and  strong  in  numbers. 

I  would  like  to  know  if  any  of  the  readers  of  the 
Journal  have  tried  introducing  a  queen  into  a  full 
hive,  about  swarming  time,  to  induce  natural 
swarming.  If  so,  I  should  like  them  to  give  us  the 
benefit  of  their  experience  through  the  Journal. — 
J.  P.  Fortune. 

St.  Catherines,  Ontario,  Dec.  24.— I  find  that  I 
cannot  get  along  without  the  Bee  Journal  f  and  as  it 
costs  me  fifty  cents  a  month  for  tobacco,  I  think  I 
will  shut  down  on  the  "  pernicious  weed,"  and  ex- 
pend the  money  in  Bee  Journals.— O.  Fitz  Wilkins. 

Waveret,  Iowa,  Dec.  34. — I  find  in  the  December 
number,  page  118,  of  your  excellent  Journal,  that 
your  correspondent,  W.  C.  Condit,  wishes  to  have 
reports  from  those  who  have  tested  the  method  of 
introducing  queens  by  the  use  of  grated  nutmeg.  I 
find  it  works  like  a  charm.  I  tried  it  with  six  queens 
last  season,  very  successfully  indeed  ;  aud  hencefor- 
ward I  shall  do  away  with  the  caging  process. 

The  past  summer  was  very  poor  for  honey,  though 
one  of  my  hybrid  stocks  gave  me  a  good  swarm 
and  sixty  pounds  of  box  honey.  I  do  not  think  that 
the  black  bees  average  five  pounds  of  surplus  honey 
to  the  hive,  in  this  country,  the  past  season.  Some 
of  my  neighbors  are  feeling  flnel5'',  whose  apiaries  are 
five  miles  distant  from  my  Italian  liees,  on  finding  that 
some  of  their  young  queens  are  giving  them  workers 
witli  two  yellow  bands.  This  speaks  well  for  the 
Italians  in  this  part  of  the  west.  I  use  the  Lang- 
stroth hive. 

Enclosed  please  find  two   dollars,  for  which  send 

the  American   Bee  Journal  to  J.   H.  C.  of , 

Jasper  County,  Mo.  I  send  it  to  him  as  a  New  Year's 
present,  as  he  is  abeeman  ;  and  I  advise  your  readers 
to  go  and  do  likewise — sending  the  Journal  to  some 
friend  who  will  enjoy  it  as  well  as  the  rest  of  us. — 
H.  K.  Lovett. 

New  Cumberland,  W.  Va.,  Dec.  25. — I  enclose 
in  this  letter  two  dollars,  and  wish  you  to  continue 
sending  me  the  Bee  Journal  for  the  coming  year. 
I  lilve  the  principle  on  which  it  is  conducted.  The 
various  writers  give  us  many  practical  experiments 
in  the  cultivation  of  the  honey  bee.  We  can  see  all 
over  the  States  what  bee-keepers  are  doing,  and 
where  there  is  a  good  location  or  a  bad  one.  I  see 
the  honey  product  varies  from  place  to  place,  almost 
every  year  ;  but  it  has  come  a  little  hard  on  us  here. 
We  have  had  two  bad  seasons  in  succession.  The 
summer,  a  year  ago,  was  so  dry  and  hot  that  nearly 
all  the  white  clover  and  the  red  was  killed.  This 
year,  the  season  being  wet  and  cold,  the  secretion  of 


172 


THE   AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


honey  Avas  very  limited  in  all  flowers.  We  bad  very 
few  swarms  of  black'  bees  in  this  county.  Most  of  the 
Italians  swarmed,  and  made  some  surplus  box  honey. 
— A.  Chapman. 


West  Point,  Iowa,  Jan.  1,  1870. — I  am  well 
pleased  with  your  Journal.  I  do  not  think  I  could 
do  without  it,  for  I  tind  something  of  interest  in 
every  number  ;  so  that  I  think  it  has  well  paid  me 
for  taking  it.  I  have  now  twenty  stands  of  bees ; 
fourteen  of  them  are  Italians.  Bees  have  done  very 
well  here  last  summer. — C.  Whitlock. 


Newburtport,  Mass.,  Jan.  3. — I  bought  a  swarm 
of  Italian  bees,  about  one  year  ago,  and  this  was  my 
first  experience  in  bee-Uecping.  Of  course  I  felt  my- 
self incompetent  to  maurigo  them  successfully  and 
ma'ie  inquiry  for  some  work  on  the  subject  and 
learned  of  your  Bee  Journal.  I  at  once  sent  for  it, 
and  am  satisfied  that  no  man  ought  to  keep  bees 
without  it.  I  did  not  get  it  in  season  to  learn  how 
to  set  them  to  breeding  as  early  as  they  ought,  in  order 
to  have  a  strong  swarm  when  the  honey  season  came 
in  ;  and  then,  too,  it  has  been  a  poor  season  for 
honey.  Near  the  coast  we  had  cold  nights  and 
easterly  wi^  ds  much  of  the  time  ;  and  were  it  not  for 
the  fact  that  my  bees  did  much  better  than  any  other 
in  Old  Essex,  I  might  be  discouraged.  They  did 
not  swarm,  but  I  took,  in  boxes,  forty  pounds  of 
honey.  I  took  them  to  the  county  fair,  and  there 
obtained  the  first  premium  of  four  dollars.  There 
were  three  or  four  old  bee-keepers  present,  with 
their  experience  and  new  style  of  hives, and  friend  Alley 
with  the  rest.  All  said  their  bees  did  nothing  this 
year,  and  we  must  try  again  and  see  who  will  win. 
By  the  way,  I  am  about  to  make  a  hive,  different,  in 
some  respects,  from  any  I  have  yet  heard  of.  After 
I  have  proved  it,  1  will  report  what  success. — D.  T. 
Batcheldor. 


Gonzales,  Texas,  Jan.  3. — My  bees  are  doing  very 
well,  and  are  very  ricli.  They  made  me  seven  hun- 
dred pounds  of  honey  last  summer.  I  could  have 
taken  more,  but  concluded  to  let  them  have  an  ample 
supply,  as  I  want  to  increase  my  stock.  I  expect  to 
send  to  Kentucky  in  the  spring,  for  a  patent  hive. 
— L.  W.  Cochran. 


Ili.tofolis,  Ills.,  Jan.  13. — Bees  have  done  better 
in  this  section  of  the  country  the  past  season  than  for 
several  seaS' ns  jirwious.  From  ten  hives  I  had  an 
increase  of  twenty,  and  seven  hundred  (700)  pounds 
of  surplus  honey.  I  am  much  pleased  with  the 
Journal,  and  think  every  bee-keeper  ought  to  take  it. 

— G.     BOUGHTON. 


Rei>  Oak  Junction,  Iowa,  Jan.  3,  1870.— Bees 
have  done  extremely  well  in  this  part  of  the  country. 
Some  strong  Italian  stocks  have  given  as  high  as  240 
lbs.  of  choice  surplus  honey.  Most  of  it  was 
extracted  with  the  "Honey  Extractor"  except  that 
gathered  from  the  Golden  Rod,  which  was  so  thick 
and  adhesive  that  it  would  uot  separate  from  the 
comb,  forcing  comb  and  honey  together  through  the 
screening,  under  a  fast  motion. — The  average  yield  of 
all  my  Italian  stocks,  for  the  past  season,  was  143 
lbs.  4oz.  Most  of  the  surplus  not  consumed  by  the 
family,  was  sold  at  home,  the  balance  in  Red  Oak 
Junction— all  at  40  ets.  per.  pound.  Who  can  say  : 
bee-keeping  does  not  pay  bitter  than  any  other  occu- 
pation.—To  keep  bees  without  your  Journal,  would 
be  like  keeping  bees  without  the  movable  comb. — E. 
Kretchmer. 


Rich  Valley,  Minn.,  Jan.  3. — I  get  little  sym- 
pathy here  on  the  subject  of  bee-culture,  from 
people  in  this  section,  though  they  watch  ray 
operations  with  interest.  They  seem  to  regard  such 
new-fangled  inventions  as  movable  frames  and  honey- 
emptiers  as  entirely  beyond  their  comprehension.  I 
am  but  a  novice  at  the  business  myself  (am  twenty- 
three  years  of  age)  and  my  experience  dates  back 
only  three  years.  I  have  never  bought  any  patent 
hives  or  Italian  bees,  and  was  first  interested  on  the 
subject  by  reading  Mr.  Langstro'h's  great  work, 
which  I  beleve  to  be  the  best  book  on  bees  extant. 
Two  years  ago  I  bought  a  few  stocks  of  bees  in  box 
hives  ;  and  have  since  constructed  several  hives  for 
my  own  use,  with  Langstroth  frames,  twelve  inches 
in  length  hj  eight  in  depth,  (what  would  Gallup  say 
of  them,  for  this  climate?)  I  think  tliat  it  would 
be  almost  impossible  to  winter  bees  in  them,  on 
their  summer  stands,  here  on  the  pra  ries.  But  in 
the  cellar  it  is  easy,  with  upward  ventilation.  Un- 
less that  is  given,  the  comb  speedily  become  mouldy, 
the  bees  become  uneasy  and  their  abdomens  dis- 
tended with  a  watery  excrement ;  and  they  leave  their 
hives  whenever  a  light  is  taken  into  the  cellar.  But 
with  plenty  of  veutilation  at  the  top  of  the  hive,  L 
have  not  lost  a  single  colony  of  those  wintered  tti  the 
cellar.  When  bees  are  active  and  at  work  in  the 
summer  season,  they  keep  up  a  constant  circulation 
of  the  air  through  their  hive  ;  but  when  clustered 
together  for  warmth  in  winter,  they  have  no  means  or 
do  ng  this.  Hence  the  need  of  upward  veutilation  to 
let  the  moisture  of  their  breatliing  escape  from  the 
combs  and  hive. 

Last  spring  I  constructed  a  honey-emptier — getting 
a  tin  can  made  as  di scribed  by  Novice,  and  making 
the  other  parts  myself.  It  cost  me  about  live  dollars. 
But  instead  of  the  iron  shaft  and  gearing,  I  made  the 
centre  shaft  of  wood,  with  the  top  end  rounded,  so 
that  it  could  be  turned  with  a  cord,  as  described  by 
J.  L.  Hubbard.  But  I  soon  found  the  cord  a  nuisance, 
for  by  rolling  the  rounded  end  of  the  shaft  between  ^ 
the  palm  of  my  bands,  I  could  give  it  the  proper 
motion  easily  enough,  and  empty  the  combs  from  two 
of  my  small  frames  in  a  few  seconds  after  they  are 
placed  in  the  machine.  Such  an  operation  greatly 
astonished  the  old  fogies  about  here.  However, 
though  greatly  increasing  the  yield  of  honey,  I  found 
that  the  honey  thus  taken  would  not  bring  as  much 
in  the  market,  by  ten  cents  in  the  pound,  as  box 
honey — the  latter  selling  at  30  cents,  and  the  former 
at  30  cents.  Nevertheless  I  think  a  great  deal  of  my 
honey-emptier  lor  family  use. 

And  now,  Mr.  Editor,  accept  ray  good  wishes  for 
the  Journal.  If  there  are  two  objects  that  American 
bee-keepers  should  be  proud  of,  they  are  Rev.  L.  L. 
Langstroth,  and  the  American  Bee  Journal. — L.  M. 
Lindley. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Cheap  Paint  for  Hives. 


As  it  is  time  for  making  hives,  and  they  need 
some  paiut,  if  it  is  intended  that  they  should  be 
durable.  White  lead  paiul  is  considered,  a  poor 
article  for  such  purpose.  "What  is  needed  is 
some  cheap  and  good  substitute,  ajid  one  within 
the  reach  of  every  bee-keeper.  Can  any  one 
furnish  a  recipe  in  the  Bee  Journal,  for  the  bene- 
fit of  all  its  readers  ? 

D.  H.  CoGGsnALL,  Jr. 

West  Groton,  iV.  Y.  January  7,  1870. 


American  Bee  Journal. 

EDITED  AND  PUBLISHED  BY   SAMUEL  WAGNER,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

AT   TWO   DOLLARS   PER   ANNUM,    PAYABLE   IN   ADVANCE. 


Vol.  V. 


MEAItCH,     IST^O. 


No. 


[For  the  American 

NOVICE. 


Journal.] 


Dear  Bee  Journal  : — Here  we  are,  February 
8th,  with  our  bees  so  near  through  the  winter 
and  in  just  the  nicest  condition  that  can  be  im- 
a.i:ined ;  (we  mean  the  bees  ;)  but  if  any  one  \ 
siiould  understand  the  remark  to  apply  to  us  in-  j 
dividually,  he  would  not  be  very  far  wrong  after 
all,  for  if  the  bees  are  all  right,  we  generally  are, 
as  nothing  else  can  upset  us.  j 

Mr.  Editor,  that  bee-house  of  ours  is  all  we 
could  ask  for  thus  far,  and  we  have  little  fear  of 
any  bee-disease  now.  We  have  had  some  quite  j 
warm  weather,  and  a  few  times  some  of  the  bees  : 
came  out  on  the  floor,  perhaps  half  a  teacupful  [ 
in  a  week.  This  was  a  small  matter,  but  we  did  i 
not  just  like  it  ;  and  upon  a  careful  examination 
of  all  the  hives,  we  thought  we  perceived  a  faint 
smell  of  something  that  reminded  us  of  last  winter. 
Accordingly,  we  that  evening  opened  the  doors 
until  just  before  da5dight  next  morning,  when  we 
found  everything  pure  and  sweet  as  we  could 
wish.  That  was  about  three  weeks  ago.  Since 
then  we  manage  to  open  the  doors  over  night 
once  or  twice  every  week — that  is,  when  the  night 
is  not  very  cold,  and  we  have  many  such  this  win- 
ter. Another  fact ;  our  pine  doors  were  made  to 
fit  as  close  as  they  could  without  sticking.  After 
the  house  had  been  shut  about  a  week,  the  inside 
door  is  so  tight  that  it  can  hardly  be  opened,  and 
after  being  open  all  night,  the  bees  are  all  quiet 
and  the  door  shuts  without  touching,  although 
made  of  the  best  seasoned  pine.  Does  not  this 
rather  look  as  though  our  ventilators  were  not 
large  enough  ?  They  are  seven  inches  across, 
unobstructed,  and  the  temperature  very  rarely 
goes  above  forty  degrees. 

Tliere  is  yet  one'  other  thing.  Our  sawdust 
was  not  Cjuite  drj'  when  put  in,  and  we  really  do 
not  know  how  anything  could  have  been  drj'  last 
summer.  In  the  fall  our  little  stove  helped  it 
soiue,  but  with  sucli  thick  walls  we  do  not  sup- 
pose it  got  dried  through.  The  bees  seem  amply 
able  to  keep  warm  enough,  as  thej^  keep  at 
steady  forty  degrees  in  the  coldest  weather  we 
have  had,  wliich  has  not  been  lower  than  10" 
above  zero. 
So  far  we  can  hardly  believe  any  honey  at  all 


has  been  consumed,  as  the  sealed  cells  yet  cover 
the  tops  of  the  frames. 

Now,  Mr.  Editor,  while  the  bees  are  all  quiet 
and  all  right,  we  should  like  to  have  "  our  say" 
on  bee-hives.  If  we  have  not  said  anything  on 
the  subject  before,  we  have  kept  up  an  "awful 
thinking,"  and  have  some  ideas  of  our  own  on* 
the  subject — though  we  should  dislike  to  imngiue 
that,  as  a  correspondent  suggested  on  page  210  of 
vol.  4,  we  are  too  well  Rooted  to  be  instructed. 
Far  from  it,  for  the  very  same  article  in  which 
that  expression  is  used,  has  been  worth  very 
much  to  us,  and  we  hereby  tender  our  sincere 
thanks  to  the  writer  for  the  light  he  then  gave  us. 

Perhaps,  Mr.  Editor,  you  had  better  say 

"  Novice  on  Hives," 

and  then  we  will  try  and  stick  to  our  subject. 

In  the  first  place,  kind  readers,  we  have  no 
idea  that  a  hive  can  be  made  that  will  just  suit 
every  one,  for  so  many  perhaps  have  a  particular 
way  of  doing  a  thing,  and  each  one  can  do  it 
better  in  his  own  way  than  by  any  other  plan.  We 
said  some  time  ago  that  our  Langstroth  hives 
universally  gave  us  more  honey  than  the  Ameri- 
can, though  we  could  not  tell  why — which  has 
been  kindly  answered  by  the  Baroness  of  Ber- 
lepsch.  But  we  should  have  said  then,  and  meant 
to  say,  both  "bees  and  honey."  Mr.  Truesdell 
and  Mr.  Gallup  started  us  in  the  right  channel  of 
thought,  and  we  think  we  can  now  give  the  true 
reason  in  our  locality. 

Wheii  we  wintered  our  bees  out-doors,  many 
of  them  were  sure  to  be  quite  weak  in  the  spring, 
and  it  took  a  considerable  part  of  the  season  to 
build  up  before  they  were  ready  for  business. 
Those  in  the  American  hive  would  be  near  the 
top,  and  we  have  invariably  found  much  trouble 
and  delay  in  getting  the  queens  to  laying  below 
that  wood  cross  bar,  (which  Gallup  refers  to 
when  he  speaks  of  the  waste  heat  uecessarj^  in 
brooding  a  stick  !)  Well,  the  Langstroth  hive  in- 
variably becomes  full  of  bees,  long  before  the  bees 
in  the  American  hive  have  used  the  combs  down 
to  the  bottom  board  ;  because  they  have  only  to 
work  out  horizontally,  in  preciuly  the  same  man- 
ner iliat  Qidnhy  gets  such  lurgeyiclch  in  side  boxes. 
This  is  really  no  myth.  Quinhy  don't  speak  so 
strongly  unless  he  is  sure  of  what  he  is  saying. 


174 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


Again — one  way  of  getting  "lots  of  bees,"  or 
"lots  of  honey,"  is  by  having  "great  big"  swarms. 
If  we  are  firmly  Rooted  anywhere  it  is  jnst  there  ; 
and  we  do  not  know  of  any  half  as  easy  to  get 
such  stocks  as  the  two-story  Langstroth,  ten 
IVames  above  as  well  as  below,  no  hcmey  board, 
and  allowing  the  queen  to  come  up  stairs  of 
course.  Who  has  a  better  right  ?  If  we  could 
get  her  to  fill  the  whole  twenty  frames  with 
brood,  all  the  better.  We  think  we  could  then 
get  honey  in  such  a  season  as  Mr.  Gallup  men- 
tions in  his  last  ;  though  we  do  not  think  Ohio  is 
ever  quite  as  bad  as  that.  Of. course  the  old- 
fashicmed  bee  keepers  call  every  season  "the 
worst  that  was  ever  known  for  bees,"  (how  bad 
they  will  get  at  that  rate!)  but  we  have  found 
them  all  "j'oZ^^"  so  far.  (Mr.  Editor,  why  don't 
you  nudge  us  and  sa}^ — j'ou  are  discussing  seasons 
and  localities,  and  not  hives  ?) 

Then  let  us  get  back  to  our  mutton.  We  have 
fifty  American  hives,  and  how  to  make  large 
swarms  of  them,  if  we  had  l)ees  in  them  all,  we 
really  do  not  know.  We  cannot  put  on  an  upper 
story,  and  we  cannot  get  the  ^ides  together, 
and  we  should  not  like  them  if  we  could. 

Mr.  Editor,  do  you  know  wliat  a  lot  of  brood 
a.nd  combs  a  two-story  Langstroth  will  furnish  ? 
We  are  almost  inclined  to  think,  from  one  experi- 
ment last  fall,  that  our  best  way  will  be,  in  the 
spring,  to  make  every  stock  a  full  two-story  one 
before  swarming  at  all,  and  then  make  them 
full  groicn  at  once,  on  the  plan  we  gave,  even  at 
the  expense  of  having  them  a  little  later.  We 
should  always  remove  the  upper  sot  of  frames  in 
the  fall.  Mr.  Truesdell's  and  Mr.  Gallup's  hive 
would  do  very  well  for  one  strong  stock,  but 
when  it  comes  to  be  two-story  or  three,  we — ah, 
well,  we  think  we  had  rather  have  an  old  Lang- 
stroth, and  if  asked  why  ?  perhaps  we  might  be 
induced  to  argue  as  the  ladies  do,  and  say  "■cause 
we  do!'''' 

But  there  is  certainly  one  very  strong  reason  in 
fiivor  of  Langstroth' s  pattern,  viz.  :  to  make  and 
handle  thirteen  frames,  to  obtain  the  results  (we 
mean  with  heavy,  full  stocks  of  bees)  that  we  now 
obtain  with  ten,  would  be  going  back  to  some- 
thing slower — which  we  never  like  to  do  ;  how- 
ever, we  are  going  to  try  an  Economic  Hive  this 
seas(m  for  experiment. 

Mr.  Quiuby  says,  in  his  Circular  for  1870,  that 
several  parts  of  Mr.  Langstroth's  hives  happen 
to  be  unimportant  to  him,  so  he  has  not  retained 
them.  Further  on  he  says,  that  with  the  im- 
proved hive,  he  has  devised,  it  is  safe  to  calculate 
on  an  average  of  one  or  two  liundred  pounds  of 
box  honey,  or  two  or  three  hundred  ichen  the  mel- 
extractor  is  used.  We  read  this  over  and  over, 
thinking  it  was  not  possible  that  Quinby  meant 
to  make  such  a  statement,  and  then  reflecting 
that  we  could  not  afford  to  be  behind,  we  sent 
$10.20  for  a  full  sample  hive,  boxes  and  all,  to 
see  what  it  looked  like. 

Now,  Mr.  Editor,  it  was  our  misfortune  to  be 
so  firmly  Rooted  in  our  own  ideas,  that  we  were 
really  very  much  disappointed  at  first.  Yet  we 
hope  we  have  suflScient  good  sense  to  know  that 
Quinby  should  have  reasons  for  his  preference, 
and  from  his  large  experience  should  know  far 
better  than  wo  do  what  is  necessary. 


There  are  eight  large  fi-ames,  (two  less  than 
Langstroth's,  and  so  much  less  handling,  as  men- 
tioned before,)  standing  up  in  the  middle  of  the 
base  board  or  floor.  They  are  held  upright  by  a 
piece  of  band  iron  fastened  to  one  of  the  lower 
corners  and  bent  at  right  angles,  so  as  to  slide 
under  a  strip  of  iron  running  just  under  the 
corners  of  all  the  frames.  To  remove  a  frame, 
we  have  to  slide  it  lengthwise  backward  half"  an 
inch.  CDirections  are  to  move  all  back  at  once. 
How  about  gumming  and  propolis  ?)  The 
frames  are  fixed  at  a  certain  distance,  by  nails 
driven  in  just  so  far,  (a  plan  we  have  not  liked 
in  other  hives,)'  and  strips  of  tin  slid  in  grooves 
sawed  in  the  sides  of  the  end  pieces,  making  a 
tight  hive  inside,  like  a  box  hive.  After  this 
strips  of  tin  are  also  laid  on  the  top  between  each 
pair  of  top  bars,  to  keep  them  in  place.  They 
are  bent  into  a  V-shaped  trough,  two  of  them 
lapping  in  the  middle  between  each  pair  of 
frames,  close  the  brood  apartment,  except  the 
sides,  whiclx  are  closed  by  the  side  boxes.  To 
open  the  hive,  the  fourteen  pieces  of  tin  must  be 
taken  off  tbe  tops  of  the  framed;  then  the  other 
fourteen  pieces  that  close  the  ends  must  be  pulled 
out  of  the  grooves,  as  the  frames  are  removed, 
for  Ihey  can  only  be  got  back  by  sliding  them 
in  from  the  top  after  the  frames  are  put  back 
close  up  to  the  nails.  The  frames  cannot  be 
replaced  in  any  other  waj^  e-ven  in  a  hive  with- 
out bees,  as  we  vainlv  tried  to  do. 

The  advantage  gained  by  these  twenty-eight 
tin  strips  is  that  of  having  the  circulation  of  air 
prevented  between  the  ends  of  the  frames.  In 
the  spring,  especially,  we  have  no  doubt  this 
would  be  of  considerable  importance  with  a 
weak  swarm.  But  with  a  strong  swarm,  in  a 
well-made  Langstroth  hive,  with  tight  honey- 
board  and  all,  we  really  think  there  could  be  no 
great  difference.  Of  course  we  cannot  judge 
so  well  until  we  have  given  it  a  trial,  and  may 
be  much  mistaken  in  many  things ;  but  those 
twenty-eight  tins  covered  with  propolis  appal 
us.  With  the  melextractor,  he  directs  sixteen 
frames,  all  side  by  side  ;  and  we  must  think  that 
such  a  shape  would  not  be  the  best  economy. 

For  out-door  wintering,  his  hive  gives  every 
advantage,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  of  a  straw  hive  ; 
and  for  spring  and  summer,  the  outside  case 
makes  a  double  hive  ;  but  does  not  the  disad- 
vantage of  depriving  the  bees  in  spring  of  much 
of  the  benefit  of  the  sun,  counterbalance  the 
advantage?  We  could  not  help  thinking  that 
our  smooth,  clean  Langstroth  hive,  with  its  sus- 
pended frames,  was— oh,  so  much  simpler,  easier, 
handier  every  'way. 

The  arrangement  of  the  side  boxes,  we  have 
no  doubt,  is  a  great  thing;  but  why  not  have 
the  frames  on  a  bent  iron  rod,  or  something  of 
that  sort  ?  (AVe  have  made  a  second  story  to  the 
Langstroth  hive,  quite  satisfactory  by  raising 
the  cap,  and  hanging  the  frames  on  a  bent  rod 
rising  from  the  four  corners.)  We  thought, 
perhaps,  Quiubj^'s  hive  was  not  intended  to  be 
opened,  but  in  his  directions  to  make  it  a  non- 
swarmer,  he  says  the  queen-cells  must  be  cut  out 
every  week,  and  witli  the  melextcactor  what 
then  ?  By  omitting  the  tins  we  might  get  along  ; 
but  then,  we  fear,  the  fabric  would  all  keel  over. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


175 


AYe  cannot  lielp  thinking  tliat  Mr.  Qninby  lias 
niDre  lime  at  bis  disposal  than  we  have.  A 
friend,  who'  assisted  us  with  our  melextractor, 
could  not  be  persuaded  that  the  Quinby  hive 
would  be  practicable  at  all,  as  we  used  the  Lang- 
stroth  frames. 

We  intended  to  be  present  at  the  convention  in 
Cleveland,  but  a  mistake  in  the  date  prevented. 
We  were  there  two  days  before,  and  saw  a  bee- 
hive that,  for  a  labj'rinth  of  puzzles,  was  ahead 
of  Quinby's.  The  inventor,  in  trying  to  please 
everybody,  has  introduced  everything  he  proba- 
bly ever  heard  of  in  beehives.  From  the  report 
of  the  convention,  we  should  judge  that  it  woukl 
have  done  very  well  for  about  fifteen  years  ago. 
We  think  the  Bee  Jouunal,  the  melextractor, 
etc.,  were  not  mentioned  at  all.  There  is  some- 
tliing  about  the  Italian  bee,  but  not  much. 

We  may  have  said  a  great  deal,  Mr.  Editor,  in 
favor  of  the  Langstroth  hive,  yet  we  cannot 
help  thinking  that  a  straight  line  is  the  only 
shortest  line  between  two  points  ;  and  even  if 
that  is  covered  bv  a  patent,  it  is  better  to  use  it 
tiian  to  go  to  great  expense  to  avoid  it.  After 
tendering  our  best  wishes  to  all  bee-keepers, 
we  will  remind  them  of  what  they  probably 
already  know,  that  the  ideas  advanced  are,  after 
all,  only  those  of  Novice. 

P.  S. — Mr.  Editor,  will  you  please  tell  those 
that  do  not  know  us,  that  we  have  no  interest  in 
Langstroth's  patent,  or  any  other,  and  never 
expect  to  have — for  which,  as  for  all  other  bless- 
ings,  may  we  always  be  thankful. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Joarnal. 

Faults  in  Wintering  Bees. 


In  the  July  number  of  the  Bee  Jourxai,, 
pages  5  and  6,  Mr.  Dadant  tells  us  of  his  mishap 
in  wintering  bees.  I  was  well  aware  when  I 
penned  the  article  to  which  he  refers,  that  I  did 
not  give  the  whole  cause,  according  to  my  own 
views,  but  the  great  trouble  with  me  is,  to  con- 
dense my  articles,  and  still  say  all  that  I  wish  to 
say  on  any  subject,  and  not  have  it  too  long  for 
one  article  in  the  Bee  Journai,.  Therefore  I 
do  not  know  any  better  way  than  just  to  take 
Gallup  as  you  find  him,  and  not  expect  him  to 
be  as  he  ought  to  have  been. 

I  tiiink  that  in  one  article  I  said  that  a  large 
number  of  swarms  had  died  in  this  vicinity,  and 
large  numbers  more  would  die  before  spring. 
Why  wix  I  so  positive  ?  For  this  very  reason,  that 
the  bees  had  gathered  considerable  quantities  of 
honey  in  September,  while  the  weather  was  cool, 
and  also  while  their  numbers  were  greatly  re- 
duced in  accordance  with  the  old  age  theory. 
Hence  the  consequence  would  be  (and  was)  that 
said  honey  would  not  be  sufficiently  evaporated 
for  the  bees  to  winter  on.  Perhaps  I  cannot  better 
illustrate  this,  than  by  giving  my  own  manage- 
ment and  that  of  one  of  my  neighbors  c^nly  a 
fourth  of  a  mile  distant — both  operating  at  "the 
same  time,  with  the  same  kind  of  hive,  and 
under  the  same  climatic  influence.  One  of  my 
hives  had  only  seven  frames  filled  with  comb  and 
honey  and  occupied  by  bees.     That  stock  win- 


tered in  excellent  condition,  and  had  abundance 
of  honey  to  last  till  the  1st  of  June.  By  that  time 
they  had  the  hive  completely  filled  with  bees, 
vacant  side  and  all  ;  but  at  no  time  had  they 
gathered  suflicieut  honey  to  build  comb.  My 
neighbor  was  managing  his  colony  under  my 
instructions,  and  I  was  very  careful  to  exphun  to 
him  the  reasons,  the  whys  and  wherefores  of  my 
instructions,  and  also  the  consequences.  But, 
instead  of  following  my  directions  after  his  hive 
was  half  filled  with  comb,  (fori  examined  it  my- 
self up  to  that  time,)  he  removea  the  division 
board  entirely,  and  gave  the  bees  access  to  the 
empty  half  at  once.  The  consequence  was,  they 
built  more  comb  than  my  colony,  and  stored 
honey  outside  of  the  cluster  ;  and  that  honey  was 
thin  and  watery,  not  over  half  evaporated.  I 
helped  him  to  set  them  in  the  cellar  in  the  fall, 
pronounced  them  as  having  abundance  of  honey 
to  winter  on,  as  they  were  actually  heavier  than 
several  of  mine  ;  but  I  did  not  open  the  hive,  to 
examine  them.  Some  time  in  February  two  of 
his  colonies  starved  to  death.  I  then  examined 
them  and  found,  for  the  first  time,  that  he  had 
removed  the  division  boards,  contrary  to  instruc- 
tions. I  asked  him  why  he  did  so,  and  his  reply 
was  that  he  could  not  see  the  propriety  of  fol- 
lowing my  instructions ;  or,  in  other  words,  he 
thought  he  knew  better  than  I  did  !  When  will 
bee-keepers  learn  that  honey  gathered  in  cool 
weather  must  be  stored  in  or  directly  above  the 
cluster  of  bees  ?  Or,  in  other  words,  that  the  hive 
must  be  compact  and  adapted  to  the  quantity  of 
bees  in  the  colony,  or  the  honey  stored  at  such 
such  times  will  be  worthless  for  wintering. 
Warmth  is  indispensably  necessary  for  the  due 
evaporation  of  nectar.  If  the  weather  is  warm 
enough,  all  right ;  if  not,  the  bees  must  be  assisted 
in  keeping  up  artificial  warmth. 

It  is  a  very  easy  matter  to  prophecy,  that  bees 
are  going  to  winter  remarkably  well  in  this 
locality  this  season.  Although  the  summer  was 
wet  and  cold,  there  was  abundance  of  honey 
gathered  in  the  fall.  But  there  was  plenty  of 
brood,  and  the  bees  were  strong  in  numbers  ;  and 
unless  they  were  in  very  badly  formed  hives, 
their  honey  is  all  of  excellent  quality  and  well 
evaporated,  they  will  not  consume  over  one-third 
the  amount  they  would  if  it  were  only  half 
evaporated.  To  still  further  illustrate  this,  I  have 
seen  in  July,  when  the  bass-wood  was  in  bloom, 
and  the  weather  showery  and  hot,  night  and  day, 
and  the  atmosphere  moist,  (at  such  times  the 
secretion  of  nectar  is  immense, )  strong  stocks  fill 
every  vacant  cell  through  the  day,  and  even  fill  a 
comb  placed  outside  at  the  entrance  ;'  and  in  their 
eagerness  even  gather  honey  while  it  was  raining 
quite  hard.  Now,  examine  them  at  night — all  is 
full,  bees,  combs  and  all ;  and  all  this  nectar  is 
so  thin  and  watery,  that  on  turning  the  comb 
slightly  sideways  the  least  jar  will  make  the 
liquid  drip  out  like  so  much  water.  But  examine 
again  next  morning,  and  this  then  watery 
stuff  is  nearly  all  gone.  It  is  condensed  by  evap- 
oration and  stored  in  the  surplus  boxes  ;  or  a  por- 
tion, perhaps,  manufactured  into  comb.  There 
is  now  again  any  quantity  of  empty  cells,  and 
the  comb  that  was  filled  on  the  outside  of  the 
hive,  is  once  more  entirely  empty.     All  through 


170 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


the  niiilit.  the  busy  little  fellows  kept  up  such  a 
lou  1  noise  that  they  could  be  heard  for  rods  from 
ihe  hive  ;  and  the  following  day  they  fill  tlie  cells 
again,  and  the  same  process  is  gone  through 
anew.  At  night  this  then  watery  stuff  is  all 
converted  into  the  very  best  quality  of  honey. 
All  this  is  done,  mind  you,  while  the  weather  is 
hot  night  and  day. 

One  more  example.  Several  years  ago,  I  knew 
a  man  by  the  name  of  Gallup.  He  had  quite 
a  number  of  good  colonies,  all  in  box  hives; 
and  some  time  about  the  10th  of  August,  he 
had  seven  stocks  that  had  neither  cast  swarms 
nor  stored  surplus  honey.  He  drummed  out  a 
large  swarm  from  each,  and  put  them  into  large 
hives,  sixteen  inches  square  and  fourteen  inches 
high  ;  and  twenty-one  days  after,  he  drummed 
out  tiie  remainder  of  the  bees,  as  all  the  young 
brood  had  then  hatched  ;  and  united  them  with 
the  first  swarms.  He  then  had  seven  hives 
filled  with  pollen,  &c.,  for  sale  or  family  use. 
Did  not  he  boast  of  what  he  had  done  ?  No 
swarm  of  bees  could  fool  him  out  of  his  honey  ! 
Well,  those  new  hives  were  all  weighed  before 
the  bees  were  put  in,  and  they  were  weighed 
again  after  the  bees  had  done  working  for  the 
si-ason,  and  they  averaged  fifty-eight  pounds,  net, 
after  deducting  the  weight  of  the  hive.  Well, 
you  see  that  his  neighbors  had  hives  in  the  same 
condition;  but  they  did  not  drum  them  out,  as 
Gallup  did — and  did  not  he  come  over  them  ? 
The  fact  is,  that  anything  that  this  Gallup  did 
not  know  about  bees  was  not  worth  knowing  ! 
Along  in  the  winter  these  bees  had  the  dysentery 
pretty  badly  ;  and  by  the  first  of  March,  every 
swarm  of  the  seven  was  dead  — all  starved  !  Now 
remember,  that  while  the  bees  were  gathering 
this  honey,  the  nights  were  very  cool  ;  and  the 
hives  being  so  large,  it  was  impossible  for  the 
bees  to  get  up  the  necessary  heat  to  evaporate  it 
properly.  The  last  part  of  that  perfoiinance 
Gallup  did  not  boast  much  about.  However,  he 
made  the  discoverj^  that  he  did  not  know  as  much 
as  he  thought  for ;  and  when  a  person  has  made 
that  discovery,  there  is  a  great  chance  for  him  to 
learn  more.  E.  Gallup. 

Osage,  Iowa. 

P.  S. — I  still  think  that  the  old  age  theory  was 
at  the  bottom  of  that  bee-disease  in  this  vicinity. 


[For  tlie  American  Bee  JournaL] 

Size  of  Hives  and  Product  of  Honey. 

I  was  int(?rested  and  instructed  by  the  account 
given  by  A.  Grimm  of  his  experience  in  bee- 
keeping. By  the  experiments  of  twenty-seven 
or  eight  years,  with  so  great  a  variety  of  hives, 
large  and  small,  his  opinion  is  certainly  entitled 
to  much  weight.  I  cannot  claim  a  long  expe- 
rience or  the  use  of  any  great  variety  of  hives. 
My  experiments  were  commenced  in  1860,  in  the 
seventieth  year  of  my  age,  and  have  thus  far 
been  aimed  to  the  securing  a  hive  from  which  a 
swarm  maj^  be  secured  at  the  pleasure  of  the 
keeper ;  or  the  whole  colony  be  continued  con- 
stantly atwoik,  not  delayed  by  the  disposition  to 
swarm,  and  no  time  lost  in  preparation  for  it. 


My  change  in  the  hive,  either  in  form  or  size, 
has  been  partly  to  secure  this  or  these  objects. 

A  word  of  explanation  about  the  size  of  hives  : 
Mr.  Grimm  informs  us  that  he  has  used  hives 
from  seven  hundred  to  four  thousand  eight  hun- 
dred cubic  inches  in  the  main  apartment.  This 
main  apartment  is,  in  fact,  the  hive  ;  while  the 
boxes  that  form  the  receptacles  of  the  surplus 
honey,  which  are  added  or  removed  at  pleasure, 
do  not  form  a  part  of  the  hive  proper,  that  being 
the  apartment  strictly  given  to  breeding  and 
wintering.  When  the  boxes  are  on  they  form 
the  principal  part  of  the  room  for  honey.  The 
breeding  apartment  is  of  the  capacity  of  from 
about  one  thousand  to  two  thousand  cubic  inches, 
I  think  probably  from  sixteen  hundred  to  eighteen 
hundred  may  be  the  best.  When  we  come  to  the 
boxes,  the  different  sizes  (of  hives)  have  boxes 
of  from  three  thousand  two  hundred  and  forty 
to  nine  thousand  four  hundred  and  four  cubic 
inches,  holding  from  ninety  to  two  hundred  and 
forty  pounds.  There  may  be  a  little  more  or  less 
than  this,  according  to  the  manner  in  which  the 
comb  is  constructed.  It  will  be  s^en  that  the  whole 
room  in  the  central  apartment  and  the  boxes, 
ranges  from  four  thousand  two  hundred  and  forty 
cubic  inches  in  the  smallest,  to  eleven  thou- 
sand two  hundred  and  forty  in  the  largest.  The 
inquiry  is,  what  advantage  is  secured  by  abun- 
dant box  room. 

1.  All  the  workers  will  be  actively  employed 
in  storing  honey.  With  no  boxes  and  the  hive 
small,  ail  but  those  accommodated  with  room 
witiiin,  will  cluster  outside  of  the  hive,  and  only 
leave  to  get  their  daily  jjrovision,  and  return  to 
cluster  outside.  If  two  small  boxes  are  placed 
on  the  hive,  enough  may  gather  in  them  to  oc- 
cupy the  room  ;  and  if  no  preparation  is  making 
for  swarming,  they  will  store  honey  in  the 
boxes  ;  but  the  balance  of  the  supernumeraries 
will  cluster  out  in  idleness.  If  the  boxes  are  all 
placed  on  to  make  room  for  the  whole  colony,  as 
they  increase  they  will  enter  the  boxes  and  work 
in  them,  unless  preparations  for  swarming  are 
making.  The  result  will  be,  honey  will  be  ac- 
cumulating in  all  the  boxes,  instead  of  in  one  or 
two.  I  have  known  a  colony  storing  honey  in 
twenty-five  boxes  at  one  time,  and  they  gave  one 
hundred  and  forty-seven  pounds  of  surplus. 
Another  colony  worked  in  all  its  boxes  at  one 
time,  as  many  as  twelve  empty  boxes  were  re- 
quired to  supply  the  place  of  as  many  full  boxes 
which  were  removed.  They  gave  one  hundred 
and  seventy-four  pounds  in  the  season.  Does  any 
one  believe  they  would  have  gathered  as  much 
with  only  two  or  four  small  boxes  upon  the  top 
of  the  hive,  changed  six  or  eight  times  ? 

2.  Bee-keepers  understand  well  that  during  the 
time  of  preparation  for  swarming,  very  little 
surplus  honey  is  stored.  The  most  is  used  to 
supply  the  brood  and  be  ready  to  accompany  the 
queen  in  her  emigration.  I  have  several  times 
noticed  colonies  that  I  supposed  were  engaged 
in  filling  the  surplus  boxes,  that  when  the  swarm 
issued  would  leave  their  boxes  and  to  my  surprise 
leave  them  entirely  empty.  The  loss  of  a  week, 
and  sometimes  two  weeks,  right  in  the  height 
of  the  honey  harvest  from  white  clover  may 
make  a  difference  of  fifty  to  one  hundred  pounds. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOUENAL. 


177 


3.  It  is  known  that  the  old  queen  emigniteri 
with  the  new  colony.  The  brood  in  the  parent 
hive  that  forms  the  second  and  sometimes  the 
third  swarm,  are  the  product  of  the  old  queen. 
Suppose  the  first  swarm  gathers  forty  pounds 
for  winter,  twenty  pounds  surplus  ;  the  second 
swarm  gathers  twenty-five  pounds  for  winter  ; 
the  old  one  gathers  twenty  pounds  besides  winter 
stores.  It  will  be  recollected  that  this  is  the  work 
of  the  product  of  the  old  queen.  The  young 
queens  will  only  be  ready  to  supply  workers  to 
take  the  place  of  the  old  laborers,  who  have 
finished  their  labor  with  the  close  of  the  season 
and  passed  away.  We  have  now,  if  we  add 
twenty  pounds  for  the  third  swarm,  one  hundred 
and  twenty-five  pounds,  besides  the  winter  stores 
for  the  old  colony.  If  we  add  to  this  fifty  pounds 
lost  by  idleness  during  the  preparation  for  swarm- 
ing, we  liave  from  the  colony  one  hundred  and 
seventy-five  pounds  in  surplus  in  the  one  hive. 
Can  any  one  assign  a  reason  why  this  result 
should  not  be  reached  ? 

Mr.  G.  informs  us— "  When  I  commenced 
bee-keeping  in  this  country,  I  had  only  one 
colony,  which  doubled  itself  tlie  first  summer, 
but  gave  me  no  honey.  In  ten  seasons,  during 
which  my  stocks  had,  by  natural  and  forced 
swarming,  increased  to  fifty-three,  I  obtained 
surplus  honey  from  hives  and  caps  only  in  two 
seasons." 

Again,  he  says: — "In  twenty-one  years  the 
bees  in  my  home  apiary  have  not  gathered  a 
pound  of  white  clover  honey  ;  nor,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  one  season,  have  they  stored  any  in 
boxes  from  buckwheat,  while  some  of  my  neigh- 
bors, three  or  four  miles  off,  have  had  white 
clover  and  buckwheat  honey  stored  in  most 
seasons." 

Has  not  Mr.  G.  been  engaged  in  raising  bees 
for  sale,  increasing  his  stock  by  artificial  swarm- 
ing, and  raising  queens,  in  nucleus  hives  ?  If  so, 
may  not  this  account  in  part  for  lack  of  sui'plus 
honey  ?  Are  not  his  hives  calculated  to  secure 
these  objects  ?  Are  they  not  simply  box  hives 
with  cap  and  boxes  on  the  top,  or  Langstroth's 
with  but  little  box  room  for  surplus  honey  ? 
This  may  account  in  part  for  the  failure  in  sur- 
plus. 

I  have  brood  from  four  colonies  in  the  two  thou- 
sand cubic  inch  box  hives,  with  boxes  on  the  top 
covered  with  a  cap.  Three  of  these  gave  one 
swarm  each,  and  not  one  ounce  of  surplus  honey. 
One  gave  no  swarm  and  twelve  pounds  of  honey. 
Thirteen  colonies  in  the  farmers'  hive,  with 
boxes  of  seventj^  or  eighty  pounds  capacity  to 
each  hive,  gave  an  average  of  a  fraction  over 
sixty-one  pounds  each. 

Four  Eureka  hives,  in  1867,  with  box  room  for 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  pounds  per  hive, 
gave  an  average  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
pounds  each.  This  Wi-.5  in  a  field  where  neigh- 
bors near  by,  in  the  old  style  box  hive,  would 
only  compare  with  the  common  results  of  such 
hives. 

Now  I  know  not  why  my  friend  G.  may  not 
do  as  well  with  the  same  appliances.  One  hive 
gave  one  hundred  and  seventy-four  pounds  ;  and 
more    than   one   hundred   pounds   of  this    was 


from  white  clover,  and  so  fine  as  to  sell  for  forty 
cents  per  pound. 

If  I  had  Mr.  G.'s  apiary,  I  should  put  the 
colonies  doubled  into  the  Eureka  hive  ;  place 
them  in  two  fields,  well  ventilated  and  shaded, 
expecting  thus  arranged  to  obtain  from  them  an 
average  of  from  one  hundred  and  fifty  to  two 
hundred  pounds  each. 

I  think  Mr.  G.  gives  his  highest  average  of 
surplus  honey  in  his  hives  at  fifteen  pounds. 

A  colony  of  bees  will  pi'obably  consume  sixty 
pounds  or  more,  within  the  year.  On  this  sup- 
position Mr.  G.'s  bees  consumed  four-fifths  of  the 
hone}^  gathered,  and  he  secured  one-fifth.  He 
had  four  hundred  colonies  at  one  time.  They 
must  have  required  for  consumption  twenty-four 
thousand  pounds.  This  is  twelve  tons.  Suppose 
it  was  at  this  time  he  had  his  average  of  fifteen 
pounds  per  colony  ;  then  he  secured  from  all  six 
ifhousand  pounds,  or  three  tons. 

My  colonies  in  the  Eureka  hives  gave  an 
average  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  pounds. 
At  the  consumption  of  sixty  pounds  per  colony 
they  gave  five  pounds  per  colony  more  than 
two-thirds.  Fcmr  hundred  colonies  in  Eureka 
hives  would  have  given  fifty  thousand  pounds  or 
twenty-five  tons.  This  presents  the  follovving 
question  :  "  Shall  we  place  our  bees  in  hives  in 
which  they  will  give  us  but  one-fifth  of  the  ■ 
honey  in  our  fielcT,  or  in  hives  that  will  give  us 
more  than  two-thirds  of  it  ?" 

A  word  on  the  Italian  Bees. — I  obser,ve,  in  a 
communication  in  your  issue  for  Januafy,  1870, 
a  mistake  which,  I  think,  should  be  corrected. 
In  1867  I  had  four  colonies  of  bees  in  the 
Eureka  hive^one  Italian  and  three  native.  I 
gave  an  account  to  the  "  Earal  New  Yorker''''  of 
the  result  that  season.  The  product  of  the 
Italian  colony  was  two  swarms  and  one  hundred 
and  six  pounds  of  surplus  honey  ;  of  one  native 
colony,  two  swarms  and  ninety-seven  pounds  of 
surplus  ;  of  one  other  native  colony,  no  swarm 
but  one  hundred  and  twenty-three  pounds  of  sur- 
plus honey  ;  the  other  colony  gave  no  swarm 
but  one  hundred  and  seventy-four  pounds  of 
surplus  honey.  I  gave  this  result  as  the  fruits  of 
that  season.  But  I  think  I  was  not  such  a  novice 
as  to  say  or  suppose  that  that  settled  the  ciues- 
tion  as  to  which  kind  of  bees  was  best.  In 
1868  I  had  seven  or  eight  additional  colonies  of 
Italian  bees,  purchased  in  1867.  They  stood  in 
the  same  apiary  with  my  native  bees.  The  bees 
in  our  field  of  three  miles  each  way,  were 
nearly  or  quite  doubled  from  the  previous  year, 
and  gathered  less  than  half  the  honey  per  swarm 
on  the  average.  My  four  highest  colonies  gave 
respectively  one  hundred  and  forty-seven,  one 
hundred  and  six,  seventy-nine,  and  seventy-five 
pounds.  Neither  of  the  colonies  of  the  black 
equalled  the  lowest  Italian  by  several  pounds. 
The  success  of  the  Italians  was  reported  in 
several  papers,  in  which  I  gave  a  report  of  my 
apiary  for  the  year. 

I  should  not  trouble  you  with  this  correction, 
but  I  am  unwilling  to  be  considered  as  prejudiced 
against  the  Italian  bees.  I  think  the  friends  who 
are  seeking  to  introduce  them  into  the  country 
are  doing  a  public  benefit. 

In  reply  to  your  correspondent's  hint  of  the 


178 


TITE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


propriety  of  my  entering  largtly  into  tlie  bee 
business,  I  nu\y  say  wbun  he  enters  his  eightietli 
year,  he  may  learn  why  entering  largely  into 
any  business  will  seem  a  heavy  burden. 

i  will  add  that  I  feel  much  interest  in  your 
valuable  journal  and  wish'you  much  success. 

Should  any  of  your  readers  wish  particularly 
concerning  the  Eureka  hive,  I  will  send  them  a 
circular  ou  receipt  of  their  address  and  a  post- 
age stamp.     I  wish  agents  in  every  town. 

Jasper  Hazen. 

Albany,  N.  T. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Bea-Keeping  in   Eastern   Massachusetts. 

YiK.  Editor  : — When  we  read  in  the  Jotjrsal 
stuienienls  of  the  large  profits  of  bee-keeping  in 
different  parts  of  the  country,  such  as  Messrs.  J* 
L.  Peabody  and  Andrew  Byers  gave  us  in  the 
January  number,  we  feel  as  though  we,  in  Esse.x 
county,  (Mass.,)  are  doing  a  small  business,  and 
conclude  that  we  are  in  an  unfavorable  location. 
Such  a  conclusion  is  a  correct  one  ;  but  why  is 
it  so?  We  have  plenty  of  bee  pasturage.  Wil- 
lows are  plenty  ;  fruit  blossoms  in  abundance  ; 
and  white  clover  almost  without  limit,  from 
early  in  June  until  about  the  middle  of  July. 
Still  we  get  a  small  income  compared  with  otlier 
locations. 

When  I  commenced  bee-keeping,  about  twelve 
years  since,  I  supposed  I  was  in  a  good  location 
for  the  business.  But  I  soon  found  that  bees 
would  not  increase  in  numbers,  and  store  honey 
to  such  extent  as  Messrs.  Langstroth  and  Quinby 
speak  of  in  their  books.  I  was  soon  convinced 
tliat  the  difficulty  was  in  being  situated  so  near 
the  sea,  and  getting  the  cold  northeast  wind  pecu- 
liar to  tliis  part  of  New  England,  from  the  last  of 
March  to  abuut  the  tirst  and  sometimes  to  near 
the  middle  of  June. 

People  who  lived  here,  and  afterwards  iii 
other  parts  of  the  country,  (perhaps  not  out  of 
New  England,)  say  they  nowhere  feel  such  cold 
northeast  winds  as  we  have  here.  Anyone,  by 
looking  at  the  map,  can  at  once  see  why  it  is  so. 
It  comes  sweeping  down  from  the  frozen  regions, 
over  fields  of  tioating  ice,  and  not  passing  over 
much  land,  it  strikes  us  with  a  chill  almost  of  an 
iceberg.  After  passing  over  a  few  miles  of  land, 
it  gradually  becomes  softened  and  loses  much  of 
its  harshness. 

In  1863,  from  March  28th  to  June  4th,  (sixty- 
nine  days,)  the  wind  was  between  north  and 
east  fifty-one  days.  In  such  weather  the  flowers 
yield  no  honey.  It  is  so  much  lost  time  witli 
beei.  Of  course,  if  honey  gathering  is  checked, 
stock  breeding  is  checked  also.  Consequently 
when  white  clover,  which  is  the  main  dependence 
here  for  surplus  honey,  comes  into  blossom,  the 
bees  are  not  in  a  condition  to  gather  it,  being 
wealv  in  numbers  and  light  in  stores.  And  by 
the  time  the}^  get  strong  and  the  hive  is  filled 
below  the  harvest  is  passed.  If  the  white  clover 
could  remain  in  blossom  through  July,  it  would 
ol'ten  make  the  difference  between  a  good  yield 
and  a  total  failure  of  surplus  honey. 

I  intended  last  spring  to  adopt  Mr.   Gallup' s 


metliod  of  encouraging  breeding  by  placing  empty 
combs  between  combs  filled  "with  brood;  but 
found  no  time  up  to  the  middle  of  ]\Iay  that  my 
judgment  did  not  tell  me  they  needed  assistance 
to  keep  warm  what  little  brood  they  bad,  rather 
than  an  increase  of  it. 

Occasionally  we  have  a  season  comparatively 
free  from  these  cold  winds,  and  then  the  bees 
always  do  well.  Such  was  the  case  in  1860, 
1864,  and  1867.  Although  the  business  is  very 
uncertain,  I  think  it  pays  on  the  whole  about  as 
good  profit  on  capital  and  labor  as  other  pur- 
suits connected  with  agriculture. 

I  agree  with  Mr.  Alley  in  regard  to  the  honey- 
emptying  machine.  I  used  it  last  season  on  one 
swarm  that  I  judged  to  be  strong  enough  to 
work  in  boxes,  but  refused  to  do  so.  We  took 
out  about  ten  pounds  of  honey,  and  I  am  satisfied 
that  they  were  as  heavy  on  the  first  of  September 
as  though  none  had  been  taken  away.  It  was  so 
much  clear  gain.  Bees  sometimes  seem  to  lose 
all  energy.  "  They  will  cluster  outside  the  hive 
when  there  is  plenty  of  room  in  the  boxes.  Under 
such  circumstances,  if  the  combs  are  taken  out 
and  returned  again,  it  will  oftentimes  set  them  to 
work  with  vigor.  If  the  machine  is  used  and  a 
part  of  the  honey  taken  away,  they  will  work  all 
the  better  for  it.  But  we  should  be  careful  not 
to  tfcke  it  away  too  near  the  end  of  the  honey 
season.  C.  Rogers. 

West  Newbury,  Mass.,  Feb.  2,  1870. 


[For  tlie  Americau  Bee  Journal.] 

Peabody's  Honey  Extractor. 


AVhat  are  the  advantages  claimed  for  this  ma- 
chine over  that  with  a  wire  box,  as  nuide  by  the 
National  Bee  Hive  ?  Well,  Mr.  H.  O. ,  or  Mr.  J. 
L.  Peabody,  please  state  what  advantages  it  has, 
and  in  what  they  consist.  I  think  the  readers 
of  the  American  Bee  Journal  would,  e?i.  masse, 
be  gratified  to  receive  the  information,  so  that 
they  might  before  purchasing,  judge  intelligently 
between  it  and  the  old  machine.  Will  it  extract 
honey  quicker  ?  Is  it  easier  to  operate  with  it  ? 
Is  it  cheaper,  more  durable,  and  less  liable  to  be 
broken  or  disarranged  ?  Answers  to  such  or 
similar  questions  would  no  doubt  be  satisfaclory 
information  to  those  who  propose  to  purchase 
machines  next  spring,  and  be  looked  for  w.th 
interest. 

D.  H.   COGGSHALL,  Jr. 

West  Groton,  N.  T. 


CnLOROFORMrNG  Bees.  — "  Some  time  after 
this,  I  attempted  to  quiet  an  angry  swarm  of  bees 
by  sli]jping  under  the  gum  a  eponge  containing 
sonietliing  over  half  an  ounce  of  chloroform,  and 
succeeded  admirably.  When  they  had  be  come 
quiet,  I  removed  what  honey  could  be  spared 
from  their  stores,  and  left  them  all  c[uiet.  They 
are  quiet  still,  for  the  chloroform  killed  the  last 
bee." 

Dr.  a.  Love. 
In  Southern  Cultivator. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


179 


[For  the  Americau  Bee  Journal.] 

A  few  Facts  at  Variance  with  generally 
accepted  Theories. 


■  In  reviewing  tlie  past  season's  operations  in 
mj^  apiary,  I  find  noted  a  lew  facts  that  came 
under  my  observation,  which  not  only  seem  to 
be  at  variance  with  my  past  experience,  but  also 
with  the  teachings  of  some  of  our  scribes  and 
bept  authorities. 

My  first  swarm,  a  very  large  one,  issued  on 
the  2d  of  June,  at  9  o'clock  A.  M.  It  was  my 
intention  to  make  an  artificial  swarm  the  next 
day,  but  they  were  a  little  too  fast  for  me.  I 
soon  had  them  in  a  hive  with  two  frames,  con- 
taining short  sheets  of  comb.  The  next  day  at 
2  o'clock  p.  M.,  they  left  and  settled  again.'  I 
found  that  they  had  made  some  new  comb,  and 
concluded  that  they  left  the  hive  for  want  of 
more  ventilation,  as  it  was  a  very  warm  day 
So  after  preparing  the  Iiive  for  thorough  ventila- 
tion, I  put  them  back  into  it.  The  next  day 
thereafter,  about  noon,  they  left  the  hive  ao-ain 
and  made  straight  for  the  woods,  in  a  ''' bee 
Hue."  I  soon  run  myself  out  of 'breath,  and 
gave  up  the  chase.  Again  examining  the  hive  I 
lound  the  combs  full  of  eggs. 

The  first  thing  that  was  unusual  about  this 
was  swarming   so    early  in   the    morning  as  9 

0  clock.  Most  authorities  say  swarms  need  not 
be  looked  for  only  between  11  o'clock  a.  m  , 
and  3  o'clock  p.  m.  ;  and  I  never  knew  one  be- 
lore  to  come  out  before  11  o'clock.  But  this  was 
not  the  only  one  that  came  out  so  early  last 
season.  ■^ 

Again,  it  was  rather  remarkable  that  a  swarm 
should  leave  a  hive,  containing  combs  and  honey 
alt^r  the  queen  had  commenced  depositing  etro-s' 

1  do  not  think  the  hive  could  have  had  anything 
to  do  with  it,  for  the  next  swarm  that  issued  was 
put  into  It  and  set  in  the  same  place,  and  went  to 
work  all  right. 

Later  in  the  season,  when  the  honey  harvest 
was  abundant,  I  made  an  artificial  swarm,  by 
removing  the  old  hive,  putting  a  new  one  in  its 
place,  ^Mth  two  frames  half  full  of  combs  with 
brood  and  honey  from  a  third  hive,  and  brushin'^ 
off  a  good  many  young  bees  from  the  combs  of 
the  old  hive  in  front  of  the  new.  I  gave  them  a 
young  fertile  queen  from  a  nucleus.  The  queen 
was  soon  laying,  and  both  swarms  doing  well 
JNow  what  was  strange  about  this  was,  that 
when  the  hive  teas  only  about  half  full  of  combs,  a 
large  swurm  came  out,  leaving  but  few  bees  in  t'lie 
hive,  with  several  queen-cells  complete.  I  re- 
moved the  queen-cells  and  returned  the  swarm 
and  all  went  well.  ' 

I  would  here  state  that  my  bees  (all  Italians) 
this  season,  had  the  swarming  propensity  to  an 
alarming  extent,  greatly  to  the  detriment  of 
their  honey-storing  propensity.  After  more  than 
doubling  the  number  of  my  colonies,  I  felt  satis- 
fied with  the  increase,  and  wished  to  keep  them 
storing  honey,  but  they  were  differently  inclined 
and  most  of  my  artificial  and  first  swarms,  and 
even  second  swarms,  sent  out  new  swarms 

This  brings  me  to  another  fact  at  variance 
with  some  of  our  orthodox  teachers.  We  are 
taught  that  young  queens  will  scarcely  lay  in 


drone  combs.  Now,  last  season,  every  youn"- 
queen  in  my  apiary  laid  drone  eggs,  and  the 
bees  reared  drones  in  all  the  available  drone 
combs  m  their  hives,  of  which,  when  not  r*-- 
moyed,  there  was  considerable.  I  would  state 
Uiat  forage  was  very  abundant  in  September  and 
October,  which  stimulated  the  queens  to  breed- 
iiig  very  extensively  ;  and  the  bees  did  not  kill 
off  their  drones— some  of  which  were  seen  flyin- 
as  late  as  the  middle  of  NovemLer.  All  the 
hives,  both  early  and  late  swarms,  were  well 
prepared  with  bees  and  stores,  to  go  into  winter 
qu-^rters  Thaddeus  S.mith. 

Felee  Island. 


Bees  in  Yucatan. 


I  find  the  following  paragraph  in  Norman's 
Kambles  in  luratan,  in  describing  a  hacienda 
near  Uxmal.  Who  can  tell  us  more  of  the  bees 
of  Central  America  and  Mexico  ?  The  ancient 
Aztecs  had  honey  when  first  visited  by  the 
Spaniards.  ^    S 

"  There  are  a  large  number  of  Indians  attached 
to  this  hacienda,  who  appear  well  ;  and  so  does 
everything  connected  with  it.  Different  from 
many  others,  this  establishment  has  an  air  of 
comfort  and  prosperity,  much  to  the  credit  cf 
those  who  supervise  its  concerns.  It  has  its  six 
hundred  bee-hives,  which  are  made  of  hollow 
logs,  cut  into  lengths  of  two  feet  each.  They 
are  well  arranged  under  sheds  erected  for  the 
purpose— opened  monthly,  and  the  honey  ex- 
tracted. They  do  not  yield  so  much  honey,  or 
of  so  good  a  quality,  neither  are  the  bees  as  lively 
as  those  of  the  north.  Their  bees  have  no  sting. 
Great  attention  is  paid  to  the  preservation  of  the 
wax,  which  is  almost  a  staple  in  the  country,  so 
much  is  consumed  in  religious  exercises." 

dt^"  These  bees  are  MeUponas,  and  might  per- 
haps be  cultivated  in  Florida,  but  all  atte'mpts  to 
introduce  them  north  have  hitherto  failed. 

[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Alsike  Clover. 


Mr.  Editor  :— I  think  you  do  not  say  enough 
in  praise  of  Alsike  cl.^ver.  I  have  three  acres 
from  which  I  saved  the  seed  this  vear,  yielding 
twenty-five  bushels,  which  I  sold"  for  five  hun- 
dred dollars  as  soon  as  it  was  threshed.  It  yields 
from  two  to  three  tons,  per  acre,  of  as  nice  htiy  as 
ever  was  put  in  my  barn.  I  ditched  a  meadoAV 
a  year  ago  last  fall,  where  nothing  grew  but 
swale  grass,  and  of  poor  quality.  I  turned  the 
sod  over  between  the  ditches,  and  in  the  fore 
part  of  June  sowed  it  to  Alsike  clover,  without 
manure;  aiid  the  result  was  as  stout  a  piece  of 
clover  as  ever  was  seen  in  this  section— the  admi- 
ration of  all  who  saw  it.  My  cows  fed  on  it  t,ill 
snow  fell,  which  was  on  the  1st  of  December. 
I  should  state  that  the  land  flows  at  every  flash 
of  rain  fall. 

The  Alsike  clover  keeps  in  bloom  four  weeks. 
My  bees  gathered  honey  from  it  that  length  of 
time,  and  did  finely.  A.  W.  Titus, 

Wilmington,  Del. 


180 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Those  Diamond  Frames  once  more. 


Mr  Editor  :— Pardon  me  for  this  second  talk 
to  Mr.  Conklin  and  Ms  Bennington  colony  of 
bee-keepers.  ^    ,,    ^^.„ 

First,  a  little  biography.  I,  M.  Miller,  am 
fifty-six  years  old,  a  cabinet-maker  by  trade  and 
M'orked  at  it  and  joiuering  forty  years.  I  have 
kept  bees  twenty  years ;  have  Langstroth  on  tlie 
"Hive  and  Honey  Bee,"  Quinby's  "Mysteries 
of  Bee-keeping,"  and  have  read  all  the  volumes 
of  the  American  Bee  Journal  except  the  first 
I  have  invented  five  different  hives  and  tested 

them.  .   ,    T         11 

Now   Mr.  Couklin,  do  you  think  I  can  level  a 
bee-hive  as  well  as  a  doctor  ?     Keep  cool,  and  I 
will  add  a  little  to  what  I  have  already  said  on 
page  99  of  vol.  5,  in  the  way  of  levelling  and  the 
mode  of  hanging  a   frame   angling.     I  claim  a 
right  to  talk  about  them,  as  I  am  the  first  inven- 
tor.    If  I  understand  you,   on  page  187,  vol.  4, 
'and  page  139,  vol.  5,  American  Bee  Journal, 
you  convey  the  idea  that  all  that  is  required  to 
obtain  straight  combs  in  the  Diamond  hive  is  to 
level  the  hive,  put  in  a  swarm  of  bees,  and  let 
them  have  their  own  way  in  building  ;,  and  the 
frames  being  hung  angling  so  afi"ects  the  bees  as  to 
secure  combs  built  straight  every  time.  And  your 
Bennington  colony  sustain  your  statement.    Cer- 
tainly  at  first  view,  your  statement  seems  to  be 
a  strong  one.     We  will  examine  the  case  further. 
A  defendant's  witness  sometimes  is  brought  into 
court  and  sworn  to  tell  the  truth  in  the  case.    He 
tells  the  truth,  indeed,  but  only  part  of  it,   and 
makes  a  case  for  the  defendant.     The  plaintifi  s 
counsel  cross-examine  him,  and  now  he  tells  the 
whole   truth   and   makes  a  clearer   case  for  the 
plaintiff.     The  last  truth,  spoiled  the  first.     I  be- 
lieve this  case  of  straight  combs  in  angling  frames 
is  a  parallel  one.     There  is  a  second  truth  some- 
where, although  I  may  not  be  able  to  secure  a 
revelation  of   it  from  you  or  your  witnesses.     I 
am  confident  you  and  they  can  reveal  if  you  or 
they  choose.    Now,  sir,  my  five  years'  experience 
of  anglino;  frames,  as  previously  stated,  and  Mr. 
Price'^s  of  I  know  not  how  long,  (see  American 
Bee  Journal,  vol.  5,  page  140, J)  is  the  reverse 
of  yours  and  the  Bennington  cohmy  of  one  year. 
Why,  sir,  if  it  were  true  that  the  bees  would  al- 
ways'make  straight  combs  in  those  frames,  and 
no   exceptions,  I  would  have  had  a  patent  lor 
them  years  ago,  and  your  patent  would  be_  no- 
where.    Did  you  take  your  hive  to  the  Michigan 
Bee-keepers'  Convention  last  September  ?     I  see 
you  were  there.     Admitting  you  and  your  Ben- 
nington  witnesses    state   the    truth,   your    hive 
should  take  the  premium  at  every  bee-keepers' 
convention  or  fair,  and  no  exceptions,  if  you  had 
it  there      How  is  it  that  Thomas's  hive  got  it  on 
that  occasion  ?     Please  turn  to  vol.  3,  page  28,  of 
the  Bee  Journal,  and  J.  H.  Thomas's  answ^er 
to  Querist's  question,  and  learn  the  reason  why 
bees  will  not  make  straight  combs  in  your  angling 
frames,    without   constraint.      Tlie   top   bars   oi 
Thomas's,  Gallup's,  Quinby's  and  Alley's  hives 
are  about  twelve  inches  long,  and  they  do  not 
always  get  straight  combs  without  interchanging 
guide-combs  or  partitions.     Your  two  combined 


ui-)per  bars  are  six  inches  longer  on  a  straight, 
horizontal  line  than  theirs;  and  by  following  the 
inclination  of  the  two  upper  bars,   they  are  as 
lon<T  again,  and  therefore  present  twice  as  many      , 
points  as  theirs  for  the  bees  to  commence  build- 
in  "•  combs,  consequently  they  will  start  combs  m     \ 
twice  as  many  places  in  the  same  frame,  and 
build  twice  as  many  crooked  combs  in  yours  as 
in  theirs.     Colony  of  Bennington,  is  it  not  a  tact 
that  you  all  have  secured  all  straight  combs  in 
those  two  hundred  or  more  hives  last  year,  (for 
vou    say    hundreds,)   by  interchanging    guide- 
combs  and  partition  boards?    I  have  sometimes 
secured  straight  combs  thus  in  those  frames,  but 
it  is  no  credit  to  the  hive  ;  it  costs  more  than  it 
is  worth.     If  not  secured  thus,  I  do  not  see  your 
secret  humbug.     It  may  be  because  you  reside  in 
the   vicinity   of   the   Professor.      You   may    be 
tainted  with  Flandcrism  !     Gentlemen,  I  will  tell 
you  how  I  found  out  the  Professor's  huinbug,  a 
number  of  years  ago,  at  the  Ohio  State  Fair  at 
Cleveland.     I  first  saw  the  Professor  on  the  fair 
o-rounds,  mounted  on  an  auction  stand,  selling 
bee-charm.     He  had  an  old,  porous  plush  cap  on 
his  head  ;  the  cap  covered  with  a  swarm  of  bees, 
and  the   bees   persisting  in   sticking  to  the  old 
plush,  although  there  were  on  the  stand  boxes 
full  of  bee-cliarm,  the  bees  paid  no  attention  to 
the  charm  in  the  boxes  or  the  bottles,  as  these 
passed  to  the  pockets  of  his  .customers.     Now, 
why  should  a  little  charm  on  the  old  plush  cap 
have  such  an  eff"ect  on  the  bees,  wlule  piles  of  it 
lying  around  had  no  effect  on  them  whatever  ?   1 
was  bound  to  find  out  the  mystery,  if  I  could,    i 
looked  on  until  the  Professor  sold  out  his  whole 
stock   and  e-athered  up  his  traps  to  start  tor  tlie 
hive      I  then  started  for  Flanders  and  kept  close 
to  his  heels,  so  that  we  both  arrived  at  the  hive 
at  the  same  time.     Off  came  the  old  plush  cap 
and  bees,  and  into  the  hive  he  shook  the  latter. 
He  then  stuck  his  hand  into  the  cap,  pulled  out  a 
paper  partition,  turned  the  cap  over,  and  shook 
out  the  queen ;  and  I  found  where  his  humbug 
was  hidden  !     Now,  gentlemen,  I  may  not  hud' 
out  as  easily  where  your  humbug  is  hidden,  but 
it  is  concealed  somewhere.    It  is  not  the  peculiar 
mode    of   hanging    those    frames    that    secures 
straio-ht  combs  always  and  without   exception. 
But  that  they  secure  the  reverse,  as  a  rule,  is  not 
guess-work  with  me.     It  is  experience  ot  which 
I  aftirm.  ,       „ 

To  ichomsoever  it  may  concern:  ihe  mode  oi 
ham-ing  rectangular  combs  angling,  I  believe  to 
have  become  public  property  six  or  seven  years 
aoo  and  free  to  all  to  use.  But  I  consider  them 
worthless  things,  for  the  reason  that  theie  are 
many  better  hives.  It  may  be  of  interest  to  some 
to  have  further  proof  that  I  have  made,  used  and 
sold  to  others  to  use,  the  rectangular  frame  hung 
an<^ling  in  bee-hives;  and  the  tune  when  tliey 
were  made  and  used.  I  refer  such  to  the  Rev. 
H  B  Hosford,  C.  W.  Farrar,  merchant,  A. 
Ellsworth,  farmer,  William  Wright,  farmer,  O. 
Porter,  joiner,  all  of  Hudson,  Summit  county, 
Ohio  •  T.  Cclbourn,  of  Akron,  Ohio,  and  b.  L- 
Brown,  of  Tama  City,  Iowa.  These  have  or 
had  them  in  use.  Verily,  verily,  how  uncertain 
a  patent  bee-hive  speculation  is  ! 
Peninsula,  Ohio.  M.  Miller. 


THE  AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


181 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

"Paper  Hives,"   and  "Claims"  of  N.  C. 
Mitchell. 

Time  has  moved  apace,  and  to-niglit  it  occurs 
to  me  that  C.  Hastings'  last  article  on  the  paper 
hive,  in  the  September  number  of  the  Bee  Jour- 
isA-L,  has  not  received  from  me  the  little  attention 
which  is  its  due. 

In  his  first  article,  after  describing  Dr.  Edwin 
Cox's  paper  hive,  Hastings  says  :    "They     *     * 

*  *  meet  the  loants  of  the  bees  in  every  rexjject. ' ' 
In  his  last  article  he  says  :  "  We  do  not  approve 
of  the  Doctor'' s  form  of  hive  or  style  of  top -bar    * 

*  *  ;  but  paper  in  some  form  we  cannot  dis- 
pense with."  So  this  paper  "in  some  form" 
proves  to  be  the  diminutive  "mouse"  that,  in 
Hastings'  mind,  has  been  brought  forth  by  the 
"Elephant"  "paper  hive,"  "  which  originally 
met  the  wants  of  the  bees  in  every  respect." 

I  can  see  no  alternative  now  for  Hastings,  than 
to  "comedown"  in  frank  acknowledgment  that 
he  is  himself  found  numbered  among  the  "gen- 
tiles" upon  whom  the  Doctor  "  played  sharp." 

Dr.  Edwin  Cox's  theory  of  the  growth  of 
honey  comb  enables  him  to  work  upon  the  cre- 
dulity of  such  as  are  unacquainted  with  the 
"mysteries  of  bee-keeping;"  and  when  he  has 
persuaded  the  credulous  to  believe  in  his  doctrine, 
he  has  them  in  a  fit  condition  for  "gulling"  them 
to  the  tune  of  heavy  sums.  The  same  probably 
holds  true  of  the  author  of  the  little  pamphlet 
sent  out  in  the  interest  of  "Mitchell's  Buckeye 
Hive,"  who  claims  that  he  "can  take  one  good 
colonj^  of  bees  in  early  spring,  and  increase  it  to 
sixty-four  good  strong  colonies  of  bees,  with  am- 
ple stores  to  carry  them  through  the  witter,  if  a 
fair  season  for  honej* ;"  and  hints  in  a  most  des- 
perate way  at  being  able  to  increase  said  colony 
to  one  hundred  equally  strong  and  Avell-stored 
colonies.  If  men  who  will  advocate  such  non- 
sense, by  either  word  or  pen,  do  not  find  those 
whom  they  can  dupe  by  making  them  believe  in 
the  miraculous,  and  rob  them,  I  know  nothing  of 
human  nature. 

Z.  C.  Fairbanks. 

Appletoji,  Wis.,  Jan.  15,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Workers  Reared  in  Drone  Comb. 

At  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Charles  Dadant,  in 
the  January  number  of  the  Bee  Journal,  I  pro- 
pose to  write  an  item  or  two  concerning  drone- 
raising. 

In  an  effort  to  raise  drones  last  season,  I  placed 
two  frames  of  drone  comb  in  the  centre  of  a 
strong  Italian  colony,  in  the  month  of  .September. 
Three  days  after  I  found  plenty  of  eggs,  and  nine 
days  after  some  of  the  eggs  were  missing  and 
honey  was  being  stored  in  their  place.  The  brood 
that  remained  was  capped  level ;  the  cells  not 
contracted  in  any  way  perceivable.  In  due  time 
all  hatched ;  but  not  a  drone  was  to  be  found, 
to  make  sure  I  examined  some  of  these  bees  and 
found  they  had  stings. 

I  have  also  had  drones  raised  in  worker  combs, 
the  cells  being  lengthened  ;  and  alsopromiscously 


among  worker  brood.*  In  consequence,  I  am  of 
opinion  that  the  queen  determines  the  sex  of  the 
eggs,  and  is  governed  according  to  circumstances 
and  the  condition  of  the  colony. 

Let  me  add  a  word  concerning  the  improved 
Langstroth  non-swarming  hive :  Those  I  have 
were  made  at  Hamilton,  Ohio,  and  are  his  stand- 
ard hives.  I  elevate  the  back  end  of  the  hive  to 
an  angle  of  thirty  degrees,  (30°.)  In  that  way  it 
is  not  a  shallow  or  a  deep  hive,  but  forms  a  me- 
dium, with  the  advantage  claimed  for  the  trian- 
gular-top hive.  I  have  as  yet  always  succeeded 
in  getting  straight  combs ;  and  use  frames  in  the 
upper  box  mostly.  During  the  four  seasons  I 
have  used  these  hives  they  have  given  me,  in  the 
poorest  honey  season,  forty  pounds  of  surplus 
comb  honey,  and  sixty  pounds  in  the  best  season, 
without  swarming  ;  and  with  that  I  am  satisfied. 

The  honey  resources  are  not  sufficient  to  nig.ke 
reports  as  some  I  see  in  the  Journal. 

John  L.  Fisher. 

Tiffin,  Ohio. 

*  In  stich  cases  the  queen  is  evidently  approach-- 
ing  superannuation,  and  should  be  removed  and 
replaced  by  a  younger  and  better. — Ed. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Ohio  Bee-keepers'  Association. 
Annual  Meeting. — Election  of  Officers. 


The  Bee-keepers'  held  their  meeting  on  Friday, 
January  14th,  1870,  at  the  City  Hotel,  in  Cleve- 
land. During  the  war  these  meetings  were  sus- 
pendeS,  but  were  revived  in  18G9,  and  will  be 
held  regularly  hereafter.  On  Friday  morning  a 
meeting  took  place,  and  soon  adjourned  until 
afternoon,  when  the  committee  on  topics  for 
discussion  reported  the  following  : 

1.  The  best  mode  of  cultivating  the  bee. 

2.  The  best  mode  of  feeding  bees. 

3.  The  best  mode  of  wintering  bees. 

4.  Does  a  pure  Italian  queen,  impregnated  by 
a  black  drone,  produce  pure  drones  ? 

5.  The  best  way  to  change  the  breed  of  a 
swarm  from  black  to  Italian. 

G.  The  best  mode  of  securing  surplus  honey. 

The  first  two  topics  were  discussed  by  Dr.  J. 
P.  Kirtland  ;  H.  D.  Danks,  of  Fondulac,  Wiscon- 
sin ;  A.  H.  Hart,  of  Appleton,  Wisconsin,  and 
several  others.  The  general  opinion  was  that 
honey  is  the  most  profitable  food  for  bees,  as  it 
is  their  only  natural  and  safe  diet.  Crushed 
sugar  had  been  used  with  fair  success,  but  the 
result  was  not  good  enough  to  recommend  it. 

Dr.  Conklin,  of  Bennington,  Morrow  county, 
said  that  the  President  of  the  Michigan  Bee- 
keepers' Association  had  told  him  that  he  had 
found  that  the  best  way  Avas  to  destroy  the  late 
weak  swarms  in  the  fall,  and  not  try  and  nurse 
them  through.  He  was  in  favor  of  wintering 
through  as  many  as  possible,  and  then  stimulat- 
ing early  breeding.  One  stock  in  May  is  worth 
four  in  July.  If  fed  on  rye  or  oatmeal,  until 
natural  pollen  can  be  obtained,  the  prolific 
queens  will  lay  from  two  to  three  thousand  eggs 
per  day,  during  the  propagating  season.  His 
Italian  bees  throw  off  their  best  and  strongest 


132 


THE   AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


swarms  by  the  loth  of  May.  His  pltin  is  to  re- 
move from  a  full  hive  one  or  two  cards  of  comb 
containing  young  bees,  and  place  them  in  a  new 
liive,  with  a  small  supply  of  honey.  He  intro- 
duces queen-bees  by  artificial  process,  not  wtrit- 
ing  for  them  to  be  reared  in  the  natural  course, 
til  us  saving  much  time  in  propagating.  He  said 
that  the  greatest  profit  in  raising  bees  is  obtained 
by  keeping  the  swarms  large  and  vigorous. 

The  following  officers  were  elected  for  the 
ensuing  year  : 

Prendent—'Dv.  J.  P.  Kirtland,  of  Cleveland. 

Vice-Fresideni—J .  T.  Merriman,  of  Burton, 
Geauga  county. 

Secretary  and  Treasurer — E.  T.  Sturtevant,  of 
East  Cleveland. 

Tlie  subject  of  wintering  bees  was  discussed 
by  Drs.  Couklin  and  Kirtland,  Mr.  Hart,  of  Wis- 
consin, and  Mr.  Sturtevant,  of  East  Cleveland. 
These  gentlemen  all  gave  their  experience  on 
the  subject.  Mr.  Hart  had  met  with  the  greatest 
.success  in  burying  his  hives  during  the  winter, 
and  had  tried  several  plans  to  preserve  them. 
He  had  at  the  convention  a  new  hive  of  his  own 
invention,  which  he  had  found  better  than  any- 
thing he  had  ever  seen. 

Mr.  Sturtevant  believed  the  best  way  was  to 
leave  the  hives  on  their  summer  stands,  and  give 
them  plenty  of  ventilation. 

Dr.  Couklin  thought  it  well  to  leave  them  on 
the  summer  stands,  and  cover  the  hives  svith 
cloths,  cut  straw  and  leaves.  He  thought  these 
absorbed  the  moisture  and  retained  the  heat. 

Dr.  Kirtland  said  that  the  heat  arising  from 
fifty-two  of  his  hives  standing  under  a  sl)*d,  was 
sutiicieut  to  melt  snow  upon  the  roof.  Here  he 
Avinters  his  strong  swarms.  For  the  weak  ones 
he  has  a  cemented  cellar,  where  they  are  kept 
secure.  He  experiences  little  difficulty  in  win- 
tering. In  the  way  of  depredations,  he  has  suf- 
fered most  from  theft.  Of  late  he  has  been 
considerably  annoyed  by  the  wood  mouse.  Six 
swarms  were  destroyed  last  winter  by  them. 
This  year  he  flanked  them  by  nailing  strips  of 
tin,  to  prevent  them  from  boring  under  the 
hives. 

The  question  of  Italianizing  was  next  taken  up. 
Dr.  Kirtland  said  he  was  some  time  ago  pre- 
sented with  an  Italian  queen  bee.  He  placed  her 
in  a  hive  with  a  few  combs  of  young  bees  and 
honey  ;  she  immediately  went  to  laying  drone 
eggs,  and  in  a  short  time  the  entire  swarm  was 
Italianized.  He  soon  learned  by  observation 
that  they  were  much  more  industrious  workers 
than  the  ordinary  blacks,  and  he  changed  his 
whole  twenty-five  swarms  to  that  breed. 

Brief  reinarks  upon  this  subject  were  made  by 
Mr.  Hart  and  one  or  two  others,  after  which  the 
meeting  adjourned  till  evening.  In  the  evening 
very  few  members  were  present,  and  after  a  few 
conversational  remarks,  the  Association  ad- 
journed to  meet  on  the  second  day  of  the  Ohio 
State  Fair,  wherever  it  is  held. 


[For  the  Americau  Bee  Journal.] 

Variation  of  the  Honey  Season  in  Coun- 
tries having  the  same  Latitude. 


Not  the  least  wonder  of  this  conventicle  of 
wonders — the  hive — is,  that  it  confounds  the  as- 
tute reason  of  man  to  comprehend  ii  in  all  its 
significaucies. — Shuckard. 


In  ordinary  years,  the  honey  season  in  this 
section  of  country  (JeflFerson  county,  Ohio)  be- 
gins the  first  of  June  and  terminates  about  the 
20th  of  July.  This  term  is  slightly  modified  by 
the  earhness  or  lateness  of  the  spring,  character 
of  the  weather,  &c.  If  the  spring  should  open 
early,  and  the  weather  favor  the  abundance  of 
white  clover  and  other  spring  flowers,  with  a  ge- 
nial atmosphere  throughout,  this  period  may  be 
extended  a  week  or  ten  days.  On  the  contrary, 
if  vegetation  is  retarded  by  the  prolongation  of 
winter,  and  drouth  early  supersede  the  alterna- 
tion of  showers  and  fair  weather,  the  period  of 
honey  gathering  will  be  curtailed  two  or  three 
weeks. 

Until  recently,  I  had  thought  that  the  time  of 
storing  honey  by  the  bees  was  uniform  over  all 
the  States,  except  only  that  a  difierence  in  lati- 
tude would  advance  or  retard  it,  as  we  proceed 
either  North  or  South.  But,  on  reading  the  late 
correspondence  of  the  Bee  Journal  from  the 
West,  on  the  honey  product  and  season  of  last 
year,  I  discover  that  the  season  most  productive 
of  honey  there  is,  by  no  means,  identical  with 
corresponding  period  here.  Accounts  from  Indi- 
ana, Illinois,  Iowa,  and  parts  of  Missouri  and 
Minnesota,  represent  that  the  honey  season  did 
not  set  in  there  till  some  time  in  August,  and 
that  it  continued  through  that  month  and  a  part 
or  the  whole  of  September.  This  contrasts  so 
widely  with  the  results  in  this  section  as  to  give 
rise  to  the  inquiry,  what  should  cause  such  dis- 
parity in  the  honey  harvest  in  countries  in  other 
respects  identical?  To  expect  much  surplus 
honey  here  after  July,  except  in  localities  where 
much  buckwheat  is  sown,  would  exhibit  a  mind 
but  illy  in  accord  with  the  history  of  past  expe- 
rience. BuckAvheat  is  the  only  plant  grown  here 
that  bees  can  forage  on  in  the  fall  of  the  year, 
with  any  probability  of  securing  a  surplus ;  and 
it  is  cultivated  in  limited  quantities,  and  only  in 
seasons  when  other  crops  threaten  a  failure.  No 
other  mellifluous  plant,  of  either  artificial  produc- 
tion or  spontaneous  growth,  abounds  in  sufficient 
quantity  to  furnish  honey  for  surplus,  or  even  a 
supply  adequate  to  replace  that  consumed  in 
breeding,  wear,  &c.  What,  then,  should  com- 
bine to  produce  such  a  disparity  of  the  honey 
season  of  countries  so  contiguous  ?  Reason 
would  seem  to  teach  that  white  clover,  which  is 
our  main  dependence,  blooms  simultaneously  in 
all  countries  not  diflering  essentially  in  latitude. 
As  this  plant  continues  in  bloom  in  this  section 
no  later  than  July,  except  in  uncommonly  wet 
seasons,  it  cannot  be  reasonably  classed  as  one  of 
those  flowers,  abounding  in  mellifluous  nectar, 
which  caused  such  encouraging  reports  from  the 
West.  On  the  contrary,  the  close  affinity  that 
exists  between  this  State  and  the  States  of  Indi- 
ana, Illinois  and  Iowa,  in  point  of  soil,  climate 
and  production,  Avould  seem  to  militate  against 
the  theory  that  a  different  class  of  flowers  would 
cause  the  dift'erence.  However,  incongruous  as 
this  sentiment  does  seem  to  me,  the  question  is 
inexplicable  on  any  other  hypothesis.     Who,  of 


THE   AMERICAN    BEE   JOURNAL. 


183 


the  many  intelligent  contributors  to  the  Bee 
Journal  from  those  parts  of  the  West  in  which 
the  fall  is  the  ruling  honey  harvest,  will  make 
this  subject  the  basis  of  an  article  for  the  Jour- 
KAL  ?  Will  my  friend,  Mr.  E.  Gallup,  of  Osase, 
Iowa,  who,  it  appears,  has  experimented  in  dif- 
ferent climates  and  States,  as  well  as  with  almost 
all  kinds  of  hives,  give  ns  an  article  on  the  sub- 
ject of  bee  pasturage  in  the  countries  in  which  he 
has  resided  ?  The  subject  is  one  of  interest  to  a 
large  class  of  bee-keepers,  and  doubtless  could  be 
made  profitable  ;  as  its  agitation  would  probably 
lead  to  the  introduction  of  some  new  plants,  on 
which  bees  could  forage  with  advantage  in  the 
fall. 

If  there  are  in  other  countries  valuable  bee- 
plants  that  are  not  thought  to  be  too  foreign  to 
the  country  in  which  I  live,  I,  for  one,  should  not 
be  unwilling  to  undergo  some  trouble  and  ex- 
pense in  experimenting  upon  their  adaptation 
and  availability  as  forage  plants  here.  I  see,  in 
one  of  the  numbers  of  the  I3ee  Journal,  a  com- 
munication from  Mr.  Farel,  in  which  he  speaks 
very  highly  of  two  honey-producing  plants,  pur- 
porting to  be  different  varieties  of  the  golden 
rod.  I  also  see  the  Aster  very  highly  spoken  of 
by  another  writer,  as  affording  valuable  fall  for- 
age for  bees.  If  Mr.  Fare!,  or  any  other  bee- 
friend  benevolently  inclined,  will  assume  the 
task  to  procure  seeds  of  these  plants,  and  trans- 
mit by  mail  a  small  package  of  the  same  to  my 
address,  I  will  see  that  it  is  to  his  interest  so  to 
do,  as  in  return  for  the  favor,  I  might  perchance 
accommodate  him  to  something  he  would  like  to 
have.  I  have  hitherto  been  engaged  in  the  culti- 
vation and  sale  of  almost  all  the  choice  fruits, 
flowers,  flowering  shrubs,  &c.,  and  now  have 
Italian  queens.  And  though  numerous  varieties 
of  the  improved  Chinese  Asters  are  grown  here 
for  ornament,  none  of  the  wild  species  exist  here 
that  I  know  of,  nor  of  the  golden  rod  either. 
John  L.  McLean. 

Eic7uno7id,  Jefferson  Co.,  Ohio. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 

Quality  of  Soil  for  Bee-keeping. 


Mr.  Editor: — On  reading  the  January  num- 
ber of  the  Bee  Journal,  and  Mr.  Grimm's  arti- 
cle— "Product  of  Honey,"  &c.,  on  pages  134 
and  135,  I  thought  it  would  be  well  to  give  my 
own  experieiace  in  that  respect.  Mr.  Grimm  also 
complains  that  Alsike  clover  yields  very  little 
honey  iu  his  locality.  I  was  at  Jefferson  a  few 
years  ago,  attending  a  term  of  court ;  was  in  his 
bee-yard,  and  examined  his  liives,  fixtures,  &c., 
without  as  much  as  asking  his  leave.  I  passed 
tlie  premises  at  different  times  during  the  week, 
but  saw  no  person  to  whom  I  could  mtroduce 
myself;  but  it  is  impossible  to  keep  me  out  of  a 
bee-yard,  and  always  was,  so  in  I  went.  ' 

But  what  I  was  going  to  say  is,  that  I  formed 
an  opinion  at  the  time,  about  the  soil  for  produc- 
ing lioney,  and  Mr.  Grimm's  article  confirms  that 
opinion  ;  and  I  will  now  inform  the  reader  liow 
any  poor  soil  may  be  improved  or  made  fit  for 
producing  honey.  Where  I  lived  in  Wisconsin, 
the  fashion  was  to  cultivate  our  land  until  it  was 


nearly  exhausted,  and  then  seed  it  down  to  grass, 
expecting  a  good  crop  of  hay  without  any  manure, 
and  for  five  or  six  years  I  was  compelled  to  feed 
ray  bees  every  snnmier,  to  keep  them  from  starv- 
ing to  death.  There  was  an  abundance  of  wbite 
clover,  but  it  produced  no  honey.  A  neighbor, 
one  season,  hired  a  green  son  of  Erin  to  haul  out 
manure  to  a  certain  six-acre  pasture  lot  that  was 
well  seeded  to  white  clover.  This  neigiibor  was 
compelled  to  get  out  the  manure,  as  the  barn  was 
too  large  to  be  moved.  Western  fashion.  He  get 
the  man  to  work,  went  away  on  business,  and 
was  gone  a  weelc.  The  man  covered  the  ground, 
so  far  as  he  went,  from  four  to  six  inches  deep 
with  manure,  and  thus  smothered  the  grass  com"- 
pletely.  But  the  clover  seed  came  up  the  follow- 
ing year,  and  the  next  season  after  it  blossomed 
profusely.  Then,  instead  of  having  to  feed  my 
))ees  they  gave  me  considerable  surplus  white 
clover  honey.  I  had  the  benefit  of  that  clover 
patch  for  four  years,  and  it  was  then  plowed  up 
and  ])lanted  to  corn.  There  was  a  strip  on  two 
sides  of  the  patch  that  was  not  manured,  and 
when  the  manured  part  wa*  literally  covered 
with  bees,  and  you  could  fairly  smell  the  honey, 
there  would  not  be  a  solitary  bee  seen  on  the  un- 
manured  part.  I  took  the*  hint  from  that,  and 
manured  my  clover  patch  ;  and  the  consequence 
was  I  not  only  obtained  honey,  but  had  the  satis- 
faction of  having  hay  and  pasture  for  my  stock. 

That  the  atmosphere  has  something  to  do  with 
the  secretion  of  honey  in  flowers  is  certain  ;  but 
the  quality  of  the  soil  must  be  attended  to  like- 
wise. The  poorest  kind  of  soil  can  be  made  to 
produce  honey,  by  plastering  and  manuring 
highly.  It  is  entirely  useless  to  sow  Alsike 
clover  on  a  miserable,  poor  soil,  and  expect  it  to 
produce  honey.  I  have  seen  a  couple  of  rows  of 
currant  bushes,  the  currants  produced  by  which 
were  little,  sour  things,  and  while  the  bushes 
were  in  blossom  scarcely  a  bee  visited  these.  I 
then  completely  covered  the  ground  six  inches 
deep,  in  .tune,  for  several  feet  each  side  of  the 
rows  with  horse  manure,  to  kill  the  grass  and 
weeds,  and  the  following  spring,  while  those 
bushes  were  in  bloom,  they  were  completely 
swarming  with  bees  every  forenoon.  Nor  was 
that  the  worst  of  it  !  Our  "better-half"  said 
that  she  could  scarcely  believe  that  the  fruit  was 
the  same  variety  it  was  the  previous  season,  as  it 
was  so  much  larger  and  sweeter.  I  could  give 
several  other  instances  of  this  kind,  but  shall  not 
at  present. 

Elisha  Gallup. 

Osage,  Iowa. 


When  bees  begin  to  fly  in  the  spring,  it  is  well 
to  feed  them  a  little,  even  when  they  have  abun- 
dant stores,  as  a  small  addition  to  their  hoards 
encourages  the  production  of  brood. — Lang- 
strotli. 


If  young  queens  are  allowed  to  issue  at  will 
they  are  pale  and  weak,  like  other  young  bees, 
and  for  some  time  unable  to  fly  ;  but  if  confined 
the  usual  time  they  come  forth  fully  colored,  and 
ready  for  all  emergencies. — Langstroth. 


184 


THE  AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

A  Winter-bred  Queen. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  winter  my  bees  in  a  bee-cellar, 
formed  by  digging  a  bole,  seven  feet  by  ten,  in 
tlie  ground  in  a  dry  place.  The  bottom  is  paved 
with  stone  ;  sides  studded,  and  boarded  outside 
the  studding  ;  the  rafters  are  put  on  at  half  pitch, 
with  straw  and  dirt  cover  over  the  whole,  two 
feet  thick.  It  has  a  door  in  the  wall,  and  another 
clap-door  at  the  top  of  the  steps.  It  is  an  out- 
door cellar.  A  ventilator,  three  bj^  four  inches, 
goes  down  from  under  the  eaves,  at  one  end,  to 
the  floor  ;  and  a  chimney  five  by  si.x  inches,  from 
the  apex  of  the  roof  at  the  other.  It  is  dark, 
still,  and  at  a  uniform  temperature  of  35°  to  40°. 
I  have  used  it  four  winters  with  perfect  satis- 
faction. I  am  confident  it  has  saved  me  many 
bees,  and  that  we  have  no  business  to  attempt 
Vv'intering  bees  out-doors  in  this  temperature. 
They  must  be  put  in  dry,  before  any  frost  has 
formed  in  the  hive,  or  they  will  mould.  I  think 
this  was  the  trouble  with  Novice's  bees  last  win- 
ter ;  they  were  put  away  with  frost  or  damp  on 
the  combs.  If  bees  are  dry  and  free  from  frost 
when  put  away,  they  will,  with  proper  ventila- 
tion, be  freeTrom  damp  through  the  winter. 

In  January  of  last  winter  I  had  occasion  to 
look  into  my  bee-cellar.  In  one  of  my  hives, 
containing  an  Italian  queen  which  I  received 
from  Rev.  L.  L.  Langstroth  in  July  previous,  I 
found  a  small  cluster  of  brood  in  the  centre  of 
the  hive.  It  was  about  two  inches  square,  and 
in  this  a  queen  cell  with  a  grub  half-grown,  and 
by  its  side  a  drone  grub  in  a  worker  cell  length- 
eaed  out.     I  did  not  see  the  old  queen. 

After  thinking  the  matter  over,  and  suspecting 
that  I  had  lost  my  queen,  I  opened  the  hive 
again  three  weeks  later,  and  found  a  medium- 
sized  young  queen.  There  can  be  no  mistake  in 
this,  as  I  had  clipped  the  wing  of  the  old  one, 
which  was  a  very  fine  large  queen  of  much 
value.  The  wings  of  this  young  one  were  per- 
fect. 

My  bees  remained  in  the  cellar  until  the  26tli 
of  March,  when  two  very  fine  days  occurred, 
and  they  flew  freely.  It  then  turned  cold,  and  I 
returned  them  to  the  cellar,  (which  I  frequently 
do.)  After  a  week  in  the  cellar  I  took  them  out 
again.  In  a  few  days  I  found  this  queen  had 
laid  worker  eggs  freely.  I  expected  that  this 
winter-bred  queen  would  be  worthless ;  but  she 
did  well,  and  gave  a  swarm  last  summer. 

Now,  this  instance  must  be  one  in  which  a 
queen,  conscious  of  her  approaching  decease, 
had  provided  for  the  emergency,  though  in  mid 
winter  and  in  a  dark  cellar,  by  rearing  both  a 
queen  and  a  drone  to  fertilize  her  ;  and  a  fine  day 
occurring  in  March,  she  must  have  flown,  and 
copulation  have  taken  place  with  the  drone  reared 
by  her  side. 

Is  this  change  of  queen  in  winter  as  rare  as  is 
supposed?  W.  Gill. 

River  Falls,  Wis. 


"When  robbing  has  become  a  habit  with  bees, 
they  are  sometimes  so  infatuated  with  it  as  to 
neglect  their  own  brood. — Langstroth. 


[For  the  American  Bee  JournaL] 

Yield  of  Surplus   Honey— in   Decimals! 

Mr.  Editor  : — Among  all  the  "  Wonders  of  the 
Bee  Hive,"  there  is  one  that  I  have  never  seen 
treated  of  or  explained  in  any  of  the  numerous 
books  or  periodicals  on  apiculture.  In  fact,  none 
of  them  seem  to  have  noticed  it.  It  is  this  :  In 
making  surplus  honey  the  bees  always  make  a 
round  number  of  pounds,  5,  10,  15,  20,  25,  50,  or 
some  multiple  of  those  numbers.  -I  say  "  always," 
though  I  should  perhaps  say  that  it  is  the  rule, 
which,  like  all  good  rules,  has  its  exceptions. 
But  the  exceptions  are  so  few  that  I  am  inclined 
to  the  belief  that  those  who  report  them  are 
honestly  mistaken  ;  or  that  their  bees  are  not  in 
good  condition  ;  or  have  been  wrongly  managed  ; 
or  are  in  a  disorganized  condition  ;  or  that  they 
guess  at  it. 

Take  the  American  Bee  Journal  and  look 
over  the  numerous  reports  of  the  yield  of  honey 
in  apiaries  all  over  the  country,  from  one  hive  up 
to  hundreds,  and  all  of  them  that  are  reported 
with  any  attempt  at  exactness  prove  my  position. 
If  I  had  time  I  would  like  to  collect  them  all  in  a 
tabular  form  and  present  them  to  your  readers, 
but  I  will  only  take  the  January  number  as  a 
sample  of  the  whole  : 

Pounds. 

1st — One  hive,  in  Kane  county,  111 35 

2d— One  hive,  in  Chicago,  111 40 

3d— One  hive,  in  St.  Charles,  111 250 

(Of  this  there  was  extracted  with 
the  machine  190  lbs.;  box  honey, 
60  lbs. 
4th — One  hundred  stocks  and  increase, 

same  apiary 6,000 

(Of  this  there  was  machine  honey, 

3, 000  lbs.;  box  honey,  3,000  lbs.) 

5th — One  hive,  in  Cook  county,  111.,  and 

increase 50 

6th— Seven  hives,  in  Virden,  111 700 

7th— One  hive,  in  Fulton,  111.,  (machine 

honey) 218 

There  was  something  seriously  the  matter  with 
these  latter  bees  ;  or  it  may  be,  as  Mr.  M.  says, 
' '  I  could  have  got  more  if  I  had  employed  the 
machine  oftener."  He  ought  to  have  got  at  least 
two  pounds  more  or  three  pounds  less.  May  be 
his  "  honey-slinger  "  wasted  some. 

8th — Number    not  given,    Monmouth, 

111.,  average  to  each  hive 110 

9th — One  hive,  Albany,  111.,  4  swarms, 

and 200 

If  he  had  had  a  "  smelatore,^^  could  get  either 
50  or  75  pounds  more,  one  or  the  other. 

These  were,  to  be  sure,  Ilhnois  bees  ;  but  they 
are  not  different  from  other  bees,  as  you  will  find 
by  looking  over  the  reports  from  other  parts  of 
the  world. 

Here  we  have  reported  114  hives  of  bees,  yield- 
ing an  average  of  65f  pounds,  or  an  aggregate  of 
7,593  pounds. 

Joking  aside,  I  have  no  doubt  about  this  being 
an  approximation  to  the  truth,  as  no  person  ac- 
quainted with  tlie  parties  would  suspect  them  of 
untruth.  It  is  a  loose  way  we  have  gotten  into 
of  stating  things  in  round  numbers,  and  ought  to 
be  avoided. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


185 


Other  parts  of  the  country  do  not  show  as 
grntifying  a  return,  from  the  fact  that  18G9, 
taking  the  whole  country  together,  was  perhaps 
the  poorest  for  honey  that  has  been  witnessed  in 
many  years.  Illinois  was  an  exception,  and  the 
yieids  reported  show  us  what  we  can  do  in  good 
j-ears  with  the  same  intelligent  management. 

The  '"Melextractor,"  it  will  be  seen,  aided 
largely  in  securing  this  result. 

D.  L.  Adair. 

HcncesviUe,  Ky.,  Jan.,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Preventing  Bees  from  Killing  their  Young 
Virgin  Queens. 


It  very  often  happens  that  young  queens  are 
attacked  by  the  workers  and  killed  before  they 
commence  laying.  One  of  these  cases  occurred 
last  May  in  a  colony  that  had  been  queenless 
during  the  winter.  Being  supplied  with  a  comb 
of  brood  it  raised  a  young  queen,  which  hatched 
about  the  beginning  of  May.  This  queen  had 
not  yet  been  fertilized  when  she  was  fourteen 
days  old.  Passing  the  colony  one  day  about 
noon,  I  noticed  great  excitement  among  the 
worker-bees  on  the  alighting  board  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  hive.  Suspecting  there  was  some 
trouble  inside,  I  immediately  undertook  an  ex- 
amination. On  taking  off  the  honey -board  it  was 
apparent  that  the  queen  was  enclosed  by  the 
workers,  and  would  be  killed.  I  took  out  several 
combs,  and  succeeded  in  finding  the  queen.  A 
good  whitf  of  tobacco  smoke  sufiSced  to  disperse 
the  enraged  workers  and  liberate  the  queen,  and 
in  a  short  time  all  apparently  became  quiet.  Two 
hours  later,  however,  passing  that  way  again,  I 
observed  a  renewed  commotion.  I  once  more 
opened  the  hive,  found  the  queen  enclustered 
again,  and  became  convinced  that  the  workers 
were  bent  on  destroying  their  queen.  In  such 
cases  I  formerly  caged  the  queen  and  kept  her 
thus  confined  for  two  or  three  days  alter  rescuing 
her  from  the  angry  workers,  and  in  most  instances 
they  were  not  attacked  again  when  set  free.  But 
here  I  resolved  to  try  a  new  experiment.  I 
took  out  a  comb,  shook  off  the  bees,  went 
to  another  hive  and  got  a  brood  comb  with 
unsealed  brood,  which  I  inserted.  The  work- 
ers immediately  resorted  to  this  comb,  and 
raised  a  contented  hum.  Replacing  the  honey- 
board,  I  remained  watching  the  colony  a  shoi-t 
time.  All  appeared  right  now,  and  the  work- 
ers seemed  perfectly  content.  On  examination, 
only  two  days  later,  I  found  that  the  queen 
had  begun  to  lay  eggs,  and  she  was  attacked  no 
more.  Hence  I  would  advise  bee-keepers  to 
insert  a  comb  with  unsealed  brood  and  eggs 
into  such  colonies  as  have  raised  a  queen  after 
having  been  without  brood  for  a  long  time,  as  in 
such  cases  the  bees  seem  to  become  impatient  for 
brood.  Adam  Grimm. 

Jefferson,  Wis. 


The  excursions  of  the  bees  to  collect  honey  are 
variously  estimated  at  from  one  to  three  miles 
each,  and  they  are  supposed  to  make  each  about 
ten  trips  a  day. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal] 

Queens  Mating  with  Different  Drones. 

Mr.  Editor  : — I  have  been  a  reader  of  your 
])aper  for  some  time,  but  have  written  very  little 
for  it  so  far.  As  I  see  it  contains  a  number  of 
articles  on  the  above  subject  from  different 
sources,  I  will  give  your  readers  some  portion  of 
my  experience. 

In  June  last,  I  had  a  small  batch  of  queens— 
from  ten  to  fifteen  in  number — hatched,  and 
mostly  in  one  night.  On  the  third  day  I  saw 
nearly  every  one  of  them  passing  out  and  in  re- 
peatedly. On  the  following  day  I  saw  them  go- 
ing out  and  in  every  ten  or  fifteen  minutes,  for 
some  twc^  or  three  hours,  and  several  of  tliem 
showed  evidence  that  they  had  met  with  the 
drones.  Again,  on  the  next  day  also,  they 
liassed  out  and  in  as  l)efore,  and  several  of  them 
came  in  apparently  filled  full  from  the  drones. 
On  the  second  or  third  day,  I  am  not  certain 
which,  but  think  on  the  third,  I  was  standing  in 
front  of  my  nucleii  and  something  struck  on  the 
brim  of  my  hat,  and  a  queen  and  a  drone  fell  on 
the  ground  fifteen  or  twenty  inches  before  my 
shoe-toes.  They  lay  there  two  or  three  seconds, 
evidently  endeavoring  to  separate,  then  rose  from 
the  ground,  turning  around  in  the  manner  of  a 
winding  blade,  striving  to  separate,  till  they  went 
seventy  or  eighty  feet ;  then,  they  flew  up  in  the 
air,  finally  parted  from  each  other,  and  I  lost 
sight  of  them.  The  eff'ort  to  separate  was  con- 
tinuous from  the  time  they  fell  to  the  ground  till 
it  was  successful.  On  the  morning  of  the  eighth 
day  every  one  of  these  queens  was  laying  eggs. 

i  watched  the  queens  several  times  this  sum- 
mer, and  in  good  Aveather  they  would  generally 
pass  out  and  in  for  three  days  before  they  would 
stop  ;  and  I  suppose  they  would  meet  with  a 
drone  or  drones  every  time  they  would  come  out. 
I  have  no  doubt  that,  in  good  weather,  queens 
copulate  repeatedly  with  drones,  for  it  appears 
that  they  continue  in  heat  for  two  or  three  days. 
In  bad  weather  they  get  out  very  seldom,  and 
they  can  meet  a  drone  in  such  weather  when 
passing  out  but  once  or  twice,  is  it  not  natural 
that  they  will  not  fail  to  meet  one  when  passing 
out  so  frequently  in  good  weather  ? 

Turn  to  the  Bee  Jotjbi\  al  for  September,  1869, 
page  57,  for  a  succinct  account  of  observations  in 
this  regard,  made  by  Mr.  Thomas  C.  Hill,  and  it 
will  be  seen  that  the  three  circumstances  there 
stated  are  nearly  the  same  as  those  that  came  un- 
der my  own  observation — the  queen  coming  out 
for  three  days  in  succession,  and  in  all  probabil- 
ity she  would  have  been  seen  passing  out  several 
times  each  day  if  she  had  been  closely  watched. 
Now,  if  queens  mate  with  several  drones  on 
these  repeated  excursions,  will  not  the  fact  ac- 
count for  the  production  of  variously  marked 
workers — some  three  and  some  two  banded— from 
the  eggs  of  a  hybrid  queen  ?  I  would  think  the 
progeny  of  a  queen  mating  with  a  common  black 
drone,  a  hybrid  drone,  and  a  full-bred  Italian 
drone,  would  partake  of  the  nature,  severally, 
of  these,  which  would  undoubtedly  make  some 
two-banded  and  some  three-banded. 

I  am  of  opinion  that  if  a  full-blood  queen  mate 
with  a  common  drone,  her  drones  are  afifected  by 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


the  impregnation,  and  she  Tvill  only  produce 
mixed  woukers  or  hybrids. 

In  the  December  Bee  Jottrnal,  1869,  page 
126,  Mr.  Rosenstiel  refers  to  Mr.  Thomas's  new 
theory  given  in  the  June  number.  I  read  Mr. 
Thomas's  article,  and  thought  it  just  agreed  with 
my  experience.  Mr.  Dzierzon  is  spoken  of  as 
being  the  first  to  discover  the  true  system  or  the- 
ory concerning  the  propagation  of  the  honeybee. 
Now  Mr.  Dzierzon  may  be  right  in  his  experi- 
ence, but  I  think  he  failed  just  a  little  when  he 
took  the  position  that  the  impregnation  of  the 
queen  does  not  affect  her  drone  progeny.  I  think 
it  affects  the  drones  the  same  as  the  workers. 
Now,  if  you  take  particular  notice  of  a  full-bred 
queen  mated  with  a  full-bred  drone,  the  drones 
will  show  a  dark  color  ;  and  a  fuU-blo'od  queen 
mated  with  a  black  drone  or  a  hybrid  drone,  the 
drones  will  have  the  yellow  bands  more  beauti- 
ful than  the  full-bred  drones.  That  is  my  expe- 
rience of  the  honey  bee,  and  I  write  this  to  aid 
in  ferreting  out  the  true  nature  of  that  interest- 
ing insect,  Alfred  Chapman. 

Neic  Cumberland,  West  Va. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Queens  Mating  Twioe  —  Sending  Queens 
by  Mail. 


I  noticed  in  the  December  number  of  the  Bee 
Journal,  an  article  from  Mr.  D.  C.  Hunt,  in 
which  he  says  that  he  never  knew  a  case  where 
a  queen  had  mated  with  a  drone  when  she  was 
not  fertilized.  He  also  says  he  thinks  that  I  am 
mistaken  in  what  I  stated  in  regard  to  queens 
mating  twice  with  drones.  Now,  friend  Hunt, 
I  will  give  you  two  instances  that  I  think  will 
convince  you  that  I  am  not  mistaken  in  what  I 
have  said. 

Several  years  ago,  a  bee-keeping  friend,  who 
lives  four  miles  from  me,  had  a  queen  which  he 
wanted  my  drones  to  fertilize,  and  so  kept  lier  in 
the  yard  with  my  drones.  In  a  day  or  two  his 
queen  flew  out  and  mated  with  a  drone,  and  I 
happened  to  be  present  when  she  returned  to  the 
hive.  This  hive  contained  but  one  sheet  of  comb, 
and  had  glass  on  both  sides  for  observation.  I  re- 
moved the  covers  from  the  glass,  watched  the 
bees  for  some  time,  and  soon  saw  some  of  them, 
with  the  genitals  of  the  drone,  trying  to  find  their 
way  out  of  the  hive.  I  then  covered  the  glass, 
and  a  bee  soon  came  out  with  it.  As  this  was 
the  first  case  of  the  kind  that  I  had  seen,  I  then 
believed,  as  you  now  do,  that  the  queen  was 
surely  fertilized.  In  a  day  or  two  my  friend 
came  for  his  queen,  and  I  said  to  him  that  she 
was  impregnated  and  ready  to  be  taken  home. 
We  happened  to  pass  along  there  about  the  time 
when  queens  generally  fly  out  to  meet  the  drones, 
and,  on  examining  the  hive,  found  that  the  queen 
had  just  returned  with  all  the  evidence  of  having 
just  mated  with  another  drone. 

Now,  friend  Hunt,  I  might  have  been  mistaken 
in  this  case,  but  I  do  not  see  where  the  mistake 
comes  in. 

Here  is  another  case,  friend  Hunt,  where  I 
think  I  can  be  equally  positive.  A  bee-keeper 
from  Manchester,  N.  H.,  was  visiting  me,  and  of 


course,  I  took  him  into  the  garden  to  show  him 
my  bees  and  queen  nursery.  We  came  to  one 
hive,  and  I  remarked  to  him  that  it  contained  a 
queen  which  was  fertilized  two  days  before,  and 
that  we  should  probably  find  her  laying  eggs.  I 
opened  the  hive,  but  could  find  neitlier  queen 
nor  eggs.  After  looking  the  combs  over  thor- 
oughly, I  closed  the  hive  and  stepped  back  to  one 
side,  and  the  queen  soon  went  in.  She  also  had 
just  mated  with  a  drone.  Now,  friend  Hunt,  I 
am  sure  that  this  queen  mated  twice  with  drones. 

I  should  not  suppose  that  any  one  who  has  had 
any  experience  in  queen  rearing  would  doubt  that 
such  cases  will  happen  once  in  a  great  while. 

I  had  twenty-four  queens  that  were  fertilized 
as  late  as  the  1st  of  October,  1860.  I  shipped 
between  400  and  500  queens  by  mail  last  season. 
About  seven  per  cent,  of  them  were  lost  or  stolen, 
or  perished  in  the  transit. 

On  the  morning  of  the  4th  of  October,  I  mailed 
twenty-one  queens,  and  all  of  them  perished; 
not  on  account  of  cold  weather,  but  because  of  a 
very  severe  storm  that  prevailed  throughout  the 
New  England  States,  washing  away  railroad 
bridges  and  otherwise  damaging  railroads.  They 
were  in  the  mail-bags  for  more  than  a  week  be- 
fore any  of  them  reached  their  destination,  and 
some  of  them  never  reached  the  parties  to  whom 
they  were  sent. 

Mr.  A.  Burton,  of  Harpers,  mailed  a  queen  to 
me  as  late  as  the  second  week  in  November,  and 
we  had  at  that  time  the  colde!5t  weather  of  the 
month  ;  but  the  queen  and  nearly  all  the  workers 
reached  me  alive,  though  they  were  "  laid  up" 
in  the  Boston  post-oflice  over  on  Sunday.  Some 
of  my  customers  supposed  that  queens  cannot  be 
sent  by  mail  as  late  as  the  month  of  October.  I 
know  that  they  can,  if  they  are  not  kept  in  the 
mail-bags  until  they  starve.  I  sent  them  very  late 
in  October  into  the  State  of  New  Hampshire,  and 
they  were  several  days  in  the  mail. 

H.  Alley. 

Wenham,  Mass.,  Dec.  14,  1869. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Observations  and  Experiments. 


Mr.  Editor  : — This  is  my  first  year  of  bee- 
keejMng,  and  of  course  I  have  been  exceedingly 
interested  in  the  study  of  their  habits  and  the 
most  successful  management' of  bees  ;  and  for  this 
pui'pose  it  seems  to  me  your  Journal  is  a  sine 
qua  non. 

I  commenced  with  two  hives,  and  have  in- 
creased tliem  by  swarming  and  purchase  to  nine. 
Of  these  I  have  Italianized  six,  simply  by  removing 
the  black  queen  and  immediately  introducing  the 
Italian  queen,  after  smoking  the  hive  for  a  few 
minutes  with  tobacco,  and  dipping  the  queen  in 
honey.  They  were  all  accepted,  and  only  two 
made  any  queen  cells  which  had  to  be  removed. 
I  say  all,  though  there  was  one  excejition.  I  in- 
troduced a  small  queen,  on  the  last  of  September, 
to  a  hive  which  had  been  without  a  queen  for  two 
weeks,  having  previously  removed  all  queen  cells 
by  smoking,  and  loithout  dipping  her  majesty  in 
a  honey  bath.  The  next  day  I  found  her  dead, 
in  front  of  the  hive. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOUENAL. 


1B7 


I  lost  oue  queen— the  first  one  I  introduced— 
by  being  soiuewliat  sentimental,  for,  thinking  it 
cruel  not  only  to  displace  the  mother,  but  also  to 
crush  her,  I  set  Iwr  up  as  a  sort  of  queen  dowager 
on  a  small  scale,  in  a  nucleus  hive  well  stored 
with  honey  and  a  handful  of  her  own  subjects, 
behind  the  barn  and  some  rods  from  her  old  hive. 
But  in  a  few  hours  I  found  the  little  hive  aban- 
doned, and  on  going  to  the  old  hive,  her  Italian 
miijesty  was  dying  on  the  bottom  board,  and  her 
rival  had  again  taken  possession.  Now  as  she 
was  an  old  queen,  and  had  been  raised  some 
miles  away,  1  concluded  she  must  have  been 
guided  back  by  the  bees  which  I  had  given  to 
her. 

I  have  put  my  hives  in  a  dark  dry  room  (ce- 
mented) in  the  cellar  ;  but  find  it  difficult  to  keep 
the  temperature  below  42°,  although  it  does  not 
rise  to  45°.  I  am  wintering  one  swarm  out  of  doors 
in  a  refrigerator  hive.  It  was  an  old-fashioned  box 
concern,  large,  and  the  sides  double,  filled  in  with 
charcoal,  opening  with  a  lid  from  the  top,  and 
had  been  stowed  away  for  years  as  useless  lumber 
in  the  cellar.  It  occurred  to  me,  why  not  turn  it 
into  a  bee-hive  '?  I  soon  had  an  opening  made  in 
oue  side,  four  inches  wide  through  the  zinc,  and 
double  walls,  and  fitted  close  the  entrance  Avith 
thin  strips  of  boards  to  keep  the  charcoal  in  place. 
I  then  nnfde  a  regular  hive  of  %  inch  boards  19  Xl8 
inside,  and  placed  in  it  twelve  frames  with  a  very 
large  swarm,  which  I  obtained  from  a  bee-tree  in 
the  woods,  in  September,  by  the  kindness  of  a 
bee  friend,  who  invited  me  to  the  "taking  up." 
I  will  not  recount  to  you  the  trials  and  wettings, 
and  tearings  in  following  the  bee-hunter  through 
the  cedar  swamp  and  tangled  brush  to  his  prize. 
Enough,  that,  after  the  tree  was  opened,  I  found 
her  majesty  sitting  on  a  comb  alone.  I  put  her 
in  an  old  bucket,  brought  for  carrying  away  the 
honey,  and  held  it  at  once  to  the  hole  where  the 
comb  had  been  taken  out,  and  soon  the  swarm 
(which  was  large)  was  collected  around  her.  It 
was  too  late  in  the  season  for  them  to  gather  any 
honey  ;  I  therefore  fitted  empty  combs  in  the 
frames,  and  when  they  had  fastened  them,  filled 
the  cells  with  about  two  gallons  of  honey.  As 
there  is  room  enough  within,  on  the  sides  of  this 
refrigerator  hive  for  seventy-five  pounds  of  box 
honey,  and  for  as  much  more  on  the  top ;  and  as  I 
intend  to  itaiiauize  them,  clip  the  queen's  wings, 
and  use  oue  of  Quinsy's  queen  yards  in  the 
spring,  I  hope  to  be  able  to  report  success  next 
fall. 

In  this  section  of  Massachusetts  there  are  no 
Italians,  and  no  movable  frame  hives.  We  are 
nearly  all  old  fogies,  and  the  bees  for  a  few  years 
past  are  of  course  ditto.  I  did  not  intend,  when 
I  began  to  furnish  you  with  so  much,  but  perhaps 
some  of  your  readers  may  have  some  old  refriger- 
ators out  of  use.  If  so  you  can  recommend  them 
as  being  good  to  keep  the  bees  cool  in  summer 
and  Avarni  in  winter.  E.  P.  Abbe. 

New  Bedford,  Mass. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Comb  Frames  to  stand  on  Bottom  Boards. 


The  third  swarm  usually  leaves  the  hive  on 
the  second  or  third  day  after  the  second  swarm, 
and  the   others  at  intervals   of  about  a  day. — 

Langstroth. 


On  page  118,  vol.  5,  of  the  Bee  Journal,  a 
correspondent  asks  for  Mi\  Qulnby's  plan  for 
using  strips  of  tin,  and  causing  trames  to  stand 
on  the  bottom  board.  I  do  not  know  how  Mr. 
Quinby's  hive  is  constructed,  but  will  try  to  tell 
the  readers  of  the  Journai,  how  I  have  at- 
tained similar  results. 

In  order  that  my  description  may  be  under- 
stood, it  will  be  necessary  to  describe  a  part  of 
Adair's  section  hive.  In  doing  so,  however,  it 
is  not  for  the  purpose  of  recommending  his  or 
any  other  patent  hive.  I  do  not  know  what  is 
covered  by  his  patent,  as  I  have  never  seen  his 
claims  stated. 

The  brood  chamber  in  his  hive  is  formed  of 
vertical  sections  or  rims,  each  one  and  a  halt 
inches  wide.  They  are  nailed  together,  one  nail 
in  each  corner,  the  top  and  bottom  pieces  to  the 
ends  of  the  side  pieces,  and  projecting  in  front 
three-sixteenths  of  an  inch,  and  setting  back  from 
the  edge  of  the  side  pieces  the  same  distance  in 
the  rear.  When  two  of  these  sections  are  placed 
together,  the  projections  of  oue  fit  over  the 
shoulder  of  the  other,  thus  holding  them  true 
horizontally.  The  sections  can  be  made  of  any 
desired  dimensions.  Ten  inches  deep  and  thir- 
teen inches  wide,  in  the  clear,  is  the  usual  size, 
I  believe.  In  addition  to  these,  there  are  two 
shallow  sections,  or  frames,  made  of  the  same 
size,  and  filled  with  glass  or  wood  to  close  the 
ends  of  the  brood  chamber,  which,  besides  these, 
should  contain  ten  or  twelve  sections,  according 
to  the  size  used.  The  frames  or  sections  run 
from  side  to  side.  The  honey  boxes  are  formed 
in  the  same  manner,  and  composed  of  similar 
sections,  only  smaller,  usually  five  by  six  inches 
in  the  clear. 

Now,  I  allow  for  the  brood  chambil',  the  tops 
to  project  over  the  ends  of  the  side  pieces  three- 
eighths  (f)  instead  of  three-sixteenths  of  an  inch. 
The  slats  to  form  the  sections  should  be  half 
an  inch  thick,  and  one  and  a  half  inches  wide. 
Set  your  gauge  three-eighths  of  an  inch,  and 
having  cut  your  slats  the  length  required,  make 
a  gauge  mark  three-eighths  of  an  inch  from 
one  edge  of  each  piece ;  then,  with  your  knife, 
chisel,  or  whatever  tool  you  use,  commence 
within  one-fourth  of  an  inch  of  each  end  of  the 
piece  on  the  edge  on  which  the  gauge  mark  was 
made,  and  cut  sloping  toward  the  centre  of  the 
piece  till  you  reach  the  line  made  by  the  gauge. 
This  will  leave  the  slat  one  and  a  half  inches 
wide  at  the  end,  forming  a  right-angled  triangu- 
lar bracket-like  projection  at  each  end.  Now, 
have  another  triangular  somewhat  saw-toothed 
projection  in  {he  middle  of  the  slat,  to  support 
the  strips  of  tin.  Do  the  same  with  top,  bottom, 
and  side  pieces.  You  will  now  have  your  slats 
one  and  one- eighth  of  an  inch  wide,  except  at 
the  ends  and  one  point  in  the  middle,  at  which 
points  they  are  one  and  a  half  inches  wide. 
Now,  in  putting  them  together,  nail  the  tops  and 
bottoms  to  the  ends  of  the  side  pieces ;  place 
them  so  that  the  projections  of  the  side  pieces 
will  be  toioard  you,  and  the  projections  of  the 
top  and  bottom  pieces  from  you.     Allow  the 


188 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


projections  of  the  top  and  bottom  to  extend  over 
the  ends  of  the  sides  tliree-eighths  of  an  inch  (the 
depth  cut  out)  in  front.  When  thus  put  logetlier, 
you  will  have  sections  or  frames  one  and  one- 
eightli  inches  wide,  (the  straight  portions  oppo- 
site each  other,)  the  projections  of  the  top  and 
bottom  directed  backward,  while  those  of  the 
side  pieces  are  directed  forward.  AVhen  these 
frames  are  put  together,  you  will  have  tlie  pro- 
jections at  the  ends  of  the  tops  and  bottoms 
fitting  over  the  shoulders  of  the  sides  of  the  next 
sections,  and  against  the  straight  side  of  the  next 
top  and  bottom  pieces.  Now  procure  strips  of 
tin  or  thin  lumber,  and  tack  or  otherwise  fasten 
them  on  the  outside  of  the  projecting  points  and 
flush  therewith,  thus  covering  the  openings  made 
by  the  wood  removed.  Place  as  many  together 
as  will  form  a  hive  of  the  dimensions  required  ; 
add  shallow  frames  containing  glass  or  wood ; 
close  the  ends,  and  you  will  have  a  closed  box  or 
brood  chamber.  A  narrow  strip  of  tin  on  each 
side,  extending  across  all  the  sections  and  fas- 
tened to  the  terminal  ones  with  the  aid  of  the 
shoulders,  will  hold  all  firmly  together.  Now  if 
you  wish  to  use  section  honey  boxes,  use  slats  as 
thin  as  possible ;  cut  out  one  side  of  each  piece, 
the  same  as  for  the  brood  chamber,  onlj^  omit 
the  central  projections.  In  putting  together, 
allow  the  tops  and  bottoms  to  extend  only  tbree- 
sixteenths  of  an  inch  for  shoulders  in  the  honey 
boxes.  Add  sections  until  the  box  contains  the 
same  number  as  the  brood  chamber,  and  close 
the  ends  with  shallow  frames  with  glass  in  them. 
When  you  wish  to  use  the  boxes,  remove  the 
strips  of  wood,  closing  the  holes  in  the  brood 
chamber,  and  place  two  boxes  on  each  side,  so 
that  the  openings  will  match.  Allow  the  boxes 
to  communicate  with  each  other,  as  well  as  with 
the  brood  chamber  ;  place  two  boxes  on  top  ;  or 
if  you  want  still  more  box-room,  use  two  tiers 
on  the  tqp  and  three  on  the  sides,  allowing  the 
third  tier  on  the  sides  to  communicate  with  the 
first  tier  on  the  top,  as  well  as  with  the  tier 
beneath  them.  This  will  give  you  ten  boxes,  the 
length  of  your  brood  chamber,  all  of  which  can 
be  separated  into  sections  containing  one  comb 
each,  and  holding  in  the  aggregate,  if  they  are 
five  inches  high,  six  wide,  and  eighteen  long, 
(twelve  sections,)  one  hundred  and  eighty  (180) 
pounds. 

By  this  arrangement  the  combs  in  the  boxes 
are  but  an  extension  of  the  corresponding  combs 
in  the  brood  chamber,  and  every  comb  in  the 
boxes  will  be  on  a  line  with  the  corresponding 
comb  in  all  the  other  boxes  and  the  hive— form- 
ing as  it  were  one  sheet  of  comb,  divided  in  the 
boxes  into  pieces  5X6  inches.  The  spaces  be- 
tween the  combs  being  continued  through  the 
whole  series,  the  corresponding  combs  in  all 
would  seem  to  the  bees  but  an  extended  single 
comb.  This  would,  no  doubt,  cause  brood  to 
be  reared  at  times  in  some  of  the  sections  of  the 
boxes ;  but  as  each  comb  can  be  separated  from 
the  rest,  all  sections  containing  brood  can  be 
formed  into  a  box,  the  brood  allowed  to  hatch, 
and  the  combs  be  used  as  guides  in  other  hives. 
Instead  of  allowing  the  frames  or  sections  of 
hives  and  boxes  to  rest  directly  on  the  bottom 
board,  they  should  be  placed  on  strips  of  wood 


J  +  ^  inch,  nailed  to  the  bottom  board.  And  if 
desired,  the  strips  of  tin  or  Avood  connecting  the 
bottoms  of  the  sections  can  be  omitted,  and  the 
bees  allowed  to  pass  under  the  bottom  pieces,  as 
in  suspended  frames. 

For  wintering  such  a  hive  in  the  northern 
States,  it  would  be  best  to  make  a  plain  box, 
without  bottom,  and  with  one  end  left  open,  of  a 
size  that  would  fit  closely  over  the  brood  chamber, 
and  could  be  so  placed  after  the  boxes  are  re- 
moved. I  have  not  attempted  to  describe  any 
form  of  outer  case  for  the  hive  and  boxes,  or 
to  give  any  definite  dimensions,  only  designing 
to  give  the  essential  features  peculiar  to  this  hive, 
expecting  every  one  to  be  governed,  in  regard  to 
size,  &c.,  according  to  his  own  experience  and 
judgment,  localitj%  &c.  The  principal  objection 
suggested  to  the  form  of  sections  used  by  Mr. 
Adair  was  that  bees  would  be  liable  to  be  crushed 
in  closing  them,  as  in  the  leaf  hives  of  Huber. 
By  cutting  out,  in  the  way  explained,  I  have 
attempted  to  remedy  this  fault.  It  will  be  im- 
possible to  crush  a  bee,  except  it  be  directly 
under  one  of  the  points  when  closing,  and  these 
can  be  made  so  small  as  to  make  it  almost  impos- 
sible to  crush  even  a  single  bee.  The  strips  of 
tin  or  wood  do  not  close  against  another  surface, 
merely  reaching  opposite  the  outer  corner  of  the 
next  section.  I  prefer  strips  of  w®od  about 
three-fourths  of  an  inch  wide,  so  fastened  as  to 
be  easily  removed,  as  they  will  not  be  used 
during  the  honey  harvest,  except  on  honey  boxes, 
for  closing  such  apertures  as  do  not  communicate 
with  the  hive  or  another  box.  It  is  not  absolutely 
necessary  that  the  sections  forming  the  boxes 
should  have  a  portion  cut  out  on  ail  sides,  top 
and  bottom,  only  removing  on  the  sides,  top  or 
bottom,  that  may  communicate  with  other  boxes 
or  the  hive— leaving  the  rest  closed.  But  I  pre- 
fer having  all  honey  boxes  alike,  so  that  they 
will  fit  wherever  placed,  and  close  with  a  strip 
such  sides  as  are  not  wanted  open.  A  hive  of 
this  form  can  be  made  up  to  any  dimensions,  by 
adding  to  it  on  the  sides  and  top,  and  yet  no 
piece  of  comb  without  the  brood  chamber  be 
larger  than  five  by  six  inches. 

As  I  said  before,  I  do  not  know  Mr.  Quinby's 
plan  of  hive,  but  can  scarcely  doubt  that  his  is 
better  than  mine.  Yet,  since  making  some  of 
these  hives,  I  find  them  so  easily  made,  work  so 
easily,  and  affording  as  they  do  unlimited  expan- 
sion, I  prefer  them  to  any  hive  I  have  ever  seen. 
If  experience  confirms  my  expectations,  they 
will  at  least  prove  superior  for  surplus  honey. 
For  raising  queens  and  building  up  colonies,  I 
doubt  if  any  thing  can  excel  Mr.  Gallup' s  form 
of  hive,  but  unfortunately  it  affords  poor  facilities 
for  obtaining  the  largest  yield  of  surplus  honey. 
And  this  is  tlie  case  with  all  the  forms  of  sus- 
pended frame  hives.  I  feel  confident  that  frames 
so  arranged  as  to  be  independent  of  an  outer  case 
for  their  support,  will  in  some  form  be  adopted 
into  general  use,  sooner  or  later.  There  are  two 
faults  which  all  loose  frames  have,  one  of  which 
seems  to  be  irremediable.  The  first  objection  is 
their  want  of  stability,  being  unfit  for  transpor- 
tation ;  the  other  is,  the  vacant  or  unoccupied 
space  around  the  combs — not  because  the  circu- 
lation of  air  is  detrimental,  but  because  it  affords 


THE   AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


189 


a  vast  amount  of  room  for  idle  bees  to  louf  in, 
when  they  should  be  at  work  in  the  boxes.  In 
the  best  forms  of  frame  hives  this  loafinn;  space 
amounts  to  one-fifth  or  one-fourth  of  their  whole 
capacity.  We  want  a  hive  in  which  the  bees 
will  all  be  compelled  to  stay  on  the  combs,  or  in 
spaces  in  which  combs  are  to  be  built.  For  tiiose 
■who  desire  to  raise  queens,  or  rapidly  multiply 
stocks,  it  would  be  well  to  have  a  long  Laug- 
stroth  hive,  that  could  be  divided  into  four 
apartments  when  necessary  ;  and  by  having  an 
entrance  at  each  end  and  one  on  each  side,  com- 
municating with  the  respective  apartments,  there 
would  be  no  risk  of  losing  queens  by  mistaking 
the  wrong  entrance.  The  frames  could  be  made 
of  the  proper  size  .to  fix  in  the  sections,  after 
sawing  off  the  projecting  shoulders ;  then,  as 
stocks  were  built  up,'they  could  be  transferred 
into  the  section  hive  above  described,  and  the 
case  of  the  long  hive  used  for  other  nuclei. 

As  to  the  right  to  use  the  hive  I  have  attempted 
to  describe,  it  is  and  ever  will  be  free  from  patent, 
so  far  as  I  am  concerned.  Whether  it  neces- 
sarily conflicts  with  Mr.  Adair's  patent,  I  do  not 
know.  I  purchased  an  individual  right  to  use 
his  hive  and  boxes,  as  his  price  was  moderate 
and  he  seemed  fair  in  his  business  transactions. 
I  procured  the  right  principally  on  account  of 
his  honey  boxes,  as  they  are  almosUuidispensable 
in  our  markets;  the  sections  forimng  a  box  of 
themselves,  having  the  advantage  over  small 
frames  of  protecting  the  surface  of  the  comb  from 
injury,  and  yet  being  divisible  into  single  combs, 
the  same  as  frames. 

There  is  probably  no  greater  happiness  to  a 
good  and  true  man  than  that  of  being  serviceable 
to  his  fellow  creatures,  without  the  hope  of  fee 
or  reward.  Let  us,  therefore,  all  try  and  con- 
tribute our  mile,  that  we  may  perfect  a  hive  and 
system  of  bee-keeping  free  to  all,  and  cease  to 
patronize  the  cormorants  that. have  for  years 
plundered  the  industry  of  the  country.  Cease  to 
patronize  patents,  and  they  will  soon  cease  to  be 
the  disgusting  nuisance  they  now  are  ;  and  per- 
chance we  may  be  able  to  induce  patentees  them- 
selves to  adopt  some  other  policy.  The  honey- 
emptying  machine  has  (thanks  to  the  Germans) 
come  to  us  untouched  by  the  grasi)ing  hands  of 
patent  venders  ;  and  its  rapid  success  gives  hope 
of  improved  hives  and  system  of  bee-keeping,  if 
free  and  unpatented. 

I  fear  I  am  occupying  too  much  of  your  space, 
yet  I  cannot  refrain  from  whispering  a  word  of 
advice  to  one  of  your  correspondents,  hailing 
from-  Des  Moines,  Iowa.  He  has  written  three 
communications,  (some  dozen  columns  in  all,) 
to  show,  among  other  things,  that  the  bee- 
cholera  or  bee-disease  prevalent  last  year,  besides 
every  other  ill  that  bee  "flesh  is  heir  to,"  was 
caused  by  the  want  of  a  certain-to-be  patented 
hive.  And  by  reference  to  the  September  num- 
ber we  find  the  very  contrivance  he  is  "  talking  " 
about,  described  by  Sir.  Owen  Davis  as  the 
"Double  Combined  Movable  Comb  Ilive,"  pat- 
ented in  1867,  and  yet  pending.  Now  if  Mr.  D. 
will  turn  to  page  553  of  the  Report  of  the  De- 
partment of  Agriculture  for  186:',  he  will  find 
ins  contrivance  described  by  Mr.  Richard  Calvin, 
of  Baltimore.  Md.     I  could  add  some  other  facts 


to  show  that  the  use  of  two  or  more  frames, 
placed  within  one  larger  one,  is  not  new  ;  but  as 
I  have  neither  seen  or  heard  of  any  "  startling 
wonders"  resulting  from  their  use,  I  dismiss  the 
subject,  as  undeserving  further  consideration. 

I  have  something  more  to  say  on  the  subject  of 
patents,  Avhich,  with  the  indulgence  of  the  Editor, 
I  may  give  in  another  communication,  as  this 
one  is  full  long  already. 

_  Will  not  Mr.  Quinby  favor  us  with  a  descrip- 
tion of  his  hive,  if  experience  has  confirmed  his 
judgment  as  to  its  utility?  Most  bee-keepers 
have  entire  confidence  in  his  honesty  and  un- 
biassed judgment ;  why  then  not  sacrifice  the 
time  and  trouble  necessary  to  attain  so  great  a 

good?  J.    M.    WOKDEN. 

Mobile,  Alabama,  Dec.  28,  1869. 


[For  the  Americau  : 

Disturbing  Bees. 


I  Journal.] 


What  is  the  average  number  of  times  a  good 
bee-keeper  will  "go  into"  (open  the  hives  and 
examine)  his  bees,  in  the  course  of  the  season  ? 
—J.  G.  W.,  Cliillicothe,  Mo  ,  July  25,  186'J. 

A  good  bee-keeper  can  generally  tell  if  any- 
thing is  needed  by  his  stocks  of  bees  without 
"going  into"  his  hives;  and,  generally,  need 
not  "  go  into  "  them  more  than  four  times  dur- 
ing the  season  :  Once  in  the  spring  to  clean  the 
hives  and  regulate  the  cotnbs,  bees,  honey  and 
brood— that  is  to  equalize  them  ;  then  once  or 
twice  at  swarming  time,  and  once  in  the  fall,  to 
see  that  they  are  all  right  for  winter.  The  latter 
time  or  trouble  may  be  avoided  generally  by  pre- 
vious diagnosis,  without  "going  into"  the  hives. 

It  will  pay  a  better  bee-keeper  than  I  am  to 
"go  into"  the  hives,  say  once  a  week,  unless  his 
time  is  worth  more  than  one  or  two  dollars  a 
day,  as  he  will  see  places  and  items  that  may  be 
improved ;  and  he  may  study  and  work  out 
something  valuable,  as  there  is  no  branch  of  sci- 
ence that  has  yet  reached  perfection. 

If  the  operator  can  learn  nothing  by  opening  a 
few  hives  every  day  for  six  months,  he  holds  an 
enviable  position.  I  would  like  to  see  a  person  so 
far  in  advance,  or  so  far  behind  others,  that  he 
cannot  learn  something  more.  Even  if  he  should 
learn  nothing  from  any  one  operation,  he  may 
console  himself  by  the  reflection  that  his  time 
has  been  more  profitably  occupied  than  it  would 
have  been  by  frequenting  saloons  or  places  of  dis- 
sipation, to  the  neglect  of  his  stock  or  his  home. 
J.  M.  Marvin. 

St.  Charles,  111. 


If  the  spring  is  not  favorable  to  bees,  they 
should  be  fed,  because  that  is  the  season  of  their 
greatest  expense  in  honej',  for  feeding  their 
young.  Having  jjlenty  of  honey  at  that  time, 
enables  them  to  yield  early  and  strong  swarms. — 
Wildma?i. 


Beware  of  demoralizing  bees,  by  tempting  them 
to  rob  each  other. 


190 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Amateur  Bee  Culture. 


Although  much  has  been  written  on  the  science 
of  bee  culture,  yet  but  few  of  those  who  engage 
in  it  meet  with  success.  It  is  with  bee-keeping  us 
with  every  other  branch  of  iiulustry,  those  who 
engage  in  it  must  understand  it,  if  they  expect  to 
succeed. 

If  one  desires  to  engage  in  bee-keeping,  he 
should,  in  order  to  be  successful,  thoroughly  ac- 
quaint himself  with  the  nature  and  habits  of  the 
bees.  He  then  understands  how  to  select  a  situa- 
tion for  an  apiary,  and  provide  for  their  wants. 
He  sees  the  advantages  of  frame  bives,  and  is 
enabled  to  select  intelligently  from  the  many 
placed  before  the  public.  Like  a  master  builder 
who  thoroughly  understands  his  work,  he  com- 
mences bee-keeping,  Ivnowing  what  to  do.  Such 
a  one  is  sure  to  succeed.  In  my  experience, 
however,  I  have  found  only  now  and  then  one 
who  commences  in- this  way.  Ordinarily,  almost 
every  one  commencing  to  keep  bees  is  entirel}' 
ignorant  of  their  nature  and  habits,  and  fre- 
quently all  the  knowledge  acquired  is  got  hj 
slow  experience.  Is  it  a  wonder,  then,  tbat  so 
many  bee-keepers  fail  to  be  successful  ?  Let  any 
one  who  intends  to  keep  bees  first  purchase  some 
practical  work  on  bee-keeping  and  thoroughly 
read  it,  acquainting  himself  well  with  the  theory 
before  he  commences.  Let  him,  in  commencing, 
purchase  not  more  than  two  or  three  colonies ; 
and  even  tben  he  will  find  his  bees  increasing 
foster  than  his  experience.  It  is  a  sad  mistake  that 
many  fall  into,  when  commencing  bee-keeping, 
to  purchase  a  large  number  nf  stocks.  It  will  not 
do  for  one  comparatively  well  read  up  in  bee- 
keeping, but  has  not  the  experience,  much  less 
for  one  who  has  no  knowledge  whatever  of  bee 
culture.  A  few  years  since  a  man  entirely  ig- 
norant of  bee  culture  was  suddenly  attaclied 
with  "6ce  on  the  brain,''''  and  as  a  remedy  pur- 
chased a  thousand  colonies  and  commenced  bee- 
keeping with  visions  of  honey  before  his  eyes  ; 
and  the  result  was  he  failed.  Several  similar  in- 
stances have  come  under  my  observation,  even 
when  only  fifteen  or  twenty  colonies  were  pur- 
chased. Two  or  three  stocks  aie  quiie  enough  to 
commence  with,  and  they  ought  not  to  be  pur- 
chased unless  one  has  some  knowledge  of  bee- 
keeping, or  at  least  a  practical  work  to  guide 
him.  But  with  a  fair  knowledge  of  bee- culture 
and  the  use  of  frame  hives,  rightly  constructed, 
success  in  bee-keeping  is  certain,  when  proper 
attention  is  given  to  it. 

J.  H.  TrroMAs. 
Brooklin,  Ontario 


The  greatest  favorites  of  the  bees,  in  early 
spring,  appear  to  be  the  catl<in-bearing  shrubs 
and  trees,  the  willow,  hazel,  osier,  &c.,  from  the 
male  flowers  of  which  they  obtain  the  pollen, 
and  from  the  female  the  honey. 


In  working  among  bees,  woollen  gloves  or 
mittens  are  objectionable,  as  everything  rough 
or  hairy  has  an  extremely  irritating  effect  upon 
them. 


[For  the  American  Bea  Journal.] 

History  of  our  Honey-Emptier. 

Mh.  Editor  : — Your  readers  call  for  facts 
rather  than  fancies,  though  most  people  take  more 
pleasure  in  relating  their  successful  exploits  than 
their  failures,  and  it  is  easier  to  write  theories 
than  to  practice  them. 

I  think  as  much  can  be  learned  from  an  ac- 
count of  a  failure,  as  from  a  success,  if  the  rea- 
sons for  the  failure  are  given.  Therefore  I  think 
correspondents  should  give  both  sides  of  the 
question  and  I  will  endeavor  to  do  so  myself. 

That  we  must  have  a  honey-emptier  wns  a 
settled  question,  but  how  we  were  to  make  it 
was  another  thing.  The  Journal  contained 
the  bill  of  stock  required  in  making  several  dif- 
ferent styles,  none  of  which  just  suited. 

We  could  not  get  a  suitable  tiu-can  made  here 
for  less  than  four  dollars,  so  we  devised  a  phm 
sinular  to  that  described  in  the  last  number  of 
the  Bee  Journal,  as  patented  by  Mr.  H.  O. 
Peabody,  only  we  did  not  carry  the  idea  quite 
so  far  as  he  has  done. 

We  made  the  "basket"  of  gauze  wire  and  hoop 
iron  liveted  together  and  fastened  to  the  stand- 
ard with  iron  braces.  We  then  made  two  shields 
of  tin  to  go  over  the  two  sides,  covered  with  wire 
cloth,  in  orc^r  to  catch  the  honey  and  conduct 
it  to  a  shaTOw  tub  in  which  the  whole  thing 
was  to  revolve.  When  ready  for  use  we  brought 
in  some  well  filled  comb,  but  found  that  we  had 
not  got  the  joints  at  the  corners  tight  enough  to 
keep  the  honey  from  flowing  on  the  floor.  As 
we  wanted  to  use  the  machine  immediately  and 
had  no  tins  for  the  remaining  two  sides,  we  con- 
cluded to  dispense  with  the  tins  entirely,  and 
putting  it  in  a  wooden  cask,  try  it  in  the  "  good 
old  way." 

We  supplied  it  with  the  gearing  of  an  old 
apple  parer,  and  very  soon  extracted  one  hun- 
dred pounds  of  buckwheat  honey.  • 

Our  only  trouble  now  was  in  uncapping  the 
cells.  We  tried  everything  within  our  reach, 
from  a  razor  to  a  butcher  knife,  but  in  all  made 
rather  bad  work.  We  then  concluded  that  some- 
body must  have  for  sale  knives  suited  for  the 
purpose,  as  correspondents,  in  describing  the 
workings  of  their  machines,  say  nothing  of 
trouble  in  this  direction.  We  looked  over  the 
advertisements  in  our  Bee  JouiiNAL,  but  could 
not  find  them  mentioned.  Thinking  that  Mr. 
Langstroth  would  be  apt  to  keep  them,  if  anj'- 
body  did,  we  enclosed  him  a  two  dollar  note, 
with  a  request  to  send  one  bj'  mail,  if  he  had 
them.  The  money  was  immediately  returned, 
with  a  note  stating  that  he  had  none  on  hand, 
but  thought  we  could  procure  one  from  Mr.  M. 
]yr.  Baldi'idge,  St.  Charles,  Ills.  We  accord- 
ingly enclosed  two  dollars  in  a  letter  directed  to 
Mr.  B.,  requesting  him  to  send  us  a  knife  as 
soon  as  possible,  &s,  we  wished  to  use  it  immedi- 
ately. This  was  about  the  25th  of  September, 
and  after  waiting  patiently  about  two  weeks  our 
hope  of  ever  seeing  knife  or  money  again  be- 
gan to  vanish.  We  then  sent  him  another  letter 
of  inquiry  in  regard  to  the  fate  of  the  first. 

Some  time  before  this,  our  friend  Mr.  S ,  of 

this  place,  invited  us  to  come  up  and  try  our 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


191 


machine  on  some  liouey  which  he  intended  to 
"take  up,"  as  he  wished  to  save  tlie  comb  to  use 
in  some  of  his  frame  liives.  We  informed  him 
that  we  liad  sent  for  and  daily  expected  to  re- 
ceive the  knife,  witliout  whicli  we  could  do  but 
little.  Two  weeks  move  passed  away,  and  we 
neither  heard  from  our  money  or  the  letter  of  in- 
quiry concerning  it.  Friend  S.  had  taken  up  his 
bees,  (I  am  sorry  to  say  tliat  this  system  is  still 
practiced  in  this  neighborhood,)  and  was  ready 
for  us  to  make  our  visit  with  the  machine.  He 
thought  that  his  father  had  a  knife  which  would 
answer  the  purpose,  and  as  I  was  to  go  by 
his  house  I  was  to  stop  and  get  it.  Accordingly 
I  loaded  up  the  machine  and  started,  but  when  I 
came  to  slop  for  the  knife,  the  old  gentleman  in- 
formed me  that  the  one  he  had  was  nothing  but 
a  piece  of  hoop  iron  ground  off  to  cut  cheese 
curd  and  would  probably  not  suit  our  pur^, 
pose. 

Arriving  at  the  scene  of  action,  the  machine 
was  set  up  and  the  honey  brought  out.  We  first 
tried  a  frame  with  a  thick  comb  of  buckwheat 
lioney,  which  had  been  taken  from  the  hive  some 
time  previous.  After  having  had  two  hands  at 
work  on  it  for  about  half  an  hour,  it  was  pro- 
nounced "uncapped,"  although  it  looked  as 
though  mice  had  done  it.  It  was  ])at  into  the 
"Extractor"  and  the  process  of  whirling  began. 
But  we  had  forgotten  that  we  must  have  another 
comb  on  the  other  side  to  balance  it,  as  it  was 
very  thick  and  heavy.  So  another  half  hour 
was  spent  in  uncapping,  and  then  the  turning 
again  commenced.  But  the  honey  did  not  seem 
inclined  to  fly.  We  just  began  to  see  the  difTer- 
ence  between  taking  honey  directly  from  the 
hive  in  warm  weather,  and  taking  it  from  a  cold 
room,  where  it  had  Iain  until  it  was  as  cold  and 
stringy  as  tar.  That  our  honey  must  be  warmed 
seemed  self-evident.  So  it  was  taken  out  and 
perched  upon  a  box  behind  the  stove  to  warm, 
while  we  directed  our  attention  to  uncapping 
combs  taken  from  the  hives. 

It  was  now  getting  well  on  towards  nine 
o'clock.  Mr.  S.  w\as  to  start  for  Scranlon  early 
next  morning,  and  intended  taking. the  honey 
there  to  market.  Six  or  eight  hives  were  piled 
up  in  the  room,  ready  to  have  their  contents 
"extracted,"  which,  of  course,  it  would  not  take 
long  to  do  by  machinery !  Mr.  S.  remarkt  d 
that  "the  frame  behind  the  stove  must  be  nearly 
warm  enough,"  when  "  spat"  went  something 
in  that  direction,  and  on  looking,  it  was  found 
that  the  honey  had  got  warm,  broken  from  the 
frame,  and  fallen  down  in  a  heap  behind  the 
wood-box  !  This  so  excited  him  that  he  knocked 
the  lamp  chimney  off  with  his  knife,  and 
dropped  another  piece  of  honey  on  the  floor. 
After  trying  until  all  concerned  were  satisfied 
we  drew  from  our  machine  about  one  pint  of 
strained  honey,  to  say  nothing  of  Avhat  was 
drained  on  the  floor.  In  fact  we  had  a  sweet 
time  generally.  We  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
cold  honey  in  new  comb,  uncapped  with  a 
butcher  knife,  was  not  just  what  the  "  melex- 
tractor  "  was  calculated  for.  Take  the  honey 
from  the  hive  before  it  is  capped,  or  get  it  de- 
cently uncapped  in  warm  weather,  and  it  works 
like  a  charm. 


Two  or  three  days  after  this,  I  (very  unex- 
pectedly) received  a  letter  from  Mi*.  Baldridge, 
dated  October  25th,  containing  fifty  cents,  and 
stating  that  he  had  a  style  of  honey  knife  which 
worked  satisfactorily,  which  he  sold  for  one  dol- 
lar and  fifty  cents,  and  that  he  would  mail  one 
to  us  some  time  "this  week."  About  two  weeks 
after  this  I  received  a — lioney  knife.  It  is  made 
out  of  the  best  quality  of  torought-  iron,  fastened 
into  a  common  turned  wooden  handle  with 
melted  lead.  Mr.  B.  says  it  will  work  satisfac- 
torily, and  I  hope  it  will,  as  that  is  all  that  will 
be  required. 

Will  those  who  successfully  use  the  "  Smela- 
tore,"  and  know  how  to  uncap  the  cells  for  its 
use  in  any  decent  length  of  time,  please  describe 
the  modutf  operandi?  VvMtli  us  it  is  the  one  thing 
3'et  needful.  I  have  not  yet  had  a  chance  to  try 
the  knife  received  from  Mr.  Baldridge,  as  it 
reached  me  so  late  in  the  season.  Though  it  may 
work  well,  I  must  say  to  him  that  I  do  not  ad- 
mire his  style  of  punctuality,  as  I  think  six 
weeks  altogether  longer  than  necessary  to  get 
returns  from  Illinois. 

Mr.  S.,  I  believe,  concluded  to  sell  his  honey 
in  the  comb,  probably  consoling  himself  by  think- 
ing that  it  would  carry  nicer  and  sell  much  better 
in  that  shape. 

I.    F.    TlLLIKGHAST. 

Factoryville,  Pa.,  Jan.  4,  1870. 


[For  the  Amarican  Bee  Journal.] 

Superseding  Fertile  Workers. 


Mr.  Editor  : — On  page  144  of  the  January 
number  of  the  Joukkal,  I  see  an  article  from  Mr. 
John  S.  Rose,  in  which  he  gives  his  mode  of 
treating  a  colony  of  bees  containing  a  fertile 
worker.  He  states  that  he  was  successful  in  in- 
troducing a  queen,  after  subjecting  tlie  colony 
to  a  dose  of  puff-ball  smoke.  Having  less  faith 
in  that  kind  of  treatment  than  I  perhaps  should 
have  had,  I  did  not  test  its  merits  in  either  of  the 
cases  to  which  I  am  about  to  refer  ;  nor  do  I 
know  that  I  ever  will  test  it,  so  long  as  the 
mode  of  treatment  to  which  I  subjected  two 
colonies,  during  the  past  season,  proves  success- 
ful. 

The  fiist  was  a  colony  which,  from  some  cause 
unknown  tome,  lost  its  Cjueen  in  the  latter  part 
of  March.  They  failed  to  rear  a  young  queen, 
and  in  a  short  time  I  found  eggs  deposited  in  the 
cells  of  both  worker  and  dvone-comb.  I  found 
as  many  as  four  eggs  in  one  cell,  and  on  close 
examination  I  was  satisfied  there  was  nothing  in 
the  shape  of  a  true  queen  in  the  hive.  This 
further  convinced  me  that  I  had  a  fertile  worker 
to  deal  with,  or  some  kind  of  an  egg-laying  crea- 
ture or  creatures  that  did  not  properly  under- 
stand the  bee-raising  business — there  being  more 
eggs  laid  in  one  cell  than  could  be  matured  in  so 
small  a  space.  How  to  get  rid  of  this  kind  of 
egg-laying  creature  puzzled  me  exceedingly.  I 
thought  of  puff-ball,  but  being  too  much  of  a 
sceptic  with  regard  to  its  effect  as  a  remedial 
agent  in  such  cases,  I  determined  to  adopt  some 
other  mode  of  treatment.     It  being  early  in  the 


192 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


season,  I  had  no  queen  to  give  them.  I  there- 
fore gave  them,  from  another  hive,  a  frame  con- 
taining worker  brood  in  various  stages  of  devel- 
opment; having  first  taken  from  them  such 
combs  as  contained  eggs  laid  by  fertile  workers. 
They  at  once  took  possession  of  the  brood  which 
I  furnished  them,  and  reared  a  queen  which  be- 
came fertile.  Thereafter  the  colony  began  to 
prosper,  and-  continued  to  do  so  through  the 
season. 

Later  in  the  season,  I  removed  the  queen  from 
another  colony  and  inserted  a  queen  cell  in  her 
stead.  The  young  queen  hatched,  but  was  lost 
I  suppose  on  her  bridal  tuur,  as  I  never  saw  her 
after  she  was  five  or  six  clays  old,  although  I 
looked  for  her  repeatedly,  thinking  she  might 
possibly  have  escaped  my  vision.  But  being 
finally  convinced  that  there  was  no  queen  in  the 
hive,  and  finding,  several  days  after  the  repeated 
searches,  eggs  deposited  promiscuously  in  the 
cells,  and  ranging  in  number  from  one  to  half  a 
dozen  in  a  single  cell,  I  was  convinced  that  I 
had  another  case  of  the  fertile-worker  complaint 
to  deal  with.  I  began  operations  as  in  the  first 
case,  by  taking  from  them  all  the  combs  contain- 
ing eggs  ;  but,  instead  of  giving  them  worker- 
brood,  as  in  the  previous  instance,  I  gave  them 
a  finished  queen  cell,  which  they  destroyed.  I 
repeated  my  former  operation  by  giving  them  an- 
other, which  was  received  and  the  queen  hatched. 
As  iu'  the  other  case,  she  became  fertile,  and 
brought  out  the  colony  in  a  prosperous  condi- 
tion. 

How  such  a  course  of  treatment  would  answer 
in  another  case  of  the  kind,  I  am  not  prepared  to 
say  ;  but  that  it  has  proved  successful  with  me 
in  two  instances  is  certain.  Nor  do  I  pretend  to 
know  more  about  the  philosophy  of  this  kind  of 
treatment  (if  treatment  it  may  be  called)  than 
that  connected  with  the  use  of  pufF-ball.  Still,  I 
have  wondered  since  my  success  in  those  two 
cases,  whether  it  may  not  be  that  all  colonies 
(and  especially  the  Italians,  which  always  de- 
fend themselves  when  queenless  with  admirable 
vigor)  become  very  hostile  to  all  strange  bees  or 
queens,  and  refuse  to  recogaize  them  until  they 
are  themselves  severely  dealt  with  by  the  use  of 
puff-ball  or  of  some  other  stupefying  agent.  I 
wish  to  state  here  that  I  do  not  believe  that  in 
either  of  the  above  cases  all  the  eggs  found  were 
laid  by  one  fertile  worker.  I  know  that  in  the 
period  of  twenty-four  hours  there  were  more  eggs 
laid  than  could  possibly  have  been  laid  by  a 
queen  at  the  head  of  a  populous  and  in  all  respects 
prosperous  colony.  Besides,  during  my  searches 
for  a  queen  in  tliose  two  cases,  and  especially 
when  I  was  about  convinced  that  there  was  no 
queen  present,  and  began  to  think  of  and  look 
for  a  fertile  worker,  it  occurred  to  me  that  if  fer- 
tile workers  come,  as  it  is  claimed  they  do, 
(namely,  by  accidentally  or  otherwise  being  fed 
on  a  small  amount  of  royal  jelly)  they  ought 
not  only  to  resemble  a  queeti  in  disposition,  but 
also  in  shape  and  locomotion.  Thus  it  was  these 
features  I  looked  for,  and  I  also  thought  I  might 
possibly  find  her  engaged  in  the  act  of  depositing 
eggs,  if  neither  of  the  above-named  marks  of 
difference  would  enable  me  to  find  her.  I  there- 
fore set  myself  to  searching,  and  after  some  time 


felt  confident  I  had  found  her  ;  and  I  yet  believe 
that  I  found  some,  but  not  all.  Her  conduct 
somewhat  resembled  that  of  a  queen  while  she 
was  walking  over  the  combs  ;  the  bees  also  ap- 
peared to  bestow  upon  her  some  of  their  usual 
marks  of  honor  and  distinction.  But  in  shape 
she  bore  no  resemblance  to  a  queen.  After 
walkiuij;  over  the  combs  for  a  time,  I  discovered 
her  looking  into  a  cell  and  afterwards  insert  her 
abdomen  in  it  like  a  queen  in  the  act  of  ovi- 
positing. I  caught  and  killed  her,  and  then 
looked  for  more,  which  I  found  engaged  in  simi- 
lar acts  as  the  first.  Now,  to  satisfy  myself  about 
this  matter  a  little  further,  I  opened  several  other 
hives  containing  fertile  queens,  and  in  no  case 
could  I  discover  a  worker  endeavoring  to  play 
queen  by  crowding  her  abdomen  deep  down  into 
a  cell,  as  though  she  meant  to  lay  an  c^g. 

These  observations  led  me  partiallj^  to  the  fol- 
lowing conclusions  :  First,  that  in  cases  where 
Italian  colonies  lose  their  queens  during  the  breed- 
ing season,  we  are  almost  sure  to  find  fertile 
workers.  Secondly,  that  in  all  such  cases  we 
may  look  for  not  only  one  fertile  worker,  but 
we  may  expect  them  to  be  numerous,  or  that 
there  will  at  least  be  several  found  in  a  hive. 
And  thirdly,  that  by  subjecting  a  colonv  to  such 
treatment,  such  as  the  smoke  of  puff-balls  or 
other  stupefying  agents,  they  almost  invariably 
accept  a  fertile  queen,  and  the  deposit  of  bogus 
eggs  ceases.  I  further  conclude  that  if  all  their 
combs  and  eggs  are  taken  from  them  and  worker 
brood  given,  they  will  rear  a  queen,  and  by  re- 
peated efforts  they  may  be  induced  to  accept  a 
queen  cell,  provided  the  young  queen  therein  has 
not  yet  begun  to  pipe.  If  she  has,  I  think  the 
bees  will  be  likely  to  destroy  her,  unless  they  be 
first  stupefied. 

Just  how  the  fertile  workers  originate  I  do  not 
pretend  to  say  or  know,  but  I  susp<  ct  that  if  any 
get  the  royal" jelly  during  the  grub  stsite  quite  a 
number  get  it.  And  it  may  be  that  where  a 
queen  is  taken  from  a  colony  the  bees  give  such 
food  to  many  larvae,  and  as  a  result  raise  no 
queen.  I  hope  that  bee-keepers  who  may  have 
such  colonies  to  deal  with,  will  put  them  in  ob- 
serving Mves,  and  by  repeatedly  noticing  their 
conduct  ascertain  if  possible  what  kind  of  bee  or 
bees  lay  those  eggs.  I  do  not  claim  by  what  I 
have  observed  and  have  related,  to  have  defi- 
nitely established  the  fact  that  these  eggs  are  laid 
by  common  workers,  although  I  have  strong  sus- 
picions that  many  workers  do  possess  the  ability 
to  lay  eggs,  and  will  do  so  when  the  colony  is  not 
in  possession  of  a  fertile  queen. 

If  opportunity  should  be  afforded  me  during 
the  coming  season,  I  will  endeavor  to  look  a  lit- 
tle further  after  the  fertile-worker  part  of  the  bee 
creation,  and  if  possible  ascertain  under  what  kind 
of  circumstances  such  colonies  accept  of  queens 
or  queen  cells.  And  I  should  be  pleased  to  find 
out  certainly  under  what  circumstance,  or  from 
what  causes,  they  reject  them.  Now  this  may 
be  more  than  any  bee-keeper  (myself  not  ex- 
cepted) may  ever  be  able  to  discover,  but  I  shall 
endeavor  not  to  injure  tlie  profession  of  bee- 
keeping in  making  my  observations. 

GODFr.EY   BOHRER. 

Alexandria,  Ind. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


198 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Is  there  a  Four-banded  Variety  of  Italian 
Bees? 

■The  Baroness  of  Bevlcppch,  in  lier  "Five 
Questions  Answered,"  vol,  5,  page  141,  of  the 
Bee  Jouknal,  answers  question  "l,  respecting 
the  "three  yellow  bands,"  tlius  :  "The  Italian 
bee,  bred  in  Italy,  has  generally  but  two  yellow 
bands,  and,  including  the  narrow  strip  next  the 
thorax,  three.  But  Dzierzon  has  raised  a  much 
more  beautiful  race.  The  workers  of  his  full- 
blooded  bees  have  three  yellow  bands,  exclusive 
of  the  narrow  strip." 

This  statement  must  be  surprising  to  a  number 
of  qucen-bieeders  who  have  purchased  from 
Dzierzon.  A  queen  bee  which  Rev.  L.  L.  Lang- 
stroth  showed  me  on  my  visit  to  his  apiary,  five 
years  ago,  as  one  imported  from  Dzierzon,  had 
no  such  worker  progeny.  The  workers  showed 
only  three  bands,  the  narrow  strip  near  the 
thorax  included.  They  differ  only  from  those 
reared  by  myself  from  direct  imported  queens  in 
having  a  brighter  color,  and  with  the  third  stripe 
somewhat  wider. 

Italian  worker  bees  reared  by  Mr.  Dathe,  in 
Eystrup,  Hanover,  (whom  I  visited  on  my  trip 
to  Italy,  two  years  ago  last  September,)  reared 
from  a  daughter  of  a  queen  purchased  from 
Dzierzon  at  one  of  the  great  Bee-keepers'  Con- 
ventions in  Germany,  had  no  more  and  no  wider 
yellow  bands  than  my  own  Italian  bees  which  I 
had  taken  along  for  comparison ;  and  those  had 
but  three  bands,  the  narrow  strip  included. 

Shall  we  draw  from  such  facts  the  inference 
that  ]\Ir.  Dzierzon  sells  and  sends  off  as  full- 
blooded,  stock  that  is  not  such  ?  I,  for  one,  cannot 
do  so.  I  am  well  aware  that  occasionally  a  queen 
is  produced,  some  of  whose  workers  show,  when 
much  extended,  a  very  narrow  fourth  band  ;  yet 
I  cannot  believe  that  Dzierzon  would  sell  an  in- 
ferior queen,  whose  workers  do  not  come  up  to 
the  standard  of  full-blood  Italians.  But  no  cor- 
respondent or  writer  has  ever,  to  ray  knowledge, 
made  such  a  statement  as  that  of  the  Baroness  of 
Berlepsc'h.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Kleine,  in  his  article 
on  the  purity  of  Italian  bees,  (Bee  .Journal,  vol. 
2,  page  17,)  says:  "Those  woikers  are  pure 
whose  first  three  abdominal  rings  are  bright- 
orange  or  buff-colored  ;  the  first  being  slightly, 
the  second  more  strongly,  and  the  third  broadly 
bordered  with  black,  while  the  terminal  rings  are 
fringed  with  a  gray  or  whitish  down."  Dathe, 
another  celebrated  German  apiarian  and  breeder 
of  Italian  bees,  in  his  pamphlet  "  Directions  for 
Italianizing  and  breeding  the  Italian  bee,"  page 
9,  says  :  "  Of  the  three  abdominal  rings  of  the 
worker-bees,  the  first  two  are  orange-yellow 
colored  ;  the  third  one,  according  to  greater  or 
less  purity,  is  more  or  less  j^ellow  or  whitish ; 
the  succeeding  ones  are  whitish."  Neither  he 
nor  Mr.  Kleine  anywhere  remarks  that  Dzierzon's 
bees  have  four  bands,  or  three  without  the  nar- 
row one  near  the  thorax.  I  think  it  would  have 
been  the  duty  of  both  of  them  to  mention  it,  if  it 
were  so  ;  and  tlie}^  there  doubtless  as  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  markings  of  Dzierzon's  Italians 
as  the  Baroness,  since  each  of  them  procured 
queens  fiom  him  repeatedly.     It  is  my  opinion, 


therefore,  that  the  Bafoness  must  be  mistaken  in 
tliis  matter.  If,  however,  Dzierzon,  or  anybody 
else,  has  succeeded  in  propagating  Italian  queen 
bees,  all  of  whose  workers  have  four  yellow  bands, 
and  whose  queen  progeny — daughters,  grand- 
daughters, and  great-granddaughters  —  again 
produce  similar  four-banded  workers,  then  I 
should  like  to  purchase  a  queen  from  such  a 
stock;  provided  she  be  as  prolific  as  Italian 
queens  whose  workers  show  only  three  ja-llow 
bands.  a.  Gui:.i.m. 

Jefferson,  Wis.,  ^an.  10,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  .Tournal.] 

A  Bee  Puzzle. 

In  the  December  number  of  the  Bee  Jour- 
nal, page  117,  under  the  head  of  "  Introducing 
Queens,"  a  correspondent  is  puzzled,  and  so  am 
I.  But  he  is  puzzled  in  a  different  manner  from 
myself.  In  his  case  the  introduced  queens  were 
the  ones  that  produced  the  eggs.  Of  this  I  have 
not  a  particle  of  doubt.  I  have  had  at  least 
twelve  cases  similar  to  the  one  he  mentions.  In 
October,  18G3,  after  the  native  queens  had  stopped 
breeding,  I  removed  five  queens,  and  introduced 
hybrid  queens  in  their  stead.  These  queens  were 
accepted  apparently  all  right.  All  five  com- 
menced breeding  ;  and,  in  from  eight  to  twelve 
days,  four  of  the  queens  were  destroyed,  and 
young  queens  raised  from  the  introduced  queen's 
eggs,  in  from  twenty-four  to  thirty-one  days  from 
the  time  the  queens  were  introduced. 

These  beingthe  first  cases  of  the  kind,  I  did  not 
observe  as  closely  as  I  should  have  done.  But, 
since  then,  I  have  had  the  best  opportunities  for 
observation.  In  twelve  cases  of  introducing 
queens,  when  the  native  queen  was  not  breeding, 
1  have  finally  lost  all  but  two.  I  have  in  those 
cases  introduced  the  queens  by  various  methods, 
so  that  the  mode  of  introducing  did  not  have  any 
influence  on  the  results,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able 
to  observe. 

August  12th,  1869,  I  received  a  queen  from  Dr. 
T.  B.  Hamlin,  of  Edgefield  Junction,  Tennessee, 
by  mail ;  and  she  was  as  handsome  a  queen  as  I 
ever  saw,  of  a  bright  golden  color  throughout  the 
entire  length  of  the  abdomen — the  very  apex  of 
which  was  only  slightly  browned.  I  introduced 
her  to  a  hybrid  stock.  There  was  no  brood  in 
the  hive  at  the  time  of  introducing  her.  She 
commenced  breeding  very  rapidly,  and  I  exam- 
ined her  daily  for  five  days  after  introducing  her. 
On  the  ninth  day  I  examined  again,  and  she 
was  gone.  She  had  filled  four  frames  full  of  eggs. 
There  were  five  queen  cells  started,  and  an  egg 
in  each.  Those  five  queens  all  hatched  out,  and 
were  perfect  duplicates  of  their  mother.  Four  of 
them  were  lost  in  being  fertilized,  and  one  proved 
to  be  a  drone  layer.  (Here  I  may  remark  that  I 
have  only  succeeded  in  having  five  queens  prop- 
erly fertilized  this  season.)  The  workers  from 
the  old  queen  were  perfect  beauties.  What  puz- 
zles me  is  this :  in  introducing  a  queen  at  any 
time  when  the  queen  is  not  breeding,  or  when 
there  is  no  brood  in  the  hive,  why  do  the  bees 
accept  her  temporally,  feed,  nurse,  and  pay  every 
attention  to  her,  and  then,  after  the  lapse  of  from 


194 


THE   AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


eight  to  twelve  days,  destroy  her  and  raise 
another  from  her  eggs  V  If  they  are  satisfied 
with  her  for  eight  days,  why  not  for  eight 
months  ?  I  liave  not  heen  able  to  solve  this 
question,  though  it  has  puzzled  me  not  a  little. 

I  may  here  state,  that  I  have  had  considerable 
correspondence  with  Dr.  Hamlin,  and  do  not  hesi- 
tate in  recommending  him  to  the  confidence  of 
tlie  public,  as  a  queen  breeder.  ]\Iany  of  us  will 
want  qu(;ens  earljr,  and  he  can  furnish  them  from 
one  to  two  months  earlier  than  any  northern 
breeder.  Every  good  honest  breeder  added  to 
the  list  is  so  much  gained  by  the  public ;  and 
judging  from  the  inquiries  already  received,  the 
demand  for  queens  next  season  is  going  to  be 
fully  up  to  the  supply.  E.  Gallup. 

Osage,  Iowa. 


The  Dripping  Honey-Comb. 


Did  you  ever  reflect  that  the  great  woods  about 
us,  where  we  delight  to  hold  our  picnics  and  take 
our  summer  walks,  used  to  be  infested  by  many 
hurtful  wild  beasts  ?  Yet  we  never  hear  of  a 
bear,  or  a  panther,  or  a  wolf  being  met  in  them 
now.  It  is  hardly  possible  that  they  have  re- 
treated in  a  body  before  the  face  of  the  white 
man,  as  the  Indian  has,  but  they  have  been 
exterminated.  We  can  never  realize  the  hard- 
ships and  dangers  our  forefathers  passed  through 
to  make  this  pleasant  land  such  a  delightful  home 
for  us. 

We  can  see,  too,  the  might  of  civilization,  and 
the  powerful  resources  it  can  bring  to  oppose  all 
the  cunning  and  all  the  strength  of  the  fiercest 
wild  beasts.  A  little  winged  bullet  can  deal  a 
death-blow  to  the  powerlul  panther  or  to  the 
enraged  bear.  Even  a  watch-fire  will  keep  the 
wolf  and  various  other  animals  at  bay  the  whole 
night  long.  God  gave  to  man  dominion  over  all 
the  beasts  of  the  field,  and  even  the  fierce  lion  and 
tiger  have  been  tamed  by  his  skill  ;  yet  is  it  not 
strange  Avhen  men  can  do  so  much  that  they  have 
never  invented  some  way  of  taming  that  unruly 
member,  "the  tongue?"  "But  the  tongue  can 
no  man  tame,"  saith  the  Apostle  James;  "it  is 
an  unruly  evil,  full  of  deadly  poison." 

Oh,  what  bitter,  angry  words  sometimes  roll 
off'  from  it  so  glibly  !  Hcjw  they  set  on  fire  whole 
communities,  and  work  a  mischief  that  years 
cannot  undo  !  There  is  only  one  waj'  to  master 
it.  That  is  to  give  it  all  up  into  the  control  of 
the  Lord  Jesus.  He  can  tame  it.  He  can  keep 
the  lips  pure  from  all  evil-speaking.  He  can  put 
into  the  mouth  only  pure,  good  words,  that  shall 
do  gofid  to  all  men. 

"Pleasant  words  are  as  a  honey-comb,  sweet 
to  the  soul  and  health  to  the  bones." 

Every  child  knows  how  nice  a  clean  white 
honey-comb  is,  with  its  dripping  pearls  of  sweet- 
ness. But  oh  !  it  is  not  half  as  sweet  as  thosp 
lips  which  drop  only  the  pearls  of  loving,  gentle 
words. — ChihVs  World. 


Water  is  indispensable  to  bees  when  building 
comb  or  raising  brood. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Several  Items. 


Introducing  Queens  Safely. 
Place  a  drop  of  the  same  kind  of  scented  honey 
or  feed  that  the  bees  are  fed  with,  on  the  queen's 
head  only,  so  as  to  cover  her  antennse.  Then  the 
bees  cannot  recognize  her,  at  least  until  they  re- 
move the  feed,  and  by  that  time  they  are  in  no 
disposition  to  sting.  Whereas,  if  the  feed  be 
dropped  on  any  other  part  of  her  body,  it  annoys 
her ;  and  she  does  not  like  to  be  assisted  unless 
the  obstructions  are  on  the  head. 

Young  Queens. 
Are  there  cases  of  young  queens  being  fertilized 
at  the  time  of  or  before  going  out  with  a  swarm  ? 

More  Questions. 

Do  bees  work  on  the  different  varieties  of  the 
wild  mint,  or  the  kinds  cultivated  for  distillation 
or  other  purposes  ?  If  so,  what  is  collected,  and 
what  amount  ? 

Do  bees  work  on  the  Osage  Orange,  the  Black 
Locust,  (three-thorned  Acacia,)  or  the  Mountain 
Ash  ?  J.  M.  Marvin. 

at.  Charles,  III. 

!S^^  Bees  gather  honey  from  all  the  mint  family, 
but,  none  of  the  varieties  yield  it  plentifully,  thougti 
what  is  obtained  is  agreeably  aromatic.  Blossoming 
eoutinnously  from  July  to  September,  and  growing 
in  moist  grounds,  they  are  of  some  impoi-tance  at  a 
period  when  other  supplies  are  cut  off  by  drought. 

The  blossoms  of  the  honey  locust  are  said  to  yield 
honey,  though  we  have  never  seen  bees  working  on 
them.  They  are  yellowish  green,  small  and  incon- 
spieuous.  and  arranged  in  spikes.  The  pods  are  filled 
with  sweet  pulp  between  the  seeds  when  ripe,  which 
boyx  are  fond  of,  but  we  do  not  know  that  bees  partake 
of  it.  It  seems  to  have  been  a  favorite  with  General 
Washington,  as  there  are  many  fine  and  large  old 
specimens  in  the  grounds  of  Mount  Vernon. 

Whether  the  blossoms  of  the  Mountain  Ash  or  th« 
Osage  Orange  yield  honey,  we  are  unable  to  say. — Ed. 

Comb  Guides. 


The  following  is  the  article  referred  to  in  our  last 
number,  as  showin'j:  conclusively  that  the  bevelled 
edge  or  triangular  comb  guide  is  no  new  invention  : 

Extract  from  "  Observations  on  Bees,"  by  John 
Hunter,  Esq.,  a  paper  read  before  the  Royal  Society  of 
London,  Feb.  23,  1792,  and  published  in  the  Philoso- 
phical Transactions,  vol.  82,  page  138. 

"  As  one  perpendicular  comb  of  the  whole  length 
"  and  height  of  the  hive,  in  the  centre,  dividing  it  into 
"  two,  is  the  best  position  for  exposing  their  opera- 
"  tious,  it  is  necessary  to  give  them  a  lead  or  direction 
"  to  form  it  so  ;  therefore  it  is  proper  to  make  a  ridge 
"  aloni^  the  top,  from  end  to  end,  in  the  centre, 
"  between  the  two  sides,  for  they  like  to  begin  their 
"work  from  an  eminence;  if  we  wish  to  have  them 
"  transverse  or  oblique  it  would  only  be  necessary  to 
"mike  transverse  or  oblique  ridires  in  the  hive." 

Clearly,  Clark's  patent  is  worthless,  as  the  Courts 
will  decide  if  appealed  to. 


As  all  muscular  exertion  requires  food  to  sup- 
ply the  waste  of  the  system,  the  more  quiet  bees 
can  be  kept,  the  less  they  will  eat. 


THE   AMERICAN    BEE   JOURNAL. 


195 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


WASHINGTON,   MARCH,  1870. 

^"  Though  we  have  enlarged  the  Journai;,  by 
adding  four  pages  monthly,  making  it  a  twenty-four 
page  pamphlet,  clear  of  advertisements,  we  still  fiud 
ourselves  cramped  for  want  of  room,  and  compelled 
to  "hold  over"  several  communications.  We  would 
suggest  to  correspondents  to  condense  their  articles 
as  much  as  possible.  Readers  require  variety  in  our 
columns,  and  articles  compressed  and  brief  are  all 
the  more  likely  to  be  carefully  read. 

Meeting  of  Michigan  Bee-keepers. 

13^  The  Michigan  Bee-keepers'  Association  will 
meet  at  Lansing,  (f/Iich.,)  on  the  33d  and  34th  of  this 
month,  (March.)  As  it  is  proposed  then  to  malce  ar- 
rangements for  holding  a  National  Bee-keepers^  Con- 
vejition,  it  is  desired  that  there  be  a  large  attendance 
of  bee-keepers  from  other  States,  and  from  the  Brit- 
ish Provinces. 


After  an  unusually  long  delay,  we  have  received 
the  Report  of  the  proceedings  of  the  German  Bee- 
keepers' Annual  General  Convention,  held  in  the  city 
of  Nuremberg  on  the  14th,  15th  and  16th  of  Septem- 
ber last.  Tliere  were  JDresent  four  hundred  and  tifty- 
three  bee-keepers  and  persons  int.rested  in  bee  cul- 
ture. Among  them  were  sixty-seven  deputies  from 
various  apicultural  and  agricultural  associations,  and 
a  number  of  ladies.  A  large  part  of  the  first  day 
was  devoted  to  celebrating  the  twenty-fifth  anni- 
versary of  the  establishment  of  the  "  Bienenzei- 
TUNG,"  and  conferring  merited  honorary  marks  of 
distinction  on  Mr.  Seminary-prefect  Andrew  Schmid, 
who  was  mainly  instrumental  in  starting  the  paper, 
and  who  has  edited  it  uninterruptedly  for  a  quar- 
ter of  a  centi;ry.  Want  of  room  prevents  us  fr  jm 
giving  a  detailed  account  of  what  was  done  on  the 
occasion,  when  there  seems  to  have  been  a  general 
rivalry  to  manifest  high  appreciation  of  the  ser- 
vices rendered  by  the  veteran  editor.  Though  some 
of  the  more  prominent  bee-keepers  of  Germany  were 
unable  to  attend  the  Convention,  the  discussions  were 
spirited  and  exceedingly  interesting.  We  have  marked 
a  number  of  passages  for  translation. 


We  are  at  all  times  disposed  to  allow  correspond- 
ents full  scope  in  the  expression  of  their  views  and 
opinions,  however  much  we  may  dissent  from  them, 
and  ordinarily  let  them  pass  "  without  note  or  com- 
ment." But,  in  a  matter  so  important  in  bee-culture 
as  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  Dzierzon  theory, 
of  late  so  frequently  impugned  in  this  coiantry,  we 
cannot  properly  refrain  from  reiterating  our  own 
convictions  on  suitable  occasions.  Thus,  we  hold  it 
o  be  a  matter  settled  physiologically  that  impregna- 


tion does  not  afl'ect  th*  drone  progeny  of  a  queen, 
and  that,  consequently,  in  every  case,  the  drones  pro- 
duced by  a  queen  are  the  infallible  indicators  of  her 
oion  character  and  quality.  If  a  supposed  full-blood 
Italian  queen  be  fertilized  by  a  black  drone,  and  the 
drones  produced  by  her  show  any  symptoms  of  hybridi- 
zation, however  slight,  set  her  down  in  your  register 
as  having  herself  unquestionably  an  original  or  inher- 
ited taint.  Her  drones  are  worthless  fur  breeding  pur- 
poses, where  the  introduction  or  re-establishment  of 
the  pure  Italian  race  is  aimed  at ;  and  she  is  incapa- 
ble of  producing  even  such  hybrid  workers  as  the 
breeder  looks  for,  under  the  mistaken  notion  that 
she  was  pure  prior  to  fertilization. 


We  have  received  copies  of  the  following  recent 
publications : 

Vice's  Illustrated  Catalogue  and  Floral  Guide, 
from  James  Vick,  the  veteran  seedsman,  Rochester, 
N.  Y. 

Allen's  Seed  Catalogue  for  1780,  from  R.  H. 
Allen  &  Co.,  189  and  191  Water  street.  New  York, 
N.  Y. 

Annual  Trade  List  of  the  Cherry  Hill  Nurseries, 
of  Hoopes,  Bro.  &  Thomas,  West  Chester,  Pa. 

The  Public  Ledger  Almanac  for  1870,  from  Geo. 
W.  Childs,  Philadelphia.  A  copy  of  this  almanac  is 
presented  to  each  subscriber  to  the  Public  Ledger. 

Premium  List  of  the  Mechanics  and  Agricultural 
Fair  Association  of  Louisiana,  for  the  fourth  grand 
State  Fair,  commencing  April  33d,  1870,  and  continu- 
ing nine  daj's. 

Also,  a  small  pamphlet  on  "  Bees"  and  their  man- 
agement, by  W.  &  H.  Goulding,  manure  manufac- 
turers, Cork  and  Dublin,  Ireland. 


Correspondence  of  the  Bee  Journal. 

New  Cumberland,  W.  Va.,  Jan.  33. — Bees  have 
done  very  poorly  here  for  the  last  two  years,  on  ac- 
count of  the  drouth.  I  started  two  years  ago  with 
thirty-three  stands,  and  paid  out  forty-five  dollars  tor 
Italian  bees  and  feed,  and  have  not  one  dollar  out  of 
honey  in  those  two  years.  But  I  think  that  next 
season  will  prove  a  good  one  for  bees,  as  clover 
never  looked  better  tlian  it  does  at  this  time. — Wm. 
Gregory. 

Byron,  Mich.,  Jan.  34.— I  wish  success  to  the  Bee 
Journal.  It  is  just  what  every  bee-keeper  wants. 
I  followed  the  directions  given  in  the  Bee  Jouunal 
on  feeding  bees,  to  induce  or  promote  breeding,  and 
my  bees  have  done  the  best  of  any  in  the  neighbor- 
hood ;  enough  better  than  others  to  more  than  thrice 
pay  the  price  of  the  Journal.  Bees  have  not  done 
well  here  for  the  last  two  years.  A  great  many  stocks 
will  perish  this  winter,  if  not  fed. — John  Middles- 
worth. 

East  Tilton,  N,  H.,  Jan.  26.— One  year  ago  last 
September,  I  bought  my  first  swarm  of  bees.  At  that 
time  I  could  not  tell  a  worker  from  a  drone,  or  a 
drone  from  a  queen,  nor  drone-comb  from  worker- 
comb.  But  by  the  information  and  instruction  ob- 
tained from  your  Journal,  I  not  only  soon  learned 
readily  to  detect  either,  but  even  handle  my  bees 
about  as  I  am  a-mind  to,  to  the  astonishment  of  some 


196 


THE  AMEEICAN  BEE   JOURNAL. 


of  the  old  aiim  and  8ulphur«pit  meu.  I  have  two 
stocks  with  Italian  queens,  (put  in  late  in  the  fall,) 
three  hybrids,  and  two  black  stocks.  Three  were 
douljled  up  from  six  light  stocks. 

The  past  season  was  an  extremely  poor  one  for 
bees  iu  this  vicinity.  Not  one-fourth  of  this  year's 
swarms  have  stored  honey  enough  to  winter  through  ; 
and  consequently  a  great  number  have  been  con- 
siirned  to  the  sulphur  pit.  On  account  of  drought, 
breeding  ceased  so  early  that  nearly  all  stocks  have 
gone  into  winter  quarters  very  light ;  and  the  bees 
that  survived  must  have  been  aged,  so  that  the  pros- 
pect of  wintering  well  is  rather  unfavorable. 

Success  to  the  Bee  Journal.  As  long  as  I  under- 
take to  keep  bees,  I  can  hardly  see  how  I  could  get 
along  without  it. — J.  R.  P.  Sanborn. 

Tuscola,  III.,  Jan.  26. — I  wish  to  obtain  a  little 
information  through  the  Journal.  I  have  ten  stands 
of  bees  in  old-fashioned  box  hives,  anfl  wish  to  trans- 
fer them  into  movable  comb  hives.  When  is  the 
best  time  to  transfer,  before  or  after  swarming  ?  The 
hives  I  am  making  are  similar  to  those  of  Mr.  I.  F. 
Tillinghast,  only  mine  are  18}/^  inches  square  inside, 
and  123^  inches  deep.  I  intend  to  put  my  honey- 
boxes  in  the  end  or  side,  and  would  ask  Mr.  Tilling- 
hast how  he  makes  his  division-board  so  that  the 
bees  can  get  to  the  boxes,  and  how  he  makes  the 
entrances  to  his  honey-boxes  ?  Will  it  do  to  put  the 
frames  broadside  to  "the  entrance?  Do  you  have  a 
honey-board  on  the  top  of  your  frames  during  the 
summer?  The  bee  fever  is  at  considerable  height 
here.— H.  C.  Dukborow. 

Dalton,  Ohio,  Jan.  24. — I  have  been  a  reader  of 
the  Bee  Journal  for  a  short  time,  and  cannot  speak 
too  highly  of  its  merits  ;  but  as  I  am  only  a  beginner 
in  bee-culture,  I  would  say  that  the  readers  of  this 
cnrrespondence  must  not  expect  anything  new.  I  will 
only  give  some  of  my  experience,  while  at  the  same 
time  I  would  like  to  have  some  comments  pn  ray  letter 
from  some  of  the  brethren  who  have  more  experience 
in  this  line. 

My  experience  is  limited  to  one  summer.  In  the 
sprinjj;  of  1869,  I  bought  a  colony  of  common  black 
bees  in  a  comcion  square  box.  In  the  latter  part  of 
May  I  formed  an  artificial  colony  on  a  system  highly 
recommended  by  Mr.  Langstroth.  Some  time  in  July 
I  bought  an  Italian  queen,  and  introduced  her  into 
the  artificial  colony,  which  was  doing  very  well  at 
this  time.  I  saved  the  common  black  queen  until  I 
was  sure  that  the  Italian  queen  was  accepted  by  the 
colony.  I  now  formed  a  second  artificial  colony  from 
the  first  stock,  giving  it  the  queen  I  had  saved.  It  did 
very  well.  I  assured  myself  that  all  had  queens  ;  after 
which  I  took  a  trip  to  Tennessee  for  two  weeks.  I 
was  pleased  with  my  success  thus  far;  but  imagine' 
my  surprise  when  1  came  home  and  found  my  parent 
slock  infested  with  the  bee-moth,  so  much  th.it  1  could 
not  save  it,  as  it  was  in  a  square  box,  and  I  conse- 
quently had  no  control  of  the  combs.  I  forced  out 
what  few  bees  were  left  iu  the  second  artificial  colony, 
emptied  the  old  square  box,  broke  up  and  melted 
the  comb  with  moth  and  all.  Having  tlius  avenged 
myself,  I  turned  my  attention  to  the  two  remaining 
colonies,  which  seemed  to  gather  a  good  deal  of  honey. 
Several  weeks  later,  one  of  my  neighbors  allowed 
my  Italian  colony  to  rob  one  of  his  weak  stocks,  thus 
spoiling  them  ;  for  having  robbed  his,  they  made  an 
attack  "on  my  colony,  and  carried  away  the  greater 
portion  of  its  stores  before  my  discovery.  I  closed  my 
attacked  colony  for  two  or  three  days  ;  but  upon  open- 
ing it  again,  the  Italians  renewed  the  attack.  Its  loss, 
however,  was  my  Italian's  gain.  I  now  have  one  good 
colony  of  Italian  bees,  witFi  which  I  propose  to  Ital- 
ianize some  common  stocks.  I  intend  to  buy  some 
black  bees,  providing  I  can  Italianize:  them  without 


going  to  the  expense  of  buying  queens  for  every  col- 
ony. It  seems  to  me  that  I  could  Italianize  half  a 
dozen  or  more  from  the  one  I  now  have,  if  I  only 
knew  how.  Will  some  one  oblige  a  beginner  by  in- 
forming him  seasonably  of  the  best  mode  of  doing  it  i 
— J.  Rudy  Roebi-ck. 

Shell  Bluff,  Yazoo  River,  Miss.,  Jan.  24.— Since 
JanuAry  1.5th,  the  bees  in  this  section  have  been  hard 
at  work,  carrying  large  quantities  of  pollen.  I  think 
they  gather  it  principally  from  the  maples,  as  the 
tops  of  those  trees  seem  to  be  alive  with  bees.  The 
thermometer  stands  at  5  p.m.  to-day  at  73°  F.,  so  you 
see  the  weather  is  quite  warm.  It  makes  one  very 
sad  to  see  the  little  fellows  going  in  with  their  heavy 
loads,  when  we  know  that  all  their  brood  must  perish, 
and  that  they  are  but  shortening  their  own  lives  by 
this  extra  work.  Ton  know  that  I  have  foul  brood — 
that  terrible  scourge,  in  my  apiary  ;  bitt  I  hope  that 
through  the  kindness  of  friends,  I  shall  be  able  to 
send  some  good  news  to  you,  Mr.  Editor,  before  many 
days.  In  the  meantime,  I  would  say  to  the  readers 
of  the  Bee  Joitrnal,  as  we  are  beginning  a  new  year, 
let  us  work  hard  for  the  prosperity  of  this  our  pet ;  for 
who  is  there  of  us  who  does  not  feel  that  the  Bee 
JoiTRNAL  is  a  part  of  his  family  ?  Let  every  one  of  us 
send  in  at  least  one  new  name.  This  is  small,  but 
it  will  accomplish  much  for  our  favorite. — W.  H. 
Morgan. 

Wenham,  Mass.,  Feb.  10.— On  page  172,  in  the 
February  number,  can  be  fotmd  a  communication 
from  Mr.  D.  T.  Batcheldor,  of  Newburyport,  Mass., 
giving  his  experience  with  his  first  hive  of  bees.  Mr. 
B.  says:  "I  took  them  to  the  county  fair,  and  there 
obtained  the  first  premium  of  four  dollars.  There  were 
three  orfoiirold  hee-keepers  present,  with  their  experience 
and  new  style  of  hives,  and  friend  Alley  with  the  rest. 
All  said  that  their  bees  did  nothing  this  year,  and  we 
must  try  again,  and  see  Avho  will  win."  Now  the 
foregoing  statement  is  far  from  being  correct ;  and 
any  one  on  reading  the  article  would  suppose  that 
"  friend  Alley"  was  at  the  Fair  and  made  the  best  show 
that  lie  could  in  the  "  bee  line."  Well,  I  was  present 
at  the  County  Fair,  and  had  an  observing  hive  with 
me,  merely  to  show  the  queen  bee,  and  to  do  my  part 
towards  amusing  the  people  who  attended  the  Fair. 
My  bees  were  not  entered  for  a  premium,  nor  did  I 
expect  one. 

Mr.  D.  C.  Batcheldor,  of  Newburyport,  brother  of 
the  gentleman  named  above,  had  a  stock  of  bees  on 
exhibition,  in  one  of  my  new  style  Langstroth  hives. 
Last  season  (18G9)  they  stored  at  least  forty  pounds 
of  honey  in  small  boxes,  besides  casting  ofl  a  large 
swarm  that  filled  its  hive  with  new  comb,  and  stored 
honey  enough  to  winter.  Nor  was  this  all.  On  the 
first  day  of  June  one  of  the  combs  in  the  brood-box 
broke  down  and  destroyed  more  than  two  quarts  of 
the  bees.  This  hive  was  exhibited  with  all  tlie  boxes 
in  it,  but  had  the  outside  case  removed  so  that  the 
boxes  could  be  seen,  and  all  of  them  (30)  had  more 
or  less  honey  in  them. 

Mr.  B.  says  that  he  obtained  the  first  premium,  of 
four  dollars.  I  do  not  see  how  he  secured  a  premium 
on  his  bees,  wh6n  none  was  offered  by  the  society. 
The  sum  of  six  dollars  only  was  divided  between  four 
bee-keepers  ;  and  this  was  only  done  to  partly  pay 
for  the  trouble  of  putting  the  bees  into  the  hall  and 
taking  theiu  out  again.  Of  the  above-named  sum  Mr. 
^  D.  T.^Batcheldor 'received  $2  ;  D.  C.  Batcheldor,  *2  ; 
Alfred  Green,  $1 ;  and  "  friend  Alley  "  $1.  Now  Mr. 
B.  you  must  try  again  before  you  can  "  win." 

I  wish  to  say  that  I  have  received  several  letters  to 
which  I  could  not  reply  because  no  name  of  town  or 
State  was  given.  Two  letters  received  last  fall  were 
not  answered  for  the  same  reason — one  from  Joseph 
A.  Brown,  and  the  other  from  a  Mr.  Ci'ane.  Corres- 
pondents will  please  take  the  hint. — H.  Alley. 


I 


iiERicAN  Bee  Journal. 


EDITED  AND  PUBLISHED  BY  SAMUEL  WAGNEE,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

AT    TWO   DOLLARS   PER   ANNUM,    PAYABLE   IN    ADVANCE. 


Vol.  V. 


AP»TiIL,     IS'TO. 


No.  10. 


Fancied  Faults  of  Italian  Bees. 

Translated  for  the  American  Bee  Journal. 


At  the  German  Bee-keepers'  Convention  at  Nu- 
remberg:, in  September  last,  Mr.  Kaden,  an  old 
apiarian,  a  time-honored  correspondent  of  the 
'■•  Bienenseitung.,''''  and  a  warm  admirer  of  the 
Italian  bees,  stated  tliat  "  it  must  be  conceded  that 
these  bees  have  some  midesirable  qualities.  First, 
among  these,  is  an  aptitude  to  change  their  queens. 
He  had  l^nown  a  colonj^  to  make  such  changes 
thre|^ times  in  the  course  of  a  single  summer,  with- 
out swarming.  Secondly,  the.y  manifested  a  strong 
jiiopcnsity  to  build  drone  combs.  Not  only  will 
tirst  swarms  build  such  combs,  but  even  second 
swarms,  and  artificial  colonies  with  young  queens, 
Avill  do  so.  And,  thirdly,  Italian  colonies  are 
usually  less  populous  in  the  spring,  than  those  of 
black  bees."  When  asked,  if  this  be  so,  why  he 
s'iil  cultivated  the  Italian  bees,  he  said,  first  be- 
cause of  their  beautj^  and  gentleness — qualities 
always  overpoweringly  attractive,  for  above  ;ill 
things  he  dreads  the  want  of  gentleness  in  bees. 
as  well  as  ladies  !  Secondly,  for  the  means  af 
forded  by  them,  of  producing  hybrid  stock,  which, 
for  productiveness, he  preferred  to  the  pure  breeds, 
whether  honey  or  wax  was  the  object. 

In  reply,  Dzierzon  said,  "  Undouliledly  there  is 
nothing  perfect  beneath  the  sun,  and  the-It;i!ian 
bee  too  may  have  some  qualities  not  exactly  de- 
sirable. Nevertheless,  I  regard  it  as  the  best 
of  the  known  varieties,  and  apprehend  the  last 
speaker  mu.st  have  looked  through  glasses  some- 
what discolored,  to  have  seen  souuiny  serious  ob- 
jections. First,  he  complains  of  frequent  change 
of  queens.  This  may  be  so  under  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances, and  from  various  causes,  to  one  of 
Avhieh  I  will  here  advert.  Whf-n  a  queen  is  in- 
troduced into  a  colony,  we  cannot  always  be  sure 
of  what  takes  place.  She  mayM-eceive  some  in- 
jury not  immediately  fatal,  but  sooner  or  later  re- 
sulting in  her  death,  and  tlius  necessarily  produc- 
ing a  change.  But  I  can  give  the  assurance  that , 
in  the  course  of  last  summer,  in  all  my  colonics 
not  a  single  queen  was  superseded,  and  not  one 
perished  ;  though  in  former  years  this  has  some- 
times happened.  It  may  be  true  also  that  Italian 
queens  do  not  attain  to  the  age  which  black  queens 
ordinaiily  reach  ;  but  this  springs  from  their  su- 


perior fertility.  They  lay  tlie  same  number  of 
eggs  as  others,  but  in  a  much  shorter  period  ; 
which  I  regard  as  a  decided  advantage. 

It  is  also  objected  that  the  Italian  bees  do  not 
suit  a  district  with  early  spring  pasturage,  the 
colonies  being  then  comparatively  weak.  An  ad- 
vantage rather,  I  conceive.  The  Italian^  cease 
brooding  earlier  in  the  fall,  and  ajiplj' their  extra- 
ordinary industry  to  the  accumulation  of  stores 
while  pasturage  is  diminishing  ;  and  thus,  though 
less  populous,  are  well  supplied  for  the  winter. 
Whereas  the  black  bees,  occupied  with  nursing 
their  brood,  gather  coni]i;iratively  little,  and,  with 
many  bees,  may  be  in  wmit  lief'ore  spring.  The 
Italians,  in  their  zeal  for  honey-gathering,  may 
indeed'venture  out  in  unpropitious  wa^ather  in  the 
fall,  and  many  may  thus  be  lost ;  but  it  is  this 
trait  precisely  that  enables  them  to  produce  such 
extraordinarj'  results  when  pasturage  aboundsand 
the  weather  is  favorable. 

Again,  the  Italian  bees  are  charged  with  a  pro- 
pensit}'  to  build  drone  combs.  Now,  I  have  set 
uji  f<n-  trial  pure  colonies  of  both  kinds,  and  the 
issue  was  just  the  reverse  of  tills.  I  have  found 
no  such  propensity  among  the  Italians,  and  have 
had  to  insert  drone  combs  in  their  hives,  when  a 
supplj'  of  drones  became  desirable  ;  because  the 
bees  in  those  colonies  did  not,  of  tlieir  own  ac- 
cord, build  such  combs. 

I  am  thus  constrained  to  differ  from  the  last 
speaker,  in  these  particulars,  and  must  continue 
to  regard  the  Italian  bee  as  superior  to  any  other 
of  the  known  varieties,  and  the  best  of  the  culti- 
vated breed." 

Mr  Fiitterer  next  remarked, "  It  is  urged  against  ^ 
tlie  Italian  bees  that  they  change  their  queens  fie- 
quently.  Judging  from  my  own  experience,  I 
must  "doulit  this. ''  I  have  cultivated  these  bees 
ab.  ut  twelve  ytars,  and  have  had  no  reason  to 
e(;mplain  of  such  changes.  They  maj^  have  oc- 
curred to  otliers,and  I  will  endeavor  to  show,  brief- 
ly how  they  maj'  be  accounted  for.  An  enthusias- 
tic bee  keeper  buys  a  fine  large  yellow  queen— a 
prime  article — and  introduces  her  in  one  of  his 
colonies.  Every  few  da3rs  he  is  visited  by  some 
brother  bee-keeper,  to  whom  of  course  the  si)leiidid 
stranger  must  be  shown.  The  hive  is  opened,  the 
woikers  more  or  less  irritated,  and  the  beautiful 
queen  exhibited  and  then  returned  to  her  domi- 


10 


198 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


cile.  The  bees  are  aroused  and  in  a^grj  commo- 
tion on  each  occasion  ;  but  the  liive  is  tinally 
closed,  and  the  owner  wallvs  ofFsatisfied  and  grati- 
fied, readj'  to  repeat  the  exliibition  day  after  day, 
"to  please  admiring  friends.  Ultimately  however, 
amid  all  this  disregarded  humming  and  bustle,  her 
majesty  is  attacked,  enclosed  by  the  workers,  and 
killed  !  Now  who  is  at  fault  ?  Obviously  the  bee- 
keeper himself  !  Italian  queens  are  not  more 
liable  to  be  attacked  and  killed,  than  others. 

As  regards  the  objection  that  the  Italians  are 
inordinately  prone  to  build  drone  combs,  I  agree 
with  Dzierzon  that  it  is  unfounded,  for  my  expe- 
rience coincides  with  his.  If  an  Italian  colony  is 
properly  managed,  the  workers  will  not  build 
more  drone  comb,  than  black  bees  will  in  like  cir- 
cumstances. By  improper  management,  doubt- 
less, undesirable  qualities  may  be  developed  in 
those  bees,  as  in  others  ;  but  what  some  may  re- 
gard as  an  objection,  others  will  perhaps  con.sider 
an  advantage.  Thus,  for  instance,  with  me  it  is 
desirable  that  my  bees  should  secure  large  stores 
of  honey  in  the  fall,  and  many  Italian  workers 
may  be  lost  in  their  late  excursions.  The  result 
is  that  I  have  less  populous  hives  in  the  fall  than 
my  neighbor,  who  has  only  black  bees,  in  popu- 
lous hives,  with  much  less  honey.  I  have  not  so 
many  bees  to  carry  through  the  winter  ;  and  when 
the  swarming  season  arrives,  my  colonies  are  quite 
as  strong  as  his,  the  superior  fertility  of  the  Italian 
queens  having  speedily  replenished  the  hives." 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

The  Italian  Bees  Again. 

I  have  received  three  eommunications  or  in- 
quiries, and  all  three  of  about  this  purport — "  Mr. 
Gallup,  I  wish  your  candid  opinion  of  the  Italian 
bees.  I  have  tried  them,  and  do  not  find  them  to 
come  up  to  the  recommendation.  In  fact  they 
have  not  done  near  as  well  as  my  black  bees," 
&c. 

Now  these  correspondents  are  no  doubt  perfect- 
ly honest  in  their  conclusions  ;  but  they  have  been 
deceived.  Two  seasons  ago  I  procured  three 
queens  from  a  certain  party,  who  advertised  cheap 
queens,  and  my  neighbor,  Mr.  Wright,  obtained 
three  from  the  same  pai'ty.  My  "three  queens 
would  not  breed  as  fa.st  as  one  ordinary  prolific 
queen  ;  in  fact  they  could  not  breed  fast  enough 
to  keep  up  the  strength  of  the  stocks,  leaving  in- 
crease or  profit  out  of  view.  Neither  could  I  or 
did  I  succeed  in  raising  prolific  queens  from  them. 
Mr.  Wright's  turned  out  worse  than  mine.  To 
use  his  own  language,  they  did  not  pay  the  trans- 
portation ;  they  ruined  the  stocks  they  were  in- 
troduced to.  A  Mr.  Johnson  and  Mr.  Drake,  of 
Brownsville,  in  this  county,  procured  queens  from 
a  certain  party  in  ]M .  They  were  war- 
ranted pure,  but,  allowing  me  to  be  a  judge  of 
their  purity  (and  I  saw  them),  they  were  a  re- 
cross  from  a  cross  ;  and  it  was  hard  to  tell  whether 
th§y  were  any  better  than  the  blacks.  But  of  one 
thing  we  were  sure,  they  were  as  cross  as  ven- 
geance !  Then  there  was  another  party  at  Da- 
cotah  in  this  State,  who  scattered  pure  Italians 
broad-cast ;  and  I  saw  several  of  those  stocks  in 
difl'erent  parts  of  the  State.  The  owners  of  them 
informed  me  that  they  could  not  discover  that 


they  were  any  better  than  black  bees.  Now,  for 
a  description.  They  were  a  mere  shade  lighter 
tlian  common  blacks,  and  a  few  in  each  swarm 
showed  a  slight  stripe.  The  owners  purchased 
them  for  pure  Italians,  and  not  knowing'to  the 
contrary,  judged  from  them  that  the  Italians  are 
a  humbug. 

In  the  first  place,  a  queen  breeder  that  intends 
to  keep  up  his  reputation  should  breed  from  none 
but  stock  of  undoubted  purity.  He  should  breed 
from  prolific  queens,  and  avoid  breeding  in  and 
in  as  much  as  possible.  As  Mr.  Benedict  says, 
we  can  breed  stripes  on  to  our  bees  (and  I  do  not 
in  the  least  doubt  this),  so  we  can  by  careful 
breeding  raise  our  stock  up  to  produce  prolific 
queens. 

To  the  person  who  is  unacquainted  with  tlie 
Italians,  I  Avould  say,  procure  your  first  queen 
from  some  old  experienced  breeder,  one  who  has 
already  established  a  reputation  ;  for  it  is  in  the 
end  cheaper  to  pay  even  twenty  dollars  for  a  qtieen, 
and  be  sure  that  she  is  a  good  one  in  every  respect^ 
than  to  ohtaina  poor  one  as  a  present. 

If  I  had  known  nothing  about  Italian  bees,  and 
formed  an  opinion  of  them  from  the  queens  ob- 
tained by  Mr.  Wright  and  myself,  I  should  in  all 
probability  have  condemned  them. 

You  will  see  in  the  Bee  Journal,  an  account  of 
my  experience  with  the  Italians  the  past  season,, 
as  also  with  the  blacks,  and  the  cross  breeds  ;  and 
the  Italians  have  demonstrated  their  superiority 
beyond  a  possible  chance  of  mistake. 

E.  Gai^tjp. 

Orchard,  loica. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Italians  versus  Black  Bees. 


It  is  ten  years  since  the  Italian  bee  was  first 
imported.  The  question  was  then  asked — "  Is  it 
any  better  than  the  black  bee,  or  is  it  a"humbug  ? 
a  mere  scheme  for  money  making !"  And 
strange  to  say,  notwithstanding  that  variety  is 
so  widely  disseminated,  the  same  question  is 
still  asked  by  many  anxious  inquirers.  Skilful 
ai)i:>rians,  men  who  have  given  both  liinds  a 
chance  to  be  judged  of  by  their  fruits,  have  I 
believe  to  a  man  given  the  preference  to  the 
Italians.  But  the  more  Avitnesses  the  better,  and 
hence  I  wish  to  add  my  experience. 

I  am  frequently  in  receipt  of  letters  a.sking 
how  I  like  the  Italians,  and  whether  I  find  them 
superior  to  black  ))ees ;  and  without  doubt  other 
apiarians  are  besieged  with  similar  inquiries. 
Courtesy  requires  that  such  letters  be  answered, 
no  matter  what  the  hurry  of  business;  and  an 
ordinary  letter  can  cover  but  a  small  amount  of 
the  ground  necessary  to  be  gone  over  to  tell  why 
our  preference  is  so  much  for  the  Italians.  Allow 
me,  Mr.  Editor,  to  answer,  so  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned, many  of  these  letters  at  once,  through 
the  medium  of  your  excellent  Journal,  that  in 
future  it  will  only  be  necessary. to  say  to  such 
inquirers — "5ce  American  Bee  Journal  for 
April,  1870." 

Experience  alone  can  demonstrate  the  truth- 
fulness of  theory,  and  I  am  free  to  give  mine  if 
any  one  will  be  benefited  or  instructed  thereby. 
Ctmcluding  that  twenty  (20)  years'  experience 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


199 


with  bees,  and  reading  everything  I  could  obtain 
on  the  subject,  liad  qualified  nie  to  manage  them, 
I  purchased  two  Italian  queens  and  began  the 
work  of  Italianizing  in  the  summer  of  1800.  In 
the  spring  of  1807,  I  had  thirteen  colonies  of 
Italian  and  forty-seven  of  black  bees.  Now  for 
the  result.  From  one  of  my  Italian  colonies, 
I  obtained  three  swarms  (that  wintered)  and 
eighty  pounds  of  honey  ;  about  fifty  pounds  of 
this  was  stored  by  the  first  young  swarm,  and 
the  balance  (thirty  pounds)  by  the  stock,  after 
casting  the  three  swarms.  Other  of  the  Italian 
stocks  did  nearly  as  well.  The  poorest  one  gave 
me  two  swarms  and  twenty  pounds  surplus. 
The  best  stock  among  my  forty-seven  black  colo- 
nies, gave  me  one  swarm  and  thirty  pounds  of 
surplus ;  and  I  had  about  a  dozen  slocks  that 
gave  me  no  swarms  nor  an  ounce  of  honey.  One 
second  swarm  of  Italians  tilled  its  hive  and  gave 
me  twenty  pounds  of  surplus,  while  not  even  a 
first  swarm  among  the  blacks  stored  a  pound  of 
surplus. 

I  closed  the  season  with  one  hundred  and 
twenty  colonies,  all  Italians,  which  I  wintered 
without  loss.  The  following  May  and  the  first 
half  of  June  proved  wet  and  cold,  and  very  little 
honey  was  secreted  in  the  few  flowers  that  did 
bloom.  The  store  of  honey  became  exhausted, 
and  many  of  my  colonies  were  on  the  verge  of 
starvation  ;  and  here  a  point  of  excellence  in  the 
Italians  presented  itself,  which  I  did  not  expect. 
For  a  number  of  years  I  had  been  more  annoyed 
by  my  bees  deserting  their  hives  in  the  spring, 
when  their  stores  of  honey  became  low,  than 
from  all  other  causes  combined.  The  depreda- 
tions of  the  wax  moth  and  loss  of  queens  sunk 
into  insignificance  in  comparison  with  this  vol- 
untary desertion  of  the  hives,  by  colonies,  and 
this  sometimes  while  several  pounds  of  honey 
yet  remained.  Apparently  nothing  but  the  fear 
of  want  caused  them  to  sally  out  and  try  to  ob- 
tain entrance  in  other  colonies,  which,  if  they 
succeeded  in  doing,  they  were  sure  to  be  slaugh- 
tered to.  the  last  bee.  But  when  I  succeeded  in 
preventing  entrance  to  other  colonies,  and  re- 
turned them  to  their  own  hive,  the  only  sure 
way  of  making  them  stay,  was  to  deprive  them 
of  their  queen  for  a  week  or  two  at  least,  in 
which  situation  they  would  construct  royal  cells, 
and  the  mania  for  deserting  their  combs  would 
pass  away.  Then  liberal  feeding,  if  the  flowers 
had  not  begun  to  yield  honey,  would  set  matters 
right ;  and  by  fall  such  stocks  would  be  in  good 
condition,  but  have  yielded  no  profit.  But  I 
have  observed  that  the  Italians  "stick  to  the 
castle  ;"  and  I  have  never  had  any  Italian  colony 
offer  to  desert  its  home,  though  I  have  tested 
them  severely  on  this  point.  I  cannot  account 
for  this  difference,  unless  it  be  their  superior 
attachment  to  their  brood,  or  a  consciousness 
that  if  the  flowers  opened  while  life  remains,  they 
are  abundantly  able  to  supply  all  their  wants. 
I  do  not  know  whether  the  experience  of  others 
is  similar  to  mine,  in  this  particular,  or  not,  as  I 
do  not  remember  to  have  seen  a  reference  to  it 
from  any  of  j'our  numerous  and  able  corres- 
pondents. 

But  Mr.  A ,  a  man  of  limited  experience 

with   bees,  and   with  very  limited   force  in  any 


enterprise,  "Jias  tried  the  Italians  and  does  not 
like  them,"  thinks  they  "aint  quite  so  good  as 
blacks."  Now  such  men  do  not  take  the  Bee 
Journal,  and  it  would  be  useless  for  me  to  give 
my  opinion  of  them  as  mighty  poor  bee-men,  for 
they  would  not  "  see  themselves  as  others  see 
them."  But  there  are  other  men  who  believe 
that  what  is  worth  doing  at  all  is  worth  doing 
well^  and  if  the  honey  bee  will  pay  for  cultivating, 
that  is  the  best  kind  which  i^ays  the  best — the 
ultimate  ol)ject  being  to  obtain  honey  of  the  best 
quality  for  the  table  or  for  market. 

The  difference  of  conclusion  arrived  at  by  dif- 
ferent men,  to  my  mind,  springs  from  the  different 
degrees  of  fertility  of  the  first  queens  obtained. 
Every  apiarian  is  aware  of  the  fact  that  there  is 
a  great  difference  in  the  fertility  of  the  queens  in 
his  own  apiary.  Some  are  marvels  of  produc- 
tiveness, while  others  deserve  no  better  fate  than 
to  have  their  heads  pinched  off  at  sight.  The 
queen  is  the  mainspring  of  the  colony,  and  the 
more  productive  she  is,  the  more  energy  Avill  the 
workers  display  in  bringing  in  pollen  and  honey. 
The  two  queens  I  first  purchased  were  intro- 
duced to  colonies  of  black  bees.  One  proved  to 
be  wonderfully  productive,  while  the  other  was 
worthless  and  was  superseded  before  fall.  Had 
I  possessed  only  the  queen  last  referred  to,  I 
should  have  formed  a  very  poor  opinion  of  the 
Italians.  And  just  here  a  remark  of  the  lamented 
Varro  comes  to  mind,  viz.,  that  "  if  queen  breed- 
ers would  sell  fewer  queens,  and  at  a  higher 
price,  and  know  themselves  the  quality  of  the 
stock,  it  would  be  much  better  for  the  pur- 
chaser." 

Lest  this  article  become  too  long  to  be  accepta- 
ble, I  will  close  by  saying,  from  the  experience 
of  the  last  four  years,  I  prefer  the  Italians  to 
black  bees,  and  consider  them  superior  in  every 
respect.  W.  J.  Davis. 

Youngsville^  Pa.^  March  3,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  .Tc 

Chloroforming  Bees. 


lal.] 


It  appears  from  an  extract  from  the  Southern 
Cullmaior,  which  appeared  in  the  last  January 
number  of  the  Bee  Journal,  that  Dr.  A.  Love 
killed  his  bees  by  quieting  them  with  chloroform. 
"What  else  could  be  expected  from  a  doctor? 
Killing  belongs  to  the  trade  !  They  frequently 
give  an  overdose.  Chloroform  may  be  safely 
used  in  proper  quantity  for  quieting  bees.  As  an 
agent  for  introducing  queens  I  have  found  it  very 
effectual.  The  quantity  used  should  never  ex- 
ceed one-fourth  of  an  ounce,  and  even  that  quan- 
tity may  be  found  too  large  if  the  hive  is  tight 
and  all  the  fumes  are  retained  in  the  hive  among 
the  bees.  It  is  not  best  to  give  so  much  as  to 
make  the  bees  fall  down  out  of  the  combs,  be- 
cause if  so,  many  of  them  would  get  a  doctor's 
dose.  Not  dead  drunk,  but  simply  drunk,  is  all 
they  require.  J.  11.  Thomas. 

BrooMin,  Ontario. 

Second  swarms  usually  issue  nine  days  after 
the  first,  although  they  have  been  known  to  issue 
as  early  as  third  and  as  late  as  the  seventeenth, 
but  such  cases  are  very  rare. — Langstroth. 


200 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American*  1 

Yellow  Bands. 


Jourual.] 


On  pn,i;e  141,  are  two  columns  of  questions, 
quiM-if's,  and  answers.  Lina,  Baroness  of  Ber- 
]('[is(li,  siys — "The  Italian  bee  bred  in  Italy  has 
j;fnrially  but  two  yellow  bands,  and,  including 
tlie  narrow  strip  next  the  thorax,  three.  But 
Dzierzon  has  raised  a  much  more  beautiful  race. 
Tlie  workers  of  his  full-blooded  bees  have  three 
yellow  bands,  exclusive  of  the  narrow  strip." 

In  the  next  column.  Querist  asks— "Are  three 
yellow  bands  a  proper  test  ?"  Mr.  Nesbit  answers 
■ — "That  is  considered  a  test  by  the  best  apiarians 
both  in  America  and  in  Europe."  This  answer 
is  hardly  satisfactory,  because  it  involves  still  an- 
other test.  We  want  to  know  what  constitutes 
the  beM?  I  have  asked  this  question  before.  We 
want  this  as  a  test  for  them,  that  we  may  know 
whom  to  follow. 

Dzierzon's  "full-blooded  bees  have  three  bands 
exclusive  of  the  narrow  strip  "  But  in  Italy, 
where  these  very  bees  were  obtained,  they  have 
but  two  ;  and  now,  after  he  has  succeeded  in 
breeding,  through  several  generations,  a  lighter 
color  than  the  original,  should  he  advertise  that 
four  bands  were  the  only  test  of  purity,  and  con- 
sidered so  "by  the  best  apiarians,"  and  the  pure 
are  in  his  hands  and  you  must  come  to  him  for 
them,  it  would  be  as  consistent  as  very  many  of 
our  folks  are.  When  we  find  who  "  the  best  api- 
arians" are,  we  will  inquire  of  them  if  it  is  pos- 
sible for  any  of  those  of  our  imported  queens  that 
come  from  a  district  ichere  no  blackbees  are  known, 
are  pure,  althougii  they  show  less  than  four 
bands  ?  or  if  those  that  Mr.  Orimm  imported  and 
described  are  so? 

It  is  possible  that  very  light  bees  may  be  pure  ; 
but  I  dislike  the  idea  of  denying  parentage  because 
of  a  change.  Possibly  this  very  change  in  cohn- 
— call  it  improvement — may  prove  a  degeneracy 
in  vigor.  We  can  trace  great  changes  in  tlie  vege- 
table kingdom.  In  the  rose,  dahlia,  and  hundreds 
of  other  flowers,  the  five  petals,  by  means  of  the 
stamens,  are  multiplied  to  hundreds,  increasing 
the  beauty,  but  at  the  expense  of  the  seeds.  I 
hope  that  as  we  increase  the  beauty  of  our  queens 
by  pale  golden  tints,  we  shall  not,  in  the  same 
ratio,  decrease  their  fertility. 

Gravenhorst,  who  has  sent  ver}'  many  of  our 
queens  to  us,  says,  "  We  liave  paid  much  less  re- 
gard to  color  than  to  other  qualities,  such  as  ac- 
tivity, industry,  prolificness,  disposition,  &c." 

Although  puritj'  is  so  easily  proved  bj'  the  "  best 
Skpiarists,"  can  it  be  as  easily  shown  that  these 
very  pure  ones  of  fourth  proof  show  any  better 
results,  store  more  honej^,  increase  faster,  behave 
better,  defend  themselves  with  more  vigor,  or  on 
the  whole  possess  more  desirable  qualities?  Let 
us  look  to  this.  M.  Quinby. 

jSt.  Johnsville,  iV.  Y. 

It  is  a  wise  arrangement  that  the  second  swarm 
does  not  ordinarily  issue  until  all  the  eggs  lelt  by 
the  fiist  queen  are  hatched,  and  the  young  mostly 
sealed  over,  so  as  to  require  no  fnrther  feeding. 
Its  departure  earlier  than  this,  would  leave  too  fev,- 
laborers  to  attend  to  the  wants  of  the  young  bees. 
— Langstroth. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

The  Indian  Bees. 

]Mr  Editor  :— The  article  in  the  Jotjknal  for 
November,  on  the  '•'  Ferocity  of  the  Indian  Bees," 
is  not  calculated  to  inspire  one  Avith  a  longing  de- 
sire to  obtain  them.  One  statement,  however, 
gives  me  some  hope  that  they  may  be  domesti- 
cated, viz.:  "the  nests  in  the  church  steeple." 
This  is  a  favorite  resort  with  our  black  bees, 
and  probably  with  the  Italian,  and  leads  me  to 
hope  that  they  have  other  habits  in  common.  It 
may  be  that  the  apis  dorsnta  in  India  is  more 
dangerous  than  those  in  the  islands  of  the  Malay 
archipelago.  The  following,  taken  fmm  the 
"  Malay  Archij^elago,'''  bj?-  Alfred  Eussell  Wallace, 
will  doubtless  interest  many  of  your  subscribers  : 
Of  the  products  and  exports  of  tlie  island  of 
Timor,  he  states:  "Besides  ponies,  almost  the 
only  exports  of  Timor  are  sandal  wood  and  bees- 
wax. The  sandal  wood  (santalum  alb)  is  the 
produce  of  a  small  tree,  which  grows  sparingly 
in  the  mountains  of  Timor  and  many  of  the  other 
islands  of  the  far  East.  *  *  *  "The  beeswax 
is  a  still  more  important  and  valuable  product, 
formed  by  the  wild  bees,  (Apis  dorsata,)  which 
build  huge  honey  combs,  suspended  in  the  open 
air  from  the  under  side  of  the  lofty  branches  of 
the  highest  trees.  These  are  of  a  semicircular 
form,  and  often  three  or  four  feet  in  diameter. 

"I  once  saw  the  natives  take  a  bees' nest, 
and  a  very  interesting  sight  it  was.  In  the 
valley  where  I  used  to  collect  insects,  I  one  day 
saw  three  or  four  Timorese  men  and  boys  under 
a  high  tree,  and  looking  up,  saw  on  a  very  lofty 
horizontal  branch  three  large  bees'  combs.  The 
tree  was  straight  and  smooth-barked,  without  a 
branch  till  at  seventy  or  eighty  feet  from  the 
ground  it  gave  out  the  limb  which  the  bees  had 
chosen  for  their  home.  As  the  men  were  evi- 
dently looking  after  the  bees,  I  waited  to  watch 
their  operations.  One  of  them  first  produced  a 
long  piece  of  wood,  apparently  the  stem  of  a 
small  tree  or  creeper,  which  he  had  brought  with 
him,  and  began  splitting  it  through  in  several 
directitms,  which  showed  that  it  was  tough  and 
stringy.  He  then  wrapped  it  in  palm  leaves, 
which  were  secured  by  twisting  a  slender  creeper 
round  them.  He  then  fastened  his  cloth  tightly 
round  his  loins;  and,  producing  another  cloth, 
wrapped  it  round  his  head,  neck,  and  body,  and 
tied  it  firmly  lound  his  neck,  leaving  his  face, 
arms,  and  legs  completely  bare.  Slung  from  his 
girdle  he  carried  a  long  thin  coil  of  cord  ;  and 
while  he  had  been  making  these  preparations, 
one  of  his  companions  had  cut  a  strong  creep<"r 
or  bush-rope  eight  or  ten  yards  long,  to  one  end 
of  which  the  wood-torch  was  fastened  and  lighted 
at  the  bottom,  emitting  a  steady  stream  of  smoke. 
Just  above  the  torch  a  chopping-knife  was  fast- 
ened by  a  short  cord. 

"  The  bee-hunter  now  took  hold  of  the  Imsli- 
rope  just  a'love  the  torch,  and  passed  the  other 
end  round  the  trunk  of  the  tree,  holding  one  end 
in  each  hand.  Jerking  it  up  the  tree  a  little  above 
his  head,  beset  his  foot  against  the  trunk,  and 
leaning  back,  began  walking  up  it.  It  was  won- 
derful to  see  lh(;  skill  with  which  he  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  slightest  irregularities  of  the  bark 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOUKNAL. 


201 


or  obliquity  of  the  stem  to  aid  bis  ascent,  jerk- 
ing the  stilf  creeper  a  few  feet  higher  wlien  he 
found  he  liad  a  firm  hold  for  his  bare  feet.  It 
almost  made  me  giddy  to  look  at  him  as  he  rap- 
idly got  up— thirty— forty— fifty  feet  above  the 
ground  ;  and  I  kept  -wonderiag  how  he  could 
possibly  mount  the  next  few  feet  of  straight, 
smootli  iruiik.  Still,  however,  he  kept  on,  with  as 
much  coolness  and  apparent  certainty  as  if  he 
were  going  up  a  ladder,  till  he  got  within  ten  or 
fifteen  feet  of  the  bees.  Then  he  stopped  a  mo- 
ment, and  took  care  to  swing  the  torch  (which 
hung  just  at  his  feet)  a  little  towarde  those  dan- 
gerous insects,  so  as  to  send  up  the  stream  of 
smoke  bttweeu  him  and  them.  Still  goiiig  on, 
in  a  minute  more  he  brought  himself  under  the 
limb;  and,  in  a  manner  quite  unintelligible  tome, 
Si-eing  that  both  hands  were  occui)ied  in  support- 
ing himself  by  the  creeper,  managed  to  get  upon 

"By  this  time  the  bees  began  to  be  alarmed, 
and  formed  a  dense  buzzing  swarm  just  over 
him  ;  but  he  brought  the  torch  up  closer  to  him, 
and  cooll}^  brushed  away  those  that  settled 
on  .his  arms  or  legs.  Then  stretching  himself 
along  the  limb,  he  crept  towards  the  nearest  comb 
and  swung  the  torch  just  under  it.  The  moment 
the  smoke  touched  it,  its  color  changed  in  a  most 
curious  manner  from  black  to  white,  the  myriads 
of  bees  tliat  had  covered  it  flying  ofi'and  forming 
a  dense  cloud  above  and  around.  The  man  lay 
at  full  length  aloiig  the  limb,  and  brushed  ofl'  the 
remaining  bees  with  his  hand  ;  and  then,  drawing 
his  knife,  cut  off"  the  comb  at  one  slice  close  to  the 
tree,  and  attaching  the  thin  cord  to  it,  let  it  clown 
to  his  companions  below.  He  was  all  this  time 
enveloped  in  a  crowd  of  angry  bees,  and  how  he 
bore  their  stings  so  coolly  and  went  on  with  his 
work  at  that  giddy  height  so  deliberately  was 
more  than  I  could  understand.  The  bees  were 
not  evidently  stupefied  by  the  smoke  or  driven 
away  far  by  it,  and  it  was  impossible  that  the 
small  stream  from  the  torch  could  protect  his 
whole  body  when  at  work.  There  were  three 
other  combs  on  the  same  tree,  and  all  were  suc- 
cessfully taken,  and  furnished  the  whole  party 
with  a  luscious  feast  of  Loney  and  young  bees,  as 
well  as,  a  valuable  lot  of  wax. 

"  A-fter  two  of  the  combs  had  been  let  down, 
the  bees  became  rather  more  numerous  below, 
flying  about  wildly  and  stinging  viciously.  Sev- 
eral got  about  me,  and  I  was  soon  stung,  and 
liad  to  run  away,  beating  them  off  with  my  net 
ami  capturing  them  for  specimens.  Several  oi 
them  followed  me  for  at  least  half  a  mile,  getting 
into  my  hair  and  persecuting  me  most  pertina- 
ciously, so  that  I  was  more  astonished  than  ever 
at  the  immunity  of  the  natives.  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  slow  and  deliberate  motion,  and  no 
attempt  to  escape,  are  perhaps  the  best  safeguards. 
A.  bee  settling  on  a  passive  native  probably  be- 
haves as  it  would  on  a  tree  or  other  inanimate 
substance,  which  it  does  not  attempt  to  sting. 
Still  they  must  often  suffer,  but  they  are  used  to 
the  pain  and  learn  to  bear  it  impassively,  as  with- 
out doing  so  no  man  could  be  a  bee-hunter." 

Beeswax  is  given  as  one  of  the  chief  exports  of 
several  of  the  islands  of  the  Malay  archipelago, 
and  I  believe  it  is  all  produced  by  the  ajjis  dorsata. 


His  Excellency  Joseph  William  Torrey,  Presi- 
dent of  the  American  Trading  Company  of  Bor- 
neo, says  he  never  was  in  a  land  thatsoabountled 
in  bees. 

Both  the  black  and  the  Italian  bee  have 
been  introduced  in  Australia.  I  think  the 
upis  dorsata  does  not  exist  there.  I  have  cor- 
responded with  several  persons,  hoping  to  get 
specimens  and  infornuxtion  ;  but  have  not  as  yet 
met  with  much  success.  Now  that  the  journey 
is  shortened  by  the  opening  of  the  Suez  canal, 
and  our  relations  with  the  East  rendered  more 
intiaiate,  we  may  soon  hope  to  obtain  the  apis 
fafciaia  and  the  ajjis  dorsata  direct.  Had  we  a 
few  practical  apiarists  at  different  points,  no  de- 
sire need  go  long  unfulfilled  ;  but  owing  to  the 
absence  of  the  right  man  in  the  right  place,  it  is 
now  more  difficult  to  import  a  bee  than  an  ele- 
phant. "We  look  to  our  Bee  Journals,  now  pub- 
lished in  several  languages,  to  spread  the  much- 
needed  information  on  the  art  of  packing  and 
transporting  bees  for  long  voyages,  that  our 
studies  and  experiments  may  be  extended  to 
every  bee  that  the  varieties  of  climate  of  our  vast 
country  can  sustain. 

Ehrick  Parmly. 

JS'cw  York. 


[Fur  tlie  Americau  Bee  Journal.] 

From  my  Bottle  of  All  Sorts. 


A  certain  doctor  kept  a  bottle  into  which  he 
put  all  the  "  odds  and  ends  of  all  the  various  com- 
pounds prepared  for  difierent  diseases."  This  lie 
called  his  "bottle  of  all  sorts,"  and  when  called 
to  attend  a  patient  whose  case  he  did  not  fully 
understand,  he  would  order  a  dose  from  this  bot- 
tle, which,  lie  said,  was  "  sure  to  hit  the  case  every 
time."  Not  knowing  what  would  most  interest 
my  brother  bee-keepers,  I  have  concluded,  like 
the  doctor,  to  give  them  a  dose  from  my  bottle  of 
all  sorts,  hoping  I  may  "hit"  somebody's  case. 

The  Triangular  Comb  Guide. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  there  are  many  men 
among  American  bee-keepers  who  will  stoop  to 
so  base  and  dastardly  an  act  as  to  collect  from 
timid  bee-k'_'epers  money  tor  the  use  of  the  "  tri- 
angular com!)  guide,"  wlien  it  appears  they  have 
no  right  to  such  patent  or  claim.  Two  or  ihree 
years'ago,  when  I  was  at  the  Michigan  State  Fair, 
exhibitfng  my  hive,  K.  P.  Kidder  suddenly  ap- 
peared and  commenced  to  hold  forth  close  beside 
me.  At  that  time  I  was  not  personally  acquainted 
with  him,  but  had  frequently  heard  of  the  cele- 
brated H.  B.  Man— honey  bee  man,  as  he  at  one 
time  styled  himself.  A  gentleman  standing  by 
informed  me  that  the  person  blowing  his  uumpet 
so  fearfully  was  no  other  than  K.  P.  Kidder,  and 
said  he,  "  Kidder  claims  that  you  have  no  right  to 
use  the  triangular  comb  guides."  I  replied,  I 
will  see  to  that  Shortly  after,  Mr.  Kidder  came 
to  me  and  told  me  the  same.  After  a  few  words 
had  passed  between  us,  I  told  Mr.  Kidder,  if  he 
had  four  or  five  thousand  dollars  to  spend  in  test- 
ing the  thing,  he  had  better  pitch  in  at  once,  for 
I  was  prepared  to  try  it  on.  Such  a  bold  front 
was  more  than  he  had  bargained  for,  and  in  a 


202 


TPIE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOUPtNAL. 


very  short  time  iifter,  he  was  holding  forth  in  an- 
other part  of  the  ground,  as  tame  as  a  liitten. 

I  understand  that  in  St.  Lawrence  county,  in 
the  State  of  New  Yorli,  ten  dollars  has  been  de- 
manded of  those  using  the  triangular  guide,  and 
prosecution  threatened  if  they  refused  to  pay  it. 
Some  paid  ;  others  refused  ;  but  the  threat  has 
not  been  carried  out.  Thej'-  are  now  operating 
in  Michigan,  and  I  am  informed  many  timid  bee- 
keepers are  pajing  their  ten  dollars  ;  and  now 
this  sham  suit,  an  account  of  wliich  appears  in 
the  Journal,  will,  as  the  Editor  very  correctly  re- 
msirks,  tend  to  frighten  timid  or  ignorant  parties 
into  paying  for  the  use  of  the  "guide."  I  believe 
it  to  be  the  tluty  of  every  honest  bee-keeper,  to 
expose  this  nefarious  system  of  obtaining  money. 

Honey  Extractor. 
I  would  not  have  one  of  the  many  that  have 
been  described  in  the  Bee  Journal.  Why  ?  Be- 
cause I  am  just  so  vain  as  to  think  that  I  have  a 
better.  "And  you  want  to  advertise  it,"  says 
one.  No,  I  do  not ;  but  will  tell  you  how  it  is 
made.  It  would  not  pay  you  to  buy  of  me  under 
the  present  tariff;  besides,  you  may  not  like  it  as 
well  as  your  own.  It  is  made  of  zinc.  Tin  will 
eventually  rust ;  zinc  will  not,  and  is  in  no  way 
affected  by  the  honey.  For  my  frames,  it  re- 
quires to  be  about  twenty-two  inches  deep  and 
twenty  inches  in  diameter.  There  is  a  rim  around 
the  bottom,  to  keep  the  bottom  up  from  the  floor. 
The  bottom  is  strengthened  by  cutting  a  board, 
six  inches  wide  and  just  long  enough  to  crowd 
into  the  rim,  and  is  fastened  there.  It  holds  the 
bottom  of  the  tub  from  sinking  in  the  middle. 
Now  for  the  advantage  over  all  others.  I  make 
it  with  a  tight  cover  or  top,  which  keeps  out  all 
flies,  bees,  hornets,  or  any  other  sweet-toothed  in- 
sect, and  allows  you  to  use  it  in  your  apiary  or 
anywhere  else  you  choose,  leaving  the  honej^  re- 
main in  it  until  you  wish  to  empty  it.  The  frame 
that  holds  the  combs  may  be  turned  -with  a  crank 
on  the  to])  of  it,  or  with  gearing.  I  use  the  latter. 
The  bearing  on  which  the  frame  work  runs,  is  a 
tin  or  zinc  cone,  say  two  and  a  half  inches  in  di- 
ameter at  the  base,  and  running  to  a  point  at  the 
required  height.  The  cone  is  soldered  to  the  bot- 
tom of  the  tub.  One-half  of  the  cover  takes  out, 
to  allow  the  combs  to  be  put  in.  One-third  of 
the  other  half  is  made  fast  to  the  tub,  and  the 
other  two-thirds  hung  to  that,  with  hinges,  which 
allow  it  to  open,  so  that  the  frame  work  can  be 
removed.  When  not  in  use  for  extracting  honey, 
this  tub  makes  one  of  the  best  boxes  known  for 
the  good  wife  to  keep  her  bread  and  cakes  in. 

Galltjp's  Observations  and  Experiments, 
which  I  have  just  been  reading,  are  quite  interest- 
ing. But  I  am  led  to  inquire,  are  we  drifting  out 
into  an  open  sea  of  difliculties?  It  must  be  so. 
And  the  worst  of  it  is  that  Gallup,  having  made 
known  to  us  our  position,  never  attempts  to  help 
us  out  of  it.  First  he  says — "Sealed  brood  in- 
troduced into  a  strong  stock  fed  just  sufficient  to 
keep  the  bees  alive,  would  perish  and  become 
putrid  in  three  days."  What  reason  does  friend 
Gallup  give  for  that  ?  Again — "  eggs  would  not 
hatch  in  such  colonies,  until  the  bees  commenced 
to  gather  honej^  or  until  they  were  fed  more 
plentifully."     Dues  friend  Gallup  wish  us  to  un- 


derstand that  bees'  eggs  are  so  very  wise  that  they 
refuse  to  hatch,  and  be  starved  to  death  ?  Come, 
now,  lend  a  hand  to  the  wheel,  and  pilot  us  out 
of  this  difficulty.  Why  did  the  eggs  of  one  of 
your  queens  refuse  to  hatch  ?  Others  have  met 
with  such  instances.  Who  will  explain  it?  And 
what  about  those  ' '  four  partially  fertilized  queens? 
I  think  tliey  were  something  like  my  little  brother's 
cow,  which  he  was  driving  home  one  day,  when 
a  neighbor  met  him  and  inquired  if  the  cow  was 
farrow  ?  Not  understanding  what  Avas  meant  by 
the  term,  he  answered — "little  farrow,  not  much 
farrow  though.  "  How  will  friend  Gallup  account 
for  partial  impregnation  ?  Is  the  theory  exploded 
that  "queens  mate  only  once?"  I  know  that 
lately  it  is  claimed  that  queens  have  been  known 
to  mate  two  or  three  times ;  yet  the  old  theory 
had  a  "loophole,"  and  it  could  still  be  said  that 
though  they  mated  more  than  once,  they  were 
only  fertilized  once.  But  if  Gallup's  queens  were 
a  little  fertilized,  probably,  had  they  mated  again 
they  would  have  been  wholly  fertilized.  Then 
what  of  the  theory  ?  Now  a  certain  writer  in 
Iowa  claims  that  when  the  young  queen  returns 
from  the  bridal  tour,  with  the  organ  of  the  drone 
attached,  the  workers  will  sometimes  iusmediately 
remove  or  pull  it  away.  In  which  case  the  queen 
must  mate  again  in  order  to  become  fertilized. 
He  also  claims  that  he  has  removed  it  himself 
three  or  four  times,  in  one  season,  from  the  same 
queen,  thereby  preventing  impregnation.  Now, 
if  it  is  absolutely  necessary  foi'  the  organ  of  the 
drone  to  remain  for  a  certain  length  of  time,  in 
order  that  the  queen  shall  become  impregnated, 
it  is  quite  easy  to  understand  that  if  the  bees  re- 
move this  too  soon,  the  queen  will  be  only  par- 
tially fertilized.  Hence,  if  all  written  is  true,  some 
of  us  are  in  a  fog.     Can  friend  Gallup  dispel  it  ? 

Frame  Hives. 
In  the  war  of  hives  there  is  one  question  that 
is  nearly  settled.  It  is  generally,  if  not  altogether, 
admitted  that  frame  hives  are  best.  But  which 
among  the  legion  of  frame  hives  that  are  offered 
to  the  public  is  best,  is  yet  a  question.  Every 
maker  and  vender  is  crying  up  his  own  wares  as 
best ;  and  if  somebody  ''  spoils  his  horn,"  he  gets 
a  friend  to  blow  for  him.  There  are  likely  to  be 
at  least  as  many  opinions  as  there  are  different 
hives.  My  own  opinion  is  that  not  one  in  fifty 
has  added  any  real  improvement  to  the  Lang- 
stroth  patent.  Yet  do  not  understand  me  to  say 
that  it  has  not  been  improved  ;  for  I  believe,  and 
if  I  spoke  as  I  feel,  I  should  say  I  know  it  has. 
Aside  from  the  shallowness  of  the  original  form, 
it  has,  in  my  opinion,  three,  yes  four  objections. 
First,  it  has  a  permanent  bottom  bound,  and  in 
order  to  clean  out  the  hive  properly  in  the  spring, 
it  is  necessary  to  remove  the  frames.  Yet  almost 
every  attempt  to  make  a  movable  bottom  board 
and  have  it  attached  to  the  hive,  has  been  a  bung- 
ling failure.  Still  such  has  been  accomplished, 
and  is  therefore  an  improvement.  Second,  it  is 
inconvenient  in  moving  and  taking  out  frames 
filled  with  honey.  This  difficulty  has  also  been 
overcome.  Third,  the  frames  are  too  long,  from 
front  to  rear.  The  combs  in  such  a  hive  are 
more  waiving,  and  are  more  likely  to  be  built 
crooked.  This,  however,  may  be  greatl}^  over- 
come by  raising  the  rear  of  the  hive,  which  has 


THE   AMERICAI^    BEE   JOURNAL. 


203 


the  s:une  or  nearly  the  same  eftect  as  shortening 
the  frames  ;  yetNit  is  inconvenient  to  do  so.  No 
frame  should  be  over  thirteen  inches  long,  inside 
measurement.  I  mean  tliat  portion  of  the  top 
bar  to  which  the  comb  is  attached.  Fourth,  the 
frames  are  not  adjusted  at  equal  distances  apart. 
Many  will  laugh  at  the  idea  that  this  is  an  objec- 
tion. AVell,  laugh,  and  enjoy  your  opinion;  but 
having  tiied  both,  I  prefer  frames  properly  ad- 
justed at  equal  distances  apart. 

J.  II.  Thomas. 
BrookUn,  Ontario. 


[For  the  Americau  Bee  Journal.] 

Bee -culture  and  Artificial  Swarming. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  came  very  near  losing  pa- 
tience in  not  getting  my  invaluable  assistant  in 
due  time— I  mean  the  Bee  Journal.  There  is 
nothing  now  of  this  world's  goods  that  I  value 
S(i  much  as  the  Journal,  except  it  be  the  better 
half  and  the  little  ones.  I  am  in  receipt  of  it 
yesterday,  and  find  in  it  as  usual,  many  valuable 
tilings ;  and  what  pleases  me  above  all  is  that  it 
is  likely  to  live,  and  is  fighting  its  way  bravely  for 
existence.  May  it  prosper,  and  continue  to  find 
"troops  of  friends,"  which  it  is  evidently  gain- 
ing every  day.  I  expect  pretty  soon  to  win  a 
number  of  subscribers  for  it.  But  as  mattei's 
stand  here  in  my  neighborhood  with  regard  to 
bee-culture,  it  is  in  rather  a  rude  state  yet; 
though  for  one  I  am  bound  to  maky  efforts  for 
improvement  in  the  management  of  this  impor- 
tant pursuit,  in  accordance  with  scientific  prin- 
ciples. I  am  therefore  a  warm-hearted  supporter 
of  the  Journal,  and  am  indeed  very  sorry  that 
I  was  not  made  aware  of  its  existence  before  this 
current  volume  began.  I  am  sincerely  thankful 
to  Mr.  J.  H.  Thomas,  of  Brooklin,  Canada,  for 
telling  me  of  it,  when  corresponding  with  him. 
Of  course  I  am  only  a  beginner  in  the  business, 
last  season  being  my  second.  That  being  an 
unfavorable  one,  I  did  not  make  any  very  great 
progress  in  increasing  my  stock  ;  but  if  all  is 
well,  I  intend  doing  something  in  the  coming 
season. 

I  have  read  of  many  different  plans  of  making 
artificial  swarms,  and  have  practised  several 
methods,  none  of  which  please  me  exactly, 
though  I  was  successful  in  every  instance.  I 
have  thought  of  a  new  plan,  at  least  with  me  it 
is  new,  and  may  be  so  with  a  great  many  more  of 
the  leaders  of  the  Journal.  I  will  therefore  make 
it  public  through  that  medium,  and  hope  sin- 
cerely that  some  of  your  more  experienced 
friends  will  give  us  their  opinion  whether  it  is 
likely  to  work  or  not.  If  it  will  work  in  that 
Avay  or  witli  some  slight  modification,  it  will  suit 
me  first  rate.  I  contemplate  trying  it  next  sum- 
mer, but  desire  previously  to  obtain  the  judg- 
ment of  others.  The  process  T  propose  is  as 
follows:  Get  a  hive  arranged  with  combs,  and 
remove  a  strong  stock  to  a  new  stand,  some  dis- 
tance from  its  former  location,  phice  the  hive 
with  the  arranged  combs  on  the  stand  of  the 
stock  thus  removed.  The  bees  that  range  in  the 
field  will  fly  to  their  accustomed  stand.  Finding 
their  queen  gone,  and  having  no  means  left  to 


rear  another,  they  will  according  to  bee-ology, 
gladly  accept  any  queen  offered  to  them.  But, 
after  a_ considerable  number  of  bees  have  col- 
lected, 1  should  give  them  the  queen  caged,  and 
liberate  her  after  twenty-four  hours.  Whether  it 
would  answer  to  give  them  a  virgin  queen,  is 
what  interests  me  most ;  as  I  fear  that  when  the 
queen  takes  her  excursion  trip,  the  bees  may  not 
yet  have  become  fully  reconciled  to  the  new 
state  of  things,  and  hence  accompany  the  queen 
never  to  return.  If  this  plan  can  be  made  to 
work,  it  would  be  a  great  advantage,  as  the  old 
stock  would  not  be  disturbed,  and  about  every 
ten  days  a  new  colony  could  be  formed.  Where 
increase  of  stock  is  the  object,  as  it  is  with  me, 
it  will  be  necessary  to  provide  combs  to  fill  the 
hives  for  the  new  stocks  to  be  formed,  in  making 
colonies  in  this  manner.  Will  not  friend  Gallup, 
or  some  of  those  possessed  like  him  of  much  ex- 
perience, report  their  views  of  the  above  sugges- 
tion ?  With  best  wishes,  Mr.  Editor,  for  you 
and  the  Bee  Journal,  and  wishing  the  latter 
came  four  times  a  month,  I  am  yours,  as  ever, 

C.   WURSTER. 

Klcinsburg,  Canada. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Does  Bee-keeping  Pay? 


If  you  are  in  doubt  upon  that  point,  I  suggest 
that  you  turn  over  the  leaves  of  my  record  for 
1869.  It  is  the  record  of  one  much  more  truly  a 
"novice"  in  these  matters,  than  the  experienced 
and  enthusiastic  correspondent  who  wears  that 
name  in  the  columns  of  the  Bee  Journal. 

My  stock  in  trade  for  the  sirring  of  1869,  con^ 
sisted  of  two  old  box  hives  almost  destitute  of 
honey,  with  few  bees  in  each  ;  about  fifty  frames 
of  empty  combs  from  Langstroth  hives  ;  and  any 
required  amount  of  interest  in  the  subject.  I 
began  feeding  syrup  in  March,  using  the  inverted 
can  with  perforated  screw  top  ;  fed  plentifully 
till  flowers  came,  using  for  each  hive  5  lbs.  8  oz. 
of  coff"ee  sugar.  Between  June  11th  and  28th, 
each  of  these  stocks  threw  off  four  good  swarms, 
which  were  duly  cared  for  in  Langstroth  hives, 
with  a  fair  allowance  of  empty  comb  as  a  start 
in  housekeeping.  From  the  two  prime  swarms 
I  removed  the  honey  boards  a  few  days  after 
hiving,  placing  one  set  of  surplus  boxes  directly 
on  the  frames.  July  8th,  I  hived  a  large  swarm 
that  came  to  me.  Instead  of  two,  there  were 
now  eleven  stocks.  The  wet  weather  kept  up  a 
constant  succession  of  clover  blossoms  ;  pastures 
and  commons  were  white  and  .sweet  until  late  in 
September.  But,  "  into  each  life  some  rain  must 
fall,"  and  just  here  came  in  my  reverses.  Not 
looking  for  any  further  increase  of  stocks,  I  left 
home  for  a  few  weeks.  During  my  absence  one 
prime  swarm  threw  off  a  large  colony  (Aug.  13), 
which  not  being  properly  cared  for,  deserted  soon 
after  hiving.  On  my  return  I  found  a  third 
swarm  infested  by  worms,  and  broke  it  up.  (N. 
B. — I  plead  guilty  to  carelessness  in  the  use  of  old 
comb.)  August  25,  the  same  hive  that  had  dis- 
tinguished itself  twelve  days  before,  sent  out  a  fair 
second  swarm,  which  was  secured,  receiving  the 
last  of  the  old  combs,  and  a  full  frame  of  brood 


204 


THE    AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


and  honey  from  the  parent  stock.  That  was  the 
end  of  swarmino-. 

I  took  something  over  210  lbs.  of  surplus 
honey.  100  lbs  came  from  the  top  of  oue  prime 
swarm.  Enoaj>;h  of  this  was  sold  at  thirty  cents 
per  pound,  to  jiraount  to  fifty  dollars.  My  eleven 
hives  were  all  heavy,  ready  with  some  piotection 
for  out  of  door  wintering;. 

Does  bee-keeping  pay  ?  Have  I  answered  tlie  ques- 
tion ?  This  result  was  obtained  in  an  old  fash- 
ioned way.  Given,  a  season  equally  favorable, 
Avilh  all  the  "modern  improvements," — Italian 
bei's,  a  "melextractor,"  &c.,  <fec.,— and  what 
mi,i;ht  not  be  expected  ? 

i5ut  my  record  foils  to  show  what  constituted 
really  the  largest  share  of  the  summer's  pmfils. 
I  did  not  know  how  to  put  it  in  figures.  The 
still  bright  hours  when,  with  shawl  spread  upon 
the  grass,  I  was  at  home  among  my  bees — those 
'•  singing  masons  building  roofs  of  gold" — loving 
th"m  just  as  much  when  they  paid  friendly 
visits  to  my  wrapper,  my  hands,  or  my  hair,  as 
Avhen  they  kept  at  a  greater  distance  ; — the  health 
which  came  with  those  hours — the  delight 
afforded  by  a  mns.t  fascinating  branch  of  natural 
hist(jry — the  new  ideas,  whose  value  the  future 
must  determine — all  this  is  beyond  the  reach  of 
arithmetic. 

Success  to  the  Journal,  and  may  it  number 
more  and  more  women  among  its  subscribers  and 
constant  readers  !*  C.  S.  Eogers. 

Elvncood,  III. 

*  Aye,  and  allow  us  to  add  correspoadenU  to 
the  enumeration,  for  they  always  succeed  admi- 
rabl}'  both  as  writers  and  apiarians.  Ecce  supra/ 
—Ed. 

[Foi-  the  Amei-ican  Bee  Journal.] 

Robbing  Cheeked  Promptly. 

"The  first  frame  resists.  I  guess  the  bees 
"  have  fastened  it  to  the  side  of  the  hive.  It  will 
"  break,  if  you  pull.  Slip  in  the  knife  to  loosen  it." 
But  young  Frenchmen  are  presumptuous  (perhaps 
young  Americans  are  not  less  so).  After  having 
attended  to  the  apiary  in  August,  while  I  was 
confined  to  bed  with  sickness,  my  son  Camille 
was,  in  his  own  opinion,  already  sufficiently  ad- 
vanced in  bee-culture  to  dispense  with  the  advice 
of  his  father.  The  frame  was  accordingly  pulled 
out  by  force,  leaving  one  quarter  of  the  comb 
smashed  in  the  hive,  and  another  quarter  down 
on  the  bottom  inside. 

This  was  about  the  last  of  September.  For 
two  weeks  previous  we  had  nearly  every  day 
emptied  some  combs  by  the  melextractor,  from 
one  hundred  full  hives,  and  re-inserted  them 
when  emptied.  The  carrying  to  and  fro  of  the 
honey  had  already  aroused  the  robbing  impulse 
of  our  bees ;  and  before  we  could  procure  plates 
on  which  to  place  the  smashed  comb,  we  were 
surrounded  by  a  host  of  eager  bees,  ready  for  a 
foray.  With  a  spade  I  hastened  to  remove  the 
ground  wetted  by  the  dripping  honey,  upon 
which  the  bees  soon  gathered.  Then  after  direct- 
ing my  son  to  contract  the  entrance  of  the  hive 
on  which  we  were  operating,  so  that  only  one 
bee  could  pass  at  a  time,  we  left  the  scene,  as  we 
were  notified  that  dinner  was  on  the  table. 


When  my  son  again  left  the  dining-room,  I 
directed  him  to  look  after  the  exposed  hive,  for  I 
was  far  from  feeling  easj^  about  it.  He  soon  re- 
turned in  great  haste,  saying— "the  ruchee  is 
robbed.  The  Italians  enter  it  by  thousands.  The 
imbecile  black  bees  do  not  know  how  to  defend 
their  hive."  I  inquired — "did  you  close  the 
entrance  so  as  to  let  only  one  bee  enter  at  a 
time?"  "No,"  replied  he,  "as  the  colony  was 
very  strong  in  numbers,  I  did  not  contract  the 
entrance  so  much,  ouly  four  or  five  bees  cinild 
pass  at  a  time,  but  the  robbers  have  pushed  away 
the  blocks." 

After  putting  on  our  bee  hats,  we  hastily  re 
paired  to  the  spot.  The  humming  of  the  bees 
was  as  loud  as  that  commonly  made  by  a  large 
swarm,  when  issuing  and  on  the  wing.  The 
robbed  bees  no  longer  made  resistance.  I  began 
by  contracting  the  entrances  of  the  neighboring 
hives.  Then  I  stationed  my  son  in  front  of  the 
one  attacked,  directing  him  to  brush  away  Avith  ' 
a  feather  duster  (a  leafy  twig  answers  as  well) 
all  the  bees  seeking  to  enter,  and  let  pass  all  those 
coming  out.  Meantime  I  procured  two  pieces  of 
plank  or  blocks,  about  six  inches  square.  I  placed 
one  of  these  on  each  side  of  the  entrance,  bring- 
ing two  corners  together  so  as  to  enclose  a  tri- 
angular space  or  yard  in  fnrnt  of  the  entrance, 
and  covered  this  yard  with  a  piece  of  wire-cloth 
having  ^  inch  meshes — taking  care  to  adjust  it  so 
close  that  not  a  bee  could  enter  the  yard  from  the 
outside. — The  robbers  soon  clustered  on  the  wire- 
cloth,  seeking  for  entrance,  while  some  pre- 
sented themselves  under  it,  striving  to  get  out. 
In  eight  or  ten  minutes,  I  suddenly  pulled  away 
the  blocks  and  wire-cloth,  instantly  brushing 
away  anew  all  the  bees,  till  I  was  sure  that  no 
robbers  remained  ;  and  then  replacing  the  blocks 
and  wire-cloth  as  before. 

The  hive  remained  thus  shut  up  an  hour  or 
two.  By  that  time  most  of  the  robbers,  tired  of 
fruitlessly  seeking  an  entrance,  had  returned  to 
their  ordiuiuy  labor.  The  corners  of  the  two 
blocks  were  then  separated  so  much  as  to  allow 
one  or  two  bees  only  to  pass  at  a  time.  The 
inmates  of  the  hive  soon  became  accustomed  to 
the  entrance,  while  the  robbers  vaijily  endeavored 
to  gain  admittance  through  the  meshes  of  the 
wire-cloth.  If  a  few  succeeded  occasionally  in 
finding  the  new  entrance,  they  were  immediately 
seized  by  the  guards  and  summarily  ejected. 

After  sundown,  in  order  to  let  in  the  few  bees 
belonging  to  the  hive,  which  had  not  yet  fcnuid 
the  new  entrance,  I  removed  the  wire-cloth,  and 
replaced  it  early  next  morning.  As  soon  as  I 
thought  that  simply  contructing  the  entrance  of 
the  hive  would  secure  the  colony  from  further 
attacks,  I  removed  all  my  devices. 

This  mode  of  checking  robbery  will  always 
prove  successful,  if  the  ruchee  has  a  queen  or  the 
means  of  raising  one,  provided  all  the  robbers 
are  got  out  of  the  hive  before  the  bees  pertaining 
to  it'are  confined.  C.  Dadakt. 

Hamilton,  Ills. 


Young  queens,  whose  ovaries  are  not  burdened 
with  eggs,  are  much  quicker  on  the  wing  than 
old  ones^  and  frequently  fly  much  farther  from 
the  parent  stock  before  they  alight. — Langstroth. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


205 


[For  the  Aiuericaa  Bee  Jourual.] 

Foul  Brood. 

I  do  not  "  entirely  concur  with  Mr.  Alley  in 
advising  the  immediate  and  complete  destruction 
by  lire  of  hives  and  combs,  whenever  a  colony  is 
found  infected  with  foul  brood."  Qcti  Bee  Jour- 
7i(d,  vol.  5,  page  151.  I  claim  to  be  posted  in 
this  matter,  and  have  been  advising  beginners  in 
bee-keeping  for  years.  And  when  I  speak  from 
my  own  experience,  I  think  I  know  what  I  am 
saying.  Now,  when  those  who  confess  to  never 
having  had  a  case  of  it,  but  depend  on  descrip- 
tion for  all  they  know,  and  then  recommend  a 
course  directly  opposite,  I  do  not  feel  flattered. 
It  would  seem  that  they  had  no  confidence  in 
what  I  had  said,  or  are  ignorant  of  it.  It  is 
evident  that  Mr.  Alley  never  read  the  "remedies 
attempted"  on  page  213  of  "Mysteries  of  Bee- 
keeping," or  if  he  had,  had  no  confidence.  It 
might  have  saved  him  the  trouble  of  going  over 
the  same  ground,  where  I  had  been  twenty  years 
before.  Except  in  the  fall,  I  see  no  economy  in 
destroying  a  good  colony  of  bees. 

When  Mr.  Alley  first  "  detected  a  peculiar 
smell,  such  as  had  never  come  in  contact  with 
my  [his J  ollactory  nerves  before,  and  at  once 
pronounced  the  two  hives  infected  with  the  dis- 
ease," although  he  might  liave  been  correct  in 
his  diagnosis,  was  it  proper  to  jump  at  conclu- 
sions in  tills  way  ?  It  was  his  first  case,  and  im- 
portant. He  presumes,  on  the  evidence  of  one 
sense  alone,  tliat  he  is  right.  This  way  of  de- 
ciding before  the  evidence  is  all  in,  is  a  dangerous 
one.  Again,  he  says— "  I  know  of  but  one  way 
to  cure  this  disease,  and  I  strongly  advise  others 
who  are  troubled  with  this  malady,  to  adopt  my 
remeily." 

Probably  he  knows  of  but  one  "remedy,"  he 
speaks  of  but  one  other.  The  presumption  of 
having  ti'ied  all,  is  objectionable.  It  was  early 
in  the  month  of  June,  and  tlie  bees  were  let  to 
work,  to  see  what  would  be  done.  The  bees 
lived  till  the  next  spring.  Tlien  he  commenced 
experiment  by  pruning,  twice  repeating  what  I 
liad  done,  and  failed  just  as  effectually.  Had  he, 
when  he  first,  decided  they  were  diseased  (they 
were  then  strong  and  lived  another  year),  simply 
transferred  his  bees  to  new  clean  hives,  he  would 
just  as  eff'ectuallj^  have  got  rid  of  the  disease, 
and  had  two  colonies  worth  more  than  those  he 
purchased,  besides  the  chance  of  surplus.  It 
would  have  reached  long  ways  towards  the  $200 
lost  in  experiment. 

Of  what  avail  to  "  study  ihe  disease,"  unless  to 
profit  by  it  ?  I  have  been  through  here,  and 
found  a  remedy  without  so  great  a  sacrifice.  A 
colony  badly  diseased  in  the  fall,  is  not  in  good 
condition  for  winter.  The  dead  larvfB  occupy 
the  cells  needed  for  the  mature  bees  in  severe 
weather,  to  keep  up  warmth.  Such  colonies  at 
this  season  might  as  well  be  destroyed.  To 
winter  them  they  would  require  stores  and  combs, 
which  are  not  often  at  hand.  The  outside  combs, 
and  those  in  the  corners,  often  contain  good 
honey  for  the  table,  but  not  for  the  bees.  The 
centre  combs  will  have  some  honey  cells  mixed 
with  cells  of  dead  brood.  I  see  no  way  to  sepa- 
rate such,  and  of  course  it  would  have  to  be  re- 


jected, and  should  be  buried  out  of  the  reach  of 
the  bees  at  once.  If  the  hive  was  sufficiently 
valuable  to  pay  trouble,  it  might  be  cleansed 
with  scalding  water,  or  exposed  to  the  weather 
six  months  of  our  winter,  and  be  perfectly 
healthy  for  the  bees  another  year.  I  would  not 
advise  putting  bees  from  such  a  colony  into 
empty  comb  in  any  case,  until  they  had  used  all 
the  honey  taken  with  them.  Neither  Avould  1 
unite  a  small  diseased  colony  with  a  healthy  one, 
till  they  bad  used  the  honey.  I  have  known 
apiaries  properly  treated,  where  the  malady  has 
diminished  to  less  than  one  per  cent,  of  what  it 
was  a  few  years  since. 

As  to  Mr.  Morgan's  experience,  reported  on 
page  147,  he  may  have  foul  brood  ;  but  it  is  so  dif- 
ferent from  any  experience  of  mine,  that  I  tliink 
he  must  be  mistaken  in  the  way  it  was  first  con- 
tracted.    Its  progress  was  too  fast. 

He  says,  some  time  in  Septen)ber  he  scooped 
out  of  the  hollow  of  a  tree,  several  buckets  of 
comb,  dead  bees,  pollen — and  I  suppose  some 
honey  also.  At  the  end  of  several  days  it  was 
found  fermenting,  was  thrown  out,  the  bees 
were  found  carrying  some  of  it  away.  A  hive 
near  the  place  several  weeks  afterwards  gave  a 
horrible  stench  on  opening  it,  unlike  any  thing 
before.  The  hive  was  full  of  dead  brood.  Six 
more  were  found  in  the  same  condition. 

It  is  not  clearly  proved  that  this  disease  ori- 
ginated as  he  supposed.  It  was  September — 
perhaps  the  middle,  when  the  tree  was  cut ;  it 
might  have  been  the  very  last  when  the  ferment- 
ing mixture  was  thrown  out.  The  larvae,  just 
ready  to  seal  up,  seem  to  be  just  the  right  age  to 
be  affected  by  it.  At  the  end  of  September,  in 
this  latitude,  all  healthy  stocks  have  usually 
hatched  their  brood.  They  may  be  later  there  ; 
but  I  think  it  hardly  possible  that  enough  larvae 
just  the  right  age  to  take  the  disease,  to  fill  the 
hive  so  quickly.  Proceeding  at  that  rate,  they 
could  hardly  last  a  year,  as  Mr.  Alley's  did.  I 
think  the  cause  should  be  looked  for  months 
previous  to  cutting  the  tree.  As  for  remedies,  I 
approve  of  Langstroth's,  so  far  as  removing  at 
once  the  whole  from  the  reach  of  the  bees  ;  unless 
the  bees  were  Italian,  it  would  hardly  pay  to  try 
to  save  them  at  that  season.  I  would  disapprove 
of  even  trying  to  set  them  three  miles  from  any 
others  Suppose  the  bees  from  a  tree  in  the 
woods  take  the  honey  from  some  of  these  hives, 
and  deposit  half  waj'  to  the  home  apiary,  what 
is  to  prevent  a  dozen  more  becoming  affected 
mysteriously  as  these  ?  If  every  hive  was  re- 
moved at  once  when  attacked,  we  should  hear 
less  of  the  necessity  of  burning  things. 

M.    QUIKBY. 

St.  JoJmsville,  N.  Y. 


If  the  bee-keeper  would  not  have  his  bees  so 
demoralized  that  their  value  will  be  seriously  di- 
minished, he  will  be  exceedingly  aireful  to  pre- 
vent them  from  robbing  each  other. — L.  L. 
Langstroih. 


The  use  of  woollen  gloves,  when  operating 
among  bees,  is  objectionable,  as  everything 
rough  or  hairy  has  an  extremely  irritating  in- 
fluence on  bees. 


206 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

That  Bee  Disease. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  see  in  the  November  number 
of  the  Bee  Journai-,  page  101,  a  communica- 
tion from  J.  W.  Se-dy,  in  which  he  demonstrates 
the  cause  of  tlie  Bee  Cholera  "  as  clear  as  mud." 
I  cannot  see  liow  he  could  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion he  did,  after  examining  as  many  liives  as  lie 
says  he  did.  But  even  admitting  (which  of 
course  I  do)  that  those  awful  lioaey  dews  did 
take  place  in  his  locality,  that  does  not  prove 
that  it  was  tlie  same  all  over  the  country. 
Wherever  the  bees  died,  the  bee  disease,  what- 
ever it  Avas,  was  general  everywhere  that  I  heard 
fi-om  ;  but  this  great  honey  dew  was  not.  Nor 
can  I  see  why  the  bees  should  leave  the  hive  if 
they  died  of  old  age,  particularly  -VN'hen  but  few 
colonies  died  till  after  the  weather  was  cool 
enough  to  c(mfine  the  bees  to  their  hive,  some 
living  till  midwinter  and  even  longer,  and  then 
dying.  If  they  died  of  old  age,  wliy  were  they 
not  found  dead  in  the  hive  ?  It  is  not  very  com- 
mon for  bees  that  die  with  age,  to  leave  their 
hive  in  winter  time  for  that  purpose. 

I  live  in  Eastern  Indiana,  and  I  also  own  bees 
in  Northern  Illinois ;  and  by  close  observation  I 
am  satisfied  that  the  bees  died  in  both  places 
from  the  same  cause ;  and  I  am  sure  we  had 
none  of  those  sudden  changes  from  scarcity  to 
abundance,  that  Mr.  Seay  speaks  of.  It  was  a 
bad  honey  season  straiglit  through,  in  this  part 
of  Indiana;  no  surplus  honey  at  all. 

As  soon  as  cool  weather  began  to  confine  my 
bees  to  the  hives,  I  noticed  an  unusual  amount 
of  dead  about  the  entrances.  I  watched  them 
closely  and  found  that  however  cold  the  weather 
might  be,  more  or  less  of  the  bees  would  come 
out.  Some  would  die  near  the  entrance  ;  others 
would  get  several  feet  from  the  hive,  then  drop 
down  and  die;  and  some  wottld  take  wing  and 
fly  out  of  sight  when  it  was  too  cold  for  them  to 
return,  even  if  they  had  been  healthy.  They 
would  commence  coming  out  of  their  hives  in 
tlie  morning,  even  before  it  was  quite  light,  no 
matter  how  cold  it  was.  I  soon  noticed  that 
many  of  them  discharged  their  faeces  in  the  hive, 
the  entrances  would  be  perfectly  blackened  there- 
with, and  the  tops  of  the  frames  would  be  in  the 
same  condition.  If  the  day  was  slightly  warm, 
lliere  would  be  quite  a  stir  among  the  bees;  but 
of  those  that  appeared  to  have  the  disease  the 
Avorst,  few  would  relurn.  I  watched  them  closely 
every  day  ;  whether  it  w:is  cokl  or  warm,  wet  or 
dry,  they  Avould  come  out,  more  or  less,  till 
every  bee  Avas  gone,  and  in  every  case  more  or 
li'ss  honey  was  left,  though  not  quite  so  full  as 
Mr.  Seay  says  his  hives  Avere.  jNIy  neighbors' 
bees  went  the  same  Avay,  and  when  asked  they 
said  the  bees  swarmed  out  and  left ;  but,  as  Mr. 
Seay  says,  when  asked  Avhether  they  had  seen 
them  SA\'arm  out  to  leave,  the  answer  was — No, 
but  they  must  have  done  so,  for  they  are  gone 
and  left  plenty  of  honey  !  On  examining  those 
hives  and  finding  them  daubed  as  mine  Avere,  I 
told  my  neighbors  that  their  bees  did  not  swarm 
out  and  leave,  but  feeling  an  irresistible  impulse 
to  discharge  the  contents  of  their  bowels,  they 
left  for  that  puipose,  and  never  returned. 


I  Avatched  my  bees  closely  till  ten  stocks  were 
dead.  All  Aveiit  the  same  way,  young  swarms 
dying  first,  and  every  stand  in  the  yard  affected 
in  like  manner.  I  saw  that  something  must  be 
done  or  I  should  not  have  a  bee  left  by  spring. 
I  examined  them  all,  and  found  them  all  more 
or  less  affected  hy  disease.  Old  stocks  that  had 
plenty  of  old  honey,  Avere  not  so  bad.  All  the 
new  honey  was  uncommonly  thin.  I  went  to 
work  and  took  all  their  honey  from  them,  added 
a  porticm  of  Avhite  sugar,  boiled  it  down,  skim- 
ming it  clean,  and  then  fed  it  to  them  again. 
They  replaced  it  in  the  combs,  and  from  that  time 
on  I  did  not  lose  another  stock;  but  they  did  as 
Avell  as  I  ever  had  bees  to  do.  I  told  my  neighbors 
Avhat  I  had  done.  Those  of  them  that  Avere 
using  movable  frame  hives  did  likcAvise,  and 
saved  their  bees.  Those  that  used  the  common 
box  hives,  could  not  adopt  this  measure,  but 
some  of  them  fed  tiieir  bees  Avith  sugar  syrup 
and  saved  nearly  half  of  them.  Those  that 
trusted  to  luck  altogether,  lost  all  so  far  as  I 
know.  One  man,  Avho  had  tAventy  five  stands, 
said  it  Avas  all  in  luck  any  hoAV  ;  so  he  did 
nothing,  and  lost  every  bee.  So  much  for  the 
Bee  Cholera. 

If  it  Avas  old  age  that  was  killing  off  the  bees 
so  fast,  Avhy  should  the  altering  of  their  food  from 
very  thin  to  good  thick  honey  stop  their  dying  ? 
In  my  opinion  the  bee-disease,  call  it  what  you 
please,  Avas  caused  by  bad  food  ;  and  when  the 
bees  Avere  confined  to  the  hive  by  cold  Aveather 
they  c(mld  not  retain  the  contents  of  their  boAvels, 
and  it  being  contrary  to  their  nature  to  discharge 
their  fseces  inside  of  their  hives,  they  made  an 
effort  to  get  out ;  and  once  out,  they  never  re- 
turned. Thus  their  numbers  Avasted  aAvay,  until 
all  Avere  gone.  This,  at  least,  is  my  experience, 
and  I  watched  them  closely  both  in  Indiana  and 
in  Illinois,  and  on  the  way,  going  and  returning. 
I  know  tiiere  is  such  a  thing  as  bees  gathering 
too  niuch  honey,  and  thereby  preventing  the 
queen  from  laying  the  proper  amount  of  eggs, 
and  the  stock  finally  dying  out  from  that  cause. 
But  that  was  not  the  case  in  1868,  in  any  locality 
that  I  visited.  B.  Puckett. 

Winchester,  Ind.,  Feb.  10,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Can  robber  bees   be  joined  to    a  weak 
colony  Aivithout  caging  the  Queen  ? 


In  apiaries  of  large  size  it  sometimes  occurs 
thatAveak  colonies  are  attacked  by  stronger  ones, 
and  robbed  ;  and  even  a  careful  bee-keeper  may 
not  always  discover  it  beforethe  robbers  have  got 
a  good  start.  A  reporter  to  the  Bee  Journai.,  I 
do  not  recollect  in  what  number,  advises  bee- 
keepers in  such  case  to  capture  the  robbers  and 
unite  them  with  the  Aveak  robbed  colony.  Noav, 
does  practice  prove  this  to  be  good  advice  ?  Be- 
fore I  read  the  article,  I  had  already,  at  four  dif- 
ferent times,  attempted  to  remedy  robbing,  by 
shutting  up  tlie  robbers,  and  placing  the  robbed 
colony  in  my  cellar  for  a  week  or  longer.  In 
three  cases  out  of  the  four  the  fertile  queens  were 
killed ;  and  I  therefore  came  to  the  conclusion 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


207 


that  it  was  unsafe  thus  to  shut  up  robbers  with  a 
weak  colony. 

In  all  cases  Avhere  it  may  be  desirable  to  shut 
up  the  robbers,  I  would  advise  the  bee-keeper  to 
cage  tlie  queen,  and  keep  her  caged  for  at  least 
three  days.  But  I  cannot  even  then  recommend 
such  a  process.  The  robber  bees,  after  having 
been  thus  confined  for  eight  or  ten  days,  return 
in  great  numbers  to  their  former  hives,  and  in 
most  cases  recommence  robbing  immediately. 
Only  where  the  bee  keeper  can  remove  the  robbed 
colony  a  mile  or  more  from  the  old  stand,  would 
I  advise  shutting  up  the  robbers,  for  the  purpose 
of  uniting  them  with  tliose  attacked,  in  order  to 
strengthen  the  weak  colony.  Even  in  such  a  case 
I  should  greatly  prefer  to  strengthen  a  weak  col- 
ony by  intioducing  in  it  a  supply  of  bees  pro- 
cured from  another  apiary.  A  quart  of  bees 
taken  from  a  distant  apiary,  kept  confined  in  a 
liive  with  food,  bnt  without  brood,  can,  without 
the  least  danger,  be  united  in  the  evening  with 
a  weak  colon_y  that  has  a  fertile  queen.  In  this 
way,  I  liMve  frequently  in  the  spring,  strength- 
ened colonies  which  were  so  weak  that  they 
would  certainly  have  perished,  even  if  tlu'y  had 
escaped  the  notice  of  robbers.  A.  Grimm. 

Jefferson,  Wu.,  Feb.  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Jouvi 

Patent  Comb  Guides. 


1.] 


I  see  by  the  Amkuican  Bee  Journal  and  the 
Rural  New  York(U-  that  K.  P.  Kidder  has  pur- 
chased of  G.  H  Clark,  the  ])atent  right  for  the 
triangular  comb  guide.  I  have  used  the  Lang- 
strolh  hive  for  ten  years,  and  have  never  used 
this  comb  guide  ;  and  I  do  not  know  what  any 
one  else  Avants  to  use  it  for.  It  is  not  a  sure  guide 
in  the  Lan^slroth  frame,  and  I  never  saw  a 
Laugstroth  hive  with  that  kind  of  guide  that  had 
all  straight  combs;  and  I  never  saw  a  Clark 
hive  that  had  all  straight  combs.  As  a  general 
thing,  six  combs  in  the  Clark  hives  are  straight, 
while  the  seventh  is  very  thick,  and  on  one  side, 
about  half  way  down,  tiie  bees  will  start  a  thin 
comb,  too  thin  to  store  honey  in,  and  not  thick 
enough  for  brood  comb.  I  have  seen  a  great 
many  Clark  hives  where  the  combs  ran  exactly 
ucroHn  the  guides. 

There  is  but  one  sure  and  simple  comb  guide, 
and  that  is  the  one  that  I  have  used  for  years. 
It  IS  sure  in  all  hives,  and  in  every  instance  where 
it  has  been  used  it  has  proved  a  success.  I  have 
nothing  new  to  recommend  to  most  old  bee-keep- 
ers, but  to  new  beginners  it  is  worth  knowing,  to 
say  the  least. 

Instead  of  this  patent  triangular  comb  guide 
that  has  caused  so  much  trouble  during  the  last 
ten  years,  I  use  a  "  flat  bar."  To  this  I  stick  any 
old  worker  brood  comb — no  matter  how  old  and 
mouldy  it  is,  it  is  a  sure  guide.  This  I  cut  into 
strips,  from  one  to  two  or  three  cells  in  thickness, 
according  to  the  quantity  I  have  on  hand  ;  but 
when  such  comb  is  scarce,  one  cell  deep  will  do. 
AVith  melted  rosin  and  beeswax  (not  honey  and 
beeswax,  as  your  printer  ouce  made  me  say),  I 
.stick  the  combs  to  the  "flat  bar."  The  wax 
must  be  hot,  and  the  work  is  done  quickly,  and 
the  combs  will  not  come  off.     When  no  old  comb 


j  is  at  hand  and  cannot  be  obtained,  I  would  turn 
an  old  box  hive  bottom  up,  and  cut  ort'  two  or 
three  inches  of  the  worker  comb.     This  should 

i  be  done  early  in  the  spring,  before  it  is  filled  with 
brood.     If   no  box   hive  is  handy,  take  one  or 

i  more  frames  from  a  movable  comb  hive  and  cut 

j  from  them  enough  comb  to  make  guides  for  a 
larire  number  of  frames,  if  needed. 

The  idea  of  raising  the  rear  end  of  Lingstroth 
hives,  to  make  the  bees  build  straight  combs,  is 
all  moonshine.  I  have  never  seen  an  instance 
yet  where  the  bees  have  done  it. 

I  hope  no  reader  of  the  American  Bee  Journal 
will  be  found  foolish  enough  to  pay  Kidder,  or 
any  one  else,  one  cent  for  the  right  to  use  tiiis 
patent  comb  guide. 

It  is  but  a  small  job  to  put  guide  combs  on 
frames   enough  for  twenty   hives.     Simmer  the 

I  wax  and  rosin  in  a  shallow  tin  vessel,  saj''  two 
inches  deep  by  six  inches  wide,  and  ten  or  twelve 

!  inches  long.     Old  combs  cut  easy  with  a  thin 
knife  that  has  a  straight  rough  sharp  edge,  made 
hot  by  dipping  it  in  hot  water  just  before  draw- 
ing it  across  the  comb.  H.  Alley. 
We}i?)am,  Muss. 

1^"  To  attach  strips  of  guide  comb  to  frames 
or  bars,  the  German  bee-keepers  use  a  cement 
composed  of  curd  cheese  and  slaked  lime,  adding 
a  little  borax  dissolved  in  water,  to  keep  the  ce- 
ment plastic  during  the  operation.  This  is  more 
easily  managed  than  a  composition  of  wax  and 
rosin,  with  no  risk  of  destroying  the  guide  comb. 
Dzieizon  has  always  used  the  flat  bar  provided 
with  such  foundations  to  secure  straight  combs. 
—Ed. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Puzzling  Points. 


In  Vol.  5,  No".  3,  page  Gl,  of  the  Bee  Journal, 
Mr.  Argo  is  somewhat  puzzled.  I  have  never 
been  in  the  queen  raising  business— only  raising 
queens  for  my  own  use  ;  therefore  will  not  attempt 
to  answer  his  question,  but  will  give  some  of  niy 
own  experience. 

I  have  had  queens  raised  from  pure  mothers 
feitilized  by  black  drones,  that  produced  all  three- 
striped  workers,  but  would  produce  a  majority  of 
black  queens.  I  have  had  queens  raised  from 
hybrid  mothers  and  fertilized  by  pure  drones, 
that  produced  handsomely  marked  workers  and 
very  light-colored  queens.  I  have  had  queens 
from  pure  mothers  fertilized  by  drones  from  a 
hybrid  queen,  that  produced  well  marked  Avorkers, 
though  all  their  queens  were  very  dark-colored. 

I  am  strongly  inclined  to  be  on  the  side  of  Mr. 
Thomas  and  Mr.  Benedict,  as  to  the  impurity  of 
drones  from  a  hybrid  queen.  At  all  events,  give 
me  my  choice  and  I  will  always  take  the  queen 
that  is  raised  from  a  pure  mother  and  fertilized 
by  a  drone  from  a  jnirely  impregnated  queen.  On 
the  other  hand,  let  a  person  take  for  granted  that 
drones  from  a  hybrid  queen  are  pure,  breed  in 
and  in  fi'oiu  such  stock,  and  he  will  very  soon 
find  that  he  has  mixed  blood.  There  is  something 
about  this  that  has  never  j'-et  been  satisfactorily 
explained.  We  have  queens  that  are  partially 
fertilized,  so  that  a  small  proportion  of  their  eggs 
hatch  workers  and  the  rest  drones.     We   have 


208 


TITE   AMERICAN  BEE   JOURNAL. 


queens  that  produce  all  drones.  We  have  queens 
that  lay  eggs  which  never  hatch,  either  drones  or 
■workers.  And  we  have  queens  that  never  lay  an 
egg.  And  all  these  from  the  same  mother,  and 
all  raised  at  the  same  time.  I  have  taken  eggs 
and  larvse  from  a  pure  queen,  and  given  them  to 
lilack  bees  to  hatch  and  nurse,  removing  the 
black  queen  and  all  the  brood,  and  substituting 
all  Italian  brood  ;  and  they  raised  all  very  dark- 
colored  queens,  and  all  those  cjueens  produced 
dark-colored  workers.  At  the  same  time,  queens 
raised  from  the  same  brood,  and  by  Italian  nurses, 
were  all  light-colored,  and  all  produced  light- 
colored  and  well-marked  workers ;  and  this  too 
■when  all  the  drones  that  fertilized  those  queens 
were  raised  in  one  hive  and  produced  by  one 
queen.  In  fact,  I  have  never  succeeded  in  raising 
handsomely  marked  and  light-colored  queens, 
when  they  were  nursed  by  black  bees.  I  will  not 
say  that  such  has  not  been  the  case  with  others. 
I  am  just  giving  my  own  experience  in  the  matter. 
I  am  not  going  to  instruct  others  in  what  I  do 
not  know  myself. 

I  am  as  much  puzzled  about  some  of  these 
questions  as  Mr.  Argo  himself,  or  any  one  else 
can  be.  When  I  get  hold  of  a  queen  that  pro- 
duces duplicates  of  herself,  when  raised  by  Italian 
nurses,  iind  her  workers  are  unmistakably  well- 
marked,  I  am  satisfied  with  her.  Of  course  there 
is  a  slight  difference  in  the  coloring  when  raised 
at  ditferenl  seasons.  Queens  raised  in  full  stocks 
when  apple,  plum,  or  basswood  trees  are  in  full 
bloom,  will  be  a  shade  lighter  than  those  raised 
lute  in  the  fall  from  the  same  mother. 

If  Benedict  and  Thomas  were  as  anxious  to 
jialm  off  impure  queens  as  some  others,  they 
Avould  not  have  said  as  they  did  ;  at  least  that  is 
the  opinion  of  E.  Gallup. 

Orchard,  Iowa. 


[For  the  Amorican  Boe  Journal.] 

Novice. 

Dear  Bee  Jouunal  : — Once  more  we  greet 
you,  and  take  great  pleasure  in  informing  jou 
that  our  forty-si.v  stocks  of  bees  are  all  safely 
wintered,  thanks  to  the  Bee  House.  We  can 
scarcely  believe  that  the  whole  number  put  in, 
are  really  all  on  their  summer  stands,  nearly  as 
heavy  as  when  put  in.  But  such  is  the  case.  We 
set  them  out  to-day  (March  10).  Some  would 
liave  persuaded  us  that  they  would  have  been 
better  left  in  a  little  longer.  But  we  think  they 
are  better  out  now,  if  properly  protected  and 
cared  for. 

They  seemed  about  as  anxious  to  try  their 
wings  again,  as  we  were  to  liave  them  do  it ;  and 
we  are  now  going  to  furnish  them  Avith  all  the 
rye  and  oat  meal  they  can  be  induced  to  take  up. 

Mr.  Langstroth  gives  as  one  objection  to  special 
repositories  for  wintering,  that  the  bees  do  not 
cf)mmence  raising  brood  so  early,  but  we  think 
that  with  the  start  ours  already  have  (and  nearly 
all  we  have  examined  have  considerable  brood), 
that  we  shall  have  plenty  of  it  as  soon  as  it  is 
desirable. 

We  are  going  to  try  stimulating  some  of  them 
that  are  not  quite  as  strong  as  the  rest,  and  so  we 
too  want  a  bee  feeder.     Last  year  we  used  glass 


jars  or  tumblers,  with  a  cloth  over  the  top  ;  but 
theie  was  considerable  trouble  to  till  these  when 
they  required  it,  and  after  some  e.xperinientiug, 
we  have  hit  upon  something  that  answers  our 
purpose  admirably.  What  we  required  in  a  feeder 
was  something  that  could  be  filled  quickly  ;  some- 
thing that  would  not  be  expensive,  as  we  might 
need  a  grr at  many  ;  something  that  would  not  be 
too  bulky,  as  we  dislike  above  all  things  to  have 
such  implements  around  in  the  way  ;  and  some- 
thing that  would  not  be  getting  all  sticky  and 
daubed  over  with  honey,  as  we  fear  we  might  take 
a  dislike  to  the  business. 

Now,  Mr.  Editor,  we  will  tell  you  all  about  it 
and  make  it  public,  if  you  will  first  head  it  (for 
we  want  a  little  of  the  credit  of  the  invention), 

Novice's  Bee-Feeder. 

Get  three  pieces  of  glass  all  alike  in  size,  say 
three  by  four  inches  square  ;  stand  them  uj)  on 
end,  so  as  to  make  a  hollow  prism  ;  slip  a  rubber 
band  around  them,  about  half  an  inch  from  the 
lower  end  ;  now  lay  a  piece  of  thin  cotton  cloth 
over  the  top,  and  with  your  hand  crowd  it  down 
inside  so  as  to  come  about  half  an  inch  from  the 
bottom;  put  a  second  rubber  band  over  cloth  and 
all,  about  half  an  inch  from  the  top  ;  cut  otf  the 
cloth  close  to  the  top  band,  on  the  outside,  and 
it  is  done.  Set  it  over  a  hole  in  the  honey  board 
or  to])  of  the  hive,  and  all  that  is  necessary  is  to 
pour  in  j-our  honey  or  syrup,  and  the  bees  Avill 
take  it  through  the  cloth  to  }'our  entire  satisfac- 
tion. You  can  feed  fifty  stocks,  as  fast  as  you 
can  go  from  one  hive  to  another  ;  not  a  bee  can 
get  in  your  way  ;  and  the  way  the  little  chaps 
crowd  in  around  the  bag  is  a  sight  to  see. 

To  make  them  more  nicely,  get  some  of  the 
"women  folks"  (we  really  do  not  know  how  we 
should  ^tiiA\(mg  without  them,  though  it  is  a  task 
sometimes  to  get  along  with  them)  to  seAV  you 
some  nice  Hllle  bags  of  three  triangular  pieces  of 
cloth.  When  the  top  is  rolled  over  the  outside 
of  the  top  of  the  glass,  and  your  band  put  on,  it 
looks  quite  tasty. 

AVhen  you  get  through  with  them  for  the  sea- 
son, slip  otf  the  bands;  get  those  same  "women 
folks"  (that  is,  if  you  have  got  the  right  side  of 
them  ;  and  you  can't  keep  bees  unless  j'ou  have) 
to  scald  the  whole  apparatus,  and  then  you  can 
pack  them  away  in  a  nice  little  box  (the  feeders 
we  mean,  of  course ;  not  the  ''  women  folks")  till 
wanted  again. 

Any  broken  glass  will  make  them  ;  or  you  can 
use  wood,  but  as  in  that  case  you  cannot  see  in- 
side, and  it  is  not  so  clean  as  glass,  we  think  the 
latter  will  pay.  Strings  or  wire  will  answer  in 
place  of  the  rubber,  though  not  so  convenient. 

Now.  Mr.  Editor,  will  you  allow  us  to  discuss 
Bee  Journal  in  these  pages  ?  You  allow  almost 
every  liberty,  even  for  patentees  to  crack  up  their 
respective  hives  and  inventions,  almost  as  much 
as  if  they  paid  a  dollar  a  line  for  the  privilege. 
We  think  you  once  said  that  in  all  these  discus- 
sions you  had  faith  that  the  truth  W(mld  come  to 
the  top  at  last;  and  on  looking  back  over  the 
pages  of  the  Journal,  we  were  astonished  to  find 
how  much  truth  haa  been  brought  out. 

Well,  we  have  three  Bee  Journals— or  rather 
one,  and  two  so-called — and  another  is  about 
dawning  from  Missouri.     We  don't  know  what 


THE   AMEKICAN   BEE   JOUENAL. 


209 


this  new  one  may  be ;  but  we  can't  help  coiilrast- 
ing  our  old  American  Bee  Jouknal,  with  the 
full  liberty  allowi'd  on  its  pages,  with  some  of  the 
new  ones  that  don't  allow  or  at  least  d«)n't  men- 
tion tiie  existence  of  any  other  form  of  hive  than 
the  one  owned  by  the  publisher,  and  advertised 
all  over  the  paper  continually.  We  should  not  be 
surprised  that  the  publishers  of  such  might  make 
a  good  thing  of  it,  if  they  sent  their  papers  gratai- 
tottsiy  to  every  body. 

Another  opens  with  a  Gift  Enterprise,  on  a 
system  of  luck  and  ciiance,  and  promises  to  tell 
his  subscribers  how  to  make  more  honey  from 
every  swarm  of  bees  than  ever  Jasper  Hazeu's 
hive  woukl  give,  good  seasons  and  bad. 

What  would  our  Bee  Jouiinal  be,  if  only  one 
kind  of  hive  was  to  be  considered  ?  For  this  very 
reason,  we  should  consider  the  Rural  New  Yorker 
worth  more  as  a  bee  journal  than  all  that  we  have 
seen,  except  the  one  on  whose  pages  we  are  now 
writing. 

Orange  Judd  &  Co.  once  said,  that  they  had 
nothing  to  sell,  except  the  American  Agriculiurisf, ; 
and  that  their  whole  business  was  to  make  that 
as  valuMble  as  they  could  to  emrp  b>dy.  Such 
being  your  motto  also,  cannot  we  well  afford  to 
jiay  two  dollars  per  annum  for  the  American 
Bee  Jouknal,  no  matter  what  others  charge  V  If 
we  are  speaking  strongly,  we  have  only  to  say 
that  standing  uj)  for  old  and  tried  friends  is  only 
another  "  well  rooted"  peculiarity  of 

Novice. 

P.  S. — Next  month  we  will  submit  our  state- 
ment, with  that  of  friend  Argo,  on  our  respective 
year's  work  for  18(59.  To  get  a  queen  or  lose  a 
queen,  "that's  the  question." 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Saered  History  of  the  Bee  and  Honey. 

Mr.  Editor  : — As  the  columns  of  your  excel- 
lent Journal  are  ever  o])en  to  the  discussion  of 
Jinything  pertaining  to  the  bee  and  its  products, 
I  have  thouglit  it  might  perhaps  not  be  uninter- 
esting to  your  readers  to  know  something  of  its 
sacred  hislorj',  and  as  I  am  to-day  unal>le  to  get 
around,  I  will  spend  the  time  in  the  examination 
thereof. 

To  begin.  The  first  intimation  we  have  of  such 
an  insect  as  the  bee,  is  by  way  of  inference,  and 
that  from  reading  Gen.  24,  59  in  connection  with 
Gen.  35,  8  ;  where  we  have  the  Hebrew  name- 
Deborah — given.  This,  according  to  the  generally 
received  chronology,  was  about  the  year  1955 
B.  C. 

Again,  in  Gen.  43,11  the  patriarch  Jacob,  in 
giving  directions  to  his  sons  on  going  down  into 
Egypt  a  second  time,  tells  them  lo  "  take  of  the 
best  fruits  in  the  land"  with  them— literally  that 
which  was  praised  the  most,  or  "the  song  of  the 
land;"  and,  among  others,  he  names  "a  little 
honey."  The  things  enumerated,  as  we  are  in- 
formed, grew  well  during  a  drought;  and  as  a 
famine  now  pievailed,  would  be  more  highly  ap- 
preciated in  Egypt.  Besides,  we  are  led  to  the 
belief  that  it  was  an  article  of  commerce  previous 
to  this  tune ;  Gen.  37,  25,  and  inferences  drawn 
from  the  Homer  and  Herodotus  at  a  later  date. 


Again,  in  Lev.  2,  11  we  read  that  honey  was 
not  allowed  as  a  burnt-olfering  amongst  the 
Israelites.  The  reason  for  this  we  cannot  now 
recall. 

But  in  Deut.  1,  44,  we  have  the  name  of  our 
industrious  friends  bnnight  directly  before  us, 
and  in  a  sense  which  does  not  highly  recommend 
them — that  is,  of  chasing.  This  gives  us  some 
intimation  of  their  character  then,  and  which 
later  writers  confirm.  Vide,  Bee  Journal,  Vol. 
5,  Nos.  5  and  G  ;  and  this  enables  us  the  more 
fully  to  understand  the  expression  of  the  Psalm- 
ist— "They  encompassed  me  about  like  bees." 
Ps.  118,  13. 

Again,  in  Deut.  33,  13,  honey  is  spoken  of  as 
one  of  the  blessings  conferred  upon  tlie  chosen 
people,  in  that  they  should  even  "suck  honey 
out  of  the  rock,"  and  their  land  should  "flow 
with  milk  and  honey." 

Again,  the  case  of  Samson,  Judges  14,  8,  in 
which  both  bees  and  honey  are  spoken  of,  under 
peculiar  circumstances,  being  found  in  the  car- 
case of  a  dead  lion,  which  he  had  some  time 
previously  slain.  We  quote  from  an  article  before 
us:  "The  lion  which  he  slew  had  been  dead 
some  little  time  before  the  bees  took  up  their 
abode  in  the  carcase,  for  it  is  expressly  stated 
that  '  after  a  time'  lie  returned  and  saw  the 
bees  and  the  honey  in  the  lion's  carcase  ;  so  that 
if  any  one  here  represents  to  himself  a  corrupt 
and  putrid  carcase,  the  occurrence  ceases  to  have 
any  true  similitude,  for  it  is  well  known  that  in 
those  countries,  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year, 
the  heat  will  in  the  course  of  twenty-four  hours 
so  completely  dry  up  the  moisture  of  the  dead 
camels,  that  without  undergoing  decomposition, 
their  bodies  will  long  remain  like  mummies,  un- 
altered and  entirely  free  from  otfensive  odor." — 
{Oedman.) 

Again,  in  1  Samuel  14,  26-29,  honey  is  spoken 
of,  iu  connection  with  a  curse  ;  and  the  eating  of 
it  came  well  nigh  being  the  death  of  David's 
most  intimate  friend  in  the  daj^s  of  his  adversity; 
but  which  would  have  resulted  in  much  more 
good,  had  all  at  that  lime  participated. 

Again,  in  Ps  19,  10  and  119,  103,  Prov.  5,  3; 
10,  34  ;  24,  13  ;  35,  27  and  27,  7  ;  and  in  Songs  of 
Solomon  4,  11  and  5,  1,  there  are  comparisons 
made  of  honey  and  the  honey-comb,  to  sundry 
moral  virtues,  &c.  ;  and  in  Ezek.  3,  3,  and  Rev. 
10,  9,  by  way  of  contrast. 

In  Isaiah  7,  18,  the  Assyrian  nation  is  com- 
pared to  a  bee  ;  and  tliis  no  doubt  has  reference 
to  them  as  an  instrument  of  punishment  upon 
the  Jews. 

The  foregoing  passages  are  the  principal  ones 
relating  to  our  subject,  found  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. We  will  now  take  a  glance  at  the  New. 
The  first  that  meets  the  eye  here  is  found  in 
Math.  3,  4,  in  connection  with  Mark  1,  6,  in 
which  the  manner  of  living  of  the  forerunner  of 
Christ  is  spoken  of;  and  as  J.  D.  M.  in  the  Feb- 
ruary number  has  remarked  that,  since  honey 
formed  a  prominent  link  in  the  chain  of  man's 
redemption,  surely  this  ought  to  give  us  some  en- 
couragement in  the  prosecution  of  apiculture. 

Again,  in  Luke  24,  42,  we  find  the  Saviour 
himself  indulging  iu  eating  of  a  piece  of  honey- 
comb ;  and  would  that  all  might  profit  by  the 


210 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


lesson  there  tangbt,  that  in  very  deed  he  was 
risen  frum  the  dead,  and  rejoice  in  their  Divine 
Master. 

In  conclusion,  nenrly  all  the  writers  of  the 
past  ei,u;hteen  centuries  have  given,  directly  or 
indirectly,  the  subject  of  our  remarks  a  passing- 
notice.  And  from  tliis  we  see  that  the  honey-bee 
has  a  written  history  of  over  three  thousand 
eicht  hundred  (3800)  years— a  history  intimately 
connected  witli  tliat  of  our  own  race  ;  and  that 
its  products  have  ever  been,  as  tiiey  still  are, 
articles  of  commerce.  J.  W.  Barclay. 

Worthinc/ton,  Pa.,  Feb.  19,  1870. 

[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Price's  Hevolvable,  Keversible,  Movable 
Comb,  Double  cased,  Sectional  Bee- 
Hive.    The  Casket. 


It  is  hung  horizontal  and  angling.  It  is  the 
best  hive  for  wintering,  breeding,  or  stimulating 
bees  ;  and  has  the  best  surplus  "  sectional  "  honey 
boxes  and  storage  facilities. 

Mr.  Editor,  and  all  beekeepers,  I  wish  to  bring 
to  your  notice  the  description  and  superior  ad- 
vantages of  the  above  hive,  over  all  othei'S,  on 
the  above  enumerated  points,  in  accordance  with 
the  expressed  wish  of  several  correspondents. 

In  the  first  place,  I  Avish  to  say  that  having 
failed  to  winter  my  bees  satisfactorily  in  the 
several  ways  it  is  usually  done  by  bee-keepers; 
and  after  making  all  kinds  of  experiments,  I  have 
])erfected  a  method  and  invented  and  patented  a 
simple  yet  efficient  hive  and  apparatus  for  its  ac- 
complishment. I  claim  it  to  be  the  best  hive  and 
method  of  wintering  bees,  either  on  their  sum- 
mer stands,  in  a  bee-house,  or  in  a  cellar,  by  the 
removal  thereto  of  the  casket  containing  the 
combs,  bees,  and  honey.  It  is  a  sure  protection 
from  loss  and  destruction  of  bees  on  warm  days, 
in  winter  and  si)ring,  when  there  is  snow  on  the 
ground,  from  their  tlight  and  falling  on  the  snow. 
This  misfortune  with  me  has  been  as  destructive 
as  cold — and  the  warmer  the  hive,  the  more  de- 
structive liave  been  warm  days. 

This  hive  is  also  the  best  and  safest  ventilating 
hive  ever  made  ;  it  is  impossible  to  suffocate  a 
swarm  of  bees  confined  in  it ;  it  cannot  be  done 
under  any  circumstances.  But  a  swarm  put 
away  for  wintering  in  it,  is  safer  from  the  usual 
mishaps  of  wintering,  than  by  any  other  mode 
of  wintering  yet  devis''d. 

I  also  claim  for  my  hive  the  best  and  warmest 
breeding  apartment ;  it  being  the  best  ventilated 
also.  It  is  the  best  hive  for  either  the  bees  reach- 
ing the  combs,  or  the  shape  and  position  of  the 
combs  for  natural  clustering  of  the  bees  for  rear- 
ing and  protecting  the  brood,  and  to  facilitate  the 
queen's  laying  eggs  in  the  combs  in  circles. 

It  is  also,  by  its  facility  of  revolving  and  revers- 
ing the  "casket"  brood  chamber,  the  best  hive 
to  stimulate  the  queen  to  the  production  of  brood, 
at  any  wished  for  period  in  the  early  spring.  The 
brood  apartment  can  also  be  examined,  without 
inoving  the  surplus  honej-^  boxes  or  surplus  sec- 
tions ;  making  it  the  best  and  handiest  hive  for 
artifical  swarming. 

The  V  shaped  bottom  makes  it  also  the  best 


self-cleaning  hive,  harboring  neither  chips  of  wax 
or  other  foul  matter. 

By  means  of  my  reversible  casket,  I  claim  for 
my  hive,  the  best  means  of  stimulating  the  queen 
to  the  i)roduction  of  brood  during  a  temporary 
drouth  in  summer.  The  revolving  of  the  casket 
will  immediately  stimulate  an  idle  colony  to  work, 
during  the  honey  harvest — the  same  as  an  inter- 
change of  combs,  from  place  to  place ;  without 
danger  of  maiming  or  killing  the  queen.  By 
means  of  it,  likewise,  I  can  get  straight  combs  in 
my  sectional  hive,  by  removal  of  the  platform. 
Then  the  casket  and  sections  are  laid  horizontal, 
or  flat,  on  the  bottom  of  the  exterior  case  ;  and 
Avhen  the  swarm  have  filled  the  sections  with 
combs,  the  casket  is  placed  on  the  platform,  and 
the  combs  are  hung  angling.  Thus  securing 
straight  combs,  wliich  cannot  be  done  in  a  full 
hive  of  empty  frames  hung  angling. 

I  also  claim  that  from  the  shape  of  my 
hive,  and  by  the  use  of  my  sectional  surplus 
honey  boxes  (they  being  on  a  level  with  the 
brood  chamber),  I  secure  the  best  surplus  honey 
facilities.  The  bees  can  reach  the  boxes  or  sec- 
tions, Avithout  going  into  the  breeding  apartment. 
My  boxes  are  likewise  of  the  best  shape  lor  the 
honey  emptying  machine,  for  home  use,  or  for 
transportation  to  a  distant  market. 

The  descriptions  and  drawings  Avill  appear,  as 
soon  as  I  can  get  the  latter  engi"aved. 

John  M.  Price. 

Buffalo  Grove,  lotoa. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Bee  Stings. 


Mr.  Editor  : — In  these  days  of  waiting,  Avhile 
the  little  honey-gatherers  are  closely  closeted  at 
home,  it  may  "be  well  to  take  thought  for  the 
future.  Spring  is  fast  hastening  along,  and  the 
bees  will  soon  be  abroad.  We  may  now  tell  how 
heroic  we  Avere  last  season  in  passing  among  the 
hives  and  in  handling  the  bees  Avithout  veil  or 
gloves  ;  but  a  test  of  courage  is  soon  to  be  de- 
manded again.  Inasmuch  as  Ave  dread  to  be 
stung,  Ave  are  enlisted  in  sympathy  for  those  Avbo 
may  be  so  unfortunate.  Some  of  our  best  offi- 
cers among  apiarians  occasionally  get  Avounded  ; 
Avhile  many  of  us  who  rank  among  the  novices, 
could  give  credit  to  scores  of  bees  Avhich  left  a 
sting  Avith  us,  as  a  piercing  memento  of  their 
zeal.  We  are  safe  in  saying,  we  knoAV  Ave  shall 
be  stung  if  there  are  any  bees  in  our  vicinity. 
How  quickly  all  our  bravery  subsides,  when  the 
sweet  little  bee  is  avenged.  Benevolent  hearts 
have  studied  to  find  a  "healing  balm."  We 
have  no  reason  to  doubt  their  success,  and  really 
believe  it  may  be  found  Avhile  carefully  passing 
through  the  following  list  of  remedial  agents. 

1.  The  first  thing  to  be  done  after  being  stung, 
is  to  pull  the  sting  out  of  the  Avouud  as  quickly  as 
possible.  After  the  sting  is  removed,  the  utmost 
care  should  be  taken  not  to  irritate  the  wound  by 
the  slightest  rubbing.  However  intense  the  smart- 
ing, and  the  disposition  to  apply  friction  to  the 
Avouud,  it  should  never  be  done,  for  the  moment 
that  the  blood  is  put  into  violent  circulation,  the 
poison  is  quickly  diffused  over  a  large  part  of  the 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


211 


system,  and  severe  piiiu  and  swelling  may  ensue. 
— L.  L.  Langstrotii. 

2.  Cold  water.  In  my  own  case  I  have  found 
cold  water  to  be  the  best  remedy  for  a  bee-sting. 
The  poison  being  very  volatile,  is  quickly  dis- 
solved in  it. — Ibid. 

3.  Tiie  juice  of  the  ripe  berry  of  the  common 
coral  honeysuckle  {Lonicera  cuprifolium)  is  the 
best  remedy.  The  berries  or  the  expressed  juice 
may  be  preserved  in  a  bottle,  well  closed,  and  will 
retain  its  efficacy  more  tiian  a  year. — Andrews. 

4.  The  milky  juice  of  the  white  poppy. 

5.  Leaves  of  the  plantain  crushed  and  applied 
to  the  wound,  are  a  very  good  substitute  when 
water  cannot  be  obtamed. — L.  L.  Langstkoth. 

6.  Spirits  of  hartshorn.  In  cases  of  severe  sting- 
ing its  internal  use  is  also  beneficial. — Bevan. 

7.  The  juice  of  tobacco. 

8.  Catch  as  speedily  as  possible  another  bee, 
and  make  it  sting  on  the  same  spot. — English 
Apiuriiin. 

9.  Bathe  the  wound  in  chloroform. 

10.  Take  a  small  piece  of  saleratus,  moisten  and 
apply  it  to  tlie  part  once  or  twice,  and  almost  im- 
mediate relief  will  be  experienced. 

11.  Take  muriatic  acid  and  dissolve  saleratus  in 
it,  as  much  as  it  Avill  take  up.  Apply  this,  as 
soon  as  stung. — G.  B.  Aveky. 

13.  A  raw  onion  cut  in  halves  ;  one  half  applied 
till  it  becomes  warm  ;  then  change  for  the  other 
half. 

13.  Mud  or  clay  made  wet,  and  changed  often. 

14.  Soft  soap  and  salt. 

15.  Select  tiiree  species  of  plants,  either  trees, 
shrubs  or  herbs  ;  take  one  leaf  from  each,  and 
bind  them  on  the  wound. 

16.  Bathe  with  a  solution  of  chloride  of  lime. 

17.  Wet  a  piece  of  indigo,  and  rub  it  on  the  spot. 
— Affleck. 

18.  Apply  aqua  potassa. 

19.  The  great  secret  after  being  stung,  is  to  keep 
the  spot  cool,  and,  not  rub  it  at  all. — Kidder. 

20.  Dr.  Latour  proposes  the  following  :  1st,  pull 
out  the  sling  ;  2d,  foment  the  place  Avith  iced 
water,  or  else  extract  of  ammonia;  3d,  apply  an 
impenetrable  coating  of  collodion,  rendered  elas- 
tic by  the  addition  of  one-tenth  part  of  castor  oil, 
whereby  the  production  of  heat  in  the  living  tis- 
sue is  prevented  and  the  inflammation  avoided. 

21.  Bruise  a  few  leaves  of  the  catmint  plant 
{Nepeta  cataria);  press  out  the  juice,  and  apply  it 
to  tbe  wound. 

22.  Dave  about  three  quilts  or  comfortables 
spread  on  a  bed.  Then  wet  a  sheet  in  cold  water, 
wring  it,  and  spread  it  on  the  former.  Wet  an- 
other sheet,  and  wring  out  the  water  so  that  it 
will  not  drip.  Spread  this  on  the  first  sheet. 
Now  strip  the  patient  to  the  skin,  lay  him  on  the 
wet  sheets  on  his  back,  and  fold  them  about  him  ; 
then  fold  the  quilts  around  him  in  the  same  man- 
ner ;  and  jmt  wet  clothes  on  ti>e  face  and  fore- 
liead.  Let  him  lie  thus  for  thirty  minutes,  and 
all  will  be  right. — E.  Gallup. 

23.  A  strong  solution  of  sugar  of  lead. — O. 
Dyer. 

24.  A  freshly  prepared  solution  of  hydrate  of 
lime  (lime  water). 

25.  First  extract  the  sting,  then  wash  the  part 
with  cold  water,  rubbing  it  well  for  half  a  minute  ; 


then  rub  with  a  dr;/  toicel  for  half  a  minute  more. 
Then  apply  about  4  teaspoonfuls  of  spirits  of  cam- 
phor, and  rub  for  another  hdlf  mimite. — M. 
Smith. 

20.  Api)ly  kerosene  oil  to  the  Avound. — P.  R. 
Russell. 

27.  Prepaired  chalk  made  into  paste  with  water 
or  saliva,  and  applied  to  the  wound. — J.  B.  Bar- 
ton. 

2S.  Coal  oil  applied  to  the  wound  renders  im- 
mediate releif. — P.  Brickley. 

20.  For  bee-stings  use  spirituous  liquor  inter- 
nally and  external]}'.  Ammonia  is  good  as  a 
wash.  Water  is  the  best  of  the  solvents,  and  is 
therefore  good. — J.  M.  Marvin. 

30.  Pull  out  the  sting,  and  pass  a  needle  into 
the  wound  till  you  can  press  out  some  blood.  It 
Avill  prevent  swelling. — J.  Kimball. 

31.  Extract  the  sting,  and  keep  the  spot  moist 
Avith  spittle. 

The  editor  may  perhaps  think,  by  this  time, 
that  I  should  ask  pardon  lor  this  intrusion.  Per- 
haps I  should.  1  certainly  wish  him  no  harm  in 
the  perusal.  The  list  may  serve  as  a  curiosity, 
if  nothing  else.  No.  1,  snys  that  the  Avound 
should  not  be  rubbed  at  all ;  Avhile  No.  25  regards 
the  rubbing  as  very  essential.  In  my  OAvn  case, 
I  found  No.  21  proved  very  satisfactory. 

Henry  C.  Blinn. 

Shaker  Village,  N.  H. 


[For  the  Amoi'ican  Bee  Journal.] 

When   does  a  young  qusen   commence 

laying  drone  eggs? 

And, 

Will  introducing  a  young  fertile  queen 

prevent  swarming? 


In  the  latter  part  of  June,  1805,  I  concluded  to 
introduce  a  young  fertile  Italian  queen  in  a  col- 
ony of  black  bees,  Avhich  was  strong,  but  occu- 
pied a  small  hive  of  only  about  1300  or  1400  cubic 
inches.  When  removing  the  black  queen  I  no- 
ticed tliat  three  fiaiiies,  Avliich  1  had  previou.sly 
inserted,  Avere  nearly  filled  witli  drone  combs, 
containing  eggs  and  larvaj  from  the  black  queen. 
I  took  away  all  these  drone  combs,  and  intro- 
duced the  young  Italian  queen,  which  had  com- 
menced laying  tlie  day  previous.  Slie  was  con- 
fined in  a  queen  cage,  but  I  liberated  her  after  the 
lapse  of  forty-eight  hours.  Three  days  later  I 
examined  this  colony  again,  to  see  whether  tlie 
Italian  queen  wis  accepted  or  not.  I  found  tiie 
three  Irnmes  again  filled  with  drone  combs,  and 
every  cell  contained  an  egg  !  I  also  found  tliree 
queen  cells  started  in  the  upper  part  of  the  hive, 
but  still  empty.  I  made  another  examination 
three  days  later,  and  found  small  larvai  in  the 
drone  cells,  and  two  eggs  and  one  very  small 
larvae  in  the  three  queen  cells.  The  bassvvood 
trees  were  at  this  time  in  blossom,  furnishing  a 
very  plentiful  sup|)ly  of  honey.  On  the  following 
day  a  swarm  issued  from  this  hive,  and  Avas 
accompanied  by  the  young  Italian  queen.  I 
feared,  of  course,  that,  unobserved  by  me,  the 
bees  had  somewhere  reared  a  queen  from  the 
brood  of   the   removed  black   q  iceu,   but  soon 


212 


THE   AMERICAN  BEE   JOURNAL. 


found  that  this  was  not  so.  The  queen  cells  be- 
fore observed,  were  sealed  in  due  time,  and  on 
the  sixth  day  thereafter  the  two  youngest  cells 
were  removed.  An  Italian  queen  and  a  large 
number  of  Italian  drones  were  hatched,  and  to 
my  great  gratification  the  young  queen  subse- 
quently proved  to  be  purely  impregnated.  The 
black  swarm  with  the  Italian  queen,  became 
changed  to  a  pure  Italian  colony,  by  the  middle 
of  October. 

That  same  season,  on  the  7th  of  May,  I  in- 
serted three  queen  cells  from  an  Italian  colony,  in 
three  black  colonies  respectively,  from  wliich 
their  queens  had  been  removed  tiie  day  previous. 
The  queens  htUclied  from  thiss  cells  May  11th, 
were  impregnated,  and  became  fertile  in  due 
time.  Each  of  these  three  colonies  swarmed  on 
the  15th  of  July.  Only  a  few  Italian  workers 
had  yet  commenced  out-door  labor  at  this  time  ; 
but  nearly  all  the  workers  in  those  three  swarms, 
at  the  time  they  issued,  were  Italians. — Young 
fertile  queens  introduced  into  a  colony  are  there- 
f(#re  not  always  a  preventive  of  swarming.  In 
fact,  I  have  not  yet  discovered  any  metliod  by 
which  swarming  can  be  prevented,  except  by 
weakening  the  colony.  Mr.  Quuiby's  queen- 
yard  would  not  be  a  preventive  with  me,  so  long 
as  there  was  a  chance  for  another  swarm  in  the 
apiary  to  come  out,  as  the  bees  would  join  such 
swarm,  if  they  missed  their  own  queen  on  coming 
out.  Prime  swarms,  with  old  queens  that  could 
not  fly,  united  in  three  instances  with  second 
swarms  and  were  satisfied  with  tlie  young  virgin 
queens.  A.  Grimm. 

JeJ'eraon,  Wis. 


[Forttie  American  Bee  Joui-nal.] 

The  greatest  enemy  to  Bee-keeping. 

A  correspondent  says  I  have  been  reading  the 
Bee  Journal,  have  never  kept  bees,  but  am  now 
inclined  to  try  my  hand.  First  and  foremost, 
what  diseases  have  I  to  contend  against  V  Or 
"What  is  the  greatest  enemy  to  bees  and  bee-keep- 
ing V  And  he  requests  an  answer  through  the 
Journal,  but  does  not  give  his  name  or  address  ; 
and  I  am  strongly  inclined  to  think  that  his 
questions  are  asked  for  the  purpose  of  quizzing 
or  puzzling.  Nevertheless,  I  am  going  to  com- 
ply with  his  request ;  and  here  is  the  answer — 
Ignokance.  Just  that  one  word  answers  the 
question,  and  covers  the  whole  ground.  Ignor- 
ant bee-keepers  destroy  more  bees  than  all  other 
causes  combined,  according  to  my  experience. 

In  my  own  ignorant  experiments  during  my 
lifetime,  I  liave  destroyed  liundreds  of  dollars 
worth  of  bees;  and  now,  when  I  look  back  on 
some  of  those  foolish  experiments,  I  wonder  at 
my  own  former  ignorance.  But  I  never  became 
discouraged,  I  always  learned  something  by  my 
failures.  I  will  relate  one  instance  and  perhaps 
more.  In  my  first  experiment  in  wintering  bees 
in  the  cellar  (and  I  had  then  an  excellent,  dry, 
airy  cellar)  I  set  in  twelve  good  stnmg  heavy 
swarms,  and  left  the  balance  on  their  summer 
stands  as  usual.  Understand,  that  I  had  no 
books  to  guide  me  in  any  of  my  experiments, 
such  as  bee-keepers  have  now-a-days.     By  the 


first  of  February  ten  out  of  the  twelve  were 
all  dead— having  died  with  the  dysentery, 
course,  as  the  front  of  the  hive,  bottom-board, 
and  combs,  all  distinctly  showed  :  and  I  concluded 
at  the  time  that  it  was  the  malignant  type,  and 
that  physic  could  not  have  saved  them  ;  at  least 
that  was  my  opinion,  hastily  formed  from  a  post 
mortem  examination.  But  I  soon  began  to  doubt 
the  truthfulness  of  my  conclusions,  for  the  other 
two  slocks  were  in  excellent  condition.  They 
were  all  in  common  chamber  hives,  all  venti- 
lated alike  at  the  bottom;  but  upon  examination 
of  the  two  that  were  in  good  condition,  I  (bund 
that  in  setting  them  in  the  cellar  I  had  accident- 
ally uncovered  the  holes  into  the  chamber,  and 
as  the  doors  to  the  chamber  did  not  fit  closely, 
there  was  an  abundance  of  upward  ventilation. 
The  ten  that  died  had  no  upward  ventilation 
whatever.  Thus  we  see  that  ignorance  in  this 
case  destroyed  the  ten  stocks,  worth  seventy  dol- 
lars ;  but  accident  saved  two.  But  not  exactly 
satisfied  that  I  had  discovered  the  true  cause,  the 
following  winter  I  set  in  twelve  more  colonies,  to 
ten  of  which  I  gave  upward  ventilation,  and  to 
the  other  two  I  gave  only  ventilation  at  the  bot- 
tom. In  about  three  weeks  after  setting  them 
in,  I  discovered  that  the  two  had  the  dysentery 
and  began  to  smell  badly,  with  large  quantities 
of  dead  bees  on  the  bottom-boards  and  the  combs 
damp  and  mouldy.  I  then  opened  the  holes  at 
the  top,  and  they  soon  came  all  right  iigain.  The 
ten  all  wintered  in  excellent  condition,  and  did 
not  consume  near  the  amount  of  honey  that 
those  did  cm  the  summer  stands. 

No  person  at  the  present  day  need  commence 
bee-keeping  under  the  same  disadvantages  that  I 
had  to  contend  against.  Now  you  can  have  the 
experience  of  others  to  guide  you  when  you  be- 
gin. E.  Gallup. 

Orchard,  Mitchell  Co.,  Iowa. 


This  has  been  a  terrible  winter  for  bees  in 
Berkshire ;  or  rather  the  last  summer  was  so 
unfavorable  for  the  production  of  honey  that  the 
bees  could  not  gather  a  sufticient  qumtity  to 
carry  them  through  the  winter.  Out  ot  ID 
swarms  belonging  to  Peregrine  Drew  of  Pitts- 
field,  one  only  survives.  John  Barnard  had  21 
swarms  last  fall,  and  "took  up"  18,  obtaining 
but  28  pounds  of  honey,  and  this  he  fed  to  the 
remaining  hives,  but  only  three  are  still  alive. 
H.  D.  Burghardt  has  lost  22  out  of  25  hives 
during  the  winter.  Live  bees  Avill  be  high  in  the 
spring,  and  lioney  will  be  higher  next  summer. 


Structure  is  always  expressive  of  the  habits 
of  the  bees,  and  is  as  sure  a  line  of  separation, 
or  means  of  combination,  as  instinct  could  be 
were  it  tangible.  Hence  the  conclusion  always 
follows  with  a  certainty,  that  such  and  such  a 
form  is  identical  with  such  and  such  habits,  and 
that  in  the  broad  and  most  distinguishing  features 
of  its  economy,  the  genus  is  essentially  the  same 
in  every  climate  ;  for  climate  does  not  act  upon 
these  lower  forms  of  animal  life,  with  the  modi- 
fying influence  which  it  exercises  upon  the  mam- 
malia and  man. — iShuckard. 


THE    AMERICAN   BEE   JOUENAL. 


213 


[For  the  American  Bee  Juurual] 

Confinement  of  Honey  Bees. 


How  ]on2:  ma}"  Ik'Ikjj.'  bees  Ix;  kept  in  a  cellar, 
■without  injurious  effects  Irom  continuous  coiifme- 
ment  ? 

In  the  spring  of  1868,  I  rented  the  privilege  of 
starting  my  southern  apiary,  and  removed  to  the 
location  one  hundred  colonies,  over  a  very  rough 
road.  The  owner  of  the  lot  on  which  I  had  started 
the  apiary,  becoming  dissatisfied,  I  was  compelled 
to  remove  the  hives  in  the  fall  to  another  loca- 
tion, ab<mt  a  mile  Avestward,  to  a  timbered  lot, 
which  I  owned  there.  Not  being  apprised  early 
of  the  necessity  of  making  the  change,  I  did  not 
commence  digging  a  cellar  for  the  reception  of 
bees  till  the  beginning  of  October,  and  as  the 
road  over  which  they  had  to  be  carried  always 
becomes  impassable  as  soon  as  rainy  weather  sets 
in,  I  deemed  it  advisable  to  make  the  removal  on 
the  20th  day  of  that  month.  As  there  was  then 
neither  house  nor  fence  on  the  premises,  I  had  to 
run  the  risk  of  storing  the  colcmies  in  the  cellar, 
just  finished,  with  the  mortar  still  soft ;  though 
a  frame  house  was  erected  over  the  cellar  shortly 
after.  oAs  soon  as  the  house  advanced  I  put  a 
tenant  in  it,  who  fearing  that  a  stock  of  potatoes 
and  turnips  which  he  intended  to  winter  in  it 
would  freeze  in  the  cellar,  plastered  up  all  the 
crevices  between  the  ceiling  and  the  side  walls. 
Having  other  pressing  business  to  attend  teat  the 
time,  I  neglected  to  instruct  the  tenant  to  make 
provision  for  ventilation.  It  happened  also  that 
the  outer  cellar  door  had  swollen  from  dampness 
and  could  not  be  closed,  and  a  space  about  an 
inch  wide  remained  open.  This  was  all  the 
chance  the  bees  had  for  pure  air  and  ventilation. 
When  I  visited  the  place,  six  weeks  later,  I  found, 
to  my  great  surprise,  the  bees  perfectly  quiet  and 
healthy,  and  the  hives  dry.  A  number  of  bees, 
however,  that  had  crawled  out,  lay  on  the  floor, 
covered  with  mould.  Six  weeks  later,  the  condi- 
tion of  the  bees  was  found  to  be  about  the  same  ; 
and  so  likewise  on  a  still  later  examination. 

I  did  not  take  these  bees  out  before  the  14th 
and  IGth  of  April  following,  they  having  then  been 
in  the  cellar  about  a  week  less  than  six  months. 
I  commented  removing  them  on  the  14th,  but 
owing  to  cold  and  rainy  weather,  I  could  not 
finish  the  work  till  on  the  IGth  ;  and  this  was  the 
condition  in  which  I  found  them.  Fifty-eight 
colonies  in  eight-lrame  Langstroth  hives,  were 
all  of  them  alive,  with  very  few  dead  bees.  The 
combs  were  dry  and  clean,  without  the  least  par- 
ticle of  mould  ;  and  no  candied  honey  was  found 
in  the  combs.  Of  sixty-three  box  hives,  which 
were  inverted  with  the  liottom  board  left  on,  four 
had  died,  and  nine  had  combs  more  or  less 
mouldy.  Those  that  were 'not  mouldy  were  in 
an  exceedingly  good  condition.  Those  that  had 
moulded  were  probably-  we;ik  when  wintered  in; 
and  of  the  four  dead  ones,  two  had  probably 
been  queonless  ever  since  swarming,  and  had 
been  overlooked,  as  I  found  on  examination  of 
the  combs  that  these  contained  a  large  amount  of 
bee-bread. 

The  whole  number  of  colonies  had  consumed  a 
very  small  amount  of  honey,  and  appeared  in 
every   respect    in    excellent   order.     How    very 


damp  the  air  in  the  cellar  must  have  been, 
may  be  inferred  fiom  the  fact  that  the  cotton 
cloth  on  a  bee  hat,  which  had  been  carelessly 
left  on  a  cellar  window,  had  become  mouldy  and 
was  i^erfectly  rotten.  I  forgot  to  mention  that  I 
found  it  quite  warm  and  pleasant  in  the  cellar, 
on  every  examination  made,  the  temperature 
being  probably  ^48"  F. 

What  will  those  who  think  bees  may  not  be 
kept  confined  more  than  six  or  seven  weeks, 
say  to  this  ?  more  especially  when  informed  that 
those  bees  were  not  supplied  with  a  particle  of 
water  during  all  this  time  ;  and  that  some  of 
the  colonies  had  about  six  inches  square  of  brood 
when  brought  out.  They  commenced  carrying 
in  pollen  on  the  IGth  of  April  ;  and  on  the  17th 
of  May,  when  I  visited  them  in  company  with 
Mr.  J.  Ckowfoot,  of  Hartford,  Wis.,  we  found 
most  of  the  hives  filled  with  bees,  brood,  bee- 
bread,  and  honey.  On  the  25th,  two  large  natural 
swarms  came  out,  with  every  prospect  that  many 
more  would  follow  in  a  few  days ;  and  actually 
twelve  hives  swarmed  on  the  forenoon  of  the  5th 
of  June. 

Jefferson^  Wis.  Adam  Gkimm. 


[For  the  Americaa  Bee  .Tournal  ] 

Wax  Scales  found  in  Winter. 


I  have  heretofore  supposed  that  Avax  scales 
were  formed  in  the  wax  pockets  of  bees,  only  in 
warm  weather,  and  then,  only  when  the  bees 
were  about  to  build  comb  ;  and  have  always  re- 
garded its  production  as  entirely  within  the  con- 
trol of  the  bees  themselves,  and  subject  to  their 
will  as  much  as  comb-building  is.  That  is,  I 
thought  that  when  they,wanted  wax  for  comb- 
building,  they  were  obliged  ( impelled  by  instinct) 
to  eat  more  abundantly  than  usual,  and  to  hang 
clustered  for  some  time,  for  the  purpose  of  gen- 
erating unusual  heat;  and  that,  by  this  means, 
and  in  this  manner  only,  could  wax  be  produced. 
I  believe  this  idea  is  the  one  usually  advanced  by 
writers  on  bee-culture.  But  I  have  recentl}'  uj- 
ticed  some  facts  that  seem  to  run  counter  to  this 
doctrine. 

On  the  17th  of  February,  I  found  in  one  of  my 
hives  a  dead  bee  that  seemed  rather  larger  than 
usual.  Careful  examination  showed  scales  of 
wax  in  its  wax  pockets.  Two  others,  of  five  ex- 
amined, aLso  showed  wax  scales.  The  remaining 
two  showed  no  wax. 

The  hive  first  mentioned  was  full  of  combs, 
with  a  good  supply  of  bees,  some  brood  in  two 
combs,  but  rather  deficient  in  stores.  This  colony 
and  a  dozen  others  were  fed  last  fall  with  syrup 
made  of  filty  pounds  of  sugar,  forty  pints  or 
pounds  of  water,  and  one  pound  of  glycerine 
added  in  accordance  with  your  suggestion,  Mr. 
Editor,  to  prevent  crystallization — (a  good  idea). 

To  prove  to  you  that  I  was  not  mistaken  about 
the  wax  scales,  I  removed  a  dozen  or  so  with  a 
needle,  and  melted  them  together  on  a  piece  of 
white  paper,  which  I  send  for  j^our  inspection.* 

Hi  re  certainly  is  a  case  where  wax  was  pro- 
duced at  a  time  of  the  year  (February  17),  and 
under  circumstances  (a  full  hive),  that  would 
render  it  impossible  to  make  use  of  it  in  comb- 

*  Wax,  undoubtedly.— Ed. 


214 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


building.  Bees  do  not  use  new  wax  for  covering 
brood  ce'!s  in  old  comb.  The  cell  covers  are 
ahvays  of  the  color  of  the  comb,  which  leads  me 
to  think  that  the  wax  for  capping  brood,  and  also 
for  building  queen  cells,  is  taken  from  the  ad- 
jacent comb  in  all  cases. 

It  cannot  be  said,  in  explanation  of  this,  that 
these  three  wax-bearing  bees  may  have  died  last 
summer,  during  the  comb-building  season,  for 
they  were  found  on  the  top  of  the  covering  laid 
over  the  frames  of  the  hive,  where  they  must 
liave  crawled  and  died  within  ten  days  of  the 
above  date,  as  I  removed  all  dead  bees  from  that 
place  at  that  time. 

My  bees  are  wintering  finely  in  the  shallow 
form  of  the  Langstroth  hive,  ten  inches  deep, 
with  all  honey-boards  removed,  and  the  frames 
covered  with  a  sort  of  cotton  batting  comforter, 
made  precisely  like  a  comforter  for  a  bed.  I  like 
these  much  better  than  old  carpeting  or  old 
clothes.  I  had  one  made  for  each  hive,  costing 
twenty  cents  apiece.  By  lifting  one  corner  of 
these  comforters,  I  can  see  the  condilion  of  each 
hive  at  a  glance.  The  bees  are  always  found 
clustered  up  against  these  warm  comforters,  and 
communicate  over  the  tops  of  the  frames,  instead 
of  through  winter  passages.  The  only  swarm 
lost  this  winter  was  in  a  tight-top  box  hive,  set 
inside  of  an  empty  Langstroth  hive. 

R.  BiCKFOKD. 

Henecn  Falls,  N.  Y.,  Feb.  20,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Maple  Sap  for  Bee  Feed. 


Mr.  Editok  : — As  I  See  many  articles  in  the 
Journal  on  feeding  bees,  I  will  give  you  or  j^our 
readers  one  for  spring  feed. 

When  you  set  out  your  hives  in  the  spring,  and 
the  weather  gets  warm  enough  for  the  bees  to 
carry  in  rye  meal  or  pollen,  bore  some  maple 
trees,  and  in  a  proper  vessel  catch  the  sap  that 
runs  from  them.  To  three  quarts  of  this  sap  add 
one  pint  of  honey,  and  when  your  bees  get  to  fly- 
ing briskly,  make  the  mixture  lukewarm,  pour  it  in 
a  sugar  trough  and  lay  some  empty  combs  or  cut 
straw  on  it,  to  keep  the  bees  from  drowning.  If 
you  have  no  honey,  make  a  syrup  of  white  coffee 
sugar  as  a  substitute ;  but  honey  is  better.  This 
makes  a  light  thin  feed  ;  but  it  answers  every  pur- 
pose for  si)ring  feeding,  to  rear  brood. 

If,  as  .Mr.  Quinby  says,  it  will  attract  some  of 
your  neighbors'  bees,  remember  it  is  so  cheap 
that  you  can  afford  to  help  them  a  little,  for  the 
great  advantage  you  will  derive  from  it  yourself. 

You  can  use  the  maple  sap  during  the  time  the 
trees  will  yield  it,  and  have  some  of  it  boiled 
down  to  a  molasses.  This  you  can  afterwards 
dilute,  and  keep  up  feeding  till  the  fruit  blossoms 
come  in.  Where  you  have  from  forty  to  sixty 
stocks,  there  is  little  danger  of  feeding  too  much  ; 
though  the  bees  should  not  fill  up  the  combs  in 
the  brooding  apartment,  so  as  to  stop  breeding. 
Nor  are  you  likely  to  feed  too  much  in  that  way, 
at  this  time  of  the  year,  as  so  many  cold  days 
occur,  on  which  bees  cannot  fly  out.  The  more 
you  feed,  the  more  you  stimulate  the  queen,  the 
more  she  will  lay.     My  bees  added  more  honey 


to  each  colony  last  spring,  with  spring  feedinff, 
than  they  did  in  the  time  of  fruit  blossoms.  It  is 
the  best  plan  I  have  tried  to  promote  early  breed- 
ing or  early  swarming,  and  Jo  have  plenty  of  bees 
when  the  locust  and  fruit  trees  come  in. 

If  you  feed  inside  of  the  hive,  make  your  feed 
much  stronger,  and  also  feed  with  warm  feed  in 
all  cases. 

To  make  passage  ways  through  combs  of  frame 
honey,  take  a  half  inch  bit  and  bore  a  hole  in  the 
end  of  a  small  piece  of  wood  ;  saw  blocks  one  and 
a  fourth  inches  long  ;  split  pieces  off  very  thin, 
cut  a  hole  in  the  comb  aiid  insert  the  wooden 
block,  and  the  bees  with  not  close  the  hole.  Small 
tin  tubes  inserted  in  the  same  manner,  will  also 
answer  the  purpose.  A.  Chapman. 

New  Cumberland,   West  Va. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Cost  of  producing  Honey. 


Mr.  Editor:— I  lately  saw  a  statement  in  the 
Minnesota  papers,  copied  from  the  Onatonna 
Journal,  stating  that  J.  W.  Hosmer,  of  Janes- 
ville,  Minnesota,  "  jjlaces  the  cost  of  pro(#ucing 
honey  at  four  cenls  per  pound.  One  hive  pur- 
chased in  June  last,  produced  four  hundred 
pounds  of  honey  and  six  swarms  of  bees."  This 
is  a  truly  wonderful  yield.  If  J.  W.  H.'s  bees 
winter  well,  he  will  no  doubt  be  able  to  show  the 
most  prolific  record  of  any  man  living,  of  suc- 
cess in  bee-culture. 

My  experience  in  the  last  ten  years  has  been 
that,  on  an  average,  bees  have  not  produced  over 
twenty-five  pounds  of  honey,  per  colony,  and 
one  good  swarm  of  bees  each.  In  the  jiast  three 
years,  great  improvements  have  been  made  in  the 
cultivation  of  bees ;  and  the  time  may  come 
when  honey  could  be  produced  at  twelve  cents 
per  pound  ;  but  at  present  twenty  cents  is  as  low 
as  man  can  make  it  profitable  to  sell  for.  Four 
cents  i^er  pound  is  all  gammon  1  It  would  not 
pay  for  taking  out  losses  which  occur  yearly. 

We  should  like  to  hear  from  diflerent  practical 
bee-keepers  on  this  question,  through  the  Jour- 
nal ;  and  if  aay  way  has  been  devised  to  produce 
honey  at  four  cents  per  pound,  we  would  delight 
to  see  the  figures  and  get  hold  of  the  science. 

S.  B. 

StocUon. 


The  swarming  season  varies  exceedingly  in  the 
United  States.  In  Texas,  swarms  issue  early  in 
March,  and  in  the  Southern  States  they  are  quite 
common  in  April.  In  the  Middle  States,  May 
and  June  is  the  usual  period  ;  and  it  is  somewhat 
later  as  we  proceed  further  North. 


After-sw*arms  usually  build  the  most  regular 
worker  combs  ;  and  if  they  lay  up  sufficient  stores 
for  the  winter,  they  generally  make  the  best 
stock  colonies. 


If  colonies  are  moved  in  the  line  of  their  flight, 
and  a  short  distance  onhf  at  a  time,  no  loss  of  bees 
will  be  incurred. — Langstroth. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


215 


THE  AMEEIOAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


WASHINGTON,   APRIL,   1870. 


ES^  "We  are  requested  to  state  that  a  new  post- 
office  having  been  established  near  his  residence,  Mr. 
Gallup's  address  now  is  "E.  Gallup,  Orchard,  Mit- 
chell Co.,  Iowa  " — of  which  his  correspondents  will 
please  take  notice. 

The  remarks  of  our  correspondent,  Novice,  give 
us  a  fitting  opportunity  to  say  again,  distinctly,  that 
the  Amekican  Bee  Journal  is  not  published  in  the 
interest  of  any  patented  hive,  but  exclusively  in  the 
interest  of  bee-culture  pure  and  simple.  This  position 
it  will  continue  to  iinnntain.  While  every  invention  or 
device  pertaining  to  bee-culture,  i^atented  or  un- 
patented, is  entitled  to  be  noticed,  in  our  pages,  it 
must  be  understood  that  its  merits  or  demerits  are 
matters  open  for  discussion,  without  fear  or  favor, 
lu  these  discussions,  however,  the  subject  must  ever 
be  kept  strictly  in  view,  and  all  mere  personalities 
avoided. 


For  feeding  bees  actually  or  prospectively  in  want, 
use  ordinary  pure  honey  or  sugar  syrup,  and  feed 
regularly  every  evening  till  they  are  properly  sup- 
plied or  they  can  supply  themselves  from  natural 
sources.  But  for  stimulative  feeding,  merely  to  en- 
courage brooding,  use  honey  or  sugar  syrup  very  much 
diluted,  giving  it  in  small  doses  only  every  other 
evening.  They  will  thus  obtain  the  water  needed  for 
the  brood,  and  have  less  occasion  and  less  disposition 
to  leave  their  hives  in  quest  of  it,  at  times  when  the 
weather  is  unfavorable  for  such  excursions. 


Beginners  in  bee-keeping  should  not,  when  going 
into  the  business,  build  costly  bee-houses,  provide 
high-priced  untested  patent  hives,  purchase  a  large 
number  of  colonies,  or  buy  "three-banded,"  Italian 
queens  at  a  time  when  as  yet  they  can  hardly  tell  a 
drone  from  a  worker.  Begin  moderately  and  hasten 
slowly.  The  needful  experience  in  practical  bee-cul- 
ture is  much  more  easily  and  far  more  efficiently 
acquired,  by  careful  attention  to  a  few  choice  stocks, 
than  by  a  hurried  supervision  of  a  large  number, 
even  with  the  aid  of  manuals  and  text  books.  Plain, 
simple  movable  frame  hives  too,  will  be  found  better 
suited  for  the  requisite  manipulations,  than  fanciful 
and  complicated  contrivances  devised  by  persons 
really  ignorant  themselves  of  the  habits  and  wants  of 
bees.  And  colonies  placed  in  an  open  sitixation,  with 
their  hives  readily  accessible  from  all  sides  and 
somewhat  sheltered  or  shaded  by  trees  or  vines,  will 
be  much  more  conveniently  managed  than  when 
placed   in   ordinary  shuds   or  out   door  bee-houses. 


Study  first  to  know  what  is  required  for  success,  and 
then  extend  your  operations  when  you  are  sure  that 
you  can  have  the  business  "well  in  hand." 


In  Prussia,  assuming  100  to  represent  the  average 
annual  product  of  honey,  the  yield  last  year,  in  first 
class  districts  was  12OI2  ;  in  second  class  districts, 
100%  ;  and  in  third  class  G3. 

In  first  class  districts,  the  season  opened  May  15, 
and  closed  September  IC ;  and  in  second  class  dis- 
tricts opened  June  8,  and  closed  August  4.  Many^ 
strong  colonies  increased  six  pounds  in  weight  on 
some  of  the  best  days.  The  increase  of  colonies  by 
swarming  was  about  100  per  cent.  Virgin  swarms 
were  common.  Fall  pasturage  was  rather  scarce. 
Buckwheat  and  heather  yielded  honey  in  only  a  few 
districts. 

In  East  Prussia,  standard  or  magazine  hives  are 
most  generally  in  use,  though  some  Dzierzon  hives 
have  been  introduced.  In  West  Prussia,  straw  hives 
are  still  most  common,  improved  hives  being  found 
in  few  apiaries.  In  Lithuania  straw  hives  largely 
predominate;  and  in  Marsowa  (part  of  Prussian  Po- 
land) log  hives  or  "gums"  are  almost  exclusively 
used. 


The  "foulbrood  question"  received  rather  singular 
treatment  at  the  late  German  Bee-keepers'  Convention. 
It  had  been  announced  as  among  the  prominent  topics 
for  discussion,  the  debate  to  be  opened  by  Mr.  Lam- 
brecht,  as  customary  in  si;ch  cases,  and  in  accordance 
with  the  proceedings  of  the  previous  Conventions. 
But  when  Mr.  L.  commenced  speaking  he  was  in- 
terrupted and  literally  "  coughed  down  "  by  a  seem- 
ingly preconcerted  opposition,  and  the  subject  was 
then  gently  shelved  with  some  cursory  remarks  from 
various  parties.  At  this  distance,  it  strikes  us  that 
Mr.  Lambreeht  was  not  fairly  treated.  We  say  this 
without  regard  to  the  theory  he  advocates.  According 
to  the  published  programme  he  had  a  right  to  expect 
a  hearing,  and  should  have  been  allowed  at  least  as 
much  time  as  is  ordinarily  conceded  to  speakers  on 
other  topics,  unless  his  remarks  were  entirely  irrele- 
vant, and  then  it  would  have  been  the  province  of  the 
President  to  interpose.  Nor  does  it  mend  matters  to 
say  that  Mr.  L.  is  prompted  by  mercenary  motives, 
when  the  Convention  just  a  year  before  awarded  to 
Mr.  Kohler  a  large  pecuniary  gratuity  for  disclosing 
that  which  was  not  strictly  speaking  new,  or  his  own 
discovery.  If  Mr.  L.  has  really  devised  a  mode  of 
curing  malignant  foulbrood,  without  destroying  bees, 
combs  or  hive,  it  is  one  of  infinitely  more  value  and 
importance  in  bee-culture,  than  the  Kohler  process 
can  ever  be;  and  the  Convention  might  very  properly 
have  devoted  an  entire  day  to  a  candid  investigation 
of  it.  It  was  not  at  all  necessary  for  Mr.  Lambreeht 
to  disclose  his  remedy.  All  that  was  proper  was  to 
request  him  to  submit  it  to  the  most  rigid  test,  and 


216 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


to  appoint  a  committee  to  mal^e  that  test.  If  he  had 
refused  to  submit  to  this,  or  submitting  failed,  the 
case  would  have  been  braveiy  altered,  without  im- 
pairing the  dignity  of  the  Convention.  As  the  mat- 
ter stands,  it  is  left  at  least  in  doubt.  Prominent 
members  of  the  Convention— themselves  excellent 
and  eminent  apiarians,  reject  Mr.  L.'s  pretensions  ; 
while  the  Rev.  Mr.  Kleine,  Mr.  Gravenhorst,  and 
others  equally  eminent  as  the  former,  speak  con- 
fidently of  the  process  as  an  efficient  remedy.  Time 
will  show  who  is  right.  The  proceedings  referred  to 
have  at  least  given  greater  prominence  to  the  siib- 
}ect ;  the  disease  will  be  more  diligently  studied  by 
scientific  men  ;  and  sooner  or  later  probably  we  shall 
have  a  remedy— whether  it  be  that  devised  by  Mr. 
Lambrecht,  or  one  proposed  by  some  other  successful 
investigator. 

Cheaper  than  Cheap! 

Honey  at  four  cents  a  pound  incredible  ?  We  fear 
that  our  esteemed  correspondent — the  more  comraeud- 
ible  for  his  singular  brevity— is  yet  greatly  "  behind 
the  times,"  and  far  from  being  fully  posted  in  the 
matter  of  the  prospective  production  of  honey.  Why, 
sir,  the  new  inventions  and  improvements  in  bee- 
culture,  like  the  discovery  of  gold  in  California,  are 
destined  to  unsettle  the  markets  of  the  world  !  Does 
he  not  know,  too,  that  mankind  are  no  longer  jogging 
along  in  old-fashioned  snailpace  style,  but  tripping  it 
on  "  fantastic  toe,"  with  the  speed  of  light  1  Has  he 
not  yet  learned  that,  in  these  days  of  rapid  locomotion, 
even  seven-league  boots  are  slow;  while  telegraphic 
despatches  shoot  ahead  of  the  passing  hour, 

"  And  pauting  Time  toils  at't^n-  them  in  vain?" 

Vv'hy,  at  the  present  rate  of  itrogress,  and  in  view 
of  the  astounding  advances  in  bee-culture,  with  which 
the  "  impending  crisis"  threatens  to  overwhelm  us, 
honey,  that  "  sweetest  of  all  sweets"  (so  universally 
coveted  and  so  unanimously  admired),  will  doubtless 
quickly  become  a  drug  in  the  market,  when,  like  a 
ride  in  a  New  York  ferry-boat,  you  will  be  solicited 
by  importunate  runners,  to  take  it ! — There,  now,  for 
instance,  confronting  us  comjilacently,  is  that  admi- 
rable, multiloeular,  protoplastic  protean  Hive,  which 
can  be  indefinitely  expanded  and  enlarged  like  an 
India  rubber  balloon,  or  subdivided  inflnitesimally 
like  a  polypus !  Will  not  this  original  and  most 
ingenious  device,  just  brought  down  bodily  from 
Shakespeare's  "highest  heaven  of  invention,''^  foster 
increase  of  stock  ad  infinitum,  and  accommodate  with 
comlbi  table  quarters,  hosts  of  busy  workers,  though 
far  more  multitudinous  in  number  than  the  grand 
army  of  Xerxes  ?  And  will  not  these  hosts  garner  up 
and  convert  into  "surplus"  every  particle  of  saccha- 
rine found  in  the  vegetable  kingdom  from  "  Green- 
laud's   icy  mountains  to  India's   coral  strand,"  or 

ong  the   entire  terraqueous   circumference  of  the 

ire-girdled  earth  ? 
hen,   too,    there   is  that   newly   conceived    most 


delectable  theory  of  comb  probuction,  whereby 
those  admirably  constructed  cellular  repositories  of 
honey,  which  have  been  the  admiration  of  sages  and 
the  puzzle  of  scientists  in  all  ages,  and  which  hitherto 
exacted  the  patient  and  persevering  labor  of  toiling 
multitudes  ;  have  become  a  thing  of  pure  organic 
development !  Why,  in  these  latter  days,  'tis  found 
that  honey  combs  grom,  actually  grow,  and  not  by 
slow  accretion  either,  bjit  with  therapidity  of  Jonah's 
gourd,  to  the  voluminous  amplitude  of  a  nocturnal 
mushroom  !  How  many  hundreds,  aye  thousands,  of 
the  capacious  protean  hives  aforesaid  can  thus  be 
thoroughly  furnished,  on  the  spur  of  the  moment, 
with  the  requisite  outfit,  while  the  "  singing  masons" 
are  relieved  from  the  time  honored  duty  of  bull  ling 
"  roofs  of  gold  !"  Just  think  of  many-celled  honey- 
combs continually  springing  forth  and  sprouting  out, 
en  masse  and  in  order  due,  like  rank  cabbaij;es  and 
cauliflowers,  and  visibly  swelling  into  progressive 
enlargement  and  distension  under  the  very  eyes  of 
the  fascinated  and  delighted  novice,  till  the  "  cubic 
contents"  of  the  novel  structure  are  thoroughly  sur- 
charged with  superabounding  "  surplus !" 

Then,  again,  look  at  those  wonderful  new  Bees — 
the  Apis  miraculosa  Mehringii — ^just  imported  from 
that  famed  part  of  modern  Germany,  ycleped 
"  Schlarafifenland,"  bordering  on  the  ancient  Utopia ! 
Are  they  not  surpassingly  beautiful,  astonishingly 
prolific,  indefatigably  industrious,  inconceivably  pro- 
ductive, and  most  delightfully  gentle?  Ah,  this 
new  race— the  ne  plus  ultra  of  honey  gatherers,  is 
just  what  was  needed  to  cap  the  climax,  after  the  in- 
vention of  the  protoplastic  protean  hive,  and  the 
discovery  of  the  spontaneously  growing  honey-combs. 
For,  lo,  these  admirable  creatures  convert  the  old 
tripartite  colony  into  one  single  animated  homo- 
geneous machine,  of  every  joint  compact  and  working 
together  harmoniously  with  every  limb.  No  longer 
shall  we  see  separate  instincts,  diverse  impulses,  and 
conflicting  interests,  interfering  with  each  other 
in-  our  hives.  No,  by  these  new  bees  the  colony  is  at 
once  transformed  into  one  sole  body  corporate — like 
the  defunct  French  republic,  "one  and  inseparable" — 
coadunited  on  the  "  one  horse  "  system  of  internal 
economy  and  external  co-operation,  which  must  in- 
fallibly produce  results  in  bee- culture  such  as  were 
never  dreamed  of  in  the  rhapsodies  of  Homer,  the 
theogony  of  Ilesiod,  the  mythology  of  Ovid,  or  the 
philosophy  of  Virgil !  Will  not  the  land  literally  flow 
with  honey,  when  this  new  miraculous  insect,  these 
unrivalled  protoplastic  hives,  and  those  spontaneously 
growing  honey-combs,  are  generally  introduced,  uni- 
versally used,  and  come  to  be  superabundantly 
plentiful,  in  these  United  States  ?  And,  oh,  the  price 
of  honey,  when  all  this  comes  about !  How  will  the 
merchant  manage  to  give  us  "  quotations,"  when 
values  drop  down  below  nihility  itself? 

What  marvellous  acquisitions  are  these  !  Hives  of 
gum  elastic  extensibility  and  of  divisibility  infinitesi- 
mal ;  Combs  of  growth  spontaneous,  extraneous,  in- 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


217 


stantaueous,  voluminous,  and  interminable;  and 
Bees  before  unheard  of,  now  unexampled,  unexcelled, 
unapproached,  and  inappreciable  !  Is  there  not  "  a 
good  time  coming"  in  ancient,  wide  diffused  and 
world-renowned  bee-culture?  And  will  not  the 
"apiariaii  of  the  future"  have  a  jolly  time,  and  be 
counted  among  the  magicians  and  thaumaturgists  of 
that  "new  era?"  By  all  means,  let  us  have  "an 
illustration"  of  these  new  marvels,  worthy  of  the 
genius  of  a  Cruikshank  or  a  Crowquill ;  and  give  us 
plenty  of  pots,  jars,  demijohns,  barrels,  pipes,  hogs- 
heads, tubs,  tuns,  and  tanks,  for  the  honey  that  shall 
flow— 

" in  oinne  voluhilis  ceviom!" 


Correspondence  of  the  Bee  Journal. 


Blakei.t,  Alabama,  January  3S.  —  Our  peach  trees 
arc  all  in  bloom.  The  thermometer  h.is  stood  at  Q5^ 
for  the  last  ten  days,  during  the  day.  FoUcn  in  pro- 
fusion. Stocks  all  full  of  brood.  I  greatly  doubt  if 
this  precocity  in  the  season  bodes  good.  I  fear  a  cold 
time,  with  frosts,  will  cut  off  supplies  that  would  have 
been  of  more  service  later.  It  is  a  singular  fact  that 
bees  here  conimence  breeding  later  than  at  the  north. 
It  is  said  they  begin  there  in  January,  here  it  is 
usually  in  February.  But  when  they  do  begin  here, 
tiidy  do  so  in  good  earnest,  generally  filling  all  the 
empty  combs  very  rapidly. — J.  M.  Wurden. 

Littleton,  N.  H.,  February  6., — How  anyone  who 
keeps  bees  can  do  without  the  Bee  Journal,  is  more 
than  I  can  tell.  I  am  acquainted  with  a  bee-keeper 
who  lost  sixteen  good  stocks  last  winter.  Last 
December  1  bought  live  sM'arms  of  him,  and  then 
I  found  out  the  trouble.  His  hives  were  made  as 
tight  as  he  could  make  them  by  cramming  in  paper 
into  every  entrance,  without  any  upward  ventilation 
whatever.  The  bottoms  and  half  way  up  the  sides  of 
the  hives  as  wet  as  they  could  be  soaked.  Two 
dollars  for  the  Journal  would  have  saved  him  one 
hundred  dollars,  at  the  lowest  estimate.  Is  not  that 
penny  wise  and  pound  foolish?  That  bee  feed  men- 
tioned in  the  January  number,  by  John  Winfield, 
was  just  in  season  for  me.  I  have  a  swarm  of 
Italians  in  tlie  cellar  that  had  not  one  pound  of  honey 
when  carried  in.  I  had  some  honey  and  fed  them 
with  that  till  I  read  how  to  make  the  feed.  I  now 
use  that.  The  bees  like  it  and  are  doing  well ;  some 
die,  but  I  am  in  hopes  to  get  them  through.  With 
many  wishes  for  your  prosperity  and  the  success  of 
the  Hef,  Journal  and  all  its  readers,  I  am  respectfully 
yours,  Mrs.  Laura  Page. 

New  Cumberland,  W.  Va.,  February  10. — The 
summer  of  1868,  reduced  the  number  of  my  colonies 
greatly,  on  account  ot  the  hot  weather  and  dry  season . 
In  the  spring  of  18G9,  I  transferred  twenty-rtve 
colonics  from  common  to  frame  hives,  none  of  them 
having  more  than  a  quart  of  bees.  The  other  portion 
of  my  colonics  was  in  better  condition. 

I  have  now  fifty-six  colonies,  all  Italians  of  the 
nicest  kind.  If  any  bee-men  come  within  reach  of 
me,  let  them  call  and  see  how  much  they  are  ahead 
in  the  bee  business. 

I  received  from  Mr.  R.  Wilkin,  of  Cadiz,  Ohio,  a 
queen  bee,  just  imported,  which  I  think  is  hard  to 
beat. — The  remainder  of  my  colonies  are  from  Rev. 
L.  L.  Langstroth-s  st>ick.  I  renewed  nearly  a'l  my 
queens  last  summer,  from  my  imported  queen. — A. 
Chapman. 


Wilton  Junction,  Iowa,  February  13.— I  have 
twelve  stands  of  bees  in  the  cellar  under  my  house, 
all  doing  well.  The  cellar  is  not  a  very  dry  one.  yet 
the  bees  did  very  well  in  it  last  winter.  I  fed  them 
in  February  and  March,  and  they  throve  well  last 
summer. — tfoHN  Spence. 

Fredonia,  N.  T.,  February  13.— Although  bee- 
keeping during  the  last  season  was  rather  an  uphill 
business,  we  hope  by  a  continuous  Gallnping,  we  may 
come  out  right  in  the  end— so  keep  the  Bee  Journal 
coming. — L.  Sage. 

♦^Wilmington,  Vt.,  Febriiary  13. — I  am  a  new 
be'iinner  in  bee-keeping,  and  cannot  get  along 
without  the  Bee  Journal.  Last  season  was  said 
to  be  the  poorest  known  in  this  section  for  twenty 
years. — J.  H.  Kidder. 

Old  Mission,  Iowa,  February  13. — Bees  did  well 
here  last  season,  according  to  the  weather, 
which  was  cold  during  the  early  part  of  summer. 
They  bred  drones  in  June,  and  again  in  Sejitemlier, 
though  those  in  large  hives  swarmed  hardly  any ; 
but  from  such  as  were  in  small  hives,  not  over  2,000 
cubic  incdies,  we  got  plenty  of  swarms. 

There  is  a  kind  of  spider  on  many  of  the  flowers 
here  that  catches  the  bei-s  by  the  neck,  in  which  way 
many  are  lost.  There  is  also  a  kind  of  long-legged 
wasp  or  hornet,  that  builds  its  nest  of  clay  under  the 
roofs  of  barns  and  out-houses,  which  catches  these 
spiders  and  carries  them  home  to  its  younsi'. 

Last  summer  there  were  many  birds  here  that 
would  sit  on  the  fences,  watching,  and  then  dart 
down  and  snap  up  bees  aligliting  on  the  clover 
blossoms.  Their  color  is  dark  gray,  with  a  little 
yellow  spot  above  its  bill ;  the  under  part  of  the  body 
was  white. — F.  Sghliciite. 

Perrysville,  O.'IO,  February  13. — ]\Iy  bees  arenow 
carrying  in  rye  flour  that  I  set  out  for  them.  My 
hives  are  very  strong,  and  as  full  of  honey  as  I  ever 
had  them  at  this  season  of  the  year. — M.  A.  Gladden. 

Upperville,  Va.,  February  14.— The  weather  has 
been  too  warm  here  lor  my  bees  in  the  cellar,  and  I 
have  moved  them  out,  as  I  could  not  keep  them  quiet. 
— H.  W.  WUITE. 

East  Liverpool,  Ohio,  February  18.— Bees  have 
done  well  here  the  past  season.  Though  they  did  not 
swarm  as  much  as  in  some  previous  seasons,  they 
stored  a  good  amount  of  surplus  honey.  I  have  the 
principal  part  of  my  surplus  honey  stored  in  glass 
boxes.  It  se'ls  to  better  advantage  in  them  than  in 
wooden  ones.  Honey  sold  here  the  past  summer  at 
thirty-five  cents  per  poimd.  The  Bee  Journal  is  a 
welcome  monthly  visitor.  I  hope  it  is  prospering. — 
A.  J.  Fisher. 

Mount  Lebanon,  N.  T.,  February  23. — I  am  now 
in  my  eighty-eighth  year,  and  have  ])ren  in  tlie  bee 
business  ever  sineo  I  m'cs  old  enough  to  carry  an 
empty  hive.  I  thought  I  knew  all  about  bees,  but 
since  your  Journal  came  to  hand,  I  have  found  I  was 
but  a  novice  in  the  business,  as  I  have  learned  more 
by  the  Journal  the  last  four  \ears  than  I  had  in  the 
whole  of  my  life  before.  Any  new  beginner  in  the 
business  had  better  pay  four  dollars  for  the  Journal 
than  not  have  it.— D.  J.  Hawkins. 

Faribault,  Min.v.,  February  30.— Your  much 
appreciated  Journal  continues  to  enliven  us  through 
tlie  dull  monotony  of  our  long  winters  up  here  in 
Minnesota.  I  have  been  in  the  bee  business  for 
ab(^ut  fciur  years,  and  like  it  very  well.  Still  though 
I  cannot  give  them  the  proper  care,  I  have  had  very 
good  luck  ;  but  have  never  been  able  to  realize  the 
amount  of  profit  that  many  claim  for  their  bees.    I 


218 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


lost  thirty-seven  swarms  in  wintering  last  season. 
Perhaps  that  bee  disease  Avas  the  cause  of  my  loss. 
I  am  wintering  forty  stocks  this  winter.  So  far  they 
are  doing  well.  1  am  using  the  Langstroth  hive,  the 
Harbison  hive,  and  the  Langstroth  modified,  and  like 
the  latter  best.  I  winter  my  bees  in  my  cellar  and 
bee  house.  I  have  mostly  let  my  bees  swarm 
naturally,  and  have  lost  only  two  swarms  by  flight  in 
four  years.  I  have,  been  troiibled  with  the  moth 
considerably,  I  have  black  bees  with  a  few  hybrids. 
I  think  I  shall  try  the  Italians  this  coming  season.  I 
was  born  in  the  State  of  New  York,  lived  in  Ohio  about 
twenty  years  ;  have  been  in  this  State  about  sixteen 
years  ;  and  am  about  forty-five  years  old.  I  am 
bound  to  make  bee-keeping  pay.  My  wife  is  a  No.  1 
apiarian  and  bee-tender.  Although  an  invalid,  she 
devotes  the  greater  part  of  her  time  to  the  care  and 
study  of  our  bees.  Very  little  escapes  her  attentive 
and  observant  mind  and  eye.  Enclosed  find  two 
dollars  for  my  subscription  .for  the  Journal. — 
N.  Travis. 

Edgefield  Junction,  Tekn.,  February  21. — My 
bees  took  rye  meal  January  19.  I  had  young  bees 
flying  a  week  ago ;  and  pollen  from  bloom  two 
weeks  since.  I  am  experimenting  to  obtain  early 
drones ;  have  wintered  a  few  in  a  queenless  colony. 
I  sold  one  queen  in  January  and  sent  one  full  stock 
to  Mobile,  Alabama,  in  perfect  safety,  the  queen 
laying  eggs  while  on  her  transit— there  being  only  six 
dead'bees  found,  and  four  of  those  were  said  to  have 
died  of  old  age.  I  have  ten  reserve  queens  in  small 
colonies,  in  tine  condition. — T.  B.  Hamlin. 

Natchez,  Miss.,  February  13. — Our  winter  here, 
thus  far  has  been  a  very  mild  one.  Temperature  to 
day  73^,  with  wind  from  tlie  south.  For  several 
days  past  the  weather  has  been  mild,  and  the  bees 
have  been  flying  out  freely,  returning  laden  with 
pollen.  They  usually  commence  breeding  at  this 
time,  and  it  is  kept  up  until  the  swarming  period, 
during  the  second  week  of  April.  Our  ]3lum  trees 
showed  their  first  blossoms  on  the  30th  of  January, 
and  are  now  almost  in  full  liloom.  The  peach  trees 
are  also  beginning  to  blossom  freely,  as  are  also  some 
of  the  forest  trees  and  many  flowers.  Our  winter, 
liowever,  is  not  yet  over,  as  we  usually  have  some 
frosts  and  severe  weather  until  about  the  middle  of 
March.  Aly  forty  hives  are  in  fine  condition.  In 
tills  climate  the  open  air  is  best  for  wintering  all 
stocks.  I  succeeded  in  bringing  through  the  se- 
verest of  our  winter  weather,  in  the  open  air,  but 
under  shelter,  about  a  pint  of  black  bees  and  a  queen, 
in  an  observintj  hive,  containing  a  single  "  American" 
frame,  with  two  glass  sides,  and  no  other  protection 
than  a  lining  o^  cloth  hetween  the  glass  and  the 
sliutters.  They  had  dwinxlled  down  very  much  until 
ihe  2'oth  of  January,  when,  having  fed  them  with 
honey,  it  being  a  mild  day,  the  hybrids  of  some 
liives  in  the  yard  made  an  attack  on  them  and  carried 
otf  their  stores.  Tlie  night  following  being  frosty, 
they  were  discovered  in  the  morning  dead,  and 
without  a  particle  of  honey  in  the  comh.  Had  they 
not  been  deprived  of  their  feed,  I  do  not  doubt  they 
would  have  come  through  safely,  though  I  cannot  be- 
lieve the  queen  would  have  remained  fertile. 

Our  climate  here  is  a  changeable  one.  To  illus- 
trate, on  the  16th  of  January,  thermometer  74°,  17th 
54-^,  19th  4G^,  20th  43^,  31st  58'2,  in  the  morning,  and 
683  at  noon  ;  and  so  it  usually  varies — at  least  after 
the  first  of  January,  until  spring  fairly  sets  in,  about 
the  middle  of  March. 

I  have  observed  that  when  their  temperature  is  46° 
F.  a  few  bees  will  venture  out;  at  50'-^  they  will  fly 
more  numerously  ;  while  at  60-^  they  fly  brisklj  if  pol- 
len is  to  be  had. 

Your  valuable  Journal  reaches  me  regularly,  and  I 


alays  peruse  its  pages  with  much    interest. — J.   R. 
Bledsoe. 

KosHKONONG,  Wis.,  February  25.— I  am  trying  the 
experiment  of  wintering  my  bees  in  a  dark  cellar.  I 
carried  them  in  at  the  commencement  of  cold  weather. 
On  the  16th  of  November  raised  one  side  of  the  caps 
on  blocks,  and  kept  the  temperature  at  about  35'^  F. 
After  a  short  trial  I  thought  best  to  remove  the  caps 
entirely  from  the  hives.  "After  a  further  trial,  I  re- 
duced the  temperature  of  the  cellar  to  from  28^  to 
30^,  in  which  condition  the  bees  became  sufficiently 
quiet,  and  so  remained  till  the  weather  moderated  in 
February,  M'hen  they  became  somewhat  noisy.  The 
7th  proved  to  be  a  very  fine  day,  and  towards  noon 
the  thermometer  stood  at  between  50^  and  60^.  I 
carried  out  my  bees,  placed  them  on  their  summer 
stands,  and  removed  the  caps,  and  as  a  consequence 
the  bees  took  a  general  fly,  and  very  few  were  lost. 

I  have  since  kept  them  quietly  in  the  cellar,  with 
two  inches  of  newspaper  spread  over  the  frames,  but 
drawn  a  little  to  one  side,  so  as  to  be  sure  to  give 
ventilation.     Temperature  still  at  from  28^  to  30^. 

I  like  the  plan  of  throwing  some  sort  of  wire 
arrangement  over  the  frames,  to  keep  the  bees  in  and 
the  mice  out ;  and  I  find  no  difficulty  in  making  room 
under  the  wire  for  dishes  containing  feed  or  water.  I 
find  these  dishes  of  water  to  get  empty  every  few  days, 
and  as  I  cannot  ascribe  the  disappearance  of  the 
water  to  leakage,  and  am  not  willing  to  ascribe  the 
whole  of  it  to  evaporation,  I  am  forced- to  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  bees  consume  most  of  it. 

Of  course  I  cannot  tell  as  yet  how  I  shall  succeed  with 
bees,  but  I  act  on  the  principle  of  the  ancient  motto — 
"  J'erscvera7itia  vincit  omnia.'" — D.  P.  Lane. 

Orchard,  Iowa,  March  8.— The  readers  of  the 
American  Bee  Journal  will  be  pleased  to  learn  that 
within  eighteen  miles  of  Nashville,  Tennessee,  bees 
commenced  carryinii  in  meal  on  the  19th  of  January, 
and  on  the  ISth  of  February,  the  silverleat'ed  jjoplar, 
the  willow,  the  elm.  the  maple,  and  several  other 
trees  were  in  bloom,  and  a  few  more  days  would  bring 
out  the  peach  and  plum  blossoms.  But  away  down 
in  Alabama,  bees  were  swarming  in  January,  accord- 
ing to  one  correspoudent.  You  will  see  this  beats  our 
time  altogether.  Yet  in  ordinary  seasons,  we  get  as 
much  honey,  per  swarm,  as  they  do  there — that  is,  as 
near  as  I  am  able  to  make  out. — E.  Gallup. 


Shreve,  Ohio,  March  11.  — I  suppose  you  have 
never  heard  anything  on  bee-culture  from  this  part 
of  the  country.  I  started  in  the  business  four  years 
ago,  with  the  Italian  bee  and  movable  frame  hive, 
among  a  set  of  old  rustic  bee-keepers,  who  claimed  it 
was  all  a  humbug  ;  that  the  Italian  bee  was  no  better 
than  the  black  ;  and  that  the  movable  frame  was  just 
a  worthless  pateut  right,  to  make  money  of.  For  my 
part,  I  intended  to  test  the  matter,  and  procured  a 
swarm  of  pure  Italians  from  Mr.  A.  Gray,  of  Kiley, 
Ohio.  They  have  done  finely,  and  I  have  proved  to 
the  people  here,  that  it  is  a  profitable  business.  I 
succeeded  in  getting  my  neighbors,  within  two  miles, 
to  change  their  bees ;  so  that  I  do  not  expect  to  be 
troubled'  with  black  drones,  next  season,  in  getting 
my  queens  mated.  I  have  fifty  stocks  all  in  good 
condition,  and  am  making  one'  hundred  and  fifty 
movable  frame  hives  this  winter,  I  intend  to  put 
my  whole  time  into  the  business.  Last  season  here 
was  just  a  medium  year  for  honey.  It  was  not  as 
good  as  we  have  had  ;  yet  I  hope  the  next  will  be 
better.  I  will  send  you  a  photograph  of  my  apiary 
this  summer.  I  enclose  two  dollars  for  my  sub- 
scription to  the  J(mrnal.  I  like  it  very  much.  So, 
hurrah  for  the  American  Bee  Journal  and  the 
Italian  bee.— G.  W.  Stinebring. 


THE   AMEEICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


219 


Monmouth,  Ills.,  March  9. — Friend  Adair  takes 
some  of  us  to  task  for  not  reporting  the  fractional 
pounds  of  honey.  If  he  was  out  here,  I  could  show 
him  a  string;  almost  a  yard  long,  on  the  wall  of  the 
kitchen,  where  I  marked  the  weight  of  each  box. 
Few  boxes  weighed  exact  pounds  ;  most  of  them 
contain  fractions.  Some  day  when  I  get  leisure,  I 
will  copy  it  and  send  it  to  him.  Mine  really  averaged 
llO^o  pounds,  instead  of  110,  as  reported  ;  and  had  I 
iucUuU'd  three  frames  taken  out  of  main  hive  and 
empty  frames  put  in  their  place  and  which  were 
filled,  the  average  would  have  been  larger.  Last 
year,  in  this  section,  was  the  best  honey  season  I 
ever  saw  or  expect  to  see  soon  again.  The  season 
was  wet  throughout,  from  June  to  October. — T.  G. 
McGaw. 


[For  the  American  B«e  Journal.] 

Dwarfed  Queens. 


I  do  not  believe  that  a  dwarf  queen  is  ahcays 
the  result  of  being  reared  in  a  small  cell,  from  the 
fact  that  thc3^  do  not  alvraj^s  correspond  in  size, 
to  the  cell  they  hatch  from.  Having  watched 
hundreds  with  this  very  point  in  view,  I  am  com- 
pelled to  admit  that  I  cannot  always  predict  the 
size  the  queen  is  to  be,  by  the  size  of  the  cell  she 
is  reared  in.  I  have  known  a  queen  cell  of  the 
smallest  size,  so  small  that  it  might  have  been 
mistaken  for  a  worker  cell,  had  it  not  been  con- 
nected with  others  that  were  made  as  usual,  to 
produce  a  large  size  queen.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  have  known  a  qut^en  hatched  from  a  cell  of  the 
largest  size,  to  lie  even  smaller  than  a  worker. 
These  facts  show  that  we  must  look  for  other 
causes  for  diminutive  size,  in  some  instances  at 
least. 

1  will  admit  that  a  cell  is  sometimes  too  small 
for  the  bee  that  is  raised  in  it,  like  the  drone  in 
the  worker  cell.  But  it  is  not  often  that  a  queen 
or  a  Avorker  is  thus  affected.  A  full  sized  worker 
is  reared  in  a  cell  nearly  half  filled  with  cocoons 
left  by  previous  occupants.  The  idea  that  a  bee 
never  increases  in  size,  after  leaving  the  cell,  will 
have  to  be  abandoned. 

Whenever  the  bees  find  it  necessary  to  rear 
queens  from  material  deposited  in  worker  cells, 
the  small  size  of  such  cell  is  thought  to  have  effect 
on  the  size  of  the  queen.  Notwithstanding  the 
egg  may  be  laid  in  a  worker  cell,  too  small  for  a 
queen,  it  does  not  follow  that  she  must  l)e  de- 
veloped there.  AVhen  the  bees  wish  to  rear  a 
queen  thus,  they  immediately  enlarge  the  outer 
end,  and  if  the  comb  is  new,  first  bite  away  and 
reduce  the  length,  and  fill  the  original  cell  with 
chyme, crowding  the  larvti  queen  into  the  enlarged 
part,  where  she  literally  floats. 

It  cannot  be  made  to  appear  thrt  any  lack  of 
food  can  make  the  difference.  I  have  the  aulliorily 
of  the  Bee  Journal  for  sa5'ing  that  "up  to  the 
sixth  day  after  emerging  from  tlie  egg,  all  larvae, 
whether  workers,  or  drones,  or  those  designed 
for  queens,  receive  precisely  the  same  kind  and 
quality  of  food,  namely  chyme,  as  prepared  by 
partial  digestion  in  the  stomachs  of  the  nursing 
w^orkers.  To  the  queen  larva?,  liowever,  this  is 
administered  in  larger  quantity — so  plentifully, 
indeed,  and  apparently  so  greatly  in  excess  of  its 
immediate  needs,  that  the  nascent  insect  literally 
swims  in  it."  If  natural  and  artificially  bred 
queens— I  object  to  the  word  artificial  here — are 


fed  precisely  alike,  "up  to  the  sixth  day,"  it  can 
be  shown  that  there  is  an  excess  in  quantity,  by 
what  is  left  in  the  cell  after  the  queen  has  matured. 
We  must  look  still  further.  When  bees  are  de- 
prived of  their  queen,  and  they  can  choose  larvae 
to  rear  from,  it  would  seem  reasonable  that  they 
would  take  such  as  could  be  matured  at  the  earliest 
possible  moment.  The  uniformity  with  which 
they  mature  a  queen  in  just  a  few  hours  short  of 
ten  days,  in  hundreds  of  instances,  would  look  as 
if  that  was  the  shortest  time  possible.  I  never 
yet  had  any  mature  in  less  time.  I  think  there 
must  be  some  mistake  about  their  hatching  in 
seven  or  eight  days. 

And  now,  if  the  food  is  the  same  in  all  cases, 
and  there  is  no  want  of  room  to  cramp  the  chry- 
salis, what  is  it  makes  the  difference  V  Or  is  there 
no  difference  ?  I  do  not  care  to  take  the  position 
that  artificial  queens  are  usually  smaller  than 
others.  One  reason  why  it  is  thouglit  to  be  so,  I 
tliink  will  be  found  in  the  fact  we  see  very  many 
more  of  such,  than  of  the  naturally  reared  ones, 
and  forget  to  compare  the  proportion.  Notwith- 
standing the  cells  are  geiierally  larger  in  a  swarm- 
ing hive,  some  small  sized  queens  will  be  hatched 
then. 

Can  we  not  have  some  other  solution  of  why 
we  have  any  small  ones  ?  M.  Quinbt. 

St.  Johnsville,  iV.  Y. 


[For  t]ie  American 

Selecting  Stock. 


Journal.] 


I  receive  a  great  many  inquiries  of  this  character 
— "  I  have  purchased  two,  five,  or  more  swarms" 
(as  the  case  maj'  be),  "  of  a  neighbor,  in  box  or 
gum  hives,  and  I  can  have  my  choice  out  of  the 
lot"  (which  is  more  or  less  in  number)  ;  "please 
inform  me  how  to  make  the  selection  so  that  I 
get  good  swarms." — In  answer  to  these  inquiries, 
I  will  give  you  an  actual  transaction,  without 
mentioning  names. 

"Come,  Gallup,  jump  into  my  sled  and  ride 
up  to  Mrs.  R.'s,  and  heij)  me  select  a  couple  of 
swarms  of  bees."  In  this  case,  the  woman  owned 
the  bees,  as  the  man  could  have  no  luck.  I  se- 
lected two  swarms  ;  but  my  friend  thought  I  had 
not  made  a  good  selection.  So  I  persuaded  him 
to  take  one  of  my  selection,  and  one  of  his  own. 
I  selected  one  that  had  the  comb  all  built  in  regu- 
lar order  and  nearly  all  worker  comb,  well  crowd- 
ed with  bees,  with  honey  enough  and  not  too 
much,  and  had  cast  a  swarm  the  previous  sea- 
son, for  in  that  case  they  had  a  young  prolific 
queen.  My  friend  selected  a  very  heavy  liive, 
with  but  a  medium  swarm  of  bees.  Only  a  small 
proportion  of  the  comb  was  worker  comb,  and 
all  was  very  irregularly  built.  This  was  in  the 
latter  part  of  February,  and  in  box-hive  times. 
I  explained  that  my  selection  would  send  out 
three  swarms  to  his  selection  sending  out  one  ; 
and  that  he  was  now  i^urchasing  for  the  bees  and 
not  for  the  honey.  The  result  was,  my  selection 
sent  out  four  sv/arms  early  next  spring,  and  all 
did  well,  filling  their  liives ;  wliile  his  selection 
sent  out  a  small  swarm  late  in  the  season,  which 
did  not  fill  its  hive,  and  died  over  winter.  The 
fact  is,  it  had  only  an  old  unprolific  queen. 

So  much  for  selecting  swarms.     Now  for  trans- 


220 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


ferring.  Select  snch  stocks  as  have  good  stniight 
comb,  and  bees  enough.  Transfer  them  early  iu 
the  spring,  and  save  honey  fur  your  own  use,  or 
for  feeding  other  swarms.  But  select  good 
straight  combs  for  transferring,  and  a  large;  pro- 
portion should  be  worker  combs  ;  and  if  the  liees 
are  numerous,  you  have  in  nearlj'  everj'  case  got 
a  prolific  queen,  without  asking  wbetlicr  they 
cast  a  SAvarni  the  previous  season.  People  that 
have  or  keep  bees  in  old  box-hives  for  sale,  as  a 
general  rule  do  not  read  the  Bee  Journal,  so 
they  will  not  be  apt  to  know  the  difference  be- 
tween a  good  stock  swarm  and  a  bad  one.  Now 
about  the  price.  The  seller  will  generall}'  make 
no  distinction  ;  all  are  alike  to  him.  But  I  have 
seen  swarms  sold  in  the  fall  for  ten  dollars,  tbat 
were  scarcely  worth  taking  as  a  gift  ;  «nd  I  have 
seen  swarms  sold  at  five  dollars  that  were  better 
worth  twenty  dollars  than  others  would  be  as  a 
gift.  Understand,  that  at  the  pn  sent  day  all 
swarms  can  be  made  e.xtra  ones,  if  taken  in  season. 
With  the  movable  comb-hive,  if  the  queen  is  not 
good,  we  can  supply  another  ;  and  if  tliej'^  lack 
honejr,  they  can  be  supplied  with  that  also.  In 
fact,  everything,  except  the  season,  is  under  our 
control.  Some  will  be  apt  to  tell  you  that  if  j^ou 
have  a  poor  swarm,  it  must  remain  a  pocn*  one  ; 
but  you  must  not  believe  any  such  nonsense. 
E.  Gallup. 
Orchard,  loica. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Jour 

Raising  Early  Queens. 


Mr.  Editor  : — About  those  patented  boxes  and 
processes  for  rearing  and  fertilizing  j'oung  Italian 
ciueens,  I  have  nothing  to  say.  But  I  do  say  that 
I  can  raise  queens  for  one  dollar  apiece,  if  taken 
as  soon  as  fertile. 

In  raising  young  queens,  I  agree  with  others  as 
to  the  starting  and  buildhig  of  queen  cells.  I 
would  use  no  brood  or  larvoe  older  than  one  day ; 
but  the  trouble  comes  after  they  are  batched  ;  es- 
pecially, if  raised  early — and  that  is  the  time  of 
which  I  speak  or  write. 

After  exiierimenting  for  years,  I  found  that 
the  main  loss  was  from  regicidal  attacks — (see 
Mr.  Woodbury's  views  in  American  Bee  Jour- 
nal, Vol.  2,  page  157)  ;  and  that  these  attacks 
were  owing  to  a  scarcity  of  honey  in  the  fields. 
Consequently  the  guards  are  on  hand  in  full 
force,  and  will  seize  the  returning  queen,  if  she 
has  been  scented  with  drones  from  other  hives 
than  her  own,  and  she  will  often  be  killed  or 
crippled. 

Huber  thought  there  were  two  or  more  classes 
among  workers,  and  that  their  occupations  re- 
mained the  same  always.  Other  and  later  writers 
maintain  that  it  is  chiefly  owing  to  their  age,  and 
that  this  makes  the  ditference  in  their  occupations. 
My  own  observations  lead  me  to  concur  in  this 
lavter  opinion,  and  to  believe  that  I  could  apply 
this  knowledge  to  queen  raising,  and  thereby 
help  me  out  of  the  difficulties  I  experienced,  or 
some  of  them. 

I  think  there  are  three  classes  of  workers  in  the 
hive.  First,  infants  under  ten  days  old.  These 
will  be  well  received  by  any  colony  to  which 
they  are  given.     The  second  class  are  those  from 


the  tenth  to  the  twentieth  daj^s  of  their  lives  ;  and 
these  are  the  real  sovereigns  of  the  hive.  These 
are  the  chaps  that  kill  my  young  queens,  if  honey 
is  scarce  and  they  are  busy  with  otlier  cares. 
Tlie  workers  over  twenty  days  old  are  producers, 
and  are  not  apt  to  enclose  a  young  queen  on  her 
return  from  her  wedding  tour.  1  therefore  use 
bees  over  three  weeks  old  in  my  nucleus  hives, 
and  can  get  perhaps  a  dozen  queens  fertilized  in 
each  hive  prepared  in  this  way  :  Move  a  strong 
stock  two  or  three  rods  away  ;  place  your  nu- 
cleus on  its  stand ;  give  this  nucleus  a  very 
small  piece  of  brood  comb  with  queen  cell  at- 
tached that  will  hatch  in  two  or  three  days,  and 
also  combs  with  honey  in  them.  After  the 
queen  is  hatched,  I  tal<e  away  tliis  brood  comb. 
If  I  wish  to  have  more  than  one  fertilized,  the 
extra  ones  must  be  caged  in  the  hive  until  the 
reigning  one  is  removed,  and  for  some  hours 
after. 

I  commenced  bee-keeping  in  1847,  being  then 
twenty-five  years  old.  At  present,  I  make  it  a 
rule  to  winter  fifty  stocks.  I  am  a  farmer,  and 
was  born  iu  the  State  of  New  Yoik. 

John  L.  Davis. 

BdliL  Midi.,  Feb.  23,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Ventilating  Button  for  Caps  of  Hives. 

I  think  experience  teaches  that  the  caps  of  hives 
should  be  sufficiently  ventilated  to  relieve  them 
from  a  confined  and  melting  heat,  when  the  bees 
are  storing  honey  in  them  in  hot  weather,  and  to 
carry  off  all  dampness  in  cold  weather  ;  while  at 
some  other  times,  little  or  no  ventilation  is  needed. 
It  is  necessar_y,  therefore,  to  have  some  method 
by  Which  ventilation  can  be  easily  regulated.  In 
the  absence  of  a  better  plan,  the  following  will 
be  simple  and  effectual. 

For  ventilators  bore  four  holes  of  one  inch, 
each,  in  diameter  in  the  sides  of  the  cap  ;  cover 
these  holes  or  ventilators  on  the  inner  side  with 
wire-cloth  ;  and  on  the  outside  put  on  the  venti- 
lating button,  made  as  follows:  Take  a  strip  of 
board,  three  inches  long,  one  inch  and  a  half  wide, 
and  five-sixteenths  of  an  inch  thick;  make  the 
ends  oval,  and  cut  awaj^  half  the  thickness  of  the 
strip  or  button  clear  across  its  width,  and  to  the 
length  of  one  inch  and  a  quarter.  In  the  centre 
of  The  button  bore  a  hole  to  receive  a  light  one 
inch  screw,  to  hold  it  in  place  and  around  wliich 
it  revolves.  To  mount  it,  turn  the  halved  side  of 
the  button  towards  the  Cap,  and  lay  it  horizontidly 
and  centrally  below  the  ventilator,  so  that  the 
upper  edge  of  the  former  will  come  flush  with 
the  lowei-  edge  of  the  latter ;  drive  in  your 
screw,  wiiich  sliould  be  very  firm  iu  the  cap  and 
somewhat  loose  iu  the  button.  Now  turn  up  the 
halved  end  of  the  button  over  the  ventilator, 
which  will  then  be  somewhat  darkened,  yet  ad- 
mit air  freely,  and  be  measurably  protected 
against  driving  storms.  Willi  the  other  end  of 
the  button  the  air  can  be  entirely  shut  off  or 
regulated  at  will. 

I  have  for  many  j-ears  used  the  device  above 
described  on  some  of  my  hives,  with  entire  satis- 
faction. Henry  Crist. 

Lake  P.  0.,  OJdo. 


American  Bee  Journal 

EDITED  AND  PUBLISHED  BY  SAMUEL  WAGNER,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

AT  TWO  DOLLARS  PER  ANNUM,  PAYABLE  IN  ADVANCE. 


Vol.  V. 


]>X^VY,     18 'TO. 


No.  11. 


Introducing  Queen  Bees. 

Translated  for  the  American  Bee  Journal. 


At  the  late  general  couvention  of  German  bee-  [ 
keepers  at  Nuremberg,  the  sixth  quesliou  pro- 
posed for  discussion  was — "  What  is   the  safest  \ 
and    best    method    of    introducing    a  stranger  | 
queen-?"  j 

The  debate  was  opened  by  Major  Von  Hru-  j 
SCHKA,    the  inventor   of   the   honey  extracting  i 
machine.     He  said: — "The   speediest,  simplest 
and  safest   process    of   introducing    a   stranger  ' 
queen,  whether  fertilized  or  not,  or  a  queen  cell  i 
from  another  hive,  into  a  queenless  colony,  is  the  ; 
following  :  The  implement  which  plays  the  prin- 
cipal part  iu  the  operation,  is  one  used  by  ladies 
in  perfuming  their  dresses,  called  a  '  rafruichis- 
seur  '  by  the  French,  and  which  can  be  procured 
trom  any  perfumer  or  druggist.     The  purpose  is  \ 
to  produce  alight  stream  of  moist  vapor  or  spraj"-,  j 
by  blowing  through  the  instrument  when  pro-  I 
perly  charged,  so  that  it  would   moisten  but  not 
wet  a  hand  held  in  it.     The  charge  used  is  a  mix- 
ture of  water  and  essence  of  peppermint  in  the  pro- 
portion of  a  thimbleful  of  the  latter  to  a  gill  of  the 
former.     This  mixture  must  be  well  shaken  when 
to  be  used,  and  should  not  be  so  strong  as  to 
produce  any  great  excitement  among  the  bees 
when  they  are  exposed  to  it. 

When  a  stranger  cpieen  is  to  be  introduced 
in  a  colony  in  a  movable  comb  hive,  comb  after 
comb  should  be  gently  lifted  out  till  the  native 
queen  is  found  and  removed.  Then  the  combs 
still  remaining  iu  the  hive,  the  sides  and  ends 
of  the  hive,  and  the  bees  (the  hive  having  been 
closed)  are  to  be  gently  but  thoroughly  fumigated 
or  perfumed  by  blowing  the  vajior  of  the  mix- 
ture through  the  entrance,  and  through  a  small 
opening  made  in  the  rear  of  the  hive,  repeating 
the  fumigation  in  about  half  a  minute,  to  set  the 
bees  in  gentle  commotion,  so  that  each  individ- 
ual may  be  duly  perfumed.  The  combs  and  bees 
that  were  lifted  out  are  next  to  be  treated  in  like 
manner,  as  each  comb  is  replaced  in  the  hive 
after  repeating  the  vaporing  operation  two  or 
three  times.  Immediately  thereupon  the  queen 
to  be  introduced,  Avhether  fertilized  or  not,  must 
be  subjected  to  similar  fumigation  and  perfuming, 

11 


repeating  it  two  or  three  times  at  intervals  of 
half  a  minute.  She  is  then  to  be  set  free  on  one 
of  the  brood  combs,  and  the  hive  again  closed. 

This  is  the  whole  process  ;  it  can  be  performed 
n  less  time  than  is  required  to  describe  it,  and  out 
of  seventy  or  eighty  queens  thus  introduced  by 
me,  not  one  instance  of  failure  occurred.  Ex- 
cept in  the  case  of  some  very  precious  queen,  or 
when  the  colony  is  known  to  contain  a  fertile 
woiker,  I  never  deem  any  subsequent  examina- 
tion necessary.  Where  a  fertile  worker  is  known 
or  is  suspec:ted  to  be  present,  I  repeat  the  per- 
fuming fumigation  again  in  two  or  three  hours, 
or  on  the  following  morning,  blowing  in  the 
vapor  through  the  entrance  and  the  rear  of  the 
hive. 

If  after  this  process  a  queen  should  be  de- 
stroj^ed,  it  will  be  found  that  the  colony,  though 
supposed  to  be  queenless,  yet  contained  a  ciueen 
which  escaped  detection  and  removal ;  or  that  the 
mixture  of  peppermint  and  water  was  not  pro- 
perly prepared  or  sufficiently  shaken,  and  was 
consequently  too  weak  for  the  purpose  intended. 
If  the  mixture  be  too  strong  the  bees  will  be- 
come highly  excited,  leaving  the  interior  of  the 
liive  and  clustering  on  the  outside  above  the  en- 
trance. But  in  such  case  I  have  never  observed 
any  ill  results,  the  commotion  soon  subsiding. 
The  bees  return  to  the  interior,  and  next  morn- 
ing all  Avill  be  found  iu  order,  the  queen  having 
been  accepted. 

The  quantity  of  the  mixture  to  be  used  on 
each  occasion  is  from  1|  to  3  tablespoonfuls, 
according  to  the  size  of  the  colon}'. 

For  greater  safety,  till  some  skill  in  preparing 
the  mixture  and  performing  the  operation  has 
been  attained,  preliminary  experiments  may  be 
made  with  supernumerary,  worthless  or  common 
queens. 

From  box  or  straw  hives,  with  fixed  combs, 
a  swarm  is  to  be  drummed  out,  and  the  native 
queen  removed  ;  then  tJie  combs  and  the  interior 
of  the  hive  must  be  well  fumigated  with  the  per- 
fumed vapor  or  spray,  after  which  the  expelled 
bees  are  likewise  so  treated,  and  finally  the  new 
queen,  perfumed  in  like  manner,  placed  among 
and  allowed  to  pass  into  the  hive  with  the  re- 
turning bees. 

If,  when    two  or  more  colonies   are    to   be 


222 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


united  in  the  fall,  or  at  any  other  time,  some  of 
the  bees  prove  to  be  quarrelsome  or  pugnacious, 
they  will  speedily  become  pacified  and  reconciled 
on  being  repeatedly  perfumed  as  described.  But 
resort  to  this  mixture  is  not  advisable  when  a 
colony  is  being  robbed." 

Mr.  FuTTERER  remarked. —  "A  somewhat 
similar  process,  but  using  chloroform,  and  thus 
stupefying  the  bees,  has  been  recommended  in 
the  Biencnzeilung.  I  have  tried  this  ten  or 
t'welve  times,  and  have  lost  some  very  fine 
queens.  The  use  of  grated  nutmeg  has  also 
been  proposed.  I  have  tried  it  and  succeeded 
three  times  out  of  four,  but  the  mishap,  though 
only  one  in  four,  may  involve  the  loss  of  a  valu- 
able queen." 

Mr.  Leschetzky  said  :  "  I  have  charge  of  an 
eight  hive  pavilion  (the  joint  property  of  sixteen 
members  of  our  association)  which  is  used  ex- 
clusively for  rearing  queens,  and  I  thus  had 
many  opportunities  for  observation.  I  have 
reared  more  than  one  hundred  queens  in  the  pa- 
vilion, and  emploj'cd  various  methods  of  intro- 
ducing them  in  queeuless  colonies,  but  none 
ever  proved  to  be  entirely  satisfactory,  all  being 
attended  with  difiiculties,  risks  and  delay.  I 
was  always  ready  to  sacrifice  a  ciucen  in  my  ef- 
forts to  discover  or  devise  some  simple  and 
sure  process.  On  reflection  I  conceived  that 
after  removing  the  native  queen  the  intended 
successor  would  be  readily  accepted  if  I  operated 
in  accordance  with  the  natural  habits  of  the  bee. 
"With  this  view  I  caught  and  removed  the  old 
queen  in  the  morning,  and  attached  the  cage 
containing  the  strange  queen  to  one  of  the  brood 
co?nbs,  and  liberated  her  in  the  evening  of  the 
same  day.  Next  morning  I  examined  the  hive, 
and  found  the  queen  safe  and  laying  eggs. 
Again,  I  -removed  the  native  queen  in  the  even- 
ing, placed  her  intended  successor  caged  on  a 
brood  comb  purposely  set  in  the  rear  adjoining 
the  movable  door  of  the  Dzi(,Tzon  hive,  and  liber- 
ated her  in  the  evening  of  the  following  day. 
She  was  at  once  accepted.  I  repeated  this  pro- 
cess frequently  until  I  was  satisfied  that  it  had 
been  fully  tesfed,  and  with  proper  attention  was 
always  successful.  Only  once  Avas  a  queen 
killed  for  me,  and  then  the  mishap  was  attribu- 
table to  my  mistake  in  attaching  the  cage  con- 
taining the  offered  queen  to  an  empty  comb  in- 
stead of  a  brood  comb. 

I  am  thoroughly  convinced  that  the  most 
dangerous  foes  an  introduced  queen  has  to  en- 
counter are  the  young  bees  found  on  the  brood 
combs,  and  our  first  endeavor  must  be  to  make 
these  familiar  with  the  offered  stranger,  so  as  to 
induce  them  to  accept  her  freely.  Hence  I  use 
the  precaution  now  to  place  a  brood  comb  at  the 
rear  end  of  the  hive,  next  the  door,  and  to  it  I 
attach  the  cage  containing  the  queen  I  would  in- 
troduce, lean  then  promptly  liberate  her  at  the 
proper  time,  without  'producing  excitement 
among  the  bees. 

By  this  process,  now  used  successfully  more 
tlian  fifty  times,  the  bees  do  not  become  conscious 
of  queenlessness,  and  never  begin  to  build  queen 
cells,  and  as  the  new  queen  is  liberated  in  the 
evening,  when  bees  are  known  to  be  more  peace- 
fully disposed  than  at  any  other  times,  it  ii  evi- 


dent that  the  process  has  many  advantages  over 
any  hitherto  employed,  especially  as  brooding  is 
thus  interrupted  only  for  one  day." 

Mr.  Kneipp  observed: — ''When  I  wish  to 
change  queens,  I  catch  the  old  or  native  queen, 
cage  her  and  let  her  remain  in  the  hive  that  day. 
The  cage  thus  becomes  imbued  with  the  scent  or 
odor  of^  the  colony.  In  the  evening,  at  dusk,  I 
remove  this  queen  and  substitute  for  her  the  one 
I  intend  shall  be  her  successor,  using  the  same 
cage  and  besmearing  it  on  every  side  with  honey 
taken  from  the  same  hive,  and  immediately  rein- 
serting it.  If  the  queen  thus  given  is  a  very 
precious  one,  and  I  desire  to  be  absolutely  sure 
that  she  will  be  accepted,  I  puff  segar  smoke 
gently  in  the  entrance  of  the  hive  at  intervals  of 
thirty  minutes,  !br  about  tAvo  Iiours.  In  from 
twenty-four  to  thirty-six  hours,  I  liberate  her, 
u'sing  segar  smoke  again  as  before.  Thus  pro- 
ceeding 1  have  invariably  been  eminently  suc- 
cessful. 

When  I  desire  to  unite  the  bees  of  two  or 
three  colonies,  1  drive  out  or  shake  off  the  bees 
successively  into  a  large  glazed  earthen  pot,  and 
introduce  the  selected  queen  directly  among 
them,  unconfined.  I  then  thoroughly  mix  or 
shake  together  the  whole  mass,  two  or  three  times 
at  short  intervals,  and  then,  to  prevent  the  gener- 
ation of  excessive  heat,  I  transfer  them  imme- 
diately to  the  hive  prepared  for  them. 

Since  I  employ  this  method  I  have  never  had 
bees  or  queens  injured  or  killed,  as  the  bees  be- 
come exceedingly  alarmed  and  are  apparently 
glad  to  escape  Avith  life." 

Mr.  DziERZON  said: — "It  frequently  hap- 
pens, after  the  removal  of  the  old  queen,  that 
her  successor,  Avhen  introduced,  is  apparently 
well  received  and  accepted  by  the  bees,  but  is 
subsequently,  a  week  or  ten  days  later,  de- 
stroyed by  them.  It  is,  of  course,  desirable  that 
a  valuable  queen  should  not  incur  such  risks,  and 
if  we  would  be  sure  of  her  thorough  acceptance 
she  should  be  given  to  a  secoud  swarm,  from 
which  a  still  Airgin  queen  has  just  been  re- 
moved, or  to  an  artificial  coloiiy  having  queen 
cells  nearly  mature.  The  workers  of  such  colo- 
nies have  been  for  some  time  queenless  and  are 
ready  to  accept  and  permanently  retain  any  fer- 
tile queen  that  may  be  offered  to  them.  Care 
must,  however,  be  taken  to  remove  every  j'oung 
queen  such  colony  may  contain,  or  the  ucav 
queen  might  still  be  lost,  and  though  queen  cells 
Avill  commonly  be  destroyed  by  the  Avorkers  on 
the  acceptance  of  a  queen,  it  is  safer  to  remove 
them  immediately,  especially  if  the  embrA'o  ■ 
queen  be  nearly  mature,  so  that  the  introduced 
queen  may  not  incur  the  risk  of  being  killed  by 
an  emerging  one." 

Mr.  Reitekspietz  remarked  : —  "When  I 
Avish  to  introduce  a  valuable  Italian  queen  in  a 
healthy,  populous  black  colony,  whether  in 
spring,  summer  or  fall,  or  even  in  unfavorable 
weather,  I  proceed  in  the  folloAving  manner : 

"At  noon,  or  in  the  afternoon,  I  capture  the 
native  queen,  confine  her  in  a  cage  and  place 
this  in  or  on  a  brood  comb.  Having  replaced  the 
combs  taken  out  when  searching  for  her,  I  close 
the  hive  and  leave  it  in  this  condition  twenty- 
four  hours.     Then,  that  is  at  about  the  same  hour 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


223 


on  the  following  dtxy,  I  take  out  the  cage,  re- 
move tlie  old  queen,  and  substitute  the  Italian 
queen  lor  her  in  the  same  cage,  "which  I  set  aside 
lor  a  while  till  the  queen  becomes  quiet  and  re- 
signed. I  then  besmear  it  on  all  sides  with  pure 
nice  honey,  and  replace  it  hi  the  same  position  it 
occupied  before  in  the  hive.  Now  closing  the 
hive  I  leave  it  in  this  condition  several  days, 
four  days  being  best,  according  to  my  experience. 
Then,  opening  the  hive  again,  I  destroy  all  the 
queen  cells  that  may  have  been  started,  take  out 
the  cage,  remove  the  slide  and  cover  the  opening 
with  a  thill  plate  of  wax,  to  keep  the  queen  con- 
fined. Replacing  the  cage  in  its  former  position 
and  closing  the  hive,  let  the  bees  liberate  the 
queen  at  tlieir  leisure.  The  cage  may  be  taken 
away  after  she  has  left  it.  I  will  guarantee 
that  by  this  method  queens,  whether  fertilized  or 
not,  may  always  be  safely  introduced." 

Mr.  Masbaum  said  : — "I  have  this  yeaLtaken 
bees  from  several  colonies,  shaken  them  together 
thoroughly,  and  immediately  given  them  the 
queen  I  desired  to  introduce,  and  she  was  always 
readily  accepted. 

A  few  weeks  ago,  by  way  of  experiment, 
I  drove  out  a  swarm  from  a  straw  hive,  and 
alter  securing  the  old  queen  and  returning  her 
to  the  parent  stock,  I  gave  a  new  queen  to  the 
swarm.  Although  these  bees  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  the  presence  of  a  fertile  queen  of 
the  previous  year,  and  the  one  given  to  them 
was  a  3'oung  one  only  fertilized  a  few  days  be- 
fore, she  was  kindly  received  and  accepted.  I 
must  state,  however,  that  I  let  the  driven  swarm 
and  the  given  queen  remain  together,  shut  up  in 
an  empty  hive,  fully  twenty-four  hours  before  I 
gave  them  combs.  Had  combs  been  given  to 
them  immediately,  the  result  might  not  have 
been  so  favorable." 

Mr.  Klipstein  stated  that  "a  well  tested  and 
sure  mode  of  introducing  queen  bees  is  as  fol- 
lows :  After  the  old  queen  has  been  removed  in- 
troduce her  intended  successor  the  same  evening, 
merely  besmearing  her  with  honey,  and  placing 
her  where  the  larger  mass  of  the  bees  is  congre- 
gated. The  stranger  queen  may  also  be  be- 
smeared with  honey  taken  from  the  hive  in 
which  she  is  to  be  introduced,  and  set  at  large  on 
one  of  the  brood  combs. 

Removing  the  old  queen  in  the  morning  and 
introducing  her  successor  in  the  evening,  is  prob- 
ably advantageous  simply  because  the  bees  Avill 
retain  their  consciousness  of  queenlessness  per- 
fectly till  evening,  without  yet  adopting  measures 
to  supply  their  w^ant.  Mr.  Dummer,  of  Romberg, 
in  the  Bavarian  Palatinate,  communicated  this 
method  to  me,  assuring  me  that  he  had  repeatedly 
introduced  queens,  whether  fertile  or  virgin  in 
this  manner  with  the  most  gratifying  results." 


What    are    the    Essential    Conditions   of 
Early  Swarming? 

Translated  for  the  American  Bee  Journal. 


AVhen  practical  men  are  just  commencing  the 
study  of  a  science  which  should  direct  their  daily 
labors,  they  must  not  be  treated  as  patient  and 
trained  students  eager  to  explore  the  whole  Tem- 
ple of  Nature  ;  but  rather  like  cautious  and  some- 
what unwilling  candidates,  wiio  must  be  lured 
into  its  outer  ve.stibules,  by  wisdom  conveyed  in 
pleasant  and  familiar  words. 


This  was  the  seventh  question  for  discussion, 
on  the  progj-amme  of  the  Sixteenth  General  Con- 
vention of  German  Bee-keepers  at  Nuremberg, 
September,  1860. 

Dk.  ZmvANSKY. — I  am  a  decided  advocate  of 
simplification,  and  constantly  endeavor  to  intro- 
duce it  wherever  practicable.  Hence  I  desire  to 
apply  it  to  the  subject  before  us,  which  would 
then  be  made  more  easily  intelligible.  As  it 
stands  I  conceive  the  proper  answer  is — "  There 
is  only  one  essentinl  condition  of  early  sicarmivg,''^ 
and  that  is  to  be  found  not  in  the  bee  community 
but  in  the  bee-keeper  himself.  It  consists  in  an 
accurate  and  thorough  knotcledge  of  the  nature  of 
the  bee.  If  the  bee-keeper  has  such  knowledge, 
he  will  know  also  the  wants  of  his  bees,  and, 
knowing  these,  he  will  be  careful  to  have  them 
fully  supplied  at  the  right  time,  and  will  thus 
always  have  the  colonies  in  his  apiary  duly  pre- 
pared for  earl  J'  swarming. 

By  virtue  of  hi«  knowledge  of  the  nature  of 
the  bee,  the  bee-keeper  is  aware  that  he  can  ex- 
pect to  have  early  swarms  only  from  populous 
colonies ;  and  he  will  consequently  take  care  to 
winter  only  strong  stocks.  But  in  order  to  do 
this,  he  will,  firsts  select  strong  stocks  in  the  fall  ; 
secondly^  he  will  be  careful  that  they  shall  remain 
strong  during  the  winter  ;  and  thirdly.,  will  man- 
age that  by  early  breeding  the  population  shall 
increase  rapidly  in  the  spring. 

Let  me  now  recapitulate  in  order. 

First.  If  the  colonies  intended  for  wintering  are 
to  be  strong  in  the  fall,  they  must  have  healthy., 
prolific,  and  still  young  queens.  The  grand 
secret  for  effecting  this  is,  ntver  to  permit  the 
queens  in  your  apiary  to  approach  the  feriod  of 
su'perun7iuation,  but  to  renew  them  frequently. 
When  doing  this,  furthermore  select  queens  bred 
not  earlier  tJian  in  July  or  August.  Such  queens 
will  continue  laying  late  in  the  fall,  resume  it 
vigorously  at  the  close  of  winter,  and  have  plenty 
of  brood  early  in  the  spring.  In  every  case  the  ' 
queen  must  always  be  rega<i-ded  as  the  most  im- 
portant member  of  the  famiiy,  as  it  depends  on 
her  altogether  whether  the  colony  is  in  any 
respect  to  be  praised  or  not. 

In  every  apiary  there  will  always  be  found  some 
stocks  weaker  than  others,  at  the  close  of  the  sea- 
son ;  and  it  becomes  important  to  equalize  the 
whole,  if  practicable.  This  is  done  by  transfer- 
ring combs  of  brood  from  the  stronger  stocks  to  the 
weaker.  Where  the  number  requiring  to  be  thus 
reinforced  is  not  large,  so  that  they  can  quickly 
be  adequately  supplied,  the  result  is  always  satis- 
factory. But  if  the  weak  colonies  happen  to  be 
disproportionately  numerous,  the  attempt  thus  to 
equalize  them  all  would  unduly  weaken  "the 
stronger,  and  hence  be  disadvantageous.  In  such 
case,  the  proper  course  is  to  break  up  some  of 
those  weak  stocks,  or  unite  several. 

Secondly.  If  the  colonies  are  to  remain  strong 
during  the  winter,  they  must  in  addition  to  hav- 
ing young  prolific   queenes,  be    supplied  with 
sufficient  stores  for  their  support. 
It  has  been  a  subject  of  frequent  debate,  what 


224 


THE   AMEEICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


quantity  of  stores,  consisting  chiefly  of  honey 
gathered  from  spring  blosoms,  is  required  to 
tarry  a  colony  prosperously  through  the  winter? 
And"  the  striking  differences  hi  the  quantity 
named  by  experienced  bee-keepers,  arise  from 
the  fact  that  the  disputants  have  not  agreed  upon 
■  a  definite  period  for  which  supplies  are  to  be  es- 
timated. Some  reckon  from  the  time  pasturage 
fails  in  the  fall  to  its  revival  in  the  spring— a  period 
of  ircmi  four  to  six  months.  Others  regard  only 
the  time  during  which  the  bees  do  not  fly — a 
period  usually  of  not  more  than  six  or  eight  weeks. 
Ahuosl  every  fall  we  find  bees  of  some  colonies 
occasionally  tlying  out,  long  after  pasturage  as  a 
source  of  supply  has  failed.  In  the  comparatively 
brief  term  during  which  they  remain  altogether 
secluded  in  their  hives,  and  before  brooding  com- 
mences, even  the  strongest  colony  consumes  very 
little  honey — hardly  a  pound  in  a  month.  The 
requisite  supply  for  so  short  a  period  is  conse- 
quently not  worth  mentioning.  In  estimating 
for  the  winter's  supply,  the  first  mentioned  term 
is  to  be  regarded  as  the  normal  period,  and  with 
reference  thereto  we  may  very  properly  say  that 
the  bee  winter  begins  at  the  tiQie  ichen  the. colony 
commences  drmcing  on  its  hoarded  stores,  and  con- 
tinues till  such  time  in  the  spring  when  tJie  daily 
gathering  of  honey  begins  to  exceed  the  daily  con- 
'sumption,  for  then  only  may  a  colony  depending 
exclusively  on  its  own  resources  be  regarded  as 
being  safe.  To-  be  provisioned  for  this  period, 
every  colony  slunild  have  at  least  twenty  pounds 
of  honey.  Taking  long  experience  as  my  guide, 
I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  not  sutfi- 
cieut  to  allot  to  a  colony  just  such  an  amount  of 
stores  as  will  barely  though  surely  suflice  to 
carry  it  through  till  spring  opens.  It  must  have 
somciohat  more  than  this,  so  that  it  shall  not  only 
feel  comfortable,  but  likewise  encouragingly  rich; 
for  if  the  bees  become  conscious  that  their  sup- 
plies are  scant,  they  will  use  every  drop  of  honey 
grudgingly  from  an  instinctive  dread  of  Avant, 
and  brooding  will  be  accordingly  restricted  or 
deferred. 

If  in  consequence  of  a  general  failure  of  pastur- 
age in  any  year,  we  are  constrained  to  resort  to 
substitutes  for  honey  to  provision  our  bees  in  the 
fall,  good  brown  sugar  candy  is  to  be  preferred. 
Very  liquid  or  much  diluted  food  must  be  care- 
fully rejected  as  injurious. 

For  successful  wintering  perfect,  quiet,  and 
protection  from  driving  -winds  and  extremes  of 
cold,  must  be  provided  for,  and  frequent  tempta- 
tion to  fly  guarded  against.  Placing  the  bees 
during  winter  in  a  dark  cool  chamber  or  cellar,  or 
in  some  special  repository,  is  probably  the  best 
mode  of  securing  these  ends  in  northern  coun- 
tries. 

Thirdly.  Stiong  colonics,  having  prolific 
queens,  and  well  supplied  with  stores,  will  com- 
mence brooding  eaily  ;  and  such,  if  other  cir- 
cumstances be  favoiable,  will  early  be  in  a  con- 
dition to  swarm. 

As  regards  the  size  and  form  of  hives,  practical 
bee-keepers  are,  I  presume,  pretty  much  agreed. 
Bees  in  a  small  hive  may  swarm  earlier  than 
those  in  a  large  one,  and  it  is  a  fact  founded  on 
physical  principles  that  a  colony  in  an  upright  or 
standard  hive  icill  swarm  earlier  than  one  in  a 


horizontal  or  lager  hive.  Again,  certain  local  or 
provincial  varieties  of  the  bee  are  popularly  re- 
garded as  naturally  more  prone  to  early  and 
frequent  swarming  than  others — a  prejudice  of 
of  which  dealers  are  apt  to  avail  themselves  in 
recommending  their  stock.  The  heath  bee  of 
Luneburg  is  usually  considered  as  being  at  the 
head  of  this  list ;  then  follows  the  Carniolian 
bee  ;  whilst  the  Italian  is  thought  to  have  this 
propensity  least  developed.  Tliere  may  be  some 
truth  in  these  popular  notions,  but  I  deem  it -of 
little  importance— believing  that  what  there  is  of 
it  is  l)ased  on  local  causes,  the  influence  of  pre- 
vailing weather,  peculiarities  of  climate  or  pas- 
turage, or  customary  management,  and  hence  as 
certain  to  j)rove  transitory  and  variable.  1  have 
in  my  apiary  the  pure  Italians,  the  common  black 
bees  hybrids,  of  these,  heath  bees  from  Lune- 
burg, Carniolian  bees,  and  bees  from  Lower  Aus- 
tria ;  J*nd  the  alleged  differences  between  them, 
in  swarming  propensity,  has  altogether  disap- 
peared, or  rather  it  has  in  my  case  become 
almost  entirely  reversed,  for  now  among  all  my 
bees,  the  Italians  swarm  earliest.  Still,  I  have 
cultivated  the  others  too  short  a  time  yet,  to 
speak  very  positively  about  this  matter,  though  I 
feel  assured  that  in  the  heath  and  the  Carniolian 
bee  this  disposition  has  considerably  diminished, 
and  probably  m  three  or  four  years  more  there  will 
be  no  difference  perceptible.  Hence  I  am  dis- 
posed to  conclude  that,  with  proj^er  manage- 
ment, and  with  due  reference  to  weather,  climate, 
exposure,  and  pasturage,  the  beekeeper  has 
swarming  completely  under  control.  If  he 
know  s  the  nature  and  habits  of  bees  and  attends 
duly  and  seasonably  to  their  Avants,  he  will  have 
strong  colonies  in  the  spring,  because  he  will 
winter  only  such  as  have  young  prolific  qncens, 
with  ample  flupplies,  in  good  substantial  hives, 
well  protected  from  extremes  of  cold  and  great 
variations  of  temperature,  and  in  a  position  where 
they  are  least  liable  to  disturbance  ;  and  sucli 
colonies  will  produce  early  and  good  swarms. 

DziERZON.-The  chief  requisite  for  early  swarm- 
ing is  suitably,  warm,  humid  weather.  That 
bees  in  some  years  swarm  early  and  frequently, 
and  in  other  years  late  or  seldom,  is  owing  prin- 
cipally to  the  state  of  the  w^eather.  Warm  and 
moist  weather  is  more  conducive  to  early  brood- 
ing, and  thus  promotes  early  swarming.  If 
nature  herself  do  not  present  these  conditions,  the 
bee-keeper  should  endeavor  to  supply  them  in 
part  at  least.  To  this  end  feeding  with  diluted 
honej  is  very  serviceable,  as  it  leads  to  the  pro- 
duction of  brood,  and  thus  fosters  swarming.  It 
is  also  advantageous  to  keep  a  constant  supply  of 
soft  water  near  the  apiary  and  accessible  to  the 
bees,  that  they  may  readily  procure  what  they 
need  ;  because  if  they  are  in  want  of  water, 
brooding  will  be  checked,  however  much  honey 
there  may  be  in  the  hive — and  it  is  important 
that  brooding  commence  early  and  •proceed  unin- 
terriptedly.  A  temporary  cessation  of  it,  after  it 
has  once  commenced  in  the  spring,  is  always 
injurious,  and  the  utmost  care  should  be  used  to 
prevent  it. 

Masbauji. — In  general  early  swarming  is  un- 
doubtedly desirable  ;  and  the  bee-keeper  can  con- 
tribute materially  to  having  his  colonies  in  proper 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


225 


condition  for  such  results.  But  thouf;:h  a  colony 
is  populous,  and  apparently  in  all  respects  in  a 
condition  to  send  out  a  swarm,  wc  are  neverthe- 
less at  times  doomed  to  wait  for  one  in  vain.  In 
such  case,  seiisonable  interference  is  advisable. 
If  the  colony  is  in  a  bo.K  or  straw  hive,  drive  out 
a  swarm  ;  if  it  is  in  a  movable  frame  hive,  make  an 
artificial  colony. 

Dr.  Preuss. — In  my  neighborhood,,  where 
straw  hives  are  almost  exclusively  used,  I  have 
had  opportunity  to  make  observations  on  the 
requisit^^e  conditions  for  swarmin^f — early  swarm- 
ing particularly— some  of  which  I  desire  to  com- 
municate. 

In  some  colonies  tlie  swarming  propensity  is 
regarded  as  an  inherited  and  transmissible  taint. 
Tliej"^  distinguish  themselves,  year  after  year,  by 
producing  swnrms  early.  This  is  easily  ex- 
plained. An  early  swarm  fills  its  hive  with  the 
finest  worker  comb  and  stores  up  an  abundance 
of  honey  and  pollen.  Next  spring  it  iias  plenty 
of  supplies,  and  no  vacancies  in  its  hive  to  be 
filled  with  comb  newly  built  at  the  cost  of  time 
and  honey.  An  eiirly  swarm  again  is  the  natural 
consequence  ;  and  so  on  successively. 

Second!)/. — Early  swarming  is  very  much  de- 
pendant on  the  character  and  completeness  of  the 
comb  which  the  hive  contains.  A  disproportion 
of  drone  comb  retards  or  prevents  it;  whereas 
an  abundance  of  worker  comb  fosters  and  secures 
it.  Hence,  cutting  out  worker  comb  in  straw  or 
box  hives,  in  the  spring,  is  injurious  ;  none 
except  mouldy  or  damaged  combs  should  be 
removed. 

Hives  should  be  protected  from  prevailing 
winds.  Colonies  well  sheltered  will  make  an 
astonishing  progress  beyond  such  as  are  exposed 
to  a  current  of  wind,  especially  if  it  come  from 
the  north  and  northeast. 

For  early  swarming  a  southern  exposure  is 
proferable.  I  had  occasion  last  summer  to 
observe  two  stands,  one  of  which  had  a  southern 
exposure  without  shelter  from  the  rays  of  the 
sun  ;  the  other  had  an  eastern  exposure,  and  was 
so  placed  that  after  twelve  o'clock,  noon,  the  sua 
did  not  shine  on  any  of  the  hives.  The  colonies 
in  the  former  gave  two  swarms  each,  before  any 
issued  from  those  in  the  latter,  though  they  were 
equally  populous.  In  changeable  weather  it  is 
highly  important  that  after  the  young  queen  is 
mature,  the  old  queen  should  have  an  immediate 
opportunity  to  depart  with  a  swarm.  She  shoulii 
be  able  to  avail  herself  of  the  first  hour  of  sun- 
shine, to  leave  ;  for  if  this  be  missed  and  cold  or 
cloudy  weather  follow,  one  of  the  queens— 
usually  the  young  one — will  be  killed,  and  all  the 
supernumerary  queen  cells  destroyed.  Then  we 
shall  either  have  no  swarm,  or  it  will  come  two 
weeks  later. 

To  promote  early  swarming,  the  material  of 
which  the  hive  is  made,  should  be  readily  per- 
meable by  solar  heat.  For  this  reason  straw 
is,  and  probably  will  ever  be|  the  best  material 
that  can  be  employed. 

A  constant  and  regular  supply  of  water,  con- 
veniently placed,  is  of  great  importance.  As 
soon  as  brooding  commences  bees  need  much 
water,  and  they  should  be  supplied  with  it  in 
shallow  dishes  or  troughs  set  near  the  apiary,  un- 


less that  is  situated  near  a  spiing,  brook,  or 
stream.  I  have  known  bee-kcipers  to  turn  up 
their  straw  hives  when  the  weather  grew  warm 
in  the  spring,  and  pour  in  a  pint  of  pure  water 
between  the  combs,  and  this  witli  decidedly 
favoralile  results.  Water  also  serves  to  dissolve 
candied  honey,  and  when  thus  supplied,  enables 
the  bees  to  use  such  honey  on  days  when  they 
could  not  leave  the  hive  "without  risk  of  beiiig 
lost. 

These  observations  show  why  movable  frame 
hives  are  less  conducive  to  swarming  than  straw 
hives  with  fixed  combs.  In  the  first  place,  mov- 
able frame  hives  are  rarel}'  so  compactly  filled 
with  combs,  as  the  others,  in  which  these  are 
more  closely  built;  and  secondlj',  the  solar 
hea'  does  not  penetrate  them  as  readily,  nor  is  it 
retained  as  long,  as  in  the  case  of  straw  hives. 

Those  who  use  straw  or  box  hives,  and  whose- 
bees  do  not  swarm  before  the  20th  of  June  at 
Infest  should  resort  to  driving  or  drumming  out 
a  swarm.  This  operation  cnn  be  performed  in 
thirty  minutes,  and  obviates  further  delay.  The 
driven  swarm  is  to  be  hived,  and  set  in  the  place 
of  the  parent  stocJ<,  which  now,  nearly  deprived 
of  mature  bees,  but  well  supplied  with  honey  and 
brood  in  all  stages,  shcmld  be  set  in  the  place  of 
some  strong  colony  now  removed  to  a  new  loca- 
tion in  the  apiary.  The  latter,  retaining  its 
queen,  young  bees,  and  brood,  will  in  a  few  days 
be  as  populous  as  ever ;  and  may  then  again  be 
used  for  a  similar  purpose — if  the  first  driving 
was  not  too  long  delayed.  "We  shall  thus  have 
three  colonies  from  two— an  increase  of  fifty  per 
cent.,  with  a  certainty  that  all  three  will  tlirive. 

Bees  should  have  a  liberal  allowance  of  fr<sli 
air  during  all  extremely  hot  weather  ;  and  if  the 
stocks  are  strong,  the  honey  boards  and  the 
blocks  may  be  entirely  removed. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Jourual.] 

Michigan  Bee-keepers'  Convention. 


The  Michigan  Bee-keepers'  Association  con- 
vened at  Lansing,  March  23d;  President  Moon 
in  the  Chair. 

Mr.  Rood  read  a  paper  on  spring  and  winter 
management.*  A  paper  from  Dr.  A.  Y.  Couk- 
lin,  on  the  same  subject,  contained  essentially 
the  same  recommendations. 

A  paper  from  E.  Gallup,  Orchard,  Iowa,  on 
bee  maladies,  suggested  that  foulbrood  and 
dysentery  were  only  prod«cts  of  ignornnce  and 
carelessness.  He  thought  proper  feeding  and 
ventilation  would  remove  these  dreatlcd  destroy- 
ers.    He  had  known  nothing  of  them. 

Mr.  Rood  said  it  was  evident  friend  Gallup 
knew  nothing  of  these  diseases.  He  knew  Ibul- 
brood  to  be  a  terrible  scourge,  and  believed  it 
contagious  ;  and  that  it  occurred  under  the  most 
careful  management.  All  afilicted  colonies  should 
be  Imried  low  and  deep. 

The  Italian  bee  was  tlien  considered  in  a  paper 
by  J.  M.  Marvin,  of  St.  Charles,  Ills.  He  gave 
the  following  points  of  superiority:  1st.  Its  ex- 
cellent temper.  2d.  Its  beiuity,  and  the  conse- 
quent ease  of  defecting  the  queen.  3d.  As  quicker 
and  better  workers.   4th.  Greater  hardiness.  5th. 

*  Will  bo  inserted  hereafter. 


226 


THE   AMERICAN  BEE   JOURNAL. 


Greater  prolificness.  Ctli.  Tenacity  in  adhering  to 
the  brood.  7th.  The  queen's  habit  of  adhering 
to  the  comb.  8th.  Superior  success  in  resisting 
the  miller  and  moth-worm.  Oth.  Greater  endur- 
ance in  times  of  scarcity.  10th.  Adherence  to 
the  comb  in  artificial  swarming. 

Summer  mauageu)ent  was  then  discussed,  but 
no  new  points  were  brought  out. 

Evening  Session. 

President  Moon  delivered  a  very  able  address. 
He  brought  out  in  vivid  colors  the  inducements 
to  apiculture;  showed  the  need  of  concerted 
action  and  congressional  aid  ;  and  closed  with 
an  earnest  appeal  for  a  INational  Bee-keepers' 
Convention.  Several  members  warmly  advo- 
cated this  project.  Several  letters  from  promi- 
jieut  bee-keepers,  also  urging  a  call  at  some  cen- 
tral position,  were  then  read.  After  considerable 
discussion,  the  following  resolution  with  the  pre- 
amble, was  unanimously  adopted. 

Whereafi,  the  subject  of  a  National  Bee-keepers' 
Association  was  much  talked  of  at  our  last  gather- 

And  icJiereas,  in  our  judgment,  the  time  for  the 
same  is  fullj^  come  ;  therefore 

Resolved,  That  we  issue  a  call  for  a  National 
Bee-keepers'  Association,  to  be  held  at  the  city  of 
Indianapolis,  Indiana,  on  the  10th  and  11th  of 
August  next. 

TnuRSDAV,  March  2ii7i. 

The  Melextractor  was  commended  to  favor  by 
Mr.  Rood,  of  Wayne,  Mich.,  and  Mr.  Hart,  of 
Wisconsin,  as  being  second  only  in  importance 
to  movable  frames,  as  an  aid  to  the  apiarian. 

Alsike  clover  was  liighly  recommended  by 
several  gentlemen  of  experience,  not  only  for 
bee  pasturage,  but  also  as  a  forage  plant. 

Mr.  Hood  would  raise  queens  in  nuclei,  so  as 
to  always  have  some  on  hand. 

Mr.  Hart  said  queens  were  apt  to  chill,  and 
thus  be  reduced  in  size,  if  not  destroyed.  In  his 
hives  he  had  them  above  the  frames,  separated 
by  a  wire  gauze  ;  thus  they  were  never  chilled, 
and  were  much  larger. 

Mr.  Mitchell  described  the  queen-breeding  cage 
of  Dr.  Davis,  stating  that  it  worked  admirably, 
and  recommended  its  use  to  all. 

The  ditTerent  methods  of  artificial  swarming 
•were  then  given.  All  of  which  may  be  found  in 
Langstrothon  "  the  Hive  and  Honey  bee;",acopy 
of  which  every  apiarian  should  own. 

!^^^.  Rood  read  a  paper  on  transferring.* 

The  Secretary  then  read  a  paper  on  the  sub- 
ject of  inciting  an  increased  interest  in  apiculture. 
He  referred  to  the  great  encouragement  which 
increased  information  yielded  to  the  apiarian  ; 
gave  some  examples  of  the  great  profit  as  related 
to  labor  and  expenses  of  bee-culture;  showed 
•  how  it  incited  its  votaries  to  higher  mental  im- 
provement ;  and  proved  it  to  be  one  of  the  greatest 
stimulants  to  a  higher  moral  culture,  and  in  view 
of  the  good  which  society  would  reap  front  an 
.  increased  of  interest  in  apiculture,  offered  the  fol- 
lowing resolutions,  which  were  adopted: 

1st.  Resolved,  That,  in  the  present  state  of  our 

*  Will  appear  in  a  future  number  of  the  Bee  Jousnal. 


finances,  we  deem  the  publication  of  a  work  on 
apiculture  for  gratuitous  distribution,  or  the  dis- 
semination of  works  already  written,  at  the  ex- 
pense of  this  Association,  ill  advised. 

2d.  Rexohed,  That  recognizing  the  value  of 
Adair's  Annals  of  Bee-culture,  the  American  Bee- 
Journal,  and  Illustrated  Bee  Journal,  we  do  all 
in  our  power  to  promote  the  circulation  of  the 
same. 

3d.  Jtesolvcd,  That,  as  individuals,  we  will  do 
all  in  our  power,  in  our  respective  communities, 
to  increase  the  hiterest  in  bee-culture. 

4th.  Resolved,  That  we,  as  individuals  "and  as 
an  Association,  will  encourage  i)opu!ar  lectures 
upon  this  most  interesting  and  profitable  vocation. 

A  resolution  was  passed  instructing  the  Secre- 
tary to  forward  the  proceedings  of  the  meetings 
to  the  bee  journals  for  publication. 


"  [For  the  Atn?ricau  Bee  .Tournal  ] 

Introducing  Queen  Bees. 


Mr.  Editor  : — Last  season  I  introduced  four 
hundred  and  five  (40'i)  queens,  into  all  sorts  of 
hives  in  the  country.  Of  this  number  sixty  were 
killed  in  the  introduction  and  six  were  killed 
after  they  commenced  laying.  Of  the  sixty-six 
colonies  that  killed  their  queens,  four  failed  to 
supply  themselves  with  another  perfect  one.  One 
colony  killed  the  second  queen  given  to  it. 
Much  the  fewest  number  of  losses  occurred  about 
swarming  time. 

My  plan  of  introduction  was  to  kill  the  native 
queen,  and  immediately  introduce  the  Italian  one, 
confining  her  to  her  cage  with  a  plug  of  honey 
comb,  which  the  bees  could  eat  out  in  a  day  or 
two,  thus  liberating  her. 

I  would  like  to  hear  from  others  who  have 
introduced  hundreds  in  a  season,  what  proportion 
were  lost,  and  what  was  the  plan  of  introduction. 

I  will  have  to  put  in  from  eight  hundred  to  one 
thousand  queens  the  coming  summer,  and  wish 
to  get  at  the  most  practical  mode  of  introducing 
generally  over  the  country.  I  have  a  convenient 
wooden  box  weighing  only  2^  pounds,  in  which 
I  can  carry  three'dozen  queens,  with  food  to  last 
them  one  or  two  weeks. 

Bees  in  Eastern  Ohio,  and  in  Pennsylvania 
west  of  Pittsburgh,  during  the  last  summer  made 
Kilt  little  honey,  and  did  not  supply  the  losses  of 
stocks. 

Italian  bees  have  shown  their  superiority,  most 
especially  in  the  number  of  swarms  produced. 

If  we  could  only  manage  to  introduce  all 
queens  safely  to  the'hives  for  the  people  over  the 
country,  the  number  of  our  sales  would  be  in- 
creased fourfold.  I  would  give  good  wages  for 
hands  that  could  do  such  work. 

R.   WiLKEN. 

Cadiz,  Ohio. 


It  is  a  singular  fact  that  wax  is  more  rapidly 
and  largely  made  by  feeding  the  bees  with  dis- 
solved sugar,  than  from  the  honey  they  collect 
themselves  ;  the  sugar  thus  evidenllj'  containing 
more  of  its  constituent  elements. 


TUB   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


227 


Chautauqua  County  (N.  Y.)  Bee-keepers' 
Association. 


Pursuant  to  nolicf;  a  bee-keepers'  association 
was  organized  at  Delanti,  on  Saturday,  January 
29th, 1870.  J  M.  Becbe  was  chairman  of  the  meet- 
ing, and  P.  Perrin  secretary. 

On  taking  the  cliair,  Mr.  Beebe  appropriately 
addressed  tiie  meeting  as  to  the  nature  of  the  pro- 
posed association  and  the  utility  of  its  formation, 
as  follows : — 

^'■Gentlemen  Beekeepers^  As  I  understand  it, 
we  have  met  here  to-day  for  the  purpose  of  or- 
ganizing a  Chautauqua  County  Bee-keepers'  as- 
sociation. I  liope  we  all  see  the  utility  of  such 
an  object,  and  ma}'-  unitedly  make  an  effort  in 
that  direction  and  be  certain  of  success.  VVe 
read  in  the  agricultural  papers  the  repoits  of  those 
who  make  bee-keeping  a  speciality.  Those  who 
make  the  most  from  bees  are  those  who  best  un- 
derstand their  nature  and  habits.  By  meeting 
together  and  freely  discussing  the  subject,  we 
may  profit  much  by  each  others'  experience. 
This  county  is  one  of *the  best  in  the  State  of  New 
York  for  bee-keeping.  No  better  honey  is  car- 
ried to  the  New  Yoik  or  Chicago  markets,  tlian 
the  honc}^  from  Chautauqua  county.  Tlie  dif- 
ference is  not  in  the  bees  tl»at  gather  the  honey, 
but  in  the  plants  from  which  the  honey  is  ex- 
tracted. Our  principal  lioney  producing  plants 
are  Avhite  ch)ver  and  basswood  ;  and  as  these 
furnish  an  abundance  of  the  very  best  honej'^  in 
the  world,  it  remains  for  us  to  fui'uish  ourselves 
with  the  means  of  securing  the  delicious  sweet 
tliat  has  so  long  been  allowed  to  go  to  waste. 
And  we  know  of  but  one  way  to  do  it — that  is, 
by  keeping  a  sufficient  number  of  bees  to  gather 
it.  Man  cannot  gather  it,  nor  has  he  ever  in- 
vented a  machine  by  which  it  may  be  secured. 
And  here  the  question  very  ])roper!y  arises — 
how  may  we  best  propagate  this  little  industrious 
honey-bee  ?  As  well  as  many  more  questions  of 
like  importance,  for  the  better  understanding  of 
which  an  association  of  bee-keepers  is  intended. 
We  can  statedly  meet  together  and  report  our 
success  orotJierwise,  our  ways  of  managing,  &c., 
and  learn  of  each  other;  and  all  who  wish  to  be- 
come interested  in  bee-keeping  should  meet  with 
us,  and  take  part  in  the  discussions." 

The  Secretary  tlien  read  a  letter  from  ]\Ir.  J. 
C.  Cranston  respecting  the  bee-moth  and  its  rav- 
ages. Then  followed  a  general  discussion  on  the 
bee — how  to  raise  the  greatest  amount  of  honey 
with  the  greatest  profit,  and  other  similar  ques- 
tions. Atter  wliicii,  on  motion,  the  President 
appointed  the  following  committees,  to  report 
forthwith  : 

O/i  Co nstituii'Vi— Messrs.  C.  E.  Benton,  E.  L. 
McCullough,  and  P.  M.  Miller. 

On  Permanent  Organization — Messrs.  N.  Cris- 
Bcy,  H.  Miller,  and  O.  E.  Thayer. 

Thereupon  a  recess  of  ten  minutes  was  taken, 
and  on  reassembling,  the  Chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee reported  a  Constitution  for  the  Associa- 
tion, which  being  read,  was  adopted  by  the  meet- 
ing. 

The  Committee  on  Permanent  Organization 
reported  the  following  list  of  Vice  Presidents : 
M.  C.  Tarbox,  Arkwright  ;  E.  H.  Jenner,  Busti ; 


J.  P.  Ilatlon,  Clymer  ;  O.  E.  Thayer,  Carroll  ; 
L.  Simmons,  Charlotte;  H.  Harrington,  Cherry 
Creek  ;  J.  Wood,  Chautauqua ;  J.  J.  Cassety, 
Dunkirk;  Wm.  Pussell,  Ellery  ;  S.  S.  Derby, 
Ellicott ;  G.  Beardsley,  Ellington;  Isaiah  Golding, 
French  Creek ;  B.  L.  Harrison,  Gerry ;  M.  S. 
Snow,  Hanover  ;  A.  L.  Williams,  Harmony  ;  J. 
B.  Whittaker,  Kiautone  ;  H.  Q.  Ames,  Mina  ;  S. 
Sage,  Pomfret  ;  T.  Sweet,  Poland  ;  G.  Ryckman, 
Portland  ;  S.  G.  Hamilton,  Ripley  ;  Hollis  Thomp- 
son, Stockton  ;  H.  Sheldon,  Shernuui  ;  .T.  E. 
Cranston,  Sheridan  ;  T.  Searl,  Villenova ;  and 
Hall,  Westfield. 

The  report  was  adopted,  and  a  ballot  was  then 
taken  for  the  other  officers,  with  the  following 
result. 

For  President — T.  S.  Moss,  of  Brocton. 

For  Secretary  and  Treasurer — C.  E.  Benton,  of 
Fred  on  ia. 

For  Executive  Committee — J.  M.  Beebe,  of  Cas- 
sadaga  ;  J.  C.  Scudder,  of  Kiantone  ;  and  M.  S. 
Snow,  of  Forrestville. 

On  motion  it  was  decided  that  the  first  annual 
meeting  of  the  Association  be  held  at  Mayville, 
September  20th,  1870,  at  12  M.,  and  thereupon  the 
meeting  adjourned. 


[For  the  Amerieaii  Bee  Journal.] 

Ifon-S warmers  vs.  Swarmers. 


A  question  of  the  greatest  importance  to  most 
bee-keepers  is — How  can  we  secure  the  largest 
amount  of  surplus  honey,  in  the  best  marketable 
condition,  in  a  season  ?  Can  it  be  best  done  bj'' 
a  continued  increase  in  colonies ;  or  is  there  a 
limit  at  which  the  increase  becomes  unproductive 
and  unprofitable  ?  I  believe  all  authorities  admit 
the  possibility  of  any  given  district  becoming 
overstocked.  When  this  limit  is  reached,  either 
from  an  insufficiency  of  pasturage,  or  from  an 
indisposition  of  the  bee-keeper  to  increase  his 
stock  from  any  cause  whatever,  what  is  the  best 
system  of  management  to  secure  the  greatest 
amount  of  honey,  with  the  least  cost?  Is  there 
any  management  reduced  to  a  system,  by  which 
we  can  control  and  prevent  further  increase  of 
colonies,  and  make  tlie  whole  increase  of  bees 
continue  to  store  surplus  honey,  instead  of 
swarming  ? 

There  are  some  questions  of  much  greater  im- 
portance to  most  bee-keepers  than  the  one  often  so 
discussed  as  to  the  best  method  of  increasing  the 
number  of  colonies,  for  since  the  introduction  of 
movable  comb  frames  and  the  new  sj^stem  of 
managing  bees  incident  thereto,  together  with 
the  great  fertility  of  Italian  queens,  the  increase 
of  an  apiary  to  almost  any  desired  extent,  in  a 
comparatively  short  time,  is  rendered  an  easy 
matter. 

With  anything  like  skilful  management,  the 
number  of  colonies  may  easily  be  doubled  annu- 
ally, and  may  even  be  tripled  or  quadrupled. 
And  where  a  "man  "gives  his  whole  mind  to  it," 
we  read  of  eight  and  ten  being  made  from  one 
in  a  season.  As  the  increase  is  in  geometrical 
progression,  the  number  in  a  tew  years  would 
become  enormous,  and  overrun  all  bounds.  Say 
that  we  already  li^ive  fifty  colonies,  and  take  the 


228 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


lowest  ratio,  in  three  years  more  there  would  be 
four  hundred;  and  in  three  more,  sixteen  hun- 
dred ;  which,  to  most  bee-keepers,  would  be  an 
alarming  extent.  It  is  true  I  have  made  no  al- 
lowance for  "mishaps"  in  wintering  or  otlier- 
wise  ;  but  I  have  taken  the  lowest  ratio,  and  it  is 
well  known  that  the  Italian  bees,  in  anything 
like  a  favorable  season  or  district,  will  send  out 
two  or  three  natural  swarms,  and  the  first  swarms 
are  very  apt  to  send  out  others.  Our  territory 
thus  becomes  overstocked,  and  instead  of  our 
bees  gathering  large  quantities  of  surplus  honey, 
our  pasturage  only  affords  enough  to  take  our 
strongest  coloniestlirough  the  winter,  leaving  the 
weaker  ones  to  be  doubled  up,  or  to  perish. 

To  say  nothing  of  overstocking  tlie  territory, 
there  are  but  coinparatively  few  bee-keepers  who 
make  it  an  only  and  especial  business.  Most  of 
them  are  farmers,  mechanics,  &c.,  who  cannot 
devote  their  whole  time  to  their  bees,  or  even  so 
much  of  it  as  is  necessary  to  attend  to  over  forty 
or  fifty  colonies,  especiallj'  at  swarming  time, 
which  usually  occurs  at  a  very  busy  season  of 
the  year.  And  suppose  they  should  succeed  in 
saving  all  the  swarms,  after  having  gone  to  the 
expense  of  procuring  hives  for  them,  what  are 
they  going  to  do  with  them  ?  They  already  Iiave 
as  manj'  as  they  can  conveniently  spare  the  nec- 
essary time  for  profitable  management.  There 
aie  but  few  places  where  the  annual  increase  of 
an  apiary  can  be  sold.  I  have  seen  places  where 
you  could  scarcely  give  the  swarms  away,  if  you 
required  an  empty  hive  to  be  furnished.  So  we 
are  compelled  to  resort  to  the  brimstone  pit,  if  we 
would  keep  our  numbers  within  bounds.  I  know 
some  intelligent  bee-keepers  who  practice  this, 
and  contend  that,  under  the  circumstances,  it  is 
the  most  profitable  way  that  they  can  be  disposed 
of.  A  few  persons  can  make  a  large  number  of 
colonies  profitable,  Avhen  they  are  raising  Italian 
queens  for  sale,  and  have  a  demand  for  them. 
But  there  is  not  one  in  a  thousand  of  the  host  of 
bee-keepers  who  wish  to  keej)  more  than  from  ten 
to  fiftj^  colonies,  to  suppl}'-  their  families  with  the 
delicious  sweet  and  furnish  some  surplus  for  sale, 
to  assist  in  paying  for  the  family  groceries,  and  for 
the  purpose  of  affording  recreation  for  their  leisure 
hours. 

In  order  to  do  this  satisfactorily,  we  want  a 
s.'  stem  of  management,  bj'^  which  swarming  can 
be  controlled  and  prevented,  and  the  increase  of 
numbei's  be  made  to  store  surplus  honey  in  the 
most  suitable  condition  for  market ;  instead  of 
storing  it  in  an  additional  number  of  hives,  for 
the  support  and  wintering  of  an  increased  num- 
lier  of  colonies.  AVhen  this  shall  be  accom- 
plished, and  the  system  fully  developed  and 
reduced  to  practice,  it  will  stand  third  of  the  re- 
cent great  improvements  in  apiculture— the 
movable  combs  and  the  hone}^  emptying  machine 
occupying  the  first  and  second  positions.  And  I 
doubt  whether  the  honey-emptier  should  be 
l^laced  before  it,  for  say  what  we  will  in  its  favor, 
th'3  strained  honey  will  not  find  so  ready  a  sale, 
at  as  good  prices,  as  honey  in  the  combs. 

Several  experienced  apiaiians  have  been  giving 
their  attention  and  labor  to  obtain  these  results, 
and  with  some  success.  Mr.  Jasper  Hazen  has 
been  experimenting  for  some  years  and  calling 


attention  to  this  subject ;  and  from  his  statements 
he  appears  to  have  been  quite  successful  in  re- 
sults. He  says  that  he  has  been  able  to  secure 
from  fifty  to  two  hundred  pounds  of  box  honey 
to  the  hive,  and  from  recent  experiments  believes 
that  he  can  secure  an  average  of  from  150  to 
200  pounds  per  hive,  annually,  which  certainly 
seems  very  satisfactory.  He  shows  by  a  calcula- 
tion the  advantage  and  greater  profit  of  keeping 
a  fewer  number  of  non-swarming  colonies;  and 
if  the  basis  of  liis  calculations  is  correct  his  "fig- 
ures cannot  lie."  Nor  have  I  any  reason  to 
doubt  the  basis  of  his  calculations,  nor  his  state- 
ments in  regard  to  the  results  of  his  system  of 
management,  as  some  one  has  done.  Although 
he  is  a  stranger  to  me,  I  go  for  treating  all  men 
with  such  courtesy  as  to  credit  their  statements 
until  they  are  proven  incorrect.  He  has  mani- 
fested no  disposition  to  "keep  his  light  under  a 
bushel,"  but  has  repeatedly  published  accounts 
of  his  system  and  its  operation  ;  and  that  system 
is  not  at  all  confined  in  its  application  to  his  par- 
ticular hive.  It  may  be  used  in  connection  with 
various  other  styles  of  hives.  While  I  confess 
that  I  have  failed  to  prevent,  or  even  to  retard 
swarming  by  simply  giving  plenty  of  surplus  box 
room  (at  least  it  seemed  to  mo  plenty),  there  are 
too  many  contingent  circumstances  to  be  taken 
into  c<msideration,  for  me  to  say  that,  because  I 
have  failed  to  secure  such  result, therefore  hisstate- 
ments  in  regard  to  his  oinn  are  incorrect.  I  have 
a  case  in  mind. now,  of  last  season's  experience. 
A  strong  colony  of  Italians,  in  a  standard  Lang- 
stroth  hive,  was  furnished  early  with  six  51b. 
boxes — some  of  them  containing  empty  combs. 
They  stored  some  honey  in  the  comb  while  the 
apple  trees  were  in  bloom,  but  on  the  2d  of  June 
tliey  swarmed — leaving  the  boxes  empty,  having 
removed  from  them  all  the  honey  they  had  pre- 
viously stored  therein.  And  they  did  not  stop  at 
one  swarm.  But  I  have  not  experimen.tcd  to 
any  extent,  to  test  the  system.  I  have  onl}'  used 
hives  of  the  ordinary  size.  Should  I  succeed  in 
achieving  such  results  as  Mr.  H.  reports,  I  shall 
be  better  satisfied  with  it,  than  anything  I  have 
yet  seen  in  bee-keeping. 

That  veteran  and  successful  apiarian— Mr.  M. 
Quinby — who  has  always  favored  progress  and 
improvement,  whether  of  hi^s  own  origination  or 
of  others,  having  felt  the  necessity  and  the 
importance  of  such  a  system,  gives  the  gist  of  the 
desired  improvements,  in  the  following  concise 
language:— "7  ^onnt  to  control  swarming,  and 
PREVENT  it,  not  by  giving  extra  room  and  then 
guessing  t7int  they  loill  not  swarm.  I  toant  to  be 
certain.''''  Yes,  that  is  just  what  many  more  of  us 
want !  He  intimates  that  he  has  secured  such 
results  for  himself,  with  his  new  hive  and  new 
management,  and  has  reduced  it  to  a  system ; 
which,  as  1  have  before  said,  is  an  improvement 
in  bee-keeping  which,  in  my  humble  judgment, 
deserves  to  stand  second  only  to  the  introduction 
of  the  movable  combs.  I  hope  Mr.  Quinby  will 
more,  fully  develop  this  system,  by  giving  a  de- 
tailed account  of  its  operations,  and  his  success 
with  it  the  past  season.  Someone  else  will  soon 
be  putting  in  claims  for  its  discovery,  and  claim 
a  patent  right  for  it ;  or  they  will  improve 
upon  it  before  they  know  what  it  is.     This  is  a 


THE  AMEEICAN  BEE   JOUENAL. 


229 


fast  age  for  improvements,  "«(?  callecV  One  man 
already  says— see  Bee  Journal,  Vol.  V.,  page 
125— "Although  I  do  not  know  the  exact  plan 
of  his  (Quiuby's)  new  hive,  in  one  thing  I  think 
ours  are  superior.  It  is  in  not  having  the  frames 
connected  in  any  way  with  any  part  (italics  not 
mine)  of  the  hive."  There  we  have  it  !  Frames 
don't  touch  the  hive,  top,  side,  nor  bottom  !  and 
not  even  '■'■connected'''  by  the  ends  of  nails  (or 
standing  on  stilts)  as  the  frames  in  Mr.  Hazen's 
hive.  Probably  suspended  from  a  pole  above, 
by  some  "new  but  simple  and  ingenious  device" 
— but  I  am  digressing. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  Mr.  Quinby  and  Mr. 
Hazenwill  see  proper  to  continue  to  give  us  ac- 
counts of  their  operations,  in  the  Amekicax  Bee 
Journal— that  most  excellent  and  impartial  me- 
dium of  communication  for  all  bee-keepers. 

I  should  like  also  to  hear  from  those  who  have 
used  the  honey  emptying  machine  freely.  What 
effect  has  the  repeated  emptjnng  of  the  comb 
upon  the  swarming  propensity  of  the  colony  ? 

Pelee  Island.  Thaddeus  Smith. 

[For  the  American  Bee  .lournal.] 

Replies  and  Remarks. 


I  have  received  several  letters  from  correspond- 
ents, requesting  me  to  give  my  views  on  the  pre- 
vention of  swarming ;  also,  how  to  secure  the 
most  honey — whether  by  allowing  a  moderate 
increase,  or  by  preventing  swarming  altogether. 
Among  the  rest.  Novice  asks  a  favor  (see  No- 
vember No.  of  the  Bee  Journal,  page  184).  I 
have  always  experienced  the  most  difficulty  in 
the  prevention  of  swarming,  in  seasons  when 
bees  gathered  sufficient  to  breed  rapidly,  yet  not 
sufficient  to  store  surplus  or  to  build  comb.  ,In 
such  a  season,  with  a  very  prolific  queen,  pro- 
viding there  is  not  more  brood  comb  than  she 
can  occupy  with  brood,  cutting  out  ciueen  cells 
was  no  preventive  whatever,  especially  with  the 
Italians.  With  the  black  bees  a  sure  preventive 
has  been  to  remove  the  old  queen  early  in  the 
season,  and  substitute  a  young  one.  But  with 
the  Italians  that  proves  to  be  no  preventive  at  all. 
Provided  they  are  gathering  honey  rapidly,  I 
have  had  no  difficulty  iclth  this  method  and  the  hive 
I  use.  Keep  abundant  box  room,  and  as  one  set 
are  partly  tilled,  raise  them  and  insert  another 
set  under  ;  and  in  the  meantime  take  out  occa- 
sionally a  frame  from  the  brood  chamber,  con- 
taining brood  or  honey,  or  both,  and  insert  an 
empty  frame  for  them  to  fill.  This  gives  the 
young  bees  full  occupation  below,  and  also  makes 
room  for  the  queen  at  the  same  time.  And  here 
a  small  frame  is  indispensable,  for  reasons  which 
I  have  before  given.  In  times  when  they  are 
gathering  just  sufficient  to  brood  rapidly,  and  not 
sufficient  to  store,  and  you  have  a  number  of 
colonies,  you  will  find  some  of  the  queens  have 
more  comb  than  they  can  occupy.  Exchange 
this  empty  comb  with  colonies  that  are  full  of 
brood,  until  all  are  equalized. 

To  a  beginner  Mr.  Quinby's  queen  yard  would 
be  an  advantage,  to  prevent  swarming.  But  in 
that  case  you  are  obliged  to  cut  out  queen  cells  ; 
for  if  you  allow  young  queens  to  mature,  they 
will  lead  out  a  swarm. 


The  reader  will  recollect  that,  in  the  spring  of 
18G8,  I  had  thirteen  swarms  of  bees,  and  eleven 
of  them  were  as  good  as  Gallup  knows  how  to- 
make.  Out  of  those  swarms,  I  selected  one,  no 
better  in  any  respect  that  I  could  perceive,  than 
ten  others,  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  what  I  could 
make  out  of  it.  I  was  determinedVot  to  neglect 
it  in  any  manner,  but  to  attend  to  everything  at 
the  proper  time.  (You  will  understand  that  I 
am  a  hardworking  farmer,  and  can  as  yet  only 
devote  leisure  time  to  my  bees.)  Well,  now  for 
the  result.  On  the  20th  of  May  I  took  out  a 
good  swarm,  Gallup  fashion,  hived  them,  and 
gave  them  one  frame  containing  brood  and  honey. 
At  the  time  I  took  out  the  swarm,  queen  cells 
were  capped  in  the  parent  hive.  In  four  days  I 
took  out  two  frames,  each  containing  a  queen 
cell ;  inserted  each  frame  in  an  empty  hive  ;  ad- 
justed the  division  board ;  -and  drummed  oat 
sufficient  young  bees  to  occupy  each  frame  com- 
pletely. On  the  20th  of  June,  the  first  swarm 
had  its  hive  full  of  combs  and  brood.  I  then 
took  out  two  frames  containing  brood  and  honey  ; 
inserted  a  mature  queen  cell  in  each  one  of  those 
frames,  put  the  frames  in  empty  hives  ;  drummed 
out  young  bees  from  the  swarm  sufficient  to  oc- 
cupy those  two  frames  ;  and,  mind  you,  I  did  not 
have  them  half  occupied;  and  on  the  20th  of 
July  I  had  four  good  swarms,  all  full  of  combs, 
bees  and  honey,  and  seventy-five  pounds  of  good 
honey  in  boxes.  (You  will  recollect  that  our 
honey  harvest  was  entirely  cut  off  that  season 
on  the  20th  of  July.)  All  this  was  the  proceeds 
of  one  swarm  ;  and  our  honey  harvest  scarcely 
ever  commences  until  the  20th  of  July  ;  but  that 
season  it  commenced  on  the  10th.  The  surplus 
was  all  obtained  from  the  parent  stock  and  first 
swarm  ;  the  other  three  were  all  ready  to  com- 
mence storing  at  the  time  the  gathering  ceased. 
That  honey  extractor  I  have  never  yet  had  the 
pleasure  of  seeing,  for  I  had  no  use  for  one  the 
past  season  ;  yet  I  do  not  hesitate  to  pronounce 
the  invention  just  what  is  wanted  by  the  practi- 
cal apiarian. 

I  will  answer  Mr.  Root's  question,^  without  ■ 
giving  the  reasons  at  present.  In  my  experience, 
and  in  all  localities  wherever  I  have  resided,  a 
moderate  increase  has  always  given  the  best  re-  • 
suits,  where  surplus  honey  was  the  object.  But 
a  great  deal  depends  on  how  that  increase  is 
brought  about;  and  if  done  at  all,  it  must  be 
done,  the  most  of  it,  early  in  the  season.  A  hive, 
such  as  I  use,  with  a  frame  taken  out,  containing 
brood  in  the  heiglit  of  the  honey  harvest,  appears 
to  be  an  incentive  to  increased  activity.  Whereas 
a  large  frame  taken  out  at  the  same  time,  does 
diminish  the  working  force  in  the  boxes.  Those 
advocates  of  a  non-swarming  hive,  with  box  room 
for  100,  200,  or  300  pounds  of  surplus  honey,  -fail 
to  inform  us  of  one  fact,  and  it  is  one  that  has 
been  observed  by  others  as  well  as  myself, 
namely,  that  in  a  cold  season  like  the  past,  or  in 
high  northern  latitude,  such  as  Lower  Canada, 
for  example,  with  such  amount  of  surplus  room, 
the  bees  are  obliged  to  cluster  on  and  around  the 
brood,  to  keep^ip  the  necessary  temperature, 
and  will  consequently  not  store  any  surplus. 
Whereas,  if  they  were  restricted  to  20  or  SO 
pounds  surplus  room,  the  same  colony  could  and 


11* 


230 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


would  store  considerable  surplus.  Of  course 
these  hives  can  be  constructed  so  as  to  be  prop- 
erly managed  by  an  intelligent  and  well  posted 
bee-keeper.  Then,  why  not  tell  us  of  this  ?  In 
the  hive  I  u^e  I  have  had  a  swarm  build  their 
comb,  store  and  seal  up  fifty  pounds  of  surplus 
in  five  da3'S.  But  the  weather  was  just  right, 
and  in  the  time  of  basswood  blossoming — the 
greatest  honey-producing  blossom  that  I  am  ac- 
quainted with.  We  will  suppose  that  Mr.  A. 
buys  one  of  these  non-swarming  hives.  He  puts 
a  swarm  into  it,  and  the  first  season  they  only 
partially  fill  it  with  comb.  They  are  well  win- 
tered, and  have  a  good  prolific  queen.  The  fol- 
lowing spring  thej-- gather  honey  enough  to  breed 
rapidly  ;  yet  not  sufficient  to  induce  them  to  build 
comb.  When  the  hive  becomes  populous,  and 
the  queen  has  all  the  comb  occupied,  the  bees 
will  swarm.  On  the  other  hand,  let  us  suppose 
they  filled  their  hive  with  combs  and  honey,  but 
filled  it  in  the  fall,  when  the  queen  was  breeding 
very  little.  The  following  spring  they  gatlier 
sufileient  honey  and  pollen  to  keep  up  the  breed- 
ing, and  do  not  draw  on  the  last  years'  store. 
When  the  queen  has  all  the  cells  occupied,  they 
will  sv.arm.  What  really  constitutes  a  non- 
swarming  hive  is,  to  give  the  queen  empty  cells 
as  fast  as  she  wants  thchi,  and  the  workers  full 
occupation  ;  and  this  can  all  be  done  in  any  form 
of  Laugstroth  hive  I  have  ever  seen.  When  any 
one  tells  you  tliat  his  hive  will  give  hundreds  of 
pounds  of  surplus  honey,  whether  the  season  is 
good  or  not,  simplj' because  it  is  his  hive,  it  looks 
much  like  Jonah  swallowing  a  whale — decidedly 
fishy.  E.  Gallup. 

Orchard,  Iowa. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Wintering  Bees. 


.  Mr.  Ebitob  :— I  wish  to  say  a  few  words  in 
regard  to  wintering  bees ;  having  tried  various 
ways.  I  have  buried  them,  or  put  them  in  the 
ground,'  covered  with  straw  and  dirt,  ventilated, 
&c.  ;  but  they  came  out  with  combs  badly 
moulded  ;  and  mice  had  got  into  some  of  the 
hives,  making  hayoc  among  the  bees  and  combs, 
so  that  I  lost  several  colonies.  At  another  time 
I  took  my  bees  to  a  neighbor's  cellar,  which  was 
dry  and  cool,  with  some  frost  in  the  coldest 
weather.  I  did  not  lose  a  swarm  that  winter. 
Last  winter  I  took  my  bees  to  another  neighbor's 
cellar,  which  av as  drj%  but  very  warm,  with  no 
ventilation  worth  speaking  of.  The  consequence 
was  that  my  bees  Avorried  themselves  so  much 
that  many  of  them  eat  up  all  their  honey,  and 
died,  though  the  colonies  were  strong  and 'heavy 
in  the  fall. 

With  my  little  experience  I  became  satisfied 
that  I  now  knew  what  was  needed.  Last  sum- 
mer I  built  me  a  new  house,  and  concluded  I 
would  put  a  cellar  under  the  whole  of  it,  so  that 
I  might  provide  a  place  for  my  bees  entirely 
separate.  I  arranged  a  cellar  "under  one  wing 
entirely  separate  from  the  others,  so  that  I  could 
shut  it  up  so  close  that  no  frost  could  get  in,  if  I 
chose  to  keep  it  out.     This  cellar,  in  which  1  have 


my  bees,  is  about  fifteen  feet  square.  I  have  it 
well  ventilated,  with  one  widow  on  each  side — 
have  windows  hung  on  hinges,  so  that  I  can  raise 
or  lower  them,  as  I  choose,  to  let  the  air  pass 
through.  I  keep  a  thermometer  in  the  cellar,  and 
try  to  maintain  the  temperature  at  about  85°  above 
zero.  Some  days  it  will  go  higher  and  some  days 
fall  lower.  When  it  gets  colder  I  lower  the  win- 
dows, and  when  warmer  I  raise  them.  I  put  wire 
screening  on  the  outside  of  the  windows  to  keep 
out  rats  and  mice,  then  place  straw  against  the 
screening  to  darken  the  cellar,  yet  the  fresh  air  is 
constantly  passing  through. 

I  have  examined  my  bees  this  spring,  now  the 
10th  of  March,  and  find  them  all  in  good  condi- 
tion except  one,  from  which  I  took  about  twenty- 
five  pounds  of  honey  and  transferred  it  from  an 
old  hive  to  a  movable  comb  hive.  I  supposed 
they  had  honey  enough  left  to  winter  on,  but  they 
came  up  missing.  Last  fall  I  put  in  all  those  that 
I  thought  would  winter  well,  setting  them  in  the 
back  part  of  the  cellar,  one  over  the  other,  about 
twenty -five  of  them  about  three  deep.  Then  the 
weaker  swarms,  which  I  knew  would  not  winter 
without  feeding,  I  placed  along  the  side  of  the 
cellar.  The  very  heavy  ones  I  set  along  the 
middle,  leaving  a  space,  so  that  I  could  see  to  all 
my  bees  at  any  time.  From  the  strong  heavy 
swarms  I  took  cards  of  honey  in  the  frames  and 
inserted  them  in  the  lighter  or  weaker  swarms. 
Thus  equalizing  them,  so  that  they  are  all  alive 
yet,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  and  the  combs  appear 
to  be  ft-ee  from  mould. 

I  spread  straw  on  the  bottom  of  the  cellar,  an'd 
between  the  hives,  to  absorb  the  moisture.  I 
have  in  it  about  fifty-five  colonies,  I  left  ten 
colonies  out  on  their  summer  stands  for  an  ex- 
periment in  out  door  Avintering,as  I  supposed  them 
tO'-be  strong  and  good.  I  found  on  examining 
that  I  have  but  four  colonies  left  alive,  out  of  the 
ten.  One  colony  had  about  sixty  pounds  of  honey 
in  its  hive,  another  twenty,  another  five,  and  an- 
other very  little.  Therefore  I  would  recommend 
wintering  bees  in  a  good  drj'^  cellar,  well  ven- 
tilated— where  they  can  be  looked  after  at  any 
time,  and  fed  if  needed. 

I  would  not  know  how  to  get  along  without 
the  Bee  Journal.  It  has  been  of  much.vakfe 
to  me  already,  and  I  would  advise  ever}'  one  who 
keeps  or  intends  to  keep  bees,  to  take  it.  I  en- 
close two  dollars  for  my  subscription,  and  two 
dollars  for  a  new  subscriber,  to  whose  address 
send  the  Jouknal. 

Decorali.  lotoa.  Joel  Datton. 


Artificial  colonies  should  not  be  made  except 
when  forage  is  plentiful  and  bees  gather  honey 
freelj',  unless  the  owner  is  prepared  to  feed  them 

liberally. 


Bees  are  endowed  with  an  instinct  that  teaches 
them  to  avoid  certain  plants  that  might  be  dan- 
gerous to  them.  Thus,  they  neither  frequent 
the  oleander  {Nerium  Oleander)  nor  the  crown 
imperial  {Fritillaria  imperialis),  and  they  also 
avoid  the  Raminculacem :  on  account  of'  some 
noxious  property  ;, and  although  i\\e  Melianthus 
major  drops  with  honey,  it  is  not  sought. — ScJiuck- 
ard.  ,      ' 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


231 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Conklin  Diamond  Hive  Rejoinder. 


Mr.  Editor  : — As  the  columns  of  your  most 
valuable  Journal  are  open  to  all  attacks,  of  right 
Ave  claim  the  chance  of  defence.  Let  me  saj-^  to 
friend  Sillier,  of  Peninsula,  Ohio,  to  "keep  cool," 
don't  take  your  hat  off  and  go  off  half-cocked  in 
great  haste,  for  we  wish  to  have  a  little  friendly 
talk  to  you  and  the  readers  of  the  Journal.  It 
is  unpleasant  to  be  jumped  on  so  rough-shod  and 
be  forced  into  a  controversy  to  defend  one's  rights 
and  reputation,  especially  when  the  columns  of 
the  Journal  ought  to  be  occupied  by,  perhaps, 
more  important  matters.  But  then  there  is  per- 
haps nothing  more  interesting  to  the  bee-keeper 
tlinn  the  best  slyle  of  hive,  to  commence  with  ; 
and  as  Ave  believe  we  have  at  least  one  of  the 
best,  and  came  by  it  honestly,  Ave  Avish  to  make 
this  statement.  . 

We  invented  the  Diamond  Hive  in  1862,  as  Ave 
have  said  before,  and  tested  it ;  but  the  arduous 
labors  of  a  large  practice  of  medicine  prevented 
us  fiom  attending  to  more  than  from  six  to  eight 
stands  of  bees — just  for  our  own  use.  In  July, 
1868,  believing  the  Diamond  Hive  one  of  the  best 
in  use,  (as  I  had  tested  the  Langstroth,  Flanders, 
American,  Quinby,  and  Buckeye  hive  form  of 
movable  frame,  besides  several  hives  that  were 
not  of  the  frame  patterns,)  I  applied  for  a  patent, 
Avhich  was  granted  October  20th,  18G8.  I  also 
obtained,  as  soon  as  published,  Langstroth' s  great 
work  on  tlie  Honey  Bee,  Quinby's  "Mysteries," 
Flanders'  "SAveet  Home,"  King's  Bee-keeper's 
Text  Book,  Mitchel's  Guide,  and  Thomas'  Cana- 
dian Bee-keeper's  Guide,  all  of  Avhich  I  have 
read,  besides  the  five  volumes  of  the  American 
Bee  Joursal,  all  of  Avhich  I  have  read  Avith 
much  interest.  So  you  see  that  I  am  not  entirely 
ignorant  of  the  Avants  of  a  good  hive. 

Mr.  Miller  states,  on  page  188  of  the  Bee 
Joui;kal,  Vol.  5,  "  You  convey  the  idea  that  all 
that  is  rcriuired  to  obtain  straight  combs  in  the 
Diamond  hive,  is  to  level  the  hive,  put  in  a  swarm 
of  bees  and  let  them  have  their  own  way  in  build- 
ing." This,  with  one  addition,  is  correct;  that 
is,'  to  see  that  the  frames  are  true  in  tJie  hive. 
Now,  "wo  speak  that  Avhich  we  do  knoAv,  and 
testify  to  that  Avhich  Ave  have  seen,"  that  if  you 
will  sec  that  the  frames  are  true  in  the  hive,  or 
not  winding,  and  the  hive  is  level,  with  the  bees 
in  it,  they  Avill  buiW  their  combs  straight  in  the 
Diamond  Hive,  Avithout  any  other  guides  or  divi- 
sion boaids  than  the  simple  empty  frames  furnish. 
Of  course,  by  the  division  board,  which  is  tight- 
fitting  and  yet  perfectly  easy  of  removal,  we  can 
adapt  the  capacity  of  the  hive  to  the  size  of  the 
swarm  ;  thus  enabling  a  small  swarm  to  send  more 
workers  to  the  field  than  if  in  a  large  hiveAvilhout 
such  division  board  ;  though  its  use  is  not  neces- 
sarj^  to  secure  straight  combs. 

Don't  begin  to  cry  up — "Stop  thief!"  and 
doubt  the  truthfulness  of  our  Bennington  colony 
statement.  We  have  told  you  the  truth,  and  if 
you  wish  to  cross-examine  the  AN-itness,  I  Avill 
make  this  offer  :  If  you,  or  any  of  the  readers  of 
the  Journal,  in  America  or  in  Europe,  will  visit 
me  and  the  Bennington  colony,  they  shall  be 
taken  around  among  the  bee-keepers,  and  have 


the  chance  of  examining  all  the  hives ;  and  if 
they  are  not  as  we  have  stated,  I  will  pay  your 
fare  here  and  back,  and  your  expenses  while  iiere. 
We  are  five  miles  east  of  Ashley  Station,  on  the 
Cleveland  and  Columbus  Eailroad,  thirty-six 
miles  north  of  Columbus.  A  hack  runs  every 
day  to  the  station.  Now,  gentlemen,  if  you  wish 
to  cross-examiue  the  Avitness  to  get  the  "  to/iole 
truth,'"  come  on.  You  may  have  invented,  five 
years  ago,  and  used,  hives  with  frames  hung  an- 
gling, and  got  crooked  combs  in  them.  1  can 
shoAV  you  hives  of  one  man  in  this  neighborhood 
that  Avere  filled  last  year,  Avith  frames  hung  an- 
gling, and  have  crooked  combs  ;  but  they  are  not 
made  like  the  frame  of  the  Diamond  Hive.  They 
are  placed  two  inches  apart,  and  the  bees  were 
compelled  to  build  crooked  in  them  to  keep  the 
usual  distance  between  the  combs. 

I  said,  in  the  April  number.  Vol.  IV.,  of  the 
Bee  Journal,  that  I  invented  llie  Diamond  Hive 
in  1862,  Avhich  is  more  than  five  years  ago.  You 
may  have  been  the  first  inventor  ;  but  don't  mix 
your  testimony.  Until  otherwise  proved,  I  claim 
to  be  the  first  inventor  and-  patentee.  We  profess 
to  be  truthful  people  down  here  in  Quakerdom  ; 
and  i-f  we  are  accused  of. false  statements,  Ave 
ask  for  investigation.  You  speak  of  the  Michigan 
convention,  and  ask  if  I  Avas  there.  I  was,  and 
received  the  first  premium  and  diploma  at  the 
State  Fair,  over  thirteen  hives  in  competition — 
among  which  were  the  Langstroth,  America, 
Buckeye,  and  Thomas'  hives,  by  decision  of  as 
practical  and  disinterested  a  committee  as  there 
is  in  the  United  States.  If  you  doubt  my  state- 
ment ask  Prof.  Cook,  of  the  Agricultural  College 
at  Lansing,-  or  Mr.  J.  H.  Townly,  or  E.  Rood, 
Esq.  At  the  Bee  Convention  the  majority  of  the 
committee  were  in  favor  of  the  Diamond  Hive, 
if  I  mistake  not ;  bul.the  chairman  was  interested 
in  territory  for  the  Thomas  Hive,  and  the  com- 
mittee did  not  agree.  The  chairman  reported  in 
favor  of  the  Thomas  Hive,  (which,  by  the  way, 
is  a  very  good  one  in  many  respects.)  The  Sec- 
retary at  first  refused  to  put  it  into  the  minutes, 
on  account  of  the  disagreement ;  but  after  some 
discussion  in  the  convention,  it  was  allowed  to  go 
on  the  minutes,  as  I  had  been  awarded  the  pre- 
mium at  the  hiir.  These  are  the  facts  in  the 
case. 

Perhaps  Mr.  Miller  lives  as  near  Prof.  Flanders 
as  I  do  ;  so  don't  link  one  man's  reputation  Avitli 
another's  because  you  don't  like  him. 

It  is  not  a  fact  that  we  obtained  straight  combs 
in  the  frames  by  the  use  of  comb-guides  and  divi- 
sion boards,  as  you  accuse  us ;  only  such  as  are  a 
part  of  the  simple  empty  frame. 

As  hir  as  Mr.  Price's  statements  are  concerned, 
I  have  simply  to  say,  I  wrote  an  answer  to  that, 
sending  a  copy  to  the  American  Bee  Journal. 
I  do  not  knoAV  Avliy  it  was  not  pulilished.* 

A.  V.  Conklin. 

Bennington,  Ohio. 

*  The  reply  referred  to  never  came  to  our  hands, 
and  of  course  could  not  be  published. — En.     . 


Bees  dislike  any  quick  movements  about  their 
hives  ;  more  especially  any  motion  which  jars 
their  combs. 


232 


THE-  AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


[For  the  Amei-icau  Bee  Journal.] 

A  Word  of  Explanation. 


In  reply  to  dozens  of  correspondents,  in  regard 
to  my  certificate  in  Dr.  Conklin's  Circular,  I  will 
say  that  said  certificate  was  taken  partly  from 
tiie  American  Bee  Journal  and  partly  from  pri- 
vate letters,  and  entirely  disconnected  from  the 
several  sut)jects.  Thus  putting  words  together 
answers  the  Doctor's  purpose,  no  doul  t,  admi- 
rably. But  in  this  same  manner,  I  can  prove  by- 
Scripture  that  the  Doctor  ought  to  commit  sui- 
cide— "And  he  departed  and  went  and  hanged 
himself."  "Go  thou,  and  do  likewise  !"  Now,  no 
one  can  deny  that  this  quotation  is  pretty  near 
Scripture.  The  only  question  is,  is  it  rightly  put 
together? — I  will  say  this  much:  I  have  con- 
sented to  take  one  of  the  Diamond  hives  on  trial ; 
and  the  Doctor  has  forwarded  one  to  me,  together 
with  the  right  to  make  and  use,  free  of  charge. 
I  have  had  a  favorable  opinion  of  that  form  of 
hive — say  nothing  about  the  Doctor's  fixtures. 
But  I  can  tell  its  worth  better  after  testing  it. — I 
have  also  received  oiie  of  Dr.  J.  Davis^  Queen 
ISTurseries,  together  with  a  right  to  use.  Arc.,  but 
have  liad  no  opportunity  to  test  it,  as  I  received 
It  too  late  last  fall. 

I  hear  that  other  parties  are  using  my  name  in 
order  to  sell  their  wares.  According  to  this 
Gallup's  name  must  be  worth  something  to  said 
parties.  Now  what  I  wish  distinctly  understood 
is  this :  whenever  Gallup  discovers  anything  in 
the  bee  line  worthy  of  a  certificate  or  recommen- 
dation, he  is  the  very  man  that  will  uot.be  afraid 
to  say  so,  and  that  through  the  public  press  ;  and 
until  he  does  so  acknowledge  anytlung  worthy, 
you  may  take  it  for  granted  that  the  use  of  his 
name  is  unauthorized. 

No  man  civn  well  be  a  true  nian  who  is  jflways 
seeking  to  know  how  far  he  can  go  towards  a  lie 
and  yet  not  be  technically  unfaithful  to  the  truth. 
This  half  permissive  lie  does  not  come  up  to  my 
standard.  All  this  kind  of  management,  all  this 
equivocation,  all  this  dexterity  in  avoiding  exact 
truth,  does  not  exactly  agree  Avith  my  idea  of 
manliness.  E.  Gallup. 

Orchard,  loica. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Patent  Hives. 


An  article  in  the  March  No.  of  the  Bee  Jour- 
nal ought  perhaps  to  receive  some  notice  from 
me.  Mr.  J.  M.  Worden,  after  describing  a  hive 
embracing  the  patented  features  of  my  hive,  and 
claiming  that  he  "has  attained  similar  results" 
with  Mr.  Quinby  in  constructing  a  hive,  and  by 
such  language  leaving  it  to  be  inferred  that  he  is 
the  inventor  of  it ;  as  he  also  says  "  it  is  and  ever 
will  be  free  from  patent,  so  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned," is  ungenerous  enough  to  use  the  follow- 
ing language : 

"Let  us  all  try  and  contribute  our  mite,  that 
we  may  perfect  a  hive  aad  a  system  of  bee-keep- 
ing free  to  all,  and  cease  to  patronize  tJie  cormo- 
rants that  have  for  years  plundered  the  industry 
of  the  countrJ^     Cease  to  patronize  patents,  and 


they  will  soon  cease  to  be  the  disgusting  nuisance 
they  now  are,  «&c." 

But  few  persons  will  agree  with  Mr.  Worden 
that  the  bright  array  of  eminent  inventors  of  our 
country  who  have,  by  their  labors  and  studj"-, 
placed  us  in  advance  of  all  the  world  in  science 
and  art,  liave  only  been  so  manj-  "cormorants, 
plundering  the  industry  of  the  country,"  or 
"disgusting  nuisances."  No  doubt  he  uttered 
this  uncalled  for  denunciation  in  a  fit  of  thought- 
lessness and  must  be  ashamed  of  it  by  this  time, 
for  a  man  of  his  intelligence  must  know  that  the 
industry  of  the  country  has  been  almost  entirely 
built  up  by  patented  inventions,  and  most  of  the 
inveiitors  have  been  inadequately  rewarded  for 
the  labor  and  thought  expended  on  their  inven- 
tions. The  "industry  of  the  country"  has  the 
best  end  of  the  bargain.  Does  he  suppose  that 
one  invention  in  ten  would  ever  have  been  made, 
had  the  inventors  expected  nothing  in  return  for 
it  except  the  "greater  hapjiiness"  he  romantically 
sui:)poses  "  a  good  and  true  man"  feels  in  "being 
serviceable  to  his  fellow-creatures  without  the 
hope  of  fee  or  reward  ?"  Does  he  not  know 
that  without  the  kind  of  protection  which  our 
government  throws  around  the  work  of  a  man's 
brains  equally  with  the  labor  of  his  hands,  and 
the  property  he  acquires  by  his  fortunate  posses- 
sion of  wealth,  that  all  important  discoveries  and 
inventions  would  beheld  as  secrets  and  only  sold 
under  oaths  and  bonds,  and  that  many  of  them 
would  die  with  the  inventors,  as  did  the  lost  arts 
of  the  ancients  ?  "  The  laborer  is  worthy  of  his 
hire,"  and  brains  have,  in  all  ages,  commanded 
greater  wages  than  muscle,  and  justly  so. 
"  Cease  to  i5atronize"  thought  and  genius,  and 
they  will  soon  cease  to  be  expendecl  on  inven- 
tions, the"  disgusting  nuisances"  friend  Worden 
makes  them  out.  Act  on  his  theory  and  practice 
of  laying  hold  of  another  man's  property  and 
claiming  it  as  your  own,  and  we  return  to- 

"The  good  old  rule,  the  simple  plan. 
That  he  may  take  who  has  the  power, 
And  he  m-j.y  keep  who  can." 

He  says  of  his  arrangement,  "whether  it  nec- 
essarily conflicts  with  Mr.  Adair's  patent,  I  do 
not  know."  The  description  he  gives  of  the 
hive  embraces  the  most  important  of  my  claims. 
A  part  of  the  specification  is  as  follows  : 

"  The  nature  of  my  invention  consists  in  form- 
ing the  different  chambers,  apartments,  and 
honey  boxes  of  a  bee  hive  of  a  series  of  vertical 
sections  or  rims,  so  fitted  to  each  other,  in  suffi- 
cient number,  as  to  form  close  boxes  of  the  size 
required,  &c."  "The  whole  is  enclosed  by  an 
outer  case  or  box,  &c."  Each  section  is  formed 
by  nailing  together  four  thin  pieces  of  wood. 
For  the  brood  chamber  thej'-  are  generally  about 
one-half  an  inch  in  thickness,  and  for  the  honey 
boxes  about  half  that  thickness.  They  are  all 
about  one  and  a  half  inch  wide,  and  of  the  proi)er 
length  to  make  the  sized  box  required.  The 
upper  piece  and  the  lower  project  slightly  beyond 
the  other  two  pieces  in  front,  and  set  back  the 
same  distance  from  the  edge  of  the  same  in  the 
rear,  so  as  to  foim  shoulders,  so  that  when  the 
sections  are  joined  together  they  fit  into  each 
other  to  hold  them  in  their  proper  places.     A  suf- 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


233 


flcieut  number  of  such  sections  being  so  put  to- 
gether, a  narrow  wooden  strip,  or  its  equivalent,  is 
nailed  or  screwed  on  the  upper  boxes,  to  hold  the 
whole  together  firmly.  The  brood  ch:imber  is 
constructed  in  substantially  the  same  manner,  the 
proportions  only  being  different." 

The  whole  of  the  specifications  would  take  up 
too  much  of  your  valuable  room.  I  have  quoted 
this  part  to  show  that  the  hive  described  by  Mr. 
Worden  is  covered  by  my  patent,  and  will  only 
quote  so  much  of  my  claims  as  covers  the  fore- 
going specifications. 

"  But  what  I  do  claim  as  new  and  desire  to 
secure  b}'  letters  patent,  is — 

1.  The  houey-box,constructed  as  described,  &c. 

2.  The  sections  of  the  brood-chamber,  con- 
structed as  described,  &c." 

The  rest  of  the  claims  and  specifications  refer 
to  things  not  embraced  in  Mr.  Worden' s  descrip- 
tion. 

I  have  had  considerable  correspondence  with 
Mr.  Worden,  and  when  he  wrote  to  me  that  he 
had  made  a  different  arrangement  of  the  honey- 
boxes,  by  placing  them  on  the  sides  of  the  cham- 
ber, two  months  before  his  publication  in  the 
Journal,  I  wrote  to  him  that  I  was  using  the 
hive  in  that  form,  but  that  my  last  and  better 
arrangement  placed  the  boxes  at  the  back  of  the 
hive,  and  sent  him  a  drawing  and  description  of 
my  side  gathering  hive.  Even  if  the  article  was 
written  before  that,  he  had  time  enough  to  cor- 
rect his  assumption  of  originality  ;  which  I  sup- 
pose he  would  have  done  had  he  thought  of  it, 
for  I  believe  him  to  be  an  honorable  gentleman, 
and  bear  him  no  malice. 

He  suggests  one  objection  to  the  form  of  sec- 
tions I  use,  that  "  bees  would  be  liable  to  be 
crushed  in  closing  them."  This  is  imaginary, 
and  he  would  not  make  it,  if  he  had  had  more 
experience  with  them.  I  have  used  the  various 
forms  of  movable  frames,  and  in  none  of  them  is 
there  as  little  danger  of  crushing  bees  as  in  my 
sections.  The  sections  can  be  put  together,  even 
if  the  sides  are  covered  with  bees,  Avithout  kil- 
ling one,  as  you  only  have  to  press  lightly 
against  them  with  the  section  you  are  putting  in, 
then  draw  it  back  a  little,  and  they  will  all  take 
the  hint  and  get  out  of  the  way. 

D.  L.  Adair. 

Eaicesville,  Ey.  March,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Dimensions,  Form,  and  Management  of 
Hives. 


In  the  Bee  Journal,  Vol.  5,  No.  3,  page  60, 
Mr.  Charles  S.  Paine  asks  Gallup  a  question,  and 
you  never  knew  Gallup  to  refuse  to  answer  a 
question  when  asked  civilly,  or  withhold  his 
views  on  the  subject.  It  has  only  not  been  an- 
swered before  for  lack  of  time.  Mr.  Paine,  re- 
ferring to  two  other  writers,  says—"  neither  of 
these  gives  any  reason  for  their  statements,"  re- 
specting the  size  of  hives.  In  some  of  the  back 
numbers  of  the  Journal,  I  gave  this  for  one  reas- 
on :  That,  under  favorable  circumstances,  a  good 
prolific  queen  would,  in  three  weeks,  occupy  with 
brood  every  or  nearly  every  square  inch  of  comb 
in  a  hive  containing  two  thousand  cubic  inches, 


and  that  consequently  a  hive  of  less  capacity 
Avould  restrict  the  breeding  of  the  queen.  A  hive 
of  one  thousand  seven  hundred  and  twenty -eight 
cubic  inches,  or  one  cubic  foot,  is  all  that  is  re- 
quired, if  you  give  box-room — that  is  top  boxes, 
and  as  soon  as  one  set  is  partly  filled  raise  them 
and  insert  another  set  under,  and  give  free  access 
to  the  boxes,  which  must  be  done  if  j'ou  expect 
the  full  benefit  of  surplus  honey  gathering  and 
storing.  But  if  the  honey  crop  is  cut  otF  sud- 
denly, (as  is  frequently  the  case,)  while  the  combs 
below  are  entirely  filled  up  brood  (and  a  queen 
that  will  not  occupy  that  amount  of  comb  during 
the  storing  season,  should  be  superseded,)  the  bees 
must  be  fed  or  starve,  I  have  repeatedly  had  them 
entirely  destitute,  both  in  Canada  and  Wisconsin, 
in  that  size  of  hive ;  and  then  again,  there  would 
be  seasons  when  they  would  do  very  well. 

But  here  is  another  ditficult}\  It  is  almost  im- 
possible, in  any  locality  where  I  have  been,  to 
prevent  too  much  or  over-swarming  in  a  hive  of 
that  form  and  capacity,  without  a  great  deal  of 
bother.  It  is  not  a  particle  of  disadvantage  in 
the  form  of  hive  I  use,  to  have  two  frames  on 
each  side  of  the  brood  filled  with  honey  in  the 
body  of  the  hive  ;  and  if  not  wanted  for  the  bees, 
it  is  just  as  good  surplus  as  it  would  be  if  stored 
in  boxes,  for  if  the  queen  does  not  breed  in  them 
there  is  never  any  pollen  stored  there  than  there 
is  in  boxes  ;  and  with  that  sized  hive  we  are 
always  safe. 

There  is  another  reason  that  I  stated  before, 
but  will  mention  again.  We  almost  always  have 
a  scarce  time  in  June,  both  here  and  where  I  lived 
in  Wisconsin,  and  I  want  honey  enough  in  the 
brood  chambers  to  last  through  that  time,  and 
keep  up  breeding  to  the  full  capacity  of  the  queen. 
I  like  it  much  better  than  being  compelled  to  feed  ; 
and  if  we  have  our  hive  well  filled  with  brood  at 
the  time  the  basswood  blooms,  we  are  almost  sure 
of  a  good  crop.  You  will  recollect  that  in  1808 
the  honey  crop  was  cut  off  in  this  vichiity,  on  the 
20th  of  July.  My  bees  wintered  well,  but  the 
hives  were  not  near  as  full  as  I  like  to  have  them. 
If  they  had  been,  I  should  have  had  honey  on 
hand  in  the  hive,  and  it  would  have  saved  me  all 
my  feeding  black  swarms  this  season.  As  it  was, 
I  kept  equalizing  the  stores,  and  when  the  old 
honey  was  gone  in  one  hive  it  was  gone  in  all. 
The  consequence  was,  my  Italians  cut  their  own 
fodder,  and  the  others  had  to  be  fed.  Even  black 
swarms  did  fairly  in  18G8,  where  they  had  access 
to  buckwheat  pasturage,  and  were  in  hives  of  the 
right  dimensions  and  form. 

"it  appears  to  me  that  if  queens  will  occupy  the 
whole  two  thousand  cubic  inches  with  brood,  in 
one  locality,  they  ought  to  do  so  in  another,  at 
certain  seasons  of  the  year. 

Elisha  Gallup. 
Osage,  Iowa. 

The  quantity  of  pollen  that  is  collected  in  the 
course  of  a  season,  by  the  diligence  of  the  bees, 
has  been  estimated    at    from  sixty  to  seventy 

pounds. — SCHUCKARD. 

A  cute  American  naturalist  has  observed  that 
the  bee  as  it  flics  from  the  hive  is  oddly  enough, 
I  going  to  hum. 


234 


THE  AMERTCAK   BEE   JOURNAL. 


[For  the  ALoerican  Bee  Journal.] 

About  Uncapping. 


Mr.  Editor  : — :Your  correspoudeat,  I.  F.  Til- 
linghast,  in  the  March  No.  of  the  Bee  Journal, 
comiilaiiis  of  having  had  a  good  deal  of  trouhle 
in  uncapping  combs  of  honey,  and  begs  infor- 
mation of  any  who  may  have  had  better  success 
in  the  matter.  I  took  out  several  hundred  pounds 
of  honey  with  my  emptier  last  fall,  without  find- 
ing any  difficulty  in  uncapping;  and  if  my  ex- 
perience will  help  your  correspondent,  I  will 
gladly  tell  him  how  I  did  it. 

I  think  his  difficulties  in  uncapping  must  have 
arisen  from  the  fact  that  he  neglected  to  keep  his 
knife  toarm  while  performing  the  operation.  If 
this  precaution  is  well  observed,  almost  any  good- 
sized  knife  will  answer — although  some  are  bet- 
ter than  others.  Sometimes  I  use  a  butcher 
knife  ;  at  others,  an  ordinary  dinner  or  tea  knife. 
The  longer  and  thinner  the  blade  is,  and  the 
shari^er  the  edge,  the  better.  My  favorite  instru- 
ment is  a  jyaliot  knife,  about  ten  inches  long, 
sharpened  on  both  edges,  and  bent  near  the  han- 
dle like  a  mason's  trowel.  But  the  knife,  of 
whatever  kind,  must  be  kept  warm. 

In  uncapping  I  usually  employ  two  kniveS. 
One  I  keep  in  a  vessel  of  hot  water,  while  using 
the  other.  When  the  knife  in  use  becomes  too 
cold  to  work  nicely,  I  return  it  to  the  vessel,  take 
out  the  other,  pass  it  through  a  cloth  to  dry  and 
cleanse  it,  and  proceed  as  before.  In  this  waj^ 
combs  can  be  uncapped  very  rapidly  and  so 
smoothly  that  they  will  not  look  as  if  "  mice  had 
done  it."  But  if  the  uncapping  were  ever  so 
nicely  and  effectually  accomplished,  I  should  still 
be  very  unwilling  to  undertake  to  empty  combs 
that  Iiad  stood  any  length  of  time,  without  bees, 
in  a  cold  room,  as'late  in  the  season  as  October. 
I  empiied  combs  in  October  last ;  but  it  was  done 
immediately  after  the  bees  had  been  taken  from 
the  hives.  In  a  few  instances  the  combs  stood 
some  time,  but  they  were  kept  in  a  warm  room, 
not  however  "behind  the  stove  !" 

Mrs.  M.  D.  Miner. 
OlenviUe,  W.  Y.,  March  31,  1870. 


To  Stupefy  Bees. 

Put  two  teaspoonsful  of  chloroform  into  a  cup  ; 
soak  a  bit  of  rag  in  it ;  then  put  tbe  rag  into  the 
box  or  hive,  closing  the  entrance.  The  bees 
will  almost  immediately  begin  to  drop,  and  in 
less  than  ten  minutes  every  bee  will  be  stupefied. 
They  will  recover  in  about  half  an  hour ;  but 
will  not  fully  recover  their  activity  till  next 
morning. 


As,  in  April,  brood  is  rapidly  maturing  in  the 
hives,  there  is  a  largely  increased  demand  for 
honey,  and  great  care  should  be  taken  to  prevent 
the  bees  from  sufi'ermg  for  want  of  food. — Lang- 
eirotJi. 


[For  the  Americau  Bee  Journal.] 

Tlncapping  Cells. 


I  was  interested  in  reading  the  trials  of  a  cor- 
respondent in  uncapping  honey  for  his  machine. 
I  use  a  knife  which  I  procured  from  Mr.  Lang- 
stroth,  with  my  first  machine.  It  is  thin,  like  a 
bread  or  shoe  knife,  eight  or  ten  inches  long. 
The  shank  is  bent,  so  that  the  handle  sets  off 
about  an  inch,  on  a  line  parallel  with  the  blade. 
One  man  can  uncap  nearly  as  fast  as  another  can 
extract  the  honey  w'ith  the  machine.  I  keei)  the 
knife  sharp,  and  have  never  tried  heating  or  in 
any  other  way  preparing  it. 

In  the  fall,  or  winter,  the  combs  must  be  kept 
in  a  warm  room  a  few  hours,  till  they  have  be- 
come warmed  through.  In  the  summer  it  makes 
no  perceptible  ditference  wiiethert  he  honey  is  ex- 
tracted the  day  it  is  removed  from  the  hive,  or 
not.  Any  one  who  is  going  to  get  out  honey 
every  day  or  two,  in  the  summer,  will  find  it  a 
great  convenience  to  have  a  complete  can  for  the 
rack  to  revolve  in,  and  a  place  near  the  bottom 
for  drawing  oS"  the  honey.  A  cover  of  cotton 
cloth  may  then  be  thrown  over  the  top,  or  tied 
on,  thus  completely  excluding  all  flies  and  bees. 
Mine  holds  fifty  pounds  under  the  rack. 

Caution  should  be  used,  or  too  much  honey 
may  be  removed  from  the  hive,  for  the  good  of  the 
swarm.  It  is  better  to  leave  honey  enough,  than 
to  remove  it,  and  depend  on  feeding. 

J.  L.  Hubbard. 

Bueksburg,  N.  /.,  IMarch,  1870. 


Bees  seldom  swarm  if  honey  is  not  so  abundant 
that  they  can  gather  more  than  they  need  for  im- 
mediate consumption. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Honey  Knives. 

For  the  benefit  of  Mr.  I.  F.  Tilliughast  and 
"whom  it  may  concern,"  I  will  give  a  descrip- 
tion of  my  honey  knives. 

No.  1  is  made  of  a  piece  of  an  old  woodsaw. 
The  bladeis  veiy  thin  and  springy,  sixteen  inches 
long,  exclusive  of  the  handle.  Tlie  teeth  are  re- 
moved smoothly.  One  side  ground  to  an  edge  ; 
end  sciuare  and  also  ground  to  an  edge.  Tlie 
other  end  is  mounted  to  a  flat  wooden  handle, 
fastened  on  with  four  hickory  pins,  instead  of 
iron  rivets.  This  knife  gives  me  entire  satisfac- 
tion in  slicing  oS"  unequalities  on  combs,  uncajD- 
ping  cells,  &c.  Its  length  and  elasticity  enable 
me  to  use  it  on  crooked  combs. 

No.  3  is  like  No.  1,  only  the  blade  is  thick  and 
firm  ;  good  for  loosening  old  combs  oh  box  hives 
when  transferring,  and  otherwise  where  No.  1 
would  be  too  limber. 

No.  3  is  a  thin-bladed  bread  knife,  eight  inches 
long,  bought  at  a  hardware  store.  This  I  use 
about  honey  boxes,  and  wherever  it  is  more  con- 
venient than  No.  1. 

No.  4  is  a  thin  short  knife,  to  slice  up  combs, 
and  to  cut  it  and  fit  in  frames  when  transferring. 

The  edge  on  honey  knives  should  not  be  smooth, 
but  rather  gritty,  such  as  a  good  scythe  stone 
will  make. 

With  the  above  knives  I  find  myself  sufliciently 
armed  and  equipped  for  all  emergencies. 

Henry  Crist. 

Lake  P.  C,  Stark  Co.,  Ohio, 
March  35,  1870. 


THE  AMEEICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


235. 


[For  the  Americaa  ] 

Hives,  Transferring,  &c. 


!  Jouraal.] 


Mr.  Editor  : — Your  correspondent,  H.C.  Dur- 
borow,  wishes  me  to  expLain  Low  we  make  our 
division  boards  so  that  bees  can  get  into  the 
boxes,  and  how  we  make  the  entrances  to  the 
boxes.  Last  season  was  the  first  that  we  used 
the  hive  to  which  he  has  reference,  and  we  have 
not  as  yet  had  boxes  filled.  We  prefer  the  use 
of  extra  frames,  which  we  empty  with  the  "  ma- 
chine." 

We  intend  to  try  boxes  on  some  of  our  hives 
this  season,  however  ;  and  have  several  plans  for 
accomplishing  the  desired  object. 

Our  frames  run  crossways  of  the  hive,  and  of 
course  the  boxes  are  to  be  put  against  the  sides 
of  the  combs.  I  do  not  think  it  necessary  to  re- 
tain the  division  board,  when  boxes  are  used. 
By  leaving  an  opening  in  the  end  of  each  box, 
the  division  board  can  be  removed,  and  the  ends 
of  the  boxes  supply  its  place.  If  boxes  Avere  to 
be  placed  against  the  ends  of  the  frames,  I  would 
leave  the  end  of  each  box  entirely  open.  The 
easier  the  access  to  tlie  boxes,  the  better  ;  but 
when  they  are  placed  against  the  combs  with 
ends  open,  the  bees  are  apt  to  lengthen  the  cells 
of  the  comb  so  that  it  will  project  into  the  boxes, 
instead  of  starting  new  combs  in  them.  I  have  no 
trouble  with  queens  laying  eggs  in  them. 

He  also  asks — "  Do  you  have  a  honey  board  on 
top  of  your  frames,  during  the  summer  ?" 

We  have  as  yet  used  no  honey  board  on  these 
hives,  but  think  that  the  use  of  one  would  be  an 
improvement.  If  made  out  of  slats,  so  as  to  fit 
over  any  number  of  frames,  it  could  be  used  to 
better  advantage. 

In  regard  to  the  best  time  for  transferring  bees 
and  coml)s  to  frame  hives,  there  is  much  diversity 
of  opinion  ;  some  preferring  to  perform  the  opera- 
lion  before,  and  some  after,  swarming.  I  have 
tried  both  and  think  if  I  had  a  dozen  swarms  to 
transfer  this  spring,  I  should  do  it  as  early  in  the 
season,  as  lioney  becomes  plentiful  enough  to  in- 
fure  the  bees  against  consuming  more  than  they 
could  gather. 

Do  not  try  to  make  two  swarms  of  one,  when 
transferring,  even  though  you  think  there  are 
bees  enough  to  warrant  it.  Better  wait  until  they 
get  their  combs  all  filled  with  honey  and  brood, 
before  making  the  division. 

For  holding  the  combs  in  place  in  the  frames, 
when  transferring,  until  fastened  by  the  bees, 
wc  use  clasps  made  of  wire.  Two  to  each  comb, 
passing  around  the  frame  from  top  to  bottom,  will 
hold  them-  securely,  occupy  but  little  room,  and 
are  easily  removed.  - 

I.  F'.  TiLLINGHAST. 

lacioryville,  Pa.,  March  14. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

My  Views  of  the  Italian  Bees. 


Mr.  Editor  : — It  may  perhaps  be  very  easily 
accounted  for  why  we  still  find  some  persons  who 
claim  to  be  intel'ligeut  bee-keepers,  making  the 
assertion  tliat  the  Italian  bees  are  no  better  in 
any  respect  tlian  the  native  or  bhxck  bees.     The 


fact  is,  Ihey  are  ignorant  of  the  matter  in  ques- 
tion. In  1807,  I  purchased  one  Italian  queen, 
paying  ten  dollars  for  her  in  the  fall  of  the  year, 
as  late  as  the  first  of  November.  In  January  her 
stock  began  to  show,  and  by  the  first  of  May 
there  was  not  one  Iblack  bee  to  be  found  in  the 
hive.  When  I  considered  it  time,  I  swarmed 
them ;  sometime  in  Juno.,  About  the  last  of 
August  they  threw  olf  a  very  large  swarm.  All 
wintered  finely. 

The  past  season  was  one  of  the  poorest  for 
bees  in  our  section,  that  I  ever  knew.  I  liad 
wintered  one  hundred  and  fifteen  swarms.  In 
the  spring  of  18G9  they  were  in  the  best  condi- 
tion possible.  On  the  first  of  April  many  of  my 
stocks  were  in  fair  condition  for  dividing,  plenty 
of  honey  and  bees  ;  but  by  the  first  of  May  they 
were  on  the  decrease  ;  on  the  first  of  June  groov- 
ing worse,  and  in  July  they  were  in  a  starving 
condition.  No  swarms  from  my  native  bees.  I 
swarmed  most  of  my  Italians  artificially  ;  some 
of  them  twice.  Young  swarms  filled  their  hives. 
Old  stocks  had  plenty  of  honey  in  July,  and 
were  gathering  it  very  fast  when  my  native  bees 
had  to  be  fed.  I  can  prove  by  reliable  persons, 
that  on  several  occasions  one  of  my  Italian  stocks 
was  working  and  flying  more  briskly  than 
fifty  stocks  of  my  black  bees.  Of  the  natives 
not  one  stock  in  twenty  has  honey  enough  to 
carry  them  through  the  winter  without  feeding. 
I  do  not  consider  Oswego  county  a  first-rate 
section  for  bees. 

I  was  not  aware  that  bees  were  such  short- 
lived insects.  Very  likely  in  a  good  season,  they 
would  live  longer  ;  but  what  sayyou,  bee-men, 
to  this  fact.  The  last  of  August,  i  introduced  arf 
Italian  queen  in  a  very  populous  colony  of  native 
bees,  and  in  forty  days  from  the  time  I  intro- 
duced her  not  a  black  bee  remained  in  the  hive, 
Avhich  was  then  well  stocked  with  Italians. 

I  have  about  fifteen  stocks  of  Italian  bees,  and 
intend  to  Italianize  all  that  I  succeed  in  winter- 
ing. I  do  not  wish  to  keep  a  swarm  that  is  not 
pure  Italian.  After  keeping  bees  thirty-five  years 
and  experimenting  with  them,  I  am  willing  to 
risk  the  change.  The  Italians  are  more  quiet  to 
handle,  better  workers,  less  inclined  to  rob,  and 
are  beauties.  I  am  satisfied  with  them.  The 
hybrids  are  different  in  some  respects.  They  are 
good  workers,  but  somewhat  ill-tempered  and 
troublesome  to  handle. 

I  have  just  heard  a  singular  story  from  my 
native  State,  Massachusetts.  An  old  neighbor 
was  at  onr  place,  and  speaking  of  Italian  bees, 
said — "  We  don't  exactly  like  the  Italians,  as 
some  of  our  bees  were  robbed  by  them  last  fall." 
"  Were  they  owned  near  you  ?"  "  No,  not 
nearer  than  six  miles. "  I  tliought  probablj'  they 
were  owned  by  Mr.  Gary  or  Mr.  Alley.  If  either 
of  these  gentlemen  has  bees  that  will  go  six 
miles  after  honey,  I  would  like  to  engage  fifty- 
queens,  as  that  goes  far  beyond  my  bee  experience. 

Fulton,  W.  Y.  W.  C.  Newton. 


Bees  are  always  more  irascible  when  their  hives 
are  disturbed  after  it  is  dark  ;  and  as  they  cannot 
see  where  to  fly,  they  will  alight  on  the  person  of 
the  bee-keeper,  who  will  be  almost  sure  to  be 
stung. — Langstrotli. 


236 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

A  Queer  Notion,  and  Bronze  Bees. 


Mr.  Editor  : — It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  we 
shall  all  see  or  think  alike.  Although  I  am  forty- 
five  years  of  age,  and  have  made  bee-keeping  a 
specialty  for  over  thirty-five  years,  I  seldom  dis- 
pute with  any  person  about  it.  But  just  look  at 
this  notion,  coming  from  a  man  older  than  my- 
self. In  a  conversation  with  several  bee-men, 
one  inquired  of  me  whether  I  had  ever  seen  a  bee 
unload  or  remove  the  pollen  from  its  legs.  I  told 
him  I  had,  and  that  it  was  done  thus :  the  bee 
passes  over  the  comb  or  a  portion  of  it,  till  she 
finds  a  cell  that  seems  to  suit-;  she  then  thrusts 
in  both  legs  containing  these  little  pellets,  taking 
them  off  in  a  very  short  time,  with  the  next  pair 
of  legs.  "  No  such  thing,"  says  the  man,  "it  is 
thus — the  bee  coming  into  the  hive,  commences 
to  run,  and  runs  until  she  gets  up  sufiicient  heat 
by  friction  to  melt  the  pollen;  then  the  other 
bees  take  it  off  for  her!"  I  considered  that  he 
had  told  me  all  he  knew  about  bees,  and  walked 
quietly  away,  as  he  was  too  wondrous  wise  for 
me. 

I  will  mention  what  to  me  is  a  curiosity.  I 
have  a  colony  of  black  bees— that  is  the  queen  is 
a  native  or  black  ;  yet  about  one-fifth  of  her  bees 
are  entirely  bronze-colored,  wings,  legs,  all  entire, 
and  about  one-third  of  her  drones  are  of  the  same 
color.  The  other  bees  and  the  drones  are  alto- 
gether like  common  bees,  not  one  showing  any 
mark  of  Italian  blood.  I  intended  last  summer 
to  send  some  workers  and  drones  to  the  Bee 
Journal,  but  forgot  it.  If  the  entire  colony 
was  of  the  bronze  order,  it  would  be  a  prize  in 
my  estimation. 

111.  my  next  I  propose  giving  my  experience  in 
wintering  and  feeding  bees,  as  I  have  wintered 
some  on  their  summer  stands,  some  in  the  cellar, 
some  in  a  chamber  in  a  building  built  for  the 
purpose,  and  some  buried  in  the  ground. 

Fulton,  N.  Y.  W.  C.  Newton. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Preserving  removed  Queen,  when 
Italianizing  Stocks. 


On  several  occasions  last  season,  while  Italian- 
izing stocks,  I  preserved  some  of  my  removed 
queens  in  the  following  manner  :  I  would  select 
a  stock  of  bees  so  strong  in  numbers  that  the 
temporary  confinement  of  its  queen  would  be  no 
material  loss ;  cage  the  queen,  and  suspend  the 
cage  containing  her  between  two  combs.  After 
leaving  her  thus  for  twenty-four  hours,  I  would 
suspend  by  her  side,  two  or  three  more  cages, 
each  containing  a  removed  queen— leaving  three 
or  four  inches  of  space  between  the  several  cages. 
The  bees  would  now  feed  all  the  queens  without 
exception.  After  the  queen  belonging  to  the 
hive  had  been  caged  seven  days,  I  released  her, 
first  destroying  all  the  queen  cells,  if  any  had 
been  started.  The  released  queen  would  imme- 
diately resume  her  duties,  while  the  bees  would 
continue  to  feed  the  other  queens  two  or  three 
weeks  longer ;  but  in  neither  case  over  thirty 
days  from  first  to  last. 


In  case  of  any  emergency,  I  found  these  pre- 
served queens  very  convenient  to  use.  As  my 
first  experiment  proved  entirely  satisfactory,  I 
made  all  the  rest  in  like  manner,  with  the  same 
results.  I  cannot  say  therefore  what  variations, 
or  whether  any,  can  be  successfully  made  ;  and 
although  successful  in  every  trial,  I  would  as  yet 
hesitate  to  risk  the  life  of  a  valuable  queen  on  so 
slender  a  thread.*  Henry  Crist. 

Lake  P.  0.,  Stark  co.,  Ohio, 
March  9,  1870. 

*  We  have  occasionally  preserved  common  queens  in  this 
manner  after  removal,  till  tneir  successors  were  accepted  and 
had  bejun  to  lay  eLjgs ;  in  no  case  longer,  however,  than 
eighteen  or  twenty  days. — Ed. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Correction. 


In  my  inquiries  on  page  167,  Vol.  V.,  No.  8,  I 
should  not  have  said  that  my  bees  died  and 
(afterwards)  that  I  removed  them  to  the  house 
cellar.  But  that,  having  almost  a  passion  for 
bees  and  honey  ;  and  believing  that  one  may 
learn  so  to  manage  bees  that  it  will  be  as  profitable 
as  other  emijloyments,  I  purchased  several  colo- 
nies, old  and  new,  in  box  hives,  at  four  dollars 
each,  and  transferred  them ;  also  a  flour  barrel 
containing  seven  (7)  fresh  swarms,  most  of  them 
very  large,  being  from  box  hives  holding  two 
bushels  and  over.  For  these  latter  I  paid  eight 
dollars  (not  $30),  and  made  five  colonies  of 
them,  after  losing  about  a  bushel  by  flight. 

I  put  in  sixteen  colonies,  as  before.  Fearing 
the  old  difficulty  might  have  been  caused  or  ag- 
gravated by  damp  air,  I  removed  them  to  the 
house  cellar,  &c. 

I  am  troubled,  as  friend  Grimm  says  he  is 
(though  I  cannot  see  it  in  his  case),  with  what  I 
call  a  "Yankee  propensity"  to  occupy  too  much 
time  with  details  and  circumstances.  In  guard- 
ing against  this  "  besetting  sin,"  I  cut  my  subject 
too  close,  like  the  negro  who  having  leave  to  cut 
off  his  master's  dog's  tail  as  close  as  he  chose, 
cut  off  his  head,  and  after  a  moment's  reflection, 
said — "I  bleve  I've  spiled  bofe  pieces.  That's 
cut  cidedly  too  close  to  his  ears." 

My  bees  were  weighed,  and  the  first  swarm 
died  the  second  of  February  and  not  September, 
as  the  printer  would  have  me  say. 

The  last  numbers  of  the  Bee  Journal  are 
unusually  full  of  interesting  and  instructive  mat- 
ter, and  must  commend  themselves  to  every 
bee-keeper  who  has  enterprise  enough  to  stand 
the  remotest  chance  of  success. 

West  Georgia,  Vt.  O.  C.  Wait. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal. 

Inquiry. 


Do  the  same  rules  apply  to  introducing  queens 
in  a  nucleus  hive  as  in  a  full  stock  ?  Would  it  not 
be  best,  on  receiving  a  queen,  to  put  her  in  a  nu- 
cleus hive  until  the  combs,  are  filled  with  brood, 
and  then  transfer  her  to  a  full  stock— that  is,  if 
more  queens  are  wanted  ?  Will  some  of  my  bee- 
keeping friends  answer  ? 

H.  L. 

Lewisiown,  Me..  March  25,  1870. 


THE   AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


2Bt 


[For  tlio  Americau  Bee  Journal.] 

The  Honey  Season  of  1869,  in  New  York. 


When  I  look  back  over  the  year  1869,  I  find 
no  parallel  to  it,  in  my  bee  experience  of  twenty- 
three  years. 

The  winter  of  18G8-69,  was  very  f^xvorable  for 
wintering  bees,  in  this  section  ;  and  going  into 
■winter  quarters  in  good  condition,  few  bees  were 
lost,  and  they  came  out  in  splendid  order. 

Out  of  some  ninety  stocks  that  I  left  on  their 
summer  stands,  without  even  examining  them  in 
the  fall,  only  three  died— one  for  want  of  honey  ; 
the  other  two,  being  second  and  third  swarms 
doubled,  had  "dissolved  partnership"  Avithin 
two  or  three  days  ai"ter  being  hived  ;  but  the 
"retiring  partner"  took  all  the  queens,  and  thus 
left  the  home  firm  in  no  condition  to  iiicrease  their 
stock  in  trade,  which  consequently  failed  in 
Avinter. 

The  spring  commenced  fine,  and  from  the  1st 
to  the  10th  of  May,  the  prospects  never  looked 
brighter.  Most  of  the  hives  that  were  not  full  of 
comb,  commenced  lengthening  down  their  combs 
and  prepare  for  swarming  ;  and  we  began  to  feel 
quite  nervous  as  to  how  we  were  to  get  all  the 
hives  ready  for  the  expected  new  swarms.  But 
our  troubles  in  this  direction  soon  ceased,  turning 
our  minds  to  the  consideration  of  how  we  should 
keep  our  bees  (with  the  monstrous  broods  they 
■were  then  nursing)  from  actual  starvation.  But 
the  bees  seemed  to  understand  the  situation  ;  for 
the  drones,  which  had  began  to  lly  pretty  briskly, 
"were  by  the  workers,  made  to  fly  a  Ihtle  more 
briskly  than  they  desired  ;  and  when  they  left 
their  hives,  each  with  a  worker  on  his  back,  they 
were  served  -with  peremptory  orders  never  to 
return  ;  and  some  of  the  drone  brood  was  merci- 
lessly torn  from  the  cells  before  it  was  hatched. 
And  by  the  Avay,  this  drone  slaughter  continued 
during  the  whole  summer  ;  and  I  think  there  was 
scarcely  a  day  in  the  whole  season,  but  there  Avas 
more  or  less  "butchering"  done.  The  destroy- 
ing of  drones  in  May,  is  nothing  very  uncommon, 
only  indicating  a  scarcity  of  honey,  and  swarming 
for  that  year,  if  there  be  any  at  all,  will  be  late  ; 
but  to  have  it  continue  all  summer,  isncAV  to  me. 

But,  to  return  to  the  adverse  change  in  the 
fore  part  of  May.  Our  courage  did  not  fail ;  for 
Ave  hoped  that  the  fruit  (especially  the  apple) 
blossoms  would  bring  a  favorable  turn.  But, 
alas,  the  apple  blossoms  came  Aviih  the  dandelions 
and  raspberries  in  succession,  yet  no  improve- 
ment. Still,  as  the  prospect  for  Avhite  clover  was 
unusually  good,  we  kept  up  courage,  thinking  of 
the  "honeyed  future,"  and  that  perhaps  it  made 
little  difference  Avhether  Ave  got  the  honey  before 
the  swarms,  or  the  swarms  before  the  honey. 

The  white  clover  came  in  abundance,  but  not 
the  honey  !  Many  SAvarms  came,  and  with  them 
came  starvation  !  They  seemed  to  swarm  more 
out  of  spite,  than  anything  else  ;  the  bees  seem- 
ing determined  to  preserve  the  queen  cells,  and 
the  old  queen  as  determined  to  destroy  them. 
Unable  to  succeed  in  this  she  appeared  bound  to 
quit,  though  she  should  starve.  There  was 
nothing  of  the  old  normal  orderly  swarming  this 
year.  It  has  been  a  sort  of  hurly-burly,  pell-mell 
kind  of  business.     I  have  had  as  many  as  six 


SAvarms  on  the  wing  at  a  time,  and  before  they  got 
settled,  they  would  all  be  in  one  pile,  and  every 
queen  iuniied— that  is,  enveloped  by  a  knot  of 
bees  about  as  large  as  a  hen's  egg.  I  tried  putting 
oneof  the  queens  so  knotted  into  a  hive,  and  then 
adding  bees  enough  for  a  good  SAvarm  ;  and  for 
half  an  hour  or  so  you  would  think  it  avus  going 
to  be  all  Avell  with  them  ;  when  perhaps  the  next 
minute  they  Avould  all  swarm  out — some  return- 
ing to  the  hives  fnmi  which  they  came,  and  the 
rest  going  into  the  common  stock  pile  again, 
ready  to  be  divided  up  anew.  By  keeping  on 
dividing,  I  would  succeed  in  making  two  or  three 
good  stocks  out  of  half  a  dozen. 

The  clover  blossoms  continued  abundant 
through  June, but  all  the  honey  gathered  therefrom 
Avas  so  thin,  that  they  would  evapon.te  and  con- 
sume during  the  night  the  pound  or  two  Avhich 
they  had  garnered  during  the  day.  On  opening 
hives,  as  I  did  more  or  less  of  them  daily,  I  did 
not  see  a  cell  of  new  sealed  honey  till  t-he  2d  day 
of  July. 

July  brought  very  little  improvement.  Still 
Ave  did  not  despair,  thinking  Ave  stood  a  chance  yet 
in  buckwheat  and  fall  flowers.  Our  hearts  were 
cheered  by  buckwheat  commencing  with  moder- 
ate bloom,  AVhich  lasted  five  or  six  days,  and 
induced  the  bees  to  put  in  a  rousing  amount  of 
brood  ;  in  tlie  maturing  of  which,  they  not  only 
consumed  all  they  had  garnered  l^rom  the  buck- 
Avheat,  but  many  of  them  also  consumed  all  they 
had  previously  laid  up.  By  the  middle  of  Sep- 
tember they  had  not  a  pound  of  honey  left. 

Now  hope  expired  ;  and  the  question  came  up 
Avhat  shall  we  do  ?  Shall  Ave  let  our  bees  go  by 
the  board,  or  make  an  effort  to  save  them  ?  But 
our  troubles  did  not  end  here.  The  good  house- 
Avives  began  to  beset  us  in  droves,  Avith  their 
lugubrious  complaints  that,  whencA^er  the}' under- 
took to  make  preserves,  sweet  pickles,  pies,  or 
anything  SAveet,  my  bees  pounced  on  them  and 
so  monopolized  their  supplies  that  they  were 
forced  to  surrender.  The  grocery  men,  too, 
joined  in  the  chorus,  saying — "  Stratton  (for  poor 
Stratton  has  to  bear  all  the  blame  here),  your 
bees  are  carrying  off  all  our  sugar  ;"  and  the 
blessings  we  got  Avere  anything  but  lioney.  Feel- 
ing pricked  in  conscience,  all  the  plea  we  rcmld 
make  was — '■'■poor  starving  bees!''''  They  replied 
Ave  ought  to  feed  them,  and  thus  keep  them  at 
home.  In  order  to  gratify  their  useless  whim, 
and  feeling  that  we  might  sometime  regret  we 
had  not  made  an  effort  to  save  them,  we  com- 
menced to  feed  extensively  Avith  sugar  syrup. 
This  we  continued  till  about  the  middle  of  Octo- 
ber, when  the  weather  became  too  cold,  and  tl)ey 
Avould  take  no  more.  A  good  part  of  what  they 
did  take  remained  unsealed.  But  that  was  not 
the  w^orst  of  it.  So  many  of  the  bees  had  been 
preserved^  pickled,  or  burned,  that  there  Avas  not  a 
swarm  Avhich  had  a  fair  number  left  to  begin 
Avinter  Avith.  Many  of  them  had  not  a  quart  of 
bees,  and  I  do  not  think  that  they  averaged  over 
two  quarts  to  the  hive.  Consequently  the  first 
severe  cold  finished  some  of  them  ;  and  though 
the  A\'inter  has  been  mild,  yet  changes  have  been 
so  numerous  and  great,  that  there  has  been  a 
continual  drain  on  their  scanty  stores  and  num- 
bers ;  for  there  has  scarcely  been  a  week  that  they 


238 


THE  AMEEICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


were  not  tempted  to  leave  their  hives,  and  always 
more  or  less  fiiil  to  return.  I  dread  to  have 
spring  come,  when  I  shall  have  to  witness  the 
desolation. 

Wm.  M.  Stratton. 
West  Troy,  N.  F.,  Feb.  21,  1870. 

P.  S. — I  always  feel  more  interested  in  "  facts 
and  figures"  than  in  anything  else,  and  the  more 
of  them  the  better,  and  t  think  that  J.  H. 
Townley,  on  page  IGG  of  the  February  Journal, 
has  imitated  the  deacon  in  "spreading"  on 
Judge  Chapman's  titles.  I  judge  that  in  a  re- 
vised edition  he  will  be  willing  to  reduce  his 
2,1G3  to  the  square  foot  by  2,155,  leaving  eight 
to  the  foot ;  and  borrow  a  few  bees  to  finish  out 
with.  But  do  not  be  weary  in  well  doing,  Mr. 
Townley,  for  the  idea  will  lead  to  a  fine  train  of 
thought  respecting  bee  pasturage. 

W.  M.  S. 


[For  the  Araeriean  Bee  Journal.] 

Wintering  Bees. 


In  nearly  every  number  of  the  Bee  Jotjrnal 
there  appear  several  articles  under  the  above  or  a 
similar  heading.  Some  reporting  their  success, 
others  their,  mishaps  ;  some  advising  one  method, 
and  some  another  ;  some  experimenting,  sanguine 
of  success  ;  others  mourning  over  their  failures. 
I  may  be  vain,  and  possibly  conceited  ;  but  I 
cannot  help  smiling  at  this  jargon  of  the  doctors 
of  apiculture,  while  my  own  bees  are  quietly 
sleeping  away  the  long  winter  months,  giving 
me  no  anxiety  of  mind,  nor  causing  the  slightest 
trouble.  I  put  my  bees  into  winter  quarters,  and 
go  al)out  m}'-  business,  giving  them  no  further 
thought  till  the  bright  sunny  days  of  spring, 
when  I  return  them  to  their  stands  lull  of  life  and 
vigor.  If  "Novice"  had  expended  two  hun- 
dred dollars  in  an  underground  room,  similar  to 
the  one  describee  by  myself  in  the  American 
Bee  Journal,  he  would  have  no  occasion  to 
open  the  door  at  night  or  reconstruct  ten  years 
hence. 

J.  H.  Thomas. 

Bvooklin,  Ontario. 


[For  tlie  American 

A  Few  Inquiries. 


Journal.] 


]\Ir.  Editor:— I  would  like  to  ask  friend 
GaHup  a  few  questions  through  your  Journal, 
as  he  is  well  posted  on  bee  questions. 

Alter  taking  out  bees  in  the  spring,  would  you 
keep  the  top  of  the  hive  perfectly  tight  and  close, 
so  as  to  keep  all  the  animal  heat  in,  to  induce 
breeding  more  rapidly  ? 

In  case  you  have  a  light  swarm  of  bees,  would 
you  use  a  division  board  and  keep  the  space 
from  being  large,  so  as  to  create  more  heat  ? 

Where  do  you  have  ventilation  to  your  hive 
in  summer?  Do  you  have  more  of  it  than  is 
given  at  the  entrance  ? 

Please  reply,  and  oblige,        Joel  Dayton. 

Decorah,  Iowa, 


[For  tlie  American  Bee 

Bees  in   New  Jersey. 


Well,  Mr.  Editor,  I've  removed,  bag  and  bag- 
gage, bees  and  bee-hives,  and  am  going  to  try 
bee-keeping,  here  on  the  sands  in  the  pine  region 
of  New  Jersey.  I  hope  to  be  able  to  give  you  a 
good  account  in  the  future.  We  have  light  land 
which  is  favorable  for  the  production  of  honey,  if 
covered  witli  the  right  kind  of  vegetation.  It  has 
been  my  experience  that  bees  work  more  than 
four  times  as  much  on  clover  growing  on  dry 
sandy  or  gravelly  land,  than  on  heavy  clay  or  wet 
land.  Some  of  the  land  here  is  too  light,  and 
much  of  it  is  not  yet  covered  with  the  right  kind 
of  vegetation,  as  it  is  only  four  years  since  this 
section  was  opened  for  settlement.  Most  of  the 
land  was  owned  in  large  tracts ;  only  an  occa- 
sional farm  having  been  cleared. 

It  may  be  said  in  our  favor  that  we  have  a  long 
season;  and  it  will  be  seen,  on  looking  at  a  map 
showing  the  isothermal  lines,  that  we  have  a 
climate  similar  to  that  of  some  of  the  Southern 
States.  We  can  raise  sweet  potatoes  profitably  ; 
also  peanuts,  and  some  otlier  southern  produc- 
tions. Fruit  growing  is  the  main  business  here, 
which  will  give  an  abundance  of  early  blossoms; 
and  I  fancy  that  the  raspberrj'  will  prove  of  value 
for  its  honey.  Clover  is  not  yet  abundant,  though 
increasing.  We  have  also  willow,  locust  and 
cherry ;  but  I  do  not  know  of  how  much  value 
these  will  be  until  I  observe  them  one  or  two 
seasons.  Buckwheat  is  raised,  and  is  of  value  to 
the  bees.  I  shall  try  melilot,  mustard,  borage 
and  alsike  clover,  and  if  you  can  offer  any  sug- 
gestions of  value  to  me,  they  would  be  thank- 
fully received. 

Appearances  indicate  that  we  shall  have  a  long 
continuance  of  blossoms,  though  not  veiy  abun- 
dant much  of  the  time.  Whortleberries  grow 
wild  here  in  great  abundance.  Sometimes  a 
hundred  bushels  a  day  are  sent  from  this  place  to 
New  York,  for  a  week  at  a  time.  Some  of  the 
natives  think  the  bees  get  a  good  deal  of  honey 
from  the  whortleberry  blossoms ;  some  think 
they  do  not ;  and  others  do  not  know  what  they 
work  on  except  buckwlieat. 

Bee-keeping  is  at  a  low  tide  here,  as  is  (or 
rather  was)  every  kind  of  industry  amongst  the 
isolated  rural  population.  The  colony  of  fruit 
growers  establishing  themselves  here  have  given 
a  different  look  to  this  hitherto  uninviting  field. 

Last  summer  I  hived  a  small  swarm,  and  in  a 
few  days  found  they  were  queenless,  without  a 
jiarticle  of  brood.  A  few  days  later,  on  examin- 
ing them,  I  found  the  work  of  a  fertile  worker  or 
workers.  As  they  had  a  young  queen  when 
hived,  it  would  seem  that  this  worker  must  liave 
become  fertile  after  being  full}^  grown.  I  believe 
this  to  be  the  case  generally,  and  that  they  need 
no  previous  preparation,  such  as  being  laid  at  the 
side  of  a  queen  cell,  and  getting  some  queen's 
food  by  mistake.  J.  L.  Hubbard. 

Brkksburg,  iV.  J.,  March,  1870. 

Colonies  too  feeble  in  numbers  in  the  spring 
should  be  gradually  reinforced  by  inserting  ma- 
turing brood  taken  froui.stroug  colonies. 


THE   AMERICAN   BHB   JOURNAL. 


23$ 


[For  the  American  Boe  Jourual.] 

A  Simple  Bee-Peeder. 


Having  used  a  feeder  for  two  seasons  past, 
made  somewhat  on  the  same  principle  as  that 
described  by  Novice  in  the-  xVpril  Bee  Journal, 
I  send  a  description  of  it,  thiuliing  it  may  be  of 
use  to  some  of  your  readers,  as  it  is  even  more 
simple  and  cheaper  than  his. 

Have  a  tin  tube  made,  open  at  both  ends,  one 
inch  in  diameter  at  the  bottom  and  one  and  three- 
eighths  at  the  top,  and  three  iuclies  long.  Now 
put  two  thicknesses  of  rather  close  woven  linen 
or  cotton  over  the  smaller  end  ;  these  should  be 
about  four  inches  square.  Then  pusli  these  (the 
tube  with  the  cloth  on  them)  down  through  one 
of  the  holes  in  the  honey-board,  until  they  will 
not  go  any  further,  and  you  will  have  a  feeder 
which  will  hold  plenty  of  food,  for  spring  feed- 
ing, at  a  cost  of  two  cents.  To  use  it,  pour  your 
honey  or  syrup  in  the  top,  and  it  will  drain 
through  the  cloth,  one  or  two  drops  at  a  time, 
and  be  taken  off  clean  by  the  bees,  even  if  the 
weather  is  ciuite  cool,  as  they  need  not  leave  the 
cluster  to  get  at  it.  If  you  wish  to  feed  heavily, 
you  can  put  a  feeder  in  each  hole  in  the  honey- 
board,  making  six  to  the  hive. 

Will  Novice  please  consider  his  liand  inarmly 
shaken  for  what  he  says  about  our  Journal,  in 
the  same  article.  D.  M.  Worthington. 

Elkridge,  Md.,  April  9,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal  ] 

Foulbrood. 

I  had  supposed  that  my  article  on  foulbrood 
would  wake  up  Mr.  Quinhy,  or  some  one  else. 
Had  m}^  colonies  all  been  good  lull  ones  in  the 
spring,  or  even  in  the  month  of  June,  I  might 
have  done  as  Mr.  Quinby  has  advised  on  page 
212  of  "Mysteries  of  Bee-keeping  ;"  but  as  m3' 
stocks  were  very  weak — and  all  colonies  would 
naturally  be  when  diseased  bj'  foulbrood — I  found 
it  best  to  destroy  hives  and  all. 

Mr.  Quinby  desires  to  know  if  it  was  proper  to 
jump  at  conclusions  at  first  sight.  Perhaps  it  was 
not ;  but  then  my  experience  for  the  next  few 
months  satisfied  me  that  I  was  right.  When  it 
was  mj  opinion  that  that  was  the  trouble  with 
the  bees,  why  should  I  not  call  it  foulbrood  at 
first  sight?  I  was  no  better  satisfied  one  year 
later  that  my  bees  were  foulbroody,  than  I  was 
the  first  time  that  I  detected  that  peculiar  smell. 

I  think  I  missed  it  only  in  one  thing,  and  that 
was  by  not  destroying  the  two  hives  tliat  I  had 
purchased,  as  soon  as  I  discovered  that  they  were 
diseased.  I  would  then  have  been  only  forty  dol- 
lars out  of  pocket,  instead  of  two  hundred,  as  I 
■was  one  year  later. 

If  ever  I  have  another  case,  T  shall  destroy 
hives,  bees  and  all,  at  once  ;  for  I  knoic  this  to  be 
a  sure  and  safe  remedy.  Mr.  Quinby  says — "  a 
colony  badly  diseased  in  the  fall  is  not  in  a  good 
condition  for  winter.  Such  colonies  at  this  sea- 
son might  as  well  be  destroyed."  And  so  I 
thought.  Consequently  I  got  rid  of  the  bees,  dis- 
ease and  all,  and  made  quick  work  of  it. 

When  but  few  colonies  are  diseased,  why  not 


destroy  them  at  once,  and  have  done  with  it? 
Of  what  use  is  it  for  any  bee-keeper  to  expeii- 
mcnt  with  this  disease,  when  all  who  have  been 
troubled  with  it  meet  with  the  same  success,  and 
know  that  the  whole  thing  must  be  destroyed, 
sooner  or  later. 

To  any  man  who  has  read  all  or  nearly  all  that 
has  been  written  on  the  subject  of  bee-culture,  and 
has  had  as  many  years  experience  with  bees  as  I 
have  had,  and  cannot  tell  at  first  sight  when  his 
bees  are  affected  with  foulbrood,  my  advice  is  to 
give  up  the  business,  as  he  will  alwaj'S  have  to 
depend  upon  what  others  tell  him,  and  can  never 
succeed,  and  ought  not. 

If  any  of  the  readers  of  the  Journal  are 
troubled  with  foulbrood,  let  them  test  Mr.  Quin- 
by's  remedy  and  then  mine.  I  believe  that  nine 
out  of  every  ten  bee-keepers  who  will  try  both 
remedies,  will  wish  they  had  done  as  I  did  in  the 
first  place. 

H.  Alley. 

WenJuim,  Mass. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Bee-keepers  Hidebound,  and  Bee-keepers 
Liberal. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  am  a  careful  reader  of  your 
valuable  Journal.  I  long  to  have  its  numbers 
come  ;  and  would  wish  it  to  come  weekly,  in- 
stead of  monthly.  There  is  perhaps  no  one  who 
takes  a  greater  interest  in  bees  than  I  do,  and 
consequently  all  the  information  given  by  a  host 
of  correspondents  of  such  eminent  apiarians  as 
grace  the  columns  of  your  Journal,  is  duly  ap- 
preciated. The  writers  belong  to  that  class  who 
are  liberal  and  useful ;  who  are  not  afraid  to  let 
their  light  shine.  Their  long  and  varied  experi- 
ence is  duly  regarded  by  all.  There  is,  however, 
another  class  who  are  more  narrow-minded  and 
bigoted.  Their  selfishness  precludes  them  from 
going  into  public  print,  except  when  they  have 
some  miserable  make-sliift,  on  which  they  have 
obtained  a  patent,  and  which  they  wish  to  pulTinto 
notice;  or  when  other  and  more  liberal  men  make 
improvements  and  publish  them  to  the  world,  then 
they  will  rush  fori h  like  dogs  with  sore  heads, 
growling  and  snapping  at  everybody,  although, 
there  may  be  no  infringement  of  their  rights  or 
claims.  If  all  bee-keepers  were  as  selfish  and  im- 
potent, little  knowledge  indeed  would  we  have.  If 
every  little  improvement,  fancied  or  real,  would 
have  to  be  patented,  and  all  information  withheld 
and  hoarded  up  for  a  future  volume,  to  be  published 
for  their  benefit,  little  if  any  good  would  be  the 
result.  I  do  not  discard  books,  neither  do  I  un- 
dervalue their  use  :  but  this  is  a  progressive  age, 
and  books  may  soon  get  behind  the  times.  The 
only  remedj''  is  in  a  Jimrnal.  Let  all  good  men 
rally  to  the  work.  Let  all  who  take  an  interest 
in  bee-keeping- send  in  their  communications  ;  let 
bee-keeping  be  made  co-operative,  let  all  mu- 
tually help  each  other,  and  raise  the  standard  of 
bee-keeping  to  what  it  ought  to  be  and  can  be, 
even  if  the  editor  should  have  to  enlarge  his 
Journal  again,  let  it  be  so.  Let  each  subscriber 
procure  one  additional  name  to  "the  roll  of 
honor,"  and  all  will  go  well.     Let  us  not  follow 


210 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


tlie  example  of  a  few  of  our  bee-keeping  friends, 
who  keep  all  their  experiments  and  the  results 
locked  up  in  Iheir  own  breasts,to  be  there  hoarded 
like  the  gold  of  the  miser,  and  finall}^  lost  to  the 
world.  Such  men  are  a  discredit  to  themselves  and 
to  the  community  in  which  they  live.  I  am  only  a 
beginner,  and  consequent!}'  have  as  yet  nothing 
to  do  but  learn.  If,  however,  anything  interest- 
ing occurs  I  will  cheerfully  report  it. 

Gebharts.  Pa.  W.  Baker. 


[  For  the  American  Bee  Jouraal.] 

Soil  for  Bees. 

Mr.  Editor  : — We  want  more  of  tlie  experience 
of  bee-keepers  on  the  quality  of  soil  as  regards 
t!ie  yield  of  honey.  (S,;e  Bee  Journal  for 
jMarch,  page  179  ) 

Alsike  clover,  grown  on  reclaimed  wet 
meadow  soil,  of  course  it  was  rich  land,  as  it 
yielded  no  honey.  Page  183.  Quality  of  soil 
for  beekeeping.  E.  GaHup  on  manuring  the 
clover  pasture  and  currant  bushes  to  increase 
the  yield  of  honey. 

Bees  fly  over  fields  of  buckwheat  to  others 
beyond.  It  may  be,  in  that  case,  that  the  flowers 
were  not  of  the  same  age,  or  the  soil  alike.  We 
have  seen  stock  and  bees  pass  over  low,  rich 
lands,  to  higher,  dry  and  light  soils,  to  feed  on 
clover  ;  the  season  being  wet  and  the  growth  of 
the  plants  large. 

In  June,  18G8,  we  saw  at  Sterling,  111.,  a  field 
of  clover,  on  a  large  portion  of  which  the  cattle 
refused  to  graze.  Our  attention  was  called  to 
tlie  curious  case  by  Mr.  Bressler.  Will  he  please 
give  the  readers  of  the  Journal  the  cause  of  the 
preference  given  by  the  cattle  to  a  part  of  the 
field  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other  i>art  ? 

J.  M.  Marvin. 

St.  Charles,  III. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Transferring  Bees. 

Several  persons  have  asked  me  wJien  to  trans- 
fer bees,  and  how  to  transfer  them.  When  to 
transfer  them  depends  somewhat  on  circum- 
stances. If  I  had  a  small  swarm  in  a  large  hive, 
I  should  transfer  early  in  spring,  as  my  liive  has 
a  small  frame ;  because  I  could  then  get  them  in 
better  shape  to  control  the  animal  heat,  and  thus 
cause  more  rapid  breeding.  But  to  transfer  into 
another  hive  of  as  bad  shape,  or  even  worse 
than  the  original,  there  would  be  nothing  gained 
by  transferring  earl}' ;  it  might,  in  fact,  be  an 
actual  damage.  The  best  time  for  such  there- 
fore is  near  the  swarming  time,  or  just  before; 
say,  as  soon  as  the  hive  is  populous,  and  when 
they  are  gathering  honey  so  that  they  can  build 
comb,  repair  damages  rapidly,  &c.  If  trans- 
ferred at  such  a  time,  it  will  put"  them  back  only  a 
trifle.  In  fact,  I  have  frequently  transferred, 
when  I  thought  it  actually  set  them  ahead.  I 
have  transferred  at  almost  all  seasons  except 
winter ;  but  in  all  cases  I  knew  what  my  object 
was,  and  understood  the  business.  • 

Now  for  the  mjdiis    operandi.     In  tlie  first 


place,  we  want  one  hive  all  ready,  and  a  dish 
full  of  small  sized  wooden  pins  of  various  lenghts 
from  one  to  three  inches.  Tlien  we  want  our 
frames  with  from  one  to  three  holes  bored 
through  each  side,  bottom,  and  top.  These 
holes  are  to  be  bored,  with  a  small  sized  gimlet 
or  bit,  or  punched  with  large  sized  brad  awl. 
Now  the  pins  must  be  made  enough  smaller  than 
the  holes  to  be  pushed  through  "easily  with  the 
fingers  into  the  edges  of  the  comb,  because  we 
may  want  to  take  these  pins  out  after  the  bees 
have  permanently  fastened  the  comb  in  place. 
The  next  performance  is  to  drum  out  the  bees 
into  a  box,  and  drum  them  out  thoroughly. 
Now  set  the  box  on  the  old  stand,  and  split  open 
the  old  board  hive  and  remove  the  combs,  one  at 
a  time,  and  transfer  or  fit  them  into  your  frames. 
To  avoid  robbers  this  performance  should  be 
done  in  a  room  or  sliop,  with  all  the  windows 
darkened  but  one.  As  fast  as  a  comb  is  cut  out 
of  the  old  box,  gum,  or  log  (you  want  a  cloth 
folded  several  thicknesses  and  laid  on  a  bench, 
stand,  or  table,  to  lay  your  comb  on,  so  as  not  to 
injure  the  brood  or  sealed  honey)  lay  it  on  this 
cloth  ;  place  5'our  frame  on  the  comb,  and  mark 
it,  so  as  to  cut  the  comb  a  little  larger  than  the 
frame  ;  crowd  the  frame  down  over  the  edges 
of  the  comb,  and  pin  it  in  its  place.  Then 
hang  it  in  the  place  in  the  hive  and  serve  another 
in  the  same  way,  until  all  are  transferred. 
Place  your  brood  all  together  in  the  same  relative 
position  th;it  the  queen  would  place  it  in,  and  not 
a  comb  filled  witli  honey  between  two  filled  with 
brood.  With  the  first  swarm  I  transferred,  I 
used  the  sticks  or  splints  tied  at  top  and  bottom, 
as  recommended  in  the  bee-books  ;  but  that  the 
only  one.  As  soon  as  your  comb  is  all  trans- 
ferred place  the  hive  on  the  old  stand,  and  hive 
your  bees  into  it.  Mr.  Adair,  in  the  Annals  of 
Bee-culture,  gives  this  method ;  but  I  did  not 
learn  it  from  liim  ;  neither  did  he  learn  it  from 
me.  Your  pins  can  be  taken  out,  after  the  comb 
is  fostened  by  the  bees.  E.  Gallup. 

Orchard,  Iowa. 


[For  t!ie  American  Bee  JournaL] 

Italian  Queens. 


Mr.  Gallup  has  mentioned  several  times,  in 
the  Bee  Journal,  that  he  purchased  some 
Italian  queens  of  an  Eastern  queen  raiser  that 
were  not  very  prolific,  short-lived,  &c.  I  wish 
to  inform  the  readers  of  the  Journal  that  those 
queens  were  not  purchased  of  me  ;  and  I  Avish  to 
say,  further,  that  I  warrant  all  ray  queens  to  be 
fertile,  prolific  and  pure,  and  guarantee  to  give 
satisfaction  in  all  cases. 

I  make  it  a  practice  every  year  to  purchase 
several  queens  of  the  best  queen  breeders  and 
importers  in  this  country,  in  order  to  avoid  in 
and  in  breeding  ;  and  I  do  not  allow  drones  to 
mature  from  those  quf^ens  which  I  use  to  rear 
other  queens  from.  I  do  not  ship  queens  from 
mj'  apiary  until  they  have  laid  several  hundred 
eggs.  All  the  queens  that  do  not  commence  to 
deposit  eggs  within  forty-eight  hours  after  being 
fertilized,  are  rejected.  H.  Alley. 

Wen  ham,  Mass. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


241 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


WASHINGTON,    MAY,   1870, 


D:^  We  give  in  this  number  a  translation  of  that 
portion  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Nurcraburg  Conven- 
tion of  Gci-man  Bee-keepers,  which  relates  to  the  in- 
troduction of  queen  bees  to  queenless  or  deprived, 
colonies,  and  will  interest  those  of  our  friends  who 
purpose  procuring  Italian  queens  for  their  apiaries 
this  season.  Also,  the  remarks  on  the  requisites  for 
producing  early  swarms,  made  by  various  members 
of  that  Convention  on  the  ensuing  day.— On  perusing 
those  articles  it  will  no  doubt  strike  the  reader,  as  it 
struck  us,  that  fully  as  great  a  diversity  of  opinion 
and  practice  prevails  among  the  German  "  Imker," 
as  among  the  American  bee-keepers,  though  the 
former  .have  had  the  topics  much  longer  uud(?i-  con- 
sideration. 

Ct^  The  reports  from  IVTr.  Argo  and  Novice,  of 
their  "progress"  respectively,  during  the  past  year, 
reached  us  almost  simultaneously,  though  too  late  for 
our  present  number ;  as  we  regretted  to  find  after 
making  strenuous  efforts  to  have  them  inserted.  They 
will  appear  in  our  next,  together  with  several  other 
communications  from  old  correspondents  for  which 
we  expected  to  have  room— the  whole  being  already 
in  type. 

If  queen  cells  be  discovered  in  a  hive  having  a 
fertile  queen  recently  introduced  and  apparently 
accepted,  -they  should  not  be  destroyed,  but  the 
queen  should  be  immediately  removed,  caged,  and 
given  to  some  queenless  or  deprived  colony,  or  to  a 
newly  formed  nucleus. — In  such  case  there  is  usually 
an  antagonistic  party  formed  among  the  workers, 
bent  on  superseding  the  queen,  and  she  is  certain  to 
be  killed  by  them,  sooner  or  later,  if  allowed  to 
remain  in  the  hive,  even  after  all  the  queen  cells 
have  been  destroyed. 


Those  who  still  use  straw  or  box  hives  with  fixed 
combs  can,  by  the  following  method,  prevent  after 
swarming  when  a  swarm  has  issued  or  been  drummed 
out  of  a  liive.  On  the  day  after  teeting  is  first  heard 
drum  out  another  swarm,  hive  it,  and  set  it  at  the 
side  of  or  on  the  parent  hive.  In  the  ensuing  night 
all  the  supernumerary  queens  will  be  destroyed  and 
cast  out,  and  the  one  selected  and  retained  will  in 
due  time  become  fertile.  Most  of  the  bees  of  the 
driven  swarm  will  gradually  leave  and  return  to  their 
old  home,  even  after  their  young  queen  has  begun 
to  lay.  When  her  companions  have  for  the  most 
part  forsaken  her,  this  queen  may  be  substituted  for 
the  one  which  accompanied  the  first  swarm,  and  the 
old  queen  thus  got  lid  of. 


Mr.  Uhle,  of  Roverido,  in  the  Italian  portion  of 
Switzerland,  whose  advertisement  appears  in  another 
column,  w.as  formerly  Superintendent  of  Mr.  Moua's 
apiarian  Institute  iu  Italy,  and  is  known  as  a  well- 
qualified  bee-keeper. 

Beer  Law  and  Bee  Law. 

n:^  In  a  recent  case  in  the  Circuit  Court  of  Balti- 
more County,  (Md.,)  the  Court  held  that— 

"The  defendant  has  the  same  right  to  sell  Tonic 
Beer  as  the  complainant  has.  But  the  defendant 
must  not  sell  his  Tonic  Beer  under  such  colors  and 
representations  as  to  induce  the  public  to  suppose 
that  his  Tonic  Beer  is  the  T-onic  Beer  of  the  com- 
plainant. That  would  be  an  imposition  and  a  fraud 
on  the  complainant." — The  Court  accordingly 
granted  a  perpetual  injunction,  restraining  the  de- 
fendant from  selling  his  Tonic  Beer  under  false  colors 
or  pretences. 

This  being  declared  to  be  beer  law,  applicable  as  the 
Court  said  alike  to  Tonic  Beer  and  "  Day's  Blacking 
or  Rodger's  Cutlery,"  we  would  kindly  suggest  to 
certain  piratical  parties— who  boast  that  they  are 
growing  fat  on  the  profits  of  practises  thus  emphati- 
cally denounced  as  an  imi)osition  and  &  fraud — to  ask 
themselves  quietly  some  cool  evening,  whether  the 
same  pj-inciple  does  not  extend  to  matters  coming 
under  and  embraced  by  what,  dropping  a  letter,  may 
be  termed  bee  law  ? 

We  have  received  from  the  Hon.  Horace  Capron, 
Commissioner  of  Agriculture,  a  package  of  choice 
vegetable  and  flower  seeds,  for  trial. 


Erratum. — The  board  for  the  "  ventilatin^button." 
of  Mr.  Crist,  described  onpage230of  our  last  number, 
should  be  three  inches  and  seven-eightlis  (3J)  long, 
and  not  three  inches  only,  as  there  stated. 


Correspondence  of  the  Bee  Journal. 


East  ITardwick,  Vt.,  March  14,  1870.— Our  win- 
ters lierc  are  very  long  and  severe.  Often  we  cannot 
get  our  bees  out  from  tlieir  winter  depositories  until  the 
middle  or  the  last  of  April ;  and  if  not  dead  then,  they 
are  often  very  much  reduced  in  numbers,  from 
various  causes.  We  have  an  abumiance  of  dandelion, 
white  clover,  and  raspberries,  which  are  our  main 
dependence.  With  strong  stocks  in  the  spring,  we 
can  get  some  surplus.— J.  D.  Goodrich. 

Newbcrtport,  Mass.,  March  14. — The  communi- 
cation of  the  3d  of  January,  which  I  addressed  to 
you,  on  the  subject  of  ray  first  experience  with  bees, 
was  done  without  premeditation,  or  even  a  thought  of 
its  finding  a  place  in  the  columns  of  your  invaluable 
Beu  Journal.  But  as  I  wished  to  communicate 
about  some  other  matter,  I  thought  it  might  not  be 
out  of  place  to  give,  in  brief,  a  statement  of  my  bees, 
with  others  iu  general  iu  this  locality. 

Assuming    no  selfish    bigotry,    simply    claiming 


242 


THE   AMERICAN  BEE  JOUENAi:. 


square  honorable  dealings  in  all  my  business  trans- 
actions, I  did  so  without  prejudice  or  partiality.  But 
it  seems  friend  Alley  is  a  little  sensitive  on.this  point, 
and  with  one  sweeping  remark  contradicts  the 
following  statements  :  "  I  took  them  to  the  county 
fail-  and  there  obtained  the  first  premium  of  four 
dollars.  There  were  three  or  four  old  bee-keepers 
present  with  their  experience  and  new  stjle  of  hives, 
and  friend  Alley  with  the  rest.  All  said  that  their 
bees  did  nothing  this  year."  Now,  if  what  I  said 
was  false;  or  if  my  personal  character  for  veracity 
were  as  well  known  to  the  readers  of  the  Journal  as 
it  is  in  tlie  city  of  my  adoption^  perhaps  I  might  for- 
bear ;  but,  Mith  your  permission,  I  would  like  to  ex- 
amine the  statements  in  question  and  see  how  far  it 
was  from  being  correct. 

First.  "  I  took  them  to  the  county  fair  and  there  ob- 
tained the  first  premium  of  four  ddlars."  That  I 
toolc  ray  bees  to  the  fair  is  too  patent  for  any  to  deny, 
although  it  is  a  part  of  the  statement  which  friend 
Alley  says  is  far  from  being  correct.  That  I  received 
four  dollars  is  also  true,  which  I  can  prove  by  the 
City  Treasurer,  who  paid  me  tlie  money.  That  it 
^\  as  not  the  first  premium  is  a  iiuibble  which  I  care 
nothing  about,  as  it  was  the  iargcst  sum  and  I  got 
the  money.  Two  of  the  trustees  say  it  is  the  same 
thing  but  of  a  different  class.  The  discrepancy  in  the 
two  statements  may  require  a  little  explanation. 
Ini mediately  after  our  county  fai'-  the  Newburyport 
Herald  published  the  list  of  premiums  and  gratuities. 
I  had  several  varieties  of  pears  entered — my  brother 
had  none,  but  two  of  the  premiums  were  awarded  to 
him.  1  went  to  the  Herald  office  to  have  it  corrected. 
The  editor  said  it  was  a  mistake  which  would  not 
afi'ect  the  report  of  the  Society.  Also,  the  report  on 
bees  and  honey  were  made  each  for  D.  T.  B.  and  D. 
C.  B.,and  SI,  each,  for  Mr.  AH  y  and  Mr.  Green.  1 
meutitm  triis  to  show  that  tliere  was  an  error  in  the 
account  of  pears,  and  I  -did  not  know  but  there  was  on 
the  bees ;  for  when  tlie  awards  were  paid  to  the 
parties  in  this  city  (arrangements  having  been  made 
bv  the  Society  for  the  Treasurer  of  Newburyport  to 
pay  a  part  of  them),  I  went  for  mine  and  found  that 
tlie  Treasurer  was  authorized  to  be  governed  by  a 
report  furnished  to  him  by  the  Agricultural  Society, 
and  in  that  report  my  tjces  and  honey  were  awarded 
four  dolfars  and  D.  C.  Batcheldor  nothing,  Mr.  Green 
and  Mr.  Alley  one  dollar  each.  These  are  facts,  and 
I  would  ask  in  all  candor,  how  far  my  statement  was 
from  being  correct. 

,Slx'07uI.  That  Mr.  Alley  should  deny  that  tliere  were 
"  three  or  four  old  bee-keepers  present  with  their 
experience  and  new  style  hives,  and  friend  Alley  «itli 
the  rest,  "is  impossible,  for  his  own  article,  on  page 
lOti.  acknowledges  it. 

Third.  My  reasons  for  saying—"  all  said  their  bees 
did  nothing  this  year,"  was  from  what  knowledge 
I  had  obtained  from  bee-keepers  during  the  past  year, 
and  I  had  no  small  interest  in  tliat  direction.  I  was 
at  my  brother's  place  several  times  and  saw  his  bees. 
He  invariably  said  tliat  his  bees  were  doing  nothing, 
or  to  that  efiect.  He  had  four  swarms  and  only  one  cast 
a  swarm  last  year  (1!;69).  Fiom  the  other  tliree  he 
got  no  surplus  honey  ;  the  one  that  cast  a  swarm, 
Avas  storing  some  honey,  but  not  much.  Mr.  Calvin 
Houers  resides  some  four  miles  frum  this  place  in 
West  Newbury.  One  day  last  August  I  drove  to  his 
farm  on  purpose  to  learn  wliat  liis  bees  were  doing. 
He  had  some  thirty  stocl^s  and  tliey  had  cast  only 
four  or  five  swarms  and  had  collected  but  little  honey. 
Mr.  Hiram  Rogi  rs,  of  West  Newbury,  was  at  my 
place,  and  represented  the  same  about  his  bees.  Mr. 
J.  L.  Newliall  took  but  one  box  of  honey  from  his 
two  stocks  of  bees,  and  they  cast  no  new  swarms. 
Capt.  Davis  Wood,  Mrs.  W.  C.  Morse,  Mr.  Amos 
Cothn,  of  this  city,  got  neither  swarms  uor  surplus 


honey.  Mr.  Noyes,  of  Seabrook,  where  friend  Alley 
has  been,  inserting  queens  and  dividing  swarms,  I 
have  not  seen  ;  but  I  have  seen  several  of  his  neigh- 
bors. They  say  he  had  poor  luck  the  past  year.  Mr. 
Alley  was  at  my  place  twice  last  season.  The  last 
time  he  was  there,  he  said  that  my  bees  were  doing 
better  than  his.  I  submit,  Mr.  Editor,  why  should 
I  not  say  to  you  that  their  bees  did  nothing  this  year  1 

So  much'for  Mr.  A.'s  assertions.  Now  let  us  see 
how  it  is  wnth  his  statements.  He  says: — "Mr.  D. 
C.  Batcheldor,  of  Newburyport,  brother  of  the  gen- 
tleman named  above,  had  a  stock  of  bees  on  exhibition 
in  one  of  my  new  style  Langstroth  hives.  Last  sea- 
son (1869)  they  stored  at  least  forty  pounds  of  honey 
in  small  boxes."  They  did  not  store  that  amount  by 
more  than  one  quarter  part.  My  brother  told  me  so 
witliin  one  week.  And  this  is  not  all.  He  had  old 
comb  in  his  boxes,  for  which  his  own  word  is  my 
authority  ;  whereas,  in  miue  every  particle  of  comb 
was  made  the  past  season.  Now,  Mr.  A.  says — "On 
the  first  day  of  June  one  of  the  combs  in  the  brood 
box  broke  down,  and  destroyed  more  than  two  quarts 
of  bees."  Perhaps  he  may  intend  this  for  an  adver- 
tisement to  sell  his  new  style  of  hive,  as  he  is  very 
anxiotis  to  introduce  them.  1  would  say,  for  his  benefit, 
that  they  do  not  all  do  so,  for  my  brother  had  another 
swarm  in  the  same  styfe  of  hive,  that  did  not  break 
down,  neither  did  it  cast  a  swarm  or  give  any  surplus 
honey.  Mr.  A.  also  says,  "  tliis  hive  was  exhibited 
with  all  the  boxes  in  it,  but  had  the  outside  case  re- 
moved so  that  the  boxes  could  be  seen,  and  all  of 
them  (30)  had  more  or  less  honey  in  them."  Now, 
what  does  all  this  amount  to,  when  we  take  into 
account  that  they  are  three  pound  boxes  and  not  to 
exceed  twenty-five  pounds  of  honey.  A  few  of  the 
front  boxes  were  sealed,  but  the  great  majority  of 
them  had  little  or  no  honey  in  them.  They  could  not 
be  weighed  with  any  degree  of  accuracy,  and  never 
were.  Mr.  A.  says,  "the  sum  of  six  dollars  only 
was  divided  between  four  bee-keepers,  and  this  was 
only  to  partly  pay  for  the  trouble  of  putting  the  bees 
into  the  hall  and  taking  them  out  again."  Singular 
enough  !  I  wonder  if  anybody  else  ever  got  tliat 
idea  through  their  cranium !  Mr.  A.  came  all 
the  way  from  Wenham,  by  rail,  some  sixteen  miles, 
and  Mr.  Green,  from  Amesburg,  some  five  miles,  or 
more,  and  each  received  one  dollar,  as  part  paj', 
while  parties  within  two  gunshots  of  the  liall  got  four 
dollars,  as  though  there  were  no  other  merits  in  the 
ease.  Preposterous  !  Mr.  A.  says  "  D.  T.  Batchel- 
der  received  two  dollars."  This  is  not  correct  as  I 
have  shown.  D.  C.  Batchelder  says  he  has  not  yet  re- 
ceived anything.  Mr.  Alley  says  he  has.  Which  would 
be  most  likely  to  know,  I  will  leave  for  your  readers  to 
decide. 

I  would  like  to  see  a  statement  in  the  Bee  Journal 
of  what  friend  Alley's  bees  have  done  tlie  past  year, 
to  let  its  readers  know  what  kind  of  show  he  can 
make.  * 

Now,  Mr.  A.  when  you  try  again,  be  careful  that  you 
do  not  wake  up  the  wrong  person. 

So,  hurrah  for  the  Bee  Journal  !  A  statement  of 
facts  and  a  backbone  to  back  tliem. 

N.B.  I  think  my  bees  have  been  brooding  the  past 
winter.  Toward  the  last  of  January,  on  warm  sunny 
days,  bees  two-thirds  grown  lay  at  the  entrance  of  the 
hives.     Is  this  common  ?— D.  T.  Batcheldek. 

Alle?[STille,  (Kt.)  March  16. — My  bees  are  in 
fine  condition,  having  jiassed  the  winter  on  their 
summer  stands,  and  are  breeding  rapidly.  Last  year 
was  a  good  season  in  my  locality. — J.  H,  Johnson. 


*  Mr.  Alley's  business  is  mainly  to  raise  Italian  queens,  oa 
an  extensive  scale  ;  and  of  course  bis  apiary  could  not  be  ex- 
pected to  make  a  large  show  of  lioney. — Ed. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


243 


Salem,  Ills.,  March  34.— I  have  taken  my  stocks 
out  of  their  winter  (juartcrs.  They  are  very  lively, 
and  o-ntherins:  pollen  rapidly  from  the  maples,  &c.  I 
have  a  number  of  hybrid  stocks,  and  am  anxious  to 
got  tlie  full  blood  as  soon  as  may  bo.  I  think  when 
the  people  see  the  benefit  of  papers  in  the  increased 
yield  of  honey  ;"  in  the  beautiful  yellow  workers  ;  and 
in  the  security  against  loss  of  queens  or  damat^e  from 
the  moth  ;  they  will  think  a  two  dollar  investment  for 
the  Bee  JouKNAL  will  pay  them. — R.  W.  Pkatt. 

St.  Catiiaki-ne's,  Canada,  April  4. — My  bees  have 
wintered  splendidly  on  their  summer  stands,  thanks 
to  your  valuable  paper,  while  black  bees  all  around 
me  in  every  direction,  for  scores  of  miles,  have  gone 
(as  Jim  Fisk  says)  "  where  the  woodbine  twineth." 
I  wish  the  A.  B.  Journal  eanie,  as  Sunday  comes, 
once  a  week. — O.  Fitz  Wilkins. 

St.  Chakles,  III.,  April  9.— We  finished  setting 
out  our  bees  on  the  Cth  inst.  Loss  less  than  ten  per 
cent.  Stocks  the  strongest  for  several  years.  We 
have  sold  the  balance  of  oiu'  comb  honey  at  35  cents 
_per  pound  and  the  extracted  at  30  cents.  At  this 
price,  will  it  pay  to  use  boxes  ?  The  honey  extractor 
has  been  a  great  help  towards  the  well  wintering  of 
our  bees. — J.  M.  Mauvin. 

Lewistojt,  April  8. — Who  has  catnip  seed  for  sale  ? 
I  have  tried  the  bee-feeder  described  by  Novice  in 
your  April  number,  and  it  works  splendid.  Many 
thanks  to  Novice. — H.  Libbt. 

Charleston,  III.,  April  9.— Allow  me  to  say  that 
yours  is  the  ablest  and  by  far  the  most  reliable  bee 
paper  I  have  yet  seen,  and  I- am  inclined  to  give  it  as 
my  opinion  that  the  "  American  Bee  Joukmal"  will 
survive  the  day  of  mushroom  publications,  and  stand 
the  more  firmly  when  the  storm  shall  have  passed,  by 
reason  of  the  opporUcniii/  of  couipanmn. — H.  C.  Bar- 
nard. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Wintering  Bees. 

Mr.  Editor  : — I  am  still  of  the  opinion  that 
bee-keepers  should  give  their  experience  every 
sjiring  in  wintering  tlieir  bees,  the  number  of 
hives,  the  kind  of  hives,  kind  of  bees,  where 
kept,  and  the  results. 

I  am  well  satisfied  that  the  onlj^  true  policy  in 
wintejing  bees,  is  to  put  them  in  some  kind  of 
suitable  winter  quarters.  I  have  a  double  walled 
house, built  of  good  pine  lumber,  tightly  buttoned, 
with  good  shingle  roof.  It  is  twelve  Ijy  sixteen 
leet  outside,  vv^ith  two  feet  space  between  the 
outer  and  inner  walls,  filled  in  tightly  with  dry 
straw  all  around  and  overhead  ;  a  room  cut  oif 
four  feet  in  front  for  keeping  tools,  honey  boxes, 
ifcc.,  Avith  double  doors  in  front,  and  ventilated 
by  two  zinc  tubes,  two  inches  in  diameter, 
througli  the  walls,  opposite  each  other,  on  the 
east  and  west  sides,  with  a  ventilator  six  inches 
square  through  the  roof,  making  a  room  eight 
feet  square  inside,  dark  as  midnight,  and  of  a 
perfectly  even  temperature. 

Into  this  house  I  put  sixteen  colonies  of  Italian 
bees  on  the  27th  of  November  ;  seven  of  them 
in  Langstrotli's  shallow,  movable  comb  hives, 
four  in  the  Hotchkiss  dividing  hive,  three  in  deep 
movable  comb  hives,  and  two  in  Eddy  box-hives. 
At  the  time  I  put  them  in,  one  in  a  deep  frame 


hive  was  weak  in  bees,  and  one  in  the  shallow 
hive  short  in  stores.  I  took  out  all  the  honey 
boxes,  but  left  the  lioney-boards  on,  and  set  them 
in  rows,  one  on  the  top  of  the  oilier,  three  and 
four  deep ;  lining  the  top  cover  of  the  Laug- 
stroth  hive,  aitfl  inserting  a  stick  half  an  inch 
thick  for  ventilation,  and  opening  the  doors  of 
the  remainder  about  the  same  distance.  Ilere 
they  were  left  undisturbed  all  winter. 

Now  for  the  result.  On  the  25th  of  March, 
which  was  a  nice  bright  day,  I  brought  out  five 
of  them,  two  of  the  deep  hives,  and  one  of  each 
of  the  other  kinds,  and  on  opening  them  found 
they  were  in  the  finest  possible  condition,  with 
scarcely  any  perceptible  diminution  of  stores, 
much  stronger  in  numbers,  and  with  plenty  of 
eggs  and  young  bees  in  every  stage  of  develop- 
ment. The  one  that  was  weak  in  the  fall  seemed 
as  strong  as  any  of  the  others.  I  was  perfectly 
astonished  to  see  many  young  bees  with  appar- 
ently so  little  loss  of  honey. 

The  next  day,  and  as  the  weather  permitted,  I 
removed  all  the  rest  and  found  them  as  lively 
and  brisk,  as  if  they  had  only  been  resting  over 
night,  and  on  bringing  out  my  meal  trough  well 
supplied  with  finely  chopped  rye  and  oats,  they 
"  pitched  in  "  as  though  they  were  determined 
to  carry  box  and  all  away. 

Now  I  want  to  hear  from  all  our  beekeeping 
friends  who  read  the  Journal.  Give  us  your 
mode  of  wintering,  with  all  the  particulars  con- 
nected therewith.  It  seems  to  me  that  this 
would  be  productive  of  great  good  to  young  be- 
ginners. We  might  learn  much  from  each  otiier's 
experience. 

I  cannot  tell  why  it  is  but  I  have  somehow 
become  warmly  attached  to  the  Bee  Journal 
and  all  its  correspondents.  They  all  seem  like 
old  acquaintances,  yet  I  have  never  seen  one  of 
them  ;  but  I  love  beautiful  little  bees  and  every 
one  who  takes  an  interest  in  them. 

Geo.  Hardesty. 

Malvern^  Ohio,  April  2,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Gallup  on  Hives. 

On  page  172,  February  number,  Mr.  L.  IVI. 
Lindley  wishes  to  know  what  Gallup  thinks  of 
his  form  of  hive  for  Minnesota  climate  ;  and  as 
he  acknowledges  himself  a  new  beginner,  sup- 
pose Gallup  has  a  little  talk  with  him  about  hives, 
through  the  Bee  Journal,  for  his  benefit  as  well 
as  the  benefit  of  others. 

In  old  box  hive  times,  a  circular  hive,  about 
twelve  or  fourteen  inches  high  and  twelve  inches 
in  diameter,  in  the  clear,  or  inside  measure,  would 
produce  more  bees  than  any  other  form  of  hive  I 
ever  saw.  Queens  would  commence  breeding 
earlier,  breed  more  abundantly,  and  they  would 
send  out  earlier  and  larger  swarms,  and  more  of 
them  than  any  other  form.  A  hive  two  inches 
less  in  diameter,  and  enough  taller  to  make  the 
same  capacity,  would  not  come  up  to  the  above  ; 
and  a  hive  two  inches  larger  in  diameter  and  ten 
inches  high,  did  not  prove  satisfactory. 

From  repeated  observations,  I  have  found  that 


2U 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


a  good  average  swarm  of  bees,  in  cold  spring 
weather,  occupies  (together  with  their  comb)  a 
circular  space  equal  to  twelve  inches  in  diameter, 
when  in  the  right  form  of  hive  to  allow  them  to 
cluster  naturally.  Now,  if  we  ta^e  it  for  granted 
that  my  conclusions  are  correct  so  far,  we  can 
easily  see  that  any  great  departure  from  this  form 
is  wrong,  for  a  cold  climate  like  Minnesota.  A 
correspondent  who  stated,  in  the  Bee  Journal 
(about  the  time  that  Gallup  was  having  his  awful 
muss  about  hives),  that  he  used  the  shallow  hive, 
and  that  he  wanted  no  other,  finally  concluded  to 
try  a  different  form,  and  still  call  it  a  Langstroth 
hive.  He  wrote  to  me  last  spring,  and  acknowl- 
edged that  all  his  swarms  in  his  new  style  hive 
we're  at  least  twenty  days  ahead  of  those  in  his 
old  stjie  of  Langstroth  hive.  While  his  new 
style  was  full  of  brood,  his  old  style  was  just 
commencing  to  breed  ;  consequently  his  new  style 
hives,  in  the  same  yard  and  with  the  same  care, 
were  ready  to  divide  or  swarm  twenty  days  ear- 
lier than  his  old  style  hives.  In  my  experience 
(and  understand  my  experience  has  always  been 
in  the  North)  the  difference  has  ever  been  from 
twenty  to  thirty  days  in  favor  of  a  hive  of  the 
right  form.  In  Minnesota,  your  springs  are  al- 
ways cool  and  windy,  until  about  the  first  part 
of  June,  especially  in  the  open  prairies. 

There  are  a  great  many  people  who  have  al- 
ways used  box  hives  ;  and  when  they  first  obtain 
a  frame  hive,  they  like  it  so  much  better  than  the 
box  hive  (without  any  regard  to  Avhat  the  form 
may  be)  that  they  think  their  form  of  hive  is 
the  best  in  use  ;  while  the  fact  is,  they  are  not 
competent  judges.  We  can  only  arrive  at  safe 
conclusions  after  experimenting,  for  a  series  of 
seasons,  with  differently  formed  hives. 

In  transferring  from  liollow  trees,  and  from  all 
kinds  of  box  hives,  of  every  conceivable  form,  I 
have  always  noticed  that  there  v/as  only  about 
from  ten  to  twelve  inches  in  depth  of  comb  occu- 
pied Avith  brood,  except  in  rare  cases.  If  a  large 
quantityof  brood  is  expected  early  in  the  season, 
our  frames  should  not  be  so  broad  that  the  bees 
cannot  occupy  the  full  breadth  of  the  comb  from 
outside  to  outside, 

E.  Gallup. 

Orchard,  Iowa. 


[For  the  Americaa  Bee  Journal  ] 

Black  Queens  from  pure  Italian  Brood ! 

Last  fall  I  raised  several  nice  queens  as  black 
as  a  croio  all  over,  from  the  purest  Italian  brood, 
and  other  ones  of  the  most  beautiful  golden  color, 
on  the  same  combs,  at  the  same  time.  I  presume, 
there  is  no  nicer  queen  or  better  marked  workers 
in  all  the  countrj'-,  than  the  mother  and  worker- 
sisters  of  these  jet  black  queens."  I  am  positive 
that  the  worker  sisters  of  these  black  queens  car- 
ried in  pollen  liberally  at  fourteen  days  old.  I 
did  not  save  the  black  queens,  but  their  queen 
sisters  of  the  same  age  bring  on  pure  worker 
progeny. 

lias  any  one  else  had  similar  experience  ?   Will 
some  one  explain  ?  J.  W.  Greene. 

Chillicoihe,  Mo.,  April  10,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

All  Aboard!" 


[Fo 


Bee  Journal. 


A  Queen  among  Fertile  Workers. 

Last  summer,  after  asking  my  "  five  questions," 
I  introduced  a  small,  black  virgin  queen  into  a 
colony  of  many  fertile  workers.  She  was  kindly 
received  and  protected,  the  workers  at  the  same 
time  continuing  to  lay.  Being  encouraged,  and 
yet  not  wishing  to  retain  the  black  queen,  I  ven- 
tured a  little  further;  and  at  the  end  of  four  days 
introduced  a  fertile  laying  Italian  queen.  She 
was  also  received  and  protected.  She  laid  eggs 
liberally  in  one  part  of  the  hive,  and  the  fertile 
workers  laid  in  another  part  for  five  days,  then 
the  bees  carried  out  alive  the  laying  workers,  and 
the  queen  and  colony  went  on  all  right. 

J.  W.  Greene. 
Chillicothe,  Mo.,  April  10,  1870. 


On  the  Great  Apiarian  Railroad  they  now  run 
two  trains  : — 

The  1st,  or  Express,  with  conductprs  Gallup 
and  Novice,  who  believe  there  has  been  improve- 
ment in  the  past,  and  are  for  progression  in  the 
future,  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  science  of  Bee- 
keeping, Bee  Kives,  Bee  Management,  Wintering 
of  the  Bees,  improving  the  breed,  and  improving 
the  practice.     And — 

The  2d,  or  AVay  Train,  with  mixed  freight 
and  sleeping-car.  This  carries  all  bee-keepers 
who  believe  in  box  hives,  fixed  frames,  tight  tops 
and  side-doors  ;  and  that  there  has  been  and  can- 
not be  any  improvement  in  bee-keeping,  bee  man- 
agement, bee  hives,  bee  moth-traps,  bee  feeders, 
or  in  wintering  bees. 

Among  the  passengers  on  this  train  tco  are 
those  who  believe,  "  or  would  make  others  be- 
lieve," that  an  artificially  raised  queen  is  never 
consumptive  or  asthmatical,  nor  ever  has  atro- 
phia, scrofula,  or  nervous  debility,  nor  proves 
sterile,  or  miscarries  ;  and  that  when  such  queens 
are  large  and  look  like  a  splendid  fertile  queen, 
they  never  have  the  dropsy  or  colic,  or  are  not 
badly  constipated,  with  general  debility  of  the 
vital  powers,  and  are  worthless — except  for  the 
five  or  twenty  dollars  they  bring  their  breeders. 

This  slow  train  also  carri-  s  all  who  believe 
bee-keeping  has  not  improved  in  the  last  twenty 
years,  since  I  went  into  it ;  are  still  quoting  from 
tlieir  note-books  of  twenty  years  ago,  and  de- 
fending exploded  theories — because,  under  the 
light  of  science,  they  once  advocated  certain 
standard  hives  and  systems  of  bee  management. 
They  persistently  stick  to  the  theory,  hive,  and 
management,  because  in  a  past  age  it  was  thought 
good  ;  and  will  not  heed  the  wreck  of  fond  hopes 
and  the  loss  of  millions  of  money  it  has  caused, 
but  adhere  to  it  even  in  the  light  of  present  truth, 
because  they  think  that  to  be  consistent,  they 
must  advocate  it  in  the  future  as  in  the  past. 

All  such  .Rip  Van  Winkles  in  bee-keeping  have 
secured  berths  in  the  sleeping  car  to  the  end  of 
life's  journey.  J.M.Price. 

Buffalo  Grove,  Iowa. 


£ 


Imerican  Bee  Journal. 


EDITED  AND  PUBLISHED  BY  SAMUEL  WAGNER,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

AT   TWO   DOLLARS  PER   AKNUM,    PAYABLE  IN   ADVANCE. 


Vol.  v. 


jtJivE,   isro. 


No.  12. 


The  Egyptian,  the    Grecian,   the  Italian 
and  the  Common  Bee. 

Translated  for  the  American  Bee  Journal. 


At  the  late  general  convention  of  German  bee- 
keepers, in  Nuremburg,  Mr.  Vogel,  of  Lehmans- 
Lofcl,  stated  as  the  result  of  his  experiments 
and  observations  that,  in  his  judgment,  the 
common  and  the  Egyptian  bees  are  what  he 
designates  as  primary  races,  while  the  Italian 
and  the  Grecian  are  mere  varieties,  or  breeds 
produced  by  crossing  the  two  primary  races. 

I  am  not  myself  acquainted  with  the  Egyptian 
but  from  the  Greek  and  Roman  classics  and 


Athens  ;  remember  the  similarity  of  the  myth- 
ology and  religious  culture  of  the  two  countries, 
and  call  to  mind  the  active  commercial  inter- 
course early  and  long  subsisting  between  the 
chief  cities  of  Greece  and  the  port  of  Alexandria  ; 
consider  the  fact  too  that  the  Grecian  myths  and 
traditions  refer  the  introduction  of  the  honey 
bee  from  the  island  of  Crete,  fronting  the  coast 
of  Egypt,  and  tliat,  in  the  most  ancient  records 
of  Greece,  the  superstition  which  ascribes  the 
origin  of  bees  to  the  putrefying  carcass  of  an  ox 
or  a  heifer,  is  clearly  traceable  to  Egyptian 
sources,  and  the  striking  circumstance,  also,  that 
an  imposture  so  egregious,  which  none  but  a 
crafty  deceiver  could  have  devised  to  gull  gapint 


bee. 

the  known  source  and  course  of  civilization  in  I  credulity,  was  fully  believed  by  the  then  most 

ancient   times,    I   had,    long   before   I   saw  Mr.     highly  cultivated  people  on  earth,  and  it  becomes 

Vogel's  remarks,  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the    evident  enough   that   the   Greeks  regarded  the 

Italian  bee  is  simply  a  cross  between  the  Grecian    Egyptians  as  unimpeachable  authority  in  all  that 

bee  and  the  native  or  common  bee  of  Italy,  and     relates  to  bee  culture. 

that  the  latter  was  probably  essentially  the  same]      Hence,  though  it  is  nowhere  expressly  stated 


as  our  common  black  bee.  Again,  I  conceived 
that  the  Grecian  bee  was  itself  a  cross  between 
the  Egyptian  bee  and  the  native  bee  of  Greece, 
which  presumably  also  did  not  differ  much  in 
appearance  and  habits  from  our  common  black 
bee. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Romans  derived 
their  knowledge  of  practical  bee-culture  from 
the  Greeks.     Varro,  Virgil,  Columella,  Pliny  and 


that  the  Greeks  crossed  their  native  bees  with 
such  as  were  imported  from  Egypt,  or  that  the 
Romans  carried  the  improved  race  from  Greece 
to  Italy,  we  can  hardly  avoid  assuming  that,  in 
the  ordinary  course  of  events,  such  was  the  fact,, 
and  Mr.  Vogel  may  well  regard  it  as  a  confirm- 
ation of  his  deductions  and  views,  though  thus 
elaborated  by  a  ditferent  process. 

More  assured  certainty  as  to  this  might  perhaps 


Palladius,  knew  little  about  bees  which  they  did  be  attainable  could  we  compare  the  Egyptian  and 
'■■"'"■■'"■'  the  Grecian  bees  with  the  description  of  the  honey 
bee— native  or  foreign — as  it  is  given  to  us  by 
the  Roman  and  the  Greek  writers  respectively. 
Perhaps  Mr.  Vogel  has  already  in  store,  as  the 
result  of  his  investigations  and  observations,  the 
requisite  material  for  such  a  comparison.  If  so, 
he  would  contribute  greatly  to  the  further  and 
more  satisfactory  elucidation  of  this  interesting 
topic,  by  communicating  it  for  publication. 

Seeman. 
Heisse,  January,  1870. 


not  learn  or  copy  from  Aristotle.  But  the  Greeks 
surpassed  the  Romans,  not  only  in  science  and 
theory,  but  in  practice  also.  Hence,  honey  pro- 
cured from  Athens,  from  the  Grecian  archipelago, 
and  from  Sicily — which,  like  the  whole  of  south- 
ern Italy,  was  populated  by  Greek  colonists — 
came  to  be  regarded  by  the  discriminating  taste 
of  the  Roman  epicure  as  much  superior  to  any 
other.  What  Avonder  then,  since  dainties  were 
prized,  sought  for,  and  liberally  paid  for  in  the 
Roman  capital,  if  Grecian  bees  were  early 
transported  to  Italy,  and  that  special  pains  were 
taken  there  to  preserve  in  its  purity  a  race  be- 
lieved to  produce  a  honey  finer  in  quality  and  The  field  on  which  bees  are  fed  is  no  whit  the 
sure  to  be  more  remunerativf  in  price.  !  barer  for  their  biting.     When  they  have  took  in 

The  Greeks,  on  the  other  hand,  derived  their  their  full  repast  of  flowers  or  grasses  the  ox  may 
culture  and  civilization  mainly  from  Egypt,  graze  and  the  sheep  may  fatten  on  their  rever- 
Think    of  Danaus  in    Argos,  and    Cecrops   in    s'lons.—Furchas. 

12 


2-16 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOUENAL. 


The  Past  and  the  Future. 

Translated  for  the  American  Bee  Journal. 


At  the  opening  not  only  of  a  new  volume  but 
on  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Bienenzeitung,  the  editor  and  his 
respected  correspondents  may  well  look  back 
with  gratification  on  the  results  attained  by  their 
conjoint  labors.  During  the  y)eriod  just  elapsed 
bee-culture  has  been  advanced  both  in  theory 
and  in  practice,  more  than  in  centuries  pre- 
viously. Specially  important  for  theory  are  the 
truths  evolved  by  investigation  and  amid  mani- 
fold controversies.  When  the  Bienenzeitung  was 
started  many  important  points  were  still  involved 
in  obscurity  and  doubt.  The  origin  and  fertili- 
zation of  the  queen  ;  the  origin,  purpose  and  sex 
of  the  drones;  and  the  existence  of  fertile  work- 
ers, were  all  still  subjects  of  debate  and  con- 
troversy, and  opinions  or  notions  regarding  them 
were  entertained  and  advanced,  of  which  the 
veriest  tyro  in  bee-culture  would  now  feel 
ashamed,  since  the  truth  has  been  so  clearly  elu- 
cidated. The  change  became  possible  only  when 
by  the  publication  of  the  Bienenzeitung  a  me- 
dium was  provided  through  which  the  observa- 
tions of  numerous  careful  investigators  could  be 
made  common  property,  and  a  general  inter- 
change of  sentiments  effected  among  bee-keepers. 
If  the  Italian  bee  has  contributed  greatly  to  dis- 
pel the  darkness  in  which  many  points  were 
shrouded,  to  the  Bienenzeitung  still  pertains  the 
credit  of  having  first  directed  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  yellow-banded  bee  might  be  used 
for  many  interesting  and  instructive  purposes. 
Had  the  first  communication  of  Captain  Balden- 
stein  respecting  the  Italian  bee,  not  found  a 
place  in  the  Bienenzeitung,  that  bee  would  hardly 
yet  have  been  introdeed  into  Germany,  or  as 
extensively  dilTused  as  it  has  been. 

But  not  less  great  and  gratifying  is  the  pi-o- 
gress  that  has  been  made  in  the  sphere  of  prac- 
tice. Progress  in  theory  is  necessarily  followed 
hy  improvement  in  practice,  whatever  method  be 
employed.  And  here  again  the  Bienenzeitung, 
by  innumerable  hints,  suggestions,  explanations, 
descriptions  and  elucidations,  has  contributed 
essentially  to  the  disseminati(m  and  elevation  of 
rational  bee-culture,  not  only  in  Germany  but 
also  far  beyond  tlie  borders  of  that  country. 

In  view  then  of  what  has  been  accomplished, 
shall  the  Bienenzeitung — in  the  spirit  of  him  who 
when  asked,  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  to  be- 
come a  colaborer  in  the  good  Avork,  excused 
himself  by  pleading  indisposition,  and  saying 
that  it  was  not  likely  that  any  one  could  teach  him 
aught  new  in  bee-culture — exclaim  "It  is  finished," 
close  the  volume  and  repose  on  the  laurels  it  has 
gathered.  Ah  !  no  !  Man'-e  true  duty  is  to 
strive  perpetuallj^  for  the  attainment  of  greater 
perfection,  and  the  maxim — "He  who  doea  not 
advance  retrogrades  " — finds  its  application  in 
bee  culture  also.  There  is  many  a  veil  yet  to  be 
lifted,  even  in  the  theory,  and  many  a  problem 
still  to  be  solved  in  practice.  We  are  still  ig- 
norant, for  instance,  of  the  source  and  cure  of 
foul  brood— that  dread  disease,  the  greatest 
calamity  that  can  befall  us  in  .bee-culture.     Nay, 


even  the  problem  how  the  simplest  and  best 
hive  may  be  constructed,  is  not  j-et  satisfactorily 
solved,  and  for  the  purpose  and  in  the  hope  of 
advancing  this — one  of  the  most  important  in 
practical  operations — somewhat-  nearer  to  solu- 
tion, I  will  shortly  submit  some  remarks  on  the 
construction  of  a  hive  embracing  the  utmost 
possible  simplicity  combined  with  cheapness  and 
adaptation. 

Dzierzon. 
Carslmarkt,  December  18,  1869. 


31-  the  Americaa  Bee  Journal.] 


R.  M.  Argo's  Report,  &e. 


As  April  10th  was  the  day  agreed  upon  be- 
tween Novice  and  myself  to  write  our  reports  of  • 
last  year's  operations,  and  as  that  day  comes  on 
Sunday,  and  I,  being  a  Sabbath  keeper,  ftever 
write  on  that  day,  Avill  have  to  write  to-day,  the 
0th,  because  to  defer  it  until  Monday  may  be  too 
late  to  reach  Washington  by  the  15th,  consider- 
ing, the  distance  at  which  I  live,  and  I  will  not 
bother  you  with  communications  coming  too 
late. 

On  page  14,  July  No.,  vol.  5,  it  will  be  seen 
that  I  began  the  spring  Avith  thirteen  weak 
stands  ;  and  on  page  61,  September  No.  of  same 
volume,  I  had  fifty-two  stands  up  to  July  7th. 
The  last  sAvarm,  put  in  the  old  round  gum  on, 
that  day,  Avent  up  during  the  first  cold  snap  in 
November,  leaving  the  hive  half  full  of  nice 
worker  comb,  uninjured  by  the  moth,  but  no 
honey.  My  impression  is  that  they  deserted,  as 
no  bees  Avere  in  it  Avhen  discovered,  which  was 
Avhile  fixing  up  for  winter.  Tliis,  with  the 
exception  of  a  third  swarm,  late  in  June,  lost  in 
March,  is  all  the  loss  I  have  sustained  for  the 
past  three  winters.  Presently  I  shall  say  more 
of  those  I  lost. 

As  to  the  amount  of  cap  honey,  I  tried  to  x 
keep  an  account,  but  some  was  fed  to  weak 
swarms  in  the  fall,  and  some  given  aAvay,  for- 
getting to  "Weigh,  so  that  the  nearest  figure  I 
can  arrive  at  is  420  lbs.  Some,  not  included  in 
this  Aveight,  was  made  in  full  lengtli  frames  in 
the  top  of  other  hives,  and  given  to  late  frames. 
No  feeding  Avas  required  through  the  winter, 
neither  in  the  spring,  only  for  stimulating  breed- 
ing. All  the  stands,  with  the  exception  of  per- 
haps about  a  dozen,  have  too  much  honey.  Had 
I  a  melextractor  I  might  safely  take  away  from 
200  to  400  pounds,  with  great  benefit  to  the 
bees,  as  will  be  shoAvn  presently.  I  must  have 
a  melextractor,  I  am  only  waiting  to  get  the 
best,  Avhich  is  always  the  cheapest,  no  matter 
what  it  costs.  But  as  everybody  thinks  he  has 
the  best  in  use,  how  am  I  toUnd  out  where  to 
get  the  best  ?  If  Gallup  knows  the  truth  he  will 
tell  it.  He  keeps  notliingback  that  will  advance 
the  good  of  bee-keepers. 

I  commenced  feeding  rye  flour  February  10th, 
and  fed  two  bushels  to  April  2d.  No  natural 
pollen  was  gathered  until  this  Aveek,  as  nearly 
all  the  winter  we  had  Avas  from  February  18th 
to  April  5th.  All  stands  worked  freely  on  rye 
flour,  except  No.  27.  I  examined  that  one  on 
the  12th  of  March,  and  found  plenty  of  drone 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


'24^ 


eggs  but  no  queen.  Supposing  tliat  they  had  a 
fertile  worker,  I  gave  them  a  frame  of  brood  to 
raise  a  queen,  taking  away  the  drone  brood. 
On  the  22d  I  found  no  queen  cells  started,  but  a 
fine  large  queen,  a  drone-egg  layer.  I  removed 
her  and  gave  them  another  frame  of  brood, 
from  which'  they  raised  a  fine  queen  in  fifteen 
days.  I  had  found  a  drone  in  this  stand  on  the 
12th  of  March,  and  found  the  same  drone  laying 
dead  at  the  entrance  the  day  after  the  queen  was 
hatched.  I  fear  I  shall  not  have  drones  for  two 
or  three  weeks  yet  for  this  new  queen. 

March  25th  discovered  another  stand  (No. 
7)  that  would  not  work  on  rye  meal — a  third 
swarm  put  ia  June  22d.  The  hive  was  a  box  10 
X  10  X  12  inches,  with  a  flat  board  in  the  middle, 
five  inches  wide.  'This  stand  showed  every 
sign  of  a  prosperous  swarm  until  discovered ;  on 
turning  it  up  two  large  sheets  of  sealed  comb 
dropped  out.  The  day  being  warm  I  gathered 
them  up  in  haste,  to  prevent  robbing,  carried 
the  hive  to  a  room  and  took  out  all  its  contents 
— 29  pounds  of  honey,  a  teacupful  of  bees,  and 
no  queen.  There  was  not  more  than  a  foot 
square  of  empty  cells  altogether ;  sealed  honey 
down  to  within  five  inches  of  the  bottom  board, 
and  most  of  the  lower  part  filled  with  bee-bread. 
Had  they  been  in  a  frame  hive  I  could  have 
known  their  condition  and  might  have  saved 
them  ;  but  in  the  condition  they  were  in,  with  so 
much  honey  in  the  way,  even  Gallup  or  Grimm 
would  have  fared  no  better.  I  put  them  in  that 
for  want  of  a  better,  that  is  a  frame  hive: 

I  have  now  forty-two  stands  to  begin  with.  I 
gave  away  three  last  summer  and  sold  five, 
.which  makes  the  number  fifty.  I  had  almost 
forgot  to  say  that  I  have  wintered  successfully  a 
small  nucleus  in  a  nucleus  box, five  inches  square, 
as  tbllows  :  One  of  the  boxes  was  twelve  inches 
long — I  united  the  bees  of  two  others,  and  set 
the  two  boxes  directly  on  the  frames  of  the  long 
one,  and  enclosed  the  whole  in  a  large  box  with 
a  five-eighth  inch  augur  hole  for  entrance,  stuff- 
ing dry  straw  around  between.  In  this  wi\y 
they  have  wintered  first-rate,  and  are  breeding 
fast  now. 

We  have  no  bloom  as  yet,  except  the  elm 
trees,  and  a  new  sodt  of  plant  that  has  come  up 
very  thick  in  a  vineyard  not  over  200  yards  from 
my  bees.  They  are  at  work  on  it  very  thick,  es- 
pecially in  the  early  part  of  the  day,  when  warm 
enough.  As  no  one  here  knows  anything  about 
the  plant,  I  will  enclose  you  a  specimen.  It 
grows  about  six  inches  high  and  very  much  re- 
sembles catnip.  The  red  bloom  is  very  thick.  I 
do  not  know  how  long  it  has  been  in  bloom,  as 
my  attention  was  only  called  to  it  yesterday  by 
the  bees  being  so  thick  over  the  vineyard. 

I  suppose  my  report  is  full  enougli  for  the 
columns  of  the  Jouknat..  Now,  while  I  am 
writing,  Novice  may  be  looking  at  his  bees, 
thinking  which  staiid  to  put  his  new  queen 
from  Argo  into.  I  wish  him  great  success,  but 
especially  to  American  Bek  Journal,  which 
makes  no  promises  that  it  does  not  fulfil. 

Lowell,  Ky.,  April  9,  1870.         R.  M.  Argo. 


[For  tbe  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Novice's  Report,  &e. 


In  186G,    England   imported   13,521    cwts.   of 
honey,  and  exported  1,920  cwts. 


Dear  Bee  Journal  : — In  accordance  with  Mr. 
Argo,  we  proceed  to  report  the  state  of  our  apiary, 
compared  with  what  it  was  last  year  at  this  time. 

As  we  have  before  stated,  we  were  reduced  to 
only  eleven  stocks  by  that  "  bee  disease,"  before 
we  could  get  them  at  work  and  healthy  again;  and 
of  the  eleven,  not  one  was  a  full  colony.  In  fact 
all  of  them  Avould  not  have  made  four  good  col- 
onies, and  one  of  the  eleven  queens  was  killed  by 
an  experiment  in  introducing  about  the  forepart 
of  May  ;  but  as  that  was  clearly  bad  manage- 
ment, we  suppose  our  starting  point  will  be  called 
eleven  stocks. 

We  have  now  forty-six,  all  with  fertile  queens 
and  brood,  in  a  prosperous  condition,  (as  we 
overhauled  them  in  order  to  be  certain,)  with  the 
exception  of  one  queen,  which  we  found  had  pro- 
duced nothing  but  drone  brood  in  worker  cells 
with  raised  caps.  We  removed  her  about  March 
20th,  and  gave  the  colony  worker  brood. 
They  immediately  started  queen  cells,  and  now 
have  a  young  queen,  which  was  out  to-day, 
(April  10th,)  with  the  small  drones,  but  we  think 
was  not  fertilized,  as  it  was  her  first  flight.  As 
the  colonj'  is  quite  populous,  we  think  we  shall 
have  no  trouble  in  keeping  them  up  to  the 
standard.  * 

We  will  confess  to  yon,  Mr.  Editor,  how  very 
near  we  came  to  having  only  forty-five  stocks. 
After  removing  our  bees  from  the  house,  March 
10th,  we  had  some  of  the  coldest  weather  of  the 
whole  winter,  viz.,  two  degrees  below  zero.  We 
confess  it  was  with  a  little  feeling  of  nervousness 
that  we  went  round  and  gently  tapped  on  each 
hive.  Those  that  we  feared  most  were  tried  first, 
of  course  ;  but  when  they  all  answered  promptly 
^'■all  right,^^  we  began  to  breathe  freely,  and  only 
thought  we  would'go  to  the  whole,  to  be  positive 
and  no  mistake.  But  we  went  down  to  zero  our- 
selves, and  no  mistake,  on  finding  that  one  of  our 
heavy  hives,  when  rapped  repeatedly,  gave 
"  nary  "  response.     "  'Twas  indeed  too  true." 

With  a  nerve  of  iron  and  a  face  pale  as  ashes, 
we  boldly  grasped  the  hive  in  our  arms,  and 
rushed  madly  for  the  kitchen  stove.  (Copyright 
secured  for  above.) 

With  breathless  sorrow  we  hung  over  that  little 
domicile,  where  only  the  night  before  w,as*the 
happy  hum  of  peace  and  plenty.  All  now  was 
still.  No  little  yellow  bodies  moved  so  softly 
and  quietly  about,  (they  were  full  blood 
Italians  ;)  but  all  was  cold  and  frosty  in  death. 

One  side  of  the  hive  had  plenty  of  sealed  honey;  • 
but  they  had  eaten  along  to  the  other  side,  and 
relentless  zero  found  them  consuming  the  last  on 
that  side.  We  warmed  them  and  re-warmed 
them,  but  not  a  movement,  until  after  an  hour  or 
two,  a  very  few  stirred  a  little,  but  that  was  all. 
We  began  to  think  we  must  give  up  as  we  had 
tried  the  same  thiug  last  year,  when  they  all  soon 
played  out  again.  Our  presence,  too,  was'begin- 
ning  to  inteVfere  with  the  preparations  for  the 
noontide  meal  ;  but  we  could  hardly  give  up 
yet.  We  lifted  our  hive  again,  but  this  time  with 
less  determination  than  before,  and  slowly 
wended  beehouseward.     We  built  a  fire  in  our 


248 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


little  stove,  got  two  chairs,  hung  our  coat  on  a 
peg  after  we  got  up  a  summery  temperature,  and 
forbade  interruption. 

TVe  opened  the  hive,  brushed  the  bees  into  a 
large  pan — all  we  could  get  out  of  the  cells,  and 
wanned  and  warmed  them.  No  use,  only  a  feeble 
movement  occasionally.  At  length  the  sun  came 
out,  and  full  and  warm  his  rays  came  through  the 
frozen  air  into  the  single  beejiouse  window.  We 
put  the  pan  on  the  window  sill,  to  aid  us  in  look- 
ing for  the  queen  we  had  not  yet  found.  Was  it 
our  imagination,  or  was  the  sun  really  reviving 
them  V  They  were  certainly  now  coming  to,  and 
we  certainly  were  smiling.  After  sprinkling 
them  with  honey  and  water,  they  got  brisk  apace, 
and  on  standing  a  comb  up  in  the  pan,  they 
crawled  on  it  as  fast  as  they  revived  ;  and  those 
in  the  cells  towards  the  sun  began  to  "  wriggle  " 
out.  Before  night  we  had  the  whole  colony  back 
in  statu  quo  in  their  hive  ;  and  their  pretty  little 
yellow  queen  is  now  enlarging  the  circle  of 
worker  brood  with  all  the  matronly  pride  imagin- 
able. So  you  see  we  "  licked  "  in  the  race  of  life 
and  death,  and  have  our  whole  forty-si.\'  all 
right  ! 

Mr.  Editor,  we  have  almost  a  mind  to  feel  saucy 
on  the  subject  of  wintering  bees  ;  but  we  don't 
think  we  should  again  remove  them  so  early  as  on 
the  10th  of  March. 

The  "  Apiculturi  t "  (the  new  Journal  on 
Bees  we  mentioned)  has  made  its  appearance. 
We  have  no  time  to  notice  it  now,  more  than  to 
mention  that  in  one  of  its  leading  articles,  we  find 
the  strange  assertion  that  the  Baron  of  Berlepsch 
proved  by  direct  experiment  tliai  drones  raised 
from  fertile  workers  and  unfertilized  queens  were 
incapable  of  fertilizing  queens. 

Would  it  not  be  better  for  them  to  wait  a  few 
years  and  get  "somewhat  better  posted,"  before 
starting  an  " Apiculturist,"  and  having  such  a 
blunder  as  the  above  in  their  first  number  ?  Many 
of  our  own  correspondents  would  write  quite  dif- 
ferently, if  they  would  carefully  read  the  Baron's 
experinnMits  in  the  first  volume  of  the  American 
Bee  Journal.  Let  those  who  run  their  heads  so 
strongly  in  the  dark  against  Dzierzon's  theory, 
inform  themselves  a  little  more,  or  give  us  the 
result  of  some  direct  experiments. 

Our  experience  has  satisfied  us  many  times  over 
that  fertilization  of  the  queen  does  not  affect  her 
drone  progeny,  as  wiser  heads  than  ours  had  told 
us  Ijefore  ;  yet  every  little  while  some  one  (dare 
we  say  new  beginner)  starts  a  long-winded  theory, 
to  show  that  it  can't  be  so.  Make  some  direct 
experiments  of  your  own,  and  it  may  save  ex- 
posing your  ignorance  to  the  rest  of  the  world. 

Adam  Grimm  mentions  one  experiment  that 
seemed  to  throw  doubt  on  a  drone-laying  queen's 
progeny  being  capable  of  fertilizing  queens.  Yet 
we  have  so  many  experiments  that  have  seem- 
ingly proved  the  contrary,  that  we  must  think 
his,  in  some  way,  an  exception.  The  case  of 
our  own  just  mentioned,  we  think,  will  be  a 
pretty  fair  test,  as  there  are  no  other  drones  nor 
drone  brood  in  any  of  our  hives,  and  certainly 
nowhere  else  at  this  time  of  the  year. 

One  correspondent  reasons  from  analogy,  and 
cites  common  fowls.  Does  he  forget  there  can 
be  no  comparison,  as  bees  are  entirely  different 


in  their  mode  of  reproduction,  and  we  might  add 
different  from  all  the  rest  of  animated  nature. 
Poultry  was  once  our  hobby,  and  we  think  a  care- 
ful perusal  of  that  part  of  our  poultry  books  that 
treats  of  keeping  the  several  breeds  pure,  will 
make  clear  to  him  a  point  that  he  does  not  seem 
to  understand  exactly. 

The  first  and  second  volumes  of  the  American 
Bee  Journal,  we  think,  will  satisfy  any  one,  or 
at  least  show  them  how  they  maj''  satisfy  them- 
selves by  experiment,  that  fertilization  does  not 
affect  drone  progeny. 

We  have  seen  part  of  an  article  on  wintering 
bees,  taken  from  the  American  Bee  Journal, 
and  copied  in  tico  bee  publicationsand  </<ree agricul- 
tural papers,  none  of  them  acknowledging  where 
they  got  it,  nor  sccminglj'^  having  sense  enough 
to  know  or  mention  that  the  article  was  written 
for  the  climate  of  German}'-,  and  that  taking  a 
part  of  the  piece  only  might  grossly  mislead  the 
uninformed.  It  is  to  the  effect  that  wintering  in 
special  repositories  is  superfluous  and  an  injury, 
and  that  seren  pounds  of  granulated  sugar  are 
amply  sufficient.,  with  no  stores,  for  out-door  win- 
tering. Could  they  have  copied  anything  of  less 
importance  or  calculated  to  make  more  mischief 
if  they  had  tried? 

Our  bees  are  now  carrying  in  flour  gloriously, 
they  have  used  up  all  our  rye  and  oat  meal. 

And  what  do  3'ou  think  ?  We  have  just  had  a 
new  circular  saw  mill  started  here,  and  the  Ital- 
ians seem  to  take  full  as  deep  an  interest  in  it  as 
anyone  else.  As  soon  as  a  pile  of  sawdust  was 
made  they  evidently  seemed  to  think  it  a  huge 
pile  of  meal  gotten  up  expressly  for  them  ;  and 
the  little  fools  have  not  yet  (after  four  days)  dis- 
covered the  difference,  but  are  as  busy  as  possible,* 
bringing  home  huge  pellets  by  thousands.  Is  it 
possible  that  thej^  can  really  make  anj'  use  of  it, 
as  they  do  of  meal  ?  We  are  going  to  try  and 
find  out  ourselves,  as  it  is  a  "  heap  "  cheaper  (or 
a  heaj')  would  be  cheaper)  than  wheat  flour,  or 
even  rye  or  oat  meal  ;  and  they  seem  to  work  on 
it  almost  as  well. 

Oh,  Mr.  Editor,  you  was  to  decide  who  merited 
that  queen,  for  greatest  proficiency  in  "bee  hus- 
bandry." Supposing  we  have  both  merited  one, 
it  don't  seem  hardly  right  to  take  one  away 
from  the  party  that  has  made  the  least  progress. 
However,  we  are  content  to  abide  your  decision; 
should  you  even  think  proper  to  give  us  one  each 
from  your  own  apiary,  we  would  not  complain. 
Certainly  not.  Novice. 

P.  S. — Perhaps  it  might  be  well  to  state  just 
how  we  came  by  that  drone-laying  queen.  In 
August  last,  to  give  our  Italians  room,  we  put  six 
frames  of  brood  and  hone}'  in  an  empty  hive  ; 
intending  to  have  them  raise  a  queen.  But  just 
then  a  small  afterswarm  of  black  bees,  probably 
starved  out,  came  along,  trying  to  get  in  some 
hive  in  our  apiary,  as  they  often  do  (and  this  at 
times  when  Italians  are  building  combs  and  stor- 
ing honey):  and  we  caught  their  queen,  and  put 
her  bees  and  all  into  an  artificial  stock,  which 
Soon  made  a  fine  colon 3\  In  September,  as  drones 
were  still  flying  and  Italians  at  work,  we  raised 
three  fine  queens,  or  rather  two  fine  queens  and 
one  cell  that  had  not  hatched.  As  it  was  Satur- 
day night  and  we  were  in  a  hurry,  we  hastily  re- 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


249 


moved  our  black  queen,  put  her  in  a  cage  over 
another  hive,  to  save  her  in  case  we  needed  to 
return  her,  and  simply  laid  the  queen  cell  on  top 
of  the  frames  (the  hees  soon  cover  it,  and  it  is 
just  as  well  in  warm  weather,  and  can  be  exam- 
ined at  any  time  without  opening-  the  hive).  The 
next  day  we  were  on  the  watch,  and  saw  a  tine 
queen  hatch  out  and  go  down  into  the  hive  well 
received. 

Of  course  we  should  have  looked  after  this 
hive  further ;  but  as  the  two  otlier  queens  of 
same  age  became  fertile,  we  neglected  to  exam- 
ine the  hive  again  until  the  spring,  when  we 
found  a  black  queen  and  drones  in  worker  cells. 
Of  course  our  Italian  queen  was  lost  or  killed, 
and  they  raised  one  of  their  own  too  late  to  be 
fertilized.  The  drones  are  quite  small,  scarcely 
larger  than  a  worker.  Another  fact  for  the  bee- 
house — the  colony  is  now  quite  populous,  al- 
though it  has  had  no  fertile  queen  since  last  Sep- 
tember. Had  it  been  left  out  of  doors,  how  would 
its  condition  have  been  ? 


[For  tUe  American  Bee  Journal.] 

True  Theory  of  Bee-Cultiire. 

Mr.  Editor: — The  published  report  of  the 
profits  of  N.  C.  MitchelPs  apiary,  in  dollars  and 
cents,  for  the  year  1869,  which  appeared  in  the 
first  number  of  the  Illustrated  Bee  Journal,  has 
created  quite  a  sensation  in  Beedom  in  these  parts. 
The  illiterate  generally  discredit  it ;  the  mediocre 
is  taken  aghast  ;  while  the  w  ould-be  knowing 
ones  are  completely  knocked  off  their  pins.  But, 
Mr.  Editor,  I  believe  every  word  of  it,  although 
at  first,  I  must  confess,  I  was  considerably 
exercised,  as  it  was  such  a  big  step  in  advance 
of  anything  of  the  kind  ever  before  given  to  the 
public,  and  so  completely  upset  and  cast  into  the 
shade  the  most  extravagant  reports  of  even  those 
W'hom,  from  their  long  experience  in  the  busi- 
ness, and  their  oft  repeated  practice  of  coming 
before  the  public  as  models  and  instructors  in  the 
art,  one  would  have  supposed  had  reached  the 
acme  of  perfection.  But  this  is  an  age  of  pro- 
gress and  reason,  or,  as  a  quaint  writer  perti- 
nently observes,  "  an  age  of  steam-cars  and  tele- 
graphs." Rapid  strides  are  being  made  towards 
the  perfection  of  science  and  diffusion  of  knowl- 
edge. The  importance  of  practical  light  in  the 
great  work  of  ameliorating  and  improving  the 
condition  of  man,  is  beginning  to  be  seen  and 
appreciated.  The  cause  of  truth  has  suffered 
much,  in  many  departments  of  science,  from  a 
system  of  practice,  the  principles  of  which,  de- 
pend more  for  their  validity  on  the  fruitful  im- 
agination of  an  infatuated  brain,  than  upon  that 
order  and  relation  established  by  the  Creator 
himself. 

In  no  department  of  rural  economy  has  this 
fact  been  better  exemplified  than  in  the  science  of 
bee-culture.  While  scientific  men  in  all  ages  and 
countries  have  puzzled  their  brains  to  discover 
the  modes  of  action  that  govern  the  growth  and 
economy  of  vegetation,  in  order  to  improve  the 
art  and  science  of  husbandry,  apiarian  science, 
the  most  interesting  and  profitable  of  all  rural 
pursuits,  has  been  involved  in  comparative  ob- 


scurity. Though  a  few  important  advantages 
have  been  secured,  by  a  better  adaptation  and  ar- 
rangement of  the  domicile  or  habitation  of  the 
bee,  to  the  natural  habits,  wants,  and  instincts  of 
that  insect,  the  true  theory  of  bee-culture,  in  ac- 
cord with  the  natural  system  presented  to  our 
view  in  the  order  and  relati(ni  of  principles  es- 
tablished by  God  himself,  and  producing  their 
results  according  to  that  order,  has  never  before 
been  correctly  understood.  The  term  science, 
technically  considered,  means  a  system  of  first 
principles  or  elements  which,  as  a  whole,  com- 
pose the  foundation  of  that  system,  whether  in 
the  animal,  vegetable,  mineral,  intellectual,  or 
moral  kingdom.  But  science,  taken  in  the  true 
signification  and  meaning  of  the  term,  denotes  a 
knowledge  of  these  principles  with  regard  to 
their  active  and  operative  powers,  and  their  rela- 
tions to  each  other,  in  maintaining  the  economy 
and  harmony  of  that  system,  together  with  a 
knowledge  of  the  effects  which  would  result 
from  their  regular  and  uniform  operation. 

He  who  would  succeed  in  directing  and  shap- 
ing the  action  of  a  colony  of  bees  so  as  to  secure 
the  greatest  amount  of  profit,  and  proceed  with 
a  certainty  of  success,  must  study  and  apply  that 
system  of  principles  which  constitutes  the  foun- 
dation on  which  bee-culture  rests.  In  the  appli- 
cation of  these  principles  he  should  possess  suffi- 
cient tact  and  judgment  to  enable  him  to  vary 
their  application  so  as  to  reach  the  exigencies  of 
each  particular  case.  Has  this  degree  of  profi- 
ciency been  attained  by  any  of  our  fellow  bee- 
keepers, at  this  stage  of  progress  in  our  onw^ard 
march  towards  perfection?  We  believe  it  has, 
and  with  it  the  dawning  of  a  day  rendered  bright 
Avith  the  light  of  shining  countenances,  and  full 
of  promise  and  comfort  to  millions  of  toiling  men 
who  will  teach  their  children  to  bless  and  honor 
the  names  of  those  instrumental  in  hastening  the 
good  time  coming.  We  believe  that,  by  the  un- 
remitting toil  and  study  of  years,  a  theory  has  at 
last  been  discovered  and  applied,  that  will  satis- 
factorily account  for  the  large  returns  claimed. 
The  practice  of  bee  culture,  in  accordance  with 
the  principles  involved  in  this  theory,  if  perse- 
vered in,  cannot  but  be  productive  of  results  in 
the  highest  degree  satisfactory.  It  is  a  fact  well 
known  to  bee-keepers,  that  at  times,  and  under 
certain  conditions,  colonies  of  bees,  in  the  accu- 
mulation of  stores  and  the  general  economy  of 
the  hive,  will  so  far  exceed  the  general  average  of 
colonies  equally  strong,  as  to  fill  the  apiarian  with 
astonishment,  and  almost  persuade  him  that  they 
are  a  superior  kind  of  bee.  In  my  own  practice 
I  have  oftentimes  had  colonies  to  work,  with  un- 
tiring diligence,  weeks  after  the  labors  of  others 
had  ceased.  So,  too,  every  bee-keeper  is  cogni- 
zant of  the  superior  thrift  and  industry  in  which 
a  newly  made  swarm,  whether  natural  or  artifi- 
cial will  excel  others  by  its  side,  having  perhaps 
twice  its  amount  of  bees.  I  once  had  a  swarm 
to  issue  on  the  last  day  of  June,  from  a  common 
box  hive,  after  having  doggedly  refused  to  do  so 
for  nearly  a  month,  the  bees  all  this  time  loung- 
ing inside  and  out  on  the  sides  of  the  "gum," 
without  any  apparent  increase  in  the  contents  of 
the  hive,  except  in  brood  and  bees.  This  swarm, 
with  above  the  average  in  number  of  bees,  was 


250 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOUENAL. 


put  into  a  hive  of  the  capacity  of  about  2200 
cubic  inches,  inside  measure,  having  ghxss  in  the 
rear,  its  full  length,  with  a  blind  to  intercept  the 
light  and  darken  the  chamber.  In  two  weeks 
from  the  time  this  swarm  Avas  hived,  such  was 
the  extraordinary  rapidity  with  Avhich  it  worked, 
its  liive  was  filled  to  overflowing  with  combs  and 
honey,  and  two  boxes,  of  the  capacity  of  about 
thirty  pounds,  placed  on  the  top,  were  filled  like- 
wise. The  boxes  when  filled  were  taken  off,  and 
an  estimate  of  the  honey  stored  in  both  hive  and 
boxes,  which  could  be  done  with  some  degree  of 
certainty  as  their  weight  when  empty  had  been 
ascertained  and  marked  on  their  sides.  After 
making  the  necessary  deductions  for  bees,  brood, 
&c.,  I  estimated  the  amount  of  hpney  gathered  at 
eighty  (80)  pounds;  apportioning  fifty  pounds  to 
the  brood  chamber,  which  I  deemed  moderate,  as 
the  honey  was  capped  in  the  combs  within  two 
inches  of  their  lower  edge.  Here  is  the  clever 
amount  of  eighty  pounds  of  honey  secured  by  a 
colony  of  bees  in  two  weeks,  while  under  the 
honey  gathering  impulse  excited  by  swarming, — 
which  impulse,  or  propensity  for  gathering  honey 
can  be  generated  in  a  colony  of  bees  at  any  time 
that  there  is  bloom,  and  maintained  throughout 
the  season. 

This  extraordinary  industry  in  newly  made 
swarms  ("but  by  no  means  peculiar  to  them)  has 
often  been  remarked  by  bee-keepers^  and  given 
rise  to  much  speculation  as  to  the  true  cause  of 
its  development.  Among  many  causes  assigned 
in  explanation  of  this  seeming  mystery,  perhaps 
the  most  plausible  is  the  theory  which  supposes 
the  queen's  age  and  fertility  to  govern  the  indus- 
try of  the  hive.  But,  admitting  the  full  force  of 
this  assumption,  with  full  conviction  of  the  ad- 
vantages secured  to  the  apiarian  by  the  continued 
presence  of  a  young  and  prolific  queen  in  each 
and  every  colony,  there  are  times  and  instances, 
in  which  even  this  fails  to  furnish  the  explana- 
tion required  ;  as,  for  instance,  the  case  already 
cited,  in  which  prior  to  the  issuing  of  the  swarm, 
a  few  bees  only  left  for  forage,  while  the  much 
larger  portion  lounged  on  the  sides  of  the  hiTe 
for  days,  feeding  on  the  stores  already  garnered. 
If  the  queen's  extra  fertility  be  urged  as  a  proper 
solution  of  the  extraordinary  rapidity  with  which 
this  swarm  filled  all  its  tenements  to  overflowing, 
we  must  imagine  her  to  have  suddenly  acquired 
some  new  capacity  for  laying,  else  the  difference 
in  the  bees,  in  point  of  industry,  before  and  after 
the  swarming,  cannot  be  satisfactorily  accounted 
for. 

The  point  to  be  gained  by  the  bee-keeper  of  the 
present  time  is  to  ascertain,  if  possible,  the  true 
cause  of  the  honey  gathering  impulse  in  bees  ;  the 
conditions  necessary  to  its  continuance  through- 
out the  season ;  and  the  most  efficient  means  of 
generating  and  stimulating  it  to  its  fullest  capa- 
city, in  order  to  secure  the  largest  returns.  If 
the  product  of  a  swarm  of  bees  incited  to  labor 
by  causes  in  accord  with  their  natural  habits  and 
instincts,  will  reach  the  attractive  exhibit  of 
eighty  pounds  in  two  weeksj  to  what  amount 
will  this  increase  if  the  honey  gathering  propen- 
sity is,  by  judicious  treatment,  fostered  to  its 
fullest  capacity,  and  retained  in  this  condition 
throughout  a  long  and  inviting  honey  yield  ?    If, 


through  the  inventive  genius  of  man,  we  are  ena- 
bled by  means  successfully  introduced,  to  rouse 
the  slumbering  activity  of.  our  bees,  and  there- 
by secure  a  continuous  product  of  eighty  pounds, 
or  more,  every  two  weeks,  it  will  not  require  a 
\erj  great  amount  of  figuring  to  show  how  he 
can  increase  the  average  yield  of  eveiy  good  col- 
ony to  500  pounds  of  honey. 

In  conclusion,  I  would  suggest  for  the  benefit 
of  those  bee-keepers  who  have  hitherto  fancied 
themselves  the  big  lights  in  the  business,  and 
those  whom  Mr.  Quinby  refers  to  in  one  of  his 
communications  to  the  Bee  Journal,  "as  quite 
likely  to  imagine  they  had  reached  perfection, 
and  with  them  would  be  the  end  of  all  pro- 
gress," to  withdraw  from  the  field  as  instructors 
for  a  while,  and  quietly  consent  to  be  beat ;  for 
gentlemen,  you  aie  beat — myself  included — and 
badly  beaten  too  !  Even  the  far-famed  Mr.  Gal- 
lup, who,  in  my  opinion,  has  reached  a  point  in 
successful  bee  culture  far  in  advance  of  many  of 
his  contemporaries,  is  also  beaten  ;  for  all  who 
had  the  good  fortune  to  read  Mr.  Gallup's  arti- 
cles in  the  Bee  Journal,  will  recollect  that  he 
never  claimed  the  ability  to  increase  a  good  colony 
to  over  twelve  or  thirteen  in  one  season  !  There- 
fore, gentlemen,  let  us  quietly  submit  to  be  beaten, 
and  not  like  some  others  get  mad  about  it,  and 
make  ourselves  extremely  ridiculous  by  record- 
ing ourselves  as  antagonistic  to  "the  progressive 
spirit  of  the  age  !" 

John  L.  McLean. 

BicJimond,  Jeff.  Co.,  Ohio. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Bee -cellars  should  be  Ventilated. 


I  see,  on  looking  over  the  Journal,  that  a 
large  proportion  of  bee-keepers  are  undecided 
about  the  cellar  as  a  repository  for  wintering 
bees.  One  has  tried  the  cellar,  and  found  it  a 
good  place  ;  another  has  tried  it,  and  found  it  a 
bad  place,  etc. 

In  the  first  place,  a  cellar,  if  slightly  damp, 
should  have  abundant  ventilation  ;  for  I  take  it 
for  granted  that  bees  mu^t  have  fresh  air  in  order 
to  be  healthy,  as  well  as  human  beings  or  every 
animal  tliat  breathes.  In  fact,  every  repository 
where  a  number  of  stocks  are  to  be  kept,  whether 
under  ground  or  above,  should  have  ample  pro- 
vision for  ventilation.  And,  in  cold  weather, 
fresh  air  should  be  rarified  or  warmed  somewhat, 
by  passing  through  an  outer  chamber  ;  or,  where 
nothing  better  is  practicable,  by  having  it  pass 
in  through  a  trench  or  pipe  under  ground.  In 
warm  or  mild  weather,  doors  or  windows  can 
be  opened  at  night  and  closed  in  the  morning. 
Also,  ventilate  each  swarm  according  to  the 
number  of  bees  it  contains,  and  give  upward 
ventilation.  Different  forms  of  hives  require  or 
will  admit  of  different  modes  of  ventilation.  Do 
not  be  alarmed  about  the  water-dearth,  for  if 
your  room  or  cellar  is  ventilated  right,  they 
ought  not  to  commence  breeding  until  about  the 
time  to  set  them  out  in  the  spring.  If  the  cellar 
or  repository  is  too  warm,  they  will  commence 
breeding  earlier,  and  will  then  want  water  ;  but 
I  consider  it  poor  policy  to  start  them  to  breed- 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


251 


ing  until  just  before  setting  them  out.  I  know 
by  actual  experience  that  a  pint  of  bees  can  be 
wintered  in  my  hive,  in  my  cellar  ;  and  an  extra 
large  swarm  can  be  wintered  in  the  same  kind 
of  hive,  in  the  same  cellar  ;  and  both  winter 
equally  Avell.  Now,  if  a  pint  of  bees  can  be 
wintered  iif  my  hive,  with  the  proper  ventilation, 
the  reader  will  readily  see  that  any  number  of 
reserve  queens  can  also  be  Aviiitered  witli  safety. 
I  have  wintered  reserve  queens,  and  then,  if  I 
did  not  want  them  in  the  spring  for  queenless 
colonies,  built  them  up  into  full  and  profitable 
stocks  the  ensuing  summer. 

Novice's  plan  of  ventilating  his  new  bee-bouse 
is  a  good  one;  that  is,  having  the  air  come  into 
the  vacant  space  under  the  floor,  before  admitting 
it  into  the  room  where  the  bees  are.  He  may 
not  have  provided  sufficient  ventilation  in  a  mild 
winter,  but  that  he  can  remedy  by  opening  doors 
at  night.  He  will  be  apt  to  find  that  a  large 
number  of  swarms  stored  in  it  will  require  abun- 
dance of  ventilation,  especially  in  mild  weather. 
With  thirty-eight  swarms  in  my  cellar,  I  only 
closed  the  ventilator  two  nights,  up  to  January 
18th.  In  one  of  those  nights  the  thermometer 
was  down  to  15°,  arid  in  the  other  to  10",  below 
zero  ;  and  by  twelve  o'clock  the  following  day 
the  cellar  would  get  quite  warm,  so  that  some  of 
the  swarms  would  manifest  uneasiness ;  but  on 
opening  the  ventilator,  they  would  soon  be  all 
right,  though  the  "thermometer  was  still  at  zero. 
Potatoes  are  keeping  well  in  a  bin  under  the  bees, 
but  turnips  and  onions  in  the  centre  of  the  cellar 
are  sprouting  considerably. 

My  first  attempts  at  wintering  bees  in  a  cellar 
were  entire  failures.  I  lost  ten  good  swarms,  all 
for  the  want  of  requisite  knowledge. 

E.  Gallup. 

Osage,  Iowa. 

[For  the  American  Bee  .Tournal] 

Can  we  Compel  or  Persuade  Bees  to  build 
Straight  Worker  Comb  throughout  the 
Hive? 


Mr.  Editor  : — When  Mr.  Langstroth  in- 
vented tlie  movable  comb  frames,  he  laid  the 
foundation  for  improved  bee-keeping.  But  the 
frames,  of  course,  were  useless  unless  straight 
combs  could  be  secured  in  them.  I  believe  he 
first  used  the  flat  bar,  but  soon  invented  the  tri- 
angular guide  which  has  caused  so  much  conten- 
tion. 

This  guide  is  not  reliable.  Still,  the  tendency 
is  to  secure  a  straight  beginning  in  the  top  of  the 
frame.  But,  when  started  right,  they  are  liable 
to  be  warped  and  twisted,  so  as  to  make  crooked 
work  as  they  are  carried  down.  To  compel  the 
bees  to  carry  them  down  straight,  and  all  of  the 
same  thickness,  the  Calvin  comb  guides  were  in- 
yented. 

I  used  these  guides  three  seasons,  and  will 
give  my  experience  with  them.  The  first  season 
I  used  them  in  one  hive,  and  had  the  most  per- 
fect work  I  ever  saw.  The  combs  were  almost 
as  straight  and  even  as  a  joiner  could  plane  a 
board.  The  second  season  they  were  put  into 
three  or  four  hives.     The  result  was  a  failure. 


I  supposed  it  to  be  owing  to  the  season  being 
poor,  as  the  bees  were  frequently  interrupted  by 
bad  weather. 

The  third  season  I  put  them  into  four  or 
five  hives,  and  although  the  season  was  a  good 
one,  and  the  hives  were  filled  with  comb  and 
honey  enough  to  winter  well,  the  swarms  were 
ruined.  Full  half  the  combs  were  built  cross- 
wise, and  of  course  in  small  pieces  ;  and  such 
as  were  built  lengthwise  were  so  crooked,  and 
attached  to  the  guides  to  such  extent  that  these 
could  not  betaken  out  without  cutting  the  combs 
and  ruining  the  swarms.  I  was  busy  at  the  time 
the  guides  should  have  been  taken  out,  or  the 
trouble  might  liave  been  prevented  in  part.  The 
guides  are  now  laid  away  among  the  things  that 
were. 

The  next  course  adopted  by  me  to  get  straight 
combs,  and  the  most  reliable  of  anything  I  have 
tried  as  yet,  is  to  use  worker-comb  fastened  to 
the  under  side  of  the  flat  top  bar  with  beeswax 
and  rosin.  If  it  is  the  right  kind  of  comb,  and 
properly  put  in,  it  is  perfectly  reliable  in  starting 
straight  worker-comb.  But  how  long  the  bees 
will  continue  to  build  it  down  straight  and  not 
change  to  drone  comb,  is  uncertain.  They  need 
some  looking  after  to  keep  it  straight.  This  we 
can  do,  but  can  we  prevent  them  from  building 
drone  comb  ? 

New  comb  is  not  as  good  as  old,  as  it  is  more 
brittle,  and  liable  to  be  injured  in  putting  in. 
But  comb  with  bee  bread  in  it  should  be  dis- 
carded. The  bees  will  gnaw  it  out,  and  in  doing 
so  will  frequently  spoil  the  comb.  In  using  old 
black  comb,  I  prefei",  after  it  is  put  in,  to  shave 
it  down  to  an  angle,  commencing  at  the  centei 
and  slanting  to  the  edge  of  the  bar.  This  takes 
off  the  old  thick  end  of  the  cells,  and  leaves  the 
comb  all  newly  cut.  So  far  as  my  experience 
goes,  the  bees  are  better  satisfied  with  it,  and  are 
less  liable  to  injure  it  by  gnawing  it  down.  Be- 
sides, in  clustering  to  commence  building,  they 
are  not  so  liable  to  pull  it  ofl^  if  not  well  fastened 
on. 

I  understand  there  is  a  machine  invented  to 
stamp  guides  for  worker-comb.  Thin  strips  of 
wood  with  one  edge  dipped  in  melted  beeswax, 
and  the  base  or  bottom  of  worker-cells  stamped 
on  it.  It  is  claimed  that  this  secures  worker- 
comb  throughout  the  hive.  I  have  no  doubt  the 
bees  may  follow  the  guides  awhile,  but  I  think 
they  will  change  to  drone  comb  whenever*they 
are  so  inclined. 

Mr.  Langstroth  at  first  placed  his  frames  one 
and  a  half  inches  apart,  from  centre  to  centre  ; 
but  afterwards  put  them  nearer.  I  suppose  the 
object  in  placing  them  nearer  was  to  induce  the 
bees  to  build  worker-comb.  It  does  not  seem  to 
have  the  desired  eff'ect. 

Calvin  Rogers. 

Newiaryport,  Mass.,  May  9,  1870. 


Though  naturalists,  for  convenience  of  ar- 
rangement do  not  give  pre-eminence  among  in- 
sects to  the  order  Hymenoplera,  yet  are  thej^  the 
most  volatile  flyers,  the  most  agile  runners,  the 
most  skilful  burrowers,  and  the  most  consum- 
mate architects. — Shuckard. 


25: 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


[For  the  Americau  Bee  Jourual. 

Artificial  Swarming. 


The  season  of  swarming  will  soon  be  here,  and 
it  is  exceedingly  important  to  know  how  to  mul- 
tiply stocks  with  the  probabilities  of  the  greatest 
success. 

Mr.  Wurster,  of  Kleinsburg,  Canada,  proposes 
to  mulliply  colonies  by  filling  an  empty  hive 
with  combs  and  setting  it  on  the  stand  of  a  strong 
stock,  while  the  bees  are  out  gathering  honey,  so 
that  when  they  return  they  will  be  compelled  to 
accept  this  new  hive  as  their  home  ;  after  a  short 
time  a  virgin  queen  is  to  be  given  them, when  the 
process  will  be  complete. 
This  plan  lacks  two  elements  of  success. 
1.  The  new  swarm  would  consist  of  old  worker 
bees,  whose  instinct  for  rearing  young  bees  would 
be  mainly  at  an  end. 

3.  The  bees  could  only  be  'made  to  adhere  to 
the  new  hive  after  a  long  and  exhausting  effort 
to  find  their  home,  wherein  hundreds  would  per- 
ish ;  and  others  would  seek  to  join  other  colo- 
nies ;  and  still  others  would  continue  their  search 
till  they  found  their  old  home.  By  this  time 
their  numbers  would  be  so  reduced,  that  they 
would  be  almost  worthless. 

Our  profits  come  chiefly  from  early  and  large 
swarms.  To  secure  such  should  be  the  grand 
aim.  If  you  have  ten  populous  colonies,  crowded 
with  bees,  ten  new  colonies  can  be  best  formed, 
according  to  my  experience,  in  the  manner  fol- 
lowing : 

Eiglit  days  before  you  propose  to  make  swarms, 
select  the  very  largest  colony  and  purest  stock  of 
•Italians,  and  drive  out  a  swarm  by  drumming,  if 
in  a  box  hive,  or  shake  them  from  the  frames,  if 
in  movable  combs,  being  sure  to  get  the  queen 
with  them,  and  let  them  enter  a  new  hive,  plac- 
ing it  where  the  old  stock  stood.  Give  them  one 
frame  oontaining  combs  with  honey,  eggs,  and 
young  bees,  to  prevent  desertion.  This  will  of 
course  be  your  first  swarm. 

Place  your  colony  from  which  the  swarm  was 
driven,  a  few  feet  at  one  side  from  where  it  for- 
merly stood,  so  that  it  may  catch  up  a  few  of  the 
returning  bees.  At  the  eighth  or  ninth  day  ex- 
amine this  colony  and  count  all  the  finished 
queen  cells  ;  and  proceed  to  form  as  many  swarms 
as  you  have  queen  cells,  (except  one  which  is  to 
be  l^t  in  the  first  old  stock,)  driving  all  the  time 
from  your  most  populous  colonies,  proceeding 
just  as  with  the  first.  The  next  day  give  each 
of  the  old  colonies  a  mature  queen  cell,  placing 
it  in  a  cavity  cut  in  the  midst  of  the  brood. 

If  there  are  not  cells  enough  at  the  end  of  eight 
days,  those  needed  can  be  taken  from  the  stock 
which  was  left  without  a  queen  for  this  purpose. 
Thus  proceeding  until  all  your  bees  are  swarmed, 
they  will  do  as  well-  as  though  they  had 
swarmed  naturally,  with  the  advantage  that  your 
swarms  have  beeu«iade  just  at  the  right  time. 

Now  put  on  your  honey  boxes,  and  if  your 
swarms  have  been  made  about  the  time  the  white 
clover  begins  to  yield  honey  plentifully,  you  will 
secure  the  greatest  results  in  tlie  yield  of  honey. 
If  you  have  good  clean  worker  comb,  use  that 
for  your  new  swarms;  it  is  just  bo  much  saved 
to  the  becB. 


Of  course  you  now  use  the  movable  comb  hive 
and  the  Italian  bees,  or  will  soon  make  provision 
to  do  so,  if  you  expect  the  largest  profit.  After 
an  experience  of  eight  years,  in  my  Mount  Pleas- 
ant Apiary,  I  have  found  them  superior  in  every 
respect.  Friends  are  invited  to  call  and  look  at 
our  stock.  Mr.  J.  L.  Strong,  my  jihrtner,  will 
take  delight  in  showing  them  our  manner  of 
managing  the  honey  bee. 

E.  L.  Briggs. 

Mount  Pleasant  Apiary^  Henry  Co.,  Iowa. 


[For  tlie  Americaa  Bee  Journal.] 

Stopping   Fugitive  Swarms. 


Mr.  Editor  : — Inasmuch  as  you  are  almost 
daily  in  receipt  of  letters  from  the  Northern  and 
the  Western  States,  perhaps  you  will  not  object 
to  a  line  occasionally  from  the  "  Old  North 
State,"  written  by  one  who  heretofore  unknown 
in  the  columns  of  the  Bee  Journal,  as  Lang- 
stroth,  Gallup,  Grimm,  Thomas,  Green,  or 
Novice,  but  who  will  answer  through  the  Amer- 
ican Bee  Journal  whenever  called  Ignor- 
amus. 

As  this  is  my  fivst  article  for  a  Bee  Journal,  I 
shall  be  brief  as  possible  until  I  see  that  Ignor- 
amus has  a  place  in  line  with  your  other  corres- 
pondents. But  for  a  start,  I  will  state  that  a 
neighbor  of  mine  was  in  an  open  field  last  spring, 
when  his  attention  was  attracted  to  a  vagrant 
swarm  of  honey  bees  rushing  past,  on  the  wing. 
He  followed  through  field  and  forest  until  nearly 
exhausted,  when  he  found  that  the  bees  made  no 
signs  of  wanting  to  cluster,  and  that  they  were 
two  hundred  and  more  yards  from  woods,  or 
nearest  shrubs.  Having  gone  through  many  of 
the  Dutch  manoeuverings  in  trying  to  stop  them, 
he  was  so  tired  that  to  follow  them  further  was 
out  of  the  question.  So  he  drew  fiom  his  pocket 
a  small  "looking  glass"  with  which  he  thought 
he  would  "blind  the  bees"  in  the  sunshine,  and 
make  them  stop  anyhow.  Immediately  after 
using  his  glass,  the  bees  turned,  went  directly 
back  to  the  woods,  and  clustered  on  the  nearest 
bush. 

Will  the  editor,  Mr.  Gallup,  or  some  one  else, 
please  inform  me  what  the  turning  of  the  look- 
ing glass  had  to  do  in  stopping  a  swarm  of  bees 
when  running  away  ? 

Ignoramus.    . 

Sawyersville,  iV.  C. 

III^"We  have  frequently  heard  of  arresting 
fugitive  swarms  by  means  of  the  looking-glass, 
but  never  saw  it  done.  Mr.  Langstroth,  on  page 
114,  "  Hive  and  Honey  Bee,"  third  edition,  says — 
"  The  most  original  of  all  devices,  for  stopping 
them  [a  decamping  swarm]  is,  to  flash  the  sun's 
rays  among  them  by  a  looking-glass.  I  have 
never  had  occasion  to  try  it,  but  an  anonymous 
writer  says  he  never  knew  it  to  fail." 


If  wet  weather  occurs  to  prevent  your  bees 
from  flying  out  while  blossoms  abound,  feed 
them  moderately  every  day,  to  keep  them  iu  heart 
and  stimulate  brooding. 


TUE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


253 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Observations,  Statistics,  and  Queries,  rela- 
tive to  wintering  bees  in  cellars  and  spe- 
cial repositories. 

Much  Esteemed  Editor  : — The  subscriber 
has  been  a  beekeeper  about  fifteen  years,  during 
which  time  he  has  been  constantly  experiment- 
ing with  a  great  variety  of  hives,  both  patented 
andoriginal,  all  liome  made  and  well  made;  and 
has  also  been  experimenting  in  every  '■'■modus 
operandi'''  incident  to  beekeeping,  particularly 
relative  to  wintering  bees  in  all  varieties  of  ways. 
In  some  of  these  he  has  succeeded,  in  others  fail- 
ed ;  FAILED  and  SUCCEEDED  in  every  plan  yet 
tried,  and  is  yet  a  novice,  at  least  No.  3,  and 
would  be  No.  1,  did  not  another  occupy  that 
chair,  and  rather  assumingly,  too,  we  think  ! ! 

Well,  we  are  still  in  doubt  relative  to  the  exact 
best  method  of  preparing  the  hives  containing 
colonies  for  wintering  in  special  repositories.  We 
do  not  keep  many  bees ;  never  having  attempted 
to  winter  more  than  ninety  colonies  in  a  single 
season.  We  have  a  very  excellent,  neat,  dry 
cellar — so  dry  that  apples  would  shrivel  in  it. 
It  is  about  twenty  feet  long,  by  twelve  feet  broad, 
and  nine  feet  high,  with  a  nice,  smooth,  flagged 
bottom  of  flat  stones,  two  and  a  half  inches  thick, 
laid  on  dry  sand.  The  walls  are  massive,  say 
three  feet  thick,  (it  being  in  one  corner  of  a  large 
stone  edifice,  eighty  by  fifty  feet  and  four  stories 
high).  A  brick  wall  divides  the  cellar  from  ano- 
ther in  the  opposite  corner,  and  a  wooden  parti- 
tion from  a  cross  hall,  on  the  opposite  side  of 
which  is  a  large  dairy,  where  butter  is  made,  all 
winter,  and  which  is  of  course  kept  at  a  fit  tem- 
perature for  raising  cream,  summer  and  winter. 

In  this  cellar  we  have  wintered,  successfully 
and  unsuccessfully,  from  thirty  to  sixty-one  colo- 
nies of  bees.  These  were  in  movable  comb  and 
box  hives;  some  in  Langstroth's,  some  in  Kid- 
der's, and  some  in  other  styles  of  movable  comb, 
and  yet  others  in  box  hives. 

The  temperature  of  this  cellar  is  very  uniform, 
ordinarily  not  varying  more  than  from  four  to 
six  degrees  all  winter,  even  when  containing 
sixty  colonies  of  bees — the  variation  being  34°  to 
40°.  The  cellar  is  ventilated  from  the  outside, 
by  six  pieces  of  one  inch  lead  pipe  thrust  through 
the  window  frames,  of  which  there  are  two — one 
on  the  east  side  and  one  on  the  south.  Through 
the  inner  partition  there  is  a  round  aperture,  six 
inches  in  diameter,  at  the  bottom,  leading  into 
an  outer  cellar  and  open  hallway  connecting 
with  the  dairy. 

In  the  winter  of  1868-9,  we  wintered  in  this 
place  sixty-one  stocks.  Twenty-four  of  these 
were  in  box  hives,  set  upon  shelves,  having  the 
holes  thrciugh  the  top  of  the  hive,  connecting 
with  the  honey  boxes  open,  inverted,  with  a 
straw  mat  over  the  bees.  We  found  some  of  the 
strongest  became  uneasy,  and  removed  the  mats 
to  quiet  them.  But  these  did  not  winter  well ; 
they  crawled  out  badly,  and  many  bees  died  and 
fell  down  among  the  combs.  We  did  not  like 
this  plan,  and  would  prefer  setting  them  right 
end  up,  on  a  nadir  frame  four  inches  high,  ven- 
tilated through  its  sides.     Yet  we  have  wintered 


box  hives  in  this  same  cellar,  inverted  and  fixed 
as  first  stated,  which  wintered  well ;  but  there 
were  then  only  twenty-four  colonies  in  it,  set 
only  four  inches  above  the  stone  bottom. 

The  remaining  thirty-six  colonies  were  in 
movable  frame  hives,  set  on  four  inch  slatwork, 
placed  on  the  cellar  bottom ;  the  passages  in 
hives  at  bottom  open  ;  honey  boards  removed ; 
wire  sieve  preserver  on  top,  with  a  straw  mat 
one  inch  thick  over  this.     These  wintered  well. 

The  past  winter,  1809-70,  we  put  into  this 
cellar  thirty-six  stocks  in  movable  comb  hives. 
Many  of  them  Avere  weak  in  numbers  and  scant 
in  honey,  though  we  fed  two  barrels  of  white 
coffee  A  sugar  to  about  fifty  colonies,  between 
the  7th  and  the  20th  of  September  last.  It  was 
mostly  sealed  over.  This  sugar  was  simply 
melted  with  about  twenty  pounds  of  w^ater  to 
twenty-five  pounds  of  sugar,  and  one  teaspoon- 
ful  of  cream  of  tartar  to  twenty  pounds  of  sugar. 
The  result  is  that  we  lost  thirteen  of  these  thirty- 
six  colonies,  seven  for  want  of  food  and  six  from 
some  other  cause — perhaps  because  there  Avere 
no  youug  bees  bred  late  in  the  fall.  Or,  was  it 
because  of  their  feed  ?  All  the  bees,  both  those 
that  were  fed  and  those  not  fed,  were  afiected 
with  a  kind  of  dysentery,  though  they  did  not 
soil  the  combs  at  all,  but  only  the  tops  of  the 
frames.  Three-fourths  of  the  bees  in  each  colony 
died,  however,  from  some  cause — apparently  dys- 
entery. 

Query.  What  produced  this  dysentery  ?  The 
mercury  did  not  vary  over  four  degrees,  in  this 
cellar,  all  last  winter.  Was  it  the  cream  of 
tartar  put  into  the  sugar  ?  If  so,  why  did  those 
colonies  which  were  not  fed  at  all  become  in  like 
manner  affected,  as  was  the  case? 

We  had  fifty-four  colonies  in  a  new  bee-house, 
built  expressly  last  summer,  for  wintering  bees. 
It  had  double  sills  on  all  sides,  and  four  sets  of 
studding.  It  has  three  walls  on  each  side  ;  two 
of  straw,  eight  inches  thick,  and  one  of  eight 
inches  of  sawdust  between  them,  two  floors,  and 
one  foot  of  straw  and  eight  inches  of  sawdust 
between  them  ;  a  floor  overhead,  and  on  this  it 
is  designed  to  place  one  foot  of  sawdust  and  one 
foot  of  straw.  This  was  not  finished  last  fall. 
The  room  is  twelve  by  twenty-six  feet  inside,  and 
nine  feet  higt.  It  is  divided'through  the  middle, 
lengthwise,  to  a  hall  five  feet  wide,  which  is  par- 
titioned off  of  the  south  end  by  a  stud  and  board 
partition,  with  one  inch  matched  boards,  and  the 
space  between  the  studs  is  filled  with  sawdust. 
Thus  w^e  have  two  bee-rooms  for  storage,  each 
six  feet  wide  by  twenty-one  feet  long  and  nine 
feet  high.  From  each  of  these  rooms  we  have  a 
ventilating  chimney,  four  by  six  inches,  reaching 
from  one  foot  below  the  floor  overhead  two  and 
a  half  feet  above  the  roof  for  egress  of  foul  or 
heated  air  ;  and  one  ingress  ventilating  chimney, 
four  inches  by  twelve,  reaching  from  the  lower 
floor  of  beeroom  out  above  the  roof.  This  is  so 
constructed  as  to  supply  each  of  the  beerooms,  as 
one-lialf  of  it  opens  into  each.  In  warmest 
weather  these  ventilators  were  left  open  ;  in  the 
coldest  they  were  nearly  shut ;  but  owing  to  so 
thin  a  covering  on  the  floor  over  the  rooms,  the 
mercury  varied  too  much — about  eighteen  de- 
grees ;  that  is,  it  fell  to  22°,  and  rose  to  40°, 


12* 


25^ 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOUENAL. 


though  it  would  leqmre  several  days  to  make  the 
chauge. 

Weil,  into  this  house,  as  we  have  stated,  we 
put  filty-four  colonies  of  bees.  Only  very^  very 
few  of  them  were  strong  in  numbers  when  put 
in,  owing  in  part  to  so  bad  a  honey  seasf)n  that 
they  did  not  breed  in  the  fall  ;  and  also  to  a 
heavy  flood,  which  drowned  out  mj-  apiary.  The 
hives  having  to  be  hastily  carried  out  (I  being 
absent  some  three  hundred  miles  fiom  home  at 
the  time),  they  were  so  mixed  up  that,  on  my 
retura,  I  could  not  replace  them  all  in  their 
proper  positions,  and  many  bees  Avere  lost  when 
the  weather  was  such  tliat  they  could  tly  again. 

We  removed  the  honey  boards,  put  over  them 
wire-cloih  preservers,  and  a  straw  mat  on  some  ; 
on  others  a  rag  carpet,  one  thickness,  covering 
the  tops  of  the  frames  entirely.  The  entrances 
at  bottom  of  hives  were  closed. 

Well,  all  of  these  bees,  like  those  in  the  cellar, 
had  the  dysentery.  Not  a  particle  of  mould  ap- 
peared on  the  combs.  Nearly  all  the  colonies 
were  fed  in  the  fall ;  but  all  were  alike  as  to  dys- 
entery. None  of  them  soiled  the  combs,  but  the 
tops  of  the  frames  were  stained.  Question — 
What  gave  these  bees  the  disease  ?  Was  it  bad 
honey  ?  Well,  some  of  the  honey  is  bitter  ;  but 
this  is  principally  the  box  honej'.  Was  it  too 
much  ventilation  ?  Well,  the  strongest  stocks 
were  most  diseased.  Again — about  the  first  of 
February,  a  neighbor  put  into  this  house  some 
fifteen  very  strong  stocks,  leaving  the  honey 
boxes  on.  Of  course  these  had  not  near  as  much 
ventilation  as  ours  had  ;  but  they  were  much 
more  diseased.  Was  it  too  little  ventilation  ? 
Who  will  tell  us  through  the  Bee  Journal? 

A  neighbor  once  had  a  large  apiary  in  a  yard 
surrounded  by  buildings  and  a  fence  twelve  feet 
high.  The  hives  were  setting  on  their  summer 
stands  Avhen  a  whirling  wind  swooped  intot  his 
yard  as  if  on  fantastic  toe,  and  upset  a  large 
number  of  them.  There  they  lay,  on  their  sides, 
iu  the  snow,  with  the  bottoms  open  to  the  cold 
and  storms  for  many  days,  as  their  owner  did 
not  discover  it  for  some  time.  Yet  no  harm 
came  of  it,  they  all  wintered  finely. 

Was  that  dysentery  caused  by  the  food  given 
to  the  bees  early  in  September?  which  consisted 
of  good  coffee  A  white  sugar,  as  before  mention- 
ed ?  If  so,  why  were  those  colonies  that  were 
not  fed  as  badly  affected  as  the  others — the  heav- 
iest even  being  the  worst  ? 

Will  some  of  your  numerous  correspondents, 
dear  Editor,  give  us  the  philosophy  of  this  con- 
dition of  the  bees?  That  of  those  in  the  bee- 
house,  where  the  mercury  varied  18°,  being  pre- 
cisely the  same  as  that  of  those  in  the  dry  cellar, 
where  it  varied  only  6".  No  moisture  appeared 
to  have  accumulated  in  any  of  the  ninety  colo- 
nies, except  one,  and  that  was  a  very  strong  one, 
and  immensely  heavy  in  honey.  The  amount  of 
bees  that  perished  in  each  colony  would  perhaps 
average  two  quarts — some  more,  some  less. 
There  w^as  very  little  bad  smell  about  the  hives, 
and  the  combs  were  clean. 

It  would  bring  instruction  to  the  numerous 
readers  of  the  Journal,  at  least  to  such  of  us  as 
are  novices,  to  have  more  definite  statements  of 
the  manner  the  hives  are  prepared  when  stowed 


away  in  special  repositories.  We  lack  sufficient 
statistics.  Will  our  successful  friends,  who  are 
successful  every  time,  tell  us  the  size'&nd  condi- 
tion of  their  cellars  or  depositories,  and  the  varia- 
tions of  temperature  therein  ?  Will  they  tell  us 
whether  the  outside  walls  are  laid  in  mortar,  or 
without?  Have  the  cellars  flagged  or  cement 
bottoms,  or  earth  ?  How  much,  that  is  how 
many  square  inches  of  ventilation,  and  how 
direct  to  the  repositorj'  ?  What  number  of  colo- 
nies deposited?  &c.,  &c. 

Our  bees  have  no  foulbrood.  We  hope  to  re- 
trieve our  losses;  and  as  we  intend  to  finish  our 
beehduse  with  upper  floor  coverings,  and  bank  it 
in  so  that  the  air  cannot  pass  under  it  another 
winter;  s'lut  up  th(7  ventilators  of  the  house 
somewhat  more  (unless  some  one  tells  us  a  better 
way);  and  try  again.  And  we  intend  to  try  on, 
until  we  can  succeed  every  time. 

Will  not  our  friends  and  instructors,  Quinby, 
Gary,  Grimm,  Gallup,  Novice  No.  1,  and  others, 
give  us  their  advice,  through  the  columns  of  the 
Bee  Journal,  and  post  us  up  in  these  statis- 
tics. 

In  all  our  enterprizes,  agricultural,  horticultu- 
ral, apicultural,  &c.,  etc.,  we  need  more  definite 
statistical  information,  to  enable  us  to  come  out 
right  in  the  Spring. 

Yours,  Hopefully^ 

No-vice  No.  2. 

Mount  Lebanon,  N.  7.,  April  18,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Bees  in  the  Southern  States. 

I  would  answer  query  No.  2,  in  the  American 
Bee  Journal  for  February,  that  from  all  the  facts 
Avhich  I  have  gathered  concerning  bees  in  the 
South,  this  climate  is  eminently  adapted  to  their 
nature  ;  and  that  their  iubtinct  here,  to  store 
honey,  is  as  great  as  at  the  North.  During  the 
latter  part  of  the  summer,  iu  this  locality,  they 
generally  cannot  procure  more  supplies  than  suf- 
fice to  satisfy  their  immediate  wants  ;  but  when 
an  abundant  harvest  does  present  itself,  they 
avail  themselves  of  it  with  preserving  assiduity. 
I  have  seen  hives  w:here  the  bees  had  built  comb 
on  the  outside,  under  the  projection  of  the  top, 
not  having  further  room  within.  And  instances 
are  numerous  of  bees  inhabiting  hollow  trees, 
building  combs  several  feet  in  length,  below 
branches  in  front  of  their  entrance — thus  indi- 
cating that  they  do  not  slack  their  industry  so 
long  as  they  can  obtain  honey. 

A  large  apiary,  properly  conducted,  in  this 
portion  of  the  country,  could  not  fail  to  be  profit- 
able. I  only  regret  that  I  am  not  so  situated 
as  to  be  able  to  devote  myself  to  it  more  fully 
than  I  can  do  at  present. 

J.  E.  B. 
Natchez,  Miss.,  Feb.,  1870. 


Nearly  all  the  bees  which  return  from  the  fields 
while  a  swarm  is  being  forced  out  from  the  pa- 
rent hive,  will  enter  the  hive  if  it  is  put  upon  its 
old  stand,  and  adhere  to  it  afterwards  wherever 
it  may  be  placed. — Langstroth. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


255 


[For  the  American  Bee  Jonraal.] 

Replies  to  Inquiries,  Notices,  &c. 


In  answer  to  a  few  inquiries  by  Joel  Dayton, 
I  will  say— keep  tlie  top  of  the  hive  as  tight  as  it 
can  be  made,  as  soon  as  the  liive  is  set  out.  A 
strong  swarm  will  wax  up  every  little  crevice 
themselves,  but  a  weak  one  must  be  assisted. 
Contract  the  size  of  the  hive  by  the  use  of  the 
division  board,  to  assist  all  weak  swarms  in  keep- 
ing up  internal  heat.  Also,  stimulate  regularly 
with  diluted  sweet ;  and  as  soon  as  the  weather 
becomes  steady  warm,  strengthen  weak  stocks 
by  giving  them  sealed  brood  from  strong  ones. 
The  extra  combs  should  be  taken  from  the  hives 
and  kept  in  a  cool  place,  and  returned  one  at  a 
time,  as  the  bees  require  them.  If  the  swarm  is 
weak  in  consequence  of  the  queen  being  unpro- 
lific,  it  should  be  supplied  with  a  prolific  queen, 
as  it  is  useless  to  keep  strengthening  up  a  swarm 
that  has  a  worthless  queen. 

I  move  the  hive  forward  on  the  bottom  board 
sufficient  to  have  it  project  over  the  front  edge 
the  whole  width,  or  raise  the  front  of  the  hive  on 
small  blocks,  which  answers  the  same  purpose. 
A  strong  swarm,  when  storing  honey  rapidly  in 
boxes,  will  want  an  inch  of  spnce  the  whole 
width  of  the  front,  in  warm  weather,  especially 
in  your  locality.  On  high,  airy  prairie  they  will 
require  less.  I  will  here  state  that  Decorah  is  in 
a  small  valley,  almost  completely  surrounded  by 
high  ground. 

And  now,  Mr.  Editor,  allow  me  to  say  that 
the  Michigan  Beekeeper's  Convention  has  rather 
misrepreseiited  Gallup's  paper  on  bee  maladies. 
Wonder  if  they  had  been  spilling  bad  whiskey 
until  they  could  not  read  sti'aight.  There,  gen- 
tlemen, I  am  perhaps  harder  on  you,  than  you 
are  on  me ;  but  remember  that  you  are  the  first 
aggressors. 

Mr.  Quinby  thinks  there  must  be  a  mistake 
about  queens  hatching  in  less  than  ten  days.  As 
he  does  not  believe  me  I  will  refer  him  to  Mr.  D. 
W.  Fletcher,  of  Langsingville,  N.  Y.,  Mr.  G.  A. 
"Wright,  postmaster,  Orchard,  Iowa  ;  and  last  but 
not  least  the  editor  of  the  American  Bee  Jour- 
nal.* Either  of  those  gentlemen  can  and  proba- 
bly will  give  information  on  this  subject.  The 
cases  where  queens  have  hatched  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  ninth  day  with  me,  are  so  numerous 
that  the  tenth  day  cannot  be  accepted  as  the 
rule  ;  and  from  one  case  I  am  perfectly  satisfied 
that  they  may,  and  sometimes  do,  come  out  on 
the  seventh  day.  E.  Gallup. 

OrcJtard,  Iowa. 


*  If  the  weather  permit,  we  now  always  trans- 
fer queen  cells  on  the  eighth  day  ;  having  so  very 
frequently  found  them  destroyed,  if  we  deferred 
secuiing  them  till  the  ninth,  that  we  do  not  trust 
waiting  even  till  the  morning  of  that  day.  Much 
depends  doubtless  on  the  strength  of  the  colony, 
and  the  temperature  maintained  in  the  hivc§. 

Ed. 


Keep  the  moths  from  your  empty  combs  by 
exposing  them  occasionally,  in  a  close  box,  to 
the  fumes  of  burning  brimstone. 


[For  the  Ameiicap  Bee  Jouiuul] 

Two  Yellow  Bands,  or  Three? 


On  page  200  of  the  April  Bee  Journal,  Mr. 
Quinby,  speaking  of  the  yellow  bauds  or  purity 
of  Italian  bees,  conveys  tlie  idea  that  the  light- 
colored  bees  bred  by  Dzicrzon  and  some  careful 
breeders  in  this  country,  are  not  as  pure  as  the 
two-striped  darker  colored  ones,  such  as  he  pro- 
cures from  Mr.  Gravenliorst.  Mr.  Quinby  admits 
that  it  may  be  possible  that  the  very  light  ones 
are  pure,  but  thinks  we  should  nut  claim  that 
they  are  purer  than  the  two-striped  ones. 

Now  my  experience  is  that  to  breed  queens 
from  one  that  produces  two-striped  workei's,  they 
will  almost  invariably  produce  some  black  bees. 
I  have  always  bred  with  the  understanding  that 
queens  producing  workers  with  less  than  three 
stripes,  are  not  pure.  Now,  who  knows  whether 
I  am  right,  or  friend  Quinby  ?  Let  us  settle  this 
point,  for  if  friend  Quinby  can  sell  queens  that 
produce  workers  with  only  two  sti'ipes,  let  us  all 
do  the  same,  and  call  them  pure.  I  will  admit 
that  it  is  easier  to  rear  two-striped  queens,  than 
those  having  three  or  four  stripes.  But,  I  am 
not  willing  to  admit  that  they  are  as  pure  ;  and  I 
do  not  like  the  idea,  after  some  of  us  have,  by 
careful  breeding,  succeeded  in  producing  beauti- 
ful little  colored  bees,  to  have  others  claim  that 
these  are  not  any  purer  than  those  having  only 
two  stripes— which,  till  a  recent  date,  we  have 
been  taught  were  not  pure. 

Aaron  Benedict. 

Bennington^  Ohio. 

Double  Flowers. 


It  would  be  a  sad  business  for  the  busy  bee,  if 
the  florist's  skill  could  so  improve  the  asters  and 
golden  rods  of  our  fields,  as  to  transmute  all  of 
them  to  double  flowers.  '  Even  could  they  thereby 
render  them  as  delightfully  fragrant  as  they  would 
be  splendid  in  appearance,  the  show  and  fragrance, 
though  gratifying  'to  the  eyes  and  olfactories  of 
amateurs,  would  by  no  means  make  amends  to 
the  bee  for  the  loss  of  honey -secreting  power 
which  the  metamorphosis  of  petals  would  in- 
volve. Luckily  for  the  lovers  of  honey,  how- 
ever, science  and  skill  combined,  though  able  to 
improve  a  few  varieties  to  such  extent,  can  never 
reach  and  change  the  whole  floral  kingdom. 

The  Bee-hunter's  Secret. 


"Sometimes  he  took  up  bee  hunting  for  a 
spell,  and  made  money  by  collecting  wild  honey. 
He  described  his  manner  of  finding  the  hive  or 
nest  and  securing  the  honey  ;  and,  with  a  hushed 
voice,  he  told  me  a  secret,  which  was — that,  if 
you  took  three  leaves,  each  of  a  different  tree,  in 
your  hand,  there  was  never  a  bee  would  dare  to 
sting  you  !"— The  Southerner  at  Home,  No. 
IX. 


Among  the  ancients  honey  from  Sicily  was 
held  in  highest  estimation,  so  that  Hyblean  honey 
was  proverbially  famous,  though  by  some  the 
Attic  honey  was  preferred  to  all  other. 


256 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 


The  Queen  Nursery. 


I  recently  received  from  Dr.  Jewel  Davis,  of 
Charleston,  Illinois,  a  circular  respecting  his  pat- 
ented Queen  Nursery.  In  theory  the  matter 
seems  very  plausible,  but  how  about  its  practical 
applicability  ?  Two  years  ago,  as  I  remember, 
Mr.  Adam  Grimm,  of  this  place,  used  an  arrange- 
ment substantially  similar,  and  in  so  far  antici- 
pated the  Doctor.  But  he  soon  discontinued  the 
use  of  it,  as  not  fully  answering  the  purpose  ;  and 
as  I  know  Mr.  Grimm  to  be  a  thorough  apiarian, 
I  can  scarcely  think  that  others  will  be  more  suc- 
cessful with  the  new  device.  Moreover,  accord- 
ing to  the  description  given,  though  we  may  se- 
cure an  increased  number  of  colonies,  we  shall 
not  obtain  supernumerary  queens  for  market, 
unless  we  rear  them  specially,  and  this  with  more 
or  less  damage  to  the  colony,  by  depriving  it  of 
its  fertile  queen. 

I  found  that  Mr.  Grimm  subsequently  employ- 
ed a  process  practically  much  more  serviceable  — 
permitting  the  young  queens  to  mature  and  leave 
their  cells  in  the  parent  hive,  anc  removing  them 
only  when  fertilized.  I  have  known  as  many  as 
from  ten  to  tAventy  queens  to  be  taken  from  a 
colony  by  this  process,  and  used  satisfactorily  in 
forming  nucleii. 

Instead  of  the  plan  employed  by  Dr.  Davis,  I 
should  prefer  to  insert  in  the  deprived  colony,  or 
artificial  swarm,  a  nearly  mature  queen  cell, 
which  will  readily  be  accepted  ;  and  let  the  bees 
themselves  "  nurse"  their  queen. 

The  passion  for  patenting  appears  to  be  becom- 
ing epidemic  among  bee-keepers,  so  that  one  can 
scarcely  venture  to  make  and  use  an  alteration 
or  improvement  in  anything  relating  to  hives  or 
bee-culture,  without  previous  careful  inquiry 
Whether  somebody  has  not  already  covered  it 
with  a  patent,  subjecting  the  user  to  the  risks  or 
costs  of  litigation.  Besides,  the  numerous  pat- 
ented hives  now  claiming  notice  serve  rather  as  a 
discouragement  to  bee-culture,  perplexing  new 
beginners,  leading  them  into  useless  expendi- 
tures, not  unfrequently  ending  in  disappoint- 
ment, if  not  loss.  I  have  myself  seen  not  a  few 
of  such  patented  novelties  into  which  I  would 
not  put  a  swarm  of  bees,  if  given  to  me  gratis. 
It  is  sad  to  see  such  a  waste  of  good  lumber,  fit 
now  only  for  kindling  wood. 

W.  Wolff. 

Jefferson,  Wis. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Prom  the  Cumberland  Plateau,  Tenn. 


Mr,  Editor  :— I  thank  Mr.  J.  M.  Worden  for 
his  description,  in  the  March  number,  of  the  hive 
he  uses.  I  have  for  many  months  desired  to  see 
or  obtain  a  description  of  a  hive  in  which  the 
frames  stand  on  the  bottom  board  and  the  honey 
boxes  are  placed  on  the  sides  of  the  frames,  in 
contact  therewith.  I  do  not  wish  any  boxes  on 
top  of  frames,  for  my  own  use.  Mr.  Quinby 
was  requested  to  describe  his  hive  in  the  Jour- 
nal, and  thereupon  Mr.  Wordeu  responded. 


I  came  here  from  Ohio  last  fall,  having  sold  all 
my  bees,  and  am  now  commencing  anew.  On 
my  way  hither,  I  called  on  Dr.  T.  B.  Hamlin,  of 
Edgefield  Junction,  near  Nashville,  and  pur- 
chased two  queens  to  commence  with  on  this 
mountain  ;  and  I  suppose  I  am  the  only  breeder 
of  Italian  bees  on  the  Cumberland  Plateau.  I 
found  Dr.  Hamlin's  apiary  well  cared  for — his 
bees  and  queens  handsome.  He  controls  fertili- 
zation by  the  newly  invented  methods,  and  I 
consider  him  a  very  careful  and  reliable  breeder. 

I  purchased  a  good  many  queens  of  different 
breeders  last  summer,  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  did 
not  get  humbugged  by  any.  I  sold  the  queens  I 
bought  to  others,  and  did  not  see  the  progeny  of 
all  of  them.  I  found  A.  Grimm,  W.  W.  Cary, 
and  A.  Gray,  reliable.  I  intended  to  buy  of  Mr. 
Alley,  but  my  order  was  sent  so  late  that  he 
could  not  fill  it  last  fall. 

The  alders  were  in  bloom  here  on  the  ISth  of 
February,  and  the  bees  carrying  in  pollen.  But 
cold  weather  soon  followed,  and  I  saw  no  more 
blossoms  till  March  18th,  since  which  time  vege- 
tation has  advanced  rapidly.  Apple  blossoms 
are  now  about  gone,  (May  5th,)  and  crab  apple 
and  other  wild  flowers  in  abundance.  I  saw  my 
young  Italians  flying  on  the  second  of  February. 

W.   C.  CONDIT. 

Howard  Springs,  Cumberland  Co.,  Tenn. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Introducing  Queens. 

If  friend  Wilken  will  try  fumigating  with  to- 
bacco smoke,  I  am  inclined  to  think  he  will 
lessen  his  losses  very  materially.  The  process  is 
as  follows :  Open  the  hive ;  remove  the  old 
queen  ;  place  the  new  one  in  her  cage  on  top  of 
the  frames  ;  throw  an  old  carpet  over  the  frames, 
covering  up  the  caged  queen  and  the  bees;  put 
on  the  cap  of  the  hive  ;  blow  tobacco  smoke  into 
the  entrance  for  three  or  four  minutes.  Now 
stop  a  little  while,  and  then  resume  blowing  in 
smoke,  continuing  it  for  five  or  ten  minutes,  or 
until  the  bees  commence  to  fall  down  and  crawl 
out  of  the  hive  ;  now  give  them  air,  raise  the  cap 
and  carpet,  liberate  the  queen  and  let  her  run  or 
drop  down  among  the  bees,  and  in  twelve  hours 
she  will  be  depositing  eggs. 

It  does  no  harm  if  the  bees  get  so  much  smoke 
that  they  all  tumble  down  to  the  bottom  of  the 
hive,  and  the  queen  too.  The  bees  seem  so  glad 
to  think  they  are  alive  that  they  will  readily  ac- 
cept of  any  queen,  when  thus  treated,  even  a 
young  unfertile  one.  I  have  seen  them  fondling 
over  the  newly  introduced  queen,  when  they 
were  still  so  drunk  that  they  could  not  crawl.  I 
think  it  a  sure  plan,  and  then  it  is  all  done  in 
twenty  minutes.  I  have  exchanged  queens  quite 
late  in  the  fall,  in  this  way.  The  bees  do  not 
seem  to  know  that  the  queen  is  a  stranger. 

This  is  friend  Alley's  plan.  Speaking  of  Mr. 
Alley  reminds  me  that  I  received  two  queens 
from  him  last  fall,  the  worker  progeny  of  which 
are  the  most  beautiful  of  any  I  ever  saw.  I  have 
bought  queens  of  diflerent  persons,  at  from  $20 
down  to  13.50,  and  would  not  exchange  those 
two  for  any  I  ever  had. 


THE   AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


257 


A  friend,  who  is  a  bee-ist,  called  and  pro- 
nounced them  the  handsomest  he  ever  saw.  He 
says  he  saw  none  at  the  State  Fairs,  last  fall,  that 
were  as  well  marked  ;  and  then  they  are  as  gentle 
as  flies,  and  almost  as  harmless.  I  never  had 
bees  that  were  so  quiet  on  the  combs  while  being 
handled,  as  they  are.  The  queens  are  large  and 
handsome,  and  so  far  very  prolific. 

H.  0.  Barnard. 

Charleston,  111. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Price's  Revolvable,  Reversible,  Movable- 
comb,  Double-eased,  Sectional  Bee-Hive. 


THE  CASKET. 

This  invention  is  destined  to  mark  a  neio  era 
for  successful  wintering  and  profitable  bee-keep- 
ing. 

1.  It  is  the  best  hive  for  wintering  and  stimu- 
lating bees,  and  for  early  breeding.  It  has  the 
best  sectional  surplus  honey  boxes  and  the  best 
storage  facilities. 

2.  It  can  be  used  either  in  horizontal  or  ang- 
ling position,  and  is  the  best  hive  for  wintering 
either  on  the  summer  stand  or  in  bee-house, 
cellar  or  other  repository. 

3.  It  is  the  best  and  safest  ventilated  hive  ever 
made.  A  swarm  cannot  be  suffocated  in  it  un- 
der any  circumstances. 

4.  It  has  all  the  advantages  of  frame  hives 
without  their  disadvantages.  The  size  of  the 
brood-chamber  can  be  made  small  or  large  at 
will,  to  suit  the  requirements  of  the  colony. 

5.  It  is  on  an  entirely  new  principle,  and  is 
warmer  in  winter  and  cooler  in  summer,  and  of 
a  more  equable  temperature  night  and  day  than 
any  other  hive.  The  bees  cannot  gum  or  pro- 
polis them  so  that  the  sections  and  comb  cannot 
be  handled  separately. 

6.  The  surplus  honey  sections  are  in  close  con- 
nection with  the  brood-chamber,  and  with  one 
another,  and  the  bees  are  certain  to  work  in  them 
when  there  is  honey  to  store.     The  sections  can 


be  used  to  the  full  capacity  of  the  hive,  or  of  the 
bees  to  fill  them,  and  the  bees  can  be  forced  to 
work  in  any  number  at  once,  thereby  greatly 
increasing  the  yield  in  short  honey  seasons. 

7.  It  is  the  only  hive  that  can  be  used  angling 
and  always  secure  straight  combs,  and  can  be 
made  by  any  one  who  can  use  square,  saw  and 
hammer,  and  drive  a  nail. 


8.  Its  facilities  for  breeding  and  for  stimulat- 
ing the  queen  to  the  production  of  brood  ensure 
large,  vigorous  swarms  at  the  honey  harvest. 

9.  It  is  the  only  hive  that  saves  bees  from  de- 
struction, from  falling  on  the  snow  on  warm 
days  of  spring. 

10.  It  is  the  best  self-cleaning  hive,  and  afibrds 
the  best  facilities  for  the  removal  of  dirt. 

11.  The  surplus  honey  can  be  had  in  boxes  or 
sections,  and  can  be  taken  from  the  top  or  side 
of  the  hive. 

12.  It  is  easier  handled  and  moved  than  any 
other  large  exterior  case  in  use,  as  the  casket  is 
removable  from  the  case. 

In  brief,  its  combinaticm  will  suit  all  tastes,  a's 
it  has  all  the  advantages  without  the  imperfec- 
tions of  other  hives. 

John  M.  Price. 

Buffalo  Orove,  Iowa,  May,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal/ 

Novice. 


Dear  Bee  Journal  : — We  are  sorry  to  inform 
you  that  our  plans  for  1870,  as  regards  bees,  are 
considerably  marred  by  the  disastrous  fire  which 
visited  our  town  on  the  14th  of  April.  With  the 
ruin  of  our  store  and  business,  our  Quiuby  hive 
and  a  number  of  American  hives,  lumber,  &c., 
which  were  stored  in  an  upper  room,  were 
burned.  And  now,  more  than  that,  our  bee- 
house,  for  want  of  a  better  place,  is  now  used 
temporarily,  as  a  receptacle  for  the  tools,  »fec., 
saved  from  our  manufactory.  Well,  to  make  the 
best  of  it,  we  are  nearly  as  well  off  as  far  as 
facilities  for  the  bees  are  concerned,  as  we  were 
last  year.  Artificial  incubation  and  many  other 
matters,  liave  to  be  laid  "on  the  shelf"  for  the 
present. 

We  regret  the  loss  of  the  Quinby  hive,  as  we 
were  quite  anxious  to  test  it ;  so  much  has  been 
said  on  the  subject,  and  one  correspondent  thinks 


258 


THE  AMEEICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


we  were  rather  harsli  in  speaking  of  the  ' '  uon- 
swarming  boxes  piled  all  around"  arrangement 
of  Quinby  and  Jasper  Hazen. 

We  grant  a  great  advantage  there  for  box- 
honey  ;  but  cannot  admit  that  one  or  two  hun- 
dred pounds  can  be  safely  calculated  on,  by  sim- 
ply setting  the  bees"  to  work  in  one  corner  of  a 
"  great  barn,"  as  Adam  Grimm  expresses  it. 
And  Mr.  Hazen's  reply  to  him  was,  in  our  opin- 
ion, nothing  more  than  another  tremendous  puff 
for  his  hive,  without  noticing  the  main  question 
at  all.  If  Mr.  Hazen  had  told  us  why  his  hive 
gave  more  honey  than  a  two-story  Langstroth, 
with  brood  in  the  middle  of  the  lower  story  and 
empty  combs  or  frames  at  the  sides  and  on  top, 
he  would  have  given  some  light.  We  do  not 
need  to  tell  intelligent  bee-keepers  that  more 
honey  will  be  stored  in  frames  than  in  small 
boxes  ;  and  so  far  as  non-swarming  is  concerned, 
in  Hazen's  hive  they  may  not  swarm  :  but  with 
Langstroth's  hive  and  the  melextractor  we  can  be 
almost  sure  they  will  not.  Now  how  is  Hazen's 
hive  to  give  Mr.  Grimm  four  or  five  times  the 
honey  he  gets  now  ?  We  wonder  if  Mr.  Grimm 
feels  like  burning  up  his  hives  and  buying  a  right 
for  the  Eureka !  Why  not  ?  Mr.  Hazen  giive 
him  the  figures  !  Supposing  a  swarm  of  bees  in- 
side of  one  of  those  piles  of  honey  boxes  should 
not  start  to  work  in  the  combs  at  all  (see  Gallup, 
pages  229  and  230,  current  volume)  we  suppose 
Mr.  Hazen  would  pile  on  more  boxes,  and  they 
would  certainly  then  fill  them  all,  as  he  seems  to 
think  that  notliing  else  is  necessary.  And  if  they 
manifested  an  inclination  to  swarm,  we  suppose 
more  boxes  still  would  cure  it. 

Our  experiments  have  led  us  to  think  that  the 
kind  of  hive  makes  but  little  difference,  so  that 
the  bees  are  properly  protected  while  raising 
brood  in  the  spring.  With  a  small  colony  in  the 
spring,  we  think  something  liRe  Gallup's  or'tlie 
Economic  Hive  would  bean  improvement;  but 
with  a  strong  colony  (and  those  are  certainly  the 
profitable  ones)  we  think  we  can  show  as  good 
a  result  with  the  Langstroth  hive,  as  with  any 
other.  Should  something  like  Quinby' s  be  de- 
cided to  be  more  convenient,  then  there  is  cer- 
tainly that  advantage ;  but  no  bee-keeper  about 
here,  who  had  ever  examined  our  Quinby  hive 
that  was  burnt,  would  for  a  moment  think  it 
easier  to  handle  than  the  two-story  Langstroth. 

Dr.  Conklin  has  sent  us  one  of  his  Diamond 
hives  arranged  for  the  melextractor,  with  sixteen 
frames  one  foot  square.  We  thought  of  making 
an  Economic  hive  to  test  that  form ;  but  this 
comes  so  near  it,  we  think  it  will  answer  every 
purpose  for  experiment.  The  arrangement  to 
support  the  frames,  we  are  quite  favorably  im- 
pressed with  ;  but  the  way  the  honey-boards  are 
put  on,  and  the  shutting  of  the  hive,  we  fear  will 
not  work  so  smoothly  when  covered  with  pro- 
polis. His  advice  to  grease  the  frames  where  we 
do  not  wish  them  to  stick  fiist,  is  a  novel  idea  to 
us.     We  shall  try  it. 

Our  queen,  mentioned  last  month,  with  the 
small  drones,  did  become  fertilized.  We  first 
noticed  her  laying  eggs  on  the  26th  of  April,  and 
shehas  filled  her  hive  with  brood  quite  rapidly. 
As  it  was  so  late  before  she  became  fertile,  there 
may  have  been  other  drones  flying,  though  we 


had  seen  none  among  the  Italians,  which  are 
always  some  time  in  advance  of  common  bees, 
and  are  now  coming  out. 

We  omitted  to  mention  some  time  ago  that  we 
had  been  experimenting  on  some  substitute  for  a 
division  board — something  that  would  be  warmer 
for  small  colonies,  and  that  could  be  readily 
tucked  up  around  them  ;  and  also  for  covering 
the  holes  or  slats  in  the  honey-board.  We  tried 
cloth,  and  finally  cotton  wadding  in  sheets, 
which  is  very  cheap  and  warm.  .But  the  little 
chaps  could  not  keep  from  puiling  it  in  pieces 
and  poking  their  heads  out,  so  that  it  was  very 
soon  used  up.  We  finally  had  some  little  quilts 
(or  whatever  you  choose  to  call  them)  made,  and 
they  answer  admirably.  The  bees  cluster  up 
close  to  them,  and  even  g\\\n  ihem  down  to  the 
frame ;  but  they  can  be  readily  removed  at  any 
time.  With  a  sewing  machine  they  can  be  quickly 
made  of  cheap  cotton  cloth. 

Apple  trees  are  now  in  blossom,  and  our  stocks 
are  raising  a  large  amount  of  brood  and  making 
active  preparations  for  swarming,  which  we  shall 
check  in  due  time,  as  we  prefer  to  manage  that 
matter  ourselves. 

We  mentioned  a  stock  of  hybrids  last  fall,  that 
objected  to  being  put  into  winter  quarters.  Well, 
in  tlie  fore  part  of  April,  we  discovered  them  to 
be  entirely  out  of  honey,  although  they  had  an 
abundant  supply,  like  the  rest,  in  the  fall. 

Mr.  J.  H.  Thomas  says,  if  Novice  had  expended 
his  two  hundred  dollars  in  a  cellar,  he  would  not 
have  had  to  open  doors  at  night,  &c.  Does  he  not 
forget  that  we  were  compelled  to  use  damp  saw- 
dust (so  much  so,  that  this  spring  we  found  lum- 
ber placed  in  a  loft  quite  damp  and  covered  with 
mould)  ;  and  that  a  dry  cellar,  in  our  locality,  is 
something  that  we  have  been  trying  in  vain  to 
make.  If  we  would  change  our  bee-house,  in 
any  respect,  it  would  be  simply  to  make  it  larger. 
As  for  holes  under  ground,  or  below  the  surface, 
our  experience  has  given  us  a  prejudice  against 
them.  They  are  damp  and  mouldy,  and  hard  to 
get  into  and  out  of. 

On  page  188,  J.  M.  Worden  says,  there  are 
two  faults  which  all  loose  frames  have.  First, 
want  of  stability — being  unfit  for  transportation. 
Our  experience  is  as  follows  :  We  at  one  time 
bought  six  stocks  of  bees,  in  the  fall,  in  Lang- 
stroth hives  ;  put  them  in  a  lumber  wagon  witJi- 
out  springs ;  and  as  it  soon  commenced  to  rain 
hard,  we  drove  briskly  three  miles.  Not  a  comb 
was  broken,  nor  a  frame  loosened,  although  as 
they  were  new  swarms,  all  the  combs  had  been 
built  that  summer.  We  have  given  the  matter 
nearly  as  severe  a  test  several  times  since,  with 
the  same  result,  because  bees  around  here  brace 
their  combs  against  each  other,  and  fasten  the 
frames  all  that  is  ever  needed.  The  second  ob- 
jection is  new  to  us,  and  may  be  right.  He  says : 
"In  the  best  form  of  frame  hives  this  loafing 
space  amounts  to  one-fifth  or  one-fourth  of  their 
whole  capacity."  But  supposing  we  did  not 
give  them  this  "loafing  space,"  would  they  be 
sure  to  go  to  work  ?  We  fear  they  would  not. 
When  they  loaf  outside,  we  can  manage  them. 
Cannot  some  one  gut  out  a  patent  to  squeeze  the 
sides  of  tlie  hive  together,  when  it  is  desirable  to  » 
have  the  bees  go  out  and  go  to  work  ?    The  idea 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE  JOURNAL. 


259 


we  give  freely  to  those  -who  are  competent  to  de- 
velop it.  As  for  ourselves,  Vfe  are  content  still  to 
tnke  a  back  seat  and  look  on,  as  should  a 

Novice. 

P.  S.  A  neighboring  beekeeper  has  just  made 
us  a  call,  and  speaking  of  Quinby's  queen  yards, 
says  he  tried  three  last  year,  but  hybrids  would 
swarm  in  spite  of  them.  When  they  found  the 
old  queen  could  not  go,  they  killed  her,  and 
raised  young  ones.  The  same  thing  has  hap- 
pened with  us.  When  the  ground  is  kept  clear 
about  the  hives,  and  sawdust  banked  up  to  the 
entrance  as  we  should  have  them,  we  cannot  see 
much  use  in  the  queen  yard.  If  the  queen  should 
crawl  oti  we  have  always  found  enough  bees  fol- 
lowing her,  to  find  her  easily.  For  the  last  two 
years  we  have,  with  the  melextractor,  prevented 
swarming  in  every  case  when  we  wisJied,  without 
even  taking  the  trouble  to  remove  queen  cells. 
As  they  were  not  allowed  to  get  the  swarming 
fever,  we  had  no  attempt  at  natural  swarming, 
with  one  exception  only,  in  that  time. 

P.  S.  No.  2. — Langstroth  recommends,  on 
opening  a  hive  to  set  the  combs  in  an  empty 
hive,  to  keep  away  robbers,  &c.  We  did  this 
imtil  we  found  it  did  not  suit  us,  as  many  of  the 
bees,  especially  the  young  ones,  would  get  into 
the  empty  hive,  and  it  was  some  trouble  to  dis- 
lodge them.  In  some  cases,  too,  the  queen  got 
off  the  frames  with  a  cluster  of  hybrids,  and 
might  in  such  cases  get  lost  or  be  injured  in  shak- 
ing the  bees  out.  Now  we  stand  each  frame 
on  end  against  the  stake  that  supports  -the  grape 
vine  we  have  before  mentioned,  and  the  young 
bees  that  fall  off,  get  off,  or  are  shaken  off",  for 
any  purpose,  have  a  smooth,  clean,  sawdust  walk 
back  into  the  hive.  In  using  the  melextractor, 
the  bees  are  sometimes  an  hour  or  more  in  get- 
ting in  ;  but  we  have  never  known  them  to  fail, 
if  grass  and  weeds  were  kept  away.  As  for 
robbers,  since  our  bees  are  all  Italian,  we  have 
almost  forgotten  there  are  any,  and  scarcely  take 
any  precaution  at  all,  now. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Review  of  the  May  Numbei\    Introduc- 
ing Queens. 


In  reading  over  the  discussion  in  the  German 
Bee-keeper's  Convention,  I  notice  that  Major 
Von  Hruschka  recommended  a  method  of  intro- 
ducing queens,  which  in  its  general  features  re- 
sembles one  practiced  by  me  for  over  two  years 
past,  with  uniform  success  in  every  instance  ; 
and  which,  in  practice  is,  I  think,  more  simple 
and  easy  than  that  recommended  by  the  Major. 

In  answer  to  the  request  made  by  Mr.  R. 
Wilken,  on  page  326,  I  will  give,  through  the 
Journal,  the  method  practiced  by  me.  Whilst 
pondering  over  the  subject  of  introducing  queens, 
I  asked  the  question,  "  JEZbzo  do  bees  recognize  each 
other  f''  All  intelligent  bee-keepers  answer,  "iJy 
the  sense  of  smell.''''  Here  we  have  the  key  at 
once.  If  we  perfume  a  bee,  away  from  its  own 
hive,  sufficiently  to  overpower  its  peculiar  home 
scent,  that  bee  will  be  treated  like  a  robber  on  its 
return  to  its  own  hive.     Again,  in  uniting  bees. 


if  both  swarms,  before  uniting  them,  are  perfumed 
so  as  to  be  of  nearly  similar  scent  (other  condi- 
tions being  right)  they  will  never  quarrel.  Acting 
on  this  knowledge,  I  proceed  as  follows  :  I  take 
the  rose  or  jet  of  a  common  garden  sprinkler,  and 
fill  it  with  a  piece  of  sponge.  I  then  prepare  a 
mixture  of  sweetened  water  and  essence  of  anise. 
I  next  set  an  empty  hive  beside  the  one  which  is 
to  receive  the  queen,  blow  a  little  smoke  into  the 
slock  of  bees,  open  it  ;  lift  out  successively  each 
comb  and  the  adhering  bees  ;  look  for  the  queen, 
and  gently  sprinkle  the  comb  and  bees  by  dip- 
ping the  spiinkler  in  the  mixture,  and  hang  the 
comb  in  the  empty  hive.  As  soon  as  I  see  the 
queen,  I  catch  and  destroy  her.  After  all  the 
combs  are  removed  and  sprinkled,  I  sprinkle  the 
remaining  bees  and  the  inside  of  the  hive.  I 
then  spread  a  sheet  in  front  of  the  hive,  lift  out  a 
comb,  shake  off'  the  bees  to  the  sheet,  sprinkle 
them  again,  and  replace  the  comb  in  the  original 
hive.  In  this  manner  I  treat  all  the  combs  and 
bees  ;  take  the  Italian  queen,  sprinkle  her  with 
the  same  mixture,  and  drop  her  among  the  bees 
on  the  sheet ;  hive  them  like  a  natural  swarm, 
and  all  is  well.  I  did  not  introduce  quite  as 
many  queens  last  season,  as  Mr.  Wilken  states 
in  the  Journal,  but  I  introduced  nearly  cne 
hundred  and  lost  not  one. 

Patent  Hives. — Rejoinder. 
On  page  232,  Mr.  D.  L.  Adair,  expresses  him- 
self in  language  which  leads  us  to  infer  that  he  has 
the  exclusive  right  to  all  frames  constructed  to 
form  a  chamber  independent  of  the  outer  case. 
In  making  this  statement  he  is  probably  not 
aware  that  the  Champion  Hive,  is  so  patented  as 
to  cleai-ly  embrace  that  feature.  Nearly  all  of 
these  hives  are  made  with  their  sides  separated, 
and  Mr.  Adair  has  probably  not  come  in  sight  of 
one  of  these  double-sided  hives.  For  the  benefit 
of  all  interested,  I  give  a  few  extracts  from  the 
specification  of  the  patent.  "The  top  bars  K 
and  the  vertical  pieces  m,  ?«,  are  made  wide 
enough  to  have  the  edges  of  the  several  frames 
to  touch  each  other,  forming  a  second  wall,  or  a- 
closed  side,  independent  of  the  case.  These 
frames  are  constructed  a  little  shorter  than  the 
interior  space,  of  leugth  and  height  of  the  case  or 
body  of  the  hive,  so  as  to  leave  air-space  be- 
tween the  case  and  the  frames  R."  "Between 
the  sides  of  the  case  and  the  frames,  in  the  inte- 
rior, I  have  a  movable  side  board,"  &c.  Claims 
granted  :  "  The  comb  frames  R,  constructed  and 
arranged  substantially  as  and  for  the  purpose  de- 
scribed," &c.  Any  one  wishing  to  see  an  exact 
copy  of  the  patent,  can  obtain  it  from  the  Patent 
(3ffice,  No.  67,123— while  Mr.  Adair  obtained  his 
patent  much  later,  No.  68,141. 

Stupifting  Bees. 

I  think  that  the  use  of  chloroform  on  bees  is 

very  objectionable,  since  a  little  smoke  properly 

applied,  is  sufficient  to  subdue  the  most  vicious 

stock  of  bees,  without  injuring  them  in  the  least. 

All  Aboard. 

Friend  Price  must  undoubtedly  belong  to  the 

passengers  of  Train  No.  2,  with  mixed  freight 

and  sleeping  car,  if  he  counts  all  bee-keepers  that 

believe  in  tight  tops  and  side-doors  as  i  nioag 


260 


THE   AMERICAN  BEE   JOURNAL. 


"  the  Eip  Van  Winkles  -who  have  secured  berths 
in  the  sleeping  car  to  the  end  of  the  journey  of 
life."  Nearly  half,  if  not  more,  of  our  most  in- 
telligent bee-keepers  prefer  side  to  top  opening 
hives.  It  is  not  long  since  one  bee  keeper  stated 
in  the  Journal  that  many  times  he  felt  that  he 
could  take  an  axe  and  knock  off  a  side.  Dzierzon 
and  Berlepsch,  two  of  the  most  scientific  bee- 
keepers of  Germany,  use  to-day  side-opening 
hives.  In  my  apiary  I  have  hives  which  open 
from  the  top  only,  and  also  some  which  open 
from  the  side  and  top  both,  and  for  my  use  I 
make  no  other  than  side  and  top  opening  hives, 
as  I  prefer  them  for  the  great  convenience  they 
give  for  the  management  of  bees.  When  friend 
Price  speaks  of  fixed  frames,  he  speaks  of  some- 
thing 1  do  not  understand. ,  During  ray  travels  I 
have  seen  several  styles  of  frames,  but  all  were 
movable  ;  and  a  fixed  frame  I  have  never  seen. 

I  however  agree  with  him  on  all   the  other 
points  named  by  him  ;  but  those  above  referred 
to  are  undoubtedly  placed  on  the  wrong  train. 
E.  Kretchmer. 

Bed  Oak  Junction,  Iowa. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal  ] 

Systematic  Plagiarism. 


Mr.  Editor  : — It  is  quite  amusing  to  see  the 
amount  of  "i^lagiarism"  going  on  with  the  ego- 
tistical portion  of  the  writers  on  bee-culture.  I 
have  read  most  of  the  new  works  now  extant, 
and  must  say  that  nearly  all  of  them  are  taken 
more  or  less  from  Langstroth's  work,  and  some 
of  them  nearly  entirely  so.  For  instance,  the 
Bee-keeper's  Text  Book,  by  King  &  Co.,  is  nearly 
altogether  copied  from  Langstroth's  large  work  ; 
and  several  others  that  I  might  mention  are  made 
up  in  the  same  manner.  But  the  most  complete 
and  "double"  plagiarism  that  I  ever  saw  is  in  a 
little  work  by  N.  C.  Mitchell,  of  Indianapolis, 
Indiana.  He  (Mitchell)  says  he  acknowledges 
that  he  has  not  confined  his  work  altogether  to 
his  own  views,  but  has  "drawn  from  the  Myste- 
ries of  Bee-keeping  by  Qulnby,  Text  Book  by 
King  &  Co.,  and  K.  P.  Kidder's  work,"  &c. 
Now,  if  Mr.  Mitchell  is  familiar  with  the  rise  and 
progress  of  bee-keeping  in  this  country,  he  knows 
very  well  that  the  works  he  mentions  have  drawn 
more  or  less  from  Mr.  Langstroth,  and  that  with- 
out giving  Mr.  Langstroth'credil.  That  is  what 
I  call  "double"  plagiarism.  The  great  effort  of 
such  men  seems  to  be  to  keep  the  name  of  Lang- 
stroth and  his  work  entirely  out  of  view.  And  I 
here  venture  the  assertion  that  there  is  not  now 
a  single  patent  frame  hive  in  existence,  but  par- 
takes more  or  less  of  the  Langstroth  principle — the 
constant  endeavor  of  the  patentee  being  so  to 
alter  or  change  his  hive  as  to  seem  to  avoid  in- 
fringing on  the  Langstroth  patent.  This  is  evi- 
dent from  the  notorious  fact  that  every  patent 
hive  of  any  note  is  undeniably  modelled  in  some 
of  its  essential  features  on  Mr.  L.'s  original  in- 
vention. So,  too,  with  the  books.  The  effort  of 
nearly  every  one  of  the  compilers  of  these  little 
"one-horse"  books  seems  to  be  to  keep  Mr.  Lang- 
stroth's comprehensive  and  invaluable  work  alto- 
gether out  of  sight.     If  they  give  anybody  credit 


for  their  plagiarisms,  they  take  special  care  it 
shall  not  be  the  one  who  deserves  such  credit,  as 
in  Mitchell's  case.  1  was  much  amused  this 
morning  in  reading  an  article  in  the  Illustrated 
Bee  Journal,  from  the  pen  of  T.  Clark  Atkison, 
(May  number,  page  319.)  The  writer  seems 
much  pleased  at  the  rapid  progress  of  apiarian 
science,  warns  old  fogies  to  get  out  of  the  way, 
and  then  to  show  the  advance  of  the  science,  says 
there  are  at  this  time  two  Journals  published  for 
the  benefit  of  bee-keepers — one,  the  Illustrated 
Bee  Journal,  by  N.  C.  Mitchell,  and  the  other,  the 
Bee-keeper's  Journal,  by  King  &  Co.  There  he 
stops,  never  once  mentioning  the  American  Bee 
Journal — the  oldest  and  by  a  long  way  the  best 
advocate  of  apiarian  science.  This  is  only  an- 
other efi'ort  to  keep  out  of  view  the  pioneers  iu 
this  cause,  and  puff  into  notice  others  who  de- 
pend wholly  for  their  existence  on  the  continual 
bursting  of  little  "gas  bubbles,'.'  and  bringing 
themselves  into  notice  by  blowing  their  own 
"horns."  If  ever  there  was  a  periodical  sprung 
into  existence  by  vanit}',  and  kept  alive  by  "gass- 
ing" and  the  most  absurd  assertions,  it  is  the  Il- 
lustrated Bee  Journal.  There  is  no  end  of  the 
preposterous  pretensions  of  the  editor,  and  some 
of  his  correspondents  partake  of  the  same  dispo- 
sition. And  if  ever  there  was  a  catchpenny  on 
any  subject,  the  Bee-keeper's  Journal,  by  H.  A. 
King  &  Co.,  is  one,  beyond  all  doubt.  At  least 
such  is  the  conclusion  I  am  forced  to  come  to, 
from  a  close  perusal  of  the  paper  for  a  year, 

I  do  like  fairness  and  honesty  in  everything ; 
and  everybody  that  knows  anything  at  all  about 
the  history  of  bee-culture  in  this  country,  knows 
that  Mr.  Langstroth  is  the  great  pioneer,  and  the 
inventor  and  first  introducer  in  this  country  of 
the  movable  comb  sj^stem,  which  has  so  entirely 
revolutionized  bee-keeping ;  and  that  the  Ameri- 
can Bee  Journal  was  the  first  periodical  to  ad- 
vocate bee-culture  as  a  business.  And  now  that 
that  business  has  so  increased  by  numbers, 
through  the  exertions  and  influence  of  Mr.  Lang- 
stroth and  the  editor  of  the  American  Bee  Jour- 
nal, that  other  papers  can  not  only  live  but 
"make  a  large  i^rofit,"  such  as  the  above  described 
have  sprung  into  existence,  and  in  their  self-con- 
ceit presume  to  ignore  older  and  abler  workmen. 
Is  it  so,  Mr.  Editor,  that  the  two  papers  named 
are  the  only  bee  papers  now  published,  or  is  the 
old  American  Bee  Journal  still  alive  ?  I  trust 
it  is,  and  will  long  continue  to  be. 

B.  Puckett. 

Winchester,  Ind.,  May  9, 1870. 


It  is  observable  tliat  creatures  nearest  the 
earth  are  most  greedy  to  accumulate.  What 
creature  stores  up  so  much  provision  as  the  bee  ? 
But  the  birds  of  the  air  that  fly  next  to  Heaven 
neither  sow  nor  reap,  nor  carry  into  the  barn, 
saith  our  Saviour,  "  We  are  next  to  Heaven  la 
profession,  let  us  hate  to  be  furthest  off  in  con- 
versation.'*— Purchas. 


If  a  bee-keeper  relies  on  natural  swarming,  his 
apiary  should  be  carefully  and  constantly  watched 
during  the  swarming,  especially  when  after- 
swarms  may  be  expected. 


TEE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


261 


[For  the  Americau  Bee  Jourual.] 

Ventilation  Again. 


Mu.  Editor  :— I  am  a  constant  reader  of  the 
"  Bee  Jouknal  and  find  a  yreat  deal  of  valu- 
able information  therein  contained,  bes'rdes  some 
that  I  think  not  so  valuable.  Although  my 
experience  iu  bee-keeping  has  been  somewhat 
limited,  still  I  think  I  have  gained  some  knowl- 
edge of  the  .business,  which  may  be  useful  to 
those  who  have  had  less  experience  than  myself: 
I  would  not  assume  to  teach  any  old  beekeepers, 
but  simply  to  throw  out  a  few  hints  of  what  I 
regard  as  "  sound  doctrine." 

I  propose  to  say  a  few  words  on  the  subject  of 
the  true  theory  of  ventilation^  on  which  I  am 
aware  there  is  a  wide  difference  of  opinion. 
Some  believe  in  abundant  upward  ventilation  in 
winter ;  some  in  abundant  ventilation  from  be- 
low ;  others,  again,  in  little  or  no  ventilation  at 
all.  Now,  I  conceive  the  great  desideratum  i'or 
successful  wintering  is,  to  keep  the  bees  as  dry  as 
possible,  still  retaining  all  we  can  of  the  animal 
heat.  If  we  accept  this  as  our  text,  we  have  got 
a  foundation  upon  which  to  build  a  true  theory 
of  ventilation. 

I  take  it  to  be  a  fact  that  dampness  is  the  great 
enemy  to  successful  wintering,  causing  mouldy 
combs,  fermentation  of  honey  and  pollen,  disease, 
and  death.  There  are  two  ways  to  dispose  of 
this  dampness  ;  first,  by  abundant  upward  ventila- 
tion, second,  by  ventilation  from  beloic,  with  ab- 
sorbing materials  above.  Now  let  us  look  at  the 
merits  of  the  two.  In  the  first  case,  then,  abund- 
ant upward  ventilation  may  do  very  well,  where 
bees  are  wintered  in  a  special  repository,  like 
Novice's,  described  in  vol.  v.  p.  131,  and  the  re- 
quisite temperature  is  maintained.  But  for  un- 
protected out-door  wintering,  it  allows  too  much 
animal  heat  to  pass  off  with  the  dampness,  thus 
causing  a  greater  consumption  of  honey,  and 
perhaps  starvation.  In  the  second  case,  by  ven- 
tilation below  and  absorbing  materials  above,  we 
get  rid  of  the  dampness  as  effectually,  as  in_  the 
first  case,  while  we  retain  nearly  all  the  animal 
heat — supplying  the  bees  with  pure  air,  without 
a  draft  through  the  hive,  which  is  unnecessary 
and  should  not  be  allowed  in  any  case  whatever, 
Therefore  the  second  case  has  the  advantage  over 
the  first,  in  retaining  tlie,  animal  heat,  lessening 
the  consumption  of  honey,  and  saving  the  lives 
of  the  bees. 

In  preparing  bees  for  out-door  wintering  in 
movable  frame  hives,  I  would  remove  one  frame, 
spreading  the  others  somewhat  to  allow  more 
room  for  clustering.  Make  a  hole  in  the  bottom 
board,  equal  to  three  or  four  square  inches,  cov- 
ered with  wire  cloth  on  the  inside  for  ventilation, 
as  recommended  by  Mr.  Cox,  Mr.  Quiuby,  and 
others.  Then  remove  the  honey  board,  and 
place  in  its  stead  some  good  absorbing  material 
and  non-conductor  of  heat,  like  paper,  woollen 
cloth,  straw,  &c.  I  have  a  very  favorable  opinion 
of  the  paper  quilt  recommended  by  Mr.  C.  Hast- 
ings, Bee  Journal,  vol.  v.  p,  44.  I  have  used  it 
this,  winter,  to  my  advantage.  Put  the  paper 
quilt  upon  the  frames  ;  make  four  one  inch  holes 
iu  opposite  sides  of  the  cap ;  fill   the  cap  with 


good  dry  straw  or  hay,  and  put  it  upon  the  hive. 
Close  the  entrance  to  half  an  inch.  Bees  pre- 
pared in  this  way  are  in  good  condition  for  out- 
door wintering. 

To  winter  In  a  special  repository,  give  the 
ventilation  in  the  bottom  board  ;  remove  tliecap, 
and  place  the  paper  quilt  upon  the  frames. 

I  liTive  drawn  this  article  longer  than  I  in- 
tended, and  fearing  that  I  may  weary  your 
patience,  I  will  close  with  greetings  to  all  my 
fellow  beekeepers, 

P.  R  Russell,  Jr. 

Lynn,  Mass.,  March  14,  1870. 


[For  the  Americau  Bee  Journal.] 

Great  Fatality. 

Mr.  Editor  :— I  heartily  agree  with  Mr.  Ilar- 
desty  that  all  beekeepers  give  their  experience  in 
wintering  as  soon  as  the  job  is  done.  Loss  iu 
wintering  is  the  great  drawback  in  this  locality. 
"When  my  bees  went  into  winter  quarters,  I  was 
the  possessor  of  forty-eight  colonies.  To-day  I 
have  but  six  still  alive.  "Nine  were  in  box  hives, 
three  miles  from  our  village,  on  their  summer 
stands  ;  six  died  apparently  of  dysentery  or  bee 
cholera.  The  locality  for  bees  is  what  I  call  a 
good  one.  Fruit  blossoms  and  white  clover 
quite  plentiful.  Basswood,  whitewood,  soft  and 
hard  maple,  sycamore,  elm,  and  all  honey-pro- 
ducing trees,  native  to  this  country,  in  great 
abundance.  Seas  of  goldenrod  and  boneset ; 
also  considerable  wild  sunflower,  catnip,  and 
(to  top  off  with)  a  small  field  of  buckwheat. 
All  this  forage  is  within  three-quarters  of  a  mile 
distance.  Soil  clay,  land  heavy  timber,  border- 
ing on  a  large  swamp,  twenty  miles  long,  and 
from  one-half  mile  to  .three  miles  wide.  Yard 
well  sheltered. 

These  colonies  were  partly  new  and  partly  old 
ones.  My  home  apiary  consisted  of  thirtj^-nine 
colonies ;  seven  in  Langstroth  hives  (four  of 
them  shallow  form,  and  three  deep  ones),  and 
thirty-two  in  double  wall  hives  with  paper  quilt 
(described  by  Charles  Hastings)  over  them. 
These  double  wall  hives  are  topbar  hives,  13:^ 
inches  square  and  12  inches  deep.  About  one- 
fourth  of  the  bees  were  Italians  and  hybrids. 
Thirteen  colonies  were  in  a  large,  airy,  and  dry 
cellar,  with  temperature  ranging  from  35»  to  40" 
F.  ;  six  were  buried  (on  the  Bidwell  plan,  below 
the  surface,  with  no  ventilation)  ;  and  the  rest 
remained  on  their  summer  stands. 

The  first  to  die  was  an  Italian  colony  in  the  . 
cellar,  with  pure  queen  purchased  of  Adam 
Grimm.  The  coh)ny  was  strong  in  numbers,  was 
in  a  shallow  form  Langstroth  hive,  and  left 
about  fifteen  pounds  of  honey.  The  next  was  a 
colony  of  black  bees,  in  the  cellar  and  same  kind 
of  hive,  leaving  some  honey  also,  the  hive  not 
being  much  besmeared.  Next,  I  discovered 
seven  colonics  dead,  out  of  doors  ;  all  were  strong 
with  bees,  and  left  plenty  of  honey.  The  re- 
maining ones  were  then  (February  3d)  put  into 
the  cellar,  wlttJie  they  died  off  one  by  one,  till 
only  six  were  alive  when  set  out  on  the  29tli  of 
March,  and  three  of  them  have  gone  the  way  of 
all  flesh  since.     Nearly  all  the  hives  and  combs, 


262 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


especially  those  that  were  left  oa  their  summer 
stands,  were  very  badly  besmeared.  The  bees 
were  t'ouud  dead  in  a  mass,  between  the  combs 
and  on  the  bottom  board.  The  six  buried  were 
in  the  same  condition,  except  that  the  lo^wer  half 
of  each  comb  was  entirely  ruined  by  mould. 

The  forage  of  these  bees  consisted  of  fruit 
blossoms  and  white  clover,  in  great  quantity, 
-right  at  hand.  No  honey  however  on  clover 
Avith  us,  as  most  other  places,  on  account  of  con- 
tinued rain.  Basswood,  whitewood,  and  other 
honey  producing  forest  trees,  one  mile  and  a  half 
distant.  Goldenrod,  boneset,  and  hoarhound. 
near  by.  Also,  fifteen  acres  of  buckwheat, 
eighty  rods  distant. 

I  can  see  no  other  cause  for  this  mortality,  ex- 
cept unevaporated  watery  stores.  By  the  way, 
I  notice  some  of  these  bees  are  voiding  around 
the  hives  and  on  the  alighting  board  to-day  ; 
some  staggering  as  though  crippled.  Another 
thing  new  to  me  (as  my  experience  is  short)  is 
a  white  sticky  substance  on  the  upper  side  of  the 
abdomen,  which  in  many  cases  pastes  the  wings 
fast,  and  prevents  the  bees  from  going  to  the 
fields.  Has  anj^  one  seen  anything  similar  ?  Is 
it  common,  and  does  it  come  from  a  flower  ?  It 
remains  on  them  for  days.  Many  are  wander- 
ing around  in  the  grass,  trying  to  loosen  their 
wings. 

I  would  say  for  the  benefit  of  Mr.  Hubbard, 
that  a  farmer  living  one-  mile  and  a  half  from 
here,  near  a  whortleberry  marsh,  had  two  sets  of 
boxes  (whose  capacity  is  fifty  pounds  per  set)  on 
our  hives,  filled  nearly  full  from  whortleberry 
blossoms  alone.     This  I  witnessed. 

I  would  like  to  have  Mr.  Gallup  give  his 
opinion  of  the  mortality  of  bees  in  our  locality, 
for  nine-tenths  of  the  bees  within  ten  miles  of 
here  are  dead.  Apiaries  of  from  fifteen  to 
twenty  stands  are  sweiTt  clean.  I  would  like 
also  to  have  him  give  us  a  minute  description 
of  his  hives  ;  how  everything  is  arranged  ;  what 
is  the  shape  and  size ;  where  is  the  entrance ; 
which  way  the  frames  run,  how  many,  how  large, 
&c.,  and  the  why's  and  wherefore's — remember- 
ing that  some  of  us  are  onty  subscribers  of  1870. 

I  think  my  next  step  upward  will  be  from  top 
bars  to  movable  frames ;  but  not  until  I  have 
purchased  a  right  to  use  them.  I  understand 
that  Mr.  Langstroth  (the  inventor,  and  I  believe 
the  father  to  all  bee-hive  inventors,  when  the 
truth  is  told)  does  not  own  the  territory  in 
which  I  reside. 

And  now,  Mr.  Editor,  to  close,  I  would  say 
that  I  have  had  an  invitation  to  join  the  Farmers' 
■  Club  of  this  village,  and  talk  to  them  on  the 
subject  of  bee-keeping.  I  think  I  shall  go  and 
try  to  get  up  an  interest.  Shall  I  take  my  help- 
mate (the  American  Bee  Journal),  and  read 
a  few  appropriate  pieces  therefrom  to  them — 
among  them  Mr.  Newton's  views  of  the  Italian 
bee  ;  pass  round  the  Journal,  and  prove  to  them 
if  possible,  that  it  will  not  bite. 

James  Heddon. 
Doicagiac,  Mich.,  May  9,  1870. 

The  laws  whereby  the  commonwealth  of  bees 
is  ordered,  are  natural,  not  written  in  letters  but 
engraven  in  their  manners.— 5u<Zer. 


[For  tlie  American  Bee  Journal.] 

In  the  Dark  Ages  of  Bee-keeping. 

Mr.  Editor  and  Fellow  Bee-keepers  : — As 
I  am  a  constant  reader  of  the  Journal  and  a  lover 
of  the  honeybee  (the  honey,  of  course,  included) 
I  think  it  my  duty  to  write  a  few  lines  for  its 
pages,  while  I  profess  that  I  have  no  axe  to 
grind.  I  commenced  bee-keeping  in  the  year 
1859,  and  have  been  trying  to  get  up  a  large  api- 
ary. I  started  with  one  stand  of  bees  in  the  old 
fashioned  box  hives  ;  and  it  has  been  I  and  the 
moth  for  it,  almost  ever  since,  though  I  have 
overcome  the  scoundrels  after  a  long  struggle — 
but  not  until  I  left  off  using  the  box  hive. 

Before  I  used  the  movable  comb  hive,  I  had  at 
different  times  as  many  as  eighteen  or  twenty 
hives,  all  in  excellent  condition.  Of  course  I 
looked  for  a  large  increase  the  following  year, 
but  when  the  year  rolled  round,  I  was  doomed  to 
disappointment,  for  all  my  bees  were  dead,  except 
a  few  strong  colonies. 

My  mode  of  getting  honey  to  eat  or  for  other 
purposes  when  wanted,  was  this :  I  got  me  a 
shovelful  of  live  coals  and  a  good  roll  of  brim- 
stone, stole  upon  my  bees  at  night,  and  smoked, 
them  to  death  in  a  short  time.  I  thought  I  had  a 
lot  of  as  good  honey  as  any  man,  and  that  I  un- 
derstood as  much  about  raising  bees  as  most  of 
them.  You  can  imagine  what  a  flavor  my  honey 
had.  It  makes  me  shudder  to  think  of  such  a 
dish  now.  But  we  will  class  that  as  pertaining 
to  "  the  dark  ages." 

1  have  my  first  hive  of  bees  yet,  and  have  never 
realized  a  copper  from  them,  in  honey  or  any- 
thing else,  except  a  few  swarms  every  year.  In 
the  year  1868  my  eyes  were  opened,  for  I  had 
then  the  pleasure  of  seeing  something  wonderful, 
as  I  thought— a  patent  hive  !  Of  course  I  went 
in  for  one  of  those  "tricks,"  for  I  thought  tUat 
with  it,  I  should  have  bees  and  honey  both,  with- 
out any  trouble.  The  first  swarm  that  came 
forth  that  spring,  I  placed  in  the  new  wonder  ; — 
and  the  bees  seemed  to  labor  so  industriously, 
that  I  went  to  work  and  had  more  hives  made  ; 
and  now  my  apiary  is  increasing  very  fast. 

My  bees  stood  the  past  winter  very  well,  and 
came  out  in  the  spring  in  excellent  condition.  I 
have  got  one  new  swarm  this  spring.  Who  can 
beat  this  ?  " 

I  should  like  to  ask  fiieud  Gallup  a  few  ques- 
tions through  the  Journal,  as  he  is  well  posted  in 
bee  matters.  When  is  the  right  time  to  feed,  in 
fall  or  spring?  And  what  kind  of  food  is  best  ? 
Which  is  the  best  kind  of  hive  to  use,  and  where 
can  it  be  got  ?  And  which  is  the  best  way  to 
winter  bees,  in  the  cellar  or  the  open  air? 

Now,  hurrah  for  the  American  Bee  Journal. 
May  it  yet  be  found  in  the  family  of  every  bee- 
keeper ! 

T.  Woody. 
Pleasant  Valley,  Mo. 


In  some  locations  and  seasons,  either  from 
long  and  cold  storms,  or  from  deficiency  of  forage, 
stocks  that  are  not  well  supplied  with  honey  will 
exhaust  their  stores  and  perish  even  in  May,  un- 
less they  are  fed. 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


263 


[For  the  American  Bee  Jourual.] 

Cheap  Paint  for  Hives. 


Mk.  Editor  : — Notking  iu  tlie  Bee  Journal 
an  inquiry  for  a  clieap  and  useful  substitute  for 
lead  and  oil  paint,  I  -will  give  the  following  : 

Take  half  a  bushel  of  nice  uuslacked  lime  ; 
slake  it  with  boiling  water,  covering  it  during  tlie 
process  to  keep  in  the  steam.  Strain  the  liquid 
through  a  tine  sieve,  and  add  tro  it  a  peck  of 
clean  salt  previously  well  dissolved  in  warm 
water  ;  half  a  pound  of  powdered  Spanish  whiting; 
and  a  pound  of  clean  glue  previously  dissolved 
by  first  soaking  it  well  and  then  hanging  it  over 
a  slow  fiire  in  a  small  kettle,  within  a  larger  one 
filled  with  water.  Add  five  gallons  of  hot  water 
to  the  whole  mixture  ;  Stir  It  well,  and  let  it 
stand  for  a  few  days,  covered  from  dirt  or  dust. 
Apply  when  hot,  by  keeping  it  over  a  fire. 

Spanish  brown  stirred  in  Avill  make  it  red  or 
pink,  according  to  quantity.  Lampblack  and 
Spanish  brown  makes  a  reddish  stone  color.    • 

It  is  quite  a  chore  to  prepare  this  properly,  but 
when  it  is  ready  you  have  an  article  that  is  hard 
to  beat. 

P.  Young. 

Sharon,  Wis. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Jourual. 

A  Cheap  Paint. 


Mr.  Editor  : — Several  correspondents  hav- 
ing called  for  a  paint  receipt,  the  following  from 
the  Florida  Laud  Kegister,  may  answer  their 
purpose. 

Durable  Whitewash  for  Outside  Work. — 
Take  one  bushel  of  lime,  mi-ved  as  usual  for 
whitewash  ;  then  add  and  thoroughly  mix  twenty 
pounds  Spanish  whiting,  seventeen  pounds  rock 
salt  (Liverpool  salt)  twelve  pounds  brown  sugar. 
Apply  tliiu,  three  coats,  and  it  will  remain  longer 
than  white  paint,  will  not  wash  otT,  and  cannot 
be  rubbed  otf. — Solon  Robinson. 

Mix  in  colors  to  suit. 

John  M.  Price. 

Buffalo  Orove,  Iowa. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Cheap  Paint  or  Whitewash. 


Mr.  Editor  : — In  the  February  number  of  the 
Juuinal,  Mr.  Coggshall  makes  inquiry  for  a  cheap 
paint. 

Take  fifty  parts  of  white  lime,  six  parts  of 
alum,  twenty- five  parts  of  curd  cheese,  made 
from  sour  milk,  and  add  a  small  portion  of  blue 
vitriol. 

The  milk  should  not  be  heated  very  hot,  or  the 
curd  wjjl  be  too  lumpy.  Mix  all  together,  and 
run  it  through  a  paint  mil),  and  it  is  ready  for 
putting  on.  You  can  apply  it  with  a  paint  brush 
or  a  whitewash  brush.  Add  any  color  you  wish, 
when  you  are  ready  to  apply  it ;  or  you  can  take 
a  little  linseed  oil  and  white  lead,  and  add  dif- 
ferent colors  and  apply  a  coat  on  the  above  paint, 
especially  in  front  of  the  portico,  so  that  tlie  fronts 
of  your  hives  shall  be  of  difl'ereut  colors. 


When  the  above  paint  is  mixed  ready  for  tlie 
paint  mill,  thin  it  down  with  sour  milk  to  the 
proper  consistence  of  whitewash.  Keep  j^our 
hives  covered  and  it  will  last  several  years.  Tlie 
bee-moth  is  not  apt  to  deposit  eggs  in  the  cracks 
or  crevices  of  hives,  if  filled  with  this  paint. 
The  vitriol  kills  the  larvfe. 

This  whitewash  is  good  to  put  on  any  outbuild- 
ings. It  preserves  the  boards  from  warping  or 
cracking  in  the  sun,  better  than  white  lead  and 
linseed  oil  will. 

Alfred  Chapman. 

New  Cumberland,  West   Va. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Ventilation. 


Mr.  Editor  : — I  would  like  to  be  informed, 
through  the  columns  of  your  interesting  Journal, 
what  constitutes  proper  ventilation.  There  is 
such  a  diversity  of  opinions,  and  so  many  ways 
recommended,  that  one  with  little  experience  is 
jjerplexed  as  to  what  mode  to  adopt.  Some  tell 
}'ou  that  the  summer  passages  must  be  kept  open 
or  the  bees  will  smother.  Others  say  that  they 
shtnild  be  closed,  to  give  a  chance  for  the  damp- 
ness to  pass  off  at  the  top  of  the  hive.  Now,  if 
there  is  danger  of  suffocation  with  the  summer 
passages  closed,  how  is  it  that  many  beekeepers 
in  this^vicinity,  as  well  as  in  other  places,  who  do 
not  see  their  bees  from  fall  to  spring,  permitting 
the  snow  and  ice  to  collect  around  the  entrances, 
still  do  not  lose  their  bees? 

Some  say  there  should  not  be  a  current  of  air 
passing  through  the  hive.  Now,  I  woitld  like  to 
ask,  will  there  be  a  current  passing  througli  the 
hive,  if  the  summer  passages  are  open,  and  two 
or  three  thickness  of  woollen  cloth,  or  a  good 
covering  of  shavings,  be  placed  over  the  frames, 
after  the  honey-boards  are  removed  ?  And,  also, 
does  a  hive  need  upward  ventilation  in  the  height 
of  the  breeding  season,  if  it  is  shaded  from  the 
hot  sun  ? 

Will  any  of  our  friends  give  us  some  light  on 
this  subject,  pointing  out  briefly  and  plainly 
what  is  and  what  is  not  required  according  to 
season  and  circumstances? 

A.  Green. 

A)}iesburg,  Mass. 


Evidently  there  does  exist  a  line  of  demarka- 
tion  between  distinct  species,  which  only  requires 
to  be  diligently  sought  to  be  found,  obscure  as  it 
ma}^  appear  to  be,  but  which  the  insects  them- 
selves obey  ;  for  however  closely  species  may,: 
seem  to  approximate,  yet  I  do  not  believe  that 
they  ever  permanently  coalesce,  but  that  thej^  are 
always  as  distinctly  separate  as  arc  assymptotes. 
— Shuckard. 


The  study  of  natural  science  has  progressively 
reached  an  extraordinary  development,  spreading 
in  every  direction  its  innumerable  tentacula  ;  to 
which  the  perfection  of  the  telescope  and  of  the 
microscope  have  still  further  added,  by  the  dis- 
covery of  new  worlds  of  wonder. 


264 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


[For  the  American  Bee  Journal.] 

The  American  Hive. 


Will  somo  one  who  has  had  more  experience  m 
tlie  use  of  the  above-named  hive  tha-u  I  have, 
please  tell  me  how  to  see  if  the  bees  in  them  have 
sufficient  stores  to  carry  tliem  through  to  the 
spring,  without  taking  out  all  or  half  of  the 
combs  ? 

I  am  led  to  make  this  inquiry  from  the  difficulty 
which  I  had  a  few  days  ago,  in  ascertaining  the 
condition  of  a  hive  belonging  to  a  friend.  He 
has  three  hives.  One  a  box  hive  with  a  mov- 
able cover  to  the  honey  chamber  ;  one  a  shallow 
Langstroth  ;  and  the  other  an  American.  On 
removing  the  cover  of  the  box  hive,  I  could  get 
a  tolerably  good  idea  of  its  condition ;  and  by 
separating  the  combs  of  the  Langstroth  hive,  I 
could  at  once  see  bolli  the  amount  of  honey  it 
contained,  and  the  size  of  the  swarm.  But  the 
American  was  entirely  beyond  me.  The  top  i)re- 
sented  nothing  but  the  solid  tops  of  the  frames, 
with  about  two  by  one-half  inches  cut  out,  for 
the  bees  to  pass  through  to  get  to  the  surplus 
boxes  ;  so  1  could  see  nothing  from  there.  I 
then  took  off  the  movable  side,  but  could  only 
see  one  side  of  one  comb.  When  I  attempted  to 
take  out  the  comb,  I  found  the  frame  glued  fast, 
with  propolis,  all  along  the  top ;  as  are  all  the 
rest.  Having  nothing  "at  hand  to  separate  them 
with,  and  having  very  little  time  to  spare,  I  was 
obliged  to  give  it  up.  Separating  these  combs 
would  have  been  a  very  small  matter  in  this  one 
hive  ;  but  I  should  be  very  sorry  to  have  to  do  it 
to  all  the  hives  in  my  own  yard,  before  I  could 
ascertain  their  condition  in  the  spring. 

D.    M.    WORTHINGTON. 

Elkridge,  Md.,  April  13,  1870. 


[For  the  American  Bee  .Tournal. 

A  New  Moth-trap. 


As  the  season  is  near  at  hand  when  that  great 
pest  of  the  apiary,  the  Bee-Moth,  begins  its  un- 
tiring work  of  depositing  eggs  in  every  suitable 
p'.ace,  I  deem  it  advisable  to  put  all  on  their 
guard,  so  that,  if  possible,  they  may  baffle  this 
foe  in  some  of  its  manoeuvres. 

The  following  is  an  excellent  moth-trap,  which 
every  bee-keeper  would  do  well  to  put  in  opera- 
tion as  early  in  the  season  as  the  moth  begins  to 
be  troublesome. 

Take  common  glass  quart  fruit  jars,  "  the 
more  the  merrier,"  fill  each  two-thirds  full  of 
water  well  sweetened  with  honey,  molasses,  or 
sugar.  Tie  a  string  around  the  neck  of  each  jar, 
and  suspend  from  the  limbs  of  fruit  or  other  small 
trees  near  the  hives.  In  the  evening  the  moths 
or  "millers"  are  attracted  to  the  sweetened 
water  in  great  numbers,  and  when  once  in  sel- 
dom succeed  in  getting  out. 

I  first  saw  this  method  practiced  at  the  apiary 
of  a  friend  a  few  miles  from  this  place,  last  season. 
The  top  of  the  water  was  completely  covered 
with  moths  and  flies  ;  and  he  assured  me  that  he 
was  obliged  to  empty  the  jars,  at  least  every 
other  day  during  the  summer  months,  as  they 


would  get  so  full  that  there  was  no  chance  for 
more  to  drown. 

One  moth  thus  killed  in  Mayor  June  is  equiva- 
lent to  hundreds  of  worms  a  few  months  later. 
See  to  it  tiien  that  as  many  are  early  destroyed 
as  possible. 

The  bees  will  never  trouble  these  jars  when 
there  is  honey  in  the  fields. 

I.     F.     TiLLINGHAST. 

Factoryville,  Pa. 


[Fortlie  American  Bee  Journal.] 

To  Keep  Bees  from  Swarming. 


Mr.  Editor  :— In  volume  4,  page  185,  Mr. 
Quinby  describes  a  box  for  preventing  the  queen 
from  escaping. 

I  am  soiry  to  saj''  I  cannot  understand  fully 
what  is  intended.  Where  is  the  box  i^laced  ? 
It  appears  it  has  been  understood,  for  at  page  119 
ofihe  present  volume,  Mr.  A.  C.  Manvvell  says, 
"  it  works  like  a  charm."  Will  some  one  please 
to  explain  how  it  it  is  used  ? 

Tyro. 

Ontario,  Canada.,  Feb.,  1870. 


Honey  Emptier. 


A  correspondent  of  the  Journal  of  Agriculture, 
writing  from  Springfield,  111.,  says: 

"  Our  first  swarm,  hived  May  32d,  1869,  stored 
in  boxes,  making  all  the  comb,  one  hundred  and 
ninety-two  pounds  of  honey.  This  has  been  re- 
moved as  fast  .as  the  boxes  were  filled.  The 
hive  now  contains  forty  pounds  net  of  honey, 
some  ten  pounds  more  than  it  really  needs  for 
wintering  well,  showing  that  the  bees  did  not  rob 
themselves  to  store  in  boxes.  They  are  half- 
breed  Italians,  and  when  hived  were  supplied 
with  three  frames  of  comb.  Other  hives  have 
given  us  from  seventy-five  to  one  hundred 
pounds,  while  some  of  our  hives  were  so  full  in 
tlie  early  part  of  the  season  that  there  was  but 
little  room  for  the  queen  to  breed,  and  conse- 
quently were  deficient  in  bees  to  store  honey. 
Many  of  these  hives  were  relieved  of  their  surplus 
honey  with  the  honey-emptier,  and  they  are  Jiow 
strong  hives.  This  honey-emptier  is  a  great  ad- 
dition to  an  apiary.  In  fact,  I  should  hardly  be 
willing  to  do  without  one,  though  as  generally 
made  they  are  quite  deficient.  Being  made  of 
wood  they  absorb  honey  which  is  apt  to  sour  in 
warm  weather.  They  are  also  made  with  flat 
bottoms.  Seeing  these  imperfections  led  us  to 
get  one  up  ourselves,  with  which  we  are  pleased. 
It  is  made  of  tin,  with  the  bottom  sloping  to  the 
centre,  where  the  honey  is  drawn  otf  through  a 
tube,  so  that  all  of  it  will  run  out  and  ni)ne  be 
wasted.  This  makes  it  convenient  for  throwing 
out  small  lots  of  honey,  as  every  drop  of  it  will 
run  to  the  centre,  ready  to  be  drawn  off  when 
wanted.  S.  C.  F, 

Springfield,  III. 

♦-• 

Bees  gorged  with  honey  never  volunteer  an 
attack. 


THE  AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


265 


THE  AMERICAN  BEE  JOURNAL. 


WASHINGTON,   JUNE,  1870. 


n^  With  this  number  closes  the  fifth  volume  of 
this  Journal.  Though  it  is  gratifying  to  us  to  be 
able  to  say  that  the  volume  ends  with  a  largely  in- 
creased subscription  list,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that 
the  bee-keepers  of  the  country  have  not,  thus  far, 
sustained  our  effort  to  establish  an  organ  of  commu- 
nication for  the  common  benefit  of  those  interested  in 
bee-culture,  as  generally  and  as  generously  as  we 
presumed  they  would  when  m'c  engaged  in  the 
enterprise.  Though  the  Journal  now  does  somewhat 
more  than  pay  cost,  our  aggregate  expenditures  for 
its  support  since  its  commencement  largely  exceed 
our  total  receipts,  regardless  of  time  and  labor  de- 
voted to  the  work.  Of  this,  liowever,  we  have  not 
complained,  trusting  that,  in  due  season,  our  ser- 
vices and  efforts  woiild  be  properly  appreciated  in 
the  quarters  to  which  we  must  look  for  encourage- 
ment and  remuneration.  With  increasing  patronage, 
■we  have  steadily  enlarged  and  improved  the  Journal ; 
and  it  is  our  constant  endeavor  to  make  it  keep  pace 
with  the  progress  which  the  specialty  to  which  it  is 
devoted  is  continually  making  at  home  and  abroad. 
But  to  improve  the  paper  to  the  extent  we  con- 
template, and  publish  it  as  frequently  as  its  steadfast 
supporters  desire,  demands  more  ample  fostering  aid 
than  we  have  yet  received.  Give  us  that,— gi\e  it 
right  speedily,  and  the  American  Bee  Journal 
shall  soon  be  made  all  that  its  warmest  friends 
wish  it  to  be,  without  deviating  an  iota  from  that 
impartiality  and  fail-  dealing  which  have  always  been 
among  its  prominent  characteristics.  Will  our  friends 
assist  us  in  the  effort  to  increase  its  circulation? 
Each  can  do  much  in  its  behalf,  in  his  own  imme- 
diate neighborhood,  by  presenting  it  to  the  notice  of 
practical  bee-keepers  who  are  not  yet  numbered 
among  its  patrons.  Those  who  have  already  done  so, 
have  our  cordial  thanks  for  their  kindness. 


The  carrying  in  of  saw-dust  for  pollen,  as 
noticed  by  Novice,  was  observed  many  years  ago  in 
Germany,  and  occasionally  in  this  country ;  but 
appears  to  have  been  practiced  this  spring,  more 
generally  than  usual  here,  by  the  bees,  especially  in  the 
west  and  southwest.  To  what  extent,  or  how,  it  can 
be  used  by  them,  as  a  substitute  for  the  pollen  of 
fruit  blossoms,  remains  to  be  ascertained. 

In  the  Bienenzeitung,  vol.  6,  No.  20,  for  1850,  Mr. 
Scholtisz  stated  that  he  saw  his  bees  carrying  pellets 
formed  of  charcoal  dust,  which  were  black  as  jet,  and 
had  a  sweetish  taste- the  dust  having  evidently  been 
slightly  moistened  with  honey. 


The  plant  mentioned  by  Mr.  Argo  as  springing 
up  in  a  vineyard  and  furnishing  early  pasturage  for 
his  bees,  and  of  which  he  sent  us  a  specimen,  is  the 
Lnndum  or  dead  nettle;  but  whether  the  stem-clasping 
or  the  2^w-ple,  the  specimen  did  not  enable  us  to  de- 
termine— probably  the  former,  as  the  latter  is  com- 
paratively rare.  It  is  a  good  honey  plant  in  its 
season,  but  otherwise  a  worthless  weed,  introduced 
from  Europe,  and  not  easy  to  extirpate  when  it  gets 
a  foothflJd.  It  is  an  annual,  quite  hardy,  often 
blossoms  in  mid-winter  when  the  weather  is  mild, 
and  seeds  profusely.  The  pollen  gathered  from  the 
{lowers  is  orange  colored. 


Bees'  Metamorphoses. 

According  to  recent  careful  observations  made  in 
Switzerland,  the  development  of  queens,  drones  and 
workers  proceeds  as  follows,  in  the  ordinary  tem- 
perature of  the  hive  in  spiing  and  summer: 

The  egg  hatches  on  the  third  day  after  being  laid. 
The  queen  remains  in  the  larval  state,  in  the  open 
cell  five  daj-s ;  the  worker  five  days ;  and  the  drone 
six  days  and  twelve  hours.  In  spinning  the  cocoon, 
the  queen  spends  one  day,  the  worker  one  day  and 
twelve  hours,  and  the  drone  three  days.  After  spin- 
ning the  cocoon  the  queen  remains  a  larva  two  days 
and  sixteen  hours,  the  worker  three  days,  and  the 
drone  two  days  and  twelve  hours.  After  changing, 
the  queen  remains  in  the  nymph  or  pupa;  state  four 
days  and  eight  hours,  the  worker  seven  days  and 
twelve  hours,  and  the  drone  nine  days.  Hence,  from 
the  capping  of  the  cell  to  the  issuing  of  the  bee,  the 
queen  usually  requires  eight  days,  the  worker  twelve, 
and  the  drone  fourteen  days  and  twelve  hours  ;  mak- 
ing from  the  laying  of  the  eggs  to  the  eniQj-ging  of 
the  perfect  insect,  the  normal  period  of  sixteen  days 
for  the  queen,  twenty  for  the  worker,  and  twenty- 
four  for  the  drone.  This  period,  however,  is  occa- 
sionally hastened  or  retarded  by  the  peculiarly  propi- 
tious or  unpropitious  state  of  the  weather  or  the 
temperature  of  the  hiv^;  and  the  term  has  been  found 
to  vary, 

In  the  queen,  from  the  15th  to  the  32d   day. 
"      woker,  "       19th     "      26th    " 

"      drone,  "       23d     "       28th    " 


Attaching  Guide  Combs  to  Frames  or  Bars. 

CoTTAGB  Cheese  Cement.— Dissolve  one  ounce  of 
borax  in  six  ounces  of  water,  and  use  the  solution 
for  mixing  with  curd  or  cottage  cheese  to  I'educe  it  to 
the  consistence  of  paste.  Spread  a  thin  layer  of  this 
on  the  surface  of  the  frame  or  bar  to  which  the  guide 
comb  is  to  be  attached  ;  cut  your  comb  into  strips  of 
about  one-inch  in  width,  and  press  these  gently  on 
the  paste,  lengthwise  of  the  frame,  from  end  to  end. 


266 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


Set  the  frame  aside  m  an  airy  place,  in  the  shade,  to 
let  the  cement  dry. 

Gum  Arabic  Cemb>;t.— Dissolve  gum  arable  in 
water,  to  a  syrupy  consistence ;  cut  your  comb  into 
strips,  and  proceed  as  above  directed.  Good  clean 
glue  may  be  used  for  the  same  purpose.  There  is  no 
danger  that  the  cement  will  become  softened  by  the 
moisture  of  the  hive,  as  the  bees  will  immediately 
fasten  the  comb  more  securely,  if  need  be. 

It  is  well  to  prepare  frames  thus  with  guiib  combs, 
at  leisure  moments,  some  time  before  they  are  likely 
to  be  wanted.  After  the  cement  has  become  dry, 
insert  the  frame  in  one  of  your  strongest  colonies, 
and  let  it  remain  there  twenty-four  hours.  In  that 
time  the  comb  will  be  properly  fastened  and  trimmed 
up  in  workmanlike  manfler,  and  the  frames  should 
be  removed  for  preservation  and  use.  A  plentiful 
supply  of  frames  thus  furnished  will  be  found  very 
convenient  and  serviceable.  They  can  be  preserved 
from  the  moth  and  the  worm  by  suspending  them  in 
a  box,  and  occasionally  exposing  them  to  the  fumes 
of  burning  brimstone— which  is  the  only  use  that 
should  ever  be  made  of  that  commodity,  in  an  apiary. 


Igtiorance  not  Bliss ! 

A  correspondent  of  a  Western  paper,  giving  an 
account  of  his  perambulations  in  the  "  rural  districts," 
says — 

"  We  called  at  the  residence  of  Mr.  R — ,  who  had 
been  confined  to  his  room  and  bed  for  three  weeks. 
His  afSiction  was  severe,  and  all  occasioned  by  the 
stings  of  hees.  The  way  it  happened  was  this:  One 
hot  day,  while  the  men  were  in  the  hay  or  wheat 
field,  a  cow  came  near  to  where  the  bee  stand  was, 
and  it  seems  the  honey-making  family  had  a  dislike 
to  Old  Horny  coming  so  near,  they  mounted  the  cow, 
not  only  by  scores  but  by  hundreds,  and  tormented 
and  stung  the  poor  brute  so  severely  that  Mr.cR. 
was  compelled  to  go  and  try  to  relieve  her  from  the 
bees,  or  rather  the  bees  from  the  cow.  And  no 
sooner  had  he  made  his  appearance  in  behalf  of 
soohcijy  than  the  bees  mounted  him  and  stung  him 
most  unmercifully.  The  result  was  his  face  and  body 
began  to  swtU  from  the  poison,  so  that  in  fact  at  one 
time  it  was  thought  his  life  was  in  danger." 

Certainly  this  was  altogether  a  sad  occurrence; 
but  had  Mr.  R.  been  a  reader  of  the  Bee  Jotjrxal. 
and  remcmhered  what  he  read,  we  think  it  likely  he 
would  have  been  spared  all  this  suffering  and  confine- 
ment. By  immediately  spreading  a  blanket  or  linen 
sheet,  "  dripping  wet,"  over  the  cow,  and  keeping  it 
wet,  he  would  quickly  have  relieved  her,  without 
probably  receiving  a  sting  himself.  And  if,  in  their 
fury,  the  bees  had  assailed  him  also,  the  prompt 
application  of  coal  oil,  or  recourse  to  friend  Gallup's 
"water  cure"  would  in  all  likelihood  have  averted 
the  consequences  from  himself. — People  who  keep 
bees  in  these  days,  hardly  have  an  excuse  for  not 
knowing  how  to  treat  them  in  such  emergencies. 


Hiving  under  DifSeulties. 

Natural  swarms  will  sometimes  alight  in  nearly 
inaccessible  places,  as  in  a  dense  hedge,  or  in  a  goose- 
berry or  currant  bush.  When  this  is  the  case,  take  an 
empty  straw  or  box  hive,  with  its  bottom  board,  and 
place  the  latter  as  near  as  possible  to  the  cluster,  so 
pressing  it  in  the  soil  that  bees  cannot  get  under  it. 
Then  with  a  long-handled  spoon  or  dipper  scoop  up  a 
parcel  of  bees  from  the  cluster,  transfer  them  to  the 
bottom  board,  and  immediately  invert  the  hive  over 
them,  with  the  entrance  towards  the  cluster.  Trans- 
fer some  more  bees  to  the  front  of  the  hive,  and  they 
will  immediately  commence  fanning  and  humming. 
If  the  cluster  cannot  be  reached  with  spoon  or  dipper 
take  a  long  stick  or  paddle,  besmear  one  end  of  it 
with  honey  or  sugar  syrup,  insert  it  in  the  cluster, 
let  bees  gather  on  it,  and  shake  them  oflf  on  the 
bottom  board  or  in  front  of  the  hive.  Now  take  a 
fumigator  and  blow  tobacco  smoke  gently  on  the  . 
c]uster,/ro»ia&owe,  to  alarm  the  bees,  which  hearing 
the  humming  and  finding  their  lodging  getting  un- 
comfortable, M'ill  soon  descend  to  the  ground,  travel  to 
the  hive  in  regular  troop,  and  take  possession  without 
hesitation.  Let  them  enter  without  further  annoy- 
ance from  smoke  ;  wait  till  you  are  sure  the  queen  is 
with  them,  if  you  have  not  seen  her  travelling  along 
in  the  crowd.  If  they  remain  quiet  and  content  for 
half  an  hour,  remove  them  to  your  apiary  and  trans- 
fer them  to  a  movable  comb  hive.     Q.  E.  D. ! 

Worse  than  Foulbrood. 

The  correspondent  before  referred  to  says  he  too 
could  wr  te  a  chapter  on  bees,  as  he  has  considera- 
ble experience  in  the  bee  business.  Though  he 
knows  not  much  about  being  severely  stung,  yet  he 
"knows  something  about  money-making  over  the  left.'''' 
He  once  bought  forty-five  colonies  of  bees,  hauled 
them  home  into  his  yard,  had  a  house  put  up ;  and 
"  the  Yesult  was  every  pound  of  honey  cost  me  over 
three  dollars,  and  in  a  few  years  I  had  not  a  sting  or 
a  bee  left.  There  the  old  boxes  and  deserted  hives 
stood.  It  seemed  as  if  every  calamity  that  bees 
are  subject  to,  came  over  my  bee  family,  and  I  was 
minus  $300." 

Now,  we  fancy  that  any  "new  beginner"  who 
would  go  into  the  "  bee  business"  in  that  style  and  on 
that  scale,  would  be  quite  likely  to  find  himself,  in 
a  few  years,  suff'ering  from  precisely  such  a  calam- 
ity. No  doubt  the  writer  was  pretty  severely  stung  on 
that  occasion,  and  we  suspect  he  has  not  yet  got 
entirely  over  the  pain  or  the  swelling. 

That  Bee  Hive  Case  Again. 

At  the  late  session  of  the  United  States  District 
Court,  at  Milwaukie,  the  Grand  Jury  found  an  in- 
dictment against  K.  P.  Kidder,  for  perjury  in  the 
Bee  Comb  Guide  Case  of  Kidder  vs.  Trask,  about 
which  we  have  had  occasion  to  remark  more  than  once. 
—  Western  Farmer,  Madison,  Wis. 


THE    AMERICAN  BEE   JOURNAL. 


26r 


Correspondence  of  the  Bee  Journal. 

WiCKHAM-BREAUx,  Englani>,  March  30.— Bees  did 
very  poorly  in  this  country,  last  summer.  Most  bee- 
keepers lost  half  their  stocks  during  the  winter,  and 
those  still  alive  are  scarcely  out  of  danger. — W  Hew- 

SON. 

Fulton,  Ills.,  April  20.— The  bees  in  this  section 
have  generally  wintered  well.  They  have  been  carry- 
ing in  pollen  for  a  week  or  ten  days,  when  the 
weather  would  admit  of  it.  The  soft  maple  and  the 
elm  are  in  bloom;  also  the  hazelnut  and  poplar. — R. 

R.  MURPUY. 

Brooki.in,  Canada,  April  29.— The  spring  so  far  is 
backward  here.  There  Avas  a  fearful  loss  of  bees 
during  the  winter,  owing  to  a  want  of  honey.  Last 
season  was  so  extremely  wet  and  cold,  that  very  little 
honey  was  stored.  I  think  fully  one-third,  if  not 
one-half,  of  the  bees  have  died  in  this  province.— J. 
H.  Thojcas. 

Mobile,  Alabama,  May  7. — The  season  here  has 
been  in  many  respects  remark alile.  Bees  commenced 
obtaining  pollen  about  the  middle  of  January,  and 
began  breeding  very  rapidly.  Many  stocks,  well 
supplied  with  honey,  exhausted  all  their  stores  by  the 
1st  of  March.  The  spring  was  backward — nearly 
twenty  days  later  than  usual.  Consequently  stocks 
had  to  be  fed  not  only  to  prevent  a  cessation  ot 
breedintr,  but  actual  starvation.  It  continued  thus 
until  Tuesday  the  12th  of  April,  when  they  com- 
menced obtaining  honey,  which,  though  very  thin 
and  transparent,  was  so  abundant  that  on  Friday 
evening,  the  1.5th — or  in  three  days — some  stocks  that 
were  fed  on  jNIonday  to  keeptlicni  from  starving,  con- 
tained fifty  pounds  of  honey.  In  a  few  days  more 
honey  from  the  blackberry  blossoms  became  abundant, 
and  has  so  continued  ever  since.  The  amount  of 
honey  collected  within  the  last  three  weeks  is  with- 
out a  precedent  in  this  locality. — In  order  that  I 
might  the  easier  Italianize  my  apiary,  I  reduced  the 
number  of  stocks  and  permitted  no  swarming  ;  con- 
sequently all  my  stocks  were  strong.  I  am  not  yet 
prepared  to  state  the  exact  amoimt  of  honey  obtained 
within  about  three  M'eeks,  but  some  stocks  have  cer- 
tainly collected  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  and 
made  two-thirds  of  the  comb  to  store  it  in.  Every 
young  bee  that  emerges  from  its  cell,  has  its  place 
at  once  supplied  with  honey,  hence  I  have  never 
known  a  geason  in  which  the  melextractor  was  more 
necessary.— J.  M.  Worden. 

Knowersville,  N.  T.,  May  9. — The  last  season  was 
a  poor  one  for  bees,  in  this  locality.  The  Italians 
proved  their  superiority  beyond  a  doubt — swarming 
and  storing  surplus  honey,  Avhile  the  natives  were 
doing  comparatively  nothing.  ' 

This  year  the  season  opens  with  better  prospects. 
The  plum  and  cherry  trees  are  in  full  Bloom,  and 
the  bees  are  improving  the  time. 

I  like  the  Bee  Journal  very  much.  I  wish  it  came 
weekly,  instead  of  monthly.  I  have  used  some  of 
Novice's  bee-feeders  and  like  them  very  well. — W.  D. 
Wright. 

"Wenham,  Mass.,  May  10.— In  the  May  number  of 
the  Journal  I  find  another  communication  from  Mr. 
D.  T.  Batcheldor,  of  Newburyport.  Now  as  I  very 
much  dislike  to  be  made  out  a  liar,  as  Mr.  B.  would 
make  it  appear,  I  mean  to  show  proper  resentment, 
and  shall  try  to  turn  the  tables  on  Mr.  B.,  which  I 
think  I  can  do,  as  I  have  plenty  of  evidence  to  prove 
my  statement  was  correct. 

I  can  prove  by  the  "  Honey  Committee'"  that  my 
statement  in  the  February  Journal,  page  196,  is  true 
in  every  sense  of  the  word.     I  was  present  in  the  room 


when  the  Committee  made  up  their  awards,  and 
know  whereof  I  speak.  I  say  again  that  Mr.  D.  T. 
Batcheldor  was  awarded  only  two  dollars  on  his  bees, 
and  his  brother, D.  C.  B.,  was  awarded  a  likeamount. 
I  know,  Mr.  Kditor,  that  this  correspondence  is  not 
very  interesting  to  many  of  your  readers,  but  while  I 
am  about  it,  I  would  like  to  have  it  known  how  it 
was  that  Mr.  B.'s  bees  did  so  well.  That  hive  of  bees 
had  been  in  my  care  for  several  years.  They  were  in 
a  hive  that  I  devised  (except  the  movable  frame  prin- 
ciple). They  were  transferred  into  it  by  me ;  and,  in 
fact,  it  was  about  the  same  thing  as  taking  one  of  the' 
best  stocks  of  bees  from  my  apiary.  Now  he  has 
come  out  in  the  Bee  Journal,  boasting  how  well  his 
bees  have  done,  and  intimating  that  he  beat  friend 
Alley  and  two  or  three  other  old  bee-keepers— new 
style  of  hive  and  all ;  and  all  this  with  only  one  year's 
exiicrience  !  What  a  wonderful  Ijead  that  man  must 
have  ;  why  1  should  think  he  would  have  the  head- 
ache all  the  time. 

Mr.  B.  says  he  has  not  seen  Mr.  Noycs,.of  Sea- 
brooke,  "where  friend  Alley  has  been  inserting 
queens,  dividing  swarms,  &c."  Well,  now,  I  have 
seen  Mr.  Nr  ami  will  say,  for  the  benefit  of  Mr.  B., 
that  Mr.  Noycs  had  one" stock  of  bees  in  the  same 
kind  of  hive  and  they  were  only  two  miles  from  Mr. 
B.'s  apiary.  They  stored  one-third  more  honey  last 
season  than  ISfr.  B.'s  did,  in  the  same  kind  of  boxes. 
And  what  is  still  better,  I  have  seen  Mr.  N.'s  bees  this 
spring,  and  the  one  stock  alluded  to  is  worth  more 
ih'ij}L  both  Mr.  B.'s.  Mr.  Noyes  is  an  old  bee-keeper, 
and  friend  Batcheldor  cannot  expect  us  old  bee- 
keepers to  make  our  bees  do  as  well  as  his.  I  sup- 
pose we  haven't  got  the  "  backbone  and  cranium." 
I  will  say,  however,  that  Mr.  Noyes  has  had  excellent 
"luck"  with  his  bees  up  to  the  past  winter,  and  is 
satisfied  with  what  his  bees  have  done — having  done 
as  well  as  tlie  average. — If  any  one  informed  Mr.  B. 
contrary  to  the  above,  I  can  only  say  that  they  knew 
nothing  about  it.  I  will  add  also  that  I  never  divided 
more  than  one  hive  of  bees  for  Mr.  Noyes,  and  that 
was  four  years  ago. 

Mr.  B.  says  his  brother  told  him,  within  one 
month,  that  his  bees  did  not  store  as  much  honey  as 
I  stated  (forty  pounds)  "by  more  than  one-quarter 
part."  All  I  have  to  say  about  this  is,  that  I  have 
seen  that  brother  within  three  days,  and  his  word  is 
my  authority,  and  he  says  he  told  his  brother  no  such 
thing.  Mr.  B.  also  states  that  his  brother  had  old 
comb  in  his  boxes.  I  am  inclined  to  think  Mr.  B.  is 
mistaken  about  this,  from  the  fact  that  1  put  all  the 
comb  in  those  boxes,  and  the  whole  put  together 
would  not  have  filled  six  of  the  boxes.  I  merely  put 
in  a  small  piece  of  guide  comb,  to  induce  the  bees  to 
go  into  the  boxes  and  commence  work.  I  have  re- 
commended this  same  thing  in  the  Bee  Journal 
some  time  ago. 

I  stated  that,  "  on  the  first  day  of  June  one  of  the 
combs  in  the  brood  box  broke  down  and  destroyed 
more  than  two  quarts  of  bees."  Mr.  B.  thinks  this 
part  of  the  story  intended  as  an  advertisement  for  my 
hive.  I  will  remind  him  that  he  can  find  my  adver- 
tisement concerning  my  new  hive  in  the  advertising 
columns  of  the  Bee  Journal.  I  believe  I  did  not 
commence  to  advertise  my  hives  until  I  had  made 
and  tested  it.  Neither  did  I  give  notice  through  the 
Journal  that  I  had  a  wonderful  hive  ("  different  from 
any  other")  that  I  would  describe  in  the  Journal  as 
soon  as  I  had  "proved  it." 

I  think  I  said  that  Mr.  D.  C.  Batcheldor  had  re-- 
ceived  two  dollars  for  Ms  bees.  What  I  intended  to 
say  was  that  he  was  awarded  two  dollars.  I  may  add 
that  he  has  not  yet  called  for  his  money,  but  intends 
to  do  so  as  soon  as  convenient. 

Now,  friend  B.  when  you  write  again  tell  us  some- 
thing more  about  that  "  backbone ;"  and  if  you  can  as 


268 


THE   AMERICAN   BEE   JOURNAL. 


•wellas  not,  say  something  also  about  that  "  cranium." 
This  barking  up  the  wrong  tree  is  bad  business  ;  but 
•when  a  fellow  gets  into  such  courses  it  is  best  to  try 
and  get  out  again. — 

I  annex  a  communication  from  the  Chairman  of 
the  Committee  on  Bread  and  Honey,  at  the  Essex 
County  Fair  last  autumn,  concerning  the  awards 
made  by  that  Committee.— H.  Alley. 

Newburtport,  Mass!,  May  3.— Mr.  Editor: — 
My  attention  has  been  called  to  an  article  in  your 
February  number,  page  173,  from  Mr.  U.  T.  Batch- 
elder,  and  also  one  in  reply  in  the  March  number, 
page  196.  from  Mr.  Alley,  and  again  to  another 
from  Mr.B.  in  the  May  number,  page  243.  As  these 
contradict  each  other,  I  thought  I  could  set  the 
matter  right  by  a  simple  statement  of  the  facts. 

Mr.  B.  says  he  took  his  bees  to  the  county  fair, 
and  there  obtained  the  first  premium  of  four  dollars. 
Tliis  is  a  mistake.  No  premium  was  ever  offered  by 
the  Essex  Agricultural  Society  for  Bees  or  Honey. 
A  sum  "of  money  is  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the 
Committee  on  Bread  and  Honey,  to  be  awarded  in 
Gratuities,  as  the  articles  offered  m:^jf  seem  to 
merit.  At  the  fair  in  Newtmryport  last  September, 
of  which  Mr.  B.  speaks,  there  were  four  entries  of 
bees,  viz;  D.  T.  Batcheldor,  D.  C.  Batcheldor,  Mr. 
Alley,  and  Mr.  Green.  The  Committee  unanimously 
awarded  to  Mr.  D.  C.  Batcheldor  a  gratuity  of  ¥3;  to 
Mr.  D.  T.  Batcheldor  a  gratuity  of' $3  ;  to  Mr.  Alley 
and  Mr.  Green  $1,  each. 

The  Committee  made  an  official  report  in  accord- 
ance with  the  above  statement.  It  was  publishVl  in 
the  Newburyport  Herald  and  the  Society's  Annual 
Report  :  and  Mr.  D.  T.  Batcheldor  has  simply  ob- 
tained $3  which  belong  to  Mr.  D.  C.  Batcheldor.  Of 
course  I  do  not  know  whether  an  error  occurred  in 
copying  the  report  of  the  Committee  for  tlie  City 
Treasurer,  but  if  there  was  such  an  error,  it  does  not 
alter  the  fact  that  Mr.  D.  T.  Balcheldor  did  not  obtain 
the  first  premium,  because  they  were  no  premiums 
given  ;  and  that  Mr.  D.  C.  Batcheldor  was  awarded 
an  equal  gratuity  with  Mr.  D.  T.  B.  admits  of  no 
question.  The  Treasurer  of  the  Society  is  officially 
authorized  to  pay  premiums  and  gratuities;  but  by 
permission  of  one  of  the  officers,  the  City  Treasurer 
was  last  year  allowed  to  pay  the  small  premiums,  <fcc. 
He,  being  unused  to  the  business,  perhaps  made  a 
mistake  ;  but,  whoever  made  it,  tlie  mistake  should 
be  rectified. — Edmind  Smith,  Chairman  of  ComvnUee 
on  Bread  and  Money,  for  £'s'<ex  Agr.  Soc.  1869. 

East  Saginaw,  Mich.,  May  14. — Almost  all  the 
bees  in  this  part  of  the  country  are  dead.  I  think  it 
was  owing  to  the  watery  honey  gatliered  late  last 
season.  The  •weather  came  on  cold  before  they  had 
time  to  evaporate  the  water  and  caj)  the  cells. — Bees 
wintered  in  the  cellar  did  not  do  as  well  as  those  out 
of  doors.  There  is  not  much  to  brag  of,  as  niue- 
tenths  of  those  outside  were  lost.  I  have  counted  up 
three  hundred  swarms  that  perished,  in  this  vicinity, 
during  the  winter  and  spring.  One  man  lost  fifty 
swarms  in  his  cellar  (all  he  had)  ;  where  heretofore  he 
wintered  them  successfully. — L.  C.  Wuiting. 

Jefferson,  Wis.,  May  17.— My  bees  came  out  of 
the  winter  very  weak  and  poor.  I  lost  not  less  than 
seventy-one  colonies  out  of  the  six  hundred  and 
seventy,  which  I  wintered  in.  The  survivors,  where 
not  too  weak,  are  gaining  rapidly. 

I  had  better  luck  this  spring  in  getting  young  queens 
purely  fertilized  this  spring,  than  at  any  time  during 
the  last  five  years.  I  have  about  twenty  laying  now, 
and  nearly  as  many  more  that  are  from  three  to  six 
days  old. 

After  learning  how  black  bees  came  out  in  this 
country  I  have  again  changed  my  mind  about  their 


being  hardier  than  others.  Almost  every  keeper  of 
black  bees  has  lost  nearly  all  he  had.  I  have  only 
three  colonies  alive,  and  these  are  properly  black 
hybrids. 

•To  make  it  appear  that  my  prices  are  as  low  as 
those  of  any  other  breeder,  I  have  concluded  to  send 
ofi"  young  queens  about  three  days  after  they  com- 
mence laying.  In  my  own  apiary  I  had  but  few 
hybrids  last  summer,  and  will  have  less  this  summer ; 
and  as  no  black  colony  is  alive  around  me  now,  I  can 
easier  furnish  two  queens  without  testing,  than  one 
with  the  trouble  of  testing  her. — In  my  southern 
apiary,  I  expect  some  j-oung  swarms  within  a  week 
from  "now  ;  but  not  any  at  home  within  a  month,  if 
then.  All  blossoms  seem  to  have  honey  this  season. 
Some  colonies,  in  my  southern  apiary,  have  as  much 
honey  now,  as  they  had  seven  months  ago.— Adam 
Gkimm. 


Erratum. 

Mr.  Editor  : — In  the  May  number  of  the  Journal, 
Mr.  Wm.  M.  Stratton  corrects  the  figures,  as  publish- 
ed, in  an  article  I  sent  j'ou  on  Alsike  clover.  Not  hav- 
ing seen  the  article  since  it  was  sent  you,  I  was  not 
aware  that  it  was  published.  It  should  read  346,154 
bees  per  acre,  or  2,163  per  square' >-of/,  or  8  per 
square  foot.  If  I  remember  rightly  it  was  so  written, 
and  the  mistake  is  in  the  copyist  or  the  typesetter. 
The  figures,  however,  are  not  exact;  fractions  are 
omitted.  But  they  are  sufficiently  correct  to  serve  as 
an  illustration,  and  to  show  that  the  keeper  of  a 
large  apiary,  who  grows  any  honey-yielding  plant 
for  bees,  with  the  expectation  of  being  perceptibly 
benefitted  by  it,  must  cultivate  it  on  an  extensive 
scale. 

J.  H.  TOWNLET. 

Parma,  Mich. 


[For  tlie  American  Bee  Journal.] 

Paper  as  a  Non-conductor. 


I  would  say  to  Mr  J.  L.  Way  that  I  have  tried 
the  Paper  Ilive,  with  five  thicknesses  of  paper, 
cue  fourth  of  an  inch  space  between  each  paper. 
It  was  calcuhited  to  absorb  all  the  moisture  of  the 
bees,  and  not  mould  or  get  damp  ;  and  that  the 
bees  would  winter  safe  on  their  summer  stands. 
So  I  was  ready  to  try  one  swarm.  A  friend  gave 
me  the  hive,  and  I  gave  liim  five  dollars  for  the 
bees  tliat  were  in  the  hive,  and  brought  it  home. 
Before  the  middle  of  January  my  bees  were  all 
dead.  The  paper  was  damp  and  mouldy,  and 
all  gave  way  in  small  pieces.  Thus  I  found  that 
paper  was  of  no  account.  The  hive  was  Cox's 
patent.  I.  have  u^ed  nine  difibrent  patented 
hives  ;  and  all  but  two  proved  to  be  worthless. 
I  have  bought  wit  very  dear  ! 

Bees  have  done  very  •*•  ell  here  since  the  first  of 
January.  Before  that  the  weather  was  too  wet 
and  cold. 

Now,  Mr.  Editor,  if  you  think  this  worth  an 
insertion,  use  it.  .  I  hope  we  shall  got  the  Jour- 
nal semi-monthly  soon.  I  think  we  could  not 
well  get  along  without  it,  as  it  is.  Every  bee- 
man  must  have  it. 

W.  Rowley. 

Minn.   City,  Feb.  23. 


England  uses  two  thousand  tons  of  beeswax 
per  annum,  valued  at  $2,000,000. 


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