January 8, 1867. J 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



39 



The incubator should also be placed in a room upon which 

 the sun does not act, or it will be impossible to maintain a 

 uniform temperature. — E. S. 



THE EGYPTIAN BEE.— Part VK. 



HOIV I SUCCEEDED IN TBASSPORTISG IT TO AMERICA. 



Havino, as related in page 306 of the last Volume of " our 

 Journal," completely purged my apiary of an element which 

 had turned out so entirely obnoxious, and having published 

 without reservation the very discouraging results of my expe- 

 rience of the Egyptian bee, I had no idea that I should ever 

 become possessed of the materials for another paper on the 

 subject; such, however, turns out to be the case, and it came 

 about iu a rather unexpected manner. 



During the latter half of September, I received a letter dated 

 the Sth of the same month, from Mr. Jas. T. Langstroth, sou 

 of the distinguished American apiarian, and member of that 

 eminent transatlantic firm, " L. L. Langstroth & Son, of 

 Oxford, Butler County, Ohio, Importers and Breeders of 

 Italian Queen Bees, and Agents for Langstroth's Patent Move- 

 able Comb Hive." Alter very politely acknowledging and 

 replying to a letter written by me last spring, and enclosing 

 for my acceptance a carte of his distinguished parent, the 

 reception of which, as will readily be believed, afforded ma 

 much pleasure, and which has formed a notable addition to my 

 gallery of apiarian worthies, Mr. Langstroth, jun., went on to 

 say — " We have been much interested in your articles in regard 

 to the Egyptian bee, and, Uke true bee enthusiasts, are possessed 

 with an insatiable longing for a queen of that variety. We 

 would, therefore, ask you, as the highest favour you could 

 bestow upon us, to forward us a pure queen of that variety, 

 packed not like Herr Vogel's, but with sufficient honey for a 

 twenty-five-days journey, and with rather. fcic worker bees. For 

 this queen we will remit you in draft on London any sum you 

 see fit to name, on receipt of your letter advising us of her 

 shipment. You will easily understand that we wish to have 

 the credit of first introducing these bees to America, and to 

 give you the credit of furnishing them for exportation to this 

 country. We have only received the first four Numbers of The 

 Jonr.NAL OP HoiiTicni.TnRE, containing your description of 

 these bees. If they do not mix with the natives or Italians as 

 easily as the Italian race hybridise with the natives, and if they 

 are less inclined to sting than the Ligurians, we shall hope 

 that they may aid in the advancement of apiarian science in 

 this country. If, however, uour opinion (which we have not 

 yet seen), is that they are ' a humbug ' even, we still desire oue 

 queen for the purpose of experimenting. We, therefore, sin- 

 cerely hope that you may be able to send us a queen, even if 

 you have to replace her by the procurement of another from 

 Herr Vogel, as we give you carte blanche in regard to price." 



Reflecting on and admiring the facilities and wondrous speed 

 of modern postal communication, by which the article aa- 

 nouneiug the successfulintroduction of the Egyptian bee into 

 my apiary, and published in London so recently as the 21st of 

 August, could reach one of the Western States of America so 

 rapidly as to admit of its perusal, and a long letter being ad- 

 dressed to me in consequence within eighteen days, I debated 

 how I coidd most speedily and completely fulfil the desires 

 of my transatlantic friends. Evidently the first thing to be 

 done was to " catch my queen," and as I had not one of the re- 

 quired species remaining in my apiary, I penned a few lines to 

 Herr Vogel, on the 2.5th of September, asking him to send nie 

 another Egyptian queen as soon as possible, writing at the 

 same time to Mr. Langstroth to report progress, and request 

 farther instructions. Herr Vogel very politely acknowledged my 

 note by return of post, informing me that he would dispatch a 

 pure queen of this year on the Sth of October, and in due 

 course I received from him the following, dated 9th of October — 



'■ Dear Sir, — I liave tlie pleasure of sendiug you a truly impreg- 

 nated Egyptian queen, as advised in my last. 



" The workers tliat accompany her are true Egyptian bees, and are 

 bred hy the quoeu you receive. She was reared about the cml of .July 

 last, and all the queens reared from her brood turned out to be true 

 Egyptians, the number being five. 



" If there should be a few black bees among the workers that ac- 

 company her, they are not bred by the queen, hut mnst have found 

 tUeir way into the EgT,-ptian stock from a ueighbonrinf? hive. 



" As the queen which you receive is unsurpassable in purity, I 

 would suggest that in future yon should rear your queens from her 

 brood only, for then they will all be like the mother from whom they 

 are descended. ' 



This letter preceded by a day or two the arrival of the Egyp. 

 tian queen, which came to hand on the Kith of October. She 

 was packed this time in a small and light box, and reached me 

 in much better condition than her predecessor, although both 

 herself and her attendants were very torpid, and appeared be- 

 numbed with cold. I, therefore, lost no time in introducing 

 her to a hybrid Italian stock from which I had previously re- 

 moved the queen, and by which she was well received. 



Prior to the arrival of the Egyptian queen, I had the follow- 

 ing letter from the Rev. L. L. Langstroth, dated from New 

 York, on the 2Sth of September, and iu which he incidentally 

 alludes to my controvery with Dr. Camming : — 



" Dear Sir, — I have been reading in the tiles of the London Tim^^, 

 to which I have just had access, your criticism of some of the state- 

 ments of the Tuubridge Wells Bee-master. I had previously read his 

 work called the ' Times Bee-Master,' and the perusal of your com- 

 munication, which under the circumstances must he considered as both 

 courteous and forbearing, only deepens my conviction of his unfair- 

 ness in controversy, as well as his ignorance on the subject he dis- 

 cusses. It would, however, be unreasonable to loolc for accuracy from 

 a bee-keeper who not only describes an octagonal hive in use in his 

 own apiary as a liexagonal hive, but who ascribes its great success to 

 its hexagonal shape. 



" Since writing to you from Washington, I have seen in Champollion's 

 work on Egypt, figures ef the queen, worker, and drone, of Apia 

 fasciata. From my previous letters you will see how anxious I am to 

 obtain this fall an Egyptian queen. As a matter of mere business, I 

 can hardly expect to procure one of you this season, but venture to 

 hope that yon will ' str.ain a point ' to put rae in possession of so 

 valued an acquisition. I have sent an order to Germany, but fear 

 that it cannot be filled this fall. If you can send me a queen in whose 

 purity you have confidence, I will defray any expense to you of pro- 

 curing one next season, to replace her in your apiary. If under all 

 the circumstances you can part with one, I would suggest sending her 

 in one of your straw trame-hives, with plenty of provisions sealed over 

 in old combs, and with a very moderate allowance of bees. The whole 

 arranged for transportation not d-la-mode Herr Vogel. I have planned 

 a simple and efficient contrivance for draining honeycombs on the 

 centrifugal principle, as applied by Major Von Krashna. His happy 

 idea will prove especially useful in some of our apiaries, where even 

 under present arrangements a yield of from lOD lbs. to 200 lbs. of 

 honey is often obtained from a single colony. — Yours very truly, 



*' L. L. LANGSTKOTn." 



In compliance with these instructions, I packed the Egyp. 

 tian queen and her alien subjects with the utmost care, in a 

 straw frame-hive, and despatched them from my apiary to 

 Liverpool on the 2l3t of October, thence to be sent on their 

 long voyage across the vast Atlantic by the '■ Inman," line of 

 steamships, one of which left England the next day. 



The result was communicated to me by the Rev. L. L. Lang- 

 stroth, in a letter dated from Philadelphia on the 15th of No- 

 vember, in which he says : — 



" Thanks for your great kindness in the matter of tho Egyptian 

 queen. Thanks to your admirable paclriug, the colony arrived in per- 

 fect condition, and although not delivered to nie until eight days after 

 the steamer arrived, I found only a few dead bees — not many more, 

 probably, than would have died had they remained on their stand in 

 your apiary. A. bee-expert at the Custom House pronounced the 

 package to be the best conceived and executed of any he had ever seen. 

 I should Uke much to pay you a deserved tribute in the columns of our 

 bee-journals, but fe.ar it would bring upon you an avalanche of in- 

 quiries from our excit.able bee-keepers. 



" I am not surprised that you found the Egyjitians very cross in 

 your cool and damp climate, for I find such weather as is the common 

 rule with you makes the Italians quite irritable. Our drv and hot 

 summers wdl, no doubt, seem natural to those daughters of the Nile." 



I need hardly express my gratification at the complete 

 success which has crowned my endeavours to transmit the 

 Egyptian bee to the New World ; and although I have myself 

 very little hope or expectation that the extreme irascibility of 

 this beautiful little Apis will become ameliorated by change 

 of climate, it will, nevertheless, afford mo much pleasure to 

 learn that the favourable anticipations of my distinguished co- 

 temporary have proved more correct than the sombre vatici- 

 nations of — A DEVoxsnir.E Bee-keeper. 



P.S. — I may add that I presented my trans\tlantic fiicnds 

 with the bees which accompanied the queen, a^licK merely for 

 repayment of my expenses out of pocket; a req'iest which was 

 most promptly complied with. 



FOUL BROOD. 

 I NOW give my promised experience with foul bvnod. The 

 stocks which I experimented with were eight in number : 

 three which had had a part of their combs excised, and five 



