3^6 



GLEAi^INGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



July 



as I have heard them so often mentioned. It 

 has occurred to me, since seeing your de- 

 scription, that we might get up a simiLar 

 stool, neatly painted, for about half a dollar. 

 I think I sbould prefer that pocket inside, 

 out of the rain, if a shower should happen to 

 come up unexpectedly. Of course, it might 

 be carried in every time you stopped work, 

 but it takes more time than it would to just 

 drop it where you worked last. Cau't it be 

 made to hold a smoker, fuel, and matches, 

 inside of its voluminous hollownessV You 

 know you could turn it up when you wanted 

 to get them out, and thus do away with the 

 necessity for any such rigging as a door. 

 AVho will give us the best one, made of tin V 



WHAT IS THE MATTER? 



WHY DO QUEENS DIE SUDDENLY, ETC.? 



N August last, I introduced safely a selected 

 tested queen, purchased from you, into a col- 

 ony of hybrids. She was accepted, and began 

 laying the same day she was introduced. About 

 the middle of March I examined her colony, and 

 found she had then filled 4 American frames with 

 brood and eggs. May 10th she was still laying very 

 freely, but on the 22d day of May I started to trans- 

 fer her colony from an American to a Simplicity 

 hive, and the first thing I noticed was about 20 queen- 

 cells. Upon looking further, I found plenty of 

 capped brood, and bees just hatching, but no larvte 

 or eggs; and upon carefully searching in front of 

 the hive, I found the queen dead. The comb in this 

 hive was drawn up from foundation, and there was 

 not a drone-cell, or a hatched drone in the hive. 

 Now, why should the bees supersede a young queen, 

 or why should a queen die when apparently in per- 

 fect vigor? 



The matter is a mystery to me, for she must have 

 been laying profusely, up to the time of her death, 

 for she had tilled Tout of the 9 frames completely 

 full of brood. If any one can give a reason for the 

 above state of things, I should like to have them. 

 I had supposed that queens gave some signs of ap- 

 proaching dissolution, either by laying no f ggs at 

 Jill, or else by laying drone eggs only; but in this 

 case, no warning of any kind was given, and she 

 apparently died in the harness. J. E. Pond, Jr. 

 Foxboro, Mass., May 25, 1882. 



Although such cases are not very frequent, 

 friend Pond, they do sometimes occur, and I 

 have several times in my experience found 

 queens dead in front of the hive, under just 

 such circumstances. I have wondered if it 

 were not possible they died suddenly from 

 over-exertion in this very matter. \Vhile I 

 am about it, I wish to call attention to a 

 general truth right here. Man, as well as 

 animals, is liable to die suddenly. I believe 

 physicians usually find a cause for it, but it 

 is not always apparent to the eyes of average 

 humanity. The best queen in the world is 

 liable to die any day, and at any age of her 

 life ; and the best watch in the world is lia- 

 ble to stop at any moment, and perhaps the 

 very first day the purchaser has carried it. 

 If the one of whom you bought it had car- 

 ried it a year, and it never stopped, it would 

 seem unlikely it should stop very soon after 

 he sold it ; still, as there has got to be a first 



time for every thing, it is very unreasonable 

 to dispute his word on such grounds. Friend 

 Pond has not complained, I know ; but how 

 often we hear purchasers say they believe 

 they have been humbugged with an old 

 worn-out queen, because she lived oidy a 

 short time ! A man bought a 'NVaterbury 

 watch, and was quite indignant because it 

 ran well just thirty days and no more, jump- 

 ing at the conclusion that the manufacturer 

 made them purposely so they would run that 

 length of time to escape tlie warrant, and 

 then stop, — as if they could be so mean if 

 they would. Another buys a dollar queen, 

 and she never lays an egg, and he straight- 

 way condemns all dollar queens ; the man 

 who sent her, knowing she laid splendidly in 

 his own apiary, declares the one who re- 

 ceived her has falsified, just to get another 

 queen for nothing. Both rush hastily at 

 conclusions, because something has come up 

 contrary to their experience. £ tell you, my 

 friends, we all need a more teachable atti- 

 tude, and a great deal more faith in each 

 other. 



^ ■»» <i^ 



THE FIRST QUEEN-CAGE EVER SENT 

 THROUGH THE MAILS. 



AN INTEHESTING REMINISCENCE. 



f] KOM perusing the bee journals, I take it that 

 the shipping queen-cage is a thing that at- 

 — ■ tracts the attention of bee-keeping philoso- 

 phers and savants whose faculties are taxed to the 

 utmost in the attempt to improve —perfect — a 

 "shipping-cage." I can't give you a connected his- 

 tory of queen-cages for mailing, but I will tell you 

 all about the first one that was ever mailed. In 1861, 

 when breeders of Italian queens began to send 

 queens to their patrons, they shipped by express. I 

 received queens from P. J. Malran, of Philadelphia 

 (who was the first to su'-ceed in importing colonies 

 of Italian bees), and I received queens from friend 

 Langstroth, of Oxford, Ohio. At that time there 

 was no express office in my localitj'. I had to get 

 them from an express office 20 miles distant. This 

 was so inconvenient that it occvirred to me that the 

 queens might be transported through the mails. 

 Accordingly, I wrote to flev. L. L. Langstroth (in 

 July, 1862 or '63), inquiring what he thought of the 

 idea of mailing. He responded with an answer un- 

 favorable to that mode of transportation. But I 

 have a way or will of my own, so I took a paper box 

 from the store, some 2Jixl?ix?ii inches, put a bit of 

 honey-comb in one end of it, tacked it with needle 

 and thread. Then I opened a hive, took therefrom a 

 queen with a few workers, shut them in the box, 

 sealed a wrapper around it, punched a few holes 

 through it, and mailed the package to the address of 

 Mr. Langstroth. In due time I received a letter 

 from him, and a package — a cage with a fine Italian 

 queen, and several dead workers. The cage was a 

 "poor stick "—pine, 8-square, some 3 inches long, 

 having a ?8 hole nearly through its length, and a 

 piece of honey-comb in the bottom, then the bees 

 shut in with a wire web over the open end. The 

 queen arrived in a helpless condition, and died in an 

 hour after. I reported the case to Mr. L., and he 

 forwarded another in a different cage — larger. That 

 came safely. 

 Now, friends, you men of genius and of sense, I 



