Vol. X. 



SEPT. 1, 1882. 



No. 9. 



A. I. ROOT, 



Publisher and Proprietor, \ 



PuWished Monthly. 



Medina, O. 



\ Established in 1S7S.[^^^J^}^^"" 



f TERMS: $1.00 PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE; 



I 2 Copies for $1.90; 3 for $2. 75; 5 for $4.00; 10 



or more, 75 cts. each. Single Number, 10 cts, 



i Additions to clubs mav be made at club 



rates. Above are all to be sent to one post- 



ent postoffices, not 



NOTES FROM THE BANNER APIARY. 



NO. 34. 



SHIPPING QUEENS. 



FIIIEND HEDDON, I have just read your article 

 on page 384, about shipping queens by mail. 

 "^^ Like yourself, I have had more or less losses, 

 both by mail and by express, but more by mail than 

 by express until — and thereby hangs a tule — until 

 I used the feed that I am now using. Please turn 

 to page 374 of August Gleanings for 1S81, and you 

 will find described, by I. K. Good, the, kind of feed 

 •nd cages that I am using. Shortly after reading 

 this article I received a queen from friend Good; 

 the bees and queen were in splendid condition, and 

 friend G. wrote: "Why don't you use a feed like 

 that in the cage I send you? I have no losses at all 

 with this kind of feed." I immediately commenc- 

 ed using it, have used it ever since, shipping about 

 400 queens, sending them all over the Union, to Cali- 

 fornia and Utah, to Texas and Georgia, to Maine 

 and to Canada, and have hM onhj one queen. Where 

 is there another breeder who has shipped 400 queens 

 during the last year, and lost only one queen? Hav- 

 ing had such good success with this feed, I won- 

 dered if friend Good was having equally as good, so 

 I wrote to him, asking for his experience, and here 

 is his reply:— 



Nappanee, Ind., Aug. 8, 1883. 

 Friend Hutc]nnsi»i:—\n the season of 1881 I pur- 

 chased 100 of A. 1. Itoot's bottle queen-cagos. Out of 

 the KIO queens shipped in these cages, about 8 or 10 

 were lost, which was very discouraging, and I had 

 about made up my mind to trive up queen-rearing on 

 account of the losses in sending them through the 

 mail, when, one day, 1 for some reason moistened 

 some granulated sugar with honey to feed some 



queens that I did not wish to send off at the time, 

 and the bees and queens in the cages containing this 

 mixture lived such a length of time without any of 

 the bees dying, that it occurred to me that this 

 would bo a good feed for shipping -cages; so when 

 the Root cages were all used I made some cages, 

 provisioning them with this kind of feed, shipping 

 some queens in them, I think to Massachusetts, and 

 awaited results. When I received word from them, 

 instead of its being, as it generally was, that the bees 

 were nearly all dead, or something to that effect, it 

 was that the queen's had arrived in splendid condi- 

 tion, not a dead bee in the cage; after that I used 

 that kind of feed and had no more trouble. I have 

 sent a great many bees and queens to California, 

 Texas, and Utah, and have had but one reported 

 dead sent to every one of these States. I have, this 

 season, sent hundreds of queens by mail, and have 

 lost only iwi>! 



Now I wish to say, right here, that bee-keepers, as 

 a class, are honest. It would be a very easy matter 

 for them, after having a queen killed by introduc- 

 ing, to claim that she was dead when received. 



Bees need no water when they have this kind of 

 feed. It is also the very best kind of feed to use 

 when sending bees by the pound. If you have been 

 using this feed, you know what customers generally 

 say; it is, uniformlj', " Not a dead bee in the cage," 

 is it not? [Yes, that is it, frieml G.] I now have a 

 card before me that reads as follows: "Queen re- 

 ceived in splendid condition, not a dead bee in the 

 cage; even the drone is smart and lively." This 

 card is signed, B. F. Carroll, Dresden, Texas. 



The best way to prepare the feed is to thoroughly 

 wet the best granulated sugar with honey, allow it to 

 stand a few days, then put it into a box or dish that 

 has a wire-eloth bottom, which allows the excess of 

 honey to drain off. This makes the feed that will 

 not run out of the cage, and yet stays nice and 

 moist. Respectfully,— I. R. Good. 



GXTAKANTEEING SAFE AKHIVAL. 



Friend Heddon, somehody must be responsible for 

 goods in transit; and as the purchaser never pre- 

 pares the goods for shipment, nor has the handling 

 of them on the road, it does not seem right that he 



