492 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 



Excuse me a few minutes. I liberated her a little 

 while ago, and must see once more if she is all right. 

 A queen from " Jumes," of Dowagiac, Mich., one of 

 the '*long leather-col )red" kind. 1 let her loose in 

 a colony of /ij/Zoh/.s (she ought to be at home Utete). I 

 will just look — h-i, hi) ! i'cs, she is all O. K., crawl- 

 ing around, and seems to be full of " business." She 

 should have been introduced to a colony of pure 

 bees, and then when her brood hatches I coulJ see 

 the ditference between the old and the new bees; 

 however, I don't care for looks in bees so they show 

 up right during the honey season. Wo are all after 

 bees for honey, and not for something to look at. 



DOLLAR QUEENS. 



Queens reared artificially can be and are produced 

 that are in every way the equals of those reared un- 

 der the swarming impulse. Now, while this is true, 

 and while thousands of dollar queens are sent out 

 every year by queen-breeders, that give as good re- 

 sults as naturally roared queens, I am just as free to 

 say that there are very many worthless, short-lived 

 queens sold for one dollar. Now, if we were to do 

 away with the "dollar," or cheap-queen business, 

 and enter into an agreement that we would sell no 

 more queens for less than $3.00 or $5.00 each, would 

 you be sure that any belter class of queens would be 

 sent out? Do you think you can hire (for a little 

 more money) a rascal to deal honestly? A dealer 

 selling queens for one dollar, which have been rear- 

 ed from well -advanced worker larva3, invariably 

 producing short-lived, worthless queens, after the 

 price has been advanced will he take any more pains 

 to have all his queens reared by strong colonies fed 

 as queen larvae from the egg, selecting his stock 

 from the choicest honey-gathering, hardy strains? 

 or will the breeder of these inferior queens, on 

 learning the price has been doubled on queens, send 

 out thereafter any better grade? If he is dishonest 

 before, will he not be dishonest still? If there is any 

 pay for time in selling queens for one dollar, the 

 breeder can just as well rear good queens with but 

 little if any more trouble, at the same price. Were 

 I to send to a queen-breeder of honor for one dozen 

 queens, and he should write me that he had enough 

 to fill the order which were reared under the swarm- 

 ing impulse, or could All the order from a lot reared 

 aitificially from the same stock and at the same 

 time, and that all were fed as queen larvfe from the 

 hatching of the egg to sealing of cells, by strong 

 stocks, and that they were large, well-developed 

 queens, I should have no choice to make between 

 the two lots, and virtually there can be no difference 

 except in imagination. There are men who will 

 send out their inferior queens now at $1.00; put the 

 price up to $10.00, and they will do the same. 



John A. Buchanan. 



Holliday's Cove, W. Va., Sept., 1882. 



I partly agree with you, friend B., in re- 

 gard to spreading the brood, and I have oft- 

 en thought more harm is perhaps done by so 

 doing tlian to let the bees have their own 

 way, because there has been so much inju- 

 dicious spreading; but for all that, in the 

 hands of a wise and careful apiarist, it ac- 

 complishes at least one great good, by induc- 

 ing the queen to fill a nice frame of comb 

 with brood of about all the same age. Did 

 any one ever see such entire sheets of brood 

 before we had frames of fdn. to give the 

 bees? Who has not seen the improvement 

 effected by putting a perfect comb into a 



colony recently transferredV This, of course, 

 is not quite spreading the brood-nest, as you 

 speak of it, but we may often, by judicious 

 spreading, get the queen into the way of fill- 

 ing one comb entire, instead of skipping 

 about, and laying an egg here and there, 

 which must be a waste of her time.— While 

 I grant much you say in regard to dollar 

 queens, I think you piit it a little too strong- 

 ly. The average man, even though he be 

 something of a rascal, as you term it, would, 

 I think, pick out a nicer queen, if he got $3 

 for her, than if he got only one. lie might 

 not take much more pains in rearing, but it 

 seems to me he certainly would in selecting. 

 Is it not well to have all such commodities 

 graded, putting the best at a high price, and 

 the fair and indifferent accordingly V 



RED CliOVER AS A HONEY-PL. .INT. 



ALSO A GOOD REPORT FROM THE CYPRIANS. 



SEND you by to-day's mail a copy of the Cam- 

 bridge Jcfferson'an, which contains a little re- 

 port of what I have been doing with bees this 

 summer so far. There is no let-up to the flow of 

 honey yet. 1 am still increasing, and taking honey. 

 My bees did a rousing business on red clover. I had 

 about 10 acres of the large English clover near my 

 apiary, and when harvest came I almost hated to 

 see the mowing-machine go into it. The Cyprians 

 apparently did a straight business on it. My Cyps 

 have been in the lead all summer. The sumac 

 (which I never considered very much), is giving a 

 heavy flow of honey now. It appears as though 

 ever thing is blooming and furnishing honey. If 

 that extractor was a little slow in coming, it has 

 been a faithful friend to me since. 



BEE CULTURE. 



Are there hidden treasures yet here among these 

 hills that we have never found nor thought of? I 

 believe there are some we may tind out and some 

 we will never. But our children may, and who 

 knows but our very richest treasures may not turn 

 up for several generations yet to come? Men, as a 

 general thing, get into a certain channel of doing 

 business, farming, stock-raising, store-keeping, etc., 

 as the case may be, and apparently do not look 

 around to see if any thing new might turn up. Many 

 such men are doing well, but many are not, but are 

 still working hard every day for the support of their 

 families, never thinking there is any other way for 

 it only to grub and hoe, and clear off the stony hill- 

 sides. Of course, it is right enough to do this kind 

 of work, but is there nothing else we can do to bet- 

 ter our condition more rapidly? There certainly is. 

 One thing is bee culture. It is an old subject, but a 

 new business, and is paying as large a per cent for 

 the capital invested as anything else. I know there 

 are plenty of men who have had a few boxes of bees 

 nearly all their lives, sitting in an old box hive away 

 in the corner without anj^ attention more than to 

 take a slight glance as they are passing, and of 

 course they will say that bees do not amount to any 

 thing, and it is true, fi-om their standpoint. Bees 

 must have attention as well as any thing else. In 

 the first place, you must have a good movable-frame 

 hive; and as there is no patent on any bee-hive now, 

 you can just make it any shape you please. Bee- 

 keeping of to-day is a trade to learn, and by procur- 

 ing one of the standard bee-books it can be learned 

 in a short time, when by actual practice it would 

 take a man nearly a lifetime, as it did our two old 

 veteran bee-keepers, Qulnby and Langstroth. I 

 have been paying some attention to bees for a few 

 years, and find it profitable. I have the new races 

 of bees, and without any doubt they are considerably 

 ahead of our old stock of black bees. I started this 

 spring with only 10 colonies; have sold, to August 

 Ist, $177.94 worth of bees and queens; $113 worth of 

 honej% and have 30 colonies left. My crop of honey 



