June 6, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



357 



ticularly in those sections wbcre there are large quantitios of 

 fruit raised, and bees are Ic^pt. The interests of both tlie 

 apiarist and horticulturist are the same, and both are neces- 

 sary that the most good should come to each ; they go hand in 

 hand, and are the most interesting and ennobling occupations 

 that man or woman can follow on God's green earth. 



J. P. West. 



This subject was discussed by the horticulturists, and con- 

 siderable ignorance was shown by them in regard to it. The 

 bee-keepers then adjourned to their own room, where tin- 

 question-box was again opened. 



QUESTIOX-BOX. 



QuKs. — Will cross bees gather more honey than gentle 

 ones ? Those in attendance were about equally divided on 

 this question. 



QuES. — What time in the spring is the best to put out the 

 bees ? Answer. — The iirst warm day after the snow has gone. 



QCES. — Is the mammoth clover a good honey-plant ? 

 Answer. — The second crop will often yield honey. 



QuES. — Would it pay the average bee-keeper to strive to 

 rear long-tongued bees ? Answer. — No. 



QuES. — Is there foul brood in Minnesota at present ? No 

 member knew of any. 



(Continued next week.) 



I Contributed Articles, l 



Transferring Bees From Box-Hives— Pollenizins 

 Fruit. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



A CORRESPONDENT says he has purchased several 

 colonies of bees in bo^-hives, and wishes Doolittle to 

 tell throug-h the columns of the American Bee Journal 

 the best method of transferring- them to frame hives. The 

 majority of our most practical bee-keepers of the present 

 day believe that what is known as the " Heddon plan " of 

 transferring- is the best, taking all things into consider- 

 ation, so far given. This plan is as follows : 



Drive the bees from the box-hive and run them into a 

 hive furnished with frames of wired foundation, the fur- 

 nished hive to be placed on the stand the colony had occu- 

 pied up to the time of transferring, while the box-hive with 

 its combs of brood and honey, with the few adhering bees, 

 is to be placed close beside the ne%v hive. In 21 days after, 

 when all of the brood shall have emerged into worker-bees, 

 drive the bees again from the bos-hive, driving clean this 

 time, and, after destroying the queen with this last drive, 

 or the one in the colony driven before, according to which 

 is the more valuable, unite the bees with those first driven 

 out, thus getting the bees all on nice, straight combs, and 

 in good shape to give a good yield of surplus honey. 



The combs are now taken out of the box-hive, the 

 honey extracted from them, and they are rendered into wax 

 to help in making more comb foundation. 



Now, while the above is the best known plan where the 

 combs in the box-hives are crooked or poor, and the season 

 of the year that when the bees are securing honey from 

 the field, yet if the combs in the box-hive are good, straight 

 ones of the worker-size of cell, or we do not have the 

 foundation, or we wish to do this work early in the season, 

 before the bees have much brood or are getting honey from 

 the fielils, so that they will not draw out the foundation 

 readily, then, decidedly, the old plan or method given in 

 nearly all the standard works on bee-culture is the proper 

 one to use. I never could understand the logic that melted 

 up good, straight worker-combs, made the wax from them 

 into foundation, wired the fratnes to keep that foundation 

 from sagging, and then "transferred" the foundation into 

 those wired frames, with an amount of labor nearly equal 

 to that required to transfer the original combs, all for the 

 fun of saying we had used a plan of transferring different 

 from that of Ouinby's and Langstroth's day. 



Straight worker-comb, properly transferred into a 

 frame, after being fastened by the bees, makes just as good 

 a frame of comb as is the one finished from foundation ; 

 and a frame properly filled with comb, without any wires in 

 it, is just as good for all practical purposes, as is the one 



having wire in it, while the wire is a positive nuisance, if, 

 from any reason, holes get in the combs from moldy pollen, 

 mice or anything of the kind, so that we wish to put in a 

 "patch " of worker-comb to keep the bees from building in 

 drone-comb. I do not wish to be considered cranky, but 

 when a thing savors of more money out than profits in, I 

 have always felt it a duty, as well as a privilege, to enter a 

 mild protest, after which I am not to blame if any see fit to 

 use anything recommended which may result in a financial 

 loss. 



BEES AND FRUIT-POIXENIZATION. 



I have read twice the article by Thaddeus Smith, found 

 on pages 279 and 280, and the second reading only empha- 

 sized the impression of the first, which is, that while he 

 says, " I am set for the defense of fads," he seems entirely 

 to ignore them or else is wholly ignorant of many things 

 along the lines of which he is writing, that have transpired 

 during the past. I will take space to speak of only two or 

 three. 



He wholly ignores those experiments made by Gregory, 

 of Massachusetts, the great squash-grower, wherein he 

 proved positively that not a single squash could be raised 

 where insects were excluded from the female blossoms of 

 that plant. And yet all Mr. Gregory did was-to place net- 

 ting which would have admitted millions of those "infini- 

 tesimal particles of pollen " which Mr. Smith tells us are 

 the ones which float in the air and do the work of fertiliza- 

 tion without the aid of insects or bees, if they are only 

 stirred up with a stick, or by a breeze created by the bees' 

 wings, in which case bees and insects may help a little. 



Then he ignores the Wenham episode, which, through 

 iealousy, excluded all the bees from that township, during 

 which exclusion fruit was nearly or entirely absent in the 

 interior of the township, while on its borders, to which the 

 bees had access, fruit of usual quality or quantity obtained, 

 the same as of yore. 



And he can not have forgotten the importation of our 

 bumble-bees into the continent of Australia, at a cost of 

 thousands of dollars, after which importation clover seed 

 obtained in fair cjuantities, when none perfected before. 

 And with these facts within easy reach of his understand- 

 ing he asks, "Who knows it to be a fact f" and says 

 such claim " is all conjecture based upon preconceived 

 theory." I believe that Mr. Gregory and history are as 

 unimpeachable witnesses as any which Pelce Island can 

 produce. 



I do not care to notice Mr. Smith's trying to " hold me 

 up to ridicule," for any intelligent reader would know from 

 the drift of my article in the March 14 American Bee Jour- 

 nal, that only nectar-Xov'va^ insects were intended, where I 

 s,a.i6." insects of all kinds." Trying to hold another up to 

 ridicule does not count anything in an argument. 



Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



Swarms Selecting a Location Historical. 



B-y A. p. RAYMOND. 



A KNOTTY problem has been discussed in the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal, regarding the time when swarms 

 select their future home, whether before or after 

 emerging from the parent colony. There are many ques- 

 tions pertaining to bees that, at the present day, we can 

 answer with absolute certainty. There are more, perhaps, 

 that we have been guessing at for many, many years, and 

 are still as far at sea regarding them as were our grand- 

 fathers, 100 years ago. 



The above question is one of those " stickers " that I 

 think will never be solved until some bee has been educated 

 to talk, and tells us all about it. After reading "Rip Van 

 Winkle's" ideas on this subject, I thought I would consult 

 John M. Weeks, whose work, published in 1836, I have in 

 my library, and I found that he was probably about as near 

 the truth regarding this matter as we are to-day, after a 

 lapse of some 6i years. 



Prof. Cook thinks (page 530-1900) that their future tene- 

 ment is selected by the bees before swarming, but after 

 issuing ; they first cluster and wait until the queen is suffi- 

 ciently rested before proceeding thither. How about sec- 

 ond swarms, which are accompanied by virgin queens that 

 are as able and ready to lly as far as the most nimble 

 worker-bee that ever spread a wing ? 



Rip Van Winkle, (page 77T-1'»00), thinks that they wait 

 until after clustering before making a move toward making 

 a domicile. How about those occasional swarms that leave 

 for the woods before clustering .' 



