American Vae Journal 



and ready to be handed over to the 

 printer without correction. I am pleased 

 to be able to announce that we have 

 secured his services for the coming con- 

 vention at Detroit, and those who find 

 it impossible to attend, may comfort 

 themselves in knowing that they can sit 

 at their own firesides, and read exactly 

 what was said and done. 



W. Z. Hutchinson, Sec. 



John M. Davis and Apiaries 



Among the queen-breeders of America 

 there are few that are older than John 

 M. Davis of Maury Co., Tenn. He has 

 kindly furnished the following sketch 

 which, with the illustrations on the first 

 page and those herewith, gives a very 

 good idea of Mr. Davis and his work in 

 beedom : 



Editor American Bee Journal : — 



As far back as I can remember we 

 had bees in bee-hives and a few old, 

 round log-gums, and I became much in- 

 terested in the industrious little insects 

 early in my childhood. During the win- 

 ter of 1868-69 I saw the Langstroth 

 hive for the first time. This was in 

 the yard of Mr. Calvin Brown, of De- 

 catur, Ala. I doubted the possibility of 

 handling bees as claimed by Mr. Brown, 

 without being too severely stung, but 

 when the weather became warm he dem- 

 onstrated the fact so clearly that I paid 

 him $6.50 for an empty hive, shipped it 

 to my home at Athens, Ala., and had a 

 swarm of bees hived in it the following 

 summer. January i, 1871, I came to this 

 place and took charge of the telegraph 

 office where I worked, with the excep- 

 tion of two years, until 1889. 



In March, 1870, I had the Langstroth 

 hive and bees shipped here and placed 

 where my 3-band queen-yard is now lo- 

 cated : this was the nucleus from which 

 sprang my present business, and was the 



first Langstroth hive brought into this 

 (Maury) county. 



At that time I had but little office- 

 work to do, and having much leisure 

 I spent quite a large portion of my time 

 with my little apiary, which was within 

 hearing of my telegraph instrument. I 

 increased by artificial swarming and 



purchase gradually, giving publications 

 on bee-culture the preference over all 

 other reading matter, commencing with 

 the American Bee Journal when pub- 

 lished by Samuel Wagner. I bought my 

 first Italian queen from Dr. T. B. Ham- 

 lin, of Edgefield Junction, Tenn., and 

 received her by express August 12, 1871, 

 this being the first Italian queen intro- 

 duced in this county. Owing to there 

 being many black bees near me, I had 

 but a small percent of my first queens 

 purely mated. I adopted the Kohler meth- 

 od, and succeeded fairly well with it, 

 but found it a very laborious and un- 

 satisfactory plan. (For the benefit of 

 some of the present-day amateurs, I will 

 explain that this method is to place all 

 the nuclei containing queens of the 

 proper age to male in a cool, dark place, 

 a cellar being preferable; also a hive 

 containing many drones. This should 

 be done at night, and the next day each 

 one, including the colony containing the 

 drones, should be fed a few ounces of 

 honey just after all drones from your 

 strongest colony quit flying, and in about 

 10 minutes place them on their stands. 

 The air will soon be full of bees and 

 drones, the queens will come out also, 

 if ready, and pure mating is assured, 

 unless some impure drones are still on 

 the wing. I kept my drones in the nu- 

 clei, which simplified the matter some. 



I reared queens only for myself, a 

 few friends, and in experimental work 

 for several years. Dr. Hamlin used a 

 nucleus with 6 or 8 frames about 5x6 

 inches, which I adopted but soon dis- 

 carded, and used a frame fitting the 10- 

 frame hive crosswise. This I found to 

 be a convenient though rathe'r expensive 

 nucleus. I used 2 or 3 combs on each 

 side of a thin division-board, thus mak- 

 ing what is now termed hvin nuclei. 

 .\fter the season was over these nuclei 

 were doubled up for winter in hives 

 made to hold 4 frames. 



Seventeen years ago I adopted the 

 full-sized lo-frame hive with a thin di- 

 vision-board dividing the brood-chamber. 

 In these I use 2 to 4 combs with a fol- 

 lower, and keep them strong in bees. 

 I am now putting in 100 full-size Lang- 

 stroth hives with frames half the regu- 

 lar length and 4 nuclei to the hive, let- 

 ting the bees work out at the 4 corners 

 in opposite directions. I have experi- 

 mented with these several years and 

 have found them very satisfactory. This 

 is as near to baby nuclei as I believe it 

 is safe to approach. 



The compact form makes a warm 

 home for the young queens while await- 

 ing their mating trip, and they begin 

 egg-laying under favorable conditions. 



After the queen season is over, re- 

 move the thin cross division-boards in 

 each end of 2 hives, remove the bottom- 

 board from one, and double enough nu- 

 clei into these to make a colony in each 

 end, by placing the bottomless hive on 

 the other ; give each end a queen, and 

 they are ready for the winter, provided 

 the honey-supply is looked after. I 

 wish to have as little as possible to 

 throw away when I quit queen-rearing 

 at the end of the season, which will 

 be as soon as I can rely on getting an 

 average of 40 pounds of honey to the 

 colony. With my present nuclei I shall 

 lose only the division-boards and small 

 frames. 



The destruction of the forest made 

 the honey-yield so uncertain here that 

 I was forced into commercial queen- 

 rearing. I bred 3-band and golden queens 

 3J4 miles apart until last year, when, 

 finding my business too exhaustive, I 

 sold the golden department to my son, 

 Benj. G. Davis, who has been an active 



Ben G. Davis. 



assistant in my yards since early child- 

 hood, except 2 years spent in California, 

 where he took a peep into some exten- 

 sive apiaries, and learned some of the 

 Western methods. 



My Carniolan yard is about 5 miles 

 north, and is in charge of my son ; the 

 Caucasian yard is 7 miles south and is 

 managed by myself: both of the latter 

 are run for queens in a very limited 

 way, the main object being to test their 

 value as a commercial bee. Since hav- 

 ing them, the seasons have been fairly 

 favorable, and they have done well, ex- 

 cept the Carniolans swarm too much. 

 The true test of a race of bees occurs 

 during a dearth of honey, so I am not 

 prepared to give my opinion, and am 

 willing not to have the requisite dearth. 



We have one honey-apiary 4 miles 

 east, and one 21 miles southwest, mak- 

 ing 6 in all, containing at this time 

 about 600 colonies, ranging from weak 

 to strong. This includes recent pur- 

 chases of 50 colonies now being trans- 

 ferred. John M. Davis. 



Foundation Without Wiring 



E. W. Alexander docs not use wires 

 in brood-frames. He says "that he does 

 not hive swarms on foundation, he gives 

 two or three sheets at a time to an es- 

 tablished colony, putting them between 

 finished combs, near the brood-nest. 

 This is done before the main harvest is 

 on, at a time when the bees are not get- 

 ting much more honey than is required 

 for their present needs. In this way 

 there is no sagging. He says that they 

 choose a day when the weather is not 

 too hot, and the flow light, and put in 

 a lot of frames of foundation, some- 

 times from 500 to 1000 in a day, put- 

 ting them between frames of brood, re- 

 moving some combs to make room for 



