2ti 



THt. lit^L 'vl'.El'KUS' Rh:VltjW. 



fore you fully open up. ( )therwise work 

 8>\iftly and keep the kees moving. 



When you dig a bee cellar and find no 

 moisture and no apparent outlook for there 

 ever being any, you just construct a drain 

 all the same. And don't you expect 1.5 inches 

 of dirt to turn the rain above. A'ld don't 

 you lean too heavily on dead air space above 

 to keep out cold, lest you have a dead hee 

 space down below, l^or the aniinii-< of tie 

 above see a good article by C. G. (Reiner, 

 Gleanings, ;'>(')7. Friend G. also tried an oil 

 stove to warm up his ce\lar when too cold. 

 It was placed behind a partition f-upposed to 

 be air tight, but a decided smell of oil got 

 through somehow into the main cellar, and 

 the bees were badly excited. Gleauiiigs, 

 413. 



Cleat the edges of your smoker bellows, 

 and the grip is made surer and more con- 

 venient. Coggshnll, Gleanings, 'M2. 



J. E. Pond, \merican Bee .Journal, 388, 

 liuds near'y uniform success in a very simple 

 and direct method of queen introduction. 

 Tha more vital points, outside the maiiii)u- 

 lation, are honey flow, pleasant day and let 

 alone for a fe>y days. A bungler, however, 

 would respect these and still manage 1o get 

 the queen killed. To alarm the bees with 

 smoke just enough to make them take honey, 

 to wait just long enough, then to let the 

 queen run naturally into the entrance — all to 

 be done after the bees stop flying at eve — 

 are the main points of the manipulation. 

 The old queen is removed, and tlie cai<ed 

 queen laid above the frames only the morn 

 before. 



McArthur, A. B. .J.. 338, raises the ques- 

 tion, "Is there any pure stock imported 

 from Italy?" (Is there •? ny coal in Nsw 

 castle, or any beer in Bavaria?) Ho views 

 the Italian bees in northern Italy as mixed 

 and comparatively recent emit/rants— like 

 ourselves in North America. All need a 

 course of breeding in competent hands be- 

 fore they can fairly be called pure bloods. 

 After all, this is not an entirely unreason- 

 able idea. Southern Italy has hlack bees, 

 and central Italy manifestly mixed ones. 

 Accidental importation is not impossible in 

 a maritime country. McArthur gives a case 

 where a swarm actually went from Canada 

 to the United States by alighting on the bow 

 of a vessel. 



S. A. Deacon, A. B. J., .UO, claims they 

 have a weather man in South Africa, a 

 ''cycle hunter," who predicted drouth and 



famine in India by means of a scientific in- 

 strument which detected lack of normal 

 force in South African winds. Wants us to 

 go and do likewise, and predict our bad sea- 

 sons in advance and prepare for them. No 

 blow in Africa, no monsoon in India; no 

 monsoon, no rain; no rain, no food. Well, 

 at the rate Deacon blows in .\frica lately 

 we'll hope for good seasons right along now. 



Dr. Miller, in A. B. J., 3!)"), would vary the 

 Heddon method of preventing after-swarms 

 by piling up the removed old hives three or 

 four high. These are to be united into one 

 colony later of course. This would bring 

 the method quite near to a prevention of in- 

 crease — the port so many of us are trying to 

 steer to. Yes. >)ut with the Heddon method 

 a hundred colony apiary needs nearly two 

 hundred hives. I want to steer further, 

 clear to the port where a dozen extra hives 

 will sufiice me. 



RiCHAEDS, Lucas Co., (). Aug. 2G, 1897. 



Improvements in Drone and ftueen Traps. 



Adrian GAi\z, in the last issue of Glean- 

 ings, calls attention to an important point 

 in the construction of the Alley Queen and 

 Drone trap. Here is what he says: 



" In using queen traps I have often found 

 tliem too slow iu their work. What I mean 

 by this is that liefore entering the cones the 

 drones remain too long below, trying every 

 hole in the zinc before they go up. The 

 same inconvenience i>^ found with the (pieen 

 a^ swarmintr time. During the excitement 

 the queen will run to and fro over the zinc, 

 fail to tind the cones bofore t >e swarm is all 

 out, and finally go back into the brood nest. 



" In trying to improve the trap I find that 

 the he-^t way is to use a piece of wire netting 

 iiist( ad of a tin slide to cover the trap. The 

 li'iht attracts th« drones and queens, and to 

 a great ext-nt the workers also, and they go 

 u'7 at once. In such a con-itruction it is 

 necessary to have the front of the upi)er 

 C)nparfmBnt made with bee-zinc so as to 

 permit th'< workers to go out. The accom- 

 panying figure shows the details." 



In the traps made by Mr. Alley there are, 

 or were, three cou'-B. and they are placed 

 quite near the front of the trap, which 

 greatly increased the likelihood of the queen 

 getting up into the upper part of the trap. 

 I had some traps in which there was only one 

 cone and it was placed back half an inch 

 from the front of the trap, and a swarm 

 often came out and then went back, but no 



