18S0 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUBE. 



427 



thought. I went to the hive and looked it all through, 

 but found not my Italian. I studied awhile and 

 looked again, and found queen cells with larvae, and 

 that sealed my fate. I looked at the black, dead 

 queen again, and came almost to the conclusion she 

 was not my Italian. I went to the hive again, picked 

 up my smoker, and sent them "sprawling" around. 

 I picked up a frame, and there was my Italian queen 

 all right. Then for the Smilery again. There were 

 two queens in the hive, of course. The new queen 

 had killed the other one, I suppose. I think she was 

 an old worthless queen. Her wings were badly used 

 up. The one I took out was a very nice large queen. 

 Flat Ridge, O., July 20, 1880. A. H. Duff. 



■*-«! < *■ 



CANDY FOR QUEEN CA«iES, THAT DOES 

 NOT REQIIKE ANA WATER. 



0OME time in May or June, a friend 

 |H| wrote me that he had received a queen 

 ' from friend Viallon, in a cage contain- 

 ing no water ; and that she came through 

 in such fine condition, he had put his black 

 queen in the same cage, and mailed her to 

 me, to see if the cage would stand another 

 trip. Every bee as well as the queen reached 

 me in line order. I at once wrote friend V. 

 for particulars, and he sent me the following, 

 which should have been in earlier in the 

 season, but it was passed by during the rush 

 of business. 



viallon's candy to be used without water. 



It is with pleasure that I send you the receipt for 

 the candy I use in my mailing cages. It is the same 

 that I used last year, and I did not lose a single 

 queen. This season, of about 100 queens mailed, not 

 one has been reported dead yet, except one out of 3 

 tested queens that I sent to R. M. Aego, and that 

 was caused by the tin tube containing water, which 

 got loose and leaked. They are the only ones I have 

 sent with the tubes, -as they were choice tested 

 queens, and I took extra precaution. I take 12 

 ounces of powdered white sugar, 1 ounces of Louis- 

 iana brown sugar, one table-spoonful of flour, and 

 two table-spoonfuls of honey, stir well together, and 

 add just enough water to make it like thick mush; 

 then bring it to a boiling point, or if too much water 

 is added, boil it a minute or two; then I stir it well 

 until it begins to thicken, and pour quickly a table- 

 spoonful into each cage. 



LATER. 



I again inclose you a postal card showing you that 

 after 15 days my queens were alive with my candy, 

 without water; but, on the 19th day, only 1 out of 5 

 were alive. From all the 20 queens sent to Canada, 

 to 6 different parties, in different parts of Ontario, 

 every one was received in fine condition. Of nearly 

 300 queens mailed to every part of the U. S., all were 

 received in good condition, with the exception of 4 de- 

 layed 19 days in the mail, by my mistake of address- 

 ing them to Indiana instead of Iowa, and 3 which 

 were accidentally killed by the candy getting loose 

 in the cages. This I think a good result for candy 

 without water. 



From experience, I find that any candy will do 

 with water, but the postal laws forbid liquids, and 

 the cage presented to the P. M. General had no glass 

 or tin bottles, and he allowed queens through the 

 mail according to the cage presented to him, etc. 

 Now I am afraid that the water used at present by 

 many will cause, sooner or later, our queens to go by 



some other way than by mail; not that the small 

 quantity of water used can do any harm or damage 

 of any kind, but because it is against the postal 

 laws, and some over-zealous postmasters will prob- 

 ably find this not in accordance with the law, and 

 may report to the department this small violation, 

 and make it worse than it is. 



The queen business has been pretty lively this 

 season, and, though I have had to delay some orders 

 on account of bad weather, I am glad to see that I 

 have given satisfaction to all those I have heard 

 from so far. The fact is I send out only daughters 

 of imported queens (except in a few instances, when 

 requested, I have sent from home bred), and sent 

 out no queen that I would not have for myself. 



Paul L. Viallon. 



Bayou Goula, La., July 13, 1880. 



I have long known that candy alone would 

 sustain a few bees for a week or more, pro- 

 viding the candy was so made as to contain 

 considerable water, and made and put into 

 the cage the same day it was sent off. The 

 difficulty of doing this has prevented us, so 

 far, from using such candy. We are selling 

 cages constantly, and they have to be made 

 by the quantity and kept on hand, or we 

 could not well rill orders promptly. Besides 

 we use the same cages over and over again, 

 by putting in fresh candy and fresh water. 

 I have used candy made partly of honey, 

 and the receipt has been given on these 

 pages, and also in the ABC; but, from the 

 great number of losses we had, I concluded 

 the honey was worse than all sugar, and so 

 discontinued the use of it, and took the re- 

 ceipt out of the ABC. Will friend V. 

 please tell us if he finds it necessary to make 

 the candy fresh every time he wishes to send 

 off a queen or queens? It will, without 

 doubt, be a great convenience all around, if 

 the rest of us can succeed with his receipt as 

 well as he has done. 



GALLUP IN CALIFORNIA. 



HOW HE MANAGES AN APIARY OF HIS OWN. 



WSj DITOR GLEANINGS : — As the season is pretty 

 JM much over for honey, I think a report will 

 perhaps be interesting. I commenced with 

 48 stocks in rather poor condition. At all events, I 

 had only about 20 queens in the lot, that could be 

 depended upon, so I commenced superseding quite 

 early. By the 20th of May, I had only 10 old queens 

 left, and to-day I do not know of a last year's queen 

 in the lot. I met with great difficulty in getting 

 young queens fertilized, and, in many cases, after 

 they were fertilized, they mysteriously disappeared, 

 and apparently without any cause. The two im- 

 ported queens received from you died,— one in four 

 weeks, and the other in six; yet I succeeded in get- 

 ting 30 queens from them. I increased to H3. - stocks, 

 principally by natural swarming. I have used 22 

 lbs. of foundation, and have a fine lot of ready made 

 comb to supply young swarms with, and ready made 

 comb sufficient to supply 50 supers with 8 combs 

 each, and have 70 supers now filled with comb that I 

 have extracted from. It has been a very poor sea- 

 son for comb building, many stocks refusing to build 

 comb at all, or building very reluctantly. We have 

 put up the most of our honey in 80 lb. tin cans. 

 Each can has to be cased or boxed up. In using 60 

 lb. cans however, one case holds two cans. The cost 



