THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



That colouy gave me 60 sections filled with as beautiful 

 white hone)' as I ever saw. I got only 10 from the other 

 colony. I have sold it nearly all for 16 and 20 cents a sec- 

 tion. 



I now have the colonies packed on the top with chaflF 

 cushions, as the books direct, but I have put nothing on tlie 

 sides. One is the Simplicity hive, the other is a Danzen- 

 baker, which I bought in the flat, and nailed up and painted 

 myself. The hives are very heavy with honey. 



4. How do you think I have succeeded with this my first 

 venture ? I knew nothing whatever about bees ; what I have 

 learned has been through reading, and I read everything I 

 can lay my hands on. I enjoy it thoroughly, all but the 

 stings; they bother me quite a little. There is no pain of 

 any account, but when the poison begins to go through my 

 system I become unconscious, followed by nausea and vom- 

 iting. I am hoping in time I will get over that. 

 • 5. What do you think about it ? 



There is one thing I don't believe I will ever be able to 

 do, that is, to find the queen in a full colony. It seems to 

 me next to an impossibility to pick her from the mass of 

 bees. 



I don't care to bother with extracting, so I am going to 

 work for comb honey entirely. I will use the Danzenbaker 

 hives. I know nothing whatever about them, or any other, 

 for that matter. I bought five in the flat last winter, and 

 put them together without any assistance. It was like 

 working out a puzzle, though, to get all the parts together. 

 I had nothing to go by except the instructions in the little 

 book that came with them. 



I live in a town, and have my bees in the rear of the 

 lot. No bees are kept for miles around. I can not give 

 them much attention from the middle of June to the first of 

 September, as I am away during that time. 



I hope. Miss Wilson. I have not taken too much of your 

 time with this preamble. But I did want to talk to some- 

 body who knows about bees, and tell hjm or her what I have 

 done. It seems to me I have done fairly well. The season 

 was wet and cold, and not a good season for bees, the 

 American Bee Journal says. I am sure no one could get 

 along without a bee-paper of some kind. 



Monmouth Co., N. J.. Nov. 25. LuELLA R. Hall. 



Answers. — 1. Yes, I think she was accepted ; she prob- 

 ably destroyed the queen-cells. 



2. It is nothing uncommon to find that the bees are not 

 all marked alike in the same hive, even if the queen be 

 purely mated. If the hives are close together I think the 

 bees mix more or less, as I have often noticed that where a 

 colony of verj' yellow bees stood next to a colony of dark- 

 colored ones, I would often find some very yellow bees in 

 with the dark bees, and some black bees mixed with the yel- 

 low ones. 



3. No, I do not think it very likely that there were two 

 queens in the same hive. It is only rarely that two queens 

 are allowed to remain in the same hive, and they are usually 

 mother and daughter. 



4. I think you have every reason to be proud of your 

 first venture — 60 sections from one colony was doing very 

 well indeed. And you succeeded in getting a good price for 

 it, too. 



5. I am very sorry that bee-stings affect you so un- 

 pleasantl)', but I will say for your comfort that when I first 

 commenced to work with bees, a sting would make me sick 

 for two or three days. A sting on the hand would probably 

 swell my eyes shut. Now, when I am stung I do not suflr'er 

 at all except the pain the sting inflicts, and in a very short 

 time can not tell where I was stung. The system becomes 

 accustomed to the poison in time. 



Don't worry about not being able to find a queen. In 

 time 3-ou will laugh over the idea that you even thought 

 you could not find her, although at present it looks like a 

 big undertaking. 



Too bad that you have to be away from your bees just 

 at the time they need attention most. 



Don't worry about taking too much of my time. I shall 

 hope to hear from you often. I shall be very much inter- 

 ested in hearing how you are succeeding. 



Our Wood Binder (or Holder) is made to take all the 

 copies of the American Bee Journal for a year. It is sent 

 by mail for 20 cents. Full directions accompany. The Bee 

 Journals can be inserted as soon as they are received, and 

 thus preserved for future reference. Upon receipt of f 1.00 

 for your Bee Journal subscription a full year m advance, 

 we will mail you a Wood Binder free — if you will mention it. 



The "Old Reliable" seen through New and Unreliable Qlasset. 

 By e. B. HASTY, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, O. 



ABOUT THE SHAKEN OR FORCED SWARMS. 



Anent the "shook" and how it should be shook. 

 " Important that the bees should be gathering honey 

 and secreting wax." — H. R. Boardraan. Strong hint 

 that bees, especially black bees, sometimes resent the per- 

 formance and swarm out. — (Harry Howe.) M. A. Gill dis- 

 covers for us that it is essentially the same as "driving ; " 

 which the bee-keeping Abraham, if not the bee-keeping 

 Adam, used to practice. E. F. Atwater thinks it very im- 

 portant to give the shook more bees from time to time. 

 Pouder (we are not surprised to learn) get's 'em up five 

 stories high — the colonies made out of the residuary frames 

 of brood. Ernest Root puts first the tremendous importance 

 of rendering practical (if the thing fully works) a non- 

 swarming out-apiary run for comb honey, and with small 

 brood-chambers. Page 717. 



BEES AND HONEY AT THE ST. LOCIS FAIR. 



At St. Louis bees and honey won't be put upstairs, nor 

 down cellar, because there is not to be any upstairs or down 

 cellar in the agricultural building. Good. S3S, 000,000 to 

 be spent there, eh ? The Yankee genius for wasting money 

 is hugely developed, but it would be sad and queer if they 

 wasted all that. Page 726. 



HEALTH CERTIFICATE FOR MOVING BEES. 



Hambaugh is right. No colonies to be sold or moved 

 out of an infected apiary till written permission of the in- 

 spector can be given. Page 727. 



SHADE FOR HIVES. 



W. R. Ansell is right — to the extent that a gooi and 

 sufficient shade-board is a little ahead of any practicable 

 living shade. May play truant, and be absent when needed 

 most, which the latter does not do. Page 728. 



IS THERE A DIFFERENCE IN QUEEN-LARV.E FOOD ? 



That bees may put a large lump of extra jelly in a 

 queen-cell and yet the quality of the jelly be so poor that a 

 very poor queen must necessarily result. This proposition 

 drawn from Henry Alley, page 729, seems improbable to me. 

 somehow. Mr. Alley calls for chemical analysis to show. 

 I don't believe we have any chemists that are fully equal to 

 a task of that sort. They may understand it, more's the 

 pity. The difference between good and poor in similar 

 foods (while often tangible enough) may be an exceedingly 

 elusive distinction. 



DR. MASON'S PICTURE. 



The picture of Dr. Mason on page 739 is an excellent 

 one. I have often wondered why the picture reproduced on 

 the outside of No. 49 was so much in vogue. A base slander 

 on the good Dr. Imputes a dull, corpse-like look to a man 

 who both looked and was very much alive. 



THE QUEEN AND SWARMING. 



I would reply to Dr. Miller, on page 745, that although 

 Alabama's first case is not technically an exception to the 

 rule, that a queen of the current year is a remedy for swarm- 

 ing, it is a serious shortcoming in the rule — one of the 

 things which prevent it from being of much use to us prac- 

 tically. 



BEES CARRY DOWN COMB HONEV. 



I think George Brown is liable to have cases, some time 

 in the future, when bees that are light of stores below will 

 provokingly neglect to carry down comb honey even when 

 it is uncapped. Page 748. 



COMB FOUNDATION IN SECTIONS. 



Have a little more charity, Mr. Bartz. Use it in full 

 sheets, and put in bottom starters of it, too. Not probable 

 that such a lot of men, and such good men, hold their views 

 insincerely to advise foundation. Neither is it probable 

 that their ignorance averages a much greater density than — 

 ours, for instance. I'm in the same boat with you as to 

 practice — do not myself either use or advocate full sheets of 



