May 28, 1903. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



343 



form and simple system, an old box brim-full of bees in 

 the early spring-, and the bees were there because the box 

 met their requirements, and was full of breeding space and 

 honey, instead of sticks and spaces. 



Honestly, Mr. Aikin, I don't believe she could have ac- 

 complished those results with any other system. It sim- 

 plicity met her knowledge of the business. 



The hive she used was much the same system as ad- 

 vised by that scholarly gentleman and prince amonj; bee- 

 keepers, Moses Quinby, .^0 years ago, for farmer bee-keepers 

 or, in fact, for any one who didn't care to handle combs. 



You will, no doubt, say her success was because of the 

 extra-good season. I think not, as she did just as well com- 

 paratively three years ago ; also one year ago. I think it is 

 because of those good, natural queens in a proper-sized 

 brood-nest, neither too large nor too small, without any 

 frames, sticks or spaces to interfere with rearing the great- 

 est amount of bees in the least amount of space. 



Another illustration : One year ago I bought 26 colonies 

 within three miles from your home. They were in boxes 

 like those described, excepting four in the Littleton hive, 

 which is nothing more nor less than the Heddon system. 

 One colony was dead, and two others weak ; but the boxes 

 were packed full of bees by April IS, and I am sure that 

 neither you nor I had any colonies in frame hives to com- 

 pare with them at that date. 



Again, I am confident that these longitudinal boxes 

 were just as strong as if they had been standing upright 

 like the ideal hive you have described in a previous article. 

 But your hive, 30 inches high, is not practical, and my ideal 

 box lying down must have frames in it, as we must have 

 control of the combs, and I will admit that when I put in a 

 set of frames I lessen the possibilities of that colony, and I 

 insist that when you put in two sets of frames and spaces 

 you double the loss in the hive. 



Again, my observation has led me to think, at least, that 

 a divisible brood-chamber will not winter as well in north- 

 ern Colorado as the regular Langstroth, in the open air. As 

 you know, my preference is for the 8-frame, while j'ou pre- 

 fer the 10-frame, and you give notice that you may change 

 to a 12-frame. 



Let me suggest that just in proportion as you add 

 frames above 8, or at least 9, just in that proportion will 

 you lessen the amount of honey you ship. 



If I were living where 1 wanted a great amount of bees 

 for, say a 20 or 30 days' honey-flow, I should certainly run 

 hives two stories high, for a queen can be rushed for a short 

 time ; but out of the thousands of queens I have owned, I 

 have never owned one that could keep more than an S frame 

 hive well stocked with brood for five months — the time that 

 is required here to cover the season when bees w/zi/ be 

 strong. I know of 12frame hives that have slabs of honey 

 in them 5 years old. If they had been in 8-frame hives, and 

 in a careful man's hands, that honey would have been on 

 the market in sections years ago. 



I want to say to beginners, and to all who are disposed 

 to be imitators: Watch and wait ; and when you see a man 

 who is caring for more bees without help than you are, and 

 is really shipping more honey than you are with your old, 

 reliable Langstroth system, then change, and not till then. 

 " Blessed be the name of Langstroth." 



Boulder Co., Colo. 



Rearing Long-Lived Queens and Bees. 



BY HENBY ALLEY. 



DR. GALLUP is dead. We shall miss him — myself as 

 much and perhaps more than any other reader of the 

 American Bee Journal. I am sorry he passed away so 

 suddenly, and so soon after he wrote his last article for this 

 journal. 



If he was still on earth, I could have more heart and 

 more interest in replying to the parting dig the Doctor gave 

 me. I feel obliged to reply to his oft-repeated story, as it 

 appeared in his article on page 277. How often Dr. (Gallup 

 has told the same old story in this paper — no less than twice 

 the past winter. 



Dr. Gallup says he had two queens from me — that's so. 

 The queens and none of the bees lived through the follow- 

 ing month of February. Why not ? Now, Dr. Gallup wants 

 it understood by all the readers of the American Bee Jour- 

 nal that the cause of the queens' dying so soon was owing 

 to the manner of rearing them. How many take stock in 

 such an idea ? 



The two queens sent Dr. Gallup were two as finequeens 



as were ever reared by any one. They were of the finest 

 stock I ever owred. They were the same strain and reared 

 in the same batch as a good many other queens, and for 

 which I can show thousands of testimonials, many of which 

 have been published in my catalogs. Now, what was the 

 cause of the trouble ? 



Of course, I cannot say certainly the real cause of two 

 such fine queens turning out as they did. But all the symp- 

 toms point to pretty bad management when they were in- 

 troduced. Why did not other people, who received queens 

 at the same time, do as much kicking as has Dr. Gallup ? 

 Perhaps I ought not to say more on this point, as Dr. Gal- 

 lup is not here to defend himself. He continually harped 

 about my rearing queens in nucleus hives, or nucleus colo- 

 nies, rather. I have never reared any queens, for sale, by 

 the nucleus system. All my queens are, and always were, 

 reared by the same system that Dr. Gallup recommends, 

 namely, by the strongest colonies to be found. I am quite 

 sure that Dr. Gallup got his first idea on queen-rearing from 

 my writings, as I wrote many articles on this subject before 

 he appeared on the stage. 



1 notice that quite a number of bee-keepers are using 

 many of my ideas on this subject and claiming them as 

 their own. When I wrote my first book on queen-rearing, 

 some twenty-years ago, an Italian reprinted it entire, ex- 

 cept so far as the name of H. Alley was concerned. My 

 name was not mentioned. Probably, being a foreigner, 

 could not pronounce my name, and so it was undoubtedly 

 left out. 



I do not like to say to much about myself when replying 

 to attacks in the papers, but the articles by Dr. Gallup and 

 some others compel me to say certain things that appear 

 like tooting my own horn. Isn't it wonderful that I have 

 continued in the queen-rearing business so long, consider- 

 ing that I have reared such infernally worthless queens? 

 Did Dr. Gallup really think that all the queens I have reared 

 were as poor as the ones he has described ? 



I wish Dr. Gallup could have lived long enough to have 

 visited my apiary. I wish that he or any other man, who 

 took stock in the Gallup statement, could come into my 

 yard just now and see some of the Adel colonies that have 

 those worthless (?) queens. I have queens from one to 

 three years old. The strongest and best colony in my yard, 

 save one, has a queen three years old. Then there are colo- 

 nies which have queens reared b3' a />;«/ of bees. One col- 

 ony in particular has a queen reared by less than a pint of 

 bees, and late last September. This queen cannot be pur- 

 chased, as she is the most promising young queen in my 

 yard. Last August I gave a young man an Adel queen. 

 She was introduced safely. This spring the young man 

 , was obliged to dispose of his bees, and I purchased them. I 

 don't believe that a stronger colony of bees can be found in 

 the United States. The hive has eight frames, and every- 

 one of them is filled with brood. This queen, as well as 

 some 40 others, was reared by my new process for rearing . 

 queens. 



Now, I will give some of the people who know it all, a 

 chance to " arise" and tell us what they know about some- 

 thing connected with bee-keeping. 



Last fall I purchased a powerful colony of black bees in 

 an old-fashioned 10-frame Lanstroth hive. One of those 

 hives has a cap large enough to hold a bushel, yes, 5 pecks, 

 if anything. The hive contained but 4 frames and there was 

 nothing above the frames but the cap. The bees had filled 

 the entire thing, from top to bottom with comb and honey, 

 and it all weighed 125 pounds. I managed to get the cap 

 ofi", and all the bees out of it into the brood-chamber. I 

 never saw a larger colony of bees. It cast a swarm last 

 year and hada fine young queen reared by the swarming- 

 process. This, of course, would give the colony one of the 

 very best queens it was possible to have. Well, now, let us 

 see about that part of it. This colony wintered on the sum- 

 mer stand and lost no bees at all during the entire winter. 

 It has always been strong in numbers. 



Now comes the point I want to call your attention to. 

 About a week ago I was passing by that hive, and found the 

 bees greatly excited, the same as when a queen has died or 

 has been removed. Sure enough, the queen— a large, fine 

 specimen— had died, as I found her on the ground. She was 

 a young queen, and I could see no reason why she had died 

 so young and suddenly. Now, get right up gentlemen and 

 explain why this swarm-reared, and naturally-reared, queen 

 had died. When you have explained the above please try 

 this one : 



Two years ago, I took my team and went on a hunt for 



a few colonies of bees I much needed. I came across a man 



I who had a few strong colonies in the first pattern Lang- 



