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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Oct. 11, 1900 



swarms that puts a stop to its 

 rearing queens for you. unless 

 you return the swarm ; but if 

 it intends to supersede its 

 queen it will build queen-cells 

 rig-ht alonjj for you as long as 

 the old queen lives. But you 

 must not let this colony so 

 perfect a young queen that it 

 emerges from the cell, but 

 keep the queen-cells taken out 

 before any hatch, all the 

 while : for if a young queen is 

 allowed to emerge from her 

 cell, the bees may let her kill 

 the old one, or whether she 

 does this or not they will build 

 no more cells, and most likely 

 they will destroy all the other 

 queen-cells that may be in the 

 hive at this time. 



REARING OUEENS .4FTER THE 

 HONEY-FLOW. 



yuESTiON. — I %vish to rear 

 some queens to supersede a 

 part of my old ones after the 

 honey-flow is past. Can I rear 

 them as late as September or 

 October, and be sure of drones 

 for their fertilization without 

 any special provision for 

 drones ? 



Answkk. — In this locality 

 drones are usually driven out 

 of the hives very soon after the 

 honey-flow ceases; and unless 

 there should happen to be 

 some queenless colony in the 

 neighborhood which would keep their drones, the queens 

 reared as our questioner proposes might prove to be drone- 

 layers ; still, as a rule, some colony within mating distance 

 of our queens is liable to hold or keep their drones so that 

 little risk is run in having queens prove drone-laj'ers if 

 reared the first half of September. Bnt I should prefer to 

 run no risks, nor would I wish my queens to take their 

 chances of mating inferior drones, coming from a promis- 

 cuous source ; and for this reason I set frames of drone- 

 comb in tvro or three of my best colonies for drones about 

 the middle of the summer honey-flow, and as soon as that 

 flow is over this drone-brood is mast in a very strong tiered- 

 up colony, which is now made queenless, when it will keep 

 the drones from this selected brood as long as it has no lay- 

 ing queen. This colony is now fed abundantly, so that the 

 drones are inclined to go out in great numbers on every 

 pleasant day, and thus we secure the mating of our queens 

 to our satisfaction. 



This massing of drone-brood from selected mothers for 

 fall rearing of queens pays as well, according to my way of 

 thinking, as anything any queen-breeder can do. I am 

 fully persuaded that as much depends upon the selection of 

 good drones as upon the selection of the queen we breed 

 from ; yet how few pay any attention to this matter of the 

 selection of drones. And I have been so much interested in 

 this matter that for several years I have, on cool days when 

 not troubled with robber-bees, " hand-pickt " the drones 

 corrjing from these selected mothers, picking out and killing 

 all of the inferior drones, as to size and markings, contained 

 in this drone-keeping colony, believing that the improve- 

 ment in my bees has more than paid me for so doing. 



Of one thing I am certain, and that is, that we can not 

 pay too much attention to the improvement of our bees. 



Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



Apiary of Mr. Chas. Roebllng, Hamilton Co., Oliio. 



9^ BV JOHN K. SCHMIDT. __" . "~~ 



AUGUST 4th I had the pleasure of visiting one of the 

 best regulated and nearest to the so called " model api- 

 ary " that I have ever seen. Taking a street car I was 

 soon '• whizzing" thru the busy streets toward one of the 

 most beautiful and picturesque suburbs to be found any- 

 where in the United States. A ride of 30 minutes on one of 

 our fast and up-to-date electric cars, brought me to within 

 a seven minutes' walk of the home and apiary of Mr. Chas. 

 Roebling, a most enthusiastic and intelligent bee-keeper. 



Apiary of Mr. Chas. Roebling, Haviilton Co., 



Ohio. 



Mr. Roebling has an ideal country home of 88 acres, 

 just far enough from the city to be convenient, where one 

 may live in true country style and still have all the advan- 

 tages of the city and country combined. The apiary — a 

 picture of which I secured — is situated on one of the highest 

 points in this section of the country, and at present consists 

 of about 36 colonies, which are run for both comb and ex- 

 tracted honey. The owner of the apiary is pictured in the 

 act of lifting a cover from a hive. The other individual — 

 well, he did not "press the button " this time. » 



In the rear of the p.piary, forming the background of 

 the picture, the house stands among the trees ; and nearby, 

 located at a convenient distance from the well, where one 

 may quench his thirst with cold, sparkling water so desir- 

 able on a hot, dry, July or August day, a hammock swings 

 in the cool shade of the trees. This is Mr. Roebling's 

 favorite resting-place, where he reads his bee-literature, of 

 which he has a good supply. Indeed, this is the favorite 

 place with all, for on the hottest day it is one of the very 

 few cool places to be found. There is always a refreshing 

 breeze, and Mr. Roebling informs me that this breeze does 

 away with the necessity of shade for his bees, and he has 

 never experienced the least trouble from the heat which 

 seems to prevail in the apiary. 



The beauty of the view from among these trees is some- 

 thing that can not be described or pictured. Looking down 

 directly toward the apiary the hill slopes toward a small 

 wooded ravine, then gradually rises into green meadows 

 and cultivated fields to nearly the same hight as the observ- 

 ing point. Turning slightly to the left there is a break in 

 this beautiful panorama, and thru the blue, hazy distance 

 one can see the Kentucky hills 20 miles away. This is a 

 fine bee-location, but, like all others, failure is not an un- 

 known term, this year being something little short of being 

 a failure. 



While talking bees and resting under these trees, Mr. 

 Roebling related how he built up his present apiary from 

 one colony — a swarm caught while at work in the fields one 

 day. The first attempt at bee-keeping proved a failure ; 

 the bees being hived in a dry-goods box lived and prospered 

 for a short time in one corner of the box, but the cold win- 

 ter soon put an end to their existence. The following 

 spring another swarm was captured, and this time a 10- 

 frame Langstroth hive was purchast, and the happy ovrner 

 thinking 10 frames too many in the hive, only inserted tivo: 

 but, to his surprise, on examining them some time after- 

 wards, he found these two frames completely filled, and 

 the remaining space filled with combs running in every 



