THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



99 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Honesty is the Best Policy. 



In the Oct. number of Gleanings, page 

 245, Novice says, in speaking about comb 

 foundation, he has paid all claims for 

 damages, and mentions a claim of Mr. 

 Burch for 350. Now I ff)r one protest 

 against such a fraud. What does Mr.Burch 

 claim damages for? Because, as he says, 

 his comb foundations were made a little 

 thicker than he ordered them. Now for 

 the result. 



"Tiie queens would not lay in it."' Why, 

 of course not. if the (jneeu had plenty of 

 room and too few bees, either to lill up with 

 honey or cover the brood. 



" That it is raised into comb much slower 

 than they build natural comb." Certainly, 

 a new swarm might do it, provided it was 

 twice as strong as the one tlie foundations 

 were in. 



" That the honey is not saleable after it is 

 stored." Now, in all my experience with 

 foundations I never had any such trouble, 

 nor any one else that 1 am acquainted with. 

 It is true with unbleached wax, you will 

 sometimes see a light yellow streak in the 

 centre of a comb, but never enough to 

 damage its sale; at least not half as much 

 as if the boxes had been filled with old dark 

 combs, as I was informed a Michigan bee- 

 keeper did, and sold it in Chicago for first 

 quality comb honey. 



Does any one think that Mr. Bui'ch's 

 claim for damages is an honest one ? Al- 

 low me to give the evidence tiiat convinces 

 me it is not. The Miclilgau bee-keepers for 

 some time back thought that they were in 

 possession of some new and valuable ideas 

 that would ultimately revolutionise apicul- 

 ture in America; but some who had been 

 through the mill said, wait and we will see. 

 They had not to wait long. It is quite com- 

 mon to boast of superior knowledge and 

 skill when there is a rich honey harvest, but 

 let a poor season come and it brings them 

 down to the level of connnon folks. 



Now hear the wailing of Mr. Burch, and 

 out of his own mouth will I condemn him 

 by making a few extracts from the Bee- 

 Keepers' Magazine for Sept., page 305: — 

 " The season with us has been n peculiar 

 one (the italics are mine). Grim winter 

 persisted in lingering so very late in the 

 lap of spring that the hosts of 'bee-dom' 

 were few and far between, when the balmy 

 days of June had came. Although June 

 opened auspiciously for the apiculturist it 

 will be remembered by that individual as 

 the deluge of 1870. Day after day did the 

 heavens unfold their liquid treasures, until 

 men began to inquire, 'Will it never cease , 

 to rain?' Still it continued to rain. Our 

 rainy season readied its terminus in the 

 latter part of June. The poor, drenched 

 earth received 14 inches of solid water. 

 Basswood began on July 10th, closed on the 

 20th; lasting only one-half as long as 

 lisual. Since July 30th the bees have "been 

 idle, so that at this date (as no date is yiven 

 I suppose about the 30tli of August) we 

 have almost no surplus Itoney at all. The 

 season is the poorest on record with us." 



Now after this account of the season, how 

 can he say the foundation was the cause of 

 his failure ? He might just as well say his 

 box-stuff was the cause, if that had been a 

 little too thick ! Do bees work in boxes 



when they are "few and far between?" 

 Do bees work in boxes when it rains "day 

 after day" for about a month? Do bees 

 ever work in boxes in the " poorest season 

 on record ?" 



Now if Mr. Bnrcli does not return the $5& 

 to Novice, I would humbly suggest that he 

 add a new chapter to " Money in the 

 Apiary," headed, "How to make Money 

 without Bees or Honey." Novice asks, 

 what shall I do? For one I would say, pay 

 no more such bills, but lay the case before 

 a few honest and intelligent bee-keepers, 

 and abide their decision. Justitia. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Bees of the Same Swarm Fighting. 



In the " Notes and Queries " department 

 for February, R. C. Cameron tells of bees 

 killing each other after a queen had been 

 liberated among them, and that he was sure 

 that no strange bees had entered the hive. 

 And Ch. Dadant says that he never knew 

 bees of the same colony to fight each other. 



I am satisfied that "bees sometimes will 

 fight among themselves, when a strange 

 queen is among them. One year ago last 

 summer, when honey was plenty, and bees 

 were not robbing, I was destroying a lot of 

 hatching queen cells in one of my hives. I 

 opened one having in it a mature queen. 

 This queen, just out of the cell, I put down 

 at the entrance of a neighboring hive, and 

 she went in. In a few minutes bees began 

 to come out, that had evidently been stung. 

 This continued until several hundred had 

 been killed, when the young queen which 

 had been the cause, as 1 tiien believctl and 

 do still, of the trouble, Avas draged out dead. 

 There were no jobbers about the entrance 

 of the hive. As soon as the young queen 

 was disposed of. peace ensued. 



I have been in the habit of keeping 

 queens for a few day«, by putting them, 

 caged, into hives having laying queens, and 

 generally no trouble has resulted. Some- 

 times I lay the cage over a hole in the 

 honey-board, and the bees will feed the im- 

 prisoned queen for weeks, if forage is 

 tolerably plenty. Last summer I laid a 

 caged queen over a hole in the honey-board 

 of one of my hives, and in a short time the 

 ground in front of the hive Avas covered 

 with dead and dying bees. I had not open- 

 ed the hive, and there Avere no robbers at 

 the entrance. I then opened the hive and 

 found the bottom board covered with bees 

 clinched in deadly combat. I removed the 

 strange queen, and in a short time all 

 became (juiet again. I am very sure that 

 the bees engaged in this combat all belong- 

 ed to the same colony, and the more so be- 

 cause honey Avas so plenty that bees did not 

 care to rob. 



Late in the summer, I opened a nucleus 

 hive and founil a knot of bees on the bot- 

 tom, enclosing a dead queen which had 

 entered from aiiotlier nucleus. This hiA'e 

 contained several hundred dead bees Avhich 

 had evidently been stung; but Avhether 

 they had been killed by the bees of their 

 own colony or whether they were intruders, 

 I had no means of ascertaining. I know 

 that a young queen Avill sometimes kill 

 Avorkers, and do it very quickly. I have 

 seen them do it several times. 



M. Mahin. 



NcAv Castle, Ind., Feb. 6, 1877. 



