348 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



iictive and prolific than the Italians in their 

 native country- Should such an eminent 

 and clever bee-keeper as Dr, Dzierzou be so 

 one-sided as to rear queens only to have and 

 sell, beautiful and not active and prolific 

 queens? No, It may be that some of Dzier- 

 zon's queens are not as active and prolific as 

 migiit be wished, but that does not prove 

 that ALL his queens are so. Every queen- 

 raiser will sometimes rear from his best 

 queens some less active and prolific queens, 

 but he can not know it before it is demon- 

 strated by experiment and then he will find 

 such queen and give the colony a better one. 



3. As to the Cyprian bee, which I have 

 reared more than tln-ee years, allow me to 

 say that the importer of this wonderful bee, 

 the Count Kolowrat at Castel Hroby, Aus- 

 tria, first introduced the Cyprian bee in Ger- 

 many and afterwards his friend Cori in 

 Bruex sold queens of this kind. The noble 

 Count does not sell queens, but it was, and 

 is his pleasure to present his friends with a 

 Cyprian queen. 



Mr. Chas. Dadant writes: "Mr. Cori does 

 not say in what it (the Cyprian bee) is better 

 than the other kinds; he says it is more no- 

 ble. Did Mr. Cori not say this, pray? Let 

 me explain in what the Cyprian bee is better 

 than the Italian bee. 



1. Queens and worker-bees are more 

 beautiful. 



2. It is a well-known fact that the most of 

 the Italian colonies do not winter as well as 

 black bees, and very often suffer by spring 

 dwindling. This is not the case with the 

 Cyprian bee. I have reared in three years 

 many a Cyprian queen— (not to sell them 

 with a few bees, but for my own use and to 

 sell them in full Cyprian colonies in the 

 spring) and every such colony wintered 

 well, coming out strong in the spring. 



3. The Cyprian bee will not swarm so 

 much as the Italian bee, and does not build 

 so much drone comb as the latter. 



I will not say the Cyprians work better 

 than Italians, but it is certain my Cyprian 

 colonies yielded me every year the greatest 

 honey harvest. As to stings, it used it 

 neither more nor less than the Italians. 



C. J. H. Gkavenhokst. 



Brunswick, Germany, Aug. 30th, 1877. 



For the American Bee Journal, 



Bee Hives: 



It seems as tliough from the amount 

 written upon this subject, that it had been 

 so thorouglily investigated that bee-keepers 

 need no longer be at a loss to know what 

 kind of hive to use, and yet hardly two per- 

 sons are satisfied with the same hive. 



Bee-keepers have, no doubt, been most 

 thoroughly humbugged by bee hive vend- 

 ors; and no wonder, as soon as apiculture 

 received its first impetus and the people be- 

 gan to catch the bee fever, many unprinci- 

 pled agents rushed to the front, very few, if 

 any, of whom understood anything about 

 either bee-keeping or mechanism, and 

 whose only object was the Almighty dollar 

 to be gained thereby; ready to canvass for 

 anything that would sell. The consequence 

 has been that the hives were sold, and those 

 who purchased them were also sold. Thus 

 any hive patented by intelligent and worthy 

 bee-keepers has been looked upon with dis- 

 trust. 1 know one man in Maine who 

 bought 300 patent bee hives in 1873 to sell. 



They were nothing but trash, and he also 

 took an agency for it. I think lie has most 

 of them stored away in the barn chamber 

 now, and yet the market is flooded with bee 

 hives of every description and size, which 

 will (if used) involve the user in difficulties 

 and loss. In order to make a good hive, a 

 man must understand both bee-keeping and 

 mechanism. It is strange to see how many 

 are crying down the raising of dollar queens- 

 as unprofitable, both to raiser and consumer, 

 and yet but very little is said about those 

 wlio will flood the market with cheap, faully 

 and useless boxes called hives— cheating the 

 poor mechanic out of his bread and butter 

 and humbugging those who purchase them. 

 My experience is: patronize good reliable 

 men and obtain a good article, even though 

 it costs a little more, and you will find your- 

 selves doubly paid. In selecting a hive we 

 should obtain one in which the bees will 

 winter well on the summer stand and make 

 us the most surplus honey, and which is. 

 easily handled. I have used the American, 

 Langstroth, Kendall and Bay State bee 

 hives, besides watching the results of the 

 use of many others and below is the reasons 

 for my thinking that the Bay State bee hive 

 is the best for all purposes; it is neat, easily 

 handled, andean obtain more surplus honey 

 than any hive that I have ever seen. 1 can 

 remove the frames while the bees are at 

 work in the boxes without disturbing them.. 

 No honey boai'd or other useless clap trap to 

 interfere with removing the frames. There 

 is no room for moths, every portion of the 

 hive can be reached to clean it, and I can 

 pack it so that it has no superior as a hive 

 to winter or summer. 



Keep your bees in a good hive, strong, 

 and with a prolific Italian queen at all times 

 and success is certain. I drum out the 

 queen and bees in introducing, except where 

 the frames remove easily. The bees here 

 are gathering small quantities of honey 

 now. Silas M. Locke. 



Salem, Mass. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Our Plan for Getting Comb Honey. 



The question is often asked, how to get 

 bees to work in boxes? Ours have done all 

 their storing in the racks or frames, and 

 many of our stocks have but little in tlie 

 brood chamber, and we shall be obliged to 

 feed them after taking off the surplus or 

 racks. 



Last fall we went into winter quarters 

 with 85 packed in straw and chaff; two died 

 i for want of sufficient stores, and two were 

 I robbed (one in Feb. and one in April; our 

 apiary being on the farm, 3 miles from 

 home, hence the successful robbing), leav- 

 ing 81 to begin operations with in the 

 spring. 



Our aim being to get comb honey, even at 

 the expense of inci-ease, we managed after 

 this wise: When a swarm came out we 

 opened the hive (here is where one ot the- 

 advantages of our rack comes in. We could 

 remove the rack and surplus as easily as we 

 could one honey box) where they came out, 

 and taking out usually two cards of brood, 

 giving them to nuclei stocks to build up 

 with; cut out all of the queen cells; put in 

 the place of tlie frames removed, frames 

 with a strip of foundation; put on the rack 

 and return the swarm, they kept right on 



