106 



Tm® MM®MicMif mmm j©tsjri«mi.. 



to be the Jirst inventors of self swanu- 

 hivers- 



It is queer that all those who have 

 described their swarmers in these col- 

 umns, entertain the idea that I never 

 saw a swarmer until this winter ! 

 What a queer idea ! 



It will not be out of place here for 

 me to say that all swarmers, thus far 

 described, infringe the patent which I 

 hold on the drone-and-queen trap. 

 The principle for which letters patent 

 were granted in the year 1884, is not 

 changed- by the slight changes in the 

 construction of the trap. 



Now about the practicability of 

 swarmers : None of those who claim 

 the invention of swarmers, dared to 

 describe them in the bee-papers, for 

 the reason that not one of them, after 

 testing, were found of any practical 

 worth. The screen-wire used to con- 

 nect the two hives did not work satis- 

 factorily ; that is, I found it so, and no 

 doubt others found it the same. The 

 wire-screen destroj'ed the connection 

 between the bees and queen, after she 

 had entered the new hive. The per- 

 forated metal furnishes a continuous 

 passage-way from the home hive to 

 the empty hive, for the bees to enter 

 the new hive when they swarm and re- 

 turn in search of their queen. Most 

 readers can see that there is a great 

 difference between using screen-wire 

 and pei'forated metal, when applied to 

 a swarm-hiver. 



Wenham, Mass. 



COWTEWTIOM DIRECTORY. 



Uoolittle on <t"Cd>-ICeai*ing'. 



Queens can be reared in the upper stories 

 of hives used for extracted honey, where a 

 queen-excluding honey -board is used, which 

 are as good, if not superior, to Queens 

 reared by any other process ; and that, too, 

 while the old Queen is doing duty below, 

 just the same as though Queens were not 

 being reared above. This is a fact, though 

 it is not generally known. 



If you desire to know how this can be 

 done — how to have Queens fertilized in up- 

 per stories, while the old Queen is laying 

 below — how you may safely mtroducc any 

 Queen, at any time of the year when bees 

 cay fly — all about the different races of 

 bees — all about shipping Queens, queen- 

 cages, candy for queen-cages, etc. — all 

 about forming nuclei, multiplying or unit- 

 ing bees, or weak colonies, etc. ; or, in fact 

 everything about the queen-business which 

 you may want to know, send for " Doolit- 

 tle's Scientific Queen-Rearing;" a book of 

 170 pages, which is nicely bound in cloth, 

 and as interesting as any story. Price, 

 $1.00. 



An edition in strong paper covers is is- 

 sued tor premiums. It will be mailed as a 

 present to any one who will send us two 

 new subscribers to either the Bee Journal 

 or the Illusthateo Home Journal. 



1890. Time and place of meeting. 



Feb. 19-20.-0hio State, at Cleveland, O. 



Miss Dema Bennett, Sec Bedford, O. 



Feb. 19-20.-N. E. Ohio. N. W. Pa., and Western New 

 York, at Cleveland, Oh id. 



Geo. Spitler. Sec., Mosiertown, Pa. 



May 1.— Southwestern Wisconsin, at Boscobel, Wis. 

 Benj. E. Kice, Sec., Boscobel, Wis. 



May 3.— Susquehanna Co.. at Hopbottom, Pa. 



H. M. Seeley, Sec, Harford, Pa. 



May 19.— Northern Illinois, at Rockford, Ills. 



D. A. Fuller, Sec, Cherry Valley, Ills. 



In order to have this table complete, 



Secretaries are requested to forward full 

 particulars of the time and the place of 

 each future meeting. — The Editor. 





BeKs ure Rooming— Cedar Itloom 



The weather has been so mild this winter 

 that vegetation is growing like it does in 

 the spring — red clover was in bloom on 

 Christmas. Bees are fairly booming, and 

 have been carrying in pollen since Jan. 10. 

 I have 30 colonies in good condition, some 

 of which are working as strongly as if in 

 the midst of a honey harvest. Bees are 

 now at work on cedar blossoms — something 

 that I never noticed before. I do not know 

 whether they get nectar or pollen from 

 them. E. W. Powers. 



Palmyra, Mo., Feb. 3, 1890. 



Xhe eolden-Kod Did Well. 



We have no reason to complain of the 

 honey season of 1889, but everything to be 

 thankful for. We hope that 1890 may be 

 another big bee-year. I did not get as much 

 honey as some of my neighbors, as I was 

 working for increase ; but some of my colo- 

 nies gave 160 pounds each, and 12 of the 

 best colonies gathered 10 pounds each of 

 golden-rod honey, and I left considerable 

 honey with the rest of them. 



Tiverton, Out. Matthew Allison. 



4iioIden-Rod Honey— S^varmin;;. 



I notice that one correspondent says, on 

 page 58, that he does not think "there ever 

 was an ounce of golden-rod gathered." As 

 I am one that has reported honey being 

 gathered from golden-rod, I suppose, in his 

 opinion, I and others who have reported 

 securing honey from golden-rod, must be 

 mistaken. I cannot account for the differ- 

 ent reports, except from the difference in 

 location. I kept bees for twelve years in 

 Iowa, and I never knew them to get any 

 honey from that source there ; I have kept 

 bees seven years here in Missouri, and I 

 know whereof I speak, when I say that bees 

 gather honey from golden-rod here. They 

 do not get it every year, but some years we 

 get a good surplus from it. I have seen 

 the bees very thick on it— from one to six 

 or eight bees on one stalk, and they were 

 bringing in the nice, golden-colored honey 

 fast from it, and not from asters, as one 

 correspondent claimed. 



Another correspondent claims that Mr. 

 Doolittle is wrong in his opinions in regard 

 to giving swarms a frame of brood to pre- 

 vent absconding. I came to the same con- 

 clusion as Mr. Doolittle has, years ago, and 

 have not for years practiced it. There are 

 other good reasons against this practice, as 

 well as its failure to prevent swarms from 



absconding. Still another corresrondent 

 claims that Mr. Doolittle's plan of forming 

 nuclei does not work with him. Now I 

 must say that I think the fault is with the 

 correspondent instead of the method, as I 

 have practiced it a good many times, and 

 always with success. It would be easy to 

 make a failure, if you should happen to get 

 the queen from the hive where you got the 

 bees for the nuclei ; the result would be, 

 that when you give them a queen (thinking 

 they had none) she would be destroyed. 

 L. G. Purvis. 

 Forest City, Mo., Feb. 4, 1890. 



[The letter from Mr. Ira Reeves was pub- 

 lished on page 58, while we were confined 

 to our bed, as announced in these columns. 

 Had we been able to reply, one would have 

 followed the letter. Mr. Reeves certainly 

 could not mean to record anything more 

 than the observations of himself and his 

 neighbors in that locality, and while the 

 golden-rods yield honey in many localities, 

 we are well aware that in other places they 

 have often failed to do so. This will ex- 

 plain the position taken by Mr. Reeves. — 

 Ed.] 



Xhe Uibbern Hee-E^tcape. 



Being much interested in the bee-escapes 

 receiving so much attention at the present 

 time, I obtained the latest invention of Mr. 

 Dibbern. I could not quite get the idea 

 from the illustration on page 798 of the 

 Americas Bee Journal for 1889. Per- 

 haps I am a little dull in that direction. I 

 have the device now. I am not in the 

 habit of praising things before a trial, but 

 from what I know of the habits of bees, 

 and judging this device theoretically, I be- 

 lieve it will work. The beauty of it is its 

 idea of practicality. No, that is not all, 

 because the escape is beautiful in design 

 and in workmanship. It will evidently 

 work on any kind of a hive. A circular 

 hole of the proper diameter, is all that is 

 needed to affix it to a honey -board or cover 

 that has a bee-space above and below. 



Since the escapes are so inexpensive, they 

 will certainly be thoroughly tried the com- 

 ing season. If this will work successfully 

 between the brood-chamber and the ex- 

 tracting-super in the fall of the year, when 

 bees so stick to their combs, I shall feel like 

 Sancho Panza did when he blessed the man 

 who invented sleep. Mr. Dibbern has given 

 us an idea that is worthy of a patent. 

 Many simpler articles have been patented, 

 and that he has donated the idea to the 

 fraternity, should not tempt us to filch the 

 product of his genius. 



Forest City, Iowa. Eugene Secor. 



Self Hivers— Carniolanizins Bees 



Do you publish a German edition of the 

 American Bee Journal! I prize the Bee 

 Journal very much, and do not intend to 

 be without it as long as I keep bees. I 

 commenced last spring with one colony of 

 Italians, that I bought the summer before ; 

 they swarmed once, and I took 120 pounds 

 of honey in two-pound sections, mostly 

 white clover, but some of it was from 

 golden-rod and aster. I bought 3 more 

 colonies in the fall, and all of them have 

 plenty of honey — enough to carry them 

 through the winter, unless we have too 

 much warm weather. They were flying on 

 Jan. 28th and 39th, being the first time 

 they had been out since Nov. 6, although 

 the winter had been very mUd up to about 

 the middle of January. 



I heard of very much the same kind of a 

 self-hiving arrangement as Mr. Alley's,sev- 



