T^HB mm[Mmi€-mn mmm j&jumnmi^. 



235 



bees in a moment, while the postal 

 force stood back, laughing and joking. 

 There were two cages like Mr. Ben- 

 ton's not covered with boards, but 

 paper put over each and clapped to- 

 gether, j,nd must have been slovenly 

 tied. Both cages were wound with 

 twine, such as postal clerks are pro- 

 vided with. Some postal clerk had 

 tixed the cages, and perhaps had been 

 stung, but no harm resulted, only 

 the queens died soon after. The ship- 

 per deserved, by reason of his failing 

 to [jroperly put up the bees, a lecture, 

 and the Postmaster ought to have been 

 censured for not refusing to mail the 

 bundle. 



Mr. Bingham argues that it is all- 

 important that we be favored with 

 mail transit for queen-bees ; but bees 

 by the 1-pound or i-pound can be, and 

 should be shipped by express. I con- 

 fess I am too stupid to see why or how 

 the mails can be of so great benefit in 

 transmitting a very few bees, and not 

 of like benefit in transmitting a i- 

 pound, or one or more pounds. True, 

 the express can do the whole business 

 of transmitting bees, as was the case 

 up to my mailing the first queen, and 

 Father Langstroth adopted my plan, 

 and he instituted the business of send- 

 ing bees by mail before any other 

 queen-breeder got there. 



Several years ago, Mr. Ambrozic, of 

 Austria, shipped hives of bees, full 

 size, by mail to New York harbor, and 

 the express took the hives, bees and 

 all from thence to the consignees. The 

 mail charges were nothing compared 

 with express i-ates. Success to ship- 

 pers of bees in packages of less than 

 four pounds by mail transit. 



Richford, K. Y. 



COIVVEIVTIOIV DIRECTORY. 



Doolittle on Queen-Rearing:. 



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 (act, 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 introduce 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 linow, send for"Doolit- 

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

 170 pages, which is nicely bound in cloth, 

 and as interesting as a story. Price, 11.00. 



1890. Time and place of meetinrj. 



April 16, 17.— MisBourl State, at Marshall, Mo. 



J. W. Kouse, Sec, Santa Fe, Mo. 



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

 Benj B. Rice, Sec, Boscobel, Wis. 



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



n. M. Seeley. Sec, Harford, Pa. 



Mav 7.— Capital, at Springfield, Ills, 



C. E. Yocora, Sec, Sherman, Ills. 



May 7, .h.— Texas State, at Greenville. Tex. 



,1. N. Hunter, Sec, Celeste, Tex. 



May 19.— Northern Illinois, at Cherry Valley, Ills. 

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



II^° 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. 



Honey-Drinks— Wintering Well. 



I have just been looking over some old 

 copies of the American Bee Journal, and 

 in one of them I saw this query : " Please 

 describe a good method of making mead, 

 metheglin, and any other desirable drinks, 

 with honey as main ingredient;" and I felt 

 as though I should like to tell my brother 

 bee-keepers how proud I felt of them when 

 I read the answers they gave, for nearlj- all 

 of them were thus: "We are cold-water 

 people ;" or " Cold water is the best drink I 

 know of." I, too, think it is wrong to make 

 intoxicating drinks out of an ai'ticle so 

 pure and good as honey. 



I have ,iust returned from my visit in 

 southern Minnesota, to my summer home, 

 in order to be fully prepared for my sum- 

 mer work. Since my return, my brother- 

 in-law (Mr. Wm. Lossing) and I have 

 looked through all the colonies in the cellar, 

 and found them wintering very nicely. I 

 wish to thank the editor for his kind words 

 on page 163. Miss Ida House. 



Moward Lake, Minn., March 19, 1890. 



Bees in <>oocl Condition. 



Bees did well here last season. I com- 

 menced in the spring with 31 colonies, and 

 increased them to 70, by natural swarm- 

 ing. I placed them in the cellar the last of 

 December, and took them out about Feb. 

 15. I lost one colony, but the others are in 

 good condition. I took off 2,500 pounds of 

 extracted honey, and 500 pounds of comb 

 honey, in 1889. My son, Osa, and I, have 

 purchased the entire stock of bees (149 

 colonies) and bee-keeping utensils of J. E. 

 Hunter, making in all an apiary of 218 

 colonies. T. J. Baldwin. 



Wyoming, Iowa, March 31, 1890. 



]VIiId Winter in Maine. 



I think that bees have wintered well in 

 this part of the country. We have had a 

 remarkable winter — there has not been 

 more than a week at a time but wagons 

 have been in here — something very unusual. 

 The temperature has averaged very mild. 

 In about four weeks — April 20 — we may 

 expect the bees to be humming, and gather- 

 ing pollen from the willows and alders. I 

 do not look for much "bee-weather" before 

 that time, in this latitude, as usually an 

 open winter " lingers in the lap of spring." 

 L. F. Abbott.' 



Lewiston, Me., March 22, 1890. 



A Conilt-Iloney Cast*. 



I have lieeii an interested reader of the 

 merits and demerits of comb honey supers. 

 Like J. V. Caldwell (see page 184), I want 

 but one .size of sections in my apiary. I 

 cannot champion the old wide frame, as he 

 seems to want some to do; neither do I like 

 the T super— in fact, I have discarded all 

 of the numerous kinds of comb honey 

 supers, except the new case with a wide 

 frame which 1 invented. 1 will send the 

 Bee Joi'KNAi. office a sample of the frame. 

 There is an unobstructed passage from one 

 end to the other of the case, entirely doing 

 away with the necessity of the four-side 

 bee entrance section ; or any section with 

 insets. It also enables the bees to build 

 their combs flush with the front side of the 

 section, while at the side next to the sep- 

 arator there will be a bee-space, which is a 

 great advantage in crating for market. 



Chas. R. Ishara, on page 167, says: "By 

 practicing what is called ' cleating the sep- 

 arator,' sections without any insets can be 

 used, and filled with comb flush to the edges 

 all around. In no other way can this be 

 accomplished only by using board separa- 

 tors about '4 of an inch thick." I accom- 

 plished this very desirable result (of having 

 the sections filled to the edge) with this 

 wide frame, which I have been using for 

 five years. It can be made with a project- 

 ing top bar to hang in the hive, or reversi- 

 ble, like the same sent, as may be desired. 



Lyons, Wis. F. W. Travis. 



[The greatest objection we have to the 

 Case described by Mr. Travis, is the fact 

 that it requires sections specially made for 

 it, 1^4 inches wide without entrance insets. 

 The nearer we can come to using the same 

 sections, frames, etc., the better.— Ed.] 



■>rones Flying— Getting Pollen. 



To-day all was merry in my bee-yard ; 2 

 colonies had drones flying as freely as in 

 June. How is that for northern Ohio- 

 noisy drones flying on March 21? Tally 

 one more for chaff hives. My 44 colonies 

 have come through the winter in good con- 

 dition, and all seem to be strong, excepting 

 2 colonies that are affected with the 

 " nameless bee-disease." One colony, and 

 its swarm that 1 hived on Sept. 4, 1889, 

 were both bringing in pollen today. The 

 parent colony reared its own queen last 

 September. F. J. Krumm. 



Pleasant Bend, O., March 31, 1890. 



Snccess in Kec-Keeping at ■..ast. 



1 have been trying to keep bees for the 

 last eighteen years, and met with nothing 

 but failure until last year. I then read the 

 American Bee Journal, and met with 

 some success. I commenced last spring 

 with one good colony and one queenless 

 colony in a box-hive ; I now have 5 colonies 

 in Langstroth hives, and 2 in boxhives, 

 and took over 300 pounds of honey in one- 

 pound sections. My bees are in fine condi 

 tion. Lee Powelson. 



Batavia, Iowa, March 32, 1890. 



An Early Bnmblc-Bee. 



A few days ago, while working in the 

 woods, I dug up a bumble bee. Being sur- 

 prised at seeing a bumble-bee in the mid- 

 dle of March, I made a careful examination 

 of it. It was lying on its back, with its 

 head downward, in an oblong hole or cell 

 about twice as large as the bee itself. This 

 cell was perfectly solid, having ao outlet. 

 It was not lined, and the bee lay next to 

 the dirt. The cell was located near the 



