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A June morning:. 



BY MHS. M. .1. SMITH. 



Hark to the basso of bumble-bees 



Out in the new-blown clover ! 

 Bumble-bees, himcy-bces in their flight, 



Skimming the wide fields over. 

 Hiding in buttercup's golden heart. 



Then in a bed of daisies. 

 Laden with gold-dust, full of sweets 



Gathered in flowery mazes. 



Hark to the concert ! The merriest birds 



Down in the orchard gi-eenery. 

 Glad as ourselves, are welcoming back 



June, with her gorgeous scenery. 

 Little ones peep over feather-lined walls. 



Chirping a glad good morning. 

 Peering 'twixt trembling pearls, to see — 



Pleased with the earth's adorning. 



All of the flower waifs, great and small. 



Straighten and grow in sunlight, 

 Roses are fragrant, and see, oh, see 



Lilies with petals snow-white. 

 Hundreds of tiny swelling buds, 



Each of them with a mission. 

 Welcome the zephyrs and sunbeam's gold, 



Making our earth elysian. 



Nature is clad in her best array. 



Taking her yearly outing ; 

 Who could be sour or cross to-day ? 



Who could be sad and doubting ? 

 Who could go scolding or freting, sure * 



Who could greet sharply a brother. 

 On such a beautiful day, when all 



Out-of-doors smiles to each other. 



—VlcTi's Magazine. 



Contracting^ Brood - Chambers, 

 and Using Queen-Excluders. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



Query 711. — 1. Does it pay to contract 

 brood-chambers in producing comb honey J 

 2. If it does, is a queen-excluder between 

 the brood and sections necessary S — Ohio. 



No. — Mrs. L. Harrison. 

 1. Yes. 2. Yes. — Eugene Secor. 

 1. It pays me. 2. I think so.— R. L. 

 Taylor. 



To both questions, I say decidedly, yes. — 

 C. H. Dibbern, 



1. Yes, when hiving new swarms. 2. Yes. 



— G. M. DOOLITTLE 



1. Most assuredly. 2. It is not abso- 

 lutely necessary, but very desirable. — A. J. 

 Cook. 



1. If you want to feed your bees for win- 

 ter, yes ; if not, no. 2. Yes. — M. Mahin. 



1. It does, if the surplus honey is wanted 

 in the supers. 2. Yes, unless you want 

 brood in the sections. — A. B. Mason. 



1. It does with average sized colonies. 

 If the brood-chamber is not crowded, the 

 bees will not work in the sections. 2. It is 

 not absolutely necessary. — J. P. H. Brown. 



1. Yes. I think that it does, in the way 

 and manner I have often described. 2. I 



consider a queen-excluder a necessity in all 

 cases.— J. E. PoNi>. 



1. With the hive I use, I do not think that 

 it would pay me. 2. If you contract the 

 brood-chamber to any extent, you will 

 want an excluder. — H. D. Cutting. 



1. Only in early spring. Excessive and 

 prolonged contraction should be carefully 

 avoided. 2. I have never found it neces- 

 sary (except in one or two abnormal cases) 

 to use an excluder. — Will M. Baknu.m 



1. I do not know. lam afraid not. 2. I 

 have not used one, even when contracting. 

 An excluder is needed over a new swarm, 

 if much contracted. — C. C. Miller. 



1. You can contract and obtain more 

 clover honey, but at the expense of a fall 

 crop, and a dwarfed colony the final result. 

 I do not contract. 2. Yes, most assuredly. 

 —J. M. Hambaugii. 



What is now meant by " contracting the 

 brood-chamber" is accomplished by re- 

 moving all the frames from the brood- 

 chamber but 4 or 5, and filling up with 

 division-boards, and confining the queen to 

 the diminished apartment by means of a 

 queen-excluder. In most localities, the 

 plan is a mistaken hallucination, because 

 at the close of the honey-season, the colo- 

 nies are left in an impoverished condition, 

 and must be fed up at an expense and 

 trouble, greater in the aggregate, than the 

 gain in surplus has been. Give me a brood- 

 nest " contracted " with brood and honey 

 at the commencement of the surplus flow, 

 and I will put them for profit against any- 

 body's bees.— G. W. Demaree. 



1. Ask Mr. G, M. Doolittle, who first in- 

 troduced to bee keepers the method of 

 contracting brood-chambers in producing 

 comb honey. Ask any of our leading bee- 

 keepers of to-day, who are making the 

 business a success. Yes, it pays even to 

 fuss with division -boards and dummies ; 

 but when bee-keepers get to using a prop- 

 erly-constructed storifying hive, it will 

 pay better, and the industry of bee-keeping 

 be made a profitable one, where, by our old 

 methods and fixtures, failure has been the 

 rule to make the business pay. 2. Yes, but 

 not until a storifying hive is better appre- 

 ciated, will bee-keepers know how and 

 where to use a queen-excluder to advan- 

 tage in producing comb honey. — G. L. 

 Tinker. 



1. Yes, sir, it does pay, even when you 

 have to do it by the old round-about method 

 of taking out combs and replacing with 

 dummies. 2. A queen-excluder is not 

 necessary simply because you are contract- 

 ing, but it has so many advantages in 

 various ways (one of which I might men- 

 tion is preventing the accident of removing 

 the queen with the surplus honey-sections), 

 that it always pays to use queen-excluding 

 honey-boards at all times and in all places. 

 No progressive bee-keeper to-day should 

 think for a moment of producing comb 

 honey without practicing the contraction 

 system. — James Heddon. 



1. If you want to have all the surplus 

 honey carried into the supers, it will pay to 

 contract the breeding apartment, to accom- 

 plish this. 2. Although it cannot be said 

 to be absolutely necessary at any time, 

 still it is often desirable to use a queen- 

 excluding honey-board between the breed- 

 ing apartment and the surplus honey 

 receptacles. — The Editor. 



If any one wants a club of two or 

 more weekly or monthly periodicals, be- 

 sides one or both of our Journals — send us 

 a Postal Card, and we will then quote the 

 lowest possible price, by return maO. The 

 number is too great to enumerate. 



QUESTIONS. 



Stingin;; Qualities of Bees— Otlicr 

 Queries AnsAvercd. 



iVritten for the American Dee Journal 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



A correspondent writes : "I see it 

 stated by quite eminent antliority that 

 the black or brown German bees, as 

 thej' are varionslj' termed, are no more 

 liable to sting than are other varieties. 

 Do yon find this to be so ?" 



In replying to this question, I would 

 say that the answer depends very 

 largely upon the "other varieties" 

 with which they are compared. If 

 they are to be compared with the Ital- 

 ians or the Carniolans, then all my ex- 

 perience goes to prove that they are 

 far more liable to sting than either of 

 these varieties. I am not afraid to 

 venture the assertion, that any ordi- 

 nary person would receive three stiugs 

 in handling the black bees, to where 

 they would received one in handling 

 the two above-named varieties, when 

 using the same care alike on each. 



If they are to be compared with the 

 Syrians or Cyprians, then I would say 

 that the ordinary individual would be 

 apt to be stung the most with the latter, 

 yet the same behavior on the part of 

 the apiarist would provoke one to 

 sting, while the other would not resent 

 such behavior at all. 



When Mr. Benton wrote about the 

 Cyprians being peaceable, he said some- 

 thing about their not stinging persons 

 who walked about their hives, if my 

 memory serves me rightly. Now 

 should any one stand in front of a 

 black colon}' of bees for ten minutes, 

 right in their line of flight, he would 

 be apt to be told very forcibly to get 

 out of the way, long before the ten 

 minutes were up ; but with the Cyp- 

 rians, this seems to be no provocation 

 to sting in the least, for they will 

 quietly go around a person all day 

 without a thought of stinging, and the 

 same holds good with the Syrians. 



Again, when opening a hive, the 

 Cyprians will allow you to do this, 

 where done with care, without smoke, 

 but if we try the same on a black col- 

 ony, they resent it bj' the points of 

 many stings. On the contrary, if we 

 use smoke with the black bees, in just 

 the right quantities, they are brought 

 into subjection, or even stampeded out 

 of the hive, should any accident occur 

 in manipulation ; while the Cyprians 

 know no fear of smoke, unless poured 

 on them all the while, and, should only 

 a small accident occur, hundreds of 

 stings would be the result, unless the 



