448 



Tmm ffiMBRiesK mmm jqijimmwi^. 



brood-chamber. Indeed, it seems at 

 tliis time, to be the most approved 

 method of rearing queens up to the 

 point of hatching. 



Perforated-ziuc may also be used to 

 make queen-fertilizing apartments, to 

 be used over any ordinary hive or 

 brood-chamber, it being only required 

 that the queens cannot come in con- 

 tact with each other to insure the 

 mating of each one of them from sep- 

 arate entrances, as in my new Queen- 

 Kearing-Chamber. But queens cannot 

 be fertilized from the upper stories of 

 hives, while there is a laying queen in 

 the brood-chamber, unless they be so 

 far removed from the laying queen as 

 to make the establishment of an inde- 

 pendent colony or nucleus possible ; 

 and all who claim the contrary are 

 misleading. 



Again, it is impracticable to get 

 queens fertilized, many at a time, from 

 any colonj', except in the midst of a 

 hone3'-tiow wliere the queen apart- 

 ments are connected by perforated- 

 zinc, so that the worker-bees can go to 

 all the apartments. It follows that 

 some sort of an independent system of 

 nuclei for securing the fertilization of 

 queens is necessar}- in the absence of 

 a good honey-tiow. 



New Philadelphia. Ohio. 



MINNESOTA. 



The Season and Condition of the 

 Bees Described. 



Written Jor theAvierican Bee Journal 



BY C. THEILMANN. 



Bees in this vicinity have been in a 

 starving condition for the past three 

 weeks on account of wet weather, in 

 which time we had only about three 

 days that it did not rain. Creeks and 

 rivers have been high, and the corn- 

 fields are so thoroughly soaked with 

 water, that they cannot be cultivated — 

 most of them look as green as mead- 

 ows. On flat lands the corn is sufl'er- 

 ing, and looks yellow. Small grain is 

 very rank and soft, and if it rains 

 much more, the prospects for a crop 

 will be slim. 



My bees wintered fairlj- well, 2 col- 

 onies dying out of 280, when I put 

 them out on April 4 ; but there were 

 more bees on the cellar floor than 

 usual, on account of its being too warm 

 nearly all winter. 



The first pollen came in on April 8, 

 and from that daj- on there was abun- 

 dant bloom, one kind following 

 another up to now ; but the weather 

 was cold up to April, cloudy mostly 

 through Ma}", and rainy in June so far. 

 There has been only about one week 

 since May 28 that the bees stored a 



little more than their living. I do not 

 think that I would have one colon}' 

 alive now, if I had not fed them in 

 time, although they had from 10 to 20 

 pounds of honey in their hives when 

 I put them out of the bee-cellar. 



Some of the strongest colonies suf- 

 fered the most, and a number of them 

 had eaten their brood and torn the 

 cappings oif the nearly hatching pupre 

 before I noticed their condition. So 

 far I really reared consumers all 

 spring, instead of producers (according 

 to Mr. Doolittle's theory) for the honey 

 crop ; but it has not yet come, and at 

 present the outlook is rather slim, for 

 white and other clovers are badly 

 winter-killed, and what there is left 

 (now in bloom) has but little honey, 

 as it is too wet. 



Linden has but few buds — only one 

 tree in about twenty has any at all, 

 and the others have them only scat- 

 tering ; so the white honey crop will 

 be small here, at best. We may have 

 a good fall honey crop, if the weather 

 is favorable, as all vegetation (weeds) 

 is verj' strong and health}' looking. 



To have the bees ready for the 

 harvest at the right time has "turned 

 my head" considerable lately, as I 

 cannot find out by practice or other- 

 wise that "right time." I can get my 

 bees in the right condition at a certain 

 time, if I only know the time in ad- 

 vance. It is clover time now, and I 

 liave strong colonies of bees to harvest 

 a big crop, but the outside conditions 

 are out of their usual order, which 

 man is unable to conti'ol. I have 

 always looked at that " right time " 

 theory as a rather " thin concern," the 

 proof of which I am experimenting at 

 the present. 



Later. — Since writing the above, 

 we had very heavy rains nearly all 

 day and part of the night of June 23, 

 and to-day the Zumbro river is over- 

 flowing its whole bottoms, tloing im- 

 mense damage on the meadows and 

 cornfields. This is the highest flood 

 on this river, in summer time, since 

 1859, and is doing the most damage, 

 as the hay crop was nearly full grow- 

 ing, and the cornfields will be badly 

 washed. 



The past two days were very hot — 

 100- above zero in the shade. Bees 

 are not doing anything, as there is no 

 nectar in white or Alsike clover. Mine 

 are in a starving condition, with a 

 field of Alsike clover (which was not 

 much winter killed, as it is sheltered) 

 40 rods from the apiary, and in full 

 bloom. Alsike never failed to yield 

 honey heretofore. 



Theilmanton, Minn., June 26, 1890. 



THE BEE-YARD. 



much Bloom, bHt no Honey— 

 Self-Hi vers, etc. 



Written for the American Bee Jofwmal 



BY F. D. LACY. 



^- The Northern niinois Bee-Keepers' Associa- 

 tion, will hold its tall meeting at Harlem, Ills., on 

 Aug. 19. 1890. D. A. Fdllek, Sec. 



The hives are roaring full of bees, 

 with heavy brood coming, but empty 

 of honey. The apple-trees bloomed in 

 their fullness, but no bees worked upon 

 their blossoms. The wild cherry and 

 many other wild blossoms were also 

 slighted. White clover covers the 

 plains, and makes the fields white 

 with its bloom, but no bees are found 

 at work upon it. The flowers of my 

 wife's beautiful garden seem to have 

 no attraction for the bees — they hurl 

 past to distant wilds for forage, and it 

 is a mystery what they get. 



I sit by the hives, and behold that 

 they all work from the same thing. A 

 light and bright yellow pollen goes in 

 on 46 bees per minute, and at a low 

 estimate it would aggregate to at least 

 six quarts every ten hours, besides 

 what honey is carried in, all of which 

 is consumed, or has been thus far. 



We have had much rainy and windy 

 weather, however, which has been a 

 great set-back. I have a swamp, with 

 various kinds of timber growing, a 

 short distance to the northwest of my 

 bee-yard — the bees all go in that direc- 

 tion, and I followed to find what they 

 were working upon. Thousands were 

 to be seen upon the ground where the 

 water during the winter stood and has 

 soaked away. I took some of the 

 earth, and thought I would analyze it, 

 but concluded that if it possessed any 

 saccharine quality, it would only de- 

 velop out to me carbon, oxygen and 

 nitrogen — all of which I knew the 

 mud possessed ; sufHce to say, the bee 

 has a finer apparatus for analyzing 

 than that of mine. 



No swarms have issued up to this 

 date. 



ANTS AND BDMBLE-BEES. 



I placed salt in front of the hives to 

 keep the grass down, which I find to 

 be a good way. A part of my yard is 

 dry and sandy, and the ants invade 

 the ground by millions. I sprinkled 

 the ground profusely with kerosene, and 

 exterminated them. You want to look 

 out for the large black ant. It is a 

 terror among bees, and very destruc- 

 tive, doing its work at night, destroy- 

 ing both bees and comb. 



Bumble bees are very numerous for 

 so early in the season. They visit the 

 hives, and walk in without invitation. 

 I kill them when I can. 



EXTERnlENTING WITH SWARM-HIVERS. 



I have made attachment of my auto- 

 matic swarmer, to about 30 of the 



