344 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Strangle Kreaks sometimes occur 

 with bees. Tlie following letter from 

 Mr. E. B. Kauffman, of Brickerville, Pa., 

 describes some of such freaks: 



On Feb. 19 it was warm enough for 

 bees to fly a little. I have one colony 

 alone in the garden, to which I had in- 

 troduced a young queen last Summer. 

 At about noon on Feb. 19, it was warm, 

 and the bees flew some. I then noticed 

 that there was something wrong in that 

 hive ; the bees were very excited, and 

 ran in and out. I tried to ascertain 

 what was the matter, but did not suc- 

 ceed. They continued such actions 

 until evening. The next day, about 

 noon, I noticed a similar excitement 

 among them, when I again tried to find 

 out what was wrong. To my surprise I 

 found the queen outside, a little way 

 from the entrance, or near the place 

 where she would have dropped from the 

 alighting-board. I picked her up, and 

 took her into the house ; she was appar- 

 ently dead. I tried to resuscitate her by 

 heat. After a little while she began to 

 move, and stood on her feet. I brought 

 some bees in and put her with ihem 

 under a glass tumbler, and gave them a 

 little honey. The bees seemed to nurse 

 the queen just like children would a sick 

 mother, but on the day following she 

 was dead. Now, what I would like to 

 to know is, what induced the queen to 

 leave the hive in Winter? Had she been 

 dead, I would have supposed that the 

 bees dragged her out, but as it is I do 

 not understand it. Will some of the 

 experienced bee-keepers tell me through 

 the Bee Journai. what was the trouble? 

 I examined the hive, and found that 

 they had plenty of stores, and seemingly 

 everything was in good condition. 



E. B. Kauffman. 



As the queen mentioned came from 

 Mr. Doolittle, we requested him to reply 

 to it, and here it is : 



Some of these strange freaks of our 

 pets are hard to account for. Twice in 

 my life 1 have had queens leave the hive 

 to die, just the same as worker bees 

 always do, when the weather or circum- 

 stances will permit. At other times I 

 have had workers so worry and tease a 

 queen that she will run out of the hive 

 and die rather than submit to that tor- 

 ture. 



Very many times, if not always, the 

 workers seem to know when a queen is 



about to die from old age or disease, and, 

 although manifesting the greatest alarm 

 and agitation, as a whole colony, a few 

 of the workers will proceed to drag the 

 dying queen out of the hive and push 

 her oflf the alighting-board to die. Some- 

 times she is thus left to die alone ; but, 

 oftener, a few of the "faithful ones" 

 will stay by until she expires, and some- 

 times remain for hours after. 



One Spring I lost nearly one-third of 

 my queens in this way, and as this was 

 years ago when I had black and hybrid 

 bees, I was prone to lay the trouble to 

 the kind of bees; but I have since 

 learned that all queens, of all races, are 

 subject to death at any time ; though, 

 as a rule, most of them do average good 

 work until the end of the third season. ' 



My experience with queens received 

 from abroad proves that they are more 

 liable to give out suddenly, than those 

 which are never subjected to the rough 

 usage all queens must endure by a long 

 shipment in the mails or otherwise. — G. 

 M. Doolittle. 



The Amateur Bee-Keeper is 



the name of a new pamphlet of 52 

 pages, by J. W. Rouse. As its name 

 implies, it is a guide-book for beginners, 

 and covers the whole ground of bee- 

 keeping in such a pleasing style that it 

 will prove a very valuable help to such, 

 if they will but read it, and practice the 

 methods therein described. It is pub- 

 lished by the Leahy Mfg. Co., Higgins- 

 ville. Mo., and can be obtained at this 

 office. Price 25 cents. 



Catalog^ues for 1892, are on our 

 desk from — 



John Andrews, Patten's Mills, N. Y. 

 G. H. Kirkpatrick, Union City, Ind. 

 J. W. S. Rupe, Mt. Vernon. Ills. 

 A. A. Weaver, Warrcnsburg, Mo. 

 Oliver Fosti^r, Mt. Vernon, Iowa. 

 W. H. Laws, Lavaca, Ark. 

 J. E. Shaver, Friedens, Va. 

 Levering Bros., Wiota, Iowa. 

 E. II. Trumpcr, Bankers, Mich. 

 M. Crawford, Cuyahoga Falls, O. 

 I. F. Tillinghast, La I'lume, Pa. 



