AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



737 



frames all the year around, but I do not 

 know whether it Is best. 



iJUCKWHEAT FOR BEES. 



Question: "What time do you sow 

 buckwheat for honey, and how much 

 seed to the acre ?" 



Answer : I would not sow it for 

 honey alone. Even if I did, I would sow 

 it at the same time as for a crop of 

 grain. Ask any old farmer in your 

 neighborhood the question, and he will 

 answer it better than I. Perhaps he 

 will tell you about the first of July, and 

 throe pecks to the acre. In any case, 

 the Japanese is the kind to sow. — Na- 

 tional Stockman. 



Marengo, Ills. 



Ttie Mating of Xm\i Queens. 



W. J. DAVIS. 



Query No. 819, on page 668, is no 

 doubt a question upon which queen- 

 breeders, if not all bee-keepers, have 

 pondered. The question is interesting, 

 and doubtless the querist knew that no 

 one could give a definite answer. 



There are a few reasons that lead me 

 to believe that the queen goes a com- 

 paratively short distance from home on 

 such occasions. That she should be 

 compelled to mate on the wing, is to my 

 mind, a provision against the pernicious 

 effects of in-and-in breeding. Nature, 

 true to herself, would not risk the ex- 

 istence of the colony by exposing the 

 young queen to needless peril. She is 

 the one indispensable tenant of the 

 home. Delicate of organism, grace and 

 beauty in every movement ; while, on 

 the other hand, thousands of drones are 

 often found in a single colony. They 

 arc provided with strong bodies and 

 large wings, enabling them to fly great 

 distances to accomplish the sole purpose 

 of their existence ; I have no doubt they 

 will fly ten miles. They care but little 

 what particular hive they enter, and if 

 many of them are lost, their loss is 

 neither known nor felt by the bee- 

 keeper, as would be the case in the loss 

 of the queen. 



During my second years' experience 

 with the Italians, I had^a black quean in 

 an apiary five miles distant (in an air- 

 line), mate with an Italian drone, and 

 yet there was intervening hills and 

 forests, and she must have mated with 

 a drone from my home apiary, for there 

 Were no other Italian bees in this county. 



Youngsville, Pa. 



Wrens to Guarl an Apiary. 



Wrens and honey-bees live in admir- 

 able harmony on Paul W. Adams' place 

 in Jackson township, Pennsylvania. The 

 summer home of the confiding little 

 birds and the industrious bees is under 

 the broad-spreading branches of an old 

 apple orchard near the farm-house. Mr. 

 Adams owns 58 colonies of bees. Each 

 colony occupies a white hive, and the 

 hives stand in rows in the edge of the 

 orchard. Nailed to the trunks of trees, 

 in close proximity to the hives, are 16 

 little blue boxes, and each box a pair of 

 wrens nested last summer. 



A few years ago there was only one 

 pair of wrens on the premises. Mr. 

 Adams noticed that the wrens were 

 pecking and tugging away at something 

 around the edge of the bottom of one of 

 the hives. lie closely watched the 

 actions of the cheerful little birds for 

 awhile, and then he found that they 

 were destroying moths. He also noticed 

 that the bees went in and out of the 

 hives within an inch or so of the wrens 

 without attempting to drive them away. 



On the following morning Mr. Adams 

 made it his business to keep track of the 

 wrens. He saw them working in the 

 crack of another hive, and he noticed 

 that one of the birds, after it had pulled 

 and twisted for several seconds, backed 

 away from the crack with a large grub 

 in its bill. Lots of bees were crawling 

 around on the outside of the hive, close 

 to the wren, seemingly realizing that the 

 little bird was doing for them what they 

 were powerless to do for themselves. 

 Not one of them offered to sting the 

 wren, and the little birds worked among 

 the bees as though they all belonged to 

 the same family. 



Mr. Adams began to encourage the 

 wrens, and to put up boxes for them to 

 nest in. The next season three pairs 

 took up their abode in his boxes, and 

 reared families there. During the sec- 

 ond summer seven pairs made the or- 

 chard their home, and helped destroy 

 the moths in the hives. Then he nailed 

 up more boxes, and during the summer 

 the orchard was enlivened by the songs 

 of eleven pairs and their offspring. In 

 the meantime his bees had increased 

 from less than a score to nearly 50 colo- 

 nies, and he needed all the wrens. 



Last summer the wrens made them- 

 selves very useful and beneficial to Mr. 

 Adams in an entirely different way, and 

 of their own accord. When the first 

 swarm of bees came out, the whole flock 

 of wrens were flitting among the apple 



