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484 



Wliy Mees I»estroy the Brood.— 



The New York World has this to say about 

 the spring weather, the honey crop, and 

 why bees sometimes destroy their brood : 



■^Vliy Bees l>esei-t their Hives.— 



The inexperienced often asl£ why bees de- 

 sert their hives. The following from an 

 exchange will give some of the reasons in 

 detail : 



When bees swarm during a hot day they 

 set very warm with the excitement and ex- 

 ercise, and sometimes the sun shines directly 

 on th^ cluster, it tliey are then put into a 

 hive that Uas stood in the sun, and has but 

 little ventilation, who can blame the_m it 

 they leave it and seek cooler quarters ? It 

 a newly hived swarm is left in the sun, it 

 will desert the hive. 



I once had a large swarm desert its hive 

 the next morning after hiving. When it 

 was hived it was placed in the shade, but 

 the morning after was very warm, and the 

 sun shone directly upon it, when it came 

 out and left without clustering. I once 

 hived the same swarm four consecutive 

 days; each day they came out and clus- 

 tered! At last I put them into a different 

 hive, and they stayed all right. On examin- 

 ing the hive that they had deserted, I found 

 it to be a clean, new hive, but the en- 

 trance was so small that a drone could en- 

 ter withdifBoulty ; therefore it was evident 

 the swarm deserted rather than suffocate 

 for want of air. , j ^ , 



A bee-keeper was once puzzled to know 

 ■why all his swarms deserted, as they were 

 put into clean, new hives. On investigat- 

 ing, he ascertained that his new hives had 

 the odor of kerosene ; they had been manu- 

 factured during the winter and stored in 

 the back-room adjoining his grocery, where 

 were stored barrels of kerosene and other 

 supplies, and the hives had imbibed these 

 odors. The smell of kerosene is very dis- 

 tasteful to bees ; I drive off robbers when 

 they are attacking a hive by rubbing it over 

 all places of attack, when they leave quick. 



Hives that have been used, and the combs 

 left to be eaten up with moths, should be 

 thoroughly cleansed. When a colony dies 

 from aSy cause, I prefer to cleanse the hive 

 thorouRhly, and rinse with boiling water. ■. 



Hives accumulate dust while standing, 

 and before I put in a swarm I rinse it out 

 with cold water, which freshens and cools 

 it. If a swarm is put into a clean liive and 

 properly shaded until it is well established, 

 It will seldom desert. 



The tameless Bee-»isease.— 



Letters are coming in almost constantly, 

 complaining of an unknown disease which 

 Is affecting the colonies. The symptoms 

 given are always identical to the symptoms 

 Biven in the ABC book, under the head of 

 " Nameless Bee-Disease.*' It is pretty evi- 

 dent that this trouble is getting to be more 

 and more common. Fortunately, however, 

 it is not a serious one. The remova of the 

 queen, so far as we have ever known, 

 always effects a cure. For the beneht ot a 

 good many who do not know how to recog- 

 nize the disease, we give the symptoms 

 here • The bees have a swolien appear- 

 anoe-that is, ttie abdomen is d'stoiuled. 

 The fuzz is entirely worn off, and the bee 

 itself has a black, shiny appearance, very 

 much unlike a healthy bee. And just as 

 soon as they become a burden to the colony 

 the healthy ones boost them out of the en- 

 trance, where they may be seen crawling 

 around in the grass, as if equally desirous 

 of ridding the colony of their miserable 

 presence. You will find quite a good many 

 bees, doubtless, dead at and arouiid the en- 

 trance— bees that have died trom thi.s 

 trouble. We make this statement so that 

 we may be saved the trouble of answering 

 correspondents.— Oleaidngs. 



Ulailinis; Bees to Caiia«la.— We are 



requested to print the order from the Post- 

 Office Department, relative to the transmis- 

 sion of "queen-bees and their attendants" 

 to Canada. Here it is: 



Post-Office Department, 

 Office of Foreign Mails, 

 Wasiungton, D. C, July 14, 188S. 

 The Canada office having assented to the 

 proposition of this Department to admit to 

 the mails exchanged between the United 

 States and Canada, packages of Queen-Bees 

 and their attendant bees, when so put up as 

 to prevent injury to those handling the 

 mails, while at the same time allowing an 

 easy verification of the contents ; packages 

 of Bees will hereafter be entitled to trans- 

 mission by mail to Canada, provided they 

 conform to the conditions prescribed for 

 them in the domestic mails of this country ; 

 and similar packages received in the mails 

 from Canada should be promptly forwarded 

 to their destinations and delivered to ad- 

 dresses. 

 By direction of the Postmaster General, 

 NiCHOi-AS M. Bell, 

 Sup't. of Foreign Mails. 



Of course these packages are subject, 

 upon their arrival in Canada, to all the 

 Canadian customs, regulations relative to 

 importations from the United States. But 

 of these we are not advised, except to know 

 that bees, like all animals for breeding pur- 

 poses, are not subject to duty. Perhaps D. 

 A. Jones & Co. can enlighten our corres- 

 pondent as to the wording of such regula- 

 tions. We have asked them, by private 

 letter, to do so. 



XUe llaiicoclc County Fair will 

 be held at Greenfield, Ind., Aug. 30 to 23, 

 inclusive, 1889. Premium lists can be ob- 

 tained of the Secretary, Chas. Downing, of 

 Greenfield, Ind. Mr. A. Tyner, who in- 

 tends to make an exhibit, sends us the list 

 of premiums, which, though not very ex- 

 tensive, are as follows : 



Crate of comb honey in the most market- 

 able shape, and not less than vo lbs. .$2 00 tl 00 



Two dozen packages of extracted honey, 

 in the mnst marketable sbape.not less 

 than ai pounds 2 00 1 00 



Largest display ol honey of all kinds, the 

 productof one apiary, presentseason, 

 includinii all entries 5 00 2 00 



Largest exhibition of bee-keepers' imple- 

 ments and supplies Diploma. 



Most complete plan for wiring frames by 

 hand, and placing foundation in or on 

 the same Diploma. 



Surplus arrangement for taking comb 



honey Diploma. 



Bee-hive Diploma. 



Display of appliances and fixtures in 



actual use. any oneaplary 2 00 1 00 



Five pounds of beeswax 75 50 



Cure for Insomnia. — A Swedish 

 servant-maid, finding that her mistress was 

 troubled with sleeplessness, told her of a 

 practice of the people of her country who 

 were similarly affiicted. It was to take a 

 napkin, dip it in ice-cold water, wring it 

 slightly and lay it across her eyes. The 

 plan was followed, and it worked like a 

 charm. The first night the lady slept four 

 hours without awaking, something she had 

 not done before for several months. At the 

 end of that time the napkin had become dry. 

 By wetting it again she at once went to 

 sleep, and it required considerable force to 

 rouse her in the morning.- ySeJcctctJ. 



The season of 1889 opened very bright for 

 bees, and the general prophecy was " a 

 good honey season," but with the middle of 

 May came a change of weather, with cold 

 rains and frosts, which are very damaging 

 for the bees at that season of the year. The 

 results have been that instead of the bees 

 storiug honey, bee-keepers have quite gen- 

 erally had to feed their bees to keep them 

 from starving ; many colonies having 

 starved when not cared for ; especially 

 swarms which came out before the cold 

 weather, as they did in many places. 



The first signs that a colony is getting 

 short of honey in the breeding season, is 

 to find the drones being killed off. If they 

 are not fed, they soon tear the drone-brood 

 from the cells, and after having sucked all 

 the juices out ot it, the remnant is cast on 

 the alighting-board. When bees get so 

 short of honey as to do this, brood-rearing 

 ceases almost entirely, and the apiarist is 

 very short-sighted indeed that allows his 

 colonies to get in this condition, for the 

 brood which is then being reared is to make 

 the bees which are to gather the honey. 



If the bees are not fed, and the weather 

 still continues to be bad, the bees next treat 

 the worker-brood in the same way they did 

 the drone-brood ; soon after which all 

 starve, although the bees can be revived by 

 pouring warm honey or syrup on them, 

 after nearly all of them have become so 

 near dead that they can scarcely move. The 

 bees may be worth saving if they are found 

 in this last condition, but to think of getting 

 any surplus honey from that year is out of 

 the question. 



Xevr Posters for the American Bee 

 Journal, printed in two colors, have just 

 been printed, and will be sent free to all 

 who can use them. They are very band- 

 some, and will "set off" an exhibit at 

 Fairs. It will tell Bee-Keepers how to 

 subscribe, for "Subscriptions Received 

 Here " is quite prominent at the bottom. 



We will also send sample copies of the 

 Bee Journal, for use at Fairs, if notified 

 a week or ten days in advance where to 

 send them. 



Another Opinion to be put upon re- 

 cord concerning the Doolittle book, is the 

 following from the Practical Poultryman, 

 the apiarian department of which is con- 

 ducted by that excellent apiarist, Mr. Willis 

 M. Barnum. He says : 



"Scientific Queen-Rearing, as Practically 

 Applied," is the title of a new bee-book by 

 Mr. G. M. DooIittlCj that veteran among 

 bee-keepers, who has made the practical 

 side of bee-keeping his hobby for more than 

 twenty years. Probably no other one per- 

 son has written so much upon the subject of 

 bee keeping; as this prince of bee-keepers ! 

 The book is nicely gotten up, and details 

 Mr. Doolittle's method of rearing queens 

 according to Nature's way. The price is 

 Sl.OO, and it is publislied bv Messrs. T. 6. 

 Newman & Son, Chicago, Ills. 



Babies of the ^Vhite House. — 



These are the bright faces that interest us 

 most in this week's Frank Leslie's Illus- 

 trated Newspaper. But which is Baby 

 McKee ? 



