THE AMEBIC AN BEE JOURNAL. 



with a frame or two of brood, the returning bees 

 making the swarm. This plan does very well, 

 but we were obliged to keep the queen caged at 

 least two days when she was most needed. 



We have this season made twenty-five artifi- 

 cial swarms, and all from our ten weak stocks, 

 on a plan which we think easier and less trouble 

 than any we have ever seen. It is simply this : 

 Two frames of brood and honey are removed 

 from the parent hive, and placed in a new hive 

 located anywhere you wish. In about twenty 

 days they will have a laying queen, and the ad- 

 dition of two more frames of sealed-brood, if 

 early enough in tlie season, say when natural 

 swarming commences, is amply sufiicient, so 

 far as our experience goes. A friend Avho keeps 

 black bees thinks they would require more to 

 make a sure thing of it— which is probably true. 

 In this case there is no hunting of queens and 

 no caging. In fact, they need not be seen at 

 all, unless it is desired to clip one wing of the 

 young one, which we always do. With the four 

 frames taken at different times from the old 

 stock, which they will replace so quickly as to 

 be hardly missed, there is hardly a chance of 

 failure. 



To go back a little. Our wintering disaster 

 deprived us of all our purely fertiUzed queens, 

 except one ; which we explain by supposing 

 that the hybrids are hardier than the pure Ital- 

 ians, which we have many times had reason to 

 think is the case. This queen was introduced 

 without any trouble among the " baby bees," as 

 before mentioned. About the last of May we 

 transferred her to a nucleus that had failed in 

 rearing a queen, and introduced her by means 

 of diluted honey scented with peppermint, as 

 per directions in a former number of the Bee 

 Journal. She was received as if she had alwajs 

 belonged there ; but, to be sure of her safety, we 

 looked again, fifteen minutes after releasing her, 

 and she was moving about among the bees as 

 quietly as we could desire. Imagine our morti- 

 fication and sorrow on finding her in the even- 

 ing on the bottom board, surrounded by a small 

 ball of hissing bees, and just expiring. We 

 could not forbear setting our foot on the clump 

 of mischievous imps, after extricating the queen. 

 She died soon after. This is the first case we 

 have had, where a queen had once been received 

 and was afterwards turned upon. 



This accident forced us to divide our weak 

 stocks severely in forming nuclei, to take advan- 

 tage of our only chance for pure young queens. 

 We managed to get twenty-two fine yellow ones 

 from the brood in the hive. 



We were very much surprised in opening the 

 hive containing the "baby bees" ten days after- 

 wards, to find the combs from which we had 

 cut brood, filled with new loorker comb ; and, 

 stranger still, with- eggs and brood in all stages, 

 and finally a young queen that had evidently 

 been laying all the time since our lamented pure 

 queen had been removed ! As she is very dark, 

 and her bees nearly black, we must suppose that 

 she was raised from the hybrid brood, re- 

 moved and placed in the hive thirty or forty 

 days before. In that case she remained some 

 two or three weeks in the hive, at the same time 

 with the pure queen. We can hardly accept 



this explanation, and would be much obliged to 

 some one for a better. 



Our thanks are due to R. M. Argo, for his 

 kind offer on page 15. We cheerfully accept his 

 challenge, with the best will in the world ; only 

 it must be remembered that we had only eleven 

 stocks to commence with. Ten in realitj'^, though 

 we will call it eleven, as we were at fault in 

 losing the queen. Also, we had only frames of 

 comb enough to furnish thirty hives in all — the 

 bees having had to build the rest. As winter- 

 ing is so uncertain, would it not be best to sub- 

 mit an account of our stock to the Editor about 

 next April, and let him decide who made tlie 

 best year's work ; and he who is found to have 

 made most progress, shall receive an Italian 

 queen from the other. 



Mr. Editor, we are sorry to say that some of 

 the subscribers to the Bee Journal do not profit 

 by it as much as they should do. Only a few 

 days ago, a bee-keeper came seven or eight 

 miles to see how we swarmed bees artificially. 

 When asked if he had not found the articles in 

 the Bee Journal plain enough, he said he had 

 not had time to read the last two numbers. 



Others who were at first quite enthusiastic, 

 say they cannot get time to bother about bees ; 

 althoug'h a "patent hive," with some one to 

 " talk "it," will command their attention at once. 



Is there any other business that wiW pay with- 

 out some bother ? Or any that can be made 

 profitable without some care, attention, inquiry, 

 or study ? If there is, please give us some ac- 

 count of it. 



A friend now here wintered, we think, some 

 forty or fifty stocks last winter, without losing 

 any, in a house constructed for the purpose. He 

 carried them out during the warm weather to 

 let them fly, and then put them back again. 

 Has not a properly constructed house many 

 advantages over a cellar ? One very important 

 one to us would be that it could be made much 

 easier of access. 



With best wishes to the Bee Journal and all 

 its readers, we remain. Novice. 



[For the Araericau Bee Journal.] 



Queen Cell Queerly Placed. 



Mr. Editor : We do not wish to weary your 

 patience with a long letter about something per- 

 haps not at all interesting to you, but would 

 like to relate an incident that came under our 

 observation on the 11th of June, as we think it 

 goes to prove that queen-cells are not always 

 made on the identical comb that the egg was 

 laid in. While examining an old stock tbat had 

 just cast off" its first swarm, we discovered a very 

 large and perfectly developed queen-cell, capped 

 over, attached to the bottom piece of one of the 

 outside frames which was not two-thirds full of 

 comb ; and there was no comb within three 

 inches of the cell. Did the queen lay the egg in 

 the bottom piece of the frame ? Or did the bees 

 carry it there ? 



Fairbrother & Cram. 



Maquoketa, Iowa, July 17, 1869. 



