42 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



twenty -five or thirty swarms in the town. I 

 think I am the only bee-keeper in town who 

 takes the Bee Journal. I could not think of 

 doing without it. Long may it prosper. — Hok- 



ACE LiBBT. 



Monmouth, III., July 10. — Bees here are 

 doing better this year than at any time since I 

 came West. On June 27th, I had a bushel 

 swarm come off, and next day I took seventy 

 pounds of honey, made in nine frames in supers. 

 Both tlie old stock and the new are working 

 finely in the boxes. Most of the bees in this 

 section are swarming too much ; some casting 

 as many as four or five swarms. The old box- 

 hive is used almost exclusively. 



I have on four different occasions introduced 

 queens by scenting the hive and queen with 

 nutmeg-syrup. Within the past week I have 

 succeeded in introducing unfertile queens to 

 colonies; which most writers say is almost an 

 impossibility. I do not think it would do to 

 introduce queens when bees are not gathering 

 honey freely, without cagmg for forty-eight 

 hours ; at least there would be great risk. Rob- 

 ber-bees would also be more apt to pitch in, from 

 scenting the uulmeg-syrup. 



I have tried putting gum-camphor into a hive 

 being robbed, and find it effectual in stopping 

 the robbers. 



I am confident that bee-keepers who have Ital- 

 ian queens impregnated by common drones, 

 cannot keep their stock pure. Should a queen 

 mate with a drone from a hybrid queen, her 

 progeny will not all show the tJireehands, as 

 they should do if pure. I have a queen of this 

 kind now, which I raised last summer. About 

 one bee in a hundred of her brood has lost one 

 band. There were no common drones for her 

 to mate with ; but I had hybrid ones in two 

 hives. I put in pure queens this spring, to pre- 

 vent there being any hybrid drones raised. 



Were the hybrid bees not so terribly cross, I 

 do not see but that they are just as good, if not 

 better, than the pure Italians. If anything they 

 are more industrious, and the queens very pro 

 lific. But if they are ail as cross as mine were, 

 1 would not accept them as a gift, and be obliged 

 to handle them. Tobacco smoke will hardly 

 have any effect on them ; but the Simon Pure 

 are a source of great pleasure to a lover of bees. 



It seems strange to me that bees have gathered 

 as much honey as they did ; for during the past 

 month we have had almost constant rain, so 

 that bees could not work one-fourth of the time. 

 But the rains have kept the white clover in 

 bloom ; and it now looks as if it would continue 

 for ten days longer. Basswood is jnst coming 

 into bloom, so that bees near the timber will 

 have a fine chance. Mine are in town, and 

 timber is not very near to me, though still some 

 within a mile, and my bees will have some little 

 chance. Honey will no doubt be quite cheap 

 this year.— T. G. McG. 



Osage, Iowa, July 5. — My private corre- 

 spondence on the bee question is very large. 

 Bees are doing rather indifferently well through- 

 out the entire north ; and as far south as Mem- 

 phis, Tennessee, they are doing extraordinarily 

 well.— E. G. 



Maquoketa, Iowa, July 17. — Enclosed please 

 find two dollars, for which send to our address 

 the fifth volume ot the American Bee Journal. 

 We would not do without it for the price of four 

 stocks of pure Italians every year. We have 

 had the pleasure of perusing its pages once a 

 month for the past three years, and aside from 

 the pleasure the reading afforded, it has been at 

 least three hundred dollars' benefit in the way 

 of cash obtained by a knowledge of some im- 

 portant facts, that we would have learned from 

 no other source than the Journal. 



Bees are doing exceedingly well here this sea- 

 son. Ours commenced swarming on the 23d of 

 May, and notwithstanding the bad weather we 

 had in June, they have been issuing out nearly 

 every day since, and are still boiling out as if 

 they were bent on filling every empty hive we 

 could get. They stored some honey in boxes 

 during the period that crabapple-trees were in 

 bloom, which is something unusual for this sec- 

 tion of country. — F. & C. 



FoLTON, III., July 15. — Bees are doing very 

 well here when they can get out between the 

 showers, as it is raining about half the time. 

 They gather honey enough to keep breeding 

 rapidly; and with most bee-owners they are 

 swarming too much. They are not storing as 

 much surplus honey as most of us bee-keepers 

 here would like to have ; but if we have good 

 weather the rest of the season, they are in a 

 condition to improve it. The Alsike clover 

 yields more honey here this season than the 

 white, or at least they worked better on it. 



I would like to inquire of some of the old bee- 

 keepers how to get the bees to work in boxes, 

 when they are very strong in numberiS, and 

 there is guide-comb put in the boxes. 



I would also like to know if it is generally so 

 that the progeny of queens imported direct from 

 Italy is crosser than after they have been here 

 several years. I have two imported queens, and 

 their progeny is a great deal crosser than that 

 of those I received from Mr. Langstroth. — R. 

 R. M. 



Olneyville, R. I. — Enclosed you will find 

 two dollars, for which please continue to send 

 to my address the American Bee Journal, for I 

 cannot do without it. It is a welcome visitor, 

 and no one that has more than one colony of 

 bees should fail to get it. — J, K. W. 



St. Chakles, III. — Best season for bees that 

 we have seen for years. — M. M. B. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Isolated Queen Cell. 



In removing surplus honey from a Langstroth, 

 full-glass hive, with frames in the upper box, I 

 found a sealed queen-cell, and no other brood ! 

 This is something new to me. The bees must 

 have taken the egg from the brood-chamber of 

 the hive. 



M. McMath. 



Snickersville, Va., July 19, 1869. 



