lU 



TEE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



For the American 



Introducing Queens, and he Honey- | 

 Emptier. | 



For the American Bee Journal. 



A Non-fertile Queen Bee. 



^Ir. Editor : — As your correspondent, W. 

 C. Condit, wishes some of the correspondents of 

 the Bee journal to give their experience in 

 introducing queens with grated nutmeg, I would 

 inform him tliat I have introduced a good many 

 queens this season in that manner. If done in 

 the morning or evening I liave been very suc- 

 cessful ; taut in the middle of the day, or when 

 there were maiiy taees out in the field, I have 

 not, been so successful. 



Bees liere have done very well the latter part 

 of the season, or dm-ing August and September. 

 The early part of the season having been wet 

 and cold, there was no white clover or basswood 

 honey secured in surplus boxes ; taut the taees 

 gathered enough to keep the queen tareeding 

 very rapidly, and taees generally swarmed a 

 great deal. Stocks that did not swarm gave 

 good returns in surplus. 



I used the honey machine on one hive, and 

 got two hundred and eighteen (218) pounds of 

 honey, as follows : 



July 7 16J K) 



'^ 28 6 " 



August 14 27} " 



'? 21 351 ^• 



" 27 34 " 



September G 33 " 



11 28^ " 



21 37 " 



And I could have got more if I had emyloyed 

 tlie machine oftener. I would not be without 

 the lioney machine for three times what it cost ; 

 but it should be made of tin or zinc, because 

 wood absorbs so much honey that it will soon 

 som- in warm weather, however careful you 

 may be with it. 



I can say to friend GaUnp that there are 

 plenty of tiiose " sliallow things " in use in this 

 part of the west, and some as sliallow as seven 

 inches — that is, seven inches depth of frame. 

 These shallo^v things give more surplus in 

 boxes than the deep hive ; taut the shallowx'st 

 ones have to be vdntered in doors. 



R. K. Murphy. 



Fulton, Ills., Dec. 9. 



• While Huber resided at Cour, and after- 

 wards at Vevay, his bees sull^red so much from 

 scanty pasturage, that he could only preserve 

 them by feeding, although stocks that were taut 

 two miles from' him were, in each case, storing 

 their hives ataundantly. 



Small ants sometime make their nests about 

 hives, to have the benefit of their warmtli, and 

 neither molest the bees nor are molested by 

 them. 



At the beginning of August, tlfis year, I re- 

 moved an extra nice queen from a colony of 

 Italian taees, for the purpose of getting queen 

 cells started. On examination, on the ninth 

 day, I found only two sealed queen cells, with 

 quite a large amount of tarood still unsealed. 

 To ascertain whether the taees would taiuld any 

 more queen cells and could raise a good queen, 

 I took away both of those sealed cells. Two 

 days later, I found only one more sealed queen 

 cell, from which in due time a fine large queen 

 hatched ; but she never laid an egg, thougli all 

 the other young queens matui-e at that time 

 became fertile in due season. I therefore con- 

 cluded to kill her, to make room for a better 

 one. On catching her by the mugs, however, 

 she made a motion, tlie same as workers do, to 

 sting me — thrusting out lier sting, from which 

 was suspended as large a drop of poison as is 

 seen on tlie sting of a worker in sucli case. 



On several other occasions, queens raised in 

 such post festum built royal cells, became fei-tile 

 indeed, but soon tm-ned drohe layers. And in 

 a number of instances J have had queens super- 

 seded when onlj^ a week or ten days old, for 

 some similar reason undoubtedly. 



Adam Grimm. 



Jefferson, Wis., Dec. 8. 1869. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Chilling Brood. 



jVIr. Editor: — I think that young brood is 

 not so easily chilled, by exposure to cold, as 

 many suppose ; as I have taeeii told tay experi- 

 enced taeekeepers tiiat it would not do to take a 

 sheet of tarood out of a hive luiless the Aveather 

 was quite v\'arm. 



Having in one of' my hives, last season, a 

 sheet of drone comta filled witli young larvae, I 

 thouglit I would kill the brood, in order to have 

 the comb tilled with iioney. So I put it into an 

 ice-chest and left it there for about thirty hours, 

 where the temperature was not far from the 

 freezing point. Supposing everything dead, I 

 put it into the Mve. But oil looking at it next 

 day, I found tliat not one was hurt. 



T then ])laced it in an empty hi^-e, and in that 

 burned a piece of brimstone, leaving it for about 

 an liour. On close examination I found that 

 there were still a few live larvae in it. I then 

 gave it auotlier brirastoning, which finished 

 them. I returned it to the hive, and in a few 

 hours the taees had it cleaned out, and were 

 putting in honey. 



Lester Carpenter. 



Kelley's Island, Ohio. 



Huber demonstrated that taees have an ex- 

 ceedingly acute sense of smell, and that un- 

 pleasant* odors quickly excite their anger. 



