THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



'24^ 



eggs but no queen. Supposing tliat they had a 

 fertile worker, I gave them a frame of brood to 

 raise a queen, taking away the drone brood. 

 On the 22d I found no queen cells started, but a 

 fine large queen, a drone-egg layer. I removed 

 her and gave them another frame of brood, 

 from which' they raised a fine queen in fifteen 

 days. I had found a drone in this stand on the 

 12th of March, and found the same drone laying 

 dead at the entrance the day after the queen was 

 hatched. I fear I shall not have drones for two 

 or three weeks yet for this new queen. 



March 25th discovered another stand (No. 

 7) that would not work on rye meal — a third 

 swarm put ia June 22d. The hive was a box 10 

 X 10 X 12 inches, with a flat board in the middle, 

 five inches wide. 'This stand showed every 

 sign of a prosperous swarm until discovered ; on 

 turning it up two large sheets of sealed comb 

 dropped out. The day being warm I gathered 

 them up in haste, to prevent robbing, carried 

 the hive to a room and took out all its contents 

 — 29 pounds of honey, a teacupful of bees, and 

 no queen. There was not more than a foot 

 square of empty cells altogether ; sealed honey 

 down to within five inches of the bottom board, 

 and most of the lower part filled with bee-bread. 

 Had they been in a frame hive I could have 

 known their condition and might have saved 

 them ; but in the condition they were in, with so 

 much honey in the way, even Gallup or Grimm 

 would have fared no better. I put them in that 

 for want of a better, that is a frame hive: 



I have now forty-two stands to begin with. I 

 gave away three last summer and sold five, 

 .which makes the number fifty. I had almost 

 forgot to say that I have wintered successfully a 

 small nucleus in a nucleus box, five inches square, 

 as tbllows : One of the boxes was twelve inches 

 long — I united the bees of two others, and set 

 the two boxes directly on the frames of the long 

 one, and enclosed the whole in a large box with 

 a five-eighth inch augur hole for entrance, stuff- 

 ing dry straw around between. In this wi\y 

 they have wintered first-rate, and are breeding 

 fast now. 



We have no bloom as yet, except the elm 

 trees, and a new sodt of plant that has come up 

 very thick in a vineyard not over 200 yards from 

 my bees. They are at work on it very thick, es- 

 pecially in the early part of the day, when warm 

 enough. As no one here knows anything about 

 the plant, I will enclose you a specimen. It 

 grows about six inches high and very much re- 

 sembles catnip. The red bloom is very thick. I 

 do not know how long it has been in bloom, as 

 my attention was only called to it yesterday by 

 the bees being so thick over the vineyard. 



I suppose my report is full enougli for the 

 columns of the Jouknat.. Now, while I am 

 writing, Novice may be looking at his bees, 

 thinking which staiid to put his new queen 

 from Argo into. I wish him great success, but 

 especially to American Bek Journal, which 

 makes no promises that it does not fulfil. 



Lowell, Ky., April 9, 1870. R. M. Argo. 



[For tbe American Bee Journal.] 



Novice's Report, &e. 



In 186G, England imported 13,521 cwts. of 

 honey, and exported 1,920 cwts. 



Dear Bee Journal : — In accordance with Mr. 

 Argo, we proceed to report the state of our apiary, 

 compared with what it was last year at this time. 



As we have before stated, we were reduced to 

 only eleven stocks by that " bee disease," before 

 we could get them at work and healthy again; and 

 of the eleven, not one was a full colony. In fact 

 all of them Avould not have made four good col- 

 onies, and one of the eleven queens was killed by 

 an experiment in introducing about the forepart 

 of May ; but as that was clearly bad manage- 

 ment, we suppose our starting point will be called 

 eleven stocks. 



We have now forty-six, all with fertile queens 

 and brood, in a prosperous condition, (as we 

 overhauled them in order to be certain,) with the 

 exception of one queen, which we found had pro- 

 duced nothing but drone brood in worker cells 

 with raised caps. We removed her about March 

 20th, and gave the colony worker brood. 

 They immediately started queen cells, and now 

 have a young queen, which was out to-day, 

 (April 10th,) with the small drones, but we think 

 was not fertilized, as it was her first flight. As 

 the colonj' is quite populous, we think we shall 

 have no trouble in keeping them up to the 

 standard. * 



We will confess to yon, Mr. Editor, how very 

 near we came to having only forty-five stocks. 

 After removing our bees from the house, March 

 10th, we had some of the coldest weather of the 

 whole winter, viz., two degrees below zero. We 

 confess it was with a little feeling of nervousness 

 that we went round and gently tapped on each 

 hive. Those that we feared most were tried first, 

 of course ; but when they all answered promptly 

 ^'■all right,^^ we began to breathe freely, and only 

 thought we would'go to the whole, to be positive 

 and no mistake. But we went down to zero our- 

 selves, and no mistake, on finding that one of our 

 heavy hives, when rapped repeatedly, gave 

 " nary " response. " 'Twas indeed too true." 



With a nerve of iron and a face pale as ashes, 

 we boldly grasped the hive in our arms, and 

 rushed madly for the kitchen stove. (Copyright 

 secured for above.) 



With breathless sorrow we hung over that little 

 domicile, where only the night before w,as*the 

 happy hum of peace and plenty. All now was 

 still. No little yellow bodies moved so softly 

 and quietly about, (they were full blood 

 Italians ;) but all was cold and frosty in death. 



One side of the hive had plenty of sealed honey; • 

 but they had eaten along to the other side, and 

 relentless zero found them consuming the last on 

 that side. We warmed them and re-warmed 

 them, but not a movement, until after an hour or 

 two, a very few stirred a little, but that was all. 

 We began to think we must give up as we had 

 tried the same thiug last year, when they all soon 

 played out again. Our presence, too, was'begin- 

 ning to inteVfere with the preparations for the 

 noontide meal ; but we could hardly give up 

 yet. We lifted our hive again, but this time with 

 less determination than before, and slowly 

 wended beehouseward. We built a fire in our 



