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THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



EXPERIMENTAL 

 BEE FARM NOTES. 



In May we had seventy colonies 

 of bees ; some of them were in bad 

 condition owing to the cold and 

 backward spring. We have reared 

 and shipped not far from 1500 queens 

 of all races, also a large number of 

 I-, 2- and 3 -frame nuclei, beside the 

 full colonies. 



We also made up and run 315 

 nuclei during the season, and now 

 have sixty strong colonies of bees of 

 the finest Cyprians, Syrians and 

 Italians to be found in the country. 



Of all the queens shipped, but a 

 small number have died in the mail, 

 and only three have been reported 

 impure. 



Nearly all of our customers have 

 expressed themselves as entirely sat- 

 isfied with the purity and quality of 

 the queens and bees sent them. 



From Aug. 24th to Sept. loth the 

 weather was very unfavorable for 

 bees, especially for queen-rearing. 

 It was cold, cloudy, and the temper- 

 ature fell to nearly the "frost point" 

 almost every night up to Sept. 10, 

 though we had no frost to kill the fall 

 flowers, and the bees are still gather- 

 ing honey. 



Just as we had made preparations 

 for feeding our entire apiary a warm 

 wave set in and but Httle feeding was 

 necessary. 



The only danger to be feared from 

 this late flow of honey is a change 

 to cold again, as much of the newly 

 gathered honey is unsealed, and con- 

 tinued cool weather would drive the 

 bees from the outer combs and the 

 honey unsealed would remain so 

 and would sour, run out of the 

 combs and daub the bees. 



Of course the colony in such a 

 condition would perish. We hardly 

 think that by extracting the un- 

 sealed honey it would be of much ben- 

 efit, as the disturbance to the bees 

 so late in the season would result in 



about as much danger as the un- 

 sealed honey, in case it should sour 

 and daub the bees. 



In case the weather continues 

 warm, but little unsealed honey will 

 be found in the combs by the middle 

 of October. 



Cell-building was discontinued be- 

 fore the last of August, but we had 

 a large number of cells to " hatch" 

 during the early part of September. 



Here in New England it will 

 hardly do to rear queens (start cells) 

 in September. Generally the weather 

 is very fine during the month and 

 no trouble is experienced in getting 

 the young queens mated. At this 

 season of the year very few drones 

 can be found in the hives except in 

 those in which drone-rearing has 

 been encouraged, or in such queen- 

 less nuclei as are used for our 

 supply of late drones, and the queen 

 "breeder" is pretty sure to have his 

 queens purely mated. Those who 

 purchase queens fertihzed in Sep- 

 tember will be most likely to get 

 pure queens for breeding purposes, 

 and should by all means purchase 

 them during the above month. The 

 latter part of September is certainly 

 the best time, for many reasons, to 

 introduce valuable queens. 



We are now preparing our bees for 

 winter. All upward ventilation is 

 checked, and no draughts of air will 

 be permitted to pass through the 

 cluster. 



Some of the colonies will be 

 placed in the cellar about the first 

 of December or sooner, if old Prob. 

 predicts a cold wave for New Eng- 

 land about that time. Last fall the 

 bees were put in the bee-house about 

 the 27th of November and during 

 the next six weeks the weather was as 

 fine and warm as in October, with 

 the exception of one cold day, and 

 we wished many times they were on 

 the summer stands. 



The bees wintered finely, but 



