84 



THE AMERICAN APIGULTUEIST. 



the edges of this cage into the corab 

 and release the queen when you are 

 certain she is safe. 



I last 3'ear introduced a valuable 

 queen just received from a prominent 

 breeder, by placing three combs of 

 hatching brood in a hive and turning 

 the queen and her attendants loose 

 upon them. In half a day she had 

 quite a respectable nucleus of .young 

 bees. The weather was cold and 

 stormy but sufficient heat was se- 

 cured by placing the conil)s on top of 

 a strong colony with a slat honey- 

 board covere<l on both sides with 

 wire cloth between. In using this 

 plan, great care must be taken to 

 close every crevice about the hive 

 where a queen could escape or she 

 will be sure to fly away. 



Audubon, Iowa. 



Doolittle answers the Editor of the 

 Api. 



Me. Editor: — 



I see by the December Apicultueist 

 you have a question or two for an- 

 swer. As I never do anything in- 

 tentionally to injui'e any one, or in a 

 " dark corner," although hke the most 

 of mortals liable to err, I am very giad 

 indeed to answer the questions. In 

 the first place, friend Alley is laboring 

 under a wrong impression in thinking 

 that I wi'ote a " small book giving my 

 methods of rearing queens, sometime 

 within two years." I did no such 

 thing. What I did do was this. Some- 

 time during the latter part of the year 

 1886 or the first of 1887, at the re- 

 quest of the publisher of the " Bee- 

 hive," I wi'ote him quite a lengthy 

 article on " rearing queens," he paying 

 me well for writing the article. This 

 article was published in sections, or as 

 a " continued story " in the " Bee-hive " 

 dui-mg 1887. Some time afterward, I 

 think the early part of 1888, Mr. Cook 

 informed me that he proposed put- 

 ting out this article in book or jDamph- 

 let form, together with selections from 

 different articles which I had written 

 in the various bee papers, which was 



done, as I supposed not only to give 

 the thing greater cu-culation, but to 

 get some of the money back which he 

 paid me for wi'iting the article. I 

 wrote him not to print too many copies 

 of the pamjihlet as I intended soon 

 to write a book on queen-rearing and 

 I did not wish him to sustain a loss on 

 them, this being the first intimation I 

 ever gave anyone that I was to write a 

 book, except as a year or more pre- 

 vious I had told Mr. Betsinger and 

 Mrs. D. that I exj)ected to do so. This 

 I think sufficient exp)lanation about the 

 Cook publication. — In the preface to 

 my book these words are found: " Fi- 

 nally, the urgent requests of my friends 

 for a book became so numerous, that 

 I decided to hold back from the public 

 a part of my experiments and research 

 in queen-rearing, and when they were 

 completed, give all which I had dug 

 out regarding queen-rearing to the 

 public in book form." This I think is 

 sufficient to answer the question, 

 " Why I did not say a word about rear- 

 ing qvieens above a queen-excluding 

 honey-board in the Cook article." — 

 Now as to the question " Hovv^ many 

 queens I ever reared above a q^^een- 

 excluder before the appearance of my 

 book." I answei', tliousands of them, 

 as I reared my first queens in that way 

 duL-ing 1881, as pages fifty-nine to 

 sixty-one in my book tells about, and 

 I have continued so to rear till the 

 present time. If I do not mistake, it 

 was June, 1887, that Mr. N. N. Betsin- 

 ger (Marcellus, N. Y.) was here, and 

 I showed him all my plans; the mak- 

 ing of the queen-cups, how the bees 

 built them out, etc., etc., requesting 

 him not to say anything about it till 

 the thing came out in book form. Let 

 the doubting ones write Mr. B., if they 

 are not willing to take my word for it. 

 Again I find that Mr. Alley is laboring 

 under a wrong impression in thinking 

 that my methods imply the rearing of 

 queens " up stairs " with only old bees 

 and " dry brood-combs." If he or any- 

 one else will turn to pages sixty-two 

 and sixty-fom- of my book, this im- 



