THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



205 



market too Q^v\y. If you want the 

 best market prices for your lioney 

 take great care in grading and ship- 

 ping it. (Mr. House in " Alley's 

 Hand} Book " gives some first-class 

 directions for the grading of 

 honey.) If you are in the habit of 

 wintering j'our bees on summer 

 stands and find that during the 

 winter the water stood around the 

 liives it will be well to look out for 

 this and arrange for better drainage, 

 because if the bottom boards of the 

 hives are cold and wet, it imparts 

 moisture to the chaff packing, 

 moulds the combs and produces 

 dysentery. Again, if your location 

 is not a sheltered one and the hives 

 W'cU protected from winds it loill 

 pay to put up a fence back of the 

 hives towards the west and north 

 or else set out a hedge. Osage 

 orange makes a good hedge and 

 also yields honey. 



Very few beekeepers have any 

 proper place in which to store 

 combs. This should not be if 3'ou 

 have no bee house, build a comb 

 rack in a moth-proof room in the 

 barn, shed or house, or if these are 

 lacking purchase one or two large 

 dr}' goods boxes and fix them up 

 so that you can hang your combs 

 in them and keep them shut in se- 

 cure from the moth. Never hang 

 combs close together and it is well 

 to brimstone them occasionall3^ 

 There is a great deal more that 

 might be said, but if any of our 

 readers in their experience with 

 their bees find things that puzzle 

 and vex them just remember that 

 we stand ready to help and advise 

 you, and we should be pleased to 

 know your experiences as they 

 might help others. 



If you have many partly filled 

 sections, it is better, as a rule, to 

 either extract the honey from them 

 and then let the bees clear them 

 up or else place them outside the 

 division boards inside the hives or 

 on the tops of the frames and let 



the bees carry the honey into the 

 brood chamber. This will hfelp 

 furnish stores to colonies that have 

 not enough honey. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 

 Friend Locke : 



Mr. Daniel Howard, of Beaver 

 Dam, Wis., who went to Palestine 

 last fall to obtain soy^ie Holy Land 

 queens, arrived at my place Aug. 

 7th with but twelve queens of the 

 175 with which he started. When 

 Mr. H. was at m}' place last fall, 

 and on his way to Palestine, I de- 

 scribed to him my plan of shipping 

 queens from that far distant land 

 to this country. As he could not 

 obtain just such boxes (in Pales- 

 tine) as I advised him to use, he 

 was obliged to do the next best 

 thing ; and he made some boxes 

 that would hold two queens each. 

 Each box had four compartments ; 

 two for the bees and queens and 

 two for the food ("Good's"), of sugar 

 and honey mixed. 



Mr. Howard's inexperience with 

 the nature of this food was the cause . 

 of the loss of the queens. While 

 on board ship, the food gathered 

 moisture which rendered it "too 

 juicy," so that it ran in among the 

 bees and daubed them, causing 

 their death. Not one living worker 

 bee was to be found among the 

 lot, the twelve queens being the 

 only survivors. These queens all 

 looked alike in color and size. 

 They are not yellow but striped 

 with a very bright orange color on 

 the under side of the abdomen. 

 They had been confined so long in 

 the boxes (forty-five days) that 

 they looked very much like black 

 wasps. Upon the arrival of Mr. 

 H., I immediately took the queens 

 in hand, and introduced them to the 

 bees in my small fertilizing nuclei. 



