54 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEFER. 



able to stimulate breeding and to keep 

 the colony strong, so that when the 

 early bloom comes it may be strong 

 enough to gather the delicious nectar. 

 Whenever there is any necessity for 

 it, feeding pays; especially in the fall, 

 before preparing for winter. If the 

 stores are insufficient, feed up; each 

 colony should have at least twenty-five 

 pounds of good ripened honey, all 

 capped over. Extracted honey, or 

 coffee A sugar reduced to the consist- 

 ency of honey, is best for feeding, in 

 the absence of good sealed honey. 

 The poorer grades of sugar and glucose 

 are totally unfit for feeding bees. To 

 stimulate in the spring, one-half 

 pound per day is sufficient for a col- 

 ony. For feeding inside the hive, the 

 division-board feeder may be used to 

 advantage. But for feeding early in 

 the spring, I prefer the Simplicity 

 bee-feeder. You can fill them and 

 set them on top of your brood frames 

 at night, and if the weather is not too 

 cold the bees will take the syrup all 

 down by morning and all danger of 

 robbing is past. 

 Sunny Side, Md. 



Re-Queening. 



BY W. H. LAWS. 



The season of the year is now ap- 

 proaching when many bee-keepers 

 will again find it necessary to procure 

 queens. Of a necessity, this must 

 always remain the case. 



Happily for us and thanks to Uncle 

 Sam who has given us a mail system 

 so perfectly adjusted to our needs in 

 this particular, our wants can be sup- 

 plied within a few days notice. 



To save a queenless colony in early 

 spring, we must have a queen and to 

 hold that colony until drones and 



queens can be reared would be fatal 

 to its usefulness the coming season ; 

 but what is better than to wait, is to 

 invest a trifle and within a few days 

 we can introduce a young laying 

 queen. Our once helpless colony 

 now booms, and with a young prolific 

 queen from some race bred for busi- 

 ness, may swell the record beyond 

 anything in the apiary. It is also 

 important that all old queens should 

 be superceded with young ones, that 

 the colony may become populous? 

 ready for the harvest when it opens. 

 Another and the most useful purpose 

 which re-queening serves, is the in- 

 troduction of new and better blood to 

 our already pure-bred races, thus im- 

 parting that which the laws of nature 

 demands — life and vigor — and with- 

 out which all insect and animal life 

 will quickly deteriorate, and by re- 

 queening only can we eradicate the 

 indolent blacks and remove the wick- 

 ed hybrids. 



Now since re-queening is not only 

 a convenience and a necessity, on ac- 

 count of the points mentioned, it is 

 also profitable to the bee-keeper. It 

 pays handsomely to remove every 

 queen that is over two years old, do- 

 ing this in early spring, replacing 

 them with young queens from the 

 South. Such queens, reared from 

 the very best stock and by the best 

 methods, can be purchased in lots 

 very cheaply. This furnishing of 

 young queens in large lots to Northern 

 bee - keepers is no experiment. 

 Active, go-ahead bee-keepers are fast 

 seeing the importance of keeping all 

 colonies supplied with young prolific 

 queens, and the transmission of queens 

 through the mails to meet this demand 

 is larger than ever before, and the 



