THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Various Items. 



CAMACE FllOM MTCE. 



T was grcally troubled by mice in my bee- 

 cellar la'it winter. Tliough kecjjing a trap set 

 all the time, 1 enngbtno more than three mice. 

 They preferred honey and bees to the bait. 



On placing mv hives on their summer stands, 

 I found a number of combs almost destroyed 

 by mice, :ind found three dead ones in one hive. 

 One day I returned a colony inlo the cellar, and 

 forgot to replace the honey board after exami- 

 nation Next morning I heard some rattling 

 in the combs, -while trying to put on the honey 

 board. 1 looked closer, and found that the rat- 

 tling proceeded from a mouse. I took out three 

 or four combs, and to my greatest surprise, 

 found four mice near the cluster of the bees. I 

 killed one of them with a stick, and caught 

 another by its tail. To ascertain wliether the 

 bees would kill this mouse if brought within 

 Iheir roach, I held her directly over the cluster. 

 Two bees immediate!}^ cra^vled on the mouse, 

 ■which curling round a little, seized each of them 

 and devoured both. But a third bee had mean- 

 while crawled on the mouse and gave her a 

 sting, from the effects of whicli she soon died. 



Formerly, I was of opinion that mice devoured 

 dead bees only, eating honey and spoiling the 

 combs. But I am now of opinion that they 

 eat living bees also, and probably sometimes 

 destroy a colony ; though I have never yet had 

 a colony destroyed by them. 



DELATED FECUNDATION. 



Two years ago, I found the first young fertile 

 queens on the 5th of May ; and last spring on 

 the 7th of May. This spring out of twenty- 

 seven queens, only two were laying yesterday, 

 (May 20th. ) All but five were either lost, or 

 killed by the bees. One of them I had taken 

 away from her colony which had enclosed her ; 

 but the bees would not feed her in the cage, 

 though placed in the centre of the hive. 



This delayed fecundation results, in my 

 opinion, from the long-cont'nued cold weather. 

 At no time was the thermometer more than 14"^ 

 R. above zero in the shade. I have had thous- 

 ands of drones in my apiary, for about two weeks 

 past, and about fifty of them as early as the first 

 of April. 



The present spring is the latest and coldest I 

 experienced in this country in eighteen years. 

 To-day (May 21st) not an apple tree is in blos- 

 som, and it will require at least one week more 

 to bring them into full bloom. Bees have been 

 gathering pollen to any extent only during three 

 days and a half this spring, and honey during 

 two days only. An imm»nse number of colo- 

 nies have starved or perished from other causes. 

 One man lost fourteen out of fifteen, and another 

 fitly out of eighty lour. A great number of 

 bee keepers have lost all theirs. As tor myself, 

 I lost some slocks too, hut only a small number 

 compared with the number 1 wintered — twenty- 

 three out of foiJr hundred and lorty-one. I 

 will not deny, however, that a large number of 

 my hives are weaker than I have ever had 

 them before. 



A SINGULAR OCCURRENCE. 



I had a valuable queen in a weak colony, and 

 removed her to another, strong but queculess. 

 On examination five days afterwards, two un- 

 sealed queen cells wt re found. To mark the 

 time when these cells would be sealed, I made 

 another examination two days later; but to my 

 surprise both queen cells were destroyed. Ex- 

 amining more closely I found a fertile Italian 

 queen, but it was not the one I had removed 

 before. On the preceding day, a weak colony 

 had deserted its liive in my absence. The 

 queen found belonged to this colony. The 

 hives stood several rods apart. How did the 

 queen know that this hive was ciueenless ? And 

 why did the bees not kill her, as they had both 

 brood and queen cells ? 



I observed another very singular occurrence 

 last spring. One day early in May, I had two 

 colonies desert their hives. One of them had a 

 good half bred Italian queen ; the other a com- 

 mon black one — the only one I had in the 

 apiary. About a week after this, I examined 

 a stock of Italians which had a valuable queen, 

 but could not find her. Three days later I re- 

 examined the hive, and found lots of eggs, but 

 no Italian queen. I examined all the combs 

 over again, and to my chagrin found a small 

 black queen. How she came there and was 

 successfully established in the colony is to me a 

 mystery yet. But sometliing more puzzled me. 

 Four weeks after the swarming out of the black 

 colony, I noticed young black and Italian work- 

 ers play out of this hive, and the stock rapidly 

 changed into a hybrid. The queen of the hy- 

 brid colony must therefore have successfully 

 entered the hive of the black colony. 



A. Grimm. 



Jefferson, Wis., May 21, 1867. 



[For the American Bee Journal ] 



Two Mishaps. 



Four years ago in July, I discovered a swarm 

 of bees leaving the hive. They had been hived 

 the day before. I closed the entrance, raised 

 the hive a trifle, holes in the top of the hive 

 open, honey boxes removed, cap covering the 

 boxes on the hive. Other swarms issuing kept 

 me occupied for an hour and a half, when on 

 looking at them I found them all dead. There 

 was not a dozen live bees in the hive. About 

 noon one day last June, I put about a quart of 

 bees in an empty hive; put on a queen-rearing 

 box, letting the bees enter it ; hole in the 

 top of the box two inches square, covered 

 With wire cloth. At night two-thirds of them 

 were dead. 



In my ignorance of bees and their manage- 

 ment, 1 had always supposed, until since read- 

 ing Mr. Adair's statements in tlie February 

 Number of the Jouuxal, that they were smoth- 

 ered. If Mr. Adair, or any of the numer- 

 ous readers of the Journal, can give me any 

 other satisfactory reason for the loss, I should 

 be glad to hear from them. 



A Wolverine Bee Keeper. 



