60 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Bee-Hives. 



Mr. Editor : — We are using here, in Essex 

 county, (Mass.) a bee-hive which we consider 

 as near perfect as any ever made. We have 

 tested them for two seasons, and all who are 

 using them are of the same opinion, and think 

 no hive ever made conies so near perfection. 

 These hives are made double witli a dead air 

 space of one inch between the outside and the 

 inside hive. We use Langstroth frames in 

 them. 



When put into winter quarters, the honey- 

 board is removed and a box three inches deep, 

 fourteen inches wide, and twenty inches long 

 (inside), filled with dry corn cobs, is placed 

 directly over the frames. This makes a good 

 winter passage, for the bees to pass from comb 

 to comb, and the bees can be found at almost 

 any time during the winter, clustered snug to 

 the cobs Then we make other winter pass- 

 ages through the combs, by boring a hole 

 through the side of the hive, and slowly worm- 

 ing a stick three-fourths of an ineli square 

 through each comb to the opposite side of the 

 hive. 



Holes should be made in each end of the cap, 

 one inch in diameter, to let off what little steam 

 passes up through the cobs. The cobs will 

 keep in the heat and keep out the cold. Bees 

 wintered in this kind of hive, and in this way, 

 will consume less honey ; few bees will die ; and 

 the combs will come out in the spring as clean 

 and as dry, and free from mould, as they were 

 the day they were made. 



Let any one who doubts my statement, try it 

 for himself, and he will not thereafter put bees 

 in any other kind of hive ; and he will say as 

 others say, who are using them, that perfection 

 has been reached in bee-keeping, so far as bee 

 hives are concerned. 



Has any one of the readers of the Journal 

 tiled my plan for introducing Italian queens, 

 as given in the May number of the journal ? 

 If so I would be pleased to hear the result 

 through the pages of the Journal I have in- 

 troduced queen-! to black colonies, with tobacco 

 smoke, in less than twenty minutes time, and 

 had to drive the black one out of an old box at 

 that. If any of the readers of the Bee Journal 

 have a better or safer way, for giving colonies 

 of bees Italian queens, I should like to know 

 how it is done ; and I hope they will lose no 

 time in giving it to the Journal. 



A bee-keeper in Wenham wintered fifty-one 

 (51) colonies. He now has eighly-three(83,) 

 and a ton of surplus honey. Who can beat this ? 



He had twelve (12) colonies in the double 

 hives alluded to. All of them swarmed, and 

 made at least fifty pounds of surplus honey 

 each ; and some of them a much larger amount. 

 In future he will put bees into no other hive, 

 as he considers this as good as he wants. 



Henry Alley. 

 Wenham Mass. Aug 13, 18G7. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Purity of Italian Queens. 



Send us the names of bee-keepers, with 

 their Post Office address. ' 



I see in the last Journals communications 

 rom A. Grimm and Mrs. E. S. Tupper, with ref- 

 erence to the purity of Italian queens. 



I have been engaged in rearing Italian bees 

 for five years, and have purchased queens from 

 quite a number of different parties,most of them 

 of unquestionable integrity, some of them im- 

 i:)ortcrs ; have received queens of good bright 

 colors, tested, and guarantied; have Italianized 

 my apiary thoroughly two years since ; and 

 have exercised great care in breeding. 



I have reared about two hundred queens that 

 were fertilized, making it a rule to destroy at 

 sight all queens of questionable color or purity, 

 and must say if Mrs. Tupper, or any body else, 

 can furnish queens that will, from first of May 

 throughout the season, produce eggs from Avhich 

 invariably bright queens can be reared without 

 a single instance of a darker shade than the 

 mother, I should like to obtain one. 



From the best queen I have bred from, which 

 I have had three years, I have her royal daught- 

 ers down to the fifth generation, the progeny 

 of which I can handle without scarce a bee 

 leaving the comb, and both mother and progeny 

 are specimens of rare beauty in color. This 

 same queen, as well as her maternal ancestors 

 back to her g. g. grandmother, all produce a 

 majority of bright queens ; but a few of them, 

 especially when there was cold unpleasant 

 Aveather and a scarcity of forage, would vary in 

 shade decidedly from their mother. As far as 

 my experience goes, the weather makes a dif- 

 ference ; and I find that this is the opinion of 

 most of the apiarians of the country. 



I fully agree with her, however, that hybrids 

 from pure mothers, are fully as profitable as 

 storers of honey, as the full bloods. The best 

 yields of honey have almost invariably been 

 from those stocks whose workers I considered 

 impure ; and I have a case that illustrates this. 

 Last year I transferred six swarms of bees for a 

 man in a neighboring town, and introduced two 

 queens, and made two artificial swarms in June. 

 He then reared queens that met common drones, 

 and introduced them into the remaining six 

 swarms, so that he had eight stocks in the fall. 

 These came out in good condition this spring, 

 and the jirofits from those eight stocks this year, 

 are seven fine swarms, and over five hundred 

 pounds of nice box honey. D. C. Hunt. 



North tunbridge, Vt., Aug. 5th. 



Gnadenhiitten, (O.) July 26, 

 Yesterday I sold my honey crop of this sum- 

 mer, and while I am realizing some money from 

 my bee business, I remember, the editor of the 

 Bee Journal. Enclosed you will find two 

 dollars, as my subscription for the 3d volume. 

 The bee business was good with us this sum- 

 mer, both for honey and swarms. We had 

 regular rains, and plenty of white clover, which 

 is our main reliance for honey. 

 Yours, 



Samuel Tuetli. 



