66 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



■writings can for a moment doubt his sincerity 

 or his candor ? 



" SixtJi. — I was on the point of sending this 

 spring to W. A. Flanders for a queen, but I 

 thought I would try some of his Bee-Cliarm 



first. I found it to be a genuine humbug I 



And his book lied to me in several instances. 

 So I thought that if a man had such an avaricious 

 disposition for money as to resort to such means 

 to get it, and humbug the bee-keeping com- 

 munity on such a simple thing as that, he might 

 be induced to humbug some one on Italian 

 queens. Hence I passed him by as an impostor, 

 and think I have a good reason for doing so. 

 Don't you ? " 



Of com-se my correspondent had no idea of 

 the above being in print ; but it seems to mo 

 that the sooner the science of bee-keeping is 

 divested of all the patent medicine humbuging 

 quackery the better. It is subjecting us all to 

 ridicule and derision. 



" Seventh. — Well, how have your bees done 

 this season ? Did your Italians swarm any 

 earlier than your black bees ? " 



As before meulioned, my bees were all 

 swarmed artificially, with one exception ; and 

 as that one exception has a history of itself, we 

 will reserve it for the next number. 



With kind regards to all bee-keeping friends, 

 I still remain, A Novice. 



Medina, Ohio. 



P. S. — In my article last month tbfe first P. S. 

 was intended as a question, and should have 

 been " Will either interfere," &c., instead of 

 "either will," &c. 



and six inches deep. This hole and the door 

 are left open until the floor is well frozen, which 

 keeps the house dry, and the combs will not 

 mould. 



There are two air chambers sunk below '.he 

 surface of the floor ; one across through the 

 middle, the other at the end. They are 

 eighteen inches wide and three feet deep. 

 These chambers are covered with lath, so that 

 the air can come up freely. There is an inch 

 tube running in on each side of the middle 

 chamber, and one at the end of the end chamber. 

 There are two chimneys, each six inches square. 



I keep my hives well ventilated at the top. 

 with the lower entrance closed. 



There is no humbug about this matter, neither 

 is there any patent right. Robert Jones. 



Cedarville, III. 



The Carder Bee. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Wintering Bees, 



I have been a bee-keeper for over forty years, 

 and did think of giving^ my experience for the 

 last eight, but it would make my communication 

 too long. I will therefore confine myself to a 

 short sketch on wintering bees. 



If a man loses his bees in wintering, it is for 

 want of knowledge, or neglect on his part. I 

 lost four stands this spring, through my own 

 carelessness. These are the only bees that I 

 have lost in wintering for the last eight years. 

 On the 18th "of February (it being a fine day, 

 and the snow gone,) I took my bees, now 

 numbering fifty-seven stands, out of my bee- 

 house. Having flown well through the day, 

 I returned them to the bee-house at evening. 

 Nine of the number being light, I set them by 

 themselves. Four out of the nine were lost by 

 my neglecting to give them honey in due time. 



My bee-house for wintering is built of logs 

 laid up double, with a space of about five inches 

 between. This space is filled with dirt tightly 

 packed in. The height is about six feet, but 

 should be six feet and a half. Logs are laid 

 across the top, and a little straw put on to keep 

 the dirt from falling through, then covered 

 with about six inches of dirt. The house 

 stands lengthwise, north and south, with the 

 door in the south end, and a hole in the north 

 end down level with th« floor, three feet wide 



The insects popularly known as Carder Bees 

 are so called because they prepare the materials 

 for their nest in a manner similar to that which 

 is employed in carding cotton, wool, or in heck- 

 ling flax. 



Several species of Carder Bees are known, 

 all belonging to that familiar group of insects 

 called humble-bees. Among these, as among 

 humble-bees in general, there is a great variety 

 of color, so that the same species has been called 

 by different names, even by skilled entomolo- 

 gists. For example, in Kirby's admirable 

 monograph of British bees, no less than seven 

 varieties of the commonest species of Carder 

 Bee (Bombvs mnscortim) are given as s'jparate 

 species. 



That such mistakes should be made is no 

 matter of surprise when we take into considera- 

 tion the capriciousness with which the colors 

 of this species are distributed among its mem- 

 bers. Among the fjueen bees, the abdomen is 

 sometimes marked with rings of yellow, black, 

 and red, and is sometimes red at the base and 

 tip and black in the middle. The worker has 

 iisually a yellowish abdomen with one or two 

 blackish bands, but in some cases the whole 

 abdomen is black, except a small patch on the 

 base and another at the top. The male bee has 

 generally the abdomen colored like the first 

 mentioned example of the worker, but some- 

 times it is wholly black, and in many cases it is 

 black except the tip, which is dun. Indeed, 

 these insects are so extremely variable that the 

 only method of determining their true arrange- 

 ment is by takiug a great number of nests, 

 breeding the inmates, and subjecting them not 

 only to careful examination, but also to dis- 

 section of their internal anatomy. 



The specific title "muscorum," i. e. " of the 

 mosses," which is given to this bee, is due to 

 the material of which the nest is usually made. 

 It was generally thought to be made exclralvely 

 of moss, but is, in fact, constructed of various 

 substances according to locality. Mr. F. Smith 

 mentions several instances where the bees had 

 made use of very singular and unexpected 

 materials. In one case bees were seen flying 

 into a stable through the latticed window, coi- 



