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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[From the Country QentlemaE.] 



Fun Among the Bees. 



Messrs. Editors: One of my neiglibor'sboys 

 in passing tlirougli my apiary, would take a 

 sticl< and scrape off" the bees clustered on the 

 hive and then run. He wanted to have some 

 fun, lie said, when asked why he did it. It 

 made the bees very cross, and I was in hopes 

 that tlicj' would teach him a lesson and make 

 him respect them. It is a long road that never 

 turns, and one day they got their satisfaction 

 in a somewhat novel and pleasing way. In 

 passing through mj' yard one day with his New 

 Foundlaud dog at his side, the}' stopped to look 

 at a large swarm clustered on a hive. They 

 were quite close up, when some fifty bees let 

 loose and jiitchcdin, which made the youngster 

 hide quickly in some tall grass hard by. His 

 dog, having more courage, Avas bound to fight 

 it out, and bit, and snapped, and growled, right 

 and left, until about a thousand bees came to the 

 assistance of his friends, Avhich made it so warm 

 for tlie dog that he sought his kind master in 

 haste. Strange to say, his master was angry 

 with him, but the dog staid by him like a true 

 friend, with hundreds of bees for company. 

 The young chap, very soon tiring of his tor- 

 mentors, went into the house and got under a 

 table. Not stopping to close the door, his ever 

 faithful and loving New Foundland followed 

 with a good swarm of bees with him, and they 

 all went under the table, which made it so warm 

 for our friend that he hastened out of the house 

 and made for home, followed by his loving 

 i'riend and a small swarm of bees. It taught 

 him a lesson that he did not forget, and should 

 be a warning to other boys not to have fun with 

 bees.— i?. W. B. 



[For tbe AmericaE Boe Journal.] 



More Seeming Puzzles. 



Mr. J. H. Thomas, of Brooklin, Canada West, 

 gives a very good explanation about the two or 

 more queens in one hive, so far as it goes; but 

 it does not go far enough. I have had sixteen 

 3'oung queens in one hive atone time this sum- 

 mer. But to the point. I have something more 

 for him. 



On the first day of last April, I found a swarm 

 in a hollow tree, and I brought them home with- 

 out disturbing them. A few days after Itii^ped 

 up the log, to look under and see how they 

 were getting along, and in doing so the centre 

 comb filled with brood and honey, fell down. 

 I made a smoke of chips in an old tin pan, to 

 smoke the bees so as to get them off the comb. 

 I then inserted the comb in a frame aud put it 

 into another colony. On returning to look at 

 my log, the suioke was issuing out of it in all 

 directions. As the wind Avas blowing verj^ 

 brisk, a spark had caught in the rotten jkVOod of 

 the log. I took a pail of water and put out the 

 fire, and in doing so wetted the bees considera- 

 bly. I then split open the log and transferred 

 the bees, comb, and ,all into a frame hive. While 

 doing this, I found an old queen with one wing 



and one leg gone. I put her with the bees. (I 

 found her on the ground, where I had split open 

 the log.) As it was a very strong slock and I 

 had Italian di'ones, aud the weather wus too 

 cold to raise queens in small boxes, I took out 

 the queen on the third day after transferriug, 

 and behold, she was perfect, both wings and 

 legs were all right! I supposed that when I 

 examined her before, her wing and leg must 

 have been stuck to her with honey or water. I 

 destroyed her, and exchanged all the brood aud 

 eggs with my Italian stocks, so as to have the 

 bees raise an Italian queen. (And here I will 

 remark that I prefer exchanging brood in this 

 way, instead of transferring mj' Italian queen 

 from one swarm to another.) Fivcdaj^s after 

 the exchange of comb, I examined the swarm 

 to see if they had started any queen; ; but found 

 that they had uot. In three daj's more I ex- 

 amined them again, and was going to give them 

 more Italian eggs, but found two queen-cells 

 started close together, and about one inch square 

 of comb occupied with eggs! Here was a [joser. 

 Where did these eggs come from? I proceeded 

 to examine every comb carefully, to ascertain 

 whether there was a queen present, and found 

 the identical old grand mam with one wing and 

 one leg gone! The other queen was a very fer- 

 tile one, for there were large quantities of brood 

 in the combs when I transferred them. So here 

 was an instance of two queens in one hive all 

 the winter, and both fertile. About om -third 

 of the old queen's eggs hatched out drones in 

 worker cells, and the remainder were workers. 

 This accounts for my finding drones in this log, 

 which I then supposed had lived all the winter. 

 Perhaps the three other instances, which I men- 

 tioned in a former number of the Bee Journal, 

 in answer to Mr. Grimm, may also have been 

 cases of this kind. Who knows? 



I have spun this j^arn out perhaps longer than 

 necessary, but I wanted to give friend Thomas 

 all the particulars. Elisha Gallup. 



Osage, Iowa. 



The newer, fresher, and cleaner the comb 

 used for guides is, the more acceptible will it be 

 to the bees. Darker and older comb, even such 

 as has repeatedly contained brood, may indeed 

 also be employed for guide-comb, though bees 

 are apt to hesitate awhile before availing them- 

 selves of it. But old comb which has become 

 friable from, age, and may readily be crushed to 

 powder with the fingers, must always be re- 

 jected. The bees would not use it, aud when 

 constrained to remove it by want of room in 

 the hive, they would lose much precious time 

 in the operation, and would most likely replace 

 it with irregularly built comb. 



Bees, in the formation of their cells, have to 

 solve a [n-oblem which would puzzle some geome- 

 ters, namely, a quantity of wax being given to 

 form of it similar and equal cells of a determinate 

 capacitjr, but of the largest size in proportion to 

 the quantity of matter employed, and disposed in 

 such a manner as to occupy in the hive the least 

 possible space. — Kirby. 



