132 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



lioney enough in tlie hive to winter on. This 

 spring it came out all right. I made an artifi- 

 cial swarm from it which filled a douhle hive 

 of the size of the mother hive, and stored ahout 

 ten pounds of honey in boxes. The mother 

 stock filled its hive, and made about fifteen 

 pounds suiplus honey. I have not noticed a 

 drone in this little hive for three seasons. 

 How TO Separate Swarms that Mix during 

 Swarming. 



If two or more swarms unite during swarm- 

 ing, I do not attempt to separate them imme- 

 diately. I hive the whole together in a large 

 eleven frame hive, place them in a cellar for 

 half an hour, light a candle, then take out 

 about half of the frames with the bees on into 

 another empty hive. I then look for the queens, 

 which are usually found in a small cluster of 

 bees, on the bottom of the hive. Lifting this 

 cluster cut with a spoon, I part them with some 

 tobacco smoke, catch and cage the queens, sus- 

 pend one between the frames of each hive, di- 

 vide the bees equally, and let them stand in the 

 cellar over night. A. Grimm, 



Jefferson, Wis., Nov. 6, 1867. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Common Failures. 



Mr. Editor : — Those Bee Journals came 

 promptly. We owe its correspondents and 

 editor a debt of gratitude for their philanthropic 

 and gentlemanly course in difl'using knowledge 

 upon the interesting and neglected subject of 

 bee-culture. 



In canvassing several towns of this State I 

 found, with the exception of one or two in each 

 town, no scientific bee keepers. Many have 

 been induced by local agents to buy comb frame 

 hives and transfer their bees even as late as 

 August. And as several of our last hocey sea- 

 sons, especially 1866, were very unfavorable, 

 most of the transferred stock perished, which 

 was generally attributed to the hives. In an- 

 swer to inquiries, I have heard the following 

 experience from difi"erent individuals, whom, 

 for convenience sake, we will suppose to be one 

 man : 



" My father before me always kept bees, and 

 I have kept them ever since ; and we know 

 how to keep them by this time, you see. But 

 now the patent hives, cold winters, millers, 

 mould, and robbers, have ruined my bees." 



HoAV so ? 



" At one time we got up to twenty swarms, 

 all in box hives (tiie best hive in the world.) 

 The next winter the snow drifted over them 

 some, and one-half of them died, with honey 

 enough in the combs, and to spare. Some time 

 in the spring, several more were robbed, honey, 

 bees, and all. Then my bees did not swarm as 

 usual that season, except one that swarmed 

 three times, and went back every time. I 

 thought the millers troubled them, so I lifted 

 them up and put some cobs under, that the 

 worms could not get up ; but for all that they 

 destroyed a number of swarms. The next win- 

 ter I put them in my chamber, and during a 

 pleasant day they some way got the rags and 



papers out of the holes, and at night they were 

 all over the windows and floors, dying. The 

 remainder did better that year. The next win- 

 ter I stopped them up with cobs to keep the 

 mice out, giving them air enough as I supposed, 



and put them into the cellar as neighbor B 



did early. By the last of February, I was 

 working at my potatoes, and something smelt 

 bad, and grew worse every day. Finally, I 

 looked at my bees. I found two colonies were 

 still alive, but the mice had gnawed the cobs 

 out and eaten the heads off of most of the bees. 

 In the other hives the bees were at the bottom, 

 dead, rotten, and mouldy. So you see how 

 diflicult it is to keep bees in our days." 



Now there is no fiction about this. It is a 

 fair representation of the sentiments of a ma- 

 jority of the beekeepers in the country, very 

 many of whom, though good citizens and in- 

 telligent men in other respects, are totally ig- 

 norant of first principles, a knowledge of which 

 is indispensable to profitable beekeeping. 

 What we want, then, is to introduce the Bee 

 Journal, in every beekeeper's family. This 

 would create an interest in the subject ; and 

 then, with the aid of movable frame hives, the 

 business can be reduced to a system and made 

 profitable, instead of depending on hide, as 

 many beekeepers imagine. 



Vermont. O. C. W. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Question. 



It has been said that bees will not build combs 

 on a painted surface. If so, its importance is 

 obvious in many ways. Can any one give his 

 experience in this matter? Apis. 



California. 



Bees. — From the San Bernardino Guardian 

 we learn that parties who go bee and honey 

 hunting have met with a great deal of success 

 this summer, the wild bees being very plentiful 

 in the mountains and cauous. Some of the bee 

 trees th«it have been cut, yielded as high as two 

 hundred and fifty pounds. As a general thing 

 the bee hunters have brought in but few swarms, 

 preferring to take their honey and let the bees 

 remain until their hive is again full. So suc- 

 cessful have been the culturists that there has 

 been exported this year a quantity of honey, 

 pure, strained honey — not in the comb, but in 

 cans, amounting to the astonishing figures of 

 twenty thousand pounds! — ten tons of honey, 

 sent by a few persons from this valley this year. 

 With such a result from such a trivial source, 

 what would our valley not produce in the more 

 important branches of husbandry, if proper en- 

 ergy and enterprise were exerted? A few years 

 ago there was not a hive in the valley. 



There is a species of parasitic larvje called 

 Volucella hombylans, which live in the nests of 

 humble-bees, braving the fury of their stings and 

 devouring their young. 



