1-iO 



TOE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



this sectiou of Virginia. But few persons use 

 anytliing bettor tlian tlic old box liivc, without 

 even boxes for surphis lioney. Tliey brimstone 

 their surplus stocks in the fall, and get out a 

 mixture of hone}', bee br(!ad, and young bees, 

 not suitable to send to market or pleasant to usj 

 at home. I am the only person, to my knowl- 

 edge, in this scctioif, who is using the movable 

 frames; and as to the Italian bees, I suppose not 

 one beekeeper in twenty, in this part of the 

 State, ever heard of them until I introduced 

 them into my apiary last August. Here permit 

 me to say that I purchased my three (3) queens 

 from Mr. ^Y. W. Gary, of Coleraiu, Mass., be- 

 ing advised to do so by Dr. E. Family, of New 

 York — to whom my thanks are due for the ad- 

 vice, and for the information given me by letter, 

 as I am much pleased with my purchase. Mr. 

 Cary's prices are very low, as compared with 

 those of other breeders, being ten dollars for 

 three queens, shipped in the best manner possi- 

 ble—very few of the workers sent with them 

 being dead on their arrival. 



Mr. Gary, I think, must have the genuine ar- 

 tide, from the markings of the queens and of the 

 workers accompanying them, and the workers 

 reared in the hives to which the queens were 

 Introduced— all having the three yellow bands. 

 A fourth ring I should consider super flaoxis. 



Mr. E. Gallup, in his communication to the 

 Iowa Homestead^ which you published in the last 

 number of the Journal, gives the true tlicorj^ 

 In regard to luck in beekeeping and lucky 

 swarms, namely — straight combs, and all or 

 nearly all of them brood combs, I transferred 

 Buch a lucky swarm to a movable frame hive 

 this summer, and found nearly all the combs 

 straight, and not more than six inches square of 

 drone comb, and that in one corner where it had 

 evidently not often been used for breeding pur- 

 poses. This swarm was originally in a hive or 

 palace, as it was called, being built with an out- 

 side casing enclosing three drawers; one below, 

 two feet long by fourteen inches wide and twelve 

 inches deep, as a home; and two above, each 

 one foot square and fourteen inches wide, for 

 surplvs honey. It was put in this hive in May, 

 1847, and never failed to make from fifty to sixty 

 pounds of surplus honey each season, and two 

 years made 120 pounds each. This hive seldom 

 swarmed; but when it did, the swarms were 

 fine and large. When transferred, I could see 

 no difference in the size of the bees as compared 

 with other and younger stocks, although they 

 had been reared in combs twenty years old; and 

 in some of the cells I could separate and count 

 the different layers of cocoons spun by the larvae, 

 to the number of fifteen or twenty. So much 

 for the hobby of some venders of patent hives, 

 for removing the combs every year, to prevent 

 the raising of dwarfs. This hive had an en- 

 trance twenty-four inches long, which was al- 

 ways left open; but the colony being a strong 

 one, defied the moth miller and all other encr 

 mies. My brother has a colony which has been 

 in the same hive (a very large one) for thirty 

 years, from which he gets annually from forty 

 to fifty pounds of surplus honey. 



This has been an unfavorable fall for bees in 

 this section. Late swarms svWl hardly get 



through the winter if left upon their stands, 

 which is the mode practiced here. No one, to 

 myknowledge, has tried burying, or wintering 

 in cellars. I have, after doubling my weak 

 stocks and supplying them with honey, and 

 some with molasses poured into their combs, 

 removed them to my cellar. (By the way, does 

 any of the readers of the Journal know whether 

 bees would winter entirely on molasses? A 

 neighbor saved a colony last spring, by feeding 

 molasses poured over crumbs of corn-bread, and 

 set on the bottom of a common box hive.) I 

 wish to know what the temperature of the 

 cellar should be, and whether I have given them 

 ventilation enough. I have removed the honey 

 boards and the top that covers the boxes, and 

 put on instead a cover with only two l|-inch 

 holes through it, and covered them with wire 

 cloth, and also the entrance which is six inches 

 long by half an inch wide. How am I to know 

 when they have ventilation enough? The tem- 

 perature of the cellar ranges from 34"^ to 40°. 

 AVill the bees require water during the av inter, 

 when thus housed up? An answer through the 

 Febuiary number of the Journal, or by letter, 

 from some practical beekeeper, will be thank- 

 fally received and duly appreciated, as my valu- 

 able Italians are also in the cellar. 



Will Mr. Bickford, of Seneca Falls, N. Y., 

 let us hear from him, through the Journal, as 

 to how he is getting along with his machine for 

 manufacturing perfect honeycomb? We shall 

 all want the combs next season, if not the ma- 

 chine to make them. I have just received, from 

 Mr. W. Dikeman, a sample of starting comb, as 

 he terms it, being a thin sheet of wax with the 

 shape and size of worker cells impressed on each 

 side. I think it will be of considerable service, 

 to attach to the frames and top of boxes, to se- 

 cure straight combs; but nothing to compare 

 with Mr. Bickford's combs, which he proposes 

 to turn out with full depth of cells and perfect 

 in shape. J. R. Gardner. 



Giiristiansburg, Va. 



Some of the bee-raisers in Galifornia liave hit 

 upon a novel expedient to increase the product of 

 their hives. They place the hives on a broad- 

 bedded wagon with springs, and allow the bees 

 to range at will on the low lands along the bay 

 of Suisun, San Puebla or San Francisco, during 

 the latter part of the rainy season, when the 

 weather is pleasant, and during the early spring. 

 As the season advances, and the fiowers become 

 more abundant on the uplands, they drive higher 

 and higher up the mountains, the bees always 

 returning at night to the spot where they left the 

 hives in the morning. In time, the valleys and 

 foot-hills beconie parched and bare, but the moun- 

 tain heights still retain their verdant covering, 

 and the bee proprietor ascends until the jumping. 

 olf place is reached, or the clouds in the heavens 

 warn him of the approach of the rainy season, 

 when he commences to descend. This system 

 enables him to take thrice the usual amount of 

 honey from the bees eyery season. It is the 

 favorite one in Contra Costa County, around 

 Mount Diable. 



|^°Send us names of bee-keepers wilh their 

 post office address^ 



