1900 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



:203 



been manipulated as friend Haxton pro- 

 poses, provided that said manipulation 

 is done early enoiig:h in the season so 

 the bees can establisli their cluster to 

 their Mixing. Therefore, after the 

 manipulation he proposes, the cluster of 

 bees will not be in the center of the 

 hive, as his article carries the idea, but 

 at one side or the other, so the bees 

 must move over on to the full combs 

 after his manipulation, just the same as 

 they would had they not been disturbed. 

 But this fact does not prove that his 

 ideas are wrong regarding the way he 

 Hxes his comb for winter, for they are 

 not. To my mind, after thirty years of 

 experience, the "starvation in winter 

 with plenty of honey in the hive," does 

 not come with the inability of the bees 

 to move to adjacent combs (provided 

 sticks are laid over* the frames where 

 the covering rests on the top of the 

 frames), but through eating their way 

 toward one side of the hive till the stores 

 on that side are all exhausted during 

 some cold spell, when they cannot move 

 en masse over to the opposite side of the 

 hive, where there are stores. This b iing 

 the case, Mr. Haxton's plan of arrang- 

 ing the combs prevents their starving 

 till all the honey in the hive is used up. 

 But the better plan is (and the one I 

 have adopted for years) to place all of 

 the empty and partly empty combs at 

 one side of the hive, and from those to 

 those entirely full at the other, and in 

 this way the bees are moving toward 

 the fullest combs all the while. How- 

 ever, if the hive contains twenty-five or 

 more pounds of stores on the first day 

 of October, in this locality, as it should, 

 there is no danger of the bees starving 

 before they can carry their honey where 

 they wish it in spring, from any part of 

 the hive to the cluster, so that, of late 

 years, I very rarely touch any comb in 

 any good colony having plenty of stores 

 in the fall of the year. 



A LIFE OF LIBERT V. 



Here I am again with my space all 

 used up and much more in the October 



number, which I had marked wheu 

 reading, not touched upon at all; but 1 

 cannot close without calling the reader's 

 attention to the good things in the first 

 part of Bro. Teflffs article. Read it 

 over again, you who sometimes think of 

 leaving bee-keeping and going into some- 

 thing else, that you may get riches. 

 What do riches amount to, anyway? 

 Many a man or woman would give their 

 millions for a comfortable living, a liv- 

 ing with the liberty Bro. Tefft speaks 

 of, if they could only get away from the 

 environments these millions have thrown 

 around them. It may be that I feel thus 

 because, as Bro. Teflft says, "it is highly 

 improbable that I could have been able 

 to amass a fortune, anyway." But be 

 this as it may, a life of liberty in the 

 open air with the bees, seems sweeter to 

 me than all the gold of Ophir. 

 Borodino, N.Y., Oct. 30, 1900. 



SENDING EGGS BY MAIL. 



Extensive Experiments Demonstrate its 

 Practicability — An Article of Especial 

 Interest to Queen-breeders. 



BY "SVVAKTHMORE." 



HAVE been so up to my eyes in ex- 

 periments the past summer that 

 I have had little time for any- 

 thing but bees. My attention has been 

 mainly directed toward queen-rearing, 

 and I have much in that line to tell you. 



First among the new things, I place 

 the advantage of "Eggs by Mail," for 

 queen-breeders. 



1 have in my yard a large number of 

 fine, young, mated queens, reared from 

 eggs sent to me by post, from all over 

 the country. 



Early in the season I began writing 

 cards to all the distant queen-breeders 

 throughout the land, about as follows, 

 viz.: •■What will you charge me for 

 four s(|uare inches of fresh-laid eggs in 

 dry comb, from your finest breeding 

 queen, packed in box and sent by mail — 

 no bees '? " Prices ranged from 2.5c. per 

 square inch down to 25c. per four square 



