THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



67 



out dam.asing any of tliera. If the 

 coml) is placed in position on a straight 

 line, none of the cells c;in be removed 

 wit.hont cutting into nearl}' all of them. 



Tlie comb may be curved very much 

 more than is represented in tiie illus- 

 tration. If Mr. Poppleton will take 

 this hint, he will experience very little 

 trouble in tliis line in future. 



Reuardinir the quality of queens reared 

 during or after the honey-fl»vv, we can 

 see no difl'erence, and if a colony be 

 well fed while it is building queen-cells 

 there ouijlit not to be any dittVrence in 

 the quality of queens. Those who 

 have lead the Handy Book will remem- 

 ber that we strongly urge liberally 

 feeding a colony while cell-building is 

 going on, and also the keeping up of 

 the flow of syrup uniil every queen 

 cell is capped. By this practice all of 

 the young queens will prove first-class ; 

 i)Ut if not fed properly very few of 

 them, say not more than two out of 

 a dozen, will be of any value. 



Regarding the matter of leaving out 

 one of every three eggs instead of ev- 

 ery alternate egg it may be that I did 

 not carry my experimeuts as far as 

 Mr. Poppleton and Dr. Miller have. 

 However, the method as given in the 

 Handy Book, that is, removing every 

 alternate egg, is practised as much 

 for economy as for the purpose of se- 

 curing a good quality of queens. 



As a general rule, we use but one 

 queen to draw eggs from for cell build- 

 ing; for when a queen has been tested 

 for rearing we find that it pays to use 

 all of the eggs from one mother. The 

 same is also iruc of the drone mother. 

 When two such queens have been thor- 

 oughly tested for queens and drones, 

 we consider them worth, at le;ist, $100 

 apiece. If any person connected with 

 the bee-business, and more especially 

 the queen-rearing branch of it, appre- 

 ciates the value of a good queen, we 

 think we are the person. 



A large majority of those who keep 

 bees know very little about the correct 

 methods of rearing queens. We wish 

 more of our prominent beekeepers un- 

 derstood the unitter better, as articles 

 on the subject would be most interest- 

 ing to the readers of any bee-journal. 

 As our methods are given in full in the 

 Handy Book, we do not feel like writ- 

 ing much on this question for publica- 

 tion in the various bee-journals — not 

 even for the Apicultukist. 



It is pleasant to know that the meth- 

 ods given in our book are commended 

 by nearly all, if not quite all, promi- 

 ueut beekeepers. The editor of the 



, most prominent and influential foreign 

 bee-journal wrote us the other day 

 that he thought so much of the Handy 

 Book that he h;id bought quite a num- 

 ber of them and presented them to his 

 friends. G. T. II. Gravenhorst, a prom- 

 inent beekeeper and editor of "Bie- 

 nenzeitung," a bee journal printed in 

 Germany, gave the Handy Book one of 

 the best testimonials it has I'eceived, 

 and we do not except those received 

 from the "American Bee Journal," Prof. 

 Cook, Rev. L. L. Langstrotli and over 

 one tiiousand others of our best known 

 apiarists. 



Our methods for rearing queens may 

 be seen at our apiary at any time be- 

 tween May 10 and Aug. 25. After the 

 latter date we "start" no queen cells. 

 We will show the visitor long rows of 

 queen-cells, and will separate them to 

 prove the fact to any doubter that 

 all cells built by our method can 

 be separated without destroying any. 

 We will also exhibit queens and queen- 

 cells in the nursery, and hundreds of 

 queens both virgin and fertile iu nu- 

 clei. 



Convention Reports.— Our read- 

 ers will find two model reports of bee 

 conventions in this number of the 

 "Api." Usuiilly such reports are very 

 dry reading, but those by Mrs. Hills 

 and J. H. Martin will be read with in- 

 terest by all. Reports of such meet- 

 ings made in the usual way aie not 

 desired by the Apiculturist. By the 

 way, how would it do for those parlies 

 who send long notices and programs of 

 prospective conventions to take a lit- 

 tle further notice of us by sending a 

 report of the doings of these meetings? 

 Such an act would show that the Api- 

 cuLTUHisr is not forgotten. We have 

 given much space to convention no- 

 tices, but the secretaries have forgotten 

 to favor us with reports of the pro- 

 ceedings. 



We cannot promise to pnl)lish such 

 reports if sent to us. When the space 

 can be spared and they are ot the 

 "model" kind, they may find room iu 

 the Apiculturist. 



Bees Taking a Flight— On Sun- 

 day, Jan. 23, all our colonies wintering 

 on the summer-stand had a good flight. 

 The day was clear, calm and warm ; 

 temperature 50^ in the shade. Every 

 colony but two reported strong in num- 

 bers and perfectly healthy. The flight 



