240 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



two weeks, or as soon as what bees 

 were diseased had died. 



I have been much surprised of late 

 to see how much complaint of this dis- 

 ease has appeared in some of the west- 

 ern bee journals. Now if Bro. A. I. 

 Hoot, W. Z. Hutchinson. J. E. Pond 

 and some fuw others, will read the 

 above carefully they need not acknowl- 

 edge tlie fact in print, as they have 

 lately done, that they know nothing 

 about a remedy for bees having the 

 above disease. It will pay you all to 

 read the A pi with more care. 



Bee Feeders. — Feeders are in 

 great demand just at this time. Bee- 

 keepers who have never had any need 

 lor such things have been obliged this 

 year to use them. 



We can supply the Mason fruit-jar 

 feeder in any quantity at $2.25 per doz- 

 en for quart feeders. These jars can 

 be placed on any hive and no syrup 

 will run out nor will they leak at all. 

 When placed on the hive no water can 

 gtt in about them as they are made of 

 glass. It is known, without much 

 trouble, when the feeder is empty. 



Post yourself up on "feeding bees" 

 by reading query No. 31. This query 

 has been inserted in the An before, 

 but as so much feeding must be done 

 this fall, many new readers will be much 

 interested in reading the answers 

 again. Don't put off feeding too late ; 

 attend to it early in September. Late 

 feeding is a decided disadvantage to 

 any colony of bees. 



Fertility of Queens.— Complaint 

 is sometimes made that queens do not 

 live as long as is claimed in the books 

 and bee journals. Smie claim that a 

 queen should live and keep up a strong- 

 colony for about three years. Let us 

 look at the matter lor a moment and 

 see whether a queen ought to live three 

 years. 



Queens that have been known to live 

 three years were kept in box-hives, the 

 brood-capacity of which was not over 

 40,000youngbees each season. Now, if 

 a queen is capable of laying only 150,000 

 eggs during her life and if cell room 

 is furnished so that she can deposit 

 newly 100,000 of those eggs in one 

 year, it is a plain matter to see that slie 

 would give out during the second 

 year; in fact she would not keep the 

 colony up in point of numbers during 

 the second season. If this same queen 



was in a box-hive and so cramped for 

 room that she could lay but 40,000 eggs 

 a year, she would be likely to live 

 three years. 



We think experienced beekeepers 

 will concede the fact that there is a lim- 

 it to the egg-producing capacity of a 

 queen bee. They are not a machine, 

 but come under the general laws of all 

 animals or insects that reproduce and 

 propagate from eggs. During our ex- 

 perience of thirty years in bee culture 

 we have transferred 500 colonies from 

 box-hives to movable frames. 



We seldom ever found over four- 

 L. frames of brood in any box-hive 

 and oftentimes not over two frames of 

 brood. Those who use the L. hive or 

 other frame hives know that there are 

 from seven to ten frames of brood in 

 each hive. It would be unreasonable 

 to suppose that a queen could keep up 

 such a supply of eggs for more than 

 two seasons. Of course there will be 

 some exceptions to this, but three- 

 year-old queens are rather scarce. 



For the above reasons it is not pol- 

 icy to keep a queen in any colony over 

 two seasons, as nine out of every ten 

 such queens would fail before the 

 honey harvest commences the third 

 year. 



Experienced beekeepers are invited 

 to send us their opinions on the above 

 subject. We also invite beekeepers 

 of experience to send us articles on 

 any subject relating to bee culture. 



Uniting Bees. — There is no better 

 way to unite bees than the following: 

 Let uniting alone till all the brood has 

 hatched. Then have at liand a box 

 that will hold a bushel and having a 

 wiie cover as well as a wire bottom to 

 give ventilation. 



Brush all the bees from the combs 

 of the colonies to be united into the 

 cap of a Langstroth hive or any box 

 which is as convenient. When all is 

 ready, dump the bees into the wire box. 

 Let them remain queeuless for a few 

 hours or till about dark, then turn them 

 down in front of the hive they are to 

 occupy. Three days later give them 

 some tobacco smoke and let a queen 

 run in. Do this at night or you may 

 have a case of robbing. 



For such work as the above, that is, 

 removing the bees from the combs, we 

 always take the hives into a bee-room 

 and use the tobacco fumigator to 

 quiet the bees, then nearly all of them 

 will stay in the box when brushed from 

 the combs. 



