28 



THE AMEEICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[August, 



and another made one with Gallup frames. The 

 latter took his to pieces, as he did not like it.* 

 To test the matter, we put cif;ht American hives 

 together in pairs, with the movable sides both 

 taken away. As these were rather tall frames, 

 we have a much more compact hive than Gal- 

 lup's, and as they were both full of brood when 

 l)ut together, we expected a tall swarm, which we 

 have, but always on one side. Half of the combs 

 will be capped over, and as heavy as lead, with 

 little bits of comb built out at the corners, &c., 

 while the other side is deserted, except only so 

 far as it be necessary to take care of the brood. 

 Changing the order of the combs makes no 

 difference, nor mixing them up. They will not 

 be spread out so far, although nothing inter- 

 venes, and the combs are continuous from one 

 side to the (ither. 



Some stocks have manifested the same desire 

 to store and seal up honey in the lower part of 

 the Langstroth hive, but raising two, or at most 

 tliree brood combs above, has always equalized 

 them, so that the honey was stoi-ed evenly. 



W e have just received a pair of spring scales, 

 Willi a dial like a clock, to mark the weight from 

 two ounces up to sixty pounds. We keep a 

 medium sized stock of bees hung on these, so 

 that their weight can be seen at any time in 

 passing. This serves as a sort of index of the 

 rate the honey is coming in. 



Thus, our lirst test showed the increase of 

 weight from six o'clock in the morning until 

 seven, six ounces; from seven o'clock to eight, six 

 ounces ; from eight to nine, thirteen ounces ; 

 from nine to ten, iifteen ounces ; and after that 

 twelve ounces per houi", until three o'clock p. m.; 

 and then fourteen ounces between three and four ; 

 then twelve ounces again between four and live, 

 and live and six ; from six to seven, nine ounces ; 

 and three ounces only from seven to eight. 



For these experiments we are obliged to iTse 

 an American hive, with only one set of frames, 

 as the Langstroth hives are too heavy for the 

 capacity of our scales. We did not get our 

 hive arranged until six o'clock in the morning, 

 and considerable honey was brought in before 

 that time. Without doubt they gathered ten 

 jiounds that day; and we feel sure that our 

 sixty-live stocks avei'aged as much as six hun- 

 dred and tifty (OoO) pounds for one day's work. 

 This is possible only when plenty of room in 

 empty comb is given. The hive mentioned was 

 emptied entirely the day before. The honey 

 gathered was from basswood blossoms, which, in 

 our opinion, exceeds any other plant for both 

 quantity and quality of honey. 



What w^ould a hundred acre basswood orchard 

 of cultivated trees yield'? we hope to see it tried, 

 if we are permitted to live long enough. 



To resume the scales : twelve ounces per hour 

 is one ounce in every live minutes, and this was 

 readily seen while we were standing befoi-e the 

 hive. About nine o'clock we noticed a great 

 many bees falling short of the alighting board, 

 which they could not crawl upon, as the hive was 



* P. S. We just now learn that the Lanpstroth hive 

 thus opened out so as to be only one story high, is not 

 liked. 



suspended, but had to rest until they could again 

 take wing ; but they were so heavily laden that 

 this had often to be repeated. By tacking a piece 

 of cloth to the edge of the hive, so as to drop 

 on the ground, they hummed in as merrily as 

 you please ; and the scales then showed fifteen 

 ounces an hour, or one ounce in every four 

 minutes. Now, what do you think about sus- 

 pended hives, or hives on benches? We took 

 the hint and made an examination, and found 

 many of our hives, where the bees tumbled on 

 the ground and rolled over in their attempts to 

 crawl up the painted edge of the entrance to the 

 hive. A tliree cornered piece of wood sawed 

 rough, made a nice bridge for tliem. JNIr. Lang- 

 stroth's book suggests the cloth entrance, and 

 we are siu-e a little aid in that direction will be 

 amply repaid. Give the little fellows every pos- 

 sible facility for unloading easily and speedily, 

 and remember that their little atom of strength 

 is of much importance to them, and that all 

 needless steps or flights should be saved them, 

 as you would save your own. 



We wrote you that our three year old queen, 

 that laid so few eggs, had filled her hive quite 

 full of brood early in the spring. This, however, 

 was only of short duration, and her brood, June 

 1st, did not occupy a circle of more than six 

 inches across, in perhai;)s four frames. She is 

 pure Italian. Now a question of great moment 

 comes up here. Will queens raised from her brood 

 Jiave a tendency to be unproUfic like hersdf? Who 

 can answer ? Give us plain facts, from actual 

 experiment ; but please don't say "it stands to 

 reason," or theorize. From what experience 

 we have had, we are almost inclined to think 

 that an extra prolific queen was as likely to be 

 expected from that brood as from any other ; 

 and we have now a young queen raised from it 

 to test the matter, and will report next m(^nth. 



The yield of honey from a hive depeuils very 

 much indeed upon the prolificness of the queen. 

 The queen of the colony that gave us three hun- 

 dred and thirty (830) pounds of honey la^t year, 

 although now three years old, will veiy nearly 

 do the same again this season; and if we were 

 going to sell queens, we think we should have 

 ])rices accordingly from one dollar to ten ; the first 

 mentioned queen would be one dollar ; the last 

 ten ; and others intermediate. None to be sold 

 until her caimcity is tested. 



If extra prolific queens have a tendency to 

 transmit this trait to their progeny, what a field 

 is here open to us ! but, as we have said before, 

 our experiments lead us to doubt.* 



* Some writers are of opinion that the good or bad 

 qualities of queens, in this respect, are transmissible 

 to their royal progeny, or inheritable ; but this seems 

 to be based rather on reasoning from analogy, than 

 on ol)served facts. We incline to think that the pro- 

 ductiveness of a queen physically well organized and 

 developed, depends mainly on the nursing and 

 nourishment she receives from the workers. When 

 plenlifully fed with albunienized chyle, as she can 

 only be in a pretty populous colony, at a favorable 

 period, she will lay egus superabundantly, as we 

 might term it, for the aggren'ate weight of the eggs 

 she lays in twenty-four hours, in the height of the 

 busy season, is more than three times that of her own 



