1871.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



87 



feu sacre lias anew taken possession of him, and 

 we can hope that tliis time his crusade against a 

 lunacy so wonderful, will he crowned with 

 success. 



Plaisanterie apart. Mr. Price, are you then 

 riveted to your theory ? Unfortunately, after 

 giving us the means of refutation in your own 

 contradictory writings, you furnish, in the 

 American Bee .Tournal for August, a new weapon 

 against your arguments. 



In a preceding article on the same subject, I 

 have proved that, by your bad method of dividing 

 your colonies to the utmost, making ten from one, 

 you can obtain only poor and unprolific queens. 

 Now you say that some queens artificially raised, 

 are one year old before reaching maturity. Then, 

 as some of your queens become good after 

 awhile, may it not be that the progeny of the 

 one I sent you was such '? 



I too have had queens which matured 

 late ; but never when they were put in good 

 strong colonies. I can give you a good instance 

 of delayed maturity. One of my neighbors, Mr. 

 McC. sold me last winter a second swarm of 



1869. The queen of that swarm was so poor a 

 layer, that her progeny did not fill her hive in all 



1870, and in February 1871, the colony was near 

 starving. I transferred the combs in j\[arch, 

 adding a comb of honey and one of brood, and 

 at the end of May, I killed that queen with regret 

 (she was black), for she had become wonderfully 

 prolific. Thus the queen had been nearly two 

 years in becoming mature as you would say ; or 

 before being placed in circumstances indispensa- 

 ble for the development of her fecundity, as I 

 understand the matter. 



Believe my experience ; quit your system of 

 spoiling your colonies by such dividing as you 

 have narrated in the American Bee Journal of 

 1868, 1809 and 1870 ; use exclusively strong colo- 

 nies to raise queen cells ; keep the bees with 

 honey liberally given, if the weather is unfavor- 

 able for gathering. Then you will no more com- 

 plain of the small number of cells started ; nor 

 of the poor quality of the queens Raised ; if you 

 put those young queens in populous and well 

 supplied colonies. 



I hope that, after one season of such trials, you 

 will acknowledge with me that the swarming 

 fever has no more value for raising good queens, 

 than a fifth wheel would have for your wagon. 



Cn. Dadant. 



Hamilton, III., Aug. 9, 1871. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Crippled Bees. Queen Killing. Honey Plant. 



Mr. Editor : — I have also something to tell 

 my brothers in bee-culture, though as I am afraid 

 they all know so much more of such matters 

 than I do, I feel a little hesitation in writing, 

 since possibly no one will learn much from so 

 poor a hand. 



What I wish to state is that one day I noticed 

 some of my bees dragging others out of their 

 hive, though I felt confident they were neither 

 robbers nor young unfledged bees. Why this 



was done, I could not tell. They did not sting 

 their victims, as they would sting robbers, but 

 merely dragged them to the edge of the alight- 

 ing board, and gave them a kick as it were, by 

 way of hint to leave the premises. 



On close examination, however, I found there 

 was something wrong with the bees tluis treated. 

 I killed a few of them, and found their feet and 

 legs enveloped in filmy fibres about the thickness 

 of a hair and from an eighth to a quarter of an 

 inch long, and in some of them their lower man- 

 dible was aft'ected in like manner. They could 

 not crawl up any perpendicular object, nor help 

 to gather honey or pollen, and as in the bee 

 household loafers are not tolerated, spunging on 

 the labors of others, they were summarily ejected 

 like drones out of season — the motto of the in- 

 dustrious insect seeming to be — '■'■root liog, or 

 dteV Ever ready for self-defence, they still 

 have no compassion for the wounded or crippled, 

 though unwilling to commit murder in cold 

 blood and turning them out to wander away and 

 get lost. I cannot account for this occurrence. 

 It is not the effect of moth web. I am acquainted 

 with that. Nor is it anything hanging to their 

 legs, but appears to be some kind of growth, at 

 least so it seems to me. Perhaps it is nothing 

 new to your readers, but it is to me. Who can 

 explain it? 



In the August number, Mr. J. Anderson gives 

 an account of a nice queen being destroyed by 

 her own children, because she was out of the 

 hive a few minutes. That circumstance cdmes 

 so near one I witnessed myself that I will give 

 an account of it, letting it pass for what it is • 

 worth. Last year, in September or October, I 

 sent to Adam Grimm for two queens. Both 

 arrived safe, and I introduced them according to 

 the printed directions accompanying them. 

 They were accepted by the bees, and this spring 

 the hives were well filled with yellow jackets. 

 One day I wished to look at them, so I got some 

 rotten wood or rags (I forget which), and 

 smoked them a little. I then raised one of the 

 combs outside out of the hive, where I saw a 

 bunch of bees about the size of a walnut, on the 

 bottom board. The thought struck me immedi- 

 ately that they had assailed my queen. I took 

 my knife and easily parted them, and behold two 

 scoundrels crawled away with their stings fast in 

 the body of my nice queen. I felt bad, I assure 

 you, all that day, and did not sleep much the 

 following night, tliinking of the mishap, and 

 wondering how it came about. Did I strip her 

 off the comb when I raised it up, that she iell in 

 their midst, or how came it that they attacked 

 and killed their mother ? I set her on another 

 frame after she was stung, but she was instantly 

 attacked again. I closed up the hive and let 

 them have their own way. Next day, at noon, 

 I caught the rioters dragging her out. In nine 

 days there were fourteen queen cells in the hive, 

 ready to hatch. 



I have one thing more which may be of in- 

 terest to the bee keeping fraternity, who appear 

 to be on the look-out for some plant that will 

 bloom after the white clover fails and last till 

 buckwheat comes in. I think 1 have found such 

 a plant. Further experiments will show its 



