1871.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



91 



much less blossoms. In short, the bee-pasturage 

 was almost entirely cut off. 



RAIN. 



But this long drouth was brought to a close 

 last night by a copious "water fall." It rained 

 for more tlian twelve hours, almost without in- 

 termission. The parched and thirsty ground is 

 now thoroughly moistened, and in a few days 

 we may look for a revival of vegetal)le life. I 

 have about eight acres of buck\Yheat, which I 

 think will soon furnish good pasturage for my 

 seventy stocks. I did expect to get considerable 

 surplus honey during the buckwheat season, but 

 now shall let my bees have all they can make 

 from this time till frost. They have been, dur- 

 ing all this dry weather, and are still, breeding 

 profusely. This has made a heavy drain on their 

 stores. The honey in a few of the stocks had 

 got so low that I began ,to feed them. But I 

 think they will be able to take care of them- 

 selves in a few days. If they fail in this, how- 

 ever, they shall not suiier ; they have done too 

 much for me this season, to be driven into win- 

 ter quax'ters with scanty stores. 



BEE FEED. 



I have been feeding with a very simple and 

 cheap food. I bought a few gallons of sorghum 

 molasses at forty cents a gallon. In this I put 

 water and honey in the proportion of one quart 

 of water and one pint of honey to one gallon of 

 molasses. This mixture I boiled until it was of 

 the consistency of thin molasses. When cooled, 

 I poured it into cards of empty comb, about one 

 quart to the hive. It was wonderful how soon, 

 after these cards were returned to the hives, the 

 bees would lick up this syrup and deposit it in 

 other and more convenient i^arts of the hives. 



TWO QUEENS IN ONE COLONY. 



I have recently had an interesting case of two 

 queens in one hive. In looking over one of my 

 stocks, to which I had last spring given a young 

 queen, I accidentally discovered two fertile 

 queens, each quietly passing over the combs as 

 if unconscious of the presence of the other. 

 The younger had been there several weeks, as 

 her brood was then hatching. Of this I was 

 certain, as the brood of the older was pure 

 Italian, ^while that of the younger was badly 

 marked. 



I removed the older queen to another liive, that 

 had been Avithout a queen for some time. At the 

 same time I gave the hive to which I removed this 

 queen, a card of unsealed brood. The queen im- 

 mediately began to deposit eggs in the combs. The 

 workers, although they had acknowledged her as 

 their sovereign, commenced the construction of 

 queen cells. These cells were sealed over, and one 

 of them hatched out, in the jn-esence of the old 

 queen, she not attempting to disturb them. The 

 young queen, as soon as she had emerged from 

 the cell, destroyed the other cells, but did not 

 do or say aught to the old queen, nor the old one 

 to her. I tried very hard to get up a light be- 

 tween them, driving them together and catching 

 one and putting on the other ; but they did not 

 seem to recognize one another as of the royal 



blood. In due time the young queen became 

 fertile. She continued laying in the presence of 

 the old one, frequently on the same card with 

 her, for two weeks or more, until I removed the 

 old queen. In attempting to introduce this old 

 queen to another hive, I lost her, else her biogra- 

 pliy might perhaps be rendered still more inter- 

 esting by otlier remarkable incidents. 



AVliat could there have been about this queen 

 that kept her from interfering with other queens, 

 and that restrained them from disturbing her ? 

 There was nothing peculiar in her appearance, 

 except that her body was rather short. She was 

 quite prolific, and her progeny were well marked. 

 The workers, however, seemed to apprehend that 

 she was an extraoi-dinary bee-ing, for she was al- 

 ways, or at least wheneVer I saw her, surrounded 

 by a crowd of admiring and apparently amazed 

 subjects, their heads turned toward her, and ever 

 and anon gently touching her body with their 

 antennae, as if to say: "What are you, any 

 how?" 



FREAK OF HOSTILITY. 



I have also had another peculiar queen case. 

 While examining one of my full stocks, I found 

 a number of queen cells started. Supposing 

 that the bees were proposing to swarm, and to 

 prevent the queen from getting away, I took her 

 up in my lingers and clipped her wings. When 

 I returned her to the top of the frames the work- 

 ers gathered upon her, just as they would on a 

 strange queen, and in a few moments had her 

 closely confined in a dense cluster. It was with 

 difficulty that I could release her. I removed her 

 to another hive. Why the bees should reject her, 

 I could not conceive. She was a young queen, 

 not over two months old, and was tolerably 

 prolific. At the time she was depositing drone 

 eggs. 



FERTILIZATION OF QUEENS. 



For the past month I have had much difficulty 

 in getting my young queens fertilized ; and this 

 while I have a good many young drones. The 

 dry, hot Aveather has seemed to prevent the 

 queens and drones from desiring to mate. I 

 have one queen now over a month old, that has 

 just begun to lay. I did not experience this 

 trouble early in the season. 



INTRODUCING QUEENS. 



I have recently given the plan suggested in a 

 late number of the American Bee Journal, of 

 hatching queens in cages, a pretty thorough test. 

 I put about twenty sealed cell's in as miiny wire 

 cages, two inches long and one and a half inches 

 in diameter. These I suspended in a strong 

 stock that was, at the time, destitute of a queen. 

 The young queens hatched very well, but unless 

 I removed tliem within a few hours afterwai"ds, 

 they invariably died. The workers refused to 

 feed them while thus caged. I then tried put- 

 ting in the cages pieces of sponge saturated in 

 honey, from which I thought the young queens 

 could feed themselves. But this was attended 

 with the same result as befoi-e — the queens died. 

 Out of the twenty I did not save more than five 

 or six. 



I have also tried Mr. Langstroth's plan of in- 



