AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL WAGNER, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



AT TWO DOLLARS PER ANNUM, PAYABLE IN ADVANCE. 



Vol. VII. 



DECEMBEH, IS'Tl. 



No. 6. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Novice. 



Dear Jottrnal : — Owing to the protracted 

 drouth, we have not got our ten acre farm in 

 condition for planting tlie basswood orchard, 

 and may not now until spring, as we have de- 

 cided to thoroughly underdrain, subsoil, and 

 manure it. 



We are going to set the trees twelve feet apart, 

 and thin out when too crowded. We shall raise 

 hoed crops on the land for the first two or three 

 years, to ensure thorough cultivation. As many 

 prominent horticulturists are taking quite an 

 interest in the project, we are going to try and 

 guard against failure, if possible. 



Our opinion is, that Mr. Price is totally wrong 

 in the position which he so ^persistently adheres 

 to ; and if he has himself turned over our former 

 articles, he should know that we purchased Irom 

 Mr. Grimm, the twenty-tive queens, almost 

 solely to replace those whose progeny were too 

 neaily black bees. See vol. vi, page 78. And, 

 further, several of our dark, artificial hybrids ^ 

 that we discarded, were so much more prolific 

 than the pure ones from Mr. Grimm, that we 

 have sincerely regretted killing them ; and shall, 

 in future, save extra prolific queens, even if only 

 one-banded. 



Mr. Grimm raises queens in small nucleus 

 boxes, we think. Will he tell us where he gets 

 his queen cells ?. and will he also tell us whether 

 he agrees with Mr. Price's position? We should 

 agree with Mr. Quinby exactly, who has given 

 his views at length, and his practical experience 

 in the matter has been considerable. Both 

 natural and artificial queens are, like Mr. Price's, 

 sometimes poor, especially when raised out of 

 the swarming season, and when an abundant 

 supply of food is not coming in, or some of the 

 other requisites are wanting. Some of our very 

 best queens have been raised with less than a 

 pint of bees ; but we find it more difiicult, with 

 so few, to secure all other requisite conditions. 



The questions on page 11 G, are all answered, 

 we think, some of them at great length too, in 

 back numbers of the .Journal ; but we will briefly 

 go over them here, and sum up. 



1st. Twenty of the forty-six queens were raised 

 after the loss of our only pure queen, by cutting 

 the brood combs, or those having eggs and un- 



sealed larvae, into pieces about one by two inches. 

 These were put in hives containing empty combs, 

 and set in place of each of our weak eleven re- 

 maining stocks. Extra cells were cut out and 

 put in nuclei made from the old stocks, still fur- 

 ther reduced for the purpose. All this was done 

 in the swarming season, and the twenty queens 

 raised were all good prolific ones, although the 

 returning bees, in some cases, gathered around 

 the small piece of brood comb, were not over a 

 teacnpful. 



Of course we had no known pure queen after 

 this to get brood from, and ■vyere obliged to lise 

 brood from some of the twenty — intending to 

 I'eplace them, if too dark. Many of these were 

 only one-fourth Italian ; and slicing off the 

 drones' heads last year, gave us more hybrids 

 again, as many of the original eleven queens 

 were then replaced. 



The twenty five qvieens from Mr. Grimm were 

 ordered to replace the poorest, and to have pure 

 stock to rear from next spring. 



2d. Our hives are shaded by grape-vines, 

 trained on the plan of ^^Fullcr''s Grape Culturisi.'''' 



3d. We always paint our hives white, and hire 

 a painter to do it. 



4th. About the Peabody Extractor. Our as- 

 sistant says she thinks it turns a trifle harder 

 than our old home made one, the case of which 

 does not revolve ; but it is simpler, neater, more 

 convenient, and much more durable. After a 

 good deal of study on the matter, we think, all 

 things considered, that we should prefer the 

 Peabody to any we have seen. 



Pemember, you asked a delicate question, as 

 we have advertised them ; but we have tried to 

 make the answer honest. 



Three of the Grimm queens ceased laying 

 gradually, when less than a year old — something 

 we have seldom, if ever, seen in our own, or 

 those from Mr. Langstroth ; and we are going 

 to purchase a queen of Mr. Langstroth, to raise 

 our queens from, next season. Providence per- 

 mitting. 



Hoping to meet all our friends at the Conven- 

 tion in Cleveland, we are, as ever, 



Novice. 



Indigo, bound dry on the wound, is a sure cure 

 for rattlesnake bites, scorpion and bee-stings, 

 &c., says a Mormon who has tried it.^ 



