158 



THE AMERICAN" BEE JOURNAL. 



[Jan., 



old fogies are plodding along with their brim- 

 stone boxes, and comi^laint'S of poor seasons and 

 poorer luck. 



In this section of country the season of great- 

 est harvest varies vei-y much from year to year. 

 This year it was in August, from Clethra (pep- 

 per bush) and red clover ; last year it was in 

 September and October, from the jNIichaelmas 

 aster and the golden rod ; and the year before it 

 was during July, from white clover. 



Those who keep their stocks always strong, do 

 , well ; while the rest go hit or miss. For in- 

 stance, this year, from my eight or nine colonies, 

 I have gathered over four hundred pounds of 

 honey, and increased to eighteen colonies. Oth- 

 ers in this neighborhood have not had a pound 

 of surplus honey from a greater number of stocks; 

 and it is not at all strange that young beginners 

 ask my advice, instead of going to those who 

 keep bees in hives and with the ways handed 

 down from their great grandfathers. 



In reading over quite a number of books which 

 have been published for the last hundred years 

 on bees, I was astonished to find so much in them 

 which harmonizes with modern ideas, and so 

 much also which has been claimed as new inven- 

 • tions and recent discoveries — movable frames, 

 guide combs, artificial swarming, stimulative 

 feeding in the spring, uniting weak colonies in 

 the fall, the use of puff ball and tobacco smoke, 

 side surplus boxes, ventilation or air chamber 

 over the CDmbs in the main hive, and under the 

 surplus boxes, the treatment of foulbrood a 

 hundred years ago by pruning and extra feeding. 

 All these, and many more points of interest, are 

 plainly discussed ; and there is only one solution 

 to the mystery that so few knew of or api>re- 

 ciated them, and that is — " Our JournaV^ wasn't 

 born. Yours, very truly, 



E. P. Abbe. 



New Bedford, Mass., Nov. 20, 1871. 



There are folks who wish in their hearts 

 that the American Bee Journal had nfiver been 

 born, since they can no longer venture to palm 

 off old things as their own discoveries, without 

 fear of detection and? exposure. — [Ed. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Start of a New Correspondent, 



Mr. Editor : — I am a new beginner in apicul- 

 ture, and wish to ask one or two questions. 

 Fin^t. — How is it that we hear so many bee men 

 talking about swarming time, and letting bees 

 swarm when in movable comb hives ? I take it 

 that one of the great advantages of the movable 

 comb hive is that colonies may be divided up at 

 the owner's will, and not have any "swarming 

 time." 



i>econd. — What is the best plan to work on 

 when transferring from an old box hive to a new 

 movable comb hive ? I hear some say that they 

 have taken the old hive, and turned it bottom 

 side up, and set the new hive over it, rapping 

 smartly on the old hive, when the bees would all 

 leave, and take to the new hive. I have tried it 

 n the month of August, when there were a great 



many young bees, and could not in any instance 

 drive more than half of them, as the young bees 

 would not leave the combs. But the last ones I 

 transferred I got out with very little trouble, in 

 the following manner : I took the old box hive 

 and carried it away a few rods from its stand, 

 turned it bottom side up on a suitable bench or 

 a box. Then, with a cokl chisel, cut the nails 

 so that I could take off one side of the hive. By 

 the time I have pounded enough to cut the nails 

 I will have the bees in a much more ti-actable 

 state, and the young bees will crawl over on the 

 outside of the hive, and cluster and stay until I 

 get ready to shake tlienr into the new hive. 

 After cutting out the honey, I shake the young 

 bees into the new hive, and the old ones will 

 have flown to the old stand, where a decoy hive 

 or box should have been placed to receive them. 

 These I also shake in front of the entrance of the 

 new hive. The brood combs I transfer to frames, 

 fasten them with wooden pegs, and insert in the 

 hive immediately. Now, I am a new hand, and 

 may have asked questions which have been an- 

 swered many a time in the Journal ; but I have 

 not seen it, of course. 



I started with two colonies, which I bought 

 last si)ring — one in a box hive, and the other in 

 a small tobacco keg. The small one I had to 

 feed to bring it through. The keg colony gave 

 me a natural swarm, June 20th. The other did 

 not swarm at all ; but about the first of August 

 I made an artificial swarm from it, by taking four 

 or five quarts of the bees that were clustered 

 outside of the hive and i^utting them in a new 

 movable comb hive, with one or two frames of 

 brood comb, and setting the new hive in place 

 of the old one, and setting the latter away in a 

 new location. In sixteen days I found that the 

 bees in the new hive had a new queen out (there 

 were no queen cells in the brood combs inserted), 

 and in less than one week she was laying eggs. 

 The frames of brood were taken from a young 

 swarm which I bought for three dollars — fur- 

 nishing the hive myself. Soon after this I made 

 two swarms of the young swarm from the keg, 

 and also transferred botii old colonies to new 

 movable comb hives. On the 21st day of August 

 I transferred two swarms, and gave them three 

 frames half full of brood combs from their old 

 I'.ives, but no honey ; and in three weeks they 

 bad three hives full — sixty pounds each. The 

 bees and brood combs were given me if I would 

 take the honey out. 



I have now eight stands, all in movable comb 

 hives, and intend to do something more next 

 year. I have done almost all kinds of handling 

 with them, except introducing queens, and shall 

 try that next year. I never saw but one swarm 

 of Italian bees, and they were so cross that I 

 could not see them until they were out of sight, 

 for they drove me out of the yard several times. 

 They were said to be pure Italians, but I doubted 

 it and thought they were hybrids, for they acted 

 like yellow jackets. 



One thing more, and I will bring this commu- 

 nication to a close. For one of my neighbors I 

 drove bees enough from a colony to make a new 

 swarm, and placed them on the old stand. They 

 had not been there three minutes before another 



