1872.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



167 



merit of the Langstroth frames. No sophistry can 

 set this aside, nor will King's plausible etlbrt to deck 

 Falseliood in the garb of Truth, avail him auglit in 

 the end. 



We have here referred only cursorily to the case of 

 the American pretenders. That of the foreign claim- 

 ants, we sliall consider and dispose of when the 

 Court has given King his quietus. 



Mr. H. A. King sent us what purported to be a 

 copy of the Baron of Berlepsch's Declaration. We 

 declined to publish it : 



1. Because, though obviously procured to be used 

 in court, it is not in a shape to constitute legal testi- 

 mony. 



3. Because, even if all right in manner and form, 

 publication before it is submitted to the court, is im- 

 proper. 



3. Because we did not know how much garbling it 

 may have undergone in King's hands. We do know 

 that he shamefully garbled Mr. Langstroth's letters 

 to suit his own base purpose ; and the presumption is, 

 that he would not hesitate to garble the Baron's paper 

 likewise, for a similar purpose. We did not feel dis- 

 posed to be caught in such a trap. 



4. Because we are not willing to be made instru- 

 mental, by him or any one else, in efforts to forestall 

 public judgment, or mislead public opinion. 



We say so much from respect to the beekeepers of 

 the country, and not from any regard lor Mr. K. 



Mr. H. A. King says: "Many believe that Mr. 

 Langstroth first heard of the German frames tlirough 

 letters to Mr. Wagner, prior to 1S52." This is 

 an insinuated untruth, about equivalent to an as- 

 serted falsehood. Before the spring of 1852, we 

 never heard of Mr. Langstroth ; and we never know- 

 ingly saw him, nor had we any conversation or cor- 

 respondence with him till after the 1st of August, 

 1852. We always understood that Mr. Langstroth 

 applied for his patent in December, 1851, up to wliich 

 time, and for many months thereafter, there were no 

 2)ractical frames in use in Germany, as we are pre- 

 pared to show. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Introducing Queens. 



Mr. Editor :— The German method of intro- 

 ducing queens, translated by you and published 

 on page 98 of the November Journal, wliereby 

 all the bees are taken from the hive and kept in 

 a box for twenty-four hours, seems to be all 

 right, save in one important particular. 



Would it not be ruinous to expose the brood 

 for that length of time, without a bee in the 

 combs ? 



There' is no doubt that bees will accept a 

 strange queen, very readily, when removed from 

 their own hive ; but the difficulty with me in 

 thus introducing them has been indicated above. 



I have found that if the bees are returned to 

 their hive with the new queen, before they be- 

 come thoroughly hungry and fully realize their 

 hopeless condition, they are very apt to destroy 

 her. 



Should you be able to suggest a remedy, ]>lease 

 favor your readers with it through the .Journal. 



Geo. b. Silsbt. 



Wintersport. Me., Nov. 6, 1871. 



t^" The difficulty suggested, it strikes us is 

 only apparent, in the case of common box or 

 straw hives. It is not necessary, we apprehend, 

 that all the bees, literally speaking, sliould be 

 driven out ; and from such hives this is liardly 

 practicable. A sufficient number will alw»ays re- 

 main to take care of tlie brood ; and, on trans- 

 ferring, these should have charge of the combs 

 containing the unsealed larvae, which alone re- 

 quire nursing and attention in ordinary tem-' 

 perature. Where movable comb hives are ope- 

 rated on, the combs containing unsealed brood 

 may be placed temporarily in a nucleus hive, 

 alter the mass of bees has been shaken off by a 

 sudden jeik or shock. A sufficiency of young 

 bees will usually remain adhering to such combs, 

 to protect and nurse the larvae. If operating in 

 cool weather, brood just hatched may need some 

 further protection, such as placing \he hive or 

 nucleus in a warm room. But the sealed brood 

 can safely endure exposure to a greater degree 

 of cold than is usually supposed ; and it is^'yet 

 unascertained how much cold and depiivation 

 larva?, just hatched, can endure without injury. 

 Of course, the less of either to which they are 

 exposed, the better. — [Ed. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Overstocking. 



Mr. Editor :— I think this subject is de- 

 serving much more attention than it receives. 

 In ten seasons and the following winters, since I 

 commenced my experiments in leekeepiug, two 

 winters have passed very fatal to the interests of 

 beekeepers in this immediate vicinity. In 1863 

 or 18G3 two-thirds of the bees in this vicinity 

 starved to death in the winter. 1 had been 

 taught no danger of overstocking, and half or 

 more of mine perished in the winter following. 

 The harvest of 1860 again proved destructive to 

 the bees in this neigh ijorhood, from starvation. 

 In 1861) the bees had increased, so as to reach a 

 large number for our Held, and two-thirds of the 

 bees within a few miles in any direction, starved 

 —perhaps three-fourths of tliem. To give an 

 idea of results, I must refer to others, as after 

 the first of the three starving winters, I fed my 

 bees in October, and again early in the sj)ring, to 

 carry them through to the flowers. But one 

 neighbor, who placed in winter quarters over 

 thirty colonies, had fourcolonies to commence the 

 next season with. They increased so rapidly that, 

 in tlie fall of 1869, he had over thirty colonies. 

 In the spring of 1870 all had starved to death 

 but two. In the whole vicinity three- fourths had 

 died off. One friend, live miles from me, who 

 lived in a very favorable field, supplied abund- 

 antly with whitel clover, weut as high as one 



