1872.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



179 



to 1-ead an article, and all understand it alike. 

 If there are any questions to be asked, please 

 ask tliem through the Journal, between this 

 ♦ time and the first of April, as I shall be too 

 busy after that date to furnish answers. When 

 any man tells you he has had queens fertilized 

 in the liive, and/>Mr at a time, just tell him from 

 me that he says — what's not true. 



No man ever yet contracted the entrance to 

 his hive and let out the workers, and kept the 

 unfertile queen from coining out, and thus had 

 her fertilized in the hive. If lie did, all I have 

 to say is that he either has larger young queens 

 than I have, or his workers are smaller than 

 mine. It can't be done ! I have had many 

 queens fertilized, last season, by the foregoing 

 method, carrying out every manoeuvre just as 

 I havB presented them ; and my old fertilizing 

 room now stands in Mr. Moffett's yard, in 

 Trimble county, Kentucky, where I had my 

 apiary the past summer. But whether I will 

 build one here at Franklin, Ky., is not yet 

 decided. I think I thall not have use for one, as 

 I find but few colonies of black bees near me, 

 and these I will Italianize early in the spring. 



W. R. King. 

 Franlilin, Ky. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Novice. 



Mr. Editor and Bee Journal Friends in 

 general : We are most happy to announce that 

 our late indisposition has so nearly disappeared, 

 that we are enjoying perhaps as good health as 

 we ever did before. We are in fact feeling so 

 jubilant ovev restored health — "that greatest 

 earthly blesshig" — that we can hardly refrain 

 from persecuting even our friends of the Journal 

 with some account of the way in which it was 

 brought about, 



For eighteen weeks our sole diet was lean 

 meat, principally beefsteak ; and for fourteen 

 weeks we did not taste even so much as a crumb 

 of bread, nor any vegetables of any kind. Of 

 course brisk out-door exercise was absolutely 

 necessary to digest such a diet, and when unable 

 to walk or work, riding was kept uj) forenoon 

 and afternoon, almost constantly. 



After about twelve weeks, not only a pound of 

 pure beef at a meal, but even four pounds per 

 day, were eaten with pleasure ; and when our 

 physician informed us that we could safely take 

 vegetable food once more, we did not care half 

 as much about it, as we did the first month. We 

 were told that the safest vegetable food to be 

 taken at first was "cracked" wheat, or wheat 

 ground in a coffee mill and boiled in simply 

 pure water, with a little salt, of course. Our 

 physician advised using a little butter ; but we 

 took the liberty of adding a little honey (remem- 

 ber that we had tasted none — not even a drop of 

 anything sweet — for nearly five months), as we 

 had a few jars of clover honey, put up in June, 

 1870, that was so thick it could be cut with a 

 knife. 



We find ourselves so well satisfied with the 



above diet that we now eat scarcely anything 

 else, except that and beef, and only hope that 

 our readers will find it half as delicious, on 

 trial, as we do, as we can finish almost any 

 quantity with imptuiity for breakfast or dinner. 

 We are allowed only beef for supper even now. 

 We cannot speak as favorably of any fruits or 

 vegetables. When we add that our weight in- 

 creased seven pounds and a half in seven days, 

 on the above regimen, we hope no one will ac- 

 cuse VIS of having a "passion" for steel-yards 

 and spring scales. 



Is it possible that any one can have faith 

 enough in what we have just narrated, to be 

 benefited tliereby ? That much abused "good 

 old Dame Nature" will cure us of all ills as 

 willingly as she mends a broken bone, if she 

 only has opportunity and materials, is a fact 

 which we fear is but very imperfectly realized. 



On page 137 of the December number of 

 the Journal, .lewel Davis asks for more precision 

 in regard to our queen nursing. We certainly 

 should have said — "You can thus cage all the 

 cells in a hive, that would be available in the 

 patented queen nursery, or by any other means. "' 

 We hope owning a patent has not made him 

 unskilful with unpatented devices. 



On page 162, C. T. Smith, we fear, did not 

 make his cages carefully, nor put them in place 

 securely. When we described the device, we 

 had given it a pretty fair trial, and had kept a 

 number of queens caged thus until old enough 

 to let their sister queens get fertilized and com- 

 mence laying. Then they were removed and 

 used, and the next in age released, and so on. 



We always push the wire points past each 

 other, which were then waxed together, so that 

 they could not well fall out, and we cannot re- 

 member that we had any troitble in that way. 

 After the yield of honey ceased, they "quar- 

 relled" some, as we have before mentioned. If 

 those who succeeded, and those who did not, 

 could ad reply this minute, we should like to 

 hear the result. 



We certainly did not intend to speak of the 

 queens we got from Mr. Grimm, in a fault-find- 

 ing spirit. We were much pleased with tliem, 

 considering the season in which they were reared 

 (which we were informed of before buying), and 

 the price we paid. We really were not aware 

 until reminded, how our brief statement of our 

 decision to send to Mr. Langstroth for a queen, 

 seemed to reflect on those we purchased from 

 Mr. Grimm. 



Mr. Hazen's fear, on page 167, of overstocking 

 a locality with a dozen hives, or less, sounds 

 strangely as if he had read our Journal with in- 

 sufficient care. When we had a dozen hives or 

 less, our yield was nothing near, per hive, what 

 it is now every year with over sixty. And 



WHAT WE CANNOT DISCOVER 



is a single instance, where large apiaries are 

 yielding less, per hive, than small ones. We 

 will try and not think this article too was written 

 solely with a view of eliciting inquiries in re- 

 gard to his patent hive, that the large results 

 mentioned refer to. 



