226 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Apeil, 



■with the adherinji^ bees from below into the 

 upper chamber. The bees will not desert their 

 brood, but will remain by it, and immediately 

 commence constructing comb and storing 

 honey. Whereas, where boxes are used one or 

 two bees will go above on an exploring expedi 

 tiou to day, and to-morrow a few more will go 

 along as company ; which manner of proceeding 

 is kept up from day to day for jterhaps a week. 

 Then they sometimes go to work, provided the 

 honey season holds out ; but if it slacks up, 

 they also slack up. But Avhere frames are used 

 as above described, all this delay is avoided, by 

 at once putting our bees where circumstances 

 demand they should be. Now, there were hives 

 of this kind at the National Convention. The 

 Langstroth hive and the Allen hive (known as 

 the Home of the Honey Bee) are often made to 

 contain both an upper and a lower set of frames 

 of equal size. The former was there as a two- 

 story hive ; and it was intended to have it there 

 also in the two- story form, but it was by some 

 means or other detained on the way, and did 

 not reach the Convention in time to be exhibited. 

 Yet it was stated that it was often made on the 

 two-story plan, for the purpose of adapting it to 

 both the use of the melextractor and to procur- 

 ing the largest possible amount of surplus 

 honey. Now I will say, in conclusion, that 

 if Mr. Langstroth's views, together with those 

 of many other prominent parties, are at fault, 

 I hope Mr. Gallup will conect us, by giving us 

 the right plan of making hives. For it is the 

 true plan we all should seek and impart. I 

 fully agree with Mr. Gallup that small hives are 

 not well calculated to procure a large yield of 

 liouey. Sometimes they answer well, but fail 

 much more often than the two-story hive. 



G. BOIIREK. 



Alexandria, Ind., Feb. 1871. 



[For the Americiui Bee Journal.] 



Mr. Grimm gets a Blowing Up ! 



Mr. Editor : — We have at different times 

 complaints from parties who have received 

 queens from Mr. Adam Grimm. Those parties 

 claimed that the queens received were darker 

 colored than they expected, and consequently 

 were not pure. Now as we do not like to be 

 bothered with other people's troubles, we pro- 

 pose to give Mr. Grimm particular tits. 



On the 23d of May last, we received a line 

 from him stating that we must prepare a stock 

 for a queen by removing the old queen, as in 

 about ten days he was going to send us a queen. 

 Mr. Editor, we did not know what we had ever 

 done to him to cause him to send us a queen : 

 but it is said we always like to be on the con- 

 trary side, so we did not do as he ordered, for 

 we did not like to have one of our swarms 

 queenless so long. On the 30th of May the 

 queen arrived. We then deprived a strong 

 hybrid stock of all their comb and brood, and 

 killed their queen by crushing her and threw 

 ner in among her subjects; having no comb or 

 brood and nothing but a dead queen, they were 



soon as sorry a set of bees as you ever saw ; we 

 then sprinkled them with sweet water until they 

 were completely gorged, dipped tlie Grimm 

 queen in honey and tumbled her in head over 

 lieels ; as the bees were gathering honey rapidly 

 we allowed them to build comb, and they filled 

 up their hive with a rush. We kept out cells of 

 brood from time to time to raise queens from, 

 and we also at diflerent times used the extractor 

 on the hive ; yet on the 15th of July out came 

 that confounded Grimm queen with a swarm. 

 She was not one of your fancy light straw colored 

 queens, but to all appearance as pure as any 

 imported queen I ever saw. Her workers are 

 all three-striped, not near as light colored as 

 some of my males, and the objection that I have 

 to them is that they are such confounded work- 

 ers that there is no getting along with them. 

 The queen breeds about as fast as five of some 

 of those eastern bred, extra light colored ones 

 do ; so Mr. Editor, we don't like those fellows a 

 particle for finding fault with him. If he sent 

 them such queens as he did us, we would advise 

 them never to send to him for queens again. 

 But if any one should want just as good a queen 

 as they can get direct from Italy, they might try 

 Mr. Grimnr. We bred from that queen in prefer- 

 ence to any we had in our yard, yet I suppose if 

 Mr. Benjamin had her he would lose consider- 

 able sleep for fear she would lay herself to death. 



The queens Mr. J. W. Lindley speaks of were 

 mostly reared from one Grimm queen (see Janu- 

 ary No.). Now Mr. Editor, don't for a moment 

 suppose that Mr. Grimm sent that queen to us 

 for the sake of bribing us to give himaputf; 

 no, not by any means ; but we write this article 

 at the pai ticular request of one of those com- 

 plainants who wishes us to give Mr. Grimm 

 Hail Columbia through the A. B. Journal. 

 Now, Mr. Grimm, why in the name of common 

 sense don't you raise some of those extra light 

 colored and harmless bees, so as to suit such 

 customers. You can do it easy enough by cross- 

 ing some of your queens with black drones, and 

 then breed back to the Italians, always select- 

 ing the lightest colored ones to breed from. 

 You would soon have them as harmless as flics, 

 and they would gather about as much honey as 

 some flies, and they would just suit some of your 

 customers. 



P. S. If this blowing up don't suit you, do 

 your own blowing up hereafter. 



E. Gallup. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Queens. 



My limited experience indicates that artificial 

 queens, or those sent with a few bees are poor 

 property to mnke honey with. One sent by Mr. 

 Quinby in 18()7, and one send by Mr. Grimm in 

 1870 were both superseded at ono year old, and 

 neither of them ever led a swarm, while a queen 

 that came in a full hive in the spring of 18GM, 

 from Mr. Quinby swarmed each year, and on 

 the 11th of June, 1870, when three years old, 

 led the earliest swarm ever seen in this cold 



