274 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[JUNF, 



[For the Araei'icaii Bee Journal.] 



Will "Novice" or B. Lunderer (blunderer ?J 

 state throus^h tiie Journal how their cloth honey- 

 boards work, as they both spoke favorably of it 

 sometime since, and have now had time to test 

 it thoroughly. 



Our bees are in fine condition, having passed 

 through the most severe winter in this section, 

 since 1833. February 15th, we found plenty of 

 eggs, brood in all stages, and young bees ; they 

 began about that time to carry in artificial pol- 

 len, which we fed them with avidity. 



We are reminded by the activity of our pets, 

 that the time is again drawing near to undergo 

 the trial of iini>orting queens, with its expense and 

 usual suspense of waiting and watching to be 

 rewarded by receiving about one-fifth of the 

 number alive that you sent for, and thry nearer 

 dead than alive. 



We saw Miss Morgan's statement in the Jour- 

 nal about sending for and receiving seven or 

 eight (all she sent for), in good order, and think 

 we can safely say, that it is without a parallel. 

 Those foreigners must be a gallant set, and take 

 extra pains in preparing queens for the fair sex. 



But seriously, Mr. Editor, cannot there be 

 some way devised that we can induce these for- 

 eign queeu-raisers to take more pains in sending 

 queens ? 



Owen & Ladd. 



Brentwood, Tenn. 



[For the Americau Bee Journal.] 



Uovice. 



' ' Mr. Novice, those Amei'ican Hives are a per- 

 fect nuisance ! ' they ain't good for nothing .' " 



Tut ! tut ! strong assertions and bad gram- 

 mar too, Kather say you think thej' are not 

 good. 



" Don't care, they deserve it all. I knoii) they 

 are not cjood. In your absence I have examined 

 ever so many, and they have a miserably small 

 amount of bees and brood compared with one 

 Langstroth hive, and as they have equally good 

 ^01- queens and plenty of honey, it must be owing to 

 *^ those miserable side opening hives. I declare, 

 if 1 were the bees, 1 would swarm out of every 

 one until you furnished better ones." 



"But, what is the reason? are not tall hives 

 better economy than low ones, and are not the 

 flat, ' shallow things ' always called bad for 

 building up colonies in spring? " 



We opened a bound volume of the American 

 Bee Journal, ])age G9, vol. 3, where we in 18G7, 

 gave our reasons for preferring the American 

 hive to the Langstroth. 



" Well, what Ilo you think of that ? " 



" Just this. I am very sorry to learn that you 

 ever wrote any such foolish stuff. For the past 

 three years the American hive has been far be- 

 hind the Langstroth, more especially, and for 

 reasons, we don't care for them. You men can 

 spin long theories about rarified air rising and 

 all that, but we women take facts as we find 

 them." 



" Please do come now, Mr. Novice, and look 

 yourself over the thirty American hives and 

 then see the Langstroth, and don't let us argue 

 any more when we can use our eyes so easily." 



Well, Mr. Editor, we did examine carefully 

 the thirty tall hives, and then an equal number 

 of the flat ones, and the result was only much 

 more marked than we had supposed from obser- 

 vations for the past three or four years. 



In the American hive there seems to be a dis- 

 like to enlarging the brood circle doicnicard, 

 which they must do, as the brood is invariably 

 in spring near the toj^ bars. In the Langstroth 

 hive the brood circle enlarges horizontall/ and 

 the result decided was to instantly transfer all 

 comb to the Standard Langstroth frames, not 

 only from the American hive, but sundry other 

 jjatent hives that we have been induced to give 

 atrial; and, INlr. Editor, we have now got it all 

 done neatly, and draw a long breath of relief 

 when we realize that now we shall no more be 

 bothered with close fitting tops and side openers. 

 We are using one of the Gallup hives, but 

 even at the risk of being called an "old woman," 

 again we must say that we cannot make the 

 queen work down to the bottom of the comb in 

 order to enlai'ge her circle of brood as readily as 

 we do with the Langstroth hive ; yet we selected 

 for the experiment, one of our best queens. 



Just imagine an apiary of such system Ihat 

 any frame will go jud right in any hive with the 

 accuracy almost of American watch work, and 

 you can see what we have been working at for 

 the past few days, and if we don't have something 

 of that kind nearer perfect than we have ever 

 seen, (although many claim it), we shall be 

 much msitaken. 



We have several questions in regai'd to that 

 bee disea.se. 



Mrs. A. D. Morgan, of Pella, Iowa, asks if 

 we consider the honey, taken from stocks that 

 have peri.shed, safe to feed others. 



After the bees are out and flyiu'^ in the spring, 

 we always feed anything they will eat, and have 

 never had any bad results ; in fact have never 

 seen any trace of the bee-di.sease or dysentery, 

 when the weather was such that they could fly. 

 Will our Western friends who have lost so 

 heavily, please tell us if they are ever troubled 

 afler the bees are flying in the spring. 



In regard to spotting the snow in spring, 

 it pains us to see i'riend (rallup speak so harshly 

 about his statements not being believed. We 

 may have mentioned in the Journal that we 

 thought some statements were a mistake, but 

 certainly never meant to intimate that any one of 

 our "large family" told a wilful falsehood. 



It was not ^Mr. Gallup's statement that we re- 

 ferred to, but another one, which we liave since 

 fomid, and we oidy thought that if the writer 

 had looked very carefully he would have found 

 some spots. 



Others besides IVIr. Gallup have given tlie 

 theory that when young bees were raised largely 

 in the fall there would be no dysentery, but alas, 

 for theories ! the particular stock we wrote about 

 had a drone laying queen and not a bee was 

 hatched after the first of September. We wrote 

 Mr. Langstroth for a queen, which he was not 



