1872.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



89 



i. e., notwithstanding the absence of honey in 

 the fields, breeding has not slackened a particle, 

 but seems to have increased rather, so that at 

 this writing, I never saw colonies so absolutely 

 crammed with brood. Is not this rather un- 

 common ? 



In June I attempted to queen a black colony by 

 inserting a cell nearly matured (after removing 

 the old queen of course), which hatched in about 

 four days. The colony was in a box hive, and 

 about the time the queen should commence lay- 

 ing, I transferred the colony to a movable frame 

 hive, but could find no queen. In about three 

 days, I again examined the colony, and found 

 eggs in abundance, scattered all through the 

 hive irregularly, but no queen was to be found. 

 I made the most critical examination I was capa- 

 ble of, but could not discover from whence the 

 eggs came. I then took a queen from a nucleus 

 winch had mated, but had not commenced lay- 

 ing, and placed her upon the alighting board and 

 allowed her to run in, and, contrary to the expe- 

 rience of Hemme, she was kindly received as 

 mistress of the colony. This might not have 

 been, had I not introduced her after having had 

 the bees out of the hive for at least half an hour 

 hunting for the egg layer. The eggs were duly 

 nursed by the bees, and. in due time, I had a fine 

 lot of bastard black drones, a little larger than a 

 worker bee. 



Does a worker bee hatch in less than twenty- 

 one days? It seems so. 



On the 10th of July, in the morning, I took a 

 swarm from a hive with the queen, and put them 

 in a hive filled with empty combs, which had 

 been setting in my stable since the bees died in 

 it, last February, during which time there had 

 not been a bee inside of it. I kept feeding this 

 colony, owing to the scarcity of forage, and on 

 the 29th of July, I examined the combs, and 

 found young, bees just emerging from the cells, 

 while there were others which appeared to be 

 twenty-four hours old. The queen I obtained 

 from Grey & Winder, last fall. 



Bees are now gathering honey quite freely, 

 mostly from buckwheat. During the entire 

 dearth of honey, bees gathered large quantities 

 of i>ollen. From present indications, bees will 

 be in much better condition for wintering this 

 fall than for the two last. 



Owe more winter like last', will make it easy to 

 get subscribers for the Journal, as only readers 

 of the Journal have been able to procure a par- 

 ticle of surplus honey this summer so far, or in- 

 crease their stocks. At least this is the case so 

 far as my observations extend. 



J. E. Richie. 



Lima, Allen Co., Ohio, Aug. 13, 1872. 



[For the American Bee Journal ] 



Deak Journal : — We have had our hands 

 and minds so full of bees and honey, and other 

 matters too, for the past six months we could 

 not find time to drop you a line, and then we 

 read many better articles in our Journal than we 

 can write ourselves ; but a paper, like a good 



pudding, is made up of many ingredients, and 

 we are always willing, when able, to give our 

 mite. 



For several years past we have noticed the cor- 

 respondence in the Journal, and reports from 

 various quarters, of seasons, running •thus : 

 "Bees will not store enough this season to win- 

 ter on." " The poorest honey harvest I ever 

 knew." " No swarming this year, and but 

 little surplus honey," and hundreds of other 

 similar expressions which really appear strange 

 to us. and we have not a poplar (tulip tree), linn 

 or buckeye growing within five miles of our 

 place. The seasons, for eight years past, since 

 W' 1 have kept bees, (before that they kept them- 

 selves), have been like the toper's whiskey, none 

 bad, but "all good, and some better." 



My first swarm, this season, issued the 19th of 

 April, and they have been swarming every week 

 since, except the two first weeks in July, and 

 strong stocks have been storing honey all the 

 time. 



If any one has learned how to keep the worms 

 out of the boxes of honey in summer, without 

 injuring the honey, after removing them from the 

 hive, they have a wrinkle more than we have, and 

 if they are at all communicative, we would be 

 obliged if they would publish the plan. We have 

 ineffectually tried for three seasons past, and failed 

 and we won't tell you none of the bad lurk we 

 have had, and how we've been mortified, for folks 

 would rather tell, as well as hear, of successes, 

 and leave the reverses to be found out. Honey 

 is made in this country, and a sight of it, but not 

 fifty or more gallons to the hive, even if the hive 

 were as big as a meeting house ! but we have 

 not a ready market at all times, and box honey 

 being more preferable to the purchaser, and 

 spring honey being nicer, better, and more sale- 

 able, the question not yet solved, at least in this 

 climate, is how can we keep it clear of moths 

 until winter? We could get double the number 

 of pounds by extracting, but it will not sell, and 

 what's the use of worrying and slinging and 

 boiling to prevent fermentation, unless you can 

 dispose of it. 



Novice and Gallup have a heap of talk about 

 the shallow chamber, the twin hive, and single 

 stories, and frames in upper chambers, and all 

 that, and one accusing the other of being muddy 

 headed and can't see the point and understand. 

 Now the fact is, there are some near-sighted 

 thick skulls, in these parts, that haven't got the 

 hang of that matter yet. There is a power of 

 Gallup in all Gallup's articles, still, some are 

 worth more than $1.00. 



We don't know how many eggs a queen 

 can lay in a lifetime, or her capacity in any given 

 time, or whether she will lay herself to death in 

 a sixty frame hive, or not, but will venture the 

 assertion, that if Gallup will move his big hive 

 to this country, before his stock will store six 

 hundred and fifty pounds of surplus honey, his 

 queen and bees will have become like my friend, 

 Pat. O' Gorman's knife. — O' Gorman cut hoop 

 poles, and said he "had a knife that had worn 

 out seven blades and three handles." H. 



Murfreesbiro, Tenn., Aug. 12, 1872. 



