8 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



for the season. You have your bees transferred 

 to your new hire, and if that has surplus honey 

 boxes of the aggregate amount of 200 pounds, 

 you will probably have all of them filled with 

 surplus, if the season is a very favorable one. 



If you have.non-swarmer hives, by adopting 

 this method you may control them, and limit 

 the number of swarms to the capacity of your 

 field. Jasper Hazen. 



Albany, N. T. _______ 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



How to Ventilate, so as to Save all the 

 Wax. 



"When hiving a youug swarm we put in about 

 six frames, one containing honey and brood, 

 and five empty ones —varying this according to 

 the size of the swarm. Then we adjust the divi- 

 sion board, and place the rest of the empty frames 

 on the other side. The division board fits close to 

 the honey board and to the sides of the hive, 

 and extends to within about three-eighths of an 

 inch of the bottom. This leaves a space for the 

 bees to pass under, the whole length of the divi- 

 sion board. The entrance to the hive is in the 

 bottom board, instead of being in the bottom of 

 the hive. Suppose we put the bees in the right 

 hand side of the hive. We move the hive to 

 the right on the bottom board, and this will 

 make the entrance into the vacant side, instead 

 of into the side where the bees are. If the bees 

 cannot all get into that side, they will cluster 

 somewhat in the vacantside, and on the following 

 day, when many are out to work, They wiil 

 have room enough •, and at night, when it is 

 cool, they will all crowd into their own side. 

 As soon as they need more room, place another 

 frame on their side, and set it in the centre. 

 When the young bees begin to hatch, two or 

 three frames can be placed ia at a time. Al- 

 ways put an empty frame between two full ones. 

 You will soon perceive that there are other ad- 

 vantages, besides saving wax, by managing a 

 swarm in this manner. The cpueen will occupy 

 the entire comb with brood when the hive is 

 full, or considerably more than she would under 

 any other management that I have yet found 

 out. Instead of commencing in the centre of 

 the cluster, and extending her egg-laying for 

 three weeks towards the outside, she can be de- 

 positing eggs all the time in the centre. She 

 will consequently deposit nearly, if not quite 

 double the number of eggs in the same length ( 

 of time, that she would otherwise deposit. 



I build up a weak swarm somewhat on this 

 principle in the spring. But the bee-keeper has 

 got to use some reasoning and judgment in 

 these operations. It is almost impossible to 

 give written instructions that can be followed 

 to the letter. 



The division board must be put in so that if 

 it shrinks or swells, it will be enlarged or di- 

 minished up and down, or, as a correspondent 

 writes to me, it may become immovable. 



I had to puzzle my brains considerably to 

 ventilate just right, so as to save all the wax ; 

 but now, it is no trouble at all. I can hit 

 right every time, and the simple directions given 

 in this article ought to enable any of those ex- 



perienced bee-keepers who, as Mr. Quinby mjs, 

 know all about that division hoard, to do so 

 with a little practice and the right kind of hive. 



If it takes twenty pounds of honey to produce 

 one pound of wax (and we know that it takes 

 quite a large quantity), and bees can be so man- 

 aged as to save all that waste Cas they certainly 

 can be), it would amount to quite an item in an 

 apiary of one hundred hives. 



This has been a grand season for bees, so far, 

 in this section of country. Since the 9th of 

 March, up to the first of June, we had only 

 twelve days on which the bees could not do 

 something outside of the hive. Natural swarms 

 commenced coming out, with us, on the 21st of 

 May ; the earliest I have ever known them to 

 do so since I came west, twenty-one years ago. 

 Elisha Gallup. 



Osage, Iowa. 



■ « g i — - — - 



Another Bee-Flower. 



A correspondent of the Cottage Gardener re- 

 commends the Phacelia tanacelifolia, or Tansy- 

 leaved Phacelia, as an excellent bee-plant. He 

 says — "It is a tolerably hardy annual, some 

 seeds of which were brought into this country 

 from California in the year 1832. Although 

 but little cultivated, it is remarkable for its ele- 

 gant foliage and fascicled spikes of violet flowers, 

 which continue to blow during the greater 

 part of the summer and autumn months, but 

 chiefly in June, July, and August. It is easily 

 raised from seed, which should be sown in the 

 spring in ordinary garden ground. It requires 

 no protection after the severe frosts arc over. 

 Besides being a great acquisition to apiarians 

 and to amateur bee-keepers, on account of the 

 special attraction of its numerous flowers for 

 bees, it is highly ornamental, aud deserves to 

 be generally grown in flower gardens, and in 

 the neighborhood of apiaries." 



Dzierzon speaks highly of another species of 

 this plant, the Phacelia congesta, the seed of 

 which was sent to him by an enthusiastic Rus- 

 sian beedieeper. He describes it as an annual 

 of rapid growth, and flowering speedily even 

 when sown in July ou a pea patch, after the 

 peas have been harvested. It is a large showy 

 bush with leaves resembling those of the cypress, 

 and blue flowers not unlike those of the Ecldun 

 vulgare, or Viper's Bugloss, the famous Russian 

 bee-plant, largely cultivated for bee-pasturage 

 by Propokovitsch and others. In Silesia it con- 

 tinues to bloom till late in October, and is vis- 

 ited by bees after frost has cut off all other 

 sources of supplies. 



There are various other species of Phacelia 

 found in the United States, east of the Rocky 

 Mountains, from Lake Superior to the Gulf of 

 Mexico ; but whether any of them arc of much 

 importance as a honey-yielding plant, we do 

 not know. 



Drones when expelled from their colony by 

 the workers, are apt to repair, to some extent, 

 to queenless stocks. This fact has occasionally 

 given careful observers the first intimation of 

 the queenless condition of a hive not previously 

 suspected. 



