THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



63 



ton, Of Edinburgh-, speak of having, in 1833, in- 

 troduced from France, the double yielding Sain- 

 foin— a very luxuriant growing variety, but I 

 have not seen it. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



The past Seasons. Observations and 

 Suggestions. 



The last winter and spring proved disastrous 

 to bee-keepers in this section, some losing their 

 entire stock, and others one-half or more, ow- 

 ing in part to the dry warm fall, last year, keep- 

 ing the bees active till late in the season and 

 causing them to consume their stores. This 

 spring was cold and wet, and many colonies of 

 careless owners perished even while the apple 

 and cherry trees were in full bloom, merely 

 from the want of a little attention and feeding 

 for a few days, while the wet weather continued. 

 I succeeded in saving mine, by feeding them syr- 

 up made from -white sugar, which I poured into 

 empty combs and placed in the hives. 



My colonies were all (rive in number) very 

 weak in numbers this spring ; but by a little 

 attention I have increased the stocks to nine, 

 by artificial swarming, which I practice as fol- 

 lows : I shake all the bees with their queen 

 from the combs of a populous stock into or in 

 front of a hive containing empty frames, or, 

 what is better, frames filled with empty combs. 

 I then place the hive containing them upon 

 their old stand, and remove the one I took them 

 from and place it on the stand of another popu- 

 lous stock, removing the latter to a new place 

 in the apiary. Of course this must be done 

 when the bees are flying briskly, otherwise 

 number two would not get bees enough to pro- 

 tect, and feed the brood. This hive should have 

 a fertile queen given to it from a nucleus colo- 

 ny, which should have been formed early in the 

 season. If this cannot be done, give them a 

 queen cell, as either will save much valuable 

 time, that would be otherwise lost by their 

 having to raise a queen. Speaking of queen 

 raising reminds me of a mistake some of my 

 bees made this season. A colony deprived of 

 its queen commenced a number of cells, one of 

 which was built over a drone cell and egg. I 

 was surprised at this, and when it was sealed 

 over, I cut it out and inserted it in a queen cage, 

 and suspended the cage in the hive. After 

 waiting a sufficient length of time for it to hatch, 

 and it not doing so, I cut open the cell and 

 found a dead drone, head upwards. Query — 

 did he die because he was wrong end up, or did 

 the royal jelly not agree with him ? 



One other case occurred, in which I suppose 

 the bees did not put enough royal food in the 

 cell, and the larva?, instead of being converted 

 into a queen, produced what might be termed 

 half-worker and half-queen. In emerging from 

 the cell (which I saw it do) it came straight out 

 at the top, and was not larger or longer than a 

 common worker ; and as it was from Italian 

 brood, it had the three yellow lings or bands of 

 the Italian worker. But it would show no dis- 



position to sting, although roughly handled. I 

 lost this mongrel by its falling from the comb 

 into the grass, when I could not find it, which 

 I regret, as it would have been interesting to 

 test it as to whether it would have become fer- 

 tile or not. 



I notice that queen cells built near the centre 

 of combs, where the laths are close togclhcr, 

 are not near so large or long as those built on 

 the edge of comb, and the queens are smaller 

 in the same proportion. Now, are these small 

 queens as prolific and as long-lived, as larger 

 ones ? Have bee-keepers noticed any difference 

 in this respect ? If so, it would be well to in- 

 duce our nuclei to build their cells on the edges 

 of the comb, where they could be of full size — 

 which can be done by putting a small quantity 

 of royal jelly into such cells as you may wish 

 queens reared in. 



Has any one tried the experiment of transfer- 

 ring worker eggs to drone cells, to ascertain 

 whether they would produce a larger class of 

 workers ? Perhaps, by this means, we will be 

 able to raise bees of huge proportions and long 

 bills, and by crossing them with Professor Flan- 

 ders' queen with four rings around her tail, 

 produce a new race that will beat all creation 

 and "the rest of mankind." Hoping some one 

 will experiment in this line next season and 

 give us the result through the Journal, I will 

 close this rambling letter by wishing success 

 to the experiments. 



J. R. Gardner. 



Christiansbug, Va. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Novice's Success. 



Mr. Editor: — "We enclose a statement of our 

 bee-keeping, from the Medina Gazette, to which 

 you may prefix the following : 



In consequence of the dry weather, our bees 

 suddenly ceased working about the time this 

 article was written. On looking over our hon- 

 ey we were much surprised to find that at least 

 600 pounds of the 1,000 is bass-wood honey. In 

 emptying the combs there was no possibility of 

 mistaking the bass-wood flavor, and the GOO 

 pounds was all gathered in a period not exceed- 

 two weeks time. 



Is the importance of bass-wood duly under- 

 stood ? It has this year, in our locality, fur- 

 nished considerably more honey than all other 

 sources together. 



We feel much like planting a ten-acre orch- 

 ard of bass-wood trees. Can any of your read- 

 ers tell us anything about their hardiness, rapid- 

 ity of growth, &c. ? 



Scientific Bee-Keeping. 



As busy as a bee has been so trite a saying 

 that many would be surprised to learn that the 

 little scamps are prone 1<> laziness, but we think 

 we can nevertheless show to all thinking minds 

 that such is the fact. 



Many of our readers may recollect that we 

 mentioned an experiment a year ago of giving 



