130 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Sending Queens by Mail. 



Me. Editor : — The question of the hest way 

 to send queens to distant places has for a few 

 years attracted much attention. We can hox a 

 common bee hive with a space of an inch or an 

 inch and a half between the hive and the box, 

 having covered the bottom and openings, and the 

 lop holes or other ventilators of the hive, or 

 those we make on purpose for free ventilation, 

 with wire cloth, and send it in cool weather all 

 over the world — certainly from Italy and Egypt 

 to America. Then the hive is, say fifteen in- 

 ches square — a large hive — with ample ventila- 

 tion through its wire cloth, in a box eighteen or 

 twenty inches square, full of round holes, also 

 covered with wire cloth, and experience is ample 

 that little difficulty is had in removals of many 

 thousands of miles. 



But in sending queens there come these re- 

 quisites : 1st. The queen above all things safe ; 

 2d. Workers enough to take care of her and 

 keep her warm. Under these requirements 

 such bee men as Langstroth began with quite a 

 large box, which they soon reduced to one 

 whose inside diameter were about 2^ of an inch 

 wide, about 5 inches deep, and 6 inches long. 

 This again became reduced to H inches wide, 3 

 inches deep, and 4 inches loug. In each size, the 

 approximations to which I have named, two 

 movable comb-frames with capped honey, were 

 made fast, or one, as the case might be, and a 

 suitable quantity of bees put on the comb, or 

 combs, with a queen. 



At last I received by express a box with one 

 movable comb three inches long and one inch 

 wide, a queen and forty workers, all the cells 

 filled with honey except half a dozen, and the 

 cells sealed over, and only carpet taclcs to hold 

 the comb in place. I wrote back that the 

 queen was probably chilled on the cold honey, 

 and complained of the insecurity of the comb- 

 frame fastening. Yet the queen came safely 

 fourteen hundred miles, and with such an ex- 

 cess of honey that I had a taste of almost Rocky 

 Mountain honey. 



Thus you see I was prepared for the next 

 step, which was — can a queen be sent safely by 

 mail ? Experience had shown that all these ex- 

 press company packages were too large, that 

 the queen often laid the blank cells on the way 

 full of eggs. Here all the workers had accepted 

 their situation in the rattling cars, and had done 

 the best they could to repair damages, and nurse 

 their queen and themselves up to a fair trim 

 again, at the earliest moment. 



At this point several mail boxes were pro- 

 posed, and only deserve attention. One is a 

 box made of thin lumber, so as to have an in- 

 ternal diameter of about 1^ inch, and is square. 

 Ventilation is given by saw cuts in the sides and 

 ends about an inch long and a sixteenth of an 

 inch wide. This, as I understand it, was to be 

 sent only a few miles. So the bees were fed all 

 they would eat, and sent by mail. 



Among others came a very peculiar bee-box, 

 made by H. Alley, Esq., of Wenham, Essex 

 county, Mass. This is such a neat affair that I 



figure it for the Bee Journal. The first thing 

 is a piece of pine wood about two inches long 

 snd i| of an inch Avide and broad. In this cut 

 out a trough-like excavation as that shown in 

 section in tig. 1, in which the space by the in- 

 side lines is the trough-like excavation cut in it. 



Fig. 1. 



Fig. 2. 



Fig. 2 shows its use, and is a view at 

 right angles to fig. 1. By this figure it 

 will be seen that the trough in fig. 1 is 

 filled with a piece of sponge saturated 

 with honey, and a piece of wire cloth is 

 nailed over the sponge to keep it in place. 

 This sponge feeds the bees while in the mail- 

 bag. To complete the box three pieces of 

 wood are made r quarter of an inch thick and 

 about two inches long. There are two of these 

 nailed to the piece made as in the figures, and 

 the other on the end of the other two thin 

 pieces — thus making part of a box in front of 

 the sponge. A piece ot wire cloth makes the 

 top and bottom of the box. Thus, in the boxed 

 space in front of the sponge, with top and bot- 

 tom of wire cloth, is a place for a queen and a 

 hundred or two of workers; and the sponge has 

 feed enough for fifteen or twenty days. 



Such a box I received last summer from Mr. 

 Alley, with an Italian queen and about fifty 

 workers, safely; and giving her to a powerful 

 artificial swarm she has done well. 



Now let me say that I have no doubt that this 

 queen would have gone safely to the Rocky 

 Mountains or to Texas by mail. That is, the 

 package was good for any distance reached in 

 ten days by mail, in any time from June 10th 

 to October 10th. 



The box was inclosed loosely in paper with 

 my name on it, and came from Weuham, Mass. , 

 near Boston, to me, 450 miles or more, for two 

 cents postage, under the law for the diffusion of 

 seeds and other agricultural products. The 

 Italian stock of Mr. Alley being so pure I was 

 greatly pleased, Mr. Editor, and now tell you 

 and your readers the result. 



