146 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



when kept in a cellar, had to be fastened in with 

 a straw mat, patent bee preserver, or something 

 of that sort." Well, you now see that mine are 

 kept in with a little common sense, do you not? 

 Yes, but I can hardly understand it." That is 

 because you do not believe your own eyes. 



Reader, scarcely a week passes all winter 

 without some such conversation as the above 

 on this subject. If I had only ten swarms of 

 bees, and never calculated to keep any more than 

 that number, and had no cellar, I would build 

 a place on purpose to winter them in, and save 

 honey enough every year to pay the expense. 



E. Gallup. 



Osage, Iowa. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



To Capture Queens and Fertile Workers. 



To capture and remove a queen, preparatory 

 to Italianizing, in fifteen minutes, if in a mov- 

 able comb hive, remove the honey boxes, put 

 on the cap, and give them one whiff of smoke 

 from dry cotton rags at the entrance. Then 

 proceed to the next, if you intend to remove the 

 queen from more than one hive, serving them 

 all in the same manner. Repeat the smoke a 

 second time, waiting not more than five minutes. 

 Now take off the caps, setting each by its hive 

 and returning the honey boxes again. You 

 will now catch four out of five queens in fif- 

 teen minutes, as she is the first to go up out of 

 the way of danger. It is not best to wait too 

 long, or you will have more bees to look over. 



If in a box hive, take it from its stand, set- 

 ting a decoy hive in its stead, and invert it, 

 placing an empty hive or box over, closing up 

 any irregularities between the two, and giving 

 the smoke in the bottom of the lower one as in- 

 verted. 



To get rid of a fertile worker. While many 

 have tried and failed, and some have destroyed 

 the whole stock, I will give a method which 

 occured to me after losing a number of good 

 queens and queen cells. It is true that where a 

 colony has been queenless for some time, the 

 bees having no facilities for rearing a queen, 

 will supply themselves with a fertile worker, or 

 a substituted queen, which is difficult to detect, 

 (not differing in appearance from a common 

 worker,) unless she is caught laying. Her 

 presence in the hive may be known by her lay- 

 ing two or three eggs in a cell, skipping about, 

 and laying very irregularly and upon the sides 

 of the ceils. Such a stock I remove from its 

 stand several rods, setting in its room an empty 

 hive, looking as much like the one removed as 

 possible. Now, going to some stock, take a 

 frame of brood and honey, eggs and larva?, 

 shake off the bees, and place it in the empty 

 hive. Then go to the removed one, and take 

 out all the combs but one which contains the 

 least honey; shake off all the bees, and be care- 

 ful to leave every bee in the hive, to return at 

 their leisure. Place the removed combs on each 

 side of your brood comb, to keep warm till the 

 bees return. Now, if the hive containing the fer- 

 tile worker be left open, the whole thing will 



fall a prey to robber bees, and they will return 

 much quicker to their home. The fertile worker, 

 being a substituted queen and having character- 

 istics like a queen, is readily detected and will 

 be stung to death by the robbers, as she would 

 be the last to leave the hive. 



I have never failed in this way. Perhaps 

 others may know of a better method. This cer- 

 tainly is a very good one; and while some have 

 recommended to destroy, the whole swarm, I 

 manage to save them. 



Having been somewhat tedious, I will not in- 

 flict my past ignorance on the readers of the 

 Journal, or what I did with my first bees in 

 old box hives or hollow gums, as ignorance needs 

 no delineation. 



James Bullard. 



Evansville, Wis. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



I see by the December number of the Journal 

 that D. V. Conklin claims that he has a patent 

 on the hive of which I sent a drawing and de- 

 scription to you and the editors of the American 

 Agriculturist and Western Rural. Nine months 

 before the date of his patent, I have made and 

 sold them; and allowed my neighbors to make 

 and use them on the strength of my invention, 

 so that by the act of abandonment,and by sending 

 the drawing and description to the different pa- 

 pers, my invention might become public prop 

 erty. I invented and made the hive four years 

 ago last October and November in Dubuque. 

 Can any man under the circumstances have a 

 a better or more legal right to make and use the 

 hive than I have ? 



I also sent a description and drawing to Mr. 

 E. Gallup on the 15th of April last, which he 

 noticed in the August number of the American 

 Bee Journal. 



The hive has been owned and in use by five 

 different persons during the last year. Can the 

 last invention enforce any pretended rights of 

 inventor, against the first inventor, who made 

 and used it years before the one patenting it 

 ever thought of or invented the article patented ? 

 I do not know that his hive in any way infringes 

 on mine, except from his article in the December 

 Bee Journal. 



I would like to have this published, so as to 



obtain the opinions of the many subscribers of 



the Journal. A reply will be considered a tavor 



by John M. Price, 



and others who are using or going to use 



the Hive. 



To a thinking mind, says Mr. Jesse, few phe- 

 nomena are more striking than the clustering of 

 bees on some bough, where they remain, in 

 order, as it were, to be ready for hiving. 

 Where a hive is fixed over a swarm, the bees 

 will generally go into it of their own accord, 

 uttering at the same time, their satisfied hum, 

 and seeming to be aware of the object in placing 

 the hive so near them. 



No scientific truth can possibly be too trifling 

 or unimportant to be unworthy of preservation, 

 i.- Sir J. & Smith. 



