80 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Oct, 



combs, they produced for me 138 lbs. of lioaey, 

 the same season. 



Last spring I liad a first-rate honey slinger 

 made by a brother bee-keeper in tliis city, and 

 commenced the season with twenty colonies — 

 fourteen of which were Italians or hybrid. As 

 the bees commenced storing honey very early, 

 my expectations were quite tlattering, though I 

 did not obtain as much honey as I anticipated. 

 Several mistakes which I happened to make, 

 account for this, in part ; but my honey-harvest 

 is respectable still. Here is a statement of it : 

 38-1 lbs. of honey in frames. 

 1,350 " machine strained honey. 

 23 " beeswax. 



As beeswax sells at the same price here that 

 lioney does, we may count it with the rest, and 

 thus we have 1,757 lbs. as the product of twenty 

 hives of bees in the city of Cincinnati. This 

 certainly speaks well for our Italian bees, and for 

 bee-keeping in a large city. M3' black bees have 

 done well, but I think my Italians have uiven 

 me nearly twice as much honey. Every one of 

 my twenty colonies is now strong. 



I was induced last month to make four more 

 swarms, by taking from each hive about two 

 frames with brood, honey, and adhering bees, 

 and giving an Italian queen to each swarm. I 

 have thus twenty-four Italian stands of bees, in 

 a No. 1 condition. 



Last year I wintered my bees on tlieir summer 

 stands, by leaving the lioney board in its proper 

 pUce and covering it with about half a dozen 

 coffee bags or pieces of old carpet. I placed a 

 smooth bag next to the board, to cover well the 

 openings. This plan did very Avell. I did not 

 lose a single colony, and intend to winter them 

 the same way this year. In the earlier part of 

 the winter I lost a great many bees, for the 

 reason that I had neglected to cut winter j)hs- 

 sages through the combs. Tiiis having been 

 done afterward, on the first mild day we had, 

 my bees then got along first-rate. Before this was 

 done, I sometimes found hundreds of be( s dead 

 in tlie cells on the outside of combs which sepa- 

 rated them from tlie cluster — showing clearly the 

 necessity of winter passages. Most of those 

 l)arts of combs had already a putrid smell, and I 

 thought it best to cut them out. 



I have seen it stated several times that bees get 

 irritated by tobacco smoke, and are more apt to 

 sting for several days aftei-wards. This may be 

 true of the black bees. They will bother me 

 sometimes, in spite of my cigar. But I think 

 those assertions are only made by non-smokers. 

 All I want is a cigar, and I will open every one 

 of my hives, take out eveiy frame, and replace it 

 every day for a week successively, without find- 

 ing my bees any more angry at the end than 

 they were at the beginning. 



I learned how to oi)en a hive from Mr. Gallup, 

 through one of the numbers of our Bee Jour- 

 nal. I hardly blow any smoke at the bees, but 

 over them ; and I keep my cigar in the mouth, 

 while Mr. Gallup keeps his pan with sawdust by 

 his side, until the projier time arrives for the 

 application of a little smoke. I think there are 

 no more peaceable hives than mine in the 

 country. 



Now, Mr. Editor, I do not want to exhaust 

 your patience, and wish you to make use of this, 

 or of such portions only, as j'ou may think 

 proper. Chaules F. Muth. 



Cincinnati, Ohio, August 16, 1870. 



[Fur the American Bee .Tournal.] 



The Looking Glass Aga,in. 



On page G7 of the last number of the Bee 

 JouKNAL, Ignoramus criticises n)y article on page 

 34 in regard to the looking glass, and says the 

 glass has been tried three times this year to his 

 knowledge, and three swarms of bees secured. 

 But lie gives us the particulars in only one case, 

 and then guesses at my reply, which is perhaps 

 correct ; or the swarm may have had two or 

 more yomig queens, and a small portion with 

 one queen settled on one tree, while two or more 

 queens with the larger portion of the swarm settled 

 on another. After a few minutes, all these latter 

 queens may have been simultaneously killed, and 

 then the bees went to the other tree and joined 

 the small portion with the one queen. As to the 

 bees coming down to the ground, that is oiten the 

 case. AVlien a swarm issues, the bees are so full 

 of honey that it is difficult for them to fly, and 

 they often light to rest. I have often had swarms 

 to settle in three or four places, though they had 

 but one cjueen, remain for ten or fifteen minutes, 

 and then all join the cluster with the queen. Just 

 so with the old wonuin's bees. They may have 

 just been in the act of going to join the cluster 

 with the queen, when she saw them. 



Ignoramus also tells us how to secure swarms 

 with a linot. Well, sir, I have never tried the 

 Icnoi, but I have tried the mullein tops tied in a 

 bunch and attached to a pole, &c., and also a~ 

 piece of old black comb attached to the under 

 side of an inverted bottom board swung to a pole, 

 with cord and pulley, to raise and lower, as the 

 bees would rise or fall. But alter trying both fur 

 a whole season, when I had more than a hundred 

 swarms to issue without a bee lighting on either, 

 I gave it up as a failure. I ttiiiik it likely his knot 

 theory will answer very well in a prairie country, 

 or any place where there is nothing for the bees 

 to light on. But where they are surrounded with 

 as many shady fruit trees as mine are, they will 

 mostly select a leafy brancli to settle on. When 

 1 allowed my bees to swarm naturally, I had two- 

 thirds of the swarms, or more, to settle on the 

 under side of my grape arbor ; which proves that 

 they prefer a cool shady place to a bare pole with 

 a knot on it. 



Ignoramus says I remind him of an old Dutch 

 lady, etc. Well, sir, I am like the Dutch in one 

 respect ; that is, I am in favor of progress ; but 

 I am not like the old Dutch lad}' you refer to, 

 for I was persuaded by your suggestion to look 

 again into the glass and well. Yesterday was a 

 clear, bright sunshiny day. I took a glass some 

 fifteen inches square, and just as Ignoramus said, 

 I saw different from what I did on the other oc- 

 casion. I saw the water in the well and my own 

 jwetty face in the glass— nothing more. I am now 

 ready to try any other experiment that Ignoramus 

 may suggest; but my opinion is, the better plan 



