88 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNATi. 



[Oct., 



[For the Americau Bee Jouiual.] 



Hive for Nuclei. 



The experience of a sinple season satisfies me 

 well with a hive for nuclei, made by simply 

 taking the ordinary Langstroth hive, separating 

 it into six compartments, and making the en- 

 trances face in different directions, in this man- 

 ner : 



!l 8 6 



Nos. 1 and 6 have the entrances at the back 

 end of the sides, at the upper corner. Nos. 2 

 and 5 have a hole bored through the bottom, and 

 the bottom board channelled, making the en- 

 trances come out underneath the front end of the 

 sides at the lower corner. The entrance of No. 

 8 is in front, at the rcigular entrance ; and No. 4 

 has an entrance at the back end. 



" But will not the cjueens enter the wrong com- 

 partment, cm returning from their excursions ?" 

 1 have raised fifteen or twenty in a hive of this 

 kind, and liave never lost any. 



Instead of a hcmey board, a strip of board 

 covers each division separately, so that each 

 nucleus can be examined without disturbing the 

 others. 



The ordinary frame is used, and the principal 

 advantage of the hive consists in the mutual 

 warmth gained. 



I think it pays to keep reserve queens con- 

 stantly on hand ; and I mean to try whether I 

 cannot winter a few ciueens in this way. 



I have raised some queens by letting the nucleus 

 have brood to start queen cells from ; but they 

 have been slow coming to maturity ; and after 

 they have laid a few eggs, they are sometimes 

 discarded and a young queen raised from the 

 brood. The trouble seems to be that where 

 queen cells are started hy a small cluster of bees, 

 they do not feed the grubs plentilully enough, 

 and when the queen hatches out not a particle 

 of royal jelly is found in the cell. Whereas, 

 when a strong colony raises a queen, the cell will 

 contain a large quantity of jelly after the young 

 queen emerges. To obtain good queens, I take 

 the following plan. I take a frame containing 

 only eggs laid by my best queen, and put it into 

 an empty hive, and set this in the place of a 

 strong colony. Cells will be startetl and the 

 grubs liberally fed, and as soon as the}'^ are sealed 



over, I cut them out and give them to the nuclei. 

 I then give the hive a laying queen, and two or 

 more frames of sealed biood, according to the 

 time of year, and have a good colony. 



I am w^aiting patiently for Novice to invent a 

 machine for making straight worker comb ; f<jj 

 as yet I have found no way of securing all 

 worker comb, except to have it built by a weak 

 C(jlony. My bees build some drone comb of very 

 strong, even if their queen is not a month old ; 

 and they will build worker comb, whilst raising 

 queens, if weak enough. 



C. C. MiLLEK. 



Marengo, III, Aug. 30, 1870. 



[For tlie .\mericaa Bee Journal.] 



Around among Apiaries. 



Mr. Editor : — As I have been visiting among 

 bee-keeping friends, I will give you a few lines 

 that may interest some of your readers. The 

 season here has been very variable in the yield of 

 honey from the clover blossoms and also from 

 hcniey dew. 



I made a short visit to Hess & Co. 's apiary, 

 some ten miles from Fulton, on the Iowa side of 

 the Mississijipi, who have about one hundred and 

 eighty colonies. Their bees did not yield much 

 white clover or basswood honey, but did well on 

 honey dew. The honey from the latter is very 

 dark and sticky, and to most persons is of poor 

 flavor. Their bees did not swarm much this 

 season, though they are surrounded with all the 

 early flowering trees, such as soft maple and 

 hard elm, willow, and all other kinds natural 

 to our soil, alike on the islands, bottoms, and 

 uplauds. 



I next visited Marvin & Bros., of St. Charles, 

 111. Their apiar}^ numbers one hundred and 

 seventy-five to two hundred stocks. Their bees 

 have not done anything to speak of, and from 

 appearance and prospects, they will have to be 

 fed to go through the winter. There was hardly 

 anj' rain here trom the last of March to the last 

 of June. White clover blossomed very little, 

 and Alsike was almost a failure from the drouth. 

 It did not grow tall enough to be cut for seed, 

 where it did come into bloom. But ]\Iessrs. 

 Marvin are not discouraged. Thej^ think there 

 is a good time coming yet for bees, though it be 

 not this season. They have some of the great 

 Rocky Mountain bee plant growing, but it has 

 not done anything for them since the}' liave had 

 it. It is now in full bloom, yet very seldom a 

 bee lights on it. 



I also made a brief call on M. M. Bald rid £re, 

 the secretary of the great National Bee Hive 

 Company, at St. Charles. His bees wMll like- 

 wise have to be fed, to go safelj^ through tiie 

 winter, if fall pasturage do not supply sufficient 

 honey for their need. Mr. Baldridge is doing a 

 considerable business in manufacturing honey 

 emptying machines, now that the demand for 

 beehives is over for this year. 



I next visited Mr. Thompson, of Geneva. He 

 is young in the bee business, but quite enthusias- 

 tic. Although he lost all his bees last winter, he 

 was not discouraged, but tried again this season. 



