134 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Dec, 



Mr. TJ. S. Terrey, of Bangor, Maine, had hives 

 and bees at our State Fair, and honey also. His 

 hive is eight inches deep, made to set one on top 

 of another, from one section to any number 

 wanted ; but I do not like it. 



I like the Bee Journal very much. 



H. B. Cony. 



Augtista, Elaine, Nov. 3, 1870. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Artificial Queens, and Swarming Fever. 



I cannot let IVIr. Price, in the November num- 

 ber, make a catchword for his hive, with my 

 article of September, 1870. 



The hive I intended to speak of is not the 

 Reversible, Revolvable, Double-cased, Sectional Bee 

 Hive, but simply a modification of the old pattern 

 of the Price hive, as described and engraved in 

 the American Bee Journal, Vol. IV., page 87. 



After having manufactured a number of these 

 hives, I was compelled to break them up ; for the 

 square frames, held angling, were so much re- 

 versible that they capsized badly. In order to 

 prevent that vexatious reversibility, I contrived 

 to re-construct those hives, giving them frames 

 with Jive sides instead o? four. By this means, 

 every frame was increased in surface ; and it is 

 to that increase, and to the shape of the frames 

 that I attribute, in part, the success of my bees 

 hi those hives. 



Mr. Price thinks that our wisdom of artificial 

 queens is runrdng the race out. I have heard 

 some temperance men maintaining that wine is 

 poison. I smiled at that idea, thinking that wine 

 must be a very slow poison, for all my ancestors 

 died more than seventy-five years old, although 

 drinking wine freely at all their meals. I guess 

 it is the same with artificial swarming. For 

 twenty years the Italian bees have been subjected 

 to this mode of queen raising, yet the Italian race 

 is better than the naturally swarmed black bees. 



For instance, this spring I sold to Mr. Roberts, 

 of Provo City, Utah, foui'teen hives, which all 

 had artificially raised queens. Besides those, 

 Mr. Poberts got one hundred and fifty stands of 

 black bees, whose queens were all naturally 

 raised Yet my artificial colonies proved to be 

 so much better than the blacks, that Mi'. Roberts 

 wrote to me, some weeks ago — "I am so con- 

 tented with youv Italian bees, that I wish I had 

 bought all Italians." 



Mr. Roberts will be present at the Bee-keepers' 

 Convention in Indianapolis. Mr. Price, or any 

 other person feeling interested, can question him 

 as to the truth of my allegations. 



Some time ago Mr. Gallup wrote to the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal, that the artificial queens were 

 poorer than natural ones. But he seems to have 

 modified his views on that subject somewhat, for 

 he writes in the October number of the Illustrated 

 Bee Journal — "My theory is that a larvtB fed, as 

 a worker, six days, and then changed to a queen, 

 is but very little if any longer brood than a 

 worker. Yet a cpieen cell, built over an egg, and 

 fed as a queeu from the start, I have not been 



able to discover why they are not as good as a 

 natural queen raised at swarming time." 



Some queens in Gallup's apiary emerged from 

 their cells after eight or nine days. I have never 

 seen queens emerging in eight or nine days. The 

 shortest time I have recorded Avas some six or 

 eight hours less than ten days. 



Let us remark here, that when honey is abun- 

 dant in fiowens, and the Wi'ather warm, no matter 

 in what month, every good colony raising queens 

 gets the swarming fever ; and if the bee-keeper 

 does not remove the supernumerary cells, there 

 is the greatest likelihood that he will get one or 

 more swarms from the colony rearing queens. 



The means used by Mr. Price to obtain or pro- 

 duce the swarming fever are, of course, idle, — 

 that fever being a natural consequence, in a 

 good stock, if building queen cells in favorable 

 weather. 



But I do not see what influence that swarming 

 fever can have on the more or less vitality of the 

 grubs I 



Some credulous people believe that the crop of 

 potatoes is more abundant, if the sets are 

 planted during the old moon, than if set at the 

 time of new moon. I suspect the swarming 

 fever has as much to do with the grubs, as the 

 moon with the potatoes. 



Hence, till some more serious reasons are ad- 

 vanced by Mr. Price, I, and many others, will 

 not admit that, in raising queens artificially, we 

 act against nature, reason, or common sense. 



C. Dadant. 



Hamilton, Ills. 



[For the .American Boe Journal.] 



A Summer's Operations. 



Mr. Editor : — I have been experimenting some 

 with bees, hives, and melextractors, the ]:)ast 

 season. I am too busy at present to write much, 

 but will give you the results of my operations 

 with one colony of Italians. They were in a 

 Langstroth hive with eight frames, in the spring, 

 with a pure Italian queen procured from Mr. 

 W. H. Furman, and introduced late last fall. 



July 10th, had drawn eight frames with brood 

 and bees, to rear queens. 



July 29tli, forced a full swarm "Gallup 

 fashion," with old queen— compelling the old 

 colony to raise a young queen for itself. 



August 10th, transfei-red the old stock to a ten 

 frame hive, giving them two empty frames to 

 fill; and also cut out eight "natural, prolific, 

 hardy cpieen cells." (Price.) 



September 3d, extracted forty (40) pounds of 

 honey and got a No. 1 swarm, leaving jjlenty of 

 honey for winter. 



I do not know how I could get along without 

 the American Bee Journal, and am trying to per- 

 suade all my neighbors to take it also. 



J. E. Benjamin. 



Rockford, Iowa, Nov. 7, 1870. 



Water is absolutely indispensable to be'eswheu 

 building comb, or raising brood. 



