228 



THE AMEEICAN BEE JOURNAL- 



[April, 



the way I propose, I thought T would exchange 

 combs," &c. "If you have a way of providing 

 queen cells, please give it through the Journal. 

 I mean a way of getting the bees to start them 

 in sufficient numbers." (March 13, 1870, Il- 

 lustrated B. J. for June.) 



"1 gave them queen cells and they hatched 

 out a week ago .... You see my mode is not 

 theory but facts" .... (June 20, A. B. J. for 

 November, 1870.) 



The artificial queens are cripples, drone-laying, 

 &c. 9 



" I am trying the experiment of raising forced 

 queens from the brood of a pure Italian queen 

 received last spring, but so far I have only suc- 

 ceeded in raising cripples, drone-laying and egg 

 non-hatching queens." — A. B. J., November, 

 1870. 



The naturally raised queens can also be crip- 

 ples, drone-biying, (fee. 



"The 25th of June, the hive having twenty- 

 three or twenty-five queen cells, the Italian queen 

 led out a swarm .... Of these queen cells (raised 

 under the swarming impulse) I secured seven 

 queens. One was without wings, one became 

 drone-laying, one laid eggs which would not 

 hatch."— A. B. J., January, 1870. 



The queen received from Ch. Dadant was not 

 good, because she was artificially raised. "I 

 have only one artificial queen laying : my pure, 

 prolific Italian. I will guarantee any of my 

 black, young or old, or other natural queens, to 

 fill five frames with brood quicker than she can 

 fill one."— A. B. J., November, 1870. 



The queen received from Ch. Dadant was not 

 good, because she was chilled on her journey. 

 " I think the chilling she received on her transit 

 from Hamilton, Illinois, to Winthroii, had a 

 good deal to do with herunprolificness." — A. B. 

 J., January, 1871. 



After copying the above quotations, I could 

 leave the reader to draw the conclusion, but I de- 

 sire to add a few remarks. 



Mr. J. M. Price says that he. has failed to raise 

 good queens. True, he has never raised queens 

 up to July, 1870, though he has made artificial 

 swarms in the worst way possible ; that is, spoil- 

 ing his colonies by dividing them to the utmost 

 (ten from one.) No wonder if he got so many 

 worthless queens. No good queen breeder ever 

 used so defective a method. He finds the queens 

 started in good colonies better than those raised 

 in his needy swarms, and he mistakes in guess- 

 ing that his good success came from the swarm- 

 ing impulse, when, on the contrary, it came from 

 the milieu in which the queens were started. 



He proposes to give his method of artificial 

 swarming ; but we have already read his method 

 three times in the A. B. J. for 1868, 1869 and 1870. 

 Is it a new edition of the same, or a new method ? 

 If the latter, we may fear to get a mode not suf- 

 ficiently experimented upon, for Mr. J. M. Price 

 is very fast in drawing his conclusions. For in- 

 stance, he received his first Italian queen in June, 

 1870, and three or four months after, he gives 

 his opinion as to the prolificness of the Italians, 

 although his queen had been impaired on her way 

 to Winthrop. 



That queen was raised in March-April, in a 



strong stock found queenless. This colony, after 

 having received a comb of brood, constructed 

 six queen cells. All of these, but one, were in- 

 troduced in black colonies, and her sisters proved 

 to be as good as any. 



On receiving the letter of Mr. John M. Price, 

 asking for a pure, tested queen, I took special 

 care to choose a good one, in order to satisfy 

 him, and to prove to him that his ideas on arti- 

 ficial queens were mere conjectures. After open- 

 ing five or six hives, the queen referred to was 

 chosen, because she seemed the most prolific, 

 having in forty days filled her hive with bees 

 and brood. The queens raised from her brood, 

 after her departure (her daughters,) proved to 

 be hardy and prolific also. 



Of course, I was greatly puzzled, when I re- 

 ceived two letters from Mr. Price, saying that 

 the queen sent was very unprolific, and attribut- 

 ing her unprolificness to artificial raising. It is 

 only in the A. B. Journal for Januarj^, that he 

 has avowed the probable cause. 



We Frenchmen are often charged with the de- 

 fect of being very sanguine. I guess friend 

 Price was as much, if not more sanguine than 

 any true Frenchman, in drawing his conclusions. 

 Moreover, we see that he is not very consistent, 

 although he wrote somewhere: "Consistency, 

 thou art a jewel." (Illustrated B. J., September, 

 1870.) 



Ch. Dadant. 



Hamilton, III, Jan., 1871. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Wintering Bees. 



My communication of December 9th last, left 

 my bees in their summer stands. The next 

 morning found the temperature at 18" F., with 

 indications that winter was upon us. We there- 

 fore gave our cellar full ventilation, lowered the 

 temperature therein to 34", and immediately 

 proceeded to remove our bees thither. We closed 

 the entrance, mode all dark, and removed the 

 caps from the hives, piling them (i\\Q caps) in 

 one corner out of the way, leaving the hives \,i/ 

 open, with the very material exception that there X 

 was wire cloth thrown over the tops of the 

 frames, and a newspaper spread lightly over the 

 wire cloth on each hive. Friend Gallup says 

 "great is humbug." So say we, but with the 

 next breath we exclaim "very convenient is wire 

 cloth." 



We' succeeded in keeping all things to our 

 satisfaction for a long time, but when the coldest 

 snaps were upon us, the temperature of the cellar 

 would run down to 18" or 20". The only con- 

 solation we had was, that even at these figures, 

 it was much milder than on the outside. 



The bees remained as quiet as could have been 

 expected till February 16th, when hive No. 3 

 became noisy. We gave them more ventilation 

 by removing the paper from the top. The next 

 day No. 8 was in the same fix, and was treated 

 in a similar manner. We had grave doubts as 

 to the propriety of giving them so much cool air, 

 but what else could have been done to keep them 

 from worrying themselves to death. 



