232 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[April, 



keepers living in the vicinity of cities and a 

 market, can sell honey in new white comb, in 

 one or two pound boxes, more readily at fifty 

 cents per pound, than the extracted honey in 

 jars of the same capacity, at twenty-five cents 

 per pound. 



The surplus honey we get here up to August 

 is far superior to the fall made honey of North 

 Western Indiana, (of which I have seen a good 

 deal, ) and, I infer, to that of any part of the 

 Western Prairie country. J. H. PlERCE. 



Dayton, Ohio, March 9, 1871. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Facts and Fancies. 



Dear Journal : — I have read you with in- 

 terest and profit ever since the second year of 

 your existence, and have only once occupied your 

 columns. In the meantime, you have grown so 

 plethoric, and provender has become so abundant, 

 that you can afford to be a little choice as to 

 what you take into your capacious maw. Right 

 glad am I of it ; because you have swallowed 

 without a grimace many an undigested and un- 

 digestible morsel. I will add my measure to the 

 pile from which you feed. 



Facts. — Six years ago I got Langstroth's 

 book, and studied it until I had it by heart. I 

 then bought a hive of bees and set to work. I 

 was successful, and soon became the wisest bee- 

 man living, always excepting our author. I 

 could have discoursed for days, filled columns 

 of the Journal, or written a book on bee-keeping. 

 Who could not, after reading Langstroth '? Af- 

 terwards I got Quinby's Mysteries and King's 

 Bee-keeper, if that is the right name. Quinby's 

 book was evidently original, and it would have 

 been good if we had had no better. It demon- 

 strated this, that there never was a hive to equal 

 the common box of the Quinby pattern. It was 

 in midnight darkness about movable comb hives 

 and the modei-n improvements in bee-keeping. 

 As to all the other books I have seen, I would 

 not like to say that every important idea was not 

 taken from Langstroth. Facts may have a 

 moral, as well as fiction. Let us see. 



Moral 1st. — Let not those who are learning 

 the A, B, C of bee-keeping be too impatient to 

 rush into print and spread themselves before the 

 wox'ld. If they go on towards perfection, as I 

 hope they will, they will not feel half so wise in 

 a fewi years. Novice says he is still Novice, and 

 I fancy he is a good deal more humble yet wiser 

 man, than when he first began. Bee-keeping, 

 like religion, sobers with age. Query. — If Lang- 

 stroth was credited with all the information 

 received, directly or indirectly, from Ijim, and 

 which is spread out in bee books and journals, 

 how much that is valuable would be left to be 

 distributed among others? 



Moral 2d. — "Give tribute to whom tribute, 

 honor to whom honor is due." If you think you 

 are not indebted to Langstroth, give up every 

 form of movable comb hives, and go back to the 

 old box. 



Facts. — About a month before the swarming 

 season, I noticed that one of my queens had 

 gone to the opposite side of the hive from the 



brood, and filled all the drone comb there was 

 with eggs. To do this she had to pass empty 

 worker combs. There were no eggs deposited 

 in that part of the hive except in the drone 

 comb, which was filled on both sides. 



IisPEHENCE 1st. — The queen can distinguish 

 between worker and drone comb. 2d. When 

 the queen lays drone eggs, she does it on pur- 

 pose. The abdomen compression theory is not 

 correct.* 



Facts. — Last summer I found two young 

 Italian queens in one hive. Took one out, and 

 left one, — the most beautiful I ever saw. In a 

 few weeks I found about an equal number of 

 most beautiful Italian and common black work- 

 ers. Mortified that my fair young queen should 

 have anything to do with contraband drones, I 

 killed her ; and then I afterwards learned that 

 there was a black qufeen in the hive, Avhich must 

 have come from some of my neighbors a mile or 

 more distant. Alas ! I had in a rash moment 

 killed the finest Italian queen I had ever raised, 

 and on a groundless suspicion. 



Moral. — Don't take things for granted ! Bee- 

 keepers, especially the kind that get up new 

 hives, draw some sash conclusions. Always " be 

 sure you are right, then go ahead !" 



Facts. — Having received the right to make 

 and use the Jasper Hazen hive, I made an ex- 

 periment ; but did not make his hive. I took 

 all of the combs from one of my strongest colo- 

 nies in May, and added two combs from another 

 hive. I suspended six of these combs side by 

 side, and I'iglit over them I suspended the other 

 six. This made a tall, nari'ow hive. I built upon 

 both sides and over the top with surplus honey 

 boxes. I turned in all the bees, and kept them 

 from swarming. I wanted to get all the boxes, 

 which would hold 175 lbs., filled with honey. 

 The plan was for the bees to commence in tlie 

 side boxes and deposit the honey just beside the 

 brood. But some bees have no sense. These 

 persisted in climbing away through two sets of 

 combs and putting the honey in the boxes over 

 the top of the hive, where it could be of no 

 earthly use to them in the winter. After these 

 boxes were filled and the honey sealed, they 

 were compelled to go into the side boxes ; but 

 they seemed to be in the sulks about it, and did 

 not half work until I lifted some empty boxes 

 on the top of the hive. 



Moral 1st. —Don't take everything as gospel 

 that is said about side boxes. 



Moral 2d. — Before you get too many of these 

 hives, find out whether you have the side-box 

 breed of bees. I haven't. John. 



* The "abdomen compression " theory may not be 

 correct, yet it strikes us that the fact that the queen, 

 passing over worker combs, laid dro7ie eggs in drone 

 cells, does not prove its fallacy. It shows only what 

 has long been known, that she can distinguish the 

 different kinds of cells — Ed. 



At a California fair recently, several Jt)ottles of 

 sti'ained honey were put on exhibition, when a 

 chap put a bottle of castor oil with the rest. The 

 opinion of all who tried it was that the bee that 

 laid it was a fraud. 



