Honey Crop an Entire Failnre. 



Monmouth, 111., July 12, 1880. 

 This has heen to me the most dis- 

 couraging bee year I ever experienced. 

 Not a drop of surplus honey, either 

 comb or extracted, and I can find at 

 least i20 colonies in my apiary with not 

 to exceed a quart of honey in all. I lost 

 a good many colonies by feeding crude 

 or unrefined grape sugar the last of the 

 winter, and others direct from spring 

 dwindling. At no time since winter, 

 except a few days in fruit bloom, have 

 colonies been able to make a living un- 

 less they were extra strong, and hardly 

 then. The old clover (white) was win- 

 ter-killed. What we have had is from 

 seed, and it does not appear to contain 

 honey. T. G. McGaw. 



Introducing Virgin Queens. 



1 would like to have some instruc- 

 tions on introducing virgin queens. I 

 have lost about % of my queen cells 

 and young queens so far this season. I 

 am a beginner. S. G. Haile. 



[The introduction of virgin queens is 

 always attended with great risk, and 

 few. if any, of the most experienced 

 bee-keepers have met with uniform suc- 

 cess. If your colony has been long 

 queenless, introduce a frame of larva? 

 and sealed brood, on which is a well- 

 advanced queen-cell, or into which one 

 has been engrafted. If you wish to 

 supersede a queen with a cell, remove 

 her in the evening ; 24 hours after, de- 

 stroy all cells, and insert a ripe cell in 

 the centre comb. — Ed.] 



Spring Feeding and Honey Crop. 



Theilmanton, Minn., July 11, 1880. 



On June 10 I had to feed my bees ; 

 they were without honey and very weak 

 for want of food up to the 20th; from 

 that day they made their living and in- 

 creased weight a little up to the 29th, 

 when basswood commenced to bloom. 

 They also started to swarm again— the 

 l«i old colonies that 1 have at my ware- 

 house increased to 34; I did not have 

 to feed them. I did not get any swarms 

 from the 107 colonies at my home, 

 though the most of them are getting 

 very strong, and nearly all of them have 

 tilled their hives. Quite a number have 

 gathered from 20 to 30 lbs. of surplus, 

 and some of the young swarms have 

 tilled their hives and 30 lbs. surplus. 

 Basswood has been yielding honey since 

 July 1 ; the trees are loaded yet, and the 

 bees are very busy to-day, even in the 



rain showers which we are having. The 

 basswood will probably last another 3 

 or 4 days ; the honey is of the very best 

 quality (very thick). I extracted some 

 yesterday. I have never seen such a 

 flow of "basswood honey here before. 

 Some of my young swarms filled the 

 combs which I gave them the first day 

 (about % of frames contained comb). 



C. THEIL31ANN. 



Fertile Workers. 



South Stockton, N. Y., July 12, 1880. 



I would like to give you my experi- 

 ence in fertile workers. Mr. C. F. Muth 

 in his correction to the report of the 

 Lexington, Ky., Convention, in the July 

 number, speaking of fertile workers, 

 says: ".I have never seen one, and do 

 not believe that any one else has." In 

 1878 I hived a second swarm, and in 

 about a week I looked in and found they 

 were building nothing but drone comb, 

 and this was well filled with eggs, being 

 from 1 to six in a cell. While looking 

 at them I saw a bee backed into a cell 

 up to its wings. I pinched its head, 

 thinking I had found the laying worker, 

 and closed the hive. In a few days I 

 opened it again, and to my surprise I 

 saw and killed 3 more in the same way. 

 Were they all layers? If not, what 

 w r ere they doing V I destroyed them by 

 giving them 3 frames of hatching brood 

 and a queen cell about 10 days old. My 

 neighbor destroyed one, by hiving in a 

 small after swarm. I am very much 

 pleased with the American Bee Jour- 

 nal,, and wish it success. Bees are now 

 doing well in this locality. Basswood 

 is in full bloom. I have 27 colonies ; 

 lost 16 last winter and this spring. 



W. H. Wakeman. 



[These were evidently fertile work- 

 ers; as they look just like any other 

 bees it is difficult to find them, unless 

 seen in the act of depositing eggs, or 

 discovered by the action of the bees to- 

 wards them. — Ed.] 



Bees Working on Red Clover. 

 Bloomtield, Ind., July 14, 1880. 

 The honey harvest here has closed. 

 There has been good pasturage, but my 

 bees were transferred so late they did 

 not gather much surplus. Black bees 

 worked on red clover here in 1879 and 

 this summer. In 1879 the drought 

 caused the blossoms to be very small, 

 and they worked on the first crop but 

 not on the second. This summer the 

 blossoms were as large as common, and 

 they work nearly as much as on white 

 clover. John C. Gilliland. 



