about this matter; our observations 

 were careful and prolonged, and must 

 certainly have resulted in detecting the 

 harm complained of had any been done. 

 That none was done we are positively 

 certain, and we feel that these hard 

 workers deserve a good word in return 

 for the odium cast upon them by the- 

 orists and careless observers." 



Another writer says : " I have several 

 colonies of black bees, and close by sev- 

 eral varieties of grapes, and never be- 

 fore this summer did they in large 

 numbers visit the grapes ; but this sea- 

 son, when the grapes ripened, the Clin- 

 tons in particular, being the most per- 

 fect, full and large for the kind, burst 

 their skins, many half way round, from 

 some cause unknown to me, so that the 

 air around was filled with the delicious 

 sweet smell of the ripe fruit, which 

 naturally invited the bees to come and 

 regale themselves, and sip the nectar 

 now open to them. Concords near by 

 were not near so perfect this year, and 

 few burst their skins when ripening, 

 and few bees gathered about them. 

 Delawares, nearest to the hives, were 

 also very perfect, but none burst their 

 skins, and no bees visited them. Now, 

 if the bees had cut the grapes open, is 

 it not natural and reasonable that they 

 would have also cut the other and 

 sweeter kinds, as more to their taste, 

 particularly the Delawares V" 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Comb Foundation on Wood, Etc. 



L. MARTIN. 



I have been thinking for some time 

 of the wood foundation, but had not as 

 yet perfected a plan for excavating the 

 pointed bottom for the cell. Now can- 

 not a foundation machine be made of 

 material hard enough to indent soft 

 wood, after wiping it dry, in hot wax. 

 thus making a wax-coated wood bot- 

 tom comb for all brood and extracting 

 purposes V I thought when I first saw 

 your article on '\New Inventions in 

 England," on page312of the Bee Jour- 

 nal for July, that they had my plan, 

 lull they had only begun the job. Now 

 it only remains for some one to finish it. 



The Season—Wintering. 

 My bees are doing fine. You may 

 perhaps recollect I was one of the Jack- 

 son Convention members that advo- 

 cated cellar wintering. I put in 20 col- 

 onies and took out 19 ; 1 hive being left 

 by the bees nearly full of honev. no 

 bees, either dead or alive, remained. 

 I always leave their entrances open, 

 and they had left the hive and joined 



other colonies, most likely for want of 

 a queen. I have had 26 natural swarms, 

 and nearly all full ; I have put the boxes 

 on all, finishing them last Friday. My 

 first swarms have filled their stock 

 hives, and some have gathered 28,31, 

 37 and 3S 1 ., lbs. of honey— comb and 

 extracted. " My surplus is obtained in 

 frames, so I cut out the heaviest, and 

 extract the lightest, then the bees are 

 ready to go right to work again. 



Troublesome Ants. 



I get the advantage of the ants by 

 taking a 2-inch plank for the platform 

 to put the hive on ; drive into it 4 20-d 

 nails for legs ; take 1-10 inch sheet lead, 

 make scallop dishes about 3 inches in 

 diameter and 1 inch deep ; put them 

 level on some % bricks, and fill the 

 dishes with crude petroleum, and set 

 the legs in them ; then I am sure of not 

 being troubled by ants. 



From the Prairie Farmer. 



How to Rear the Best Queens. 



MRS. L. HARRISON. 



The most important member in a col- 

 ony is the queen. She should be called 

 the mother-bee, as she is the mother of 

 every bee in a colony — that is, in a nor- 

 mal condition. The workers are females 

 whose ovaries or " egg-bags" are not 

 fully developed ; they never mate, and 

 although an occasional one lays, her eggs 

 produce only drones. The value of a 

 colony depends almost entirely upon a 

 queen; if her progeny is industrious, 

 swift in flight, and have tongues of suf- 

 ficient length to reach the nectar im- 

 bedded in blossoms, an astonishing 

 large amount of honey will be gathered 

 during a prosperous season, lint if the 

 queen is superannuated, and, like an old 

 hen, lays few eggs, and a majority of 

 them drone eggs, the colony will be 

 scarcely able to make a living, and 

 produce no surplus. It does not pay to 

 keep any queens that are not regular 

 thoroughbreds. 'Whether there are any 

 bees better than Italians remains to be 

 proven. 



In choosing a queen to breed from, 

 whether a native or Italian, let her be 

 the very best of her kind. Her progeny 

 should be industrious and energetic, 

 and able to take care of themselves. 

 The eggs from the selected queen may 

 be utilized in any way for the rearing 

 of queens that is most suitable to the 

 wishes of their owner. If the queen is 

 removed from her colony, they will 

 start queen cells in a few hours. Most 

 apiarists claim that queen cells reared 

 in a full colony are better than when 



