where ;i colony has become queenless 

 from some cause, or to provide a suc- 

 cessor for the parent queen, to insure a 

 continuance of the community afterthe 

 queen and bees have swarmed out. 

 When a queen cell is far enough ad- 

 vanced in its construction, it is supplied 

 with a worker egg or young larva,, and 

 this, with the enlarged cell and a plenti- 

 ful supply of "royal jelly," developes 

 a queen. 



Among the enemies of bees are spi- 

 ders, wasps, toads, lizzards, woodpeck- 

 ers, rats, mice, bee-eaters, bears, badg- 

 ers, and many insect-loving birds. The 

 bravery of these little insects in defend- 

 ing their hives ; their sagacity in times 

 of danger ; their wisdom in the order- 

 ing and governing of their communities 

 of from 20,000 to 50,000 bees which in- 

 habit a hive, are all very wonderful, 

 adding another proof to the thousands 

 about us of the wisdom and goodness of 

 God, wlio endows the smallest insect 

 with marvellous powers, and makes 

 even the bees circling over the flower 

 corollas tell-tales of His love and kind- 

 ness, and of His wisdom beyond the 

 1 lower of human hands. 



Freeman, Mo., July 5, 1880. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Natural Swarms— Comb Honey. 



w. x. CRAVEN. 



How and when to get naural swarms 

 and how to succeed in obtaining honey, 

 are questions of much importance. 

 About the time bees begin to gather- 

 honey in the spring or fall, I clip all my 

 queens' wings. I then select a hive 

 which I expect to devote to obtaining 

 comb honey ; I call that hive A. I take 

 all the conilis from it that are destitute 

 of brood, and give them to other hives 

 in exchange for combs well tilled with 

 brood, until I get it filled with brood 

 combs; then I put on 18 or 24 section 

 boxes, and it is nowprepared. A strong 

 colony of bees is the only way to obtain 

 a large yield of box honey. By this 

 operation the colony is so very strong 

 in bees that they are apt to swarm be- 

 fore the honey season is over; the 

 queen'swings being clipped, she cannot 

 fly from the hive ; I catch her at theen- 

 trance, place her in a wire cage, then 

 move the old lave 2 or 3 rods away, 

 place a new one on the old stand, pre- 

 pared as though expecting to hive a 

 swarm naturally, place the queen in the 

 new hive, in the case, between 2 combs. 

 1 Of them containing brood from some 

 other hive, putting an emntv comb in 

 its place ; the new hive is now ready to 



3S9 



receive the natural swarm. The bees, 

 finding they have no queen, will soon 

 return to their old location ; they soon 

 find the queen in a new hive on the old 

 stand, and they enter the hive. About 

 5 days after put on the section boxes. 

 audit will surprise you how fast they 

 will build comb in them. This I find 

 very successful in obtaining box honey. 

 A large yield of nectar will give them 

 a good start. 



The old colony, being much weakened 

 by the swarm leaving them, is apt to 

 stop comb building in section boxes. 

 I start them again right by taking all 

 the combs and giving them to other- 

 hives, exchanging them for comb well 

 filled with brood. Soon they will build 

 comb as rapidly as before swarming. If 

 you desire no more swarms, keep the 

 honey from the brood chamber by using 

 the extractor and cut out all queen cells 

 every 8 or 10 clays. 



I have 1 natural swarm treated in this 

 way, which commenced building comb 

 in section boxes in 2 days after they 

 were placed on the hive ; in each sec- 

 tion I placed a starter of new white 

 comb ; one of these starters was the full 

 length of section box partly filled with 

 new honey, etc. 



Bees have not gathered more than a 

 half crop of honey in all southeastern 

 Missouri, as far as I have heard. We 

 hope the fall will make up for the lack 

 in spring. 



Poplar Bluff, Mo., June 20, 1880. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Sending Queens in the Mails. 



R. L. MEADE. 



The Bee Journal has been instruct- 

 ing us about queen cages, and request- 

 ing all interested in bee-culture, and 

 especially queen breeders, to comply 

 with the postoflice regulations in that 

 particular. 



I will here give a description of one 

 received from the dead letter office at 

 Washington, I). C. on the 16th inst. 

 July 1st I received a notice from the 

 dead letter oilice that a package was 

 detained there for 7 cents insufficient 

 postage ; I sent the 7 cents and received, 

 on theabove date, a package containing 

 dead bees. The cage (or rather "pris- 

 on") is as follows : A piece of inch board 

 about 2Mx23^ inches, with an auger 

 hole 1 ! 4 inches wide and % deep; this 

 contained the bees: behind this there 

 was another hole made by an inch auger, 

 which contained a piece Of sponge and 

 a small bit of candy; between these two 

 auger holes there was a saw-cut and a 

 piece of wire cloth pressed into it and 



