the woods were filled with wild flowers 

 that lilled the air with fragrance ; the 



marshes that were once covered with so 

 many wild tiowers, where the bees gath- 

 ered' nectar, have disappeared ; but 

 civilization and science have taken the 

 place of our once beautiful wild bee 

 pasture. Scott rightfully says : "Time 

 rolls on its ceaseless course." The past 

 has given bountiful harvests to the bee- 

 keeper without providing for them a 

 pasture to gather honey from ; then we 

 could always find our bees at work dili- 

 gently on some blossom, and, in order 

 to make bee-keeping a reliable indus- 

 try, we must depend upon bee pasturage 

 sown by man. And it should be done 

 so that the bees can continually gather 

 honey, from the earlist blossoms in 

 spring to the last in autumn. 

 La Crosse, Wis., July 19, 1880. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



A Fertile Worker Caught in the Act. 



MRS. D. C. SPENCER. 



As a prominent writer in a recent 

 number of the American Bee Jour- 

 nal expresses the doubt that any one 

 has ever seen a fertile worker, 1 will 

 state that during my first season with 

 the bees, on July 10, 1879, while exam- 

 ining a colony that, through inadver- 

 tance, must have been queenless for 

 some days, and without the means of 

 rearing a queen, I found eggs scattered 

 about promiscuously, sometimes sev- 

 eral in a cell. This I concluded was the 

 result of a fertile worker, and I decided 

 to watch a little. I was soon rewarded 

 by seeing a large worker bee, moving 

 with stately tread across the comb, re- 

 ceiving the attentions and caresses 

 often bestowed upon the queen while 

 engaged in her appropriate duties. In 

 a moment more I, with my husband, 

 who was also watching, saw the same 

 worker deposit an egg in a cell, and be- 

 fore it had a chance to repeat the per- 

 formance 1 caught it with my forceps 

 and soon put an end toall such assump- 

 tions on its part. Eggs and brood from 

 a good queen were given that colony, 

 and in due time it had a laying queen, 

 but quite a largeamountof drone brood 

 from the eggs of the fertile worker 

 failed to mature for want of room, be- 

 ing mostly in worker cells, or for some 

 other reason, and it became putrescent 

 and had to be removed. Supposing that 

 fertile workers were no unusual sight 

 among bee-keepers, I thought but lit- 

 tle about it until I saw the article re- 

 ferred to above, and venture to put on 

 record what I have seen. 



Augusta, Wis., July 20, 1880. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Honey Crop— Feeding and Wintering. 



HIRAM ROOP. 



The season of 1S80 has been the poor- 

 est for bee culture, up to this time, ever 

 known in this locality. We thought 

 last season a very discouraging one, but 

 the present caps anything yet. Through 

 the month of June there was neither 

 honey nor pollen for bees to gather ; the 

 weather was all that could be desired 

 until bass wood bloom, when it rained 

 continually for about 2 weeks. If there 

 should be no fall honey, feeding will be- 

 come the general order of business in 

 this locality. Friend Doolittle considers 

 me bluntin my remarks ; perhaps 1 was. 

 but I did not intend to be uncourteous. 

 I always did Jike to hear people tell 

 what they know. Why any one should 

 think bees were natives of a warm cli- 

 mate I am unable to tell ; for as far back 

 as history goes they were found in the 

 regions of snow and ice ; and previous 

 to the winter of 1871-72 bees surely win- 

 tered best with us when Ave had steady 

 cold weather. In those days, if we had 

 asked any farmer that had several col- 

 onies of bees in all manner of boxes 

 and " gums," if he was not afraid of 

 losing them in winter, lie would have 

 quickly informed us that he never lost 

 any yet in wintering, nor never heard 

 of any one that did, provided they had 

 honey enough. I fear that too many of 

 our most successful apiarists have for- 

 gotten how bees formerly wintered. 



Carson City, .Mich., July 20, 1880. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Bee Notes from California. 



J. D. ENOS. 



Our postmaster refuses to receive 

 queens in the mails. He says that the 

 '• Postal Guide " positively prohibits 

 and particularly mentions them, and he 

 gets his instructions through it. Are 

 queens taken by postmasters on your 

 side of the Rocky Mountains (knowing 

 the contents of the package), or are 

 they " smuggled '" through ? Our post- 

 master is one of the positive kind, and 

 pretends to follow very close the teach- 

 ings of the k " Postal Guide." 



Some time ago bee-keepers were very 

 much elated to think that queens would 

 be allowed the privilege of the mails, 

 but month after month the same posi- 

 tive "No. sir.'" comes from that same 

 • w cubby-hole." Our express company 

 charges 2-5 cents on queens; and from 

 the East the charges are $1.75@2. So 



