to Dr. Brown's theory of the age of the 

 larvae. It was an admitted fact that the 

 first queens hatched were always the 

 best developed and most prolific, and 

 consequently the larvae, if produced 

 queens first* would be preferable. He 

 thought the age of the larvae made but 

 little difference, whether one or three 

 days old. 



A. Benedict, Ohio, prefers the queens 

 which emerge from the cells first. He 

 thought them better developed, more 

 prolific, and of longer life. 



Dr. Brown, Georgia. — My experience 

 has been that the bees select the best, 

 and concentrate in greater numbers on 

 those, and, as a consequence, they hatch 

 first and produce the best queens. 



Mr. Benedict gave his process of 

 queen-rearing, which consists in giving 

 1 frame of larvae and brood in all stages, 

 then concentrates a heavy force of bees 

 upon it. He thinks larva? one or two 

 days old is the best. 



S. E. Newman, Ohio, lias a neighbor 

 who practiced the grafting process 

 quite successfully last season ; but the 

 colonies reared from those queens were 

 all inferior. 



J. Scholl, Indiana, could, from his 

 own experience^ ully sustain Dr. J. P. II. 

 Brown's process of rearing queens from 

 the youngest larva 1 . 



S. F. Newman stated that nearly all 

 the queens he )mu\ reared by the graft- 

 ing process, had been superseded with- 

 in a year. 



Rev. L. Johnson, Kentucky, thought 

 a larvae fed with royal jelly from its 

 first emergence from' the egg must be 

 best. It is an admitted fact, that the 

 best queens are reared in swarming 

 season, and perhaps at that period the 

 requisite food for rearing good queens 

 is most abundant. If fed with larvae 

 and eggs partially digested, as claimed 

 by some writers, 'then it is necessary 

 that brood in all stages should be given 

 the bees with which to rear the queen. 

 He would not keep a queen in his apiary 

 which has gone longer than eight days 

 before meeting a drone. 



Dr. E. Parmly, New York, said it was 

 possible to give a colony of bees a single 

 egg, from which they would rear a per- 

 fect queen. In fact, if robbed of a queen 

 in mid-winter, they will rear a queen. 



Capt. W. F. Williams, Ohio, has de- 

 voted much time to queen rearing, and 

 endeavors to follow nature in his meth- 

 ods. He prefers giving eggs from which 

 to rear queens, but wants his bees and 

 hive in a normal condition. He has de- 

 voted much of his time in trying to de- 

 velop a better race of bees', and lias 

 met with encouraging success. He had 

 offered a challenge, to forfeit a colony 



of his best bees to any person who could 

 produce a colony of bees with longer 

 tongues than some he had reared, and 

 no one had yet claimed the forfeit. At 

 a recent meeting of the Northwestern 

 Ohio Bee-keepers 1 association, he ex- 

 hibited bees which reached syrup a dis- 

 tance of eleven thirty-seconds of an 

 inch, through fine wire cloth. He is- 

 still breeding with a view to attaining 

 greater perfection in the length of bees' 

 tongues. 



The Secretary read a communication 

 from J. E. Moore, Byron, N. Y., accom- 

 panied with some samples of paper-body 

 comb foundation, paper separators, and 

 honey in Moore's Perfection honey box. 

 The paper for separators and comb 

 foundation is coated with shellac to 

 harden the texture so bees cannot gnaw 

 and destroy it. He says he has tested 

 il thoroughly this season, and asnotone 

 of them has* been injured by the bees, 

 he will hereafter use paper in preference 

 to tin, as it is not only cheaper, but 

 makes a warmer box for bees to cluster 

 in than if no separator is used. The 

 comb foundation is made on lighter pa- 

 per, prepared in the same manner, which 

 is dipped in melted wax and then passed 

 through the rolls. He thinks it an im- 

 provement on wood as a partition wall 

 in making foundation. He reported 

 about half a crop of honey, the short- 

 age being the result of a partial failure 

 of white clover and the destruction of 

 red clover by the clover maggot. 



The Secretary read the following let- 

 ter of inquiry : 



Lansingville, X. Y., Sept. 3, 1S80. 



1. Do you consider the. thin flat-bottom 

 comb foundation, 10 feet to the pound, a suc- 

 cess to use in comb honey ? 



2. How many feet to the pound is in the 

 lightest Dunham foundation for boxes ? 



3. What kind of foundation do you pre- 

 fer for boxes, and also, what shaped starters 

 do you put in, or do you till the box nearly 

 fuli ? 



Very little is said about what kind of 

 foundation is best for the surplus boxes, 

 also, the best shape to put it in the boxes. 

 I wish these questions brought up before 

 the National Convention. 



D. W. Fletcher. 



The following paper, as pertinent to 

 the above questions, was then read : 



Coral) Foundation : 



fits uses, and the Best for all Purposes. 



It may not be out of place to introduce 

 my subject with a reference to Mr. Frede- 

 rick Weiss, the first in America to conceive 

 and manufacture a foundation machine, and 

 with whom your writer has spent many in- 

 structive and interesting hours. The oc- 

 casion of my last interview with him was 

 during the earlier part of this season, when 

 "old Fred." obtained permission from the 



