AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



87 



soaks up all the moisture from the 

 candy, or the cage is shipped through a 

 part of the country where the Sun is 

 doing his best to burn everything up, 

 and the air is as hot and dry as if it 

 came out of an oven, then, I say, such 

 candy will be as hard and dry as the 

 very rocks of the de.sfirt through which 

 the unfortunate queen is obliged to pass. 

 To make all candy of the greatest pos- 

 sible benefit to the queen and bees, the 

 compartment, as I have already said, 

 should be waxed so that the honey will 

 not be absorbed by the wood. 



One thing I would do if I were mak- 

 ing a business of shipping bees to this 

 part of the country from the East or 

 South during the summer and a part of 

 the spring, would be to have my ship- 

 ping-cages contain a small phial so 

 corked that the bees could sip out as 

 much water as they required. Such 

 cages could be constructed for very little 

 more than they now cost. I think if 

 they were made in the right way, that 

 they need not weigh over an ounce when 

 provisioned and ready to ship with the 

 queen and bees. When so constructed, 

 such a cage would not require so much 

 candy, which would make it lighter; 

 then some of the wood could be bored 

 away to make room for the phial. I re- 

 member that a cage something like the 

 one I have in mind, was made and used 

 some ten years ago to some extent by 

 Eastern breeders. Instead of the water 

 receptacle being made of glass, it was 

 made of tin. That these cages did not 

 come into general use for shipping pur- 

 poses I attribuie to the fact that they 

 were made too shallow. 



I think if our queen-breeders will not 

 construct their shipping-cages with 

 water reservoirs in them, or if they can- 

 not make a "candy" that will remain 

 perfectly soft for six or ten days with- 

 out either becoming too soft or too hard, 

 so that a small cage need not weigh over 

 one ounce when ready to drop into the 

 post-office, then they should demand in 

 their advertisement that when queens 

 are to be sent to distant places (say 

 2,000 miles or across the continent to 

 points on the Pacific coast), the pur- 

 chaser should add enoug^h more to the 

 listed price to pay for the cost of extra- 

 sized shipping cases and provisions. I 

 think that 10 cents would be a fair 

 price to add for this extra cost. This 

 would allow the shipper to use an export 

 cage, or one of those reservoir cages 

 containing water. A little more liberal- 

 ity on the part of both purchaser and 

 breeder would be the means of saving 

 the life of many a queen-bee ; it would 



also be the cause of saving the breeder 

 replacing a good many queens that die 

 when being shipped to a distant point, 

 and the purchaser would be saved a 

 good deal of annoyance, as he would not 

 have to wait, as I have had to do on 

 more than one occasion, before getting 

 a live queen. I have always felt sorry 

 for a breeder whose queens die en route 

 to the purchaser ; it makes me feel that 

 I would like to share the loss with him 

 when such queen was sent to me. 



It was my intention to give the names 

 of the several persons in the East and 

 in the South, that I carried on my ex- 

 periments with, but the present nature 

 of this article will, I think, make that 

 entirely unnecessary ; besides, as some 

 of these persons were queen-breeders, 

 some of my readers might think that I 

 was endeavoring to give them a free 

 advertisement. 



In leaving this subject, I would again 

 impress upon the breeder who is about 

 to ship a queen to this part of Califor- 

 nia, or for that matter, to any part of 

 this State, to be sure that the candy he 

 intends to provision his cage with, will 

 remain in a nice, soft condition during 

 the entire trip, and that the ventilation 

 be ample during the summer and limited 

 during the spring, as during the latter 

 time the bees may have to pass through 

 a mountainous country much colder 

 than the region where they were reared. 

 Do not think that because your queen is 

 going to California she is going to get 

 into Paradise the moment she leaves 

 your hands. There may be a very 

 severe purgatorial period before her, 

 and, perhaps, this probationary spell 

 might be so severe upon her that she 

 might be obliged to go to a worse place 

 than to California. 



North Temescal, Calif. 



* ' A ;?Ioderii Uee-Farm and Its 



Economic Management," is the title of a 

 splendid book on practical bee-colture, t>y 

 Mr. S. Simmins, of England. It is .5%x8>^ 

 inches in size, and contains 270 pages, 

 nicely illustrated, and bound in cloth. It 

 shows "how bees may be cultivated as a 

 means of livelihood; as a health-giving 

 pursuit ; and as a source of recreation to 

 the busy man." It also illustrates how 

 profits may be " made certain by growing 

 crojjs yielding the most honey, having also 

 other uses ; and by judgment in breeding a 

 good working strain of bees." Price, post- 

 paid, from this office, SI. 00; or clubbed with 

 the Bee Journal for one year, for J1.60. 



