AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



689 



of oui- brethren recommended the tak- 

 ing of queens out of full colonies, which 

 were to be sent off, and leaving them in 

 a nucleus a week before they were ship- 

 ped, for in this way they became like a 

 queen that had just got to laying in a 

 nucleus, and such queens were scarcely 

 ever injured by shipment. 



Putting the whole together, I believed 

 that the trouble lay in the sudden and 

 unnatural stopping of a queen from lay- 

 ing the thousands of eggs in the process 

 of formation at the time she was taken 

 from the hive ; so I went about experi- 

 menting to see if I were right. 



I caught two of my most prolific 

 queens and caged them the same as I 

 would for shipment, giving them the 

 usual number of bees for an escort, plac- 

 ing them in my shop, where I would 

 occasionally handle them and give them 

 about the usage I thought they must 

 receive when going by mail or express. 

 Others were caught and handled as care- 

 fully as possible, all being kept from the 

 hive from fqur days to two weeks, some 

 even having the workers renewed on ac- 

 count of the first set dying from con- 

 finement; and upon returning them as 

 heads of colonies again, at least one- 

 third of them proved of little value after 

 that, none of them fully coming up to 

 their former prolificness afterward while 

 they lived. 



Having solved the matter to ray satis- 

 faction — that queens were injured by 

 suddenly stopping them from prolific 

 egg-laying, and not by the usage they 

 received in the mails — I next went about 

 finding out if this prolificness had any 

 effect on the daughters from these once 

 prolific queens, but now almost valueless 

 mothers, and I am pleased to be able to 

 go on record as saying that, so far as I 

 can see, such injured queens give just as 

 prolific daughters after their confine- 

 ment as they did before. Since then my 

 advice has always been, where I have 

 had occasion to say anything about the 

 matter, that the receiver of a queen 

 which he has bought for breeding pur- 

 poses, should go about rearing queens 

 from her at once or immediately, as soon 

 as any of her brood is old enough to use 

 for that purpose. In this way the buyer 

 can get a good return for his money, 

 even if this individual queen should not 

 turn out all that he would have her be, 

 as has been the case with many I have 

 purchased. 



I hope Mrs. Atchley, or others, will 

 not take this unkindly, for, as I said at 

 the outset, I felt that duty and truth de- 

 manded that I write what 1 believed 

 from past experience to be the real facts 



in the case. Based upon Mrs. Atchley's 

 assertions, already uncharitable letters 

 are coming in, denouncing some of our 

 queen-breeders as knowingly sending 

 out poor queens, while I cannot believe 

 that such is the case, as all queen-breed- 

 ers have a reputation at stake which 

 would not allow them to do such things, 

 even did they not otherwise scruple to 

 do this. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



Salt-f aslel OIJ Hl?es for Si arms. 



Written Jor the American Bee Journal 

 BY G. P. HACHENBERC4, M. D. 



For the last few years, except the 

 present one, I had very bad luck in re- 

 taining my swarms of bees after I had 

 them hived. Sometimes they would not 

 enter the hive at all, or would leave in 

 about an hour — at least they would be 

 gone the next day. When too late, last 

 year, I suspected the cause of it. For 

 the last several years old hives accumij- 

 lated on my hands, where the bees had 

 been destroyed by moth. I used some 

 of these hives, in hiving the bees, after 

 giving them a thorough cleansing. It is 

 evident that there was a peculiar efflu- 

 via, shreds of webs, or something about 

 them, that was offensive to the bees, 

 and caused them to leave. 



This year I concluded again to use the 

 same worm-eaten hives, and see if by 

 some means I could not make them ac- 

 ceptable to the bees. Both hives and 

 frames I had again cleansed as before. 

 I waxed over that part of the frames for 

 the attachment of the combs (but that 

 was done before), for I do not use foun- 

 dation ; the hives I had well scrubbed 

 over on the inside with a saturated solu- 

 tion of table-salt. The bottom-board I 

 had likewise cleaned and rubbed over 

 with salt water. • 



In the above manner ,1 prepared a 

 number of hives, and had them placed 

 in the apiary for immediate use as the 

 swarming took place. I did nothing else 

 to allure them to accept the hives. It 

 was simply glorious to see the bees rush 

 into these hives, and they went Jn to 

 stay. Of course I won, and was fully 

 satisfied with the experiment. It may 

 not be necessary to state that all animal 

 and insect life are fond of salt — bees not 

 excepted. 



Last year I made special efforts to re- 

 tain my swarms, then not knowing what 

 was wrong, by the introduction of 



