778 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



sled. This was tho nucleus of future 

 bee-keeping. 



Returning from the army a physical 

 wreck of his former self, bee-keeping 

 showed a fairly good opening for a crip- 

 ple, and so he went to work with a will, 

 and soon had about 100 colonies in the 

 back yard. By always striving to have 

 his honey in extra-fine condition, Mr. 

 S.'s sales were uniformly good, and dur- 

 ing the years from 1865 to 1869 prices 

 reached 75 and SO cents per pound for 

 comb honey. 



In 1864 the manufacture of bee- 

 hives and fixtures was begun on a small 

 scale, and continued for five years, 

 when, on account of continued ill-health, 

 it was decided to change climate. In 

 March, 1870, a westward move was 

 made, landing on the broad Nebraska 

 priarie in York county, then unorgau- 

 ganized. There he opened out a farm, 

 with hired help, and has since made it 

 his home. He is located one-half mile 

 outside the present limits of the city of 

 York. In connection with two sons, 

 Mr. Stilson built a shop for the manu- 

 facture of apiarian goods, which they 

 have made and sold for the past seven 

 years. There, also, is published the 

 Nebraska Bee-Keeper, of which Mrs. 

 Stilson is the editor. 



Fruits, flowers, and garden truck are 

 raised for the markets, which with an 

 80-acre farm and the apiary, give pretty 

 steady employment for the husband and 

 wife, three sons and a daughter, besides 

 hired help in time of hurry. Amid this 

 hurry and bustle, Mr. Stilson can al- 

 ways find time to talk bees to any and 

 all comers, while fine samples of honey 

 are always "on tap." 



Mr. S. is now serving his third year as 

 Secretary of the Nebraska Bee-Keepers' 

 Association, and as one of its officers 

 has done much to accomplish the estab- 

 lishment of an experiment apiary at the 

 State University. For the past two 

 winters he has been engaged to lecture 

 on bees in the Farmers' Short Course at 

 the University, as well as at various 

 Farmers' Institutes throughout the State. 



answered by 

 Marengo, III,. 



In this department will be answered those 

 questions needing immediate attention, and 

 such as are not of sufficient special interest to 

 require replies from the 20 or more apiarists 

 who help to make "Queries and Replies" BO 

 interesting on another page. In the main, it 

 will contain questions and answers upon mat- 

 ters that particularly interest beginners.— Ed. 



Introducing Queens. 



I successfully introduced nine queens 

 in succession by thoroughly smoking the 

 bees with tobacco smoke, and opening 

 the cage and letting the queen run in, 

 but failed on the tenth. The tenth was 

 during a honey-flow — the others promis- 

 cuously. Why did I succeed with the 

 nine and fail on the tenth ? Is it a good 

 plan ? . L. H. 



McLean, O. 



Answer. — There are some things 

 about bees you mustn't expect ever to 

 find out. The thing you want now to 

 know, is one of them. If you will no- 

 tice the different reports of plans for 

 introducing, they are not generally 

 given as infallible, but succeeding so 

 many times in so many cases. The next 

 5 or 10 or 20 times you may succeed all 

 right, but I suppose in the exceptional 

 cases of failure there is some little kink 

 of difference not easily noticed, either in 

 your plan of operation or in the condi- 

 tion of the bees. If you succeed nine 

 times out of ten, I should say the plan is 

 not a bad one. 



A Q,ueen-Cell Question. 



This spring I had a colony of bees that 

 were preparing to swarm by building 

 queen-cells. As I did not want this, I 

 divided them, putting the queen and 

 most of the brood on the new stand, and 

 the eggs and most of the bees on the old 

 stand. I cut all the queen-cells out of 

 the old colony, but one fine looking one 

 containing an egg ; this the bees fur- 

 nished with royal jelly and sealed over. 

 To-day (about 2 weeks after) it was 



