532 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



satisfy my own doubts. Horsemint is 

 coming up, and there are many other 

 weeds and shrubs, including the mes- 

 quite, which I believe is a dwarf honey- 

 locust. Almost all the flora is new to 

 me, and I have no work on bo,tany 

 adapted to this region, therefore I^will 

 have to wait to see what the bees think 

 about these flowers before I can tell 

 much about whether this is a good, poor 

 or indifferent bee-country. 



My bees arrived too late in the season 

 last year, so I am all impatience to see 

 what they will get from certain flowers 

 which had an abundance of honey last 

 year, when there were no bees to gather 

 it. I do not enjoy sensational stories, 

 yet I believe I have found something 

 good growing on these broad prairies. 



BEES BEHOVING EGGS FBOM CELLS. 



On one occasion my experience was 

 different from that given on page 270, 

 concerning bees removing eggs from one 

 cell to another. A colony lost their 

 queen early in the season ; I examined 

 their combs closely, and saw no brood 

 or eggs. I then cut from a comb of 

 another hive containing eggs, a small 

 square, made a hole in a comb of the 

 queenless hive into which I placed the 

 piece containing eggs. In three or four 

 days I examined the comb, in the hope 

 of finding queen-cells started, but, to my 

 surprise, I found no cells, and the eggs 

 were gone from the square of comb. I 

 replaced it with a fresh section contain- 

 ing eggs, and again examined them in 

 three or four days, finding the eggs 

 missing from the inserted piece of comb 

 again ; but on close examination of the 

 other combs, I found larvEe apparently 

 three or four days old, and eggs not yet 

 hatched. I took care to see that there 

 was no queen in the hive. 



A queen was reared and fertilized, 

 and lived until I pulled her head off a 

 year later. 



PACKING AS AN ABSOKBENT. 



There is a good article "continued" 

 on page 275, by James A. Green. But 

 why use packing as an absorbent, when 

 we want above all things to get rid of 

 the moisture? Why not use it simply 

 as packing, with a non-absorbent inter- 

 vening between it and the bees ? 



I cannot agree with Dr. Brown, on 

 page 277, and could not afford to be 

 sunning moisture away, which my ab- 

 sorbents had collected, when it might 

 just as well have been allowed to collect 

 upon the sides where it would run down 

 to the bottom-board and out of the hive 



without damage to the bees, and without 

 attention from the apiarist. 



I mean no offence, but want the ap- 

 parent inconsistency of these absorbent 

 ideas aired in the Bee Joubnal, and I 

 hope Prof. Cook may give his opinion on 

 this "absorbent" topic. 



Seay, Okla., March 8, 1893. 



The Packmi^-Ca§e Iflethod of 

 Wintering; Bees. 



Written ior the American Bee Journal 

 BY IBA W. EUSSELL. 



My attention has been drawn toward 

 Mr. Green's method of packing bees for 

 out-door wintering. I have wintered 

 bees on that plan for the last three win- 

 ters, with this difference in the method 

 of construction of hives and outside case: 

 My cases contain four hives, as does Mr. 

 Green's, with the difference that the 

 hives are not removable, but are built 

 stationary in the center of the case, with 

 about six inches of space left all around, 

 between the sides and the bottom, for 

 packing material. 



The top of the case is made in two 

 doors hung with hinges to the sides of 

 the case, and when closed they make a 

 roof (gable fashion) to the case. These 

 doors should be high enough to admit at 

 least two supers, on top of hives, and 

 covered with tin. All that is required 

 to prepare them for winter is to raise 

 the doors or covers, and fill the space 

 over the hives with hay or straw. 



I think that when bees are thus pre- 

 pared, they will stand the coldest 

 weather we have in this latitude, which 

 is about 30^ below zero. 



A great many would object to the bulk 

 and weight of such a contrivance, on 

 account of moving and handling. Well, 

 I have not tried to move mine since 

 I placed them in their present position, 

 which was two years ago last fall. 



Right here let me say that I have 

 been experimenting a little with the 

 colony in one of these hives. Last 

 spring I wanted to feed a colony that 

 was weak. One of the colonies next to 

 it was very strong. As I uncovered 

 them, the bees of both colonies ran to- 

 gether over the taps of the frames, from 

 one hive to the other, there being only 

 an inch board between the two colonies ; 

 of course, all they had to do was to 

 crawl over the top edge of the board to 

 go from one colony to the other. 



As they did not fight, I conceived the 

 Idea of feeding both colonies from one 



