THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



14!) 



There is no pleasure in the apiary, next 

 to a lieuUhy condition, equal to that of 

 <iueen raising ; anil no disappointment 

 greater than when you liave put your trust 

 in man, and liave sent f-jr tested (pieens at 

 a price and find them wanting. 



I passed a good part of last summer in 

 such disappointments, and as it is three 

 weeks at least before one can detect the 

 imperfections, it is a great loss of time in 

 any apiary ; and it might be a serious loss 

 to one who dependeil upon ciueen raising 

 as a source of income. Late in the season 

 I sent for a low-priced queen, and by 

 return of mail received a beauty, which 

 proved to be pure and prolific, and from 

 her T have raised my early queens. Such 

 has been my experience witii high and low- 

 priced queens. 



For my part I do care whether the color 

 of the queens, young or old, are of the rich 

 chestnut, or tiie lighter and as some think 

 mor(i beautiful goUlen, but I do not want 

 too much of tlie " horrid black," as this 

 makes me disti-ust the purity of tlie ances- 

 try. 



If the queen cell is started from the egg, 

 or from the worm only a day old, and is 

 attended by enough bees to keep it liberally 

 supplied with food and sufficiently warm, 

 I have fountl no dift'erence between such a 

 raised queen and one from a crowded 

 colony at swarming time. 



Have you e^'er known queenless Ijees to 

 take an egg from a laying queen that was 

 caged and put over the frames ? I suspect- 

 ed it, this spring, from the fact that the 

 tirst two or three queens that hatched from 

 a breeding hive, in which I had placed a 

 caged hybrid queen for safe keeping, were 

 of a beautiful golden color, while the rest 

 were nearly as black as common bees. To 

 test this I twice made a colony of bees in 

 empty combs, or combs to which no queen 

 had had access, for at least a fortnight ; 

 and in both instances queen cells were 

 formed near the top of the combs, and eggs 

 deposited in them. In one of them I let 

 the bees raise a queen which proved to be 

 a hybrid. May not this be a source of 

 error, and a reallj' good ciueen cojidemned ? 



In two instances last summer, I found 

 two laying queens at the same time in the 

 same hive. One of these old queens rAier 

 liked the colleague idea for I put her into 

 another colony and after tilling the hive 

 with brood, repeated this partnership oper- 

 ation. In trying this again I lost her, by 

 introducing. E. P. Abup:. 



New Bedford, ^lass. 



I'or ilic .Viucriciiii Wee Journal. 



The Bee Malady. 



The odor exhaled from the hives, and the 

 size of the bees on their return from forag- 

 ing excursions, are always sure indications 

 whether the flowers contain honey. 



The all-ab.sorbing ^opic of the unusual 

 mortality anu)ng bees during the past few 

 years, seems ta be neitiier exhausted nor 

 satisfactorily Explained. My experience 

 in handling bees commenced more than K) 

 years ago, antl I have been an iuterestcid 

 bee-kcepcr the greater part of my life. 1 

 iiave wintered them and closely observed 

 their habits and conditions in the States 

 of New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and 

 Northern Minnesota, where we had four 

 months of steady cold, every winter, and 

 for the last four years in this place, near 

 Cincinnati, <). 



I have read all of interest or importance 

 that has l)een published on the subject in 

 this country ; besides considerable from 

 Germany. I have, during the last ti^'e 

 years, visited many apiaries to try to 

 ascertain the cause of loss or failure, where 

 there had been such. The result of all this 

 research has been to convince me most 

 fully and lirmly that I have obtained 

 enough of the experience of others, com- 

 bined with my own, to enable me to win- 

 ter bees in any climate between the south- 

 ern line of Ohio and Lake Superior region 

 with as little loss as horses, cattle, mules, 

 poultry, or any other farm stock. I am 

 prepared to give facts and figures which 

 w'ill demonstrate the correctness of my 

 views and render them acceptable. While 

 nearly all the prominent bee-keepers of the 

 country have given their views upon the 

 subject of the recent great mortality of 

 bees, no one has, seemingly, solved the pro- 

 blem, even to his own satisfaction ; but 

 nearly all have made some point or points 

 in the right direction. 



Mr. James Bolin of West Lodi, ()., says, 

 in the April No. of the Amekican Bee 

 Journal, p. 75 : "I believe it was caused 

 mainly by cold and disease engendered 

 by the same. That there was dysentery, I 

 freely admit, for I saw the most convincing 

 proofs of that among some of my neigh- 

 bor's hee that died ; but in every case, it 

 was where the bees were wintered on their 

 summer stand or, ]ilaced in cold deposi- 

 tories — no better, if as good as the summer 

 stand." 



Then he goes on to state a number of in- 

 teresting cases which would strongly indi- 

 cate the correctness of his conclusion, and 

 the same has been so often expreseed by 

 Quinby, and many others, and demonstrat- 

 ed by stated facts which cannot reasoua])ly 

 be doubted, we may as well mark down 

 right here one point gained. 



Now we will try to demonstrate as clear- 

 ly that no degree, or continuation of cold 

 experienced in any portion of the United 

 States is sufficient to cause lliis mortalitv 



