178 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



the bees very much for a few miuutes. 

 Those -who will take the trouble can keep 

 the ants away by rubbing the outside of the 

 liive with green elders or turpentine, or 

 corperas, but none of this will keep the 

 cockroaches away. 



I find the cockroaches very thick in my 

 apiary all summer, and in winter they are 

 on top to enjoy the warmth of the bees, 

 and inside of weak stands. That they do 

 steal honey and live on it through the win- 

 ter there is no questioning. In proof of 

 their fondness for honey, I have often set 

 out mugs and bowls with honey and water 

 to drown moth flies at night, but the result 

 would be about one hundred drowned 

 cockroaches to one moth fly. Also the 

 sweetened water that I use in introducing 

 (jueens, wintering bees, etc. I can set cups 

 nowhere in the apiary at night but the next 

 morning it will be perfectly clean, and 

 cockroaches found in it. 



I have tried a great many devices to get 

 rid of them, but all in vain. The best I 

 ever tried was to go through the hives on a 

 very cold day, and brush off the cock- 

 roaches to freeze which they readily do, 

 but there is an evil in this plan ; it disturbs 

 the bees which should not be disturbed in 

 cold frozen days. I have found a still bet- 

 ter plan. I am in the poultry business, and 

 have put a trio of Buff Cochins in the bee 

 yard, and trained them to follow me around 

 on warm days, and eat the cockroaches as 

 fast as I can brush them off. This I find 

 to be a good plan with no evil in it. I 

 have never had a fowl eat a live bee. I 

 have seen fowls go to the entrance of a 

 hive and pick up a worm without disturb- 

 ing the bees. I have also seen them go 

 round a hive looking on the sides for moth 

 flies, and I believe this is one reason why 

 the moth is no trouble to me. 



Lowell, Ky. R. M. Argo. 



The most complete check upon robbing 

 bees is to place a bunch of grass or wet 

 hay over the entrance to the hive. The 

 Ijees will find their way to the entrance to 

 their own hive, the robbers will be caught 

 by the sentinels in passing through the 

 grass, and soon cease their pilfering. 



Crystallization of Honey. — The action 

 of light causes honey to crystallize. The 

 ditficulty may be obviated by keeping it in 

 the dark, the change, it is said, being due 

 to photographic action ; and that the same 

 agent that alters the molecular arrange- 

 ment of iodide of silver on the excited col- 

 lodian plate, causes the syrup honey to as- 

 sume a crystallic form. It is to this action 

 of light that scientists attribute the working 

 of bees by night, and they are so careful to 

 obscure the glass windows that are some- 

 times placed in their hives. Therefore, 

 keep honey away from the light. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Gallup Again. 



AVithout doubt the Extractor lias killed 

 its thousands of stocks of bees. Now, Mr. 

 Editor, publish the above without explan- 

 ation, and, oh, horror of horrors, how CTal- 

 lup Avould catch it. In many cases it has 

 been used without the least particle of rea- 

 son, and the bees have all died of dysentery, 

 or that terrible bee disease. Perhaps we 

 could illustrate better by telling of one of 

 our mis-moves a number of years ago. — 

 Soon after learning to drum out bees, we 

 made a grand discovery. Mind that there 

 were then no bee journals, or perhaps we, 

 Novice-like, should have been caught giving 

 instructions to others, when we knew 

 nothing ourselves. 



Right here, allow me to say for Novice's 

 consolation, that we passed through the 

 same ordeal that he is now going through. 

 Tliat is, we were very forward in giving 

 our knowledge to others, before we had 

 any to spare. 



But to our story. We thought that we 

 could drum out our bees in August, place 

 them in a new hive, (w^e used the old box 

 or chamber hive in those days,) and in 2/ 

 days the young bees would be liatched and 

 we would drum them out also, and unite 

 them with the others ; they would then fill 

 the hive and winter, and I could have the 

 old stores, etc. This was a wonderful dis- 

 covery and I, Novice-like, spread the news 

 of the discovery far and near. But by the 

 month of February these bees had a terrible 

 disease ; in fact, they all died of dysentery, 

 (fine stocks). They had honey enough, but 

 it w'as made or gathered too late in the sea- 

 son, consequently was not properly evapor- 

 ated or matured, and the result as stated 

 above. 



Now, is it not a fact that many, in order 

 to get a large yield of honey, extract too 

 late in the season ? They have the neces- 

 sary amount in weight but not in quality. 

 You will recollect of one person telling in 

 the back numbers of extracting late in the 

 fall, and their filling up and that all died 

 with dysentery. That person requested 

 some one to give the reason why they died, 

 and we told him he had given the reason 

 himself, etc. Now, if we winter bees on 

 honey we want that honey of good quality 

 and made in the proper season, and when 

 the bees are raising brood rapidly, and 

 have large quantities of bees of the right 

 age to properly manufacture or evaporate 

 it. 



Here is another question for our consid- 

 eration. The two-story hive has been laud- 

 ed to the skies by Novice, when practice 

 and experience has taught us and others 

 that it is entirely in the wrong form, as 

 the beeB are not able to properly evaporate 



