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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



tide fourth, so amended as to make the 

 term of office twelve months, and the 

 number of the Executive committee, three. 

 Article fifth, amended to make all com- 

 mittees, except the Executive, appointable 

 by the President. Article sixth, the stat- 

 ed meetings were fixed on the first Satur- 

 days in January, A.pril, July and October. 

 Article eight was so amended as to re- 

 quire all amendments to the constitution 

 to be made at a regular stated meeting. 

 The constitution as amended, was then 

 read and adopted as a whole. 



The society then went into an election 

 of officers for the next ensuing y-ear, with 

 the following result: 



W. S. Kainey President; C. 0. Vaughn 

 Vice President; Wm. J Andrews Secre- 

 tary and Treasurer; Dr. A. T. Boyd, Da- 

 vid Staples and J. J. Jones were elected 

 as the Executive Committee. 



After ihe close of the regular business 

 Dr. A. T. Boyd delivered an address on 

 apiculture. We will not attempt to give 

 the whole of the lecture of the Doctor, but 

 simply the heads of the dift'erent points he 

 touched upon. In the first place he spoke 

 of the kind of Hive which should be used, 

 that no one could be a bee-keeper and 

 thoroughly uoderstand liis business, un- 

 less he used the movable frame hives. 



SWARMING. 



He did not believe in artificial swarm- 

 ing: preferred natural. Spoke at some 

 length of after swarms. Thought one 

 swarm sufficient and tliat all after swarm- 

 ing should be prevented. He clipped the 

 wings of his queen ; theu when they 

 swarmed, the queen fell upon the ground 

 and he had no trees to climb nor large 

 limbs to saw off. When the queen came 

 out and fell to the ground he covered her 

 with a small box; he then moved the hive 

 from which the swarm had issued to a 

 new position some twenty or thirty feet 

 distant, and placed a new hive on the old 

 stand. That as soon as the bees missed 

 their queen they would return to the spot 

 from whence they had issued in search 

 of her. When they had sufficiently set- 

 tled, he released the queen from the box 

 in front of the hive, and allowed her to 

 crawl iu to the bees. His experience 

 was that the moving of the hive from 

 whicli the swarms had issued, would as a 

 rule prevent any after swarms, but it was 

 not infallible— that he had known after 

 swarms to come from them. He made it 

 a rule to return all after swarms to the 

 hive from , which they issued, and had 

 never known bees to desert brood. 



AGK OF BEES. 



It had often been said that bees were 

 short lived ; this he was fully aware of, 

 and any one could very easily satisfy 

 themselves on that score. He had him- 

 aelf removed on the 12th of August a 

 black queen from a hive that had only 



black bees in it, and introduced a yellow 

 queen, and to-day it had very few black 

 bees in it — in fact, it was difficult to find 

 them. This went very clearly to prove 

 that the bees were very short-lived, that a 

 great many were destroyed on the wing. 

 It was therefore very essential to have a 

 fertile queen to keep up the stock from 

 the waste of life. 



VENTILATION. 



There should be upward ventilation in 

 winter. The bees themselves would gen- 

 erally regulate their own ventilation. 

 Winter ventilation was necessary to pre- 

 vent combs from becoming mildewed 

 and from freezing. 



ANGER OP BEES. 



He had found all kinds of bees diflfer- 

 ent in their' anger. Some of the same 

 species being more gentle and much easier 

 handled than others. The best thing to 

 subdue their anger, was to make them fill 

 themselves with honey ; a bee filled with 

 honey never wants to sting. Bees always 

 filled themselves with honey just previous 

 to swarming. Another tiling to prevent 

 them from becoming angjy, is gentle and 

 quiet handling; a person should never 

 make any quick motions about their bees, 

 but their movements should be slow and 

 deliberate. 



THEIR ENEMIES. 



While the bees had many enemies, he 

 regarded the moth the worst, but with 

 good strong colonies and a fertile queen, 

 they were not to be dreaded. Moth-proof 

 hives were a delusion and a humbug. The 

 Italian bees protected themselves better 

 from the ravages of the moth than the 

 black bees ; had never seen a black bee 

 working at moth webs, have frequently 

 seen the Italian at it. 



RE.\RING QUEENS. 



On this subject he deemed it useless to 

 say very much. It was presumes that 

 every bee-keeper understood this branch 

 of the business. Queens were hatched in 

 about twenty-one days, and were fertilized 

 in the air. Unfertile queens were drone 

 layers— a fertile queen will commence 

 laying in a few days after being hatched, 

 an unfertile in about three weeks. The 

 queen is much longer lived than the 

 worker bee. They frequently become 

 barren when two years old. Queens are 

 enormous eaters. They lay from one to 

 three thousand eggs a day. Early reared 

 queens he regarded as much the best. 



THEIR KEEPERS. 



Thought the bees were controlled very 

 much in all their acts by scent more than 

 sight. Thought they knew their keeper 

 from other persons by the scent of his 

 body. 



WINTERING BEES. 



Their supplies tre(iuently became ex- 

 hausted during the winter and early in 



