174 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



rina, water, &c. They are very fine speci- 

 mens of the humble bee. The exact num- 

 ber is not known, as many of the eggs are 

 not yet hatched. They are placed under 

 the care of Mr. John Hall, a member of 

 the council of New Zealand, who takes a 

 stock of ice for the purpose of keeping 

 down the temperature of the nests while 

 passing through the tropics." 



BEE-KEEPEKS' MAGAZINE. 



Comb Foundations. — A cut is given 

 in B. K. M. of a foundation machine, 

 and if we understand it rightly, this ma- 

 chine makes only the edges, or about two 

 cells in width at a time. If a sheet of 

 wax has impressions made only on the 

 edge, we should not value it very much, 

 and if the idea is to run the sheet through 

 the machine several times, making a 

 couple of cells in width each time, it 

 seems to us tlie labor would be great, 

 with danger of not having the rows of 

 cells correspond. 



An article is quoted from the Bienen 

 Zeitung, for January, 1859, to show that 

 foundations were made at that time, two 

 years prior to the issue of the Wagner 

 patent. 



Mr. H. A. Burch enters an emphatic 

 protest against the use of foundation as 

 starters in honey boxes or for any surplus 

 comb receptacles. 



MiGNONNETTE.— J. E. Johnson says : " I 

 really believe that an acre of mignonnette 

 will amply supply one hundred colonies 

 of bees abundance of work, with nothing 

 else to feed upon." 



Color of Queens. — N. Levering says, 

 in Los Angeles Herald: " We are asked by 

 a correspondent why the color of queens 

 from the same stock varies so much ? 

 We think a solution of this interrogatory 

 rather dijBacult. For some time we have 

 thought that cool weather had something 

 to do with it. In the State of Missouri 

 we had several queens from pure Italian 

 mothers in mid-summer and late in Sep- 

 tember and the first of October, and found 

 those reared late, when the weather was 

 cool, much darker than those reared 

 when the weather was warm. The first 

 reared was a bright, light yellow, the lat- 

 ter approximating a black. We are now 

 rearing queens from pure Italian, which 

 are of a dark or leather color — the or- 

 dinary color of all imported queens from 

 Italy or Germany that we have ever seen. 

 Their progeny are of a brigiit, light 

 yellow, some of tliem with slight dark 

 rings round the body, while occasionally 

 we find one from the same litter of bright 

 colored queens, quite dark. We are now 

 somewhat inclined to doubt the climate 

 theory, here, where the climate is so regu- 

 lar and even, unless it be the cool even- 

 ings, and that some of the cells arc 

 better covered and receive more heat from 



the bees than others, and those receiving 

 the least heat produce the dark queens. 

 Whether it is in the degree of heat they 

 receive in hatching, change of climate or 

 pasturage, remains a subject of specula- 

 tion. We have come to the conclusion 

 that the color of queens is about as 

 changeable as high life in Washington. 



Foul Brood For Sale.— D. J. Bard- 

 well gives warning in the Omro (Wis.) 

 Journal, that a lot of bees, hives, etc., af- 

 fected with foul brood, are advertised for 

 sale, by a firm of Berlin, Wis. 



Lubbock still insists that bees are not 

 of a sympathetic nature. And yet this gen- 

 tle insect, with the buflF mainsail and red- 

 hot rudder, has frequently brought tears 

 of sentiment to our eyes. — New York Her. 



BEE WORLD. 



Two Queens in a Hive.— Will M. Kel- 

 logg says : "I still have the two queens in 

 one hive, found on the 6th of April. The 

 young queen, unfertile, has no wings at 

 all, but seems spry as a cricket. The old 

 queen keeps right on with her work and 

 never seems to mind the young one. Who 

 can beat it? I have never heard of two 

 queens staying so long in one hive, — near- 

 ly six weeks now." 



Honey Prize. — Dr. E. C. L. Larch, pro- 

 poses a $100 prize, at the St. Louis fair, 

 to decide the question where the best honey 

 is obtained. We do not doubt his good 

 intentions, but we somewhat doubt wheth- 

 er a matter purely of taste, could be satis- 

 factorily settled beyond question, by any 

 tasting committee. It might so happen, 

 that three men might pronounce a sample 

 best, which the majority of people would 

 place second. One may taste an entirely 

 new flavor and not particularly like it, but 

 on becoming accustomed to it, prefer it to 

 all others. On the other hand, a flavor 

 may strike one at first as being superior, 

 but not bear acquaintance well. A $100 

 prize might do something toward it, but 

 would hardly finally settle the question. 



BRITISH BEE JOURNAL. 



The weather seems to have been very ad- 

 verse in England,during the month of May, 

 and many losses are reported. 



The movable comb seems not to be in 

 so common use in England as here, com- 

 mon box hives and straw skeps still being 

 used. Indeed an advertisement, illustra- 

 ted with a cut of a straw hive, with flat 

 top, appears in the British Bee Journal — 

 yes, two of them. 



We are somewhat under the impression 

 that tiiere are more amateur bee-keepers 

 in England than here, keeping bees for the 

 love of it, but fewer men engaged in it as 

 a money-making business, than are to be 

 found here. The British Bee Journal, un- 



