182 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 1. 



ing for no tricks or wiles in tlie fair, only to 

 cook; and, though not a blonde, I can do that. 

 When I think of the fair, and what may hap- 

 pen before we make a pair, and since you wrote 

 last, my heart beats fast. But. don't you hear 

 me coming right along with my dog? 



I must close. News is scarce. 



Home, Jan. 23. 



SENDING QUEENS TO CALIFORNIA. 



EXPEKIMENTS IX SUITABLE CANDIES; CON- 

 SrKUCTION OF CAGES. 



By W. A. Pryal. 



Editor Gleanings: — I feel that I was more 

 than unusually honored in the issue of your 

 publication of the 1st inst., for I fini that, be- 

 sides the editorial, Dr. Miller and the Rambler 

 have each something to say about the article I 

 contributed to the ^mo'ican Bee Journal last 

 month on shipping queens to this State from 

 eastern points. 



When I wrote the said article I did not think 

 it would attract any particular attention. I 

 wrote it in the interest of our queen-breeders, 

 hoping that they might be able to find a way 

 around the difficulty I dwelt upon. While the 

 queen-breeders would be the greatest gainers 

 by the discovery of a sure method of sending 

 queens safely every time to this coast, it is true, 

 too, that the individuals ordering queens from 

 the breeders would also be materially benefited. 

 for it would insure to them the certainty of get- 

 ting a live queen every time they ordered one. 

 There is nothing so exasperating to a bee-keep- 

 er away out here as to wait two weeks, perhaps 

 with a queenless colony, in anxious expectancy 

 of getting a fine tested Italian queen, and, 

 when the wished-for cage came to hand, lo and 

 behold! the fine queen was as dead as a door- 

 nail. Again, another two weeks would pass, 

 and a cage would be handed the expectant con- 

 signee by the postmaster, which, on being open- 

 ed, would be found to contain another queen 

 that had "given up the ghost" somewhere out 

 on the plains, or on the desert. 



This is no fanciful sketch; it is unvarnished 

 reality— it has happened me more than once. 

 A man getting queens in such condition 'must 

 have a large stock of patience, if he can keep 

 from indulging in some pretty hard language. 

 I do not throw this out to intimate that I have 

 felt so bad myself under the circumstances. I 

 put on a bold front, and determine to try again. 

 I have the consolation that, if the queen-breed- 

 er can stand it, I too surely ought to. But, 

 nevertheless, I do not relish the situation, nei- 

 ther do I like to see a breeder put to the neces- 

 sity of having to send another queen to replace 

 the one lost in the mail. It requires time, pa- 

 tience, and money to rear queens; why should 

 not the fraternity do its utmost to devise a cage 

 that will be such that there will practically be 



no losses in mailing a queen to any reasonably 

 distant point? 



I continued ray experiments last summer and 

 fall to a considerable extent, at some expense to 

 myself. Though I have learned a good deal 

 that did not seem to be known before to our 

 breeders, I am not yet fully satisfied. I intend 

 to carry my experiments still further. 



I do not think it is so much the dry climate of 

 this State, as you say in your editorial on page 

 103, that causes the candy to dry up. as it is the 

 scorching heat of the deserts in Utah, Nevada, 

 or Arizona, through which the queens have to 

 pass. Those going by the central route do not 

 go through the lattei- territory, while those that 

 take the other course have to bear the heat in 

 that hot climate, and, in addition, have to stand 

 some of the high temperature of the wastes the 

 railroad traverses in coming into Southern Cal- 

 ifornia. But I do not think that the heat of 

 this region is as bad as that of the deserts of 

 Arizona, or along a large portion of the central 

 route before the California State-line isreached. 

 Whether a queen would be apt to fare better by 

 taking the more circuitous route, via Oregon or 

 Canada, I have my doubts. The climate may 

 be a trifie more favorable; but the additional 

 time to make the trip, to say nothing of the 

 additional rough handling she would be subject- 

 ed to by the railroad postal clerks, would be too 

 trying for her. I believe that we can not get a 

 queen too quickly to her destination. There 

 seems to me to be no need of a queen being 

 longer than seven days making the journey 

 from one end of the United States to the other. 

 This time is not too long for the most delicate 

 queen to stand the hardships of the mail, 

 provided she is suitably provisioned for the 

 trip. 



In my experiments last year I sent a queen 

 that had been caged over night before she was 

 put into the postoffice, to Chicago (to the office 

 of the American Bee Journal), where she w us 

 examined and immediately returned to me. As 

 she reached me in good condition after making 

 this severe trip at the very hottest time of the 

 year, I at once dispatched her in care of Uncle 

 Sam to a distant postoffice in Texas, where she 

 arrived alive. That was a trip that few human 

 beings would like to make in the same space of 

 time at the hottest season of the year, as I have 

 said. The candy used on this occasion was as 

 soft as I could conveniently have it without its 

 running in the cage. 



But in other experiments, tried under similar 

 conditions, the queen did not fare as well. Sev- 

 eral times the queens died in transit. Some- 

 times a bee that died would get stuck in the 

 candy at the entrance of the candy-compart- 

 ment, and thus shut out the other bees from 

 having access to the food. I thereafter reme- 

 died this by having the food-compartment so 

 arranged that, if a couple of bees were to try 

 to clog up the entrance, still there would be 



