761 



GLEA^'JLN'CiS i^ BEE CULTURE. 



Nov 



brood. They will then usually go right to 

 work and make a good colony. I suppose 

 Ihey came to your apiary because it was the 

 only opening and the only place tliey came 

 to that seemed probable to them they could 

 get fi o(l and .slielter. If you take good care 

 of your bees you will always find stray 

 swarms coming to you. and I think it pays 

 well to have some empty combs and a hive 

 in readiness to receive them and make them 

 comfortable. See what I say about such in 

 tlie closing chapters of the A B V book. 

 Thank you for your kind words. 



DEMORALIZED SWARMS. 



huw to make them stay wheke you plt them, 

 witho::t swarming out eveky faik uav. 



fOR the benefit of Jerome Horn, in Sept. Glean- 

 ings, I will saj', ia regard to a swarm of in- 

 tractable bees, that 1 too have had such a 

 swarm lately {all blacks), which a neighbor 

 gave me, because he said the moths had run 

 them out of his old plank gum, and they had clus- 

 tered on the side of a bush near by. I examined 

 the comb, and found it new, but i)erforated some 

 by worms. I succeeded, by the aid of a good lamp 

 and my knife-blade, in clearing the combs of the 

 worms. I then transferred the combs to a hive 

 with frames, then dipped the bees off with a tin dip- 

 per, after sprinkling them with sweetened water; 

 put them all into the hive, and carried them home, 

 a distance of half a mile. I then tacked a piece of 

 perforated tin over the entrance, and intended to 

 keep them confined for two or three days, and feed 

 on white sugar; but my little boys begged so hard 

 for them to be turned out, that I yielded, and, as I 

 e.vpected, they swarmed out in an hour or two, and 

 clustered under a rose-bush on the ground. 1 let 

 them remain until ne.xt morning, and hived them 

 again, putting on my perforated tin again over the 

 entrance. I kept them confined for four days. 

 Meanwhile I plied the gi-anulated sugar vigoi-ously. 

 On the .5th morning I turned them out, and they 

 went to woi-k in good earnest, as they are now stor- 

 ing honey and pollen, and have made new comb. 



A suggestion in regard to TR.4lNSFERRING 



larvjE and larv^ food from one cell 



to another. 

 I was much pleased with the idea of artificial fer- 

 tilization of queen-cells, described in A B C, and 

 have this improvement to offer: Instead of the 

 "straw" recommended, I would go to the di-ug 

 store and buy a straight-nozzled pipette for 10 cts., 

 such as is used for dropping fluid medicine out of, 

 and, by compressing the rubber bulb with finger 

 and thumb, the air is expelled; then hold your grip, 

 and insert the point into the drone-cell, and turn 

 loose, or, rather, relax the grip on bulb, and the 

 pipette will suck up all the fluid in two or three 

 dozen cells. Then to insert, place the point where 

 it is wanted, and compress slowly, and the fluid will 

 exude drop by drop. I will say this to the brother 

 bee-keepers who are not, like myself, members of 

 the medical profession, that artificial fertilization 

 was practiced on the human body by the immortal J. 

 Marion Sims several years ago, and it is now recom- 

 mended by poine of the best authorities in the world, 

 to overcome I arrenness in women, that will not yield 

 to other rerce lies. So we have only to stri'^e in the 



undei-taking as did Sims, and we shall succeed as 

 did he. 



I have two objections to the ABC book (although 

 I consider it worth ten times the cost to one inex- 

 perienced like mj'self); one is, that I tried for three 

 hours to find the inside measure of a Simplicity 

 hive, and could not. The other is the trouble of 

 having to turn so often to the back of the book to 

 read Bro. Doolittle's comments, when they could 

 have easily been put at the margin as footnotes. 

 P. G. Alldredqe, M. D. 



Brooksville, Ala., Oct. 3, 1884. 



It seems, friend A., your plan is to confine 

 the bees to the hive, and feed them till they 

 get started with straight work ; and I aiii 

 pretty snre this will answer the pnrpose ; 

 but some swarms miglit have to be confined 

 for a week or more. — Your suggestion of the 

 pipette is a valuable one, but I did not know 

 that an instrument was made so cheap as 10 

 cents. — In regard to your criticisms on the 

 ABC book, the dimensions of the Simplici- 

 ty hive are fixed by the iron gauge-frames, 

 which you will find pictured, and the dimen- 

 sions plainly given. In fact, these iron 

 frames control the whole matter in regard 

 to the size of hives. As the lumber is ^ of 



; an inch thick, you can readily get at the in- 

 side dimensions. — Concerning Doolittle's 



, comments, they were made several years aft- 

 er the book had been in print, and it would 

 be a very laborious operation to so change 



I all the pages as to put the notes at the bot- 

 tom. Besides, we use foot-notes for other 

 purposes, so the matter would be liable to be 

 a little confusing. 



HOW TO MARK A QUEEN. 



A DISCOVERY MADE BY ACCIDENT. 



}' WANT to tell you of a strange circumstance— at 

 f least I think it so. On the 7th of May I put a 

 '. new upper story on a hive, and painted it be- 

 ■ fore covering the frames with the mat. There 

 was a crack in the cover, and some of the paint 

 dropped through and marked some of the bees, 

 among them the queen receiving a drop on her 

 back. On Friday, the 9th, they swarmed, and I put 

 them in a hive about seven feet from the old one. I 

 had no trouble finding the queen, as she was well 

 marked. On Sunday, the 11th, the bees were very 

 much excited, as though they had lost their queen. 

 I gave them a queen-cell, and they raised the queen, 

 but started 12 new queen-cells, which thej^ afterward 

 destroyed. The queen is a hybrid. On Monday I 

 went to the old hive, and on the first frame I took 

 out was the old queen with the paint on her back, 

 and she is still there. S. J. Baldwin, 17— iiO. 



Nelson, O., Sept. 32, 1884. 



Friend B., the fact you give us, suggesting 

 how we can mark our queens, is of much 

 more value thaii the one showing that bees 

 often start queen-cells and raise queens when 

 they have one already. 



are now two queens in the 



If we understand 

 you, ttiere are now two qii 

 hive — a young hybrid, and th 

 with the paint on her back. Of course, the 

 established rule is, that whenever a colony 

 starts cells they are queenless ; but it occa- 

 sionally has its" exceptions, like the one you 

 mention. May be some of the bees thought 

 they would prefer a queen without "decor«' 

 tion." 



