GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



.Tax. 15. 



move a lot of black, greasy, inky-looking sub- 

 stance, then it will not do as it has done for us 

 here at the Home of the Honey-bees. I should 

 like to have some of our iViends in California 

 try this, and then scaUl out with hot water, and 

 let the cans stand upside down to drain. 



It may be argued, that, on a carload of cans, 

 it would make the amnu)nia rather expensive. 

 A day's time, and about a dollar's worth of am- 

 monia, according to onr market;*, in its original 

 form, will make enough to renovate a whole 

 carload of cans. This expense is small in com- 

 parison with the ultimate reduction of a cent a 

 pound on California extracted honey. Unless 

 old cans are renovated by an alkali, like ammo- 

 nia, or new cans are used, the bee-keepers of 

 California will be doing liiemselves irreparable 

 damage. E- R- 



SUCCESS IX MAILIXG A QUEEX TO AUSTRALIA; 



THE BENTOX MAIIJXG-CAGE AXD GOOD 



CANDY PUT TO A SEVEUE TEST. 



About a year ago, one of our customers, Mr. 

 .Eneas Walker, of Queensland, Aas., sent us an 

 order for two tested queers. We put them up 

 in the regular Benton cage, and provisioned 

 them the best we knew how. but with very 

 little hopes, however, of even the cages ever 

 getting through to their destination, to say 

 nothing aboiU the queens arriving alive in the 

 event they did. There are some restrictions in 

 the Australian mails, and we feared the mag- 

 nates over there would hold them when they 

 got into their jurisdiction. The cages went 

 through all right, however, but the queens 

 were dead. Our customer. Mr. Walker, wrote 

 to us that the bees had, by their general looks, 

 died within only a day or two — starved to 

 death— their food having been entirely used up. 

 We regarded this at the time as a success, in so 

 far that we delivered two queens in ordinary 

 Benton cages, clear into the country of Aus- 

 tralia, alive, and that, if we had just put in a 

 little more candy to have lasted them two or 

 three days more, we could have reported entire 

 success. " On the 10th of last October we replac- 

 ed the two queens, sending them this time in 

 larger Benton cages. One was a tested honey 

 queen, and the other an untested. You will 

 see by the letter below that the tested honey 

 queen arrived in safety, after a journey of 37 

 days. The untested, for some unaccountable 

 reason, with her attendants, died. Mr. Walker 

 writes: 



My Dear Mr. Rnot:—l am very much pleased in- 

 deed to be able to report that the tested honey queen 

 and lier atteiidauts arrived here in safety on the 15th 

 inst., having- thus had a journey of 37 days. Tliey 

 liad consumed only about lialf of their candy, so that 

 either the nuiiil)er of lieos sent with tlie queen must 

 have been considerably less than in the first in- 

 stance, or the weather must have been cooler; but 

 any way, it is now satisfactdrily denidnstratert that 

 queens can be sent safely by mail from America to 

 Australia. The untesled (lueen and hei- acfompany- 

 i ng- bees, I resret to say. were dead ; and they must 

 have died early in the jouiney, as less than a quar- 

 ter of their candy had been eaten. 



^NEAS Walker. 



Queensland, Redland Bay, Nov. 24.; 



DBoth queens were put into'jthe same kind of 

 cages, and the candy was made from the same 

 batch. It is one of those things that we can 

 not explain, why. under precisely the same con- 

 ditions, one lot of bees should die, and that the 

 other should live. It is very possible (a fact 

 which our correspondent may have failed to 

 observe) that^a single bee might have stuck to 

 the candy, directly in front of the opening, and 

 thus prevented the others from obtaining the 

 food. The journey through the mails may in 

 time have aislodg(^d the bee from the candy, 



and, of course, all apparently died from some 

 unknown cause. This has, in fact, happened 

 seveial times, as the returned cages showed. The 

 more I think of it. the more I am inclined to be- 

 lieve that this must have been the causeof death: 

 for c(n-tainly an untested queen is supposed to 

 stand more in the mails than an older tested 

 one. 



IVIr. Walker has ordered four more queens, all 

 to be s(mt in Benton cages. The size of cage to 

 which we are limited in the mails is .ixiixlji' 

 inches, and it is to be covered with a wire 

 screen, protected by a movable wire lid. The 

 Benton cage which we sent conformed exactly 

 to that size. The number of bees whic?! we 

 put in ea,ch cage was 35. It is well known that 

 the Benton cage proper has three holes. In the 

 center one we put a thin wooden partition. We 

 filled one of the end holes and half of the cen- 

 ter partition with candy, the bees occupying 

 the rest of the space. 



I am explicit in all these details, in order that 

 ail queen -breeders may accomplish the same 

 thing if they desire, or, at least, attempt it. 

 By way of a feat, I hope that some of our ex- 

 tensive queen-breeders will ti-y the same ex- 

 periment. They can afTord to throw away at 

 least one queen to see what they can do. and 

 Mr. Walker certainly will not complain if he 

 receives a nice Italian queen-bee from America, 

 in good order, especially if no charge is made. 



The Benton cage is capable of wonderful re- 

 sults: and if others are equally successful, or 

 more so, it will be a great boon to Australians, 

 and to bee - keepers living in other remote 

 parts of the world from us. 



I omitted to say, that we are obliged to put 

 on h'ttcr postage— that is, 13 cents per half- 

 ounce, or fraction thereof. This will make the 

 postage on a package such as we sent, 11.04 

 per queen. Queen-bees in the size of packages 

 indicated above are not admitted to all coun- 

 tries; but the Postal Guide says that we can 

 send them to the Argentine Republic, Belgium, 

 Bulgaria. Chili, Columbia, Cougp, Dutch West 

 Indies (Curacoa, etc.). Egypt. Guatemala, Hay- 

 ti, the Hawaiian Kingdom (Sandwich Islands), 

 British India. Italy, Liberia, Mexico, Paraguay, 

 Portugal and the Portuguese Colonies, Rou- 

 mania. Siam, vSpain, and Switzerland, as " sam- 

 ples of m(>rchandise;" and to Austria, Hungary, 

 France. Germany, Greece. Luxemburg, the 

 Netherlands and Netherlands Guiana, and 

 Sweden, provided postage is fully prepaid 

 thereon at the letter rate: viz., 5 cents per half- 

 ounce or a fraction thereof. 



You will observe that Australia and her prov- 

 inces are not included: but I think there will 

 be no trouble when full letter postage is put on. 



Later.— Hince the' above was written, a letter 

 comes to hand, from Mr. John Sench, under 

 date of Dec. 18, acknowledging the safe arrival 

 of two queens at Port Morant, Jamaica, West 

 Indies. Nov. 25, last year, we sent two select 

 tested queens, put uj) in Benton cages, the same 

 size as above given, and put on letter postage: 

 namely. 5 cts. per half-ounce in this case. Our 

 customer does not say just when the queens 

 arrived: but presuming that he wrote imme- 

 diately, or soon after their receipt, the bees 

 must "have been nearly a month on the way. 

 We have tried sending queens several times be- 

 fore in Peet cages, with Good candy, but there 

 was a failure in every instance. We must at- 

 tribute the secret of this success to the Benton 

 cage, for the candy, namely, powdered sugar 

 and honey, mixed to a stiff j dough was used in 

 the Peet cages before. Perhaps I should add. 

 that the queens were first;sent to a forwarding 

 house in New York, and from there they were 

 sent direct to the address as above. E. R. 



