1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



815 



be, "extracted honey (gTauulated) in palls boxed, 

 second class." Liquid iioiiey sliould not be receiv- 

 ed as freight except in sealed packages. 



Trusting that a fair consideration of these sug- 

 ge.stions on the part of your lionorable committee 

 may result in securing to the many I'ailroad com- 

 panies you represent the patronage of a large class 

 of shippers, I remain very respectfully yoius, 



Mt. Vernon, la., Feb. 16. Oliver Foster. 



His reply, dated Feb. 10, reads as follows: 

 Mr. Oliver Foster: — Answering your favor of the 

 16th inst.. will you please describe more fully tlie 

 package or box in whicli your pails of honey are 

 packed? also say if it would "be cori-ect to describe 

 the extracted honey as "granulated honey," which 

 name, it seems to me, would indicate more clearly 

 the I'haiacter of the goods as an article of freight. 

 Cliicago, Feb. 19. J. T. Ripley. 



In reply to which I wrote as follows: 

 Mr. J. T. Bip^cjy:— Answering you favor of tlie 

 19lli. I will make a sketch on the back of this sheet 

 showing the twt) styles of boxes I use for shipping 

 honey in pails. The small box is fen- one set of five 

 pails, as shown in price list inclosed, and the other 



Box for one set (oi' 

 nest) of pails, with rope 

 haudle,sidesXin. thick, 

 bottom and top % inch 

 thick. 



is for four sets of the same. Shippers as a whole 

 have as yet no uniform package for pails. Your 

 suggestion, to describe extracted honey in pails as 



Bo\ foi fou) ->ets p.iiK, al)out 16 in square; 

 bottom .ind -,i(iis >4 to '« in thick; han- 

 dlis and bottom -^tups, 'svl':. 



"granulated honey," is a vei-y good one. The term 

 "granulated honey " is perfectly correct, and is in 

 very general use witli bee-keepers and honej'-men. 

 "Granulated honey in jiails boxed," strikes me as 

 the form in wliieh to imt it. This could not be con- 

 strued to apply to such extracted honey as might 

 be unscrupulously offered foi- .shipment in paiLs 

 before granulation has taken i)lace. 



Any fui'ther information you may wish on this 

 subject will be glatUv given. Oliver Foster. 



Mt. Vernon, la., Feb. 2 i. 



His reply of the 21SI gives the gratifying re- 

 sult. This classification applies to fifty or more 

 railroads throughout the West. As to classifi- 

 cation on other roads. I know nothing. 



Mr. Foster: — Ajiswering your favor of the 3Cth 

 Inst., I will rule as follows: "Granulated honey in 

 pails, boxed O. R.. .second class." J. T. Riple"y. 



Chicago, Feb. 31. 



Mt. Vernon, la. Oi.ivek Fostek. 



[Many thanks, friend F. You have done 

 bee-keepers a valuable service, and we owe Mr. 

 J. T. Ripley another vote of thanks. He has 

 kept his promise, as the revised Western Freight 



Classification shows. Mr. Ripley has certainly 

 shown a disposition to be reasonable and fair 

 toward bee-keepers. 



Those raised-cover tin pails are excellent for 

 the purpose. We sell large numbers of them. 

 They are so cheap that the honey-producer can 

 almost afford to throw in the pail; but even 

 when he adds the price of the pail to the honey, 

 the consumer makes no objection, because such 

 an article is always available in every home. 

 Now, won't some one get up some plan whereby 

 we can granulate liquid honey on short notice, 

 even in warm weather? Consumers are being 

 gradually educated to this granulated honey, 

 and very many prefer it in that form to any 

 other to spread on bread and butter.] 



SUPERSEDING THE OLD QUEEN. 



HAVING QUEENS FERTILIZED IN FULL COLO- 

 NIES HAVING A LAYING QUEEN. 



I notice Dr. Miller says in Stray Straws that 

 he " tried superseding quite a number last year 

 by having a young queen hatch out in a cell- 

 protector. They hatch out all right, and would 

 be found peacefully traversing the combs: but 

 before it was time for them to lay, every last 

 one disappeared. If I had removed the old 

 queen. I have no doubt all would have been 

 lovely.'" 



This item is of special interest to me. being 

 right in my line of experiment involving my 

 plan of having queens fertilized in full colonies 

 having a laying queen. 



It is not necessary to remove tlie old queen — 

 simply divide the brood-chamber into two parts 

 with perfoiated zinc; and instead of putting in 

 one zinc division-board, put in two. about half 

 an inch apart: or, what is better still, put the 

 zinc division-boards far enoiigh apart to allow 

 a comb between them and then fix a strip of 

 zinc before the old queen's half, and the young 

 queen will be fertilized, and lay as certainly as 

 if she were in a separate or nucleus hive. I 

 have tried more than a hundred in just the 

 w-ay Dr. Miller describes: and so long as the 

 young queen was admitted on the combs where 

 there were eggs, nearly all came up missing. I 

 think they thought they were not needed, and 

 flew out of the hives and never returned. I do 

 not know that I ever had one become fertilized 

 when eggs were present; and it is my belief 

 that, if the old queeu should travel across one 

 of the combs, it would have the same effect. 



The reason I think it is the young queen's 

 fault is this: I make a queen-nursery with 

 Benton cages by suspending them between the 

 combs by a raveling of wire cloth attached to a 

 match that rests across the top of the adjacent 

 frames. The cells are thus arranged in the 

 cages to hatch: then when the young queens 

 need food it is provided by the bees. Before 

 the cells are put in. a fourth-inch hole is bored 

 through the wood into the cage, and a piece of 

 zinc with one perforation in it is tacked on. so 

 when it is turned it may or may not admit bees 

 into the cage and exclude the queen. I often 

 keep a dozen to twenty young queens in this 

 way until I have use for "them, and it is often 

 they are kept until they are too old to become 

 fertilized; and whil(> I used to lose a great 

 many by the old method where bees were not 

 admitted. I have never known a single one to 

 die treated in this way, and I have kept them 

 from July to November, and a laying queen 

 outside th<' cages. 



If we divide a colony into halves by a solid 

 division-board, queen-cells will be built in the 

 queenless half. If a division of perforated zinc 

 is used, the effect is almost the same. They 



