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Vol. XX. 



AUG. 15, 1892. 



No. 16. 



STRAr Straws 



FROM DR. C. C. MILLER. 



That silver t.ixixc; hasn't come. 



•'The Bee-Age" never came to any age. 

 Died before it was born. 



So you've i,eakxei). at Medina, that you 

 can't smoke in bees to worl<. Told you so long 

 ago. 



One page of A. B.J. for July 28 is made very 

 bright by the face of Mrs. Jennie Atchley. 

 She looks as good-natured as she writes. 



July 30. This morning I find my self-hiver 

 empty, queen and swarm having moved back 

 into the hive, bag and baggage. But it doesn't 

 seem to me that a queen would often get out of 

 that trap as she did. 



Clearing sui'ers of bees is ordinarily best 

 done, the B. B. /.'thinks, by means of cone es- 

 capes, letting the bees escape outward to find 

 their own way back to the hive — practically 

 my little mosquito-tents. 



Have you sent to father Langstroth the 

 amount you promised? If you made no promise, 

 it would be a nice thing anyhow to send some- 

 thing to him. We owe him much, and he ought 

 not to lack in his few last years. 



Just think of A. I. Roor encouraging the 

 tobacco habit in his bees by giving them a 

 social smoke, morning and noon, each day of 

 the countv fair! Then I s'pose each bee gets a 

 smoker that swears ofif afterward. 



As A BUSINESS to accompany bee-keeping, 

 Dooliltle says in A. B. J. that raising small 

 fruits will not work; but that raising small- 

 fruit plants for sale works well. But he adds, 

 " If I were to choose any business to go with 

 bee-keeping it would certainly be farming." 



Too BAD, just as we've got a real live bee- 

 keeper at work making experiments at Mich- 

 igan Ag'l College, if th(! government should 

 stop the whole business. Be sure to write a 

 letter to Uncle Jerry and Prof. Riley, and tell 

 Ihem we need J. H. Larrabee. 



LATE.ST Bulletin from the self-hiver. Aug. 

 5 1 find a few eggs and bi'ood in all stages in 

 No. 70, six sealed queen-cells and one unsealed, 

 old queen dead on the bottom of the hive, and 

 beautiful young queen hatched. I think the 

 self-hiver will come out ahead yet. 



That old item is still going the rounds, that 

 in Australia the bees gather all the year and 

 soon learn not to store honey, and so constant 

 importations must be made of green bees that 

 haven't yet learned the ropes. Is a lie round, 

 that it never stops when once started rolling? 



Two swahms issuing at about the same time, 

 where self-hivers are used. C. H. Dibbern agrees 

 with Henry Alley, will always return to the 

 right hives. They'll sometimes both go to the 

 ■iame hive when I pick up and cage the queens. 

 Why should there be any ditt'erence when the 

 queens cage themselves? 



"Automatic swarmers " are talked about 

 on p. .593. I like the way Gleanings encour- 

 ages new inventions, but please draw the line 

 at ssvarmers. Non-swarmers and self-hivers 

 may be good things, but bees swarm entirelv 

 too much already, and they're automatic too, 

 so we don't need any other " automatic swarm- 

 er." 



The plan of working two queens in a hive, 

 as given by Mr. Wells, of England, according 

 to •• A Lanarkshire Bee-keeper " in the Jour- 

 nal of Horticulture, is practically the Baird 

 system, nearly forty years old. The principal 

 difference seems to be the intermingling of the 

 bees of both queens in the super in the VVells 

 system. 



Blowing the breath on bees slowly has a 

 very different effect from a sharp blast, as 

 R. W. McDonnell says, p. .580. My practice for 

 years, when I wanted to get the bees off any 

 particular spot on the combs, has been to make 

 a rapid succession of forcible puffs, much like 

 a stuttering man making a frantic effort to get 

 out the letter p. 



Washington is the place of the next North 

 American convention. Time not set. Frank 

 Benton thinks it better not goat the time the 

 G. A. R. meets, as there will be too much of a 

 jam. December is now talked of, when other 

 meetings will give reduced rates. Better stand 

 the jam if rates are enough lower. But Decem- 

 ber's a good month. 



A. Y. Baldwin says, in A. B. J., that his 

 bees were at the starvation point Julv 4. and he 

 was about to despair; but a '• stray straw " 

 said, '• Don't be discouraged;" and as •" drown- 

 ing m(^n catch at straws " be immediately or- 

 dered a barrel of sugar and continued feeding. 

 Now I wonder if he'll charge up that sugar to 

 me if his bees fail to store. 



DooLiTTLE says, in A. B. J., that a swarm 

 issued without a queen from one of his colonies, 

 he having removed the queen a few hours pre- 

 viously. I had a swarm once issue within 

 about an lioui' after I i-emoved the queen; but in 

 that case I think they had perhaps not learned 

 yet that they were queenless. I had. however, 

 another swarm issue and hang on a bush two 

 or three days, and I tldrik they had no queen. 



Mr. a. Leggott doubts that old bees ever 

 leave the hive when swarming. A California 

 newspaper and the A. B.J. ixrc so earnest in 

 convincing him that old bees do swarm, that 



