OCTOBER 15, 1914 



813 



working Oil the button-ball seven miles from 

 home, with many square miles of fine bloom 

 near by. This honey goes in with the buck- 

 wheat, and gives it a fine flavor. I believe 

 bees go further for honey than many think, 

 with many flowers nearer by. 



I am located on the west of this swamp, 



E. M. Lawrence is on the north, and Percy 

 Orion on the Eabt, at Northampton, eacli 

 with a large apiary, and I am sure they will 

 both back up all you say, and more too, 

 about swamp land. 

 Mayfleld, Mass. 



lOODS OF BEES VARY 



BY J. D. FOOSHE 



I note that the saiuke mell'.od of intro- 

 ducing queens is not always successful. T 

 have read with interest the many claims for 

 this method. I am not surprised to see that, 

 after having been tested a year or more, it 

 is not always successful. I have no doubt 

 that veteran beekeepers have tried the same 

 plan oftentimes before, but decided that it 

 was not always successful. 



Bees are the most erratic little creatures 

 in their temjierament of any thing I have 

 ever had any thing to do with. When I 

 worked with bees regularly and reared 

 queens daily, and was constantly changing 

 queens or introducing queens that came 

 through the mail, I had some notable ex- 

 periences. In the first place, bees are so 

 susceptible to climatic influences which cre- 

 ate abnormal conditions inside their hive 

 that they are seldom in the same mood, so 

 to speak. To-day you may raisj the top of 

 a hive and pull out all the frames, and not 

 use a particle of smoke; but to-morrow, 

 look out. There might have ] een an east 

 wind or a slight sprinkle of rain during the 

 night, and the same colony that let you 

 handle them the day before without smoke 

 will hardly let you enter the next day with- 

 out drastic measures ; so, oftentimes, this 

 condition prevails at the time a queen is to 

 be introduced. If in a normal condition, 

 and honey coming in, almost any of the 



tried methods of introducing will succeed; 

 but if their temjjerament has been affected, 

 not so. 



I have oftentimes used smoke successful- 

 ly; but having frequently failed with it I 

 stick to the cage plan. 



Virgin queens several days old can often 

 be successfully introduced by any of the 

 common plans, provided conditions are 

 right in the hive. I remembe: away back 

 into the 70's I received by mail a queen 

 that I prized very highly. I introduced her 

 to a strong colony that I kne.v positively 

 to be queenless, and in a couple of days I 

 was investigating, and found my queen in 

 a ball of bees. I smoked them and relea^^ed 

 her and put her back in the cage, and this 

 process of recaging and balling went on for 

 a week, and I deliberately got some chloro- 

 form and put them all apparently dead on 

 the bottom-board, and turned the queen 

 loose; and when they awok-B from their 

 stupor they seemed to be glad to accept 

 her royalty, and she was soon laying. Any 

 queen that has ever been baPed, whether 

 laying or virgin, is harder to introduce than 

 if never antagonized, even though she be 

 changed to another queenless Colony. 



In all my experience I don't know of any 

 thing that is so changeable in physical 

 condition as the bee. 



Augusta, Ga. 



BY E. S. MILLER 



In regard to the metal-top hive-covers, I 

 have tried many kinds and find that with 

 rims % inch thick they are by far the best 

 cover. The metai should be well painted 

 with white lead and oil, other Rise they will 

 rust in a few years. 



METAL-BOUND SUPER-COVERS WARP. 



The metal-bound super-covers are less 

 satisfactory, for the reason that they 

 warp; the changing humidity causes the 

 cracks between the boards to widen, and. 



in prying off the cover, the me'al becomes 

 bent, causing the boards to curi '.p at the 

 edges. I have used them several years, and 

 find that bee-escape boards U:*^d for this 

 purpose are much superior. The *..pening, 

 which may be covered ordinarily with a 

 piece of section, is also useful in many 

 ways. When feeding in late fall or early 

 spring it is not necessary to loosen the 

 whole cover, thus exposing the bees to 

 drafts. In hot weather the openings may 

 be used for ventilation ; and in taking off 



