Gl.EANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



about 1500 pounds shipped in 1915 my loss 

 was not one per cent, and some of the ship- 

 ments were not easy ones. I sent a small 

 shipment to New Jersey for an experiment, 

 and they arrived with only a few bees dead. 

 Other large lots went to Colorado, Idaho. 

 Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Okla- 

 homa, and all parts of California. One place 

 in this state I consider quite a hard ship- 

 ment in the middle of summer, and that is 

 Imperial Valley. For such conditions where 

 the weather is extremely hot I do not agree 

 with Mr. Achord that water is not neces- 

 sary. I use the Eoot one and two pound 

 cage exclusively; and as the cages are very 

 substantially njade I make arrangements 

 when sending a large order to have the 

 empty cages returned. In this way I am 

 able to save the buyer a little money, and 

 also myself, and I find the cages are good 

 for a number of trips. 



I received many inquiries from British 

 Columbia the past season for bees by the 

 pound from people who are very anxious to 

 buy bees that way. I shipped there during 

 1914 with never a single loss; but they now 

 have a quarantine law which bars the ship- 

 ping of bees in any form from the United 

 States. Their beekeepers there are up in 

 arms against the law, and it seems to me if 

 they could be made to understand that dis- 

 ease could not be sent in with the pound 

 packages, perhaps they would modify the 

 law to allow bees to be shipped in without 

 combs. 



In one of your letters last summer you 

 mentioned writing to Dr. Phillips in regard 

 to something better for queen candy. T 

 have had no success at all in sending queens 

 to Australia when using candy made with 

 invert sugar, but with short shipments it 

 seems to be all right. 



San Jose, Cal., Jan. 9. J. E. Wing. 



There are two or three points in this let- 

 ter which are of more than ordinary inter- 

 est. The first is that he as well as Mr. 

 Achord has been shipping bees in pound 

 packages successfully, and with a loss of 

 only one per cent. What Mr. Achord, Mr. 

 Wing, and others have done, others can do. 



We show elsewhere that bees without 

 combs can be shipped by express in pound 

 packages for less money than colonies of 

 shipping weight of equivalent capacity can 

 be sent by freight in car lots. When we 

 say " equivalent capacity " we figure three 

 pounds of bees as more than equal to three 

 pounds of bees in a colony Avith a little 

 sealed brood. It is not practicable to ship 

 stronger colonies than three pounds by 

 freight, hive, combs, and all, and of course 

 all the unsealed brood dies en route unless 

 one is unusually successful, as we have been 

 a time or two, by giving the bees water 

 before they ate up their larval food. 



Thii'o iiQimds of fresh bees, placed on 



good combs in a good hive, by May 1 will 

 make a fair colony to start in the business. 

 Such a colony ought to be better than 3 lbs. 

 of bees that have suffered the rigors of 

 winter, and possibly may die in a few days. 

 While it is true that wintered-over bees 

 would have brood in various stages to re- 

 place those dying, much of that brood is 

 chilled by unfavorable weather. We have 

 had some bad spring dwindling after May 

 1, and considerable after April 15. Three 

 pounds of fresh bees by May 1 will be able 

 to stand more extremes of weather than 

 wintered-over bees. But sujipose the 3 lbs. 

 of bees are not the equivalent of three or 

 four pounds wintered over. It costs any- 

 where from 60 cts. to $3.00 in stores, de- 

 pending on the amount and kind of stores 

 used to bring a colony thru winter. 



Understand, we are not at this point 

 advocating that a beekeeper in the North 

 should brimstone his bees in the fall to save 

 the stores; but here is a condition that is 

 not uncommon : Many wintered-over colo- 

 nies that have a mere handful of bees and 

 a queen, if given fresh bees from the South, 

 will be in shape to gather honey by June 

 15 when white clover comes on in most lo- 

 calities. Frequently there are oceans of 

 clover, but not the bees to gather the nectar 

 because of a severe winter ju.st preceding. 



Mr. Wing brings out another point; 

 namely, that invert sugar as a food for 

 pound packages and for queen-cages does 

 not take the place of honey. Our experi- 

 ence during the past year proves that he is 

 probably right. We had more losses in 

 transmitting our pound packages and our 

 queens in mailing-cages during 1915 when 

 we used invert sugar exclusively than when 

 we used a food made of powdered sugar 

 and unboiled honey. A boiled honey ap- 

 pears to be inferior to a candy made of in- 

 vert sugar syrup. It would seem then that 

 in order to make successful shipments of 

 bees and queens long distances we shall 

 have to secure a honey of the finest table 

 quality from a yard where there had been 

 no foul brood for two or three years back. 



Our own and Mr. Wing's experience, 

 contrary to that of Mr. Achord's, shows 

 that water during very hot weather helps 

 materially to get combless bees thru in good 

 order. 



Mr. Achord has demonstrated beyond 

 question that the old cages for bees in half- 

 pound, one-pound, and two-pound sizes 

 were a little too small. We have already 

 made arrangements to enlarge ours, and 

 shall probably continue to use water during 

 hot weather. It can do no harm, and may 

 be of great assistance. 



