THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



19 



sacrifice a part of them. That is 

 to say, part must be sold for the 

 trifle they will bring, and the money 

 spent in sugar to winter the rest ; 

 or else colonies must be united 

 with each other, possibly some 

 destroyed altogether, and what 

 honey there is concentrated in a 

 few hives, to keep a fraction of the 

 apiary alive till spring. 



There, now ! I've pretty much 

 said it. And there are lots of 

 things on the other side of the 

 shield that I have not tried to say. 

 With all the drawbacks bee-keeping 

 is an intensely fascinating pursuit. 

 Many fail. Some succeed. A very 

 few employ men, and run many api- 

 aries and succeed ; bringing up the 

 theoretical possibilities of income 

 pretty high. The conclusion of 

 the whole matter is, that if you 

 have the bee fever, and have it bad, 

 past all cure, don't stand groaning 

 but plunge in — and the editor and 

 his correspondents they'll hold your 

 bonnet. 



Richards, Ohio, April 14, 1883. 



3IUL TIPL YING Q UEEN 

 CELLS. 



By John H. Martin. 



As friend Alley's book will be 

 before the public ere long, I wish 

 to give your readers an experiment 

 of my own in the method of multi- 

 plying queen cells. My method is 

 probably different from his from 

 the fact that his is successful every 

 time while mine is not so certain ; 

 still there are several points favor- 



able in my plan, that would help 

 very much in the absence of any 

 other or better method. I give the 

 experiment for what it is worth, 

 hoping it may be a small link in 

 the chain of progress. About one 

 year ago the idea came to me that 

 if we could dip out larvce food from 

 a number of cells and deposit it all 

 in one cell with a larva a day or 

 two old, the bees would readily 

 make a queen of it, and we could 

 thus get any number of queen cells 

 at short notice. The question 

 then arose, how shall we get 

 this food, which is in such minute 

 drops, from the bottom of the cell 

 and deposit it again where we want 

 it, in a manner to suit our particu- 

 lar friends, the bees? 



The question was answered in a 

 peculiar manner. A member of 

 our family had occasion to call in 

 the services of a physician. The 

 man of pills and powders sat down 

 to deal out his medicines, but 

 instead of powders he produced a 

 bottle of liquid and inserted a 

 peculiar instrument into it and 

 proceeded to measure his liquid in 

 drops. Now, said I to myself, 

 that is just what I want, and ex- 

 plaining the matter to the doctor, 

 he very generously gave me what 

 he called a doctor's dropper. 



It is a small glass tube with a 

 fine nozzle at one end, and a rub- 

 ber bulb at the other. Pressure 

 upon the bulb expels the air ; now 

 insert the nozzle into the liquid and 

 release the pressure and the tube is 

 immediately filled. A very slight 

 pressure will then cause drops to 

 issue from the nozzle. These in- 



