104 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



queens ma}' have few bees in the 

 doorway, or many, but a goodly 

 number will be alighting and crawl- 

 ing directly in, in a business-like 

 wa}'. Queenless colonies may have 

 many bees at the doorway, and 

 some dancing on the wing in front 

 of it, but when you look closely 

 you see that those not flying are 

 onl}' walking up and down, and 

 almost none are entering, as bees 

 do when they have a load. In 

 this way the ruined colonies can be 

 picked out without the labor of 

 pulling off all the sections in the 

 apiary. Examine at once, and 

 remove the sections so future ex- 

 aminations can be made with ease. 

 If they are still strong enough to 

 defend their hive, and moth worms 

 are not yet doing serious mischief, 

 let them alone a while longer. 

 Although they do not work with 

 energy they gain some in honey, 

 on account of having no brood to 

 feed except a few dozen young 

 drones ; and they may pan you out 

 twenty pounds of extracted honey 

 at the close. In the end, I simply 

 take the combs away shaking the 

 bees back into the hive. If they 

 have any " snatch " left about them 

 they can build a little comb in a 

 corner and put some honej' in it ; 

 but probably they will not do so. 

 In a few days, what with home- 

 sickness and what with rather 

 short commons, they will have fin- 

 ished up with this weary world. 

 Any individual bees that have 

 enterprise are at liberty to find 

 homes for themselves elsewhere. 

 A feeble remnant with a good 

 queen will swarm out if deprived 



of their combs, and may make 

 trouble in the camp, but a queen- 

 less colony will not. One of riiy 

 four this year had no drone brood 

 and no fertile workers — an unu- 

 sual state of things with me. 



THEY wouldn't CIO IN. 



Having so nTanj'^'swarms I get 

 lots of experience in hiving, and 

 incline to be proud of my expert- 

 ness. The last! swarm of the year 

 took me down a peg. The^^ totally 

 refused to go into the hive when 

 put down 'before it. The cause 

 was just this. A comb, partly 

 empty and partly containing hone}', 

 had been- put in, and for a few days 

 previous it had hung in a box with 

 other combs. Two or three of 

 these had a few dozen drone larvae 

 in them ; and so the otherwise 

 faufttless comb I tried to use had 

 contracted a slight odor of putrid- 

 ity from the air in which it hung. 

 After the obnoxious comb was 

 taken out the bees slowly consented 

 to enter. Moral : Mind your Q's 

 and P's when jou hive a swarm of 

 bees. 



Richards, Ohio, Sept. 5, 1883. 



CONSISTENCY, THOU ART 

 A JEWEL! 



By Geo. W. House. 



In the editorials of the " Bee 

 Keeper's Magazine" and the "Am- 

 erican Bee Journal" are remarks 

 that call for rebuttal or an expla- 

 nation from some one, and as here- 

 tofore these same journals have 



