184 



THE AMERICAN APICULTVRIST. 



extent. Honey in kegs of about 

 150 pounds will always find buyers 

 at good prices. Also barrels and 

 half barrels are easily disposed of. 

 Iron bound packages should not 

 be used for honey. Early in the 

 season we received a lot of honey 

 in iron bound kegs, and we had to 

 have them coopered every week. 

 Packages should not be filled up to 

 the bung hole, at least a half gal- 

 lon should be left out. Strong, 

 wooden-hooped kegs or barrels are 

 the best for extracted honey. 

 Clean, new packages with painted 

 heads make a very nice appearance 

 and we prefer to handle tiiat st^de. 



Henry Segelken, 



New York City. 



EXCHANGES. 



Drone-Laying AVorker Bees, by 

 Gust. Makhard. — Having noticed 

 some articles in the Bee Journal 

 on drone-laying wwkers, I thought 

 1 would send you my experience 

 with them during the thirty years of 

 my handling bees. 



The first case Avas a strong black 

 colony, which had been deprived 

 of its queen to force them to con- 

 struct royal cells for use in the 

 apiary. The colony constructed 

 seven fine cells six of which were 

 taken out and but one left them. 

 The young queen was lost in her 

 bridal excursion, when they were 

 furnished with another royal cell. 

 The queen was again lost. The 

 weather here in Oregon is very 

 changeable, and unfavorable for 

 queen-rearing a greater part of the 

 year. 



Fresh brood was then given to the 

 colony, as there wei'e no royal cells 

 just then. But the liees had, in 

 the meantime, accepted of a drone- 

 laying worker as queen, and did 

 not construct any royal cells. I 

 then gave them a good laying- 



queen, but found her gone the next 

 da}^ when I gave up the colony as 

 unredeemable, after I had taken 

 them into a room before closed 

 windows, and had made them all 

 travel, to see if I could not discov- 

 er any suspicious looking worker 

 among them, in which 1 failed. 



In the meantime summer has 

 passed, and it happened that a 

 small colony of bees, M'ith a laying 

 queen, which had left its hive in 

 despair, came to settle on an apple 

 tree in my garden. I liived the swarm 

 so as to experiment with them on 

 my despaired-of colony with the 

 drone-laying worker. The colony 

 belonged to a neighbor of mine, 

 who was a real genius of a bee man, 

 a great experimenter, and a very 

 neglectful man, who tried to rear 

 queens of drone brood, experiment- 

 ing with his colonies until he had 

 not a decent colony left, and who 

 either would not shut his hives at 

 all or M'ould cover them but partly. 

 But the bees did belong to another 

 man, and it is not a costl}^ thing 

 to experiment with another man's 

 property in a trifling way. 



I united the small colony with 

 the afflicted colony, shut the hive 

 up, after smoking them well, and 

 left them alone for an hour. After 

 re-opening the entrance of the 

 hive about fifty dead workers were 

 pushed out. Next day I found the 

 queen alive, and the colony thence- 

 forth went all right. 



I have had several cases since, 

 and have saved every colony by 

 taking a frame and brood with the 

 queen and bees thereon and set- 

 ting the same in a new hive. Then 

 remove the hive with the drone- 

 laying worker, and set the new 

 hive in its place. Then take the 

 combs of the affected hive out, 

 shake and brush all the bees there- 

 from, before the entrance of the 

 new hive, to make them enter ; 

 after this is done, either put the 

 emptied combs in the hive also or 



