THE AMERICAN APICULTUBIST. 



91 



gently and the headless drone- 

 brood will drop out. We usually 

 remove the bees from the combs to 

 be thus treated. Fig. 2 represents 

 the "Peabody Hone\' Knife," which 

 we have found as good as an^^ for 

 use in the apiary. There are none 

 of them for sale now ; but pre- 

 sume there are other knives equally 

 as good. 



AN ORIGINAL SMOKER. 



When we first began to keep 

 bees, such a thing as a "Bellows " 

 smoker was unknown. In those 

 days, the oi^Jy thing known to us 

 (now old fellows) was a tin pipe, 

 illustrated in Fig. 3. The barrel 

 of this pipe is about six inches long, 

 seven-eighths inch in diameter, and 

 has wooden pieces at each end. 



The end through which the smoke 

 is blown has a tin tube passing 

 through it so that the smoke can be 

 directed to any point. The pipe is 

 held in the mouth, while the hands 

 are at liberty. Although the Bel- 

 lows smoker is far superior for 

 handling bees, yet the old pipe has 

 not lost its usefulness, as we find 

 plenty of business for it every day 

 rom May to Oct. The most im- 



portant use for it is in introducing 

 queens. For nearly thirty years 

 we have introduced both fertile 

 and virgin queens by fumigating 

 the bees with tobacco smoke, and 

 venture to say that no one has had 

 better success by any plan known 

 to beekeepers. Our method requires 

 but a few moments for the opera- 

 tion, and not one queen in one 

 hundred is lost. This plan is the 

 only one b}^ which a fertile queen 

 can be removed from the largest 

 colony and a strange queen intro- 

 duced immediately. A full de- 

 scription of this method will be 

 given in a later number. 



The Bellows smoker need not be 

 described here ; nearly eveiy bee- 

 keeper has one of some good pat- 

 tern. A new one has just been put 

 upon the market by Clias. Muth 

 & Son. It is made of all metal, 

 and as far as we can judge is a 

 perfect smoker. 



THE FOUNTAIN PUMP. 



Where large numbers of colonies 

 are kept, a small " force pump" of 

 some sort is needed for sprinkling 

 bees when they swarm. Not only 

 can the bees be more easily han- 

 dled, but they are less inclined to 

 sting or to fly when wet. There 

 are several kinds of such pumps in 

 the market, but none of them are 

 so good for sprinkling bees, as the 

 "Whitman Fountain Pump. " It 

 is very substantially and nicely 

 made. It is also very handy for 

 washing windows, or for putting 

 out fire on the roof of a building ; 

 instead of running for a ladder take 

 the Whitman pump and a bucket 

 of water, and the roof of any house 

 of ordinary heiglit can be reached. 



The price of these pumps is a 

 drawback to their general use. 

 We would not take $50 for ours 

 although it cost but $7. 



OUR BEES. 



By the time this number of the 

 "Apiculturist" reaches our readers 



