THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



113 



— Success in bee culture is only 

 attainable by continuous and una- 

 bated effort to succeed. The man 

 who succeeds by catching a shower of 

 wealth, which desc;ends on not one in 

 a thousand, is not a success any more 

 than is the man who draws a prize 

 "in a lottery scheme." 



— Several of our correspondents are 

 sending us articles and at the same 

 time duplicate copies to some of the 

 other bee papers. This is not a good 

 idea. A large number of those who 

 read the bee journals take all of them. 

 As the " Api "is a monthly, an ar- 

 ticle might appear in one of the 

 weeklies at the first of the month, 

 but would not reach us in season for 

 the "Api " till the following month ; 

 at that time it would seem rather 

 stale. Do not duplicate your arti- 

 cles, and then the readers of the 

 bee papers will get much more for 

 their money. Unless this practice 

 is discontinued subscriptions will 

 grow beautifully less. No bee jour- 

 nal has any subscribers to spare. 



— Four-piece sections, like the old 

 box hive, have had their day, and 

 soon will be superseded by the all- 

 one-piece. This fact is more appar- 

 ent each succeeding season. 



— Bees commenced here to carry 

 in pollen March 31. Have known 

 them to do so as early in the season 

 but once, that was in the year 1863. 

 They then carried in pollen on 

 March 16, and continued for three 

 days in succession. Sometimes, an 

 " early " spring means an unfavora- 

 ble season for bees, and a good honey 

 crop. A cold backward spring is 

 usually followed by a fruitful season. 



— A dealer in honey remarked to 

 us that the market for honey was 

 very dull. This was not owing to 

 an over-stock, but people he said 

 had no money these unusually dull 

 times to put out for luxuries of any 

 sort. The labor troubles, now exist- 

 ing in all parts of the country, have 

 upset business generally. 



If you will read our advertisement 

 13 



on another page it will be seen that 

 ten hundred and sixty solid pages of 

 the most valuable bee literature may 

 be purchased for the above named 

 sum. Every page of reading matter 

 of the Apiculturist is stereotyped and 

 we can furnish any of the back num- 

 bers at any time : hence the reasons 

 why we can do so for so small a sum. 

 The offer includes the "Apiculturist 

 from 1S83 to January i, 1887. This 

 is an unparalleled offer and every 

 beekeeper in the land should take ad- 

 vantage of it. Volumes one, two 

 and three of the above are hand- 

 somely bound in cloth. 



— The "Apiculturist" will be mailed 

 on the first day of each month. 



TOPICS 

 OF GENERAL INTEREST. 



PROLIFIC QUEENS. 



Is it possible for a queen to be too 

 prolific ? A distinguished beekeeper 

 says he does not want a queen that 

 has such a fault. Since it is an easy 

 matter to control the increase of a 

 colony by the use of perforated zinc, 

 division-boards, or by dummies, no 

 queen should be rejected for such a 

 fault. A queen that will deposit 

 3000 eggs each twenty-four hours, is 

 worth twenty or in fact 100 that will 

 lay only about that number of eggs 

 in the same time. An unprolific 

 queen is about as profitable a piece 

 of property as an old hen that will 

 lay a few eggs and then "set" for 

 the next two months. 



A good queen of any race or 

 strain should not be superseded. 

 Keep her in the apiary as long as 

 her colony is prosperous, and is giv- 

 ing good returns in honey and natu- 

 ral increase of colonies. 



HOW MANY FRAMES TO A HIVE. 



A FEW years ago we sold two col- 

 onies of bees in L. hives to a friend. 

 It was in the fall and the bees had 



