THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



Ul 



MEETS HIS EXrECTATIOXS. 



Mr Hexry iLT.E y : — Your nsw Self- 

 hiver m3ets my most sainj:ain3 expecta- 

 tions. It seems to be a sucr ^ss in hivi!i,<r 

 swarms. It is rightly nauid ■■!' .if-ction 

 self-hiver." The bees coiue out while the 

 qiieeii aacl drones cannot get through; 

 they find their way up through the cones 

 into the upper story, and are trapped; 

 •vrheuthe bees af;;2r a fruitless search for 

 their queen, return and cluster in the box 

 around the caged queen, apparently as 

 well satisfied as it they were in a real hive, 

 and the queen with them. Would it not 

 be a good plan to fill the hiver witli combs, 

 provided the combs fitted your hive? 



Yours truly, 

 Ludlow, Vt. A. P. FLErcmcR. 



No, it would not l)e a good idea to 

 place too many com')s in the l)ox s?t to 

 catch the bees. If the hos. is full of 

 combs, the bees would most likely clus- 

 ter there, and work in the box instead 

 of the sections. ' In such a case they 

 would not swarm, nor work in the sec- 

 tions. It should not be forgotten that 

 the box is designed to catch a swarm 

 in case one issues, and no inducement 

 should be offered the bees to cluster and 

 work in the box. — Ed.] 



CUIiRANT WORMS— LOOK OUl! 



Day before yesterday I was showing 

 Mrs. Root our great thrifty gooseberry 

 bushes, loaded with fruit, and I pointed 

 to the fact that not a currant Avorin had 

 as yet mide its appearance. Just 48 hours 

 after two large fine bushes were stripped 

 of their leaves, so that nothing but the 

 green fruit hung from bare poles. For a 

 while I was pretty nearly as mad as a 

 Christian has any right to be. Didn't I 

 dust tlK)se fellows with hellebore I and then 

 didn't I make huge resolutions that I would 

 watch my gooseberry and currant bushes. 

 eoe.rii day instead of every othfr day ! You 

 see, these fellows live over winter in the 

 ground. They got pretty bad last fall 

 when I was sick, and sol had not watched 

 for them. But I presume the weather 

 had kept them back until the conditions 

 were just right, and then they just "went 

 in" for my ch'ice gooseberries. Noav, re- 

 member, you have ha'd a fair warning. A 

 stitch in time certainly s:ives nine. 



A. i. R. in Gleanings. 



These blasted worms are l)0und to 

 strip our currant buslies of all leaves 



each year. We do not di/si with helle- 

 bore, however. It is mixed with water 

 and the bushes sprinkled. In a few 

 hours thereafter every "varmint" will 

 have disappeared. 



See here, Brother R., do you mean 

 to say the worms hve in the ground 

 over winter and reappear in the spring? 

 The worm goes into the ground'; in 

 the spring a tly comes o^it, lays eggs, 

 and more worms appear. — Ed.]. 



PUNIC BEES AND MR. T. W. COWAX. ; 



In the B. B. J. f.jr June i6th. page ; 

 229, the editors say, '-None of these 

 bees are now being imported into this 

 country, and as it is more than twelve 



months since any have been sent over | 

 .... we vei-y much doubt if there is 

 any beekeeper in this country who has 

 a pure queen, and if there happens to 



be such a queen she must be pretty I 



aged." I 



All queens imported, last year were \ 



young ones — i.e., reared in 1 89 1 . Now, J 



according to Mr. Cowan, a queen is at ■ 

 her best during her second year. None 



of the queens imported last year are '\ 



more than fifteen months old, and if this ■; 



means "pretty aged" for queens, I do j 

 not know what an "aged" queen is. 



Another fact. There are quite a num- 

 ber of stocks both in this country and in 1 

 America headed with imported queens, 

 and if anyone will pay the price I can - 

 fill an order by return of post for twenty \ 

 imported queens, to say nothing of pure / 

 mated home reared ones. \ 



Another fact. I have imported queens j 



of this race since twelve months ago. in j 



fact I have imported over thirty queens 1 



since the time stated "any have been ! 



sent over." ^ 



"imported" queens are being adver- : 



tised and offered for sale at the present , 



time, and have been all the season ; and j 



the reason they are not advertised in '. 

 Mr. Cowan's papers is, because when I 

 sent him the advertisement to stand all 

 the season, and the money to pay for it, 



both were returned simply "declined." \ 



