_m*fcL« 



ESTABLISHED £) 

 IN 1861 



DEVOTED TO SCIENTIFIC BEE-CULTURE AND THE PRODUCTION AND SALE OF PURE HONEY. 



VOL. XVII. 



CHICAGO, ILL., MARCH 2, 1881. 



No. 9. 



S3 y /^i0:0O Smi^M Ml 



Published every Wednesday, by 



THOMAS G. NEWMAN, 



Editor and Proprietor, 

 974 WEST MADISON ST., CHICAGO, ILL. 



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Kor the American Bee Journal. 



Restoring Bees when apparently Dead 



REV. L. JOHNSON. 



Every person knows that hornets, 

 wasps, yellow jackets, and all the vari- 

 eties or wild bees will be encased in 

 frost and ice for months, and as soon as 

 warmed and dried will be as active as 

 ever. But the honey bee is not so con- 

 stituted. Her blood is warm, and her 

 system must be supplied with food to 

 sustain life ; yet during winter she lies 

 in a semi-torpid condition, and may 

 even seem entirely dead, and yet be re- 

 stored. When a boy, I frequently found 

 bees drowned in sugar- water during su- 

 gar making, and after they had lain for 

 hours, could be brought to life by lying 

 them in the sun and blowing the breath 

 upon them. In some instances I have 

 restored them after they had been in 

 water all night. Langstroth states, 



Eage 25, that Jjzierzon and Berlespech 

 oth subjected queens to as much as 36 

 hours of cold in an ice-house and then 

 restored some of them to life. 



The thought occurred to me recently 

 that we might make use of these facts 

 where bees had become starved and 

 chilled in the hive. An opportunity 

 soon occurred. A few days ago, in look- 

 ing over my hives, I found one which 

 had consumed all their stores, and were 

 all about dead, except between two 

 combs, and these could scarcely move. 

 I immediately gave them some warm 

 syrup, and placed honey on the top of 

 the frames, covering them up. In about 

 half an hour I examined them and found 

 the whole colony active and lively, and 

 they are now as vigorous as any colony 

 I have. 



In two other instances, bee-keepers 

 with whom I have talked, have met 

 with the same experience. One stated 

 that he found one colony apparently 

 dead, and frost among the bees, but on 

 placing them in a warm room and fur- 



nishing them food, they soon became 

 lively. In almost every instance I think 

 bees can be resuscitated within 10 or 12 

 hours after they seem to be dead, unless 

 they become frozen. In examining a 

 hive, if any living bees can be found, if 

 immediately supplied with food and 

 gently warmed, they most likely can be 

 saved. 



The last bees to die in a colony are 

 generally those near the queen. Their 

 last feeble morsel is divided with their 

 mother, and oftentimes her position 

 shows she had survived her children 

 some time. Before giving your seem- 

 ingly dead bees up in despair, make one 

 earnest effort to restore them, and you 

 may be rewarded by saving a valuable 

 queen and colony. 



Walton, Ky., Feb. 10, 1881. 



Given's Frame-Wiring Machine. 



On this page we give some engrav- 

 ings, showing the machine used by Mr. 

 D. S. Given for putting wires in the 

 brood-frames before filling them with 

 comb foundation. He gives the follow- 

 ing description of them and how they 

 are to be used: 



The two arms seen separated by the 

 springs are regulated by set screws so 

 they will open to a required distance. 

 They are pulled together the foot lever. 

 The upper and lower bars of the frames 

 are punched by pairs, and each arm is 

 made to hold its piece to the exact place 

 by a spring, and are one-half inch apart. 



The wire is sewed through both pieces 

 at once by using a harness needle. The 

 wire is run in a Langstroth frame as 

 follows: draw the needle through the 

 first set of holes and return it through 

 the second set, placing the other thumb 

 in the loop, and with the thumb draw 

 out one arm length of wire, letting one- 

 half of it follow the needle and the rest 

 is dropped over a light spring at the 

 foot of the arm, return the needle thro' 

 the third set of holes, placing the thumb 

 in the loop, now we pull with the thumb 

 and the light spring on the other side 

 will raise, letting loose of the wire to 

 avoid kinks. Now we sew back and 

 forward through all the holes, leaving a 

 slack each time, and fasten the end oy 



a small tack. The position the wire is 

 now in, is seen in the following cut: 



We now place the thumbs in the first 

 two short loops, let up the foot lever, 

 draw in the slack wire on the light 

 spring by the first thumb, and then 

 draw it out on second thumb, and we 

 have all the slack in the centre of the 

 frame, as seen in cut below. Rub over 



TffTAgyr 



the wires with the finger, and by the aid 

 of the springs this slack is taken in and 

 enough off the spool to let the frame 

 to its set distance. If the angle wires 

 are wanted, enough wire is broken off 

 the spool to run them in, and the end is 

 fastened on the same tack with the oth- 

 er. Then we have the upper and lower 

 bars with the wires, as seen in cut below: 



These are piled over the edge of a 

 board, and are ready for use on the 

 press. 



The advantages in this machine is 

 speed in wireing, saving over one-half 

 the time. It can be worked by boys as 

 it avoids kinks in the wire, and no dan- 

 ger of having the frame bowed by the 

 wires. Then it is much better suited 

 for lifting off the dies than the solid 

 frame. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Upward Ventilation for Bees. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



On page 42 of the Bee Journal, Mr. 

 F. H. Miner, under the above heading, 

 wholly ignores upward ventilation, and 

 seems to think that " dangerous thing, 

 a little learning," has put stupid theo- 

 ries into the brains of most bee-keepers 

 —for the large majority of our apiarists 

 of the present day favor upward venti- 

 lation. Let us look at the facts and see 

 on whose shoulders the great loss of the 

 past falls ; if on the " learned array of 

 acknowledged authorities," let them 

 fall, and if on " these old basswood-gum 

 men," let THEM/aM. 



Among the pleasant recollections of 

 the past the bees are ever foremost, and 

 at 10 years of age I was an anxious 

 watcher of the bees, of which father 

 had some 20 colonies or more. These 

 were kept in the Weeks patent hive, 

 where the bottom board was attached to 



the hive with wire hooks and staples, 

 and with a button so arranged that for 

 winter the bottom was allowed to hang 

 suspended an inch below the hive, while 

 in summer the button was so turned as 

 to bring the bottom board tight to the 

 bottom of the hive, except the entrance. 

 With this hive, father had poor success 

 in wintering bees, while a neighbor win- 

 tered his safely with the hive tight at 

 the bottom, and a two-inch auger-hole 

 at the top. Soon after the bottom boards 

 were left fastened to the hives, and a 

 large hole made near the top for the 

 bees to go in and out at, and for venti- 

 lation, after which no losses occurred 

 from wintering, of any amount. So 

 much for wintering years ago. 



Several years after, father lost all of 

 his bees by that dreaded disease, foul 

 brood, and no more were kept in the 

 family till I purchased again in 18G9. 

 At that time there were plenty of bees 

 kept near us in box hives, many of which 

 were set on blocks, as Mr. Miner would 

 have them for successful wintering. 

 We adopted the upward ventilation 

 theory, but not a direct current of air 

 through the hive. Now for the facts 

 again. While myself and four others 

 have about 200 colonies each wintered 

 with upward ventilation every year, not 

 one of the box hive (or lower ventila- 

 tion) men has a single colony. 



Now, I wish to call Mr. Miner's atten- 

 tion to a colony in its natural home in 

 the hollow tree in the woods. Here we 

 find them quite as likely to go into a 

 tree with the hole above the hollow as 

 at the bottom, and those with the hole 

 at the top seem to prosper the best. 

 We also find that the hollow is composed 

 of partially-decayed wood, especially 

 above the combs. Thus, in the winter 

 the moisture from the bees passes into 

 the decayed wood, which surrounds 

 them, and is expelled out each summer 

 by the heat. Thus we have something 

 pointing toward a porous covering for 

 our bees for wintering, from which 

 originated chaff hives, chaff cushions, 

 etc. I also wish to say, his predictions 

 of ''great losses this winter from smoth- 

 ering," are all groundless. Bees cannot 

 be smothered in such hives, seal the 

 bottom as tight as you please. With 

 upward ventilation and all air cut off 

 at the bottom, there is no circulation 

 only as the bees themselves cause it, 

 and they make the circulation as they 

 require it, and no more. 



As regards giving water to bees, I 

 think it wholly unnecessary, for the 

 reason that I believe it a bad plan for 

 bees to breed much, if any, before the 

 middle of March , to the middle of April, 

 according to the season. Colonies that 

 commence breeding earlier are not as 

 good, as a rule, on the first of June, as 

 those of the same strength as to num- 

 bers of bees that do not commence to 

 rear brood before the first of April. I 

 am becoming more firmly convinced, 

 that the practice of keeping bees in the 

 cellar till pollen is plenty in the fields, 

 is the correct one ; and if bees are win- 

 tered out of doors, let them be packed 

 with chaff to so great a depth that the 

 sun's rays will not arouse the bees to 

 activity every time it shines on them for 

 a little while in the middle of the day, 

 when the air is cool otherwise. This 

 early breeding causes a much greater 

 consumption of honey, and a greater 

 loss of hees, without a corresponding 

 benefit. When it comes steady warm 



