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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Aug. 31, 



bees. This, of all the various plans 

 of artificial swarming, has no doubt 

 been practiced the most, and caused 

 the most injury to the bees of the 

 country. 



Let us follow out the workings of 

 this process and note its results. The 

 queenless part rears one from larva, 

 from 1 to 3 days old, making a queen 

 not up to the standard of one reared 

 by natural swarming, which will give 

 workers that want honey in abundance 

 close to the apiary, or* else they will 

 try to steal it from their more vigor- 

 ous and successful neighbors. I had a 

 cell sealed up in 45 hours where I put 

 a frame of brood in a queenless colony 

 to find out if they had one. Does any 

 bee-keeper think that queen, if 1 had 

 allowed tier to have been fertilized, 

 would have borne any comparison to 

 one reared in a colony in a normal con- 

 dition from an egg "" This forced 

 queen, if she lives till next spring 

 (for they are short lived) will fill all 

 the drone-comb in her hive (such be- 

 ing generally great drone layers). 

 Those drones fertilizing queens, stamp 

 their imperfect individuality on the 

 workers, which have lost a portion of 

 their toughness or vigor, and as 

 queens are reared from those worker 

 eggs : the next forced queen made by 

 dividing is poorer still, giving the 

 apiarist poor workers which bring 

 him in but little honey. He goes on 

 dividing (for lie is getting rich, mak- 

 ing colonies by the quantity, worth a 

 good sum each). 



What wonder if after this reducing 

 system has been practiced for a few 

 years, he finds his queens very short- 

 lived and is puzzled about it ! He 

 reads that queens live from 3 to 5 

 years, and finds that his bees, that 

 wintered almost any way the first few 

 years, need a great deal of nursing. 

 require costly chaff hives and cellars 

 to winter them well, but when they 

 get so reduced that they can stand 

 but little, cellars or chaff hives do not 

 save them in such a winter as the 

 last. One who had been sneering at 

 his " old fogy " neighbor with com- 

 mon box hives, who is far enough 

 from him not to have his bees spoiled 

 by drones raised from his poor Jorced 

 queens, ought to see why his bees 

 wintered so much better than his 

 own. Forced queens give great quan- 

 tities of imperfect workers, that the 

 workers kill off in great quantities 

 where they kill the drones. 



Such are the results of too much 

 dividing. How is it witli forced queens 

 reared in full colonies, largely adver- 

 tised V The queen and brood are ta- 

 ken away, and after the bees get over 

 their worry, they commence cells, of- 

 ten allowing the eggs given them to 

 hatch and be fed worker food 1 or 2 

 days before giving them royal food 

 and enlarging the cell. They gener- 

 ally start so many cells that the nurse 

 bees are not able to furnish royal food 

 for them to make perfect queens, al- 

 though I have seen but 3 or 4 of those 

 small half-starved looking cells in a 

 large colony, that worried a long time 

 at the loss of their mother and brood. 

 I am satisfied that the difference in 

 size of cells made by a swarm in nor- 

 mal condition, or an abnormal one, is 

 the lack of ability to furnish a large 

 quantity of royal food, so they half 

 starve them ; while in the large cells 

 reared in the hive that has swarmed 

 naturally, we often see a quantity in 

 the cell after the queen has left. We 

 never sec any in the small cells, where 

 the bees an- forced to make a queen, 

 no matter how they are forced. 



Any one can demonstrate this mat- 

 ter, by rearing forced, instead of nat- 

 ural queens, as hundreds have, in the 

 past, and reported by scores in the 

 bee papers, about as follows: See 

 Gleanings for Feb., 1881, page 84, by 

 J. C. Phillips, this being an almost 

 exact report : " I kept bees in the old 

 fogy style, till 1872, when I began with 

 a movable comb hive with 2 stands, 

 increased to 6 by dividing, got no 

 honey ; started next spring with the (i 

 (you see he wintered well); this and 

 the two following seasons increased 

 mostly by dividing to 15, took 600 lbs. 

 honey ; next year I increased by di- 



viding to 35. and took 1500 lbs. honey; 

 next spring I had 30 (he did not win- 

 ter quite as well), increased to 75, 

 mostly by dividing; the next May 

 found me with 11, it being a good 

 year, increased by dividing to 52." 

 This brings him down to such a win- 

 ter as the last, which, no matter how 

 much pains he has taken in winter- 

 ing, closes him out. 

 Los Gatos, Cal. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



A Model Prize List. 



WM. F. CLARKE. 



Complaint has often been justly 

 made that at our great agricultural 

 shows there has been scarcely any re- 

 cognition of honey, hives, and bee- 

 keepers' requisites. Generally speak- 

 ing, this important productive industry 

 is ignored, or nearly so. Under the 

 influence of our Bee-Keepers' Asso- 

 ciation, formed last fall, " Canada's 

 Great Fair," which holds in Toronto, 

 from Sept. 5 to 17, has introduced a 

 section into its prize list, the publica- 

 tion of which may perhaps act as an 

 example and stimutous to the mana- 

 gers of other exhibitions in various 

 parts of this continent. It is as fol- 

 lows : 



Honey and Apiarian Supplies. 

 Entrance Fee, 2o cents. 



Largest and bestdisplay of honev, $10, $.>. 



Best 10 pounds of extracted honey, $5, *3, $2. 



Best 10 pounds of comb honey, $•>, $3. S2. 



Best methods of marketing extracted honey, J5. 

 »3, J2. 



Best methods of marketing comb honey. $5, $3, $2. 



Best comb foundation for brood-chamber, diploma. 



Best comb foundation for honey boxes, diploma. 



Best and most scientific mode of wintering out- 

 doors in any kind of a hive, $5, $2. 



Best house for wintering bees and of most use for 

 apiarian purposes in summer : working model 

 to be on ground, represented by a scale of not 

 less than one inch to the foot, $o, $2. 



Best winter and summer hive, diploma. 



Best and most practical invention for retaining 

 even temperature in bee bouse, $3, $2. 



Best wax extractor, diploma. 



Best mode of securing the largest yield of box 

 honey from a single hive, 13, $2. 



Best and most valuable invention in bee hives not 

 heretofore exhibited or made public, bronze 

 medal. 



Best non-swarming hive, diploma. 



Best bee smoker. $2, $ 1. 



Best honev knile. $2, $1. 



Best honey extractor for general use, $2, 11, 



Best exhibit of bees and new races of bees.diploma. 



Best and largest display of apiarian supplies. JU), 



Best and most practical new invention for the 



apiarist, $5, $3. 

 Best form of hive, bronze medal. 



Critical readers of the above will be 

 able to detect deficiences in it, and it 

 is only fair to say that it was prepared 

 as the result of individual suggestion. 

 Our Association as such, lias not yet 

 had an opportunity of considering it. 

 No doubt, improvement will be made 

 on it next year. Indeed, it would be 

 a good thing if the North American 

 Bee-Keepers' Association would bring 

 its wisdom to bear on the matter of a 

 prize list, which, with slight modifica- 

 tions, might do for all our State and 

 Provincial exhibitions. 



Listowel, Aug. 17, 1881. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Introducing Queens. 



A. F. MOON. 



The success in introducing queens 

 is due more to the method than what 

 is sometimes termed "luck." I have 

 tried nearly every plan, and long since 

 adopted the following one: 



Remove the old queen from the 

 hive you wish to re-queen, and place 

 the wire cage containing the queen be- 

 tween 2 combs of sealed honey. If 

 the cage is too thick, cut out apiece 

 of comb large enough to receive the 

 cage and place her gently into the 

 hive. If she is a fertile queen there 

 are always some bees, like the good 

 Samaritan, who will feed and care for 

 her. Leave her in the cage for 36 

 hours, and on the third morning care- 

 fully examine every frame, destroy 

 any and all queen cells that may be 

 started, and gently lift the queen out 

 on a frame of brood. If she is re- 

 ceived friendly the bees will surround, 

 feed and caress her. Should any 

 worker show signs of stinging, it 

 will be better to recage her until the 

 next day, when all will be right. 



The disposition of the honey bee 

 very much resembles that of the hu- 

 man family ; some are always peevish 

 and fretful, while others are gentle 

 and kind; some colonies will receive 

 a strange queen within an hour after 

 the loss of their mother, and some 

 colonies will never start a queen cell 

 after their mother is removed, provid- 

 ing a fertile queen is immediately 

 given to them ; while other colonies 

 show hatred toward their stepmother, 

 and a constant desire to rear a new 

 queen, by starting from 5 t© 25 queen 

 cells. 



I have tried introducing queens by 

 taking off all the bees from the combs 

 and daubing the queen well with 

 honey. I have had pretty good suc- 

 cess, but have found some that had 

 fallen a prey to the angry bees by their 

 balling her. In this case it is some- 

 times difficult to rescue her. I have 

 even known them not to kill her after 

 giving her a severe hugging ; her pit- 

 iful cry for mercy may have saved 

 her. I have known them to hug a 

 queen for a whole day and then receive 

 her. 



To get rid of fertile workers I give 

 them a frame of brood containing, if 

 possible, a few queen cells ; it does 

 not matter materially if they are 

 sealed. I now remove from the stand 

 one of the strongest colonies in the 

 apiary, place the queenless colony in 

 its place, and the strong one where 

 the colony containing the fertile 

 worker stood, and the job is complete. 

 If sealed queen cells are given, under 

 these circumstances, the bees seldom 

 molest them ; the colony, through 

 surprise, are thrown into confusion, 

 and are made sensible of their loss at 

 once, and are more apt to recognize 

 their want and appreciate their pros- 

 perity by receiving a new mother. It 

 is seldom that bees destroy uncapped 

 queen cells, on account of their strong 

 attachment for their young. 



The weather is very dry, a heavy 

 drouth now prevails and the bees are 

 doing nothing. 



Rome, Ga., July 28, 1881. 



Rural New Yorker. 



Improving Honey Plants. 



CH. DADANT. 



The family of the Leguminosse is 

 one of the best for bees and for cattle. 

 In this family we find the White Clover 

 (Trifolium repens] of our pastures, 

 the Melilot (Melifotus alba) whose 

 name is derived from the Greek word 

 meK (honey) and the Sainfoin (Ono- 

 brychis sativa), a plant which does 

 not withstand our winters, but which, 

 in France, gives the best honey and 

 the best fodder. 



Nearly related to the White Clover 

 is the Red Clover (Trifolium arvense), 

 which furnishes as great a quantity 

 of honey as any one of the plants men- 

 tioned. Every country boy has sucked 

 the honey from the tubes of its corollas; 

 but few know that, if they had the 

 chance of tasting this sweet, it was be- 

 cause bumble bees are nearly the only 

 insects which can reach it, and bumble 

 bees are too few in number to absorb 

 such a large crop, which, therefore, re- 

 mains un harvested, the corollas of Red 

 Clover being too deep to allow the 

 honey bees to suck it. 



These corollas are only a very little 

 too deep ; for, during the drought of 

 some summers, the flowers of the sec- 

 ond crop, being a little shorter, the 

 Italian bees find in them a good har- 

 vest ; yet it is doubtful whether in the 

 best circumstances their proboscesare 

 able to reach the bottoms of the tubes. 

 Moreover, the honey of the main crop 

 is always out of reach of the bees, and 

 the aim of bee-keepers is to produce a 

 kind of bees endowed with a tongue 

 long enough to reach the bottom of 

 the clover blossoms, or to produce a 

 kind of red clover whose blossoms 

 would be shorter or wider, so that 

 bees could suck all the honey ; or to 

 attack the difficulty in both wsys at 

 the same time. The work has already 

 begun. Some bee-keepers try to pro- 

 duce bees endowed with longer pro- 

 bosces, and some others are selecting. 



in the fields, the plants whose corollas 

 are wider or shorter than usual, in 

 order to secure a sort in which they 

 will be broader. But the task will be 

 long, and we want help, if not in re- 

 gard to bees, at least in regard to the 

 selection and propagation of selected 

 plants. 



A seed grower who would take the 

 thing in hand, planting selected clover 

 with this object in view, if he suc- 

 ceeded, u-ould be sure of a good sale 

 of seeds at runiunerative prices; for 

 every bee-keeper would try to have 

 the new variety introduced to his 

 neighbors. Of course, the end to be 

 attained is, not to produce a short co- 

 rolla by raising a diminutive plant, 

 but to create a strong, vigorous kind, 

 endowed with short or wide corollas, 

 the sap of the plant being directed 

 more towards the branches and the 

 leaves than towards the corollas. 



I dare to predict for the lucky man 

 who would succeed in raising a clover 

 with such fixed characteristics, large 

 sales and big profits. 



Hamilton, 111. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



A Few Interesting Facts. 



,T. H MARTIN. 



It is a fact that many apiarists ad- 

 mire the use of sugar syrup upon 

 which to winter bees, in preference to 

 natural stores. 



It is a fact that there are a dozen or 

 more glucose factories in our country 

 making tons of a deleterious substance 

 used solely for adulteration. 



It is a fact that our grocery-men are 

 selling sugar and syrups adulterated 

 with glucose, because it gives them 

 greater profits. 



It is a fact that the consumer finds 

 his sugar entirely different from what 

 it used to be. It has less sweetening 

 power, and is hard and lumpy. 



It is a fact that glucose 'will kill 

 bees if you attempt to winter them 

 upon it, either in liquid form mixed 

 with honey, or sugar syrup, or in the 

 form of candy. 



It is a fact that bees will winter 

 well upon good sealed honey. 



From the above facts we have 

 reached the conclusion that it is bet- 

 ter to winter upon natural stores, than 

 to run the risk of buying sugar, a por- 

 tion of which is glucose. 



Hartford, N. Y., Aug. 19, 1881. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Origin of Sending Queens by Mail. 



c. J. ROBINSON. 



It appears that some of the enter- 

 prising queen breeders deem it very 

 important that queen shipping cages 

 have many distinct features to rentier 

 them suitable in the highest degree. 

 The essential features of such a cage 

 are quite simple — only to afford bees 

 the conditions requisite, as I learned 

 from experience before any other 

 party ever mailed a honey bee. My 

 humble self has the credit of being 

 the original shipper of queen bees by 

 mail transit. It was from necessity 

 that 1 devised the mode of transport- 

 ing queens through the mails, and 

 contrived a shipping cage. 



In 1859, when the Italian bees were 

 first imported, up to July, 1862. I was 

 receiving queens from J. P. Malum, of 

 Philadelphia (the first successful im- 

 porter of bees), and also from others, 

 including Rev.L. L. Langstroth, who 

 shipped by express. At that time no 

 express office had been established at 

 this point, and I was bothered to get 

 packages from the office in due time. 

 I wrote to Mr. Langstroth, asking his 

 opinion on the feasibility of sending 

 queens per mail. He answered, signi- 

 fying that he deemed the plan imprac- 

 ticable. Still I was bent on trying the 

 experiment, and caged a black queen 

 in a package, which I addressed to Mr. 

 Langstroth and mailed it. In due 

 time the queen, with a few workers, 

 arrived at Mr. Langstroth 's post office 

 all right. Then Mr. L. contrived a 



