78 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



— those little black ones that combine 

 all of the cussedness of the insect family 

 — wouldn't eat it; they seem to like bees 

 the best, so I prepared them a meal, by 

 taking a lot of laying worker-brood and 

 mixing them with the rat's enemy. I 

 tried that, and was successful. 



I wish to say for the benefit of Thos. 

 S. Wallace (see page 758), that I in- 

 troduced 50 fine virgin queens on March 

 15th, and the weather was so windy and 

 rainy that but few of them were mated 

 before they were 21 days old ; however, 

 all of them did mate, and were good 

 queens. 



I can winter virgin queens in small 

 nuclei, and have them mated in the 

 spring. Judging from my own experi- 

 ence in the business, I presume that J. 

 A. knew what she was talking about. Mr. 

 Wallace's 22 years in the bee-business 

 does not prove his ideas to be correct. I 

 have a neighbor who has kept bees 30 

 years, and he was just saying to me the 

 other day, that his bees used to do bet- 

 ter in the East where they could get pine 

 rosin from which to build their comb. 



Chrisman, Tex. C. B. Bankston. 



Half a Crop— Bees on "July 4tli." 



Mks. Atchley : — The honey season is 

 about over with us. My crop will be 

 about half of what was expected — nearly 

 30 tons from the sages — honey of No. 1 

 quality. This is not half a crop for a 

 good season, and judging from the past 

 it is a half crop in this county. 



My benefactor, Mr. E,. Wilkin, is to 

 exhibit bees openly in a procession dur- 

 ing the 4th of July. It will be of in- 

 terest to the public in this section. 



M. H. Mendleson. 



Ventura, Calif., June 29, 1893. 



A Mississippian's Bee-Experience. 



Mrs. Jennie Atchley : — I am a new 

 member of the bee-keeping fraternity. I 

 had 17 common box-gums at the open- 

 ing of this past spring, and proceeded to 

 transfer them all to new frame hives of 

 my own manufacture, after Root's style 

 of hives. After transferring the first 

 four or five, the colonies deserted their 

 hives on account of robbing — a result of 

 inexperience on my part. But I soon 

 " caught on," and transferred the rest 

 in a closed room ; I have had five natural 

 swarms this season. I am now running 

 17 colonies in frame hives, and two 

 common box and log gums. 



The honey-flow, so far, is not as good 

 as I hoped for. Five of my colonies are 

 weak, and the 12 others have supers on, 

 and are loading up nicely, but slowly. I 

 have sold surplus of three supers ; the 

 latter is filled with little boxes, 4x4, or 

 43^x4j^ inches, made by my own hands. 

 I get 10 cents per pound in our little 

 village. 



My little apiary is on my farm on a 

 small non-boatable river, and 30 miles 

 from any point on a railroad. It is my 

 intention to enlarge my apiary to 100 

 colonies, and work for extracted and 

 comb honey. 



I derive a great deal of help, intel- 

 lectually, from reading the American 

 Bee Journal. 



As a beginner, I have no rich and rare 

 experiences to relate. I have uniformly 

 succeeded so far with my bees, which 

 are the Germans. My success Is due to 

 hard and close study of the books 

 (Langstroth's and Root's), and the bee- 

 periodicals that I receive, and exercis- 

 ing with my pets. 



In my brood-frames for swarms, I put 

 guides made of a slender stick, 3/16x- 

 3/16, and length of the under side of 

 the top-bar, tacked on and coated with 

 wax. The combs are remarkably and 

 beautifully straight. 



In my sections I use starters Ji to 3^ 

 inch wide, and no separators. The 

 honey is straight and uniform, very at- 

 /tractive, and a source of wonder to my 

 neighbors and others who see the filled 

 sections. 



I am 54 years old. I taught school for 

 over 25 years, till three years ago. I 

 am infatuated with bee-keeping, but I 

 do not rely on the product of my apiary 

 for meat and bread. I sell honey as fast 

 as it is sealed over. 



Now, Mrs. Atchley, I merely write to 

 introduce myself to the fraternity as a 

 beginner and a learner ; as well as to 

 inform you that there is one more bee- 

 keeper in Mississippi than you knew of 

 before now. R. A. Whitfield. 



Westville, Miss., July 3, 1893. 



Alley's Queen-Rearing- book, 

 or "Thirty Years Among the Bees," 

 gives the result of over a quarter-cen- 

 tury's experience in rearing queen-bees, 

 and describing the practical, every-day 

 work. By Henry Alley. It contains an 

 "Appendix," showing the improvements 

 made in queen-rearing the last four 

 years. Very latest work of the kind. 

 Nearly 100 pages, with Illustrations. 

 Price, postpaid, 50 cents ; or clubbed 

 with Bee Journal one year, for $1.30. 



