280 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



lO-gallon l^ettle-the best thing we can 

 get-that will do. Fill it with water 

 put a fire around it, and make it boil 

 while getting the hives ready. IJow 

 let's scald fast while the water is hot. 

 Look here, they will not go quite half 

 way into the water, so take a large dip- 

 per and scald the sides and bottom then 

 turn the other end and scald it Chunk 

 up the fire if the water gets cool. When 

 boiled down, put some more water into 

 the kettle. Fire up, and get it to boiling 

 again; and so on until it is finished. 

 Now they are done, and aren t they 

 pretty things-each end stained yellow 

 with propolis, and a white strip /round 

 the middle? Besides, everybody tl^at 

 comes along would ask, " W^iy did 

 you paint those hives that way ? Why 

 didn't you paint them white or yellow, 

 and not have that stripe around the 



middle ?" , , e ^^K tn 



Now, you see it is a deal of a Job to 



scald hives, and I would just risk Mr. 



McEvoy for all of it. 

 Funis, Texas 



^ Do not write anything- for publication 

 on the same sheet or paper wit^ business 

 matters, unless it can be torn apart without 

 interfering with either partol the letter. 



Evening-Primrose is It's Name. 



I send a weed that the bees are very fond 

 of It e-rows along the waysides, and is 

 about 4 to .5 feet tall, with a white blossom. 

 Please name it in the Bee Jouknai.. 



Wallace, Ills. Joseph Mason. 



[Tlie weed you enclose is anma biennis, be- 

 longing to the evening-primrose family. It 

 is not an uncommon weed, and furnishes a 

 large quantity of pollen of good quality, 

 but not a large amount of nectar. The 

 pollen is very adhesive, and readily col- 

 lected.— Ed.] 



An Experience with Bobber Bees. 



For the benefit of others, 1 will give my 

 recent experience with robbers (I mean 

 robber bees). A short time since I was in- 

 troducing some queens at tlie middle ot the 



day. and robbers got a taste of nectar, and 

 insisted on taking all the honey from sev- 

 eral weak colonies. They kept it up all that 

 afternoon, and were up at the peep o day 

 next morning. I tried everything I could 

 think of, then read all the books I had on 

 the subiect, and continued the remedies 

 found in them. Still they kept on ' ' a-rob- 

 bin' " I then removed the queens from the 

 hives that were robbing, and in 30 minutes 

 the robbing ceased. I allowed them to re- 

 main queenless for 48 hours, when I re- 

 turned the queens in the usual way, and 

 now all is serene. 



This has been a splendid honey year m 

 this locality. My best colonies averaged 

 over 100 pounds of comb honey each, which 

 I sold readilv at ]2}.< cents per pound. 1 

 use dovetailed hives, S and 10 frame, but 1 

 get the best results from 10-frame hives. 



The American Bee Journal has been a 

 regular visitor at my house every Friday 

 since February, and a welcome one at 

 that In this instance, Friday has been a 

 lucky day at our house. M. D. Andes. 

 Bristol, Tenn., Aug. 13, 1893. 



Stopping Swarms with a Mirror. 



My attention being called to Susie's com- 

 munication on page 73, I want to tell her 

 something. I don't believe in ringing bells, 

 nor in hammering mother's tin-pail or dish- 

 pan all out of shape, to stop swarms; but 

 my experience has been that I have never 

 lost a swarm when the sun was shining 

 Take a medium-sized lookmg-glass. and 

 flash the sun's rays among the thickes^t part 

 of the swarm. Three years ago I had a 

 swarm begin to alight on the top of a 

 maple tree some 50 feet high ; I threw the 

 sun's rays on them in such volume that 

 they quit the limb and came down and 

 clustered within six feet of the ground, on 



^ lU*!^ a will-known fact that bees depend 

 more upon location, than on the appear- 

 ance of their hives. I think if they design 

 to abscond, they take their bearings before 

 starting, and when the glass is brought to 

 bear on them, they see, -as it were two 

 suns beaming on them, and then they are 

 in about the same Pi-edicainent a man 

 would be if taken out in a dark night blind- 

 folded on an open prairie, with a bght on 

 the north and one on the south of him. and 

 told to find his way to any given point. 



The bees' ideas of locabty are mixed im- 

 mediately, and after P^^-^liog. *h®": ^'^^^^ 

 brains over the phenomenon, without being 

 able to solve the mystery, wisely conclude 

 to settle and await developments^ -^5!.^' 

 tions to this theory will ^'^ treated wthie- 



Spect. T. O. KELLEY. 



Slippery Rock, Fa. 



Queens Laying Eggs in aueen-Cells. 



On paee TS'.). for June 32nd, Mr. Thomas 

 Johnson asks Mr. Nelson if he has any evi- 

 dence of queens laying in q"een-c^ells. 1 

 flon'tknow as to Mr Nelson but 1 have 

 some very good evidence that they do. 



