494 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL.. 



towns. But I rather admire living on a 

 ranch, for I can then sing or hollow as 

 loud as I choose, and it disturbs no one ; 

 and, then, we are not bothered with peo- 

 ple all day long hollowing out, "Rob- 

 bing !" When we lived on the public 

 highway almost every one that came 

 along would hollow "Robbing !" as they 

 thought that "robbing "was all there 

 was to do to bees, and several remarked 

 that our bees would not do any good for 

 we worked with them too much, etc. 



Now, as some have been asking ques- 

 tions lately, I have written this article 

 and given all the information in a 

 bundle. 



DAs nearly as I can remember, there 

 were some letters of inquiry lost in my 

 moving, and I have thought of all I 

 could, and hope those who ask the ques- 

 tions will excuse me if I have not an- 

 swered in full. 



Oh, yes, I remember one more ques- 

 tion. Bees begin to swarm here about 

 Feb. 15th to March 1st, and some 

 swarms issue all through the season. 

 Then the bees take another general 

 spree about Sept. 15th. Our first honey 

 here at this place is from black chap- 

 peral ; next, white chapperal — both 

 bloom in January ; then fruit bloom, 

 and catclaw blooms in May. Mesquite 

 blooms after every rain during the en- 

 tire year, December and January ex- 

 cepted. Yes, the honey is very fine. 



Willie went out and bought one load 

 of bees since we came, at $1.25 per 

 colony ; and we transferred them, tak- 

 ing about 40 pounds of nice white comb 

 honey from one colony. The others 

 were moderately heavy. I am told that 

 where there is timber on the rivers here, 

 the woods are full of bees. 



Friends, after I am here awhile, I will 



tell you all about Bee county. We only 



know the road to town and back now, 



but we mean to explore the county soon. 



Jennie Atchley. 



Method of Rearing Queen-Bees. 



Mk8. Atchley : — I send you my 

 method of queen-rearing. I don't want 

 to advise old and experienced bee-keep- 

 ers, but I am always glad to tell any one 

 how I do things, and then they can do 

 just as they like about accepting them. 



I first select one of my strongest colo- 

 nies, and I make it queenless. I then 

 remove all combs containing unsealed 

 larvai, and put empty frames, or frames 

 of honey, in their place, leaving room 

 for a special frame in the center. This 

 latter frame has two cross-bars the same 



width, and running parallel with the 

 bottom-bar. 



On under side of the two middle bars 

 I attach the Doolittle cell-cups. In each 

 cup I put an egg about 24 hours' old, 

 and sufficient royal jelly for about 12 to 

 15 hours, when the bees will take care 

 of them. 



The cells, when about ready to hatch, 

 I place in a spiral protector, and put 

 them into queenless colonies or nuclei, 

 etc. The best part of this plan is, that 

 the whole force of nurse-bees having no 

 larvEB to take care of, will devote their 

 whole time to supplying the queen-cells, 

 and by making the cells quite large, I 

 always get large, fine, plump and well- 

 developed queens. 



I have reared 40 fine queens in one 

 colony by my method. 



Plainview, Nebr. J. F. Hecht. 



Drones Touched by the Mating. 



Being a queen-breeder, and interested 

 in a sure and safe way to mate my 

 queens, I have this year been experi- 

 menting as to what I could do to deter- 

 mine whether or not the drones were 

 touched by the mating as well as the 

 workers, etc. 



I had some fine Italian queens mated 

 with black drones — I mean queens that 

 were yellow all over ; then I had a sis- 

 ter to such queen mated with a drone 

 yellow all over. I also clipped the wing 

 of a third virgin sister, and mated a 

 thorough black queen with an Italian 

 drone. Now for results : 



The yellow-all-over queen mated to a 

 black drone shows a part of her drones 

 black, or nearly so, some one and some 

 two banded, and some yellow all over. 



The black queen mated to an Italian 

 drone shows nearly all black drones, 

 but occasionally one with a slight yellow 

 band. 



The drones from the clipped virgin 

 are all solid yellow ; also those from the 

 yellow queen mated to the yellow drone 

 produce all yellow drones. 



Now I am fast coming to a conclusion 

 that drones also are touched by the 

 mating. Jennie Atchley. 



Honey SIS Foort Jiit<l ]?Ie«liciMe is 



just the tiling so help sell honey, as it shows 

 the various ways in which honey may be 

 used as a food and as a medicine. Try 100 

 copies of it, and see what good '■ sales- 

 men " they are. See the third page of this 

 number of the Bee Jouknai. for description 

 and prices. 



