686 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAi_. 



CONDUCTED BY 



Beeville, Texas. 



To Stop Robbing When Well Started. 



At one time we undertook to transfer 

 outside of tlie bee-wagon, and oh, my, 

 the robbers ! Well, something bad to 

 be done at once, and we closed all the 

 hives being robbed, and when the rob- 

 ber bees would collect in great knots on 

 the hives, we threw some water on them 

 and wet them all over, and you ought to 

 see how soon it stopped them. 



Jennie Atchley. 



More About Skunks, Etc. 



Weil, we are always "larnin"' some- 

 thing. When we first began to put out 

 poisoned hen's-eggs, we were at first 

 puzzled to know why we could not 

 poison the skunks after they had eaten 

 all the poisoned eggs. Well, I will tell 

 you just how we were fooled. We would 

 make a littie hole in the large end of the 

 eggs and drop in the poison. Well, sir, 

 we soon found that there was a vacancy, 

 or the eggs were hollow at the large 

 end, and we failed to break the film, 

 and the poison lay between the shell and 

 film, and the skunk did not get it. 



So we put out another dozen eggs, and 

 put the poison in at the small end, and 

 we were sure that it went clear into the 

 egg. The result was, we killed six or 

 seven "cats "the first night; and soon 

 had them all killed that visited our api- 

 ary, as I have noticed no signs of them 

 for several days. 



It has been raining now for about 24 

 hours, and still raining, which is the 

 first rain of any consequence since last 

 May, in this country. These fine rains 

 now mean honey next spring. Water 

 will now be plenty, and the grass green, 

 and early in January the bees will be- 

 gin to hum on chaperal. The long faces 

 of the farmers and stockmen are now 



changed, as well as those of the bee- 

 keepers, and pleasant smiles are to be 

 met now at every gathering. 



The thermometer now (Nov. 13th) 

 registers about 50-^ above zero, and it is 

 raining, so you see we have nice, warm 

 weather yet. Jennie Atchley. 



A Portable Transferring House. 



Oh, yes ; I forgot to tell you what a 

 nice, portable transferring house we 

 have. As before stated, we have our 

 wagon arranged so that we have a door 

 to open in its rear end, and it is fixed 

 bee-tight with wire-cloth, and T tell you 

 it is such a nice, handy place to transfer 

 in. When we arrive at the place where 

 bees are to be transferred, we unload 

 our empty hives, and do all our trans- 

 ferring right in the wagon, and when we 

 get through we load up our box-hives 

 right into the bee-tight wagon, and 

 drive home and unload the box-hives 

 and transfer our bees. The work is so 

 well done that we seldom have any rob- 

 bers even at this season of the year. 



Then, such a wagon makes such a 

 nice, handy extracting-house to carry 

 from apiary to apiary, and always ready, 

 and the honey ready loaded when we 

 wish to start home. I think now that 

 we will use the wagon for an extracting 

 or honey-house in all our out-yards, and 

 I tell you it is the handiest thing out, to 

 always have a good, tight bee-house with 

 you all the time. Jennie Atchley. 



A Queen-Introducing Experience. 



Before I ever read a word on bee-keep- 

 ing, I actually saw an advertisement of 

 our worthy county judge offering Ital- 

 ian queens for sale. I immediately sent 

 an order to him for a fine tested queen, 

 and as I knew nothing of transporting 

 queens in the mails, my anxieties were 

 intense, which occasioned the writing of 

 two or three letters to Judge Terrel, in- 

 quiring into his method of shipping 

 queens, and he, to put to rest my fears 

 of her starving in the mails, wrote me 

 the following : 



"Queens seldom starve to death in 

 transit. More queens are lost while in- 

 troducing them than in the mails." 



I did not at first understand what he 

 meant by "introducing." I knew that 

 to carry the Italian queen up to the 

 hive of "negroly" looking black bees, 

 and just give her an introduction to 

 them, and let her walk in, would be an 



