730 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



all purposes. Had either of them got 

 more than one sting, the result might 

 have been fatal. 



I merely wish to impress the public 

 with the necessity of great caution in 

 stinging persons who are not accus- 

 tomed to being stung; and I advise, 

 first, never to allow any sting about the 

 head, face or body until you know how 

 the victim is affected by a bee-sting, or, 

 in other words, first take the hand or 

 foot of any one who has never been 

 stung, and after awaiting the result of 

 the first sting for one-half hour, with 

 nothing unfavorable, then you may ap- 

 ply one to the part affected, be it in the 

 knee-joint, face or body. Waiting again 

 for the result, if unfavorable symptoms 

 appear, stop for 24 hours, and apply as 

 before. But in no case apply from 6 to 

 8 and 10 to 20 stings to any person, 

 unless it should be some old apiarist, 

 like Mr. Root or Dr. Miller. 



Atchison, Kans. 



i -~- 



Managing Swarms with Unclip. 

 ped Queens, Etc. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY F. H. RICHARDSON. 



I see in my article on page 635 that I 

 say I "secured 200 pounds of extracted 

 and 55 pounds of comb honey." I meant 

 this was my fall crop. Now I wish to 

 tell how I managed swarms without 

 clipping the queens' wings. 



I am always on hand during swarming 

 season from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. If I 

 see indications that a colony will swarm 

 before night, I set a guard of queen- 

 excluding metal over the entrance at 

 once, but usually I proceed as follows : 



I have at least five hives on bottom- 

 boards all ready for bees. Suddenly I 

 hear the familiar roar. I grab an Alley 

 queen and drone trap and " make 

 tracks " for the " seat of war." I place 

 the trap over the entrance, pick up the 

 hive, and set it to one side, get one of 

 the aforesaid empty ones and put it on 

 the old stand, and then at once I carry 

 the old hive to a new location, and leave 

 a board against the front of it. By this 

 time the bees have missed their queen, 

 and returned, of course, to the old loca- 

 tion, and taken possession of the empty 

 hive. 



Now, if the queen has gone up into the 

 trap, I take her out and put her in the 

 new colony. If she has not, I open the 

 hive and get her and a frame of unsealed 



brood (I get the latter anyhow), and put 

 both in the new colony. 



This has " worked like a charm " with 

 me, and I call it my "automatic hiver." 

 My last five swarms I hived this way. It 

 proved one thing to me, %. e., that the 

 queen does not lead the bees out in 

 swarming, as some assert. 



WORK DONE BY BEES. 



The item on page 624 in regard to 

 work done by bees, I can hardly credit. 

 During the honey-flow (being of an en- 

 quiring mind) I "massacred" a good 

 many loaded bees and emptied their 

 honey-sacs, and found that about three 

 bee-loads made a fair sized drop. To 

 prove this, I shut up some bees in a 

 cage until their sacs were empty, and 

 then let them out into four cages — two 

 in one, three in another, four in another, 

 and one in the last. 



Now each of these cages contained one 

 drop of honey, each drop being of equal 

 size. All quickly found their drop and 

 began business. The two bees dimin- 

 ished their drop very considerably ; the 

 three cleaned theirs up very nearly ; 

 the four cleaned up and "licked the 

 paper;" while the one lonesome bee un- 

 doubtedly wished it had two more sacs. 

 Now this proved that one drop was just 

 about three bee-loads. 



I have not yet" dropped " an ounce 

 of honey (though I intend to), but I 

 don't think there are over 300 drops, 

 which would give 900 bee-loads per 

 ounce, or 14,400 per pound ; whereas 

 the article referred to gives it 3,750,- 

 000. Of course my figures do not allow 

 for evaporation. I very much fear those 

 calculations on page 624 are not 

 " founded on facts." 



Moberly, Mo. 



[Mr. Richardson will remember that it 

 was stated that "it has been estimated," 

 etc. If the estimate is wrong, of course 

 it should be corrected. Who else has 

 made any experiments in this matter ? — 

 Ed.] 



m ■ m 



" Instinct or Reason in Bees " in 

 Australia — A Correction. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY JOHN MITCHELL. JR. 



On page 74 of the Bee Journal for 

 July 14, 1892, is a short paragraph 

 with the above heading. I w;is sur- 

 prised at the statement made on the 

 subject by the Phrenological Journal, 



