54 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



ticular use, and did not care to have 

 it stay in the hive until it was ripened, 

 as I always insist in having it when 

 it is for market. This would make a 

 reduction of the amount, or of the 

 value (one being equivalent to the 

 other), but I will only call this part to 

 offset the one cent per pound that 

 they give as the value of the washing 

 of the cappings for vinegar. As their 

 was no cappings, of course I could 

 not wash them. When I do have 

 them I never wash them, for the low 

 price of cider-vinegar in this locality, 

 together with the cost of the barrel, 

 makes it unprofitable to do so, es- 

 pecially as we can with a solar wax- 

 extractor entirely separate the honey 

 from the wax or cappings. 



Another thing : I am not ready to 

 admit that it takes any less labor or 

 capital, all things considered, to run 

 an apiary of a given size for extracted 

 honey, than it does for comb honey; 

 and I have been carefully experiment- 

 ing on this point for the past 12 years, 

 producing some of each kind of honey 

 nearly every year during that time. 

 When Messrs. Dadant & Son produce 

 comb honey in sufficient quantities, 

 and become expert so tliat they can 

 remove all the surplus honey from 90 

 colonies in ", hours, as does Mr. A. E. 

 Manum and others here at the East, 

 they will speak less of the extra work 

 required in producing comb honey. 

 So, then, if we call the labor equal in 

 producing both kinds of honey, and 

 offset the 2 colonies producing the 

 338 pounds of extracted honey with 

 the 2 weak ones worked for comb 

 honey which gave 270 pounds, we 

 shall have about this result : Each 

 colony worked for extracted honey 

 produced 169 pounds, which. atS cents 

 per pound, amounts to $13.52. This 

 divided by 13.5 pounds (the amount of 

 comb honey given by each of the two 

 weak colonies), gives about 10 cents 

 as the comparative cost of comb 

 honey, which is the estimate given 

 by Mr. Pond in answer to Query, Xo. 

 153. If we divide the $13..52 by the 

 119 pounds of comb honey given on 

 an average throughout the apiary, we 

 shall have about U^ cents as the 

 comparative cost of comb honey, 

 which is about what 1 gave in my 

 answer to Query, No. 153. Now, if 

 we count the increase given by the 2 

 colonies worked for comb honey 

 (which was two line swarms) against 

 no increase from the other, there will 

 be but little difference in the compara- 

 tive price per pound between the two. 



However,! will not multiply words, 

 but simply say that after 12 years of 

 careful experiment regarding the pro- 

 duction of both comb and extracted 

 honey, I find that when thoroughly 

 ripened by the plans given by Messrs. 

 Dadant & Son, I get, on an average, 

 one-half more extracted honey than I 

 do comb honey, with about an equal 

 expenditure of capital and labor on 

 each. For tliis reason I answered 

 Query, No. 1.53 as I did, and I am still 

 of the opinion that the answer "S 

 cents and 12 cents per pound " as the 

 relative cost of producing extracted 

 and comb honey, is nearly, if not 

 quite, correct. 



Borodino,© N. Y. 



The Century. 



THe NiffHt is Still, 



EDITH M. THOMAS. 



The night is still, the moon looks kind, 

 The dew hangs jewels in the heath, 

 An ivy climbs across thy blind 

 And throws a light and misty wreath. 



The dew hangs jewels in the heath, 

 Buds bloom for which the bee has pined; 

 I haste along, I quicker breathe, 

 The night is still, the moon looks kind. 



Buds bloom for which the hce has pined. 

 The primrose slips its jealous sheath, 

 As up the flower-watched path I wind 

 And come thy window ledge beneath. 



The primrose slips its jealous sheath- 

 Then open wide that churlish blind, 

 And kiss me through the ivy wreath I 

 The night is still, the moon looks kind. 



For the American Byie Journal. 



MalliWe Oueeii-Introiluction. 



JOHN HEWITT. 



So much has been said and written 

 on queen-introduction, "safe," "di- 

 rect," and otherwise, that the subject 

 would seem to have been thoroughly 

 exhausted ; and still successful intro- 

 duction of queens is only looked upon 

 as "luck" work, if I may judge by 

 the remarks of Mr. James Heddon on 

 page 732 of the American Bee Jour- 

 nal for 1885, and others. 



The greatest amount of harm has 

 been done by bee-keepers making 

 hasty assertions formed on some ob- 

 servation which they did not compre- 

 hend, and these statements repeated 

 time after time until they are ac- 

 cepted as truth. For instance, how 

 many times are we told that old, 

 queenless bees will not accept a step- 

 mother r' and yet to such, no matter 

 how old or how long they may have 

 been queenless, I can introduce fer- 

 tile queens as quickly as I can drop 

 them at the entrances of the hives 

 containing such bees. Could any- 

 thing be more simple or easy V 



It is well known amongst bee-keep- 

 ers, that bees will not accept another 

 queen while their own is in the hive, 

 nor as laid down by Huber, for 2-1 

 hours after her removal ; I have ob- 

 served, which I believe has never been 

 noticed by any one else, that when 

 bees have started queen-cells, they 

 look upon them as their own queen, 

 and will not accept an alien, particu- 

 larly while they are unsealed, and this 

 is the " rock " where so many are lost. 



Huber says that bees will accept a 

 strange queen and treat her as their 

 own if she is presented to them at the 

 end of 2-1 hours ; this system is prac- 

 tically like the one of Mr. J. E. Pond, 

 Jr., and if the new queen is caged at 

 the time of removal of the old one 

 and not kept caged longer than 30 or 

 less than 24 hours, no failure will ever 

 occur. I make tliis as a positive as- 

 sertion, providing the releasing is done 

 between 24 and 30 hours after removal 

 of the old queens; after 30 hours 



queen-cells will be started, then all the 

 " difficulties" begin. If every queen- 

 cell is cut out, when the bees miss 

 them, and before they start fresh 

 ones, they will at this point accept the 

 queen ; but not when cells are started 

 again. The older the bees are, the 

 more eager are they to begin fresh 

 cells, hence the saying, " Old bees will 

 not accept an alien queen." So anx- 

 ious are old bees to rear another 

 queen, that if one is caged in a queen- 

 less, unsealed and broodless hive, they 

 will carry eggs dropped by the caged 

 queen and rear queens from them. 

 Those scientists who doubt that bees 

 can steal or carry eggs to rear queens 

 from, had better try this experiment, 

 when I venture to think their stock of 

 knowledge will be increased. But 

 with bees in this state it is almost im- 

 possible to get the strange queen ac- 

 cepted ; I have tried on one case for 

 16 days. 



Some years ago, when thinking over 

 the question of queen-introduction, I 

 reasoned thus : " When bees are 

 queenless and have no means of rear- 

 ing another queen (say their own was 

 a virgin and lost on her wedding- 

 trip), has Nature, in her great econom- 

 ical laws, ordained that their genera- 

 tion shall die off and not save them- 

 selves by accepting a strange queen 

 which might come to them, say one 

 lost in taking her bridal trip y" The 

 more I thought of this, the more un- 

 natural and repugnant to all her other 

 laws, it seemed to me ; so, as I had a 

 stock at the time, which had been 

 queenless two months, I decided to 

 try the experiment. Robbing was 

 rife at the time in the neighborhood, 

 and when I dropped a fertile queen 

 amongst them, the " guards " pounced 

 on her as a robber; but oh, my, their 

 astonishment! they immediately set 

 up a ijeculiar lium and formed a half- 

 circle round her, and conducted her 

 into the hive, when she commenced 

 laying. I have repeated the experi- 

 ment so often with all kinds of queens, 

 useing imported ones of priceless 

 value, without a single failure, that I 

 may be pardoned for saying that this 

 system of mine is " infallible." The 

 "Law " to bear in mind is this : " The 

 bees must have been queenless at least 30 

 hours, and have no meaixs to rear an- 

 other.''^ This law holds good even if 

 laying workers are present, unless 

 they have begun laying, so that the 

 bees of any hive found to be queen- 

 less, will accept another without any 

 caging ; so also one in which all the 

 queen-cells are cut out on the 9th day, 

 or one where a virgin queen was lost 

 on her bridal trip. The knowledge of 

 this law also enables me to prove in a 

 few seconds whether a hive is queen- 

 less or not, without having to hunt up 

 the queen ; for, if queenless, they will 

 accept a queen with a joyful hum ; if 

 not, they will " ball " her. 



I find this system invaluable in the 

 fall, for it very often happens that we 

 want to replace old queens witli young 

 ones, or we may have our most valu- 

 able queens in colonies that we would 

 rather they did not pass the winter in, 

 and would like to exchange tliem with 

 others. Now with this system, all we 

 have to do is to take the queen from 



