THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



553 



the full beueflt of the sun's rays. But 

 1 have thought out and adopted a 

 better plan to accomplish these re- 

 sults. It is as follows : 



To two pieces of 2x4 inch stufi:,three 

 pieces of string-piece are nailed flat- 

 wise, one at each end and one in the 

 middle, so as to make a frame the 

 length and width of my extractor. 

 Two of these frames are needed. 

 Through the centres of the middle 

 pieces a hole is bored, into which a 

 bolt is dropped, so that these two 

 frames revolve horizontally with the 

 bolt as a central pivot. One of these 

 frames is leveled on four bricks, and 

 upon the other rests the extractor ; 

 one end being supported at any de- 

 sired height by means of two strips 

 and two thumb-screws. Two thumb- 

 screws also hold the tray at the proper 

 angle. 1 am thus enabled with very 

 little trouble to adapt my extractor 

 to the progress of the sun toward the 

 west, as well as its progress toward 

 equinox. 



Hudson,Ox X. Y. 



For the American Bee JouraaL 



Reyerseil Oiieens, Discussions, etc, 



G. W. DEMAREE. 



I ought to thank Rev. Dr. M, Mahin 

 for his kind effort to help out ray new 

 discovery of reversed queens, as evi- 

 denced by his criticism on page 521. 

 The Doctor evidently takes me to be 

 a novice, or at least a very superficial 

 observer. He assumes without ques- 

 tion that 1 mistook the very common 

 practice of young queens to re-enter 

 the cells head foremost, for the pecu- 

 liar abnormality which I described, 

 and which is not a mystery at all, 

 because of its frequent appearance to 

 observing students of nature. We all 

 know that young queens frequently 

 re-enter the cells in quest of the food 

 left in them, and it is not improbable 

 that they might in rare cases be en- 

 trapped by the bees sealing the ad- 

 hering cap to the cell. 



During the present season I have 

 had a great numberof queens hatched 

 in a queen-nursery, where the bees do 

 not have access to the cells, and here 

 is where I made the first discovery. 

 I have seen and examined four queens 

 in all, which were reversed in the 

 cells. One of them was yet in the 

 pupa state, when I discovered her. 

 If I had any doubts about the matter 

 before, there could be none whatever 

 in this case. 



I shall not insist on the Doctor ac- 

 cepting as a fact something that he 

 has not seen with his own eyes; but 

 I am reminded of a case in point, 

 which took place some years ago. 

 The editor of the defunct American 

 Bee-Keeper denied positively that 

 there was any such thing as fertile 

 (laying) workers, and gave as a reason 

 that he had never seen one. Mr. 

 Thomas replied that the editor, Mr. 

 Harrison, had never seen his own 

 brains, and by parity of reason he had 

 none. 



Of course 1 do not apply the above 

 illustration to Dr. Mahin, as I need 



nothing more than his articles pub- 

 lished in the bee-periodicals from 

 time to time to judge of his ability, 

 but the illustration may serve to 

 make most of us a little cautious as 

 to how we deny any and every thing 

 because we have not seen them with 

 our own eyes, and because they seem 

 to be improbable to us. 



Who is "Justice Fairman," of 

 Louisville, Ky., whose article ap- 

 peared on page 519 V I have a large 

 acquaintance with prominent bee- 

 men in Kentucky, and ought to know 

 something about the well-posted bee- 

 men of the State, but for all this I 

 never before heard of Justice Fair- 

 man as authority on bees and hives. 

 I suspect that he writes under a nom 

 de plume. Whatever may be the facts, 

 his attack on me on page 519 is not 

 devoid of good reading, since he has 

 quoted so extensively from my articles. 



The fact that Mr. J. M. Shuck's 

 patent hive, which embraces the fea- 

 tures about which I wrote, and to 

 which Mr. Fairman (V) takes excep- 

 tions, antedates any other patent hive 

 which embraces the same features, 

 was sufficient reason for my making 

 mention of Shuck's hivei and no 

 other. The fact that the patent-office 

 authorities have issued patents on 

 more than one hive embracing this 

 feature, shows clearly that they did 

 not intend to cover that feature by 

 patent. 



There is a wide diflerence between 

 giving " honor to whom honor is due," 

 and the disgusting servile toadyism so 

 prominent in much of 



ning of one subject so persistently as- 

 to disgust our readers ; and had we 

 not done so there is no telling to what 

 lengths our correspondents would 

 have gone. 



Now let all try to write on subjects 

 for the purpose of bringing out their 

 true merits, and not simply to combat 

 something which has been before 

 stated. Here is a "lesson" whichi 

 ought to be learned, and what a 

 "grand improvement" in bee-litera- 

 ture would be the result ? Bro. D. : 

 Will you please " second the motion,"' 

 and thus set the example ¥— Ed.] 



Florida Dispatch. 



Bee-Eiiefflies in Florida, 



bee-literature. It has come to pass in 

 these days that no man can write a 

 practical article on any subject per- 

 taining to hives or apiarian imple- 

 ments without having some sore- 

 headed patent-hive man {orhfs hench- 

 men) pounce on him with their slurs 

 and insinuations. I wish here to en- 

 ter my protest against the " advertis- 

 ing " of bee-hives, etc., which fills the 

 reading columns of the bee-periodi- 

 cals to the exclusion of other matter 

 of interest to all. It is an imposition 

 upon the proprietors of the papers, 

 and on those who patronize them. 

 And when I say that, the sooner the 

 whole thing is " shut off " the better 

 for all concerned, I believe I speak 

 the sentiments of a large majority of 

 beemen generally. 

 Christiansburg,5 Ky. 



[True, Bro. D., but have you not 

 done as much as any one to continue 

 the discussions which brought such 

 " advertising " into the reading col- 

 umns V Your pen has been " dipped in 

 gall " about as often as any one's, but 

 your articles are so " vigorous " and 

 " interesting " that we like to read 

 them, even if we are obliged to " pull 

 out an occasional sting," or allow a 

 reply which smacks of " advertising 

 in the reading columns," against 

 which you now so vigorously protest ! 

 We have been obliged to shut down on 

 many subjects in our columns, simply 

 because of this tendency and the run- 



in the whole list of enemies of the 

 honey-bee in this State, which list is 

 a long one, probably the dragon-fly, 

 bee-hawk or devil's darning-needle 

 {LibelhdK), as it is variously called, is 

 the most destructive. It is a four- 

 winged liy, puts in an appearances 

 towards evening, and continues its. 

 work until dark. Here they make 

 their first appearance in large num- 

 bers during March, and continue so- 

 until late in May, when they largely 

 disappear, but sometimes become 

 quite plentiful for awhile again in the 

 fall. They are voracious eaters, and 



_^^ ^^ ^^ if they confined themselves strictly to- 



our 'modern i '^ ^°'^^y"t>ee diet, it would surely in- 



terfere very seriously with apiculture 

 here. Being gross feeders, however, 

 their diet consists of quite a long list 

 of insects, many of which are classed 

 among the destructive or annoying 

 ones, like the mosquito, of which it is 

 very fond, and will catch and eat by 

 the dozens every evening, when they 

 are plenty. Tliat they destroy a great 

 many bees is without question, but 

 still I do not think that their depre- 

 dations would interfere seriously with 

 success in bee-keeping, if it were not 

 that some seasons they catcli many 

 queens when out to mate, and even 

 in this they are not as destructive as 

 one would expect, who saw them, 

 swarming about the apiary. 



Mr. A. J. Smith, a skillful bee- 

 keeper, and a reliable man, tells me 

 that out of fifty young queens reared 

 this season during the visits of the- 

 mosquito hawks, forty-five were fer- 

 tilized, and are now doing duty in 

 prosperous colonies. I have kept a 

 less strict account of my own queens, 

 but I think the record would run 

 about the same, and would compare 

 well with that of other sections of 

 the United States, all having th ur 

 particular bee-enemies and suffering 

 more or less loss from their depreda- 

 tions. 



The loss of workers by mosquito 

 hawks is apt to be alarming to the 

 novice at bee-keeping, and is quite 

 serious where there are but two or 

 three colonies kept. In large apiaries 

 little effect can be seen, as the bees 

 are breeding heavily at this time of 

 year, and one or two good colonies- 



