THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



329 



rived at Liverpool after a voyage of 

 over 6 weeks, about 20 per cent., I 

 believe, being lost on the voyage. 



As I before remarked, the bees are 

 kept in cylinders in Cyprus, in Syria 

 in long boxes, also in water-jugs and 

 baskets plastered with mud. The 

 bee-keepers of the East are far more 

 advanced than the old-fasnioned 

 English straw skeppists, for they 

 never kill their bees. Tlie lid at the 

 large end of tlie cylinder is removed, 

 the bees smoked to tlie other end, and 

 abont half the combs in the cyliiuler 

 are cut away, tlie other half being left 

 for the bees. 



Tlie cylinders are placed in huge 

 piles, anil tlie bees enter at small 

 holes in tlie front, the entrances not 

 being a foot apart. 1 think a point 

 in favor of liee houses can be lirouglit 

 forward, or, rather, one of tlieir sup- 

 posed disadvantages rebutted. I 

 bought between .50 and (iO lots, and in 

 no case was a colony queeiiless. The 

 great disadvantage of a bee liouse is 

 supiiosed to arise from tlie ijueen 

 mistaking the entrance. If the East- 

 ern queens can find their entrances 

 tliiis readily in a pile of fifty to a hun- 

 dred liives. they must either have 

 better discernment (a point in their 

 favor) than English queens, or this 

 objection to bee liouses is unfounded. 

 Such grand colonies of bees as those 



1 got both in Cyprus and Syria I have 

 rarely seen, and these, too, never 

 having had attention in the way of 

 feeding, but left just m a natural 

 state. Though it was winter, almost 

 all contained tine patches of brood. 



The queens are very prolific, and 

 the brood is raised in compact, solid 

 masses, no patches of comb being left 

 empty. 



The bees are undoubtedly better 

 workers, being much more active and 

 stronger on the wing than our bees, 

 though just a trifle smaller. 



The small amount of drone-comb 

 they build is another great point in 

 their favor. (I believe that I can say 

 that I have seen more drone-comb in 



2 or 8 English hives than in the whole 

 •iO or 60 1 transferred). Their gnaw- 

 ing propensity, too, I imagine will be 

 of value. The development of the 

 jaws of the Eastern bees is curious, 

 and lias doubtless been brought about 

 ,by the grape crops of the East. A 



bee-keeper at Scanderoon told me 

 that great damage is done to the 

 grapes by the bees, and that they get 

 great quantities of honey or rather 

 grape-juice from this source. 



The great point against them is 

 their irritability, and it is certainly a 

 great drawback, and may prevent 

 ttiem from coming into general use. 

 Tliis irritability is far greater in tlie 

 Syrians than in the Cyprians. An ex- 

 perienced bee-keeper would, of course, 

 have no difticulty when once he knows 

 the iirecautioiis it is necessary to 

 take. If the quilts are removed very 

 slowly, so that a great flood of light 

 does not rush into the hive at once, 

 the bars moved gently without jar- 

 ring, and the bees not breathed upon, 

 then all will be well— they will require 

 no smoke and will be quite harmless; 

 but a careless manipulatm-, not at- 

 tending to these precautions, would 



probably irritate them, and their tem- 

 per once roused is not easily soothed. 

 Mr. Benton went through hive after 

 hive in my presence witliont gloves or 

 veil, and assured me tliat lie did tlie 

 same tiling during the summer and 

 did not get stung. I believe the evil 

 reports have arisen through a lack of 

 knowledge on the part of the owners 

 of these bees, or on account of not 

 getting the genuine article. When 

 these bees are angry they appear to 

 be cautious in stinging, but attempt 

 to bite in preference. 



Brmda ccecu is very abundant on 

 the Eastern bees, but especially so on 

 tlie Cyprians. Though I had but lit- 

 tle experience with the bees of Pales- 

 tine, I noticed a marked difference 

 between this race and the Cyprians 

 and Syrians. The Palestine bees are 

 much more slender and downy, and 

 deserve to be ranked as a distinct 

 variety. The Cyprians and Syrians 

 are, in my opinion, almost identical. 

 They vary a little in color, the bees 

 from the north of Cyprus being very 

 dark. 



Welwyn Herts, England. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Lime Packing for Winter. 



.J. C. OLDHAM. 



Our Southern friends have quite 

 the advantage of us, in that they need 

 not bother much about the wintering 

 of their bees ; not so with us here in 

 the North. I read the Weekly Bee 

 Journal with much edification, and 

 am greatly interested in what all con- 

 tributors have to say about wintering 

 bees — what absorbents are used ; but 

 never liked the idea of using chaff, 

 straw, dry leaves, sawdust, etc., that 

 were and are still so much advocated. 

 Such absorbents retain all moisture, 

 and therefore are as a wet blanket 

 which is worse than none at all. 



I use or have used only a quilt or 

 carpet over my bees, until I first saw 

 the lime project suggested, about. Jan. 

 ], 1881, by some Kentucky gentleman, 

 I believe. I had in the fall of ISSO, 10 

 colonies in Langstroth hives in very 

 good condition, but not as well pre- 

 pared for winter as I desired — that is, 

 more frames in the hives than were 

 necessary. The cold weather set in 

 so early and did not warm up again 

 until spring. I liked the lime idea so 

 well I thought I would experiment a 

 little, and so put lime, partially 

 slacked, in three hives; one lover- 

 heated and killed the bees, the other 

 two came through in splendid con- 

 dition. 



I lost .5 of the 10 colonies I had in the 

 fall ; from those o during the summer 

 of 1881, I took 400 lbs. of honey, 

 mostly extracted, and increased to 12, 

 the number I now have, except on the 

 8th inst., I had a swarm, making more 

 than I really want or have time to at- 

 tend, as I only keep bees for pleasure 

 and recreation. Last winter I put 

 lime in all my 12 colonies. They 

 came through splendidly. No doubt 

 they would at any rate, but I occasion- 

 ally looked in the hives, and the combs 

 were always nice and dry with not the 



least sign of frost. Lime is the least 

 trouble of all absorbents to put in and 

 take out again, much more convenient 

 than the .so-called absorbents. 

 Springfield, O. 



For tbe American Bee Journal. 



All Open Letter to Mr. Doolittle. 



Dll. L. JAMES. 



Dear Sir :— I have read with much 

 satisfaction your late articles in the 

 Bee Journal, giving your plan of 

 securing such favorable results from 

 your bees and the large yield of comb 

 honey as reported in them. In addi- 

 tion to the information communicated 

 in those articles, I should like to have 

 one more, connected with them, that 

 no doubt will interest many others as 

 well as myself, and it is this : How 

 do you manage to have so many hives 

 open on each favorable day, so early 

 in the season, interchanging the 

 combs in the hives, and carrying 

 others of brood around among your 

 hives, to strengthen feeble colonies, 

 without having a cloud of intruders 

 from the other hives, ready to pitch 

 into a hive as .soon as it is opened, 

 and thereby endangering its destruc- 

 tion, if it is a weak one V 



I presume it is nothing uncommon 

 with you, on opening a hive, to find it 

 necessary to trim off some honey 

 from certain combs to have them fit 

 the place of those with which they are 

 to be exchanged. And as the honey 

 resources at this time are rather scant, 

 the bees are upon the alert and will 

 follow around, waiting to begin depre- 

 dations on their neighbors as soon as- 

 the frames of comb are exposed. 



I find my bees are so easily trained 

 in this direction as to give me much 

 trouble after a few hives have been 

 attended to. If the hive is not too 

 heavv, by carrying it into the bee 

 house and attending to it there, this an- 

 noyance and risk can be avoided, but, 

 as a general thing, my hives are too 

 heavy for me to do so. 



At your earliest convenience if you 

 will give us your method by which 

 you avoid this trouble you will much 

 oblige many readers of the Bee Jour- 

 nal. 



Atlanta, 111. 



i'lir the American Bee Journal. 



The Stamlard Langstroth Hive. 



G. M. ALVES. 



Beginners frequently spend a good 

 deal of their time in study as to the 

 kind of hive they should use. As this 

 is a matter of considerable im])ort- 

 ance, and one in which one's crude 

 fancies often run into error, I pro- 

 pose here, for the sake of these begin- 

 ners, to give what seems to me good 

 and sutlicient reasons why the stand- 

 ard Langstroth hive should be ado[)- 

 ted. I wish to state here that I am 

 not interested in the manufacture or 

 sale of hives. 



1. The Langstroth hive was the in- 

 vention of a man who brought to his 



