424 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



two the bees will have them all 

 fastened together, when the strings 

 or strips of wood may be removed. 

 In putting the combs into the new 

 hive, the brood should be kept as near 

 together as possible. If one attempts 

 to transfer when honey is scarce and 

 robbers trouble, he may have to do it 

 in some building. Some bee-keepers 

 drive the bees into a box before 

 transferring ; but a good smart hand 

 would have a swarm transferred by 

 the time that it could be thus driven 

 out. 

 Genesee County, Mich. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



A Friendly Chat with L. W. Vankirk. 



G. 31. DOOHTTLE. 



As some seem to think that all 

 Doolittle is after is to make a " big 

 report " and as L. VV. Vankirk has 

 been the one to speak out what others 

 have privately .said, I wish to have a 

 friendly chat with liim, and thus ex- 

 plain some things which seem to some 

 to be a mystery or contradiction. All 

 cannot be said in one article in regard 

 to any system of management, that 

 could be said of it, no more than one 

 chapter of the Bible could tell us of 

 God's plan of salvation for man, and 

 the reason I mistrust why a few of the 

 multitude do not believe the Bible is 

 because their mind dwells on a few 

 dark parts, rather than take in the 

 whole character of the Scriptures. 

 Ihus some of my friends have taken 

 hold of certain parts of my writings 

 and forgotten others which harmonize 

 the mysteries. Por instance, I have 

 written " get the hive literally full of 

 brood so that when you put on the 

 boxes the bees must store the honey 

 in the boxes if anywhere, as they will 

 have nowhere else to place it. I have 

 also written that after the sections 

 were placed upon the hive, to let the 

 hive alone as far as possible, unless 

 you were obliged to open it to cut 

 queen cells, replace a queen, or some 

 such work of necessity. If I have 

 ever written that the queen keeps the 

 brood chamber literally full of brood 

 at all times, it was not what I intended 

 to write, for they do not. To get this 

 brood chamber full of brood previous 

 to the honey harvest has been a tax 

 upon the queen, and as the honey 

 harvest commences, and we stop ex- 

 changing the brood combs in the 

 hive, the queen takes a partial rest, 

 thus allowing the bees to fill the out- 

 side combs with honey, as well as a 

 portion of the top part of each frame 

 as the bees hatch therefrom, hence 

 when the honey harvest closes, we 

 have an average of about 25 lbs. of 

 honey to the colony, which is ample to 

 carry an ordinary colony from one 

 honey season over to another. 



It will be seen the point I have 

 aimed at making in all my writings 

 on this subject of brood-rearing, has 

 been that a hive full of bees and 

 brood at the commencement of the 

 honey harvest tended toward success, 

 while a hive full of honey or empty 

 comb, with but few bees and little 

 brood, tended toward disappoint- 



ment. What would you think of a 

 man who had a field of potatoes to 

 hoe, that required the help of 100 men, 

 who only hired two of them during 

 hoeing time, and then near the har- 

 vest employed the 100 v You would 

 say too late, and the labor of the 100 

 men thrown away. Just so with bees 

 which came too late for the harvest of 

 honey. Again, why I use a small 

 hive and desire the combs filled with 

 brood before the honey harvest, is 

 that the bees enter the boxes sooner 

 and moie readily. If we use a large 

 hive that the queen cannot keep filled 

 with brood, the first thing that the 

 bees do is to fill all combs not occu- 

 pied with brood with honey, before 

 they make a start in the boxes, after 

 which the tendency is to crowd the 

 queen down. The more sealed honey 

 there is between the brood and the 

 boxes, the more loth the bees are to 

 enter the boxes, and hence the large 

 hive tends toward a small amount of 

 surplus box honey. "Enough is as 

 good as a feast," and 2.5 lbs. of honey 

 in the hive the first of October, is just 

 as good for the bees to winter upon as 

 50 lbs. Hence it will be seen that the 

 25 lbs. extra is a positive damage, to 

 say nothing of its selling vahie if 

 placed in the sections, as it would be 

 were a small brood chamber used. 



Again, I have told you how I unite 

 bees in the spring to make them 

 strong, and if I had not told you in 

 another article that J| of my bees 

 were good enough to need no uniting, 

 the position that I " mix up thor- 

 oughly so as to give all an even start," 

 would be well taken. But I have 

 told you that all that were able to get 

 in trim for the harvest alone were 

 built up ill and of themselves. How 

 they are built up I have told you in 

 the articles, "Production of Comb 

 Honey." Once more, I have told you 

 that i fed no sugar except in the 

 spring of 1878, when I fed two barrels 

 to keep my bees from starving. On 

 the other hand, I have told you how 

 in the fall of 187(i I united my bees 

 down nearly one-third, so as to obtain 

 honey enough for the rest to winter 

 upon (thereby making the bees self- 

 supporting), and thus given you a 

 clue to where I got those combs of 

 sealed honey. I always unite bees in 

 the fall till all are in good shape for 

 wintering, if they are not already so. 

 I have said that after I had done all 

 in my power to get my bees in good 

 shape for wintering, I could not tell 

 why they died, and I say the same 

 thing to-day ; but I am not willing to 

 admit that my loss in winter balances 

 my income from the bees, for bees 

 have paid me a good income notwith- 

 standing my losses during winter. I 

 rejoice over the success of those who 

 winter their bees every time, yet I 

 am more proud of the man who can, 

 with the bees he has left, double the 

 income of my successful wintering 

 friend, even if he does lose bees 

 during bad winters. 



Mr. Geo. T. Wheeler, who first in- 

 troduced section boxes in a practical 

 form, once said to me. " I can make 

 500 per cent, on bees during the sum- 

 mer, even if I have to' buy bees every 

 spring on account of loss in winter. 



while those of whom I buy do not 

 make 250 per cent, on their invest- 

 ment, total receipts all counted." 

 Now, about reporting: In my younger 

 days in apiculture, I favored the 

 adoption of the plans of those who 

 backed up what they advocated by 

 good reports each year, and as I was 

 writing my management of an apiary, 

 I thought no harm would arise from 

 letting the readers know how I suc- 

 ceeeded. If Mr. Heddon and others 

 whom we have learned to respect 

 through their writings, would report 

 their crop of honey each fall it would 

 please more than the writer of this 

 article I am sure. 



In conclusion, I wish to say that I 

 am very thankful to Mr. Newman and 

 Dr. Tinker, for so ably defending me 

 when I was sick, and placing me 

 where this reply was unnecessary till 

 I had the time to give it. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



Elchstaedter Blenenzeitung. 



luiportaiice of Having a Good ({ueeu. 



REV. DK. DZIERZON. 



In every season the queen must be 

 accompanied by worker bees suffi- 

 cient to produce and retain an in- 

 creased temperature in the hive. As 

 the queen is not designed to build the 

 breeding cells, or furnish the brood 

 with food, the workers attend to that 

 for her. She is rightly called the 

 " mother of bees " because she gives 

 life to all the young bees that exist in 

 the colony, by producing the eggs 

 which develop into the future work- 

 ers and drones. The success of the 

 colony and its perpetuation depends 

 upon the fruitfulness of the queen. 

 If a weak colony be given a prolific 

 queen, it will quickly increase to a 

 strong one and the strongest colony 

 will soon be reduced to weakness, if 

 the queen produce ffew or no eggs, 

 either on account of advanced age or 

 other defect. Being aware of these 

 facts the apiarist should tenderly care 

 for his queens, and especially to winter 

 only such colonies as have very fruit- 

 ful, faultless, and not too old queens. 

 Many queens are nearly useless, even 

 when young, and others still prolific 

 in old age, but the latter are very 

 liable to lose their strength and fruit- 

 fulness at a very inconvenient time, 

 when they should be depositing the 

 most brood and when substitution is 

 very uncertain on account of the 

 scarcity of drones. In consideration 

 of this it is very advisable to super- 

 sede a queen in about the third sum- 

 mer : and the most favorable time is 

 when the bees are swarming. 



The first part of this operation will 

 be the most difficult, especially if the 

 colony is very numerous or has 

 gathered much honey. One method 

 which has been recommended is to 

 allow the colony from which you 

 wish to remove the queen to become 

 quiet, then quickly remove her, place 

 the young queen in the hive and the 

 superseding IS over— before the colony 

 fairly realizes her presence. But 

 there is no surety of success in this 

 method, for the bees are often so at- 



