THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



523 



Cleaning Wax Extractors.— Tliis has 



been ;i very )ioi)r season for bee-keep- 

 ers here, "in the sprin}; it was too 

 cool for queen rearing; later, came 

 almost continuous rain, bees losing 

 fruit bloom. White clover blossomed, 

 but yielded little nectar. Of bass- 

 wood we liave none worth mention- 

 ing. We shall have a few swarms, 

 bnt little surplus honey for the year 

 of 188:2. Please tell in the ]5ee Jour- 

 nal how to clean 'the basket of a 

 ■wax extractor. W. R. Young. 



ilyersville, Md., July 31, 1882. 



[Perhaps the most convenient meth- 

 od is to immerse the basket in boiling 

 ■water, when the wax will melt from 

 it, and can be skimmed from the wa- 

 ter when cool ; or it can be wiped off 

 by taking from the water and rubbed 

 ■v\-hile hot. A strong solution of sal 

 soda or benzine is said to remove the 

 wax very readily by dissolving it, 

 when it can be wiped off with a 

 coarse cloth.— Ed.] 



My Report to Date.— From 10 colo- 

 nies", spring count, I have had 300 lbs. 

 of comb lioney, 100 lbs. of extracted, 

 with an increase of 9 colonies. I may 

 say that all of tliis honey was obtained 

 from poplar bloom, in j\lay ; since 

 that time the bees have been barely 

 making a living. White clover was 

 scarce and did not yield much nectar. 

 Last fall in September we had a yield 

 of honey from some source unknown 

 sufficient to winter on. What may be 

 expected this fall I cannot say. Taking 

 it altogether, the season has been un^ 

 propitious. My smoker trade has 

 helped me out of the drag very ma- 

 terially and I am in no wise discour- 

 aged. As I cannot do without the 

 "Jouunal" I herewith remit my sub- 

 scription money. 



W. C. R. Kemp. 



Orleans, Ind., Aug. 9, 1882. 



" Apis Melliflca."— Tell Mr. James 

 Heddon to use a large dose of " aqua 

 frumenti distilatum " just before go- 

 ing into his bee yard, and that it will 

 not kill him ; one poison kills another, 

 just as quina to cinclionism cures 

 malaria, or whisky, snake bite. I am 

 no whisky liead either. The honey 

 season is over here. The bees are 

 lianging out and lying around, noth- 

 ing to do. Aster and the fall weed 

 bloom will be in now in 10 days, then 

 we'll have business. 



J. A. Burrow, M. D. 



Santa Fe, Tenn., Aug. 7, 1882. 



Sweet Clover the Only Hope.— It is 

 now very dry in this vicinity. White 

 clover and linden are willi ihe tilings 

 that were, and if it was not for the 

 sweet clover, bees would be idle. 

 Still, they keep up their hum of re- 

 joicing from sunrise until dusk, bring- 

 ing load after load of transparent 

 nectar, that God, in his alhvise provi- 

 dence, causes to be secreted in the 

 bloom of melilot or sweet clover. 



II. \V. (rAKUETT. 



Coeyman's Hollow, N. Y., Aug. 7. 



Dividing and Introdneln?.— Having 



received an Italian queen by mail, I 

 opened a strong colony of blacks, 

 hunted up the black queen and set 

 the frame she was on in a new hive, 

 placing alongside of it anotlier frame 

 of lioney and capped brood, with ad- 

 hering bees from the same hive. I 

 then lilled up tlie new hive (which 

 contained the black queen) with 

 frames of foundation, and placed it 

 on the old stand. I next moved the 

 old hive from which the black queen 

 had been taken, to a new stand a 

 short distance away, opened it and 

 caged the Italian queen on a frame of 

 honey and capped brood. She was re- 

 leased after -IS hours and moved about 

 among her young subjects. The old 

 bees by this "time had apparently all 

 left the hive and gone back to the old 

 stand and joined their old queen. I 

 examined the hive containing the yel- 

 low queen daily, and found the combs 

 covered thickly with young bees, 

 which were constantly emerging from 

 their cells, but for two weeks scarcely 

 any bees have appeared at the en- 

 trance of the hive, or gone out in 

 quest of stores. A limited number 

 are beginning work from the Italian 

 queen's hive, while the hive where 

 the old black is ruling seems as busy 

 and populous as originally. The ques- 

 tion is, was my practice the correct 

 one V or, if not, how should it have 

 been bettered V E. 



Highlands, N. C, July 29, 1882. 



[Your practice was quite right, as 



far as safety goes, but a little trouble- 

 some. You have seen but little work 

 from the colony where the Italian 

 queen was placed, because you de- 

 pleted it entirely of field -n'orkers, and 

 the young bees left were all engaged 

 in nursing and brood-rearing. — Ed.] 



Fertile Worker.— Mr. Osborn's let- 

 ter in the Bee Journal of the 17th 

 ult., describes this bee similar to a 

 case we had last fall. We found a 

 queenless colony with a fertile worker. 

 There was no brood iu the hive except 

 a few capped drones and three large 

 queen cells attached to drone comb. 

 On examination, we found the queens 

 all dead. They had evidently lived 

 until within a day or two of hatching. 

 From all appearance, they were as 

 well-developed queens of their age as 

 I ever saw. What caused them to die 

 has remained a mystery. It being too 

 late in tlie season to rear a queen, we 

 purchased a Cyprian queen. The bees 

 kindly received her. She is now lill- 

 ing her third hive by natural swarm- 

 ing this summer. M. Brothers. 



Fincastle, Ind., Aug. 2, 1882. 



Ground is Baked like a Driok. — Our 



harvest of while honey is over, with 

 bnt snuiU surplus. Fetirful hot and 

 dry, and owing to the extreme wet 

 previous to July 10th, tlie ground is 

 baked like a brick, and vegetation is 

 drying up. I do not expect any honey 

 from buckwheat, on account of 

 drouth. G. M. Doolittle. 



Borodino, N. Y., Aug. 7, 1882. 



Mr. Shuck's Problem.— I see a reply 

 to Mr. Shuck's iiroblem, which I be- 

 lieve to be incorrect, as I divided sev- 

 eral colonies, which had the effect of 

 giving them dysentery. The first I 

 only noticed after three days, being 

 absent for that time, but two others 

 had the entrances bedaubed within 

 one-half hour from tlie time of divid- 

 ing. My bees, as yet mostly blacks, 

 have the last few days been working 

 on red clover. Allow me to widely 

 differ from Mr. lleddon in his way of 

 transferring. In the spring brood 

 would be apt to chill, and they would 

 be apt to be robbed then and later. I 

 know of one man who tried the plan 

 on the 24th inst., and a colony of 

 Italians drained the old box of honey 

 in a few hours. Basswood is just 

 opening, and the trees are covered 

 with bloom. So far there is nothing 

 to crow about. 



R. F. HOLTERMANN. 



Fisherville, Ont., July 27, 1882. 



[There is no need to. drive so close 

 as to risk chilling, and a very little 

 trouble will avoid the danger of rob- 

 bing for a few days, when new bees 

 will be numerous enough to take care 

 of the stores. It seldom, however, 

 occurs that transfers will be made by 

 this method when the weather is cold 

 enough to endanger chilling, as it can 

 be done as well during a honey flow 

 as at any other time ; whereas, by the 

 old method, it is desirable to do so be- 

 fore there is a great deal of brood and 

 not much new honey. — Ed.] 



Juneau County, Wis. — One thing 

 sure, we are happy with our bees for 

 there is generally an abuniiant flow of 

 the nectar in this region to support 

 the bees and to produce from a little 

 to a fair yield of surplus honey. For 

 many seasons I have never failed to 

 see the bee-keepers about the villages 

 with their little boxes of honey for 

 sale, and they never had much trouble 

 in getting them off their hands. But, 

 under the old management, and from 

 the pressure of other duties, the year- 

 ly honey crop was always light, and 

 there might have been times when 

 little or no honey could have been 

 bought within the limits of this county. 

 A change has come over this business, 

 so tliat under what is styled modern 

 bee-culture, the production of honey 

 has been prodigiously increased here 

 until there are many tons of the 

 precious sweet gathered in annually 

 and put iu the most desirable shape 

 for the market and the consumer, and 

 what cannot be disposed of in tlie 

 local markets, is shiiiped to other parts 

 of the world. But, hapjiily there is a 

 growing demand for the article at 

 home, an<l the local market is being 

 well supplied from the apiaries of the 

 Hon. C. 11. Grote, the Rev. II. V. 

 Train and Mr. Franklin Wilcox, gen- 

 tlemen who stand among the most 

 learned, and at the .same time most 

 practical bee-men of Juneau County. 

 They manage to keep their bees 

 through the long and dreary winters. 



