THE AMERICAiS BEE JOURNAL. 



599 



liir queen caged there, and had served 

 two jiistliiitched iu the same manner. 

 In consequence of this determination 

 to build cells, the colony had been 

 queenless about ten or twelve days. 

 On picking up one of the frames I 

 found a young hatched queen ; and on 

 another, 1 counted upward of 2-5 cells. 

 As we were at this date short, and the 

 queen a tine tested Holy-Land, I de- 

 termined to avail myself of this line 

 lot of cells. After cutting out per- 

 haps half a dozen, and laying them on 

 the side of tlie liive, 1 was about to 

 proceed further, when, looking down, 

 I discovered that three of the six had 

 hatched. I immediately set back the 

 frame, and disposed of my young 

 queens wherever most needed. 1 

 again commenced at the cells, and 

 after having cut out three or four, 

 found two more queens hatched, and 

 another fast gnawing out. 1 placed 

 my ear near the comb containing the 

 cells, and could distinctly hear the 

 nibbling of the queens within. This 

 indicated very plainly that they would 

 soon all be out. I therefore hastened 

 to put the remaining cells along with 

 the two hatched queens, into the 

 nursery ; soon after, anotlier lot was 

 in turn brought there, as I feared they, 

 too, would hatch on my hands, as did 

 the others. Nor was I mistaken in 

 this. 



After resuming my work, John told 

 nie that the queens were running 

 loose in the lamp nursery in every 

 direction. I hastily cut out the cells 

 yet remaining in the hive, and once 

 moi'e started for the nursery. Sure 

 enough, on arriving there my eyes 

 were greeted with a sight that really 

 made me feel quite happy, as they were 

 just in time to supply the demand of 

 tlie colonies. These queens, with a 

 single exception, all hatched within 

 thiity minutes; and were so remark- 

 ably strong and healthy that some at- 

 tempted to tly, and one did succeed 

 partially. No time was lost in giving 

 them to queenless colonies ; but, un- 

 fortunately, we were not as success- 

 ful in rearing them all. This date 

 (oth of July) in our locality was about 

 the intermission of the flow of honey 

 between clover and basswood ; in con- 

 sequence of which, the bees, not hav- 

 ing much else to do but mischief, 

 killed a part of them. 



Out of the number that were ac- 

 cepted, a few could be introduced 

 only by vigorously smoking their 

 colonies at the entrance. The queens 

 are now laying, and are so exceedingly 

 large and fertile that my honored 

 paler pronounced them to be some of 

 the finest queens he ever saw. 



Atanothertime, John and I counted 

 in four Holy-Land colonies, S2 cells : 

 this number is only their fair average 

 yield. Whenever we are in need of 

 a ''raft of cells," as we term it, the 

 brood of a Iloly-Land colony is ex- 

 changed for that of an imported stock. 

 \iy that means we can obtain as many 

 cells as we need ; whereas the im- 

 ported stock, left to itself, probably 

 would not raise over 6 or 8 cells, and 

 it is not uncommon for them to have 

 only three or four. 



Now, in summing up a few of the 

 good features of the Holy-Lands, we 



find, from the above facts, first, they 

 raise a greatabundance of cells at one 

 rearing ; secondly, the cells are started 

 so that they hatch at or nearly the 

 same time ; lastly, if the cells are not 

 too much disturbed, the queen will 

 hatch out strong and liealthy. 



Now, a vvoril iu regard to "the Holy- 

 Lands as honey-gatherers : My ex- 

 perience has led uie to think that they 

 are equally as good as the Italians, 

 and some say a little superior. Being 

 originally reared in a hot, dry country, 

 they have necessarily been obliged to 

 gather honey at every opportunity 

 available, or the race could never have 

 existed. In this country, they of 

 course manifest the same energetic 

 disposition ; and hence, as far as my 

 observation goes, gather some honey 

 after the basswood flow, even when 

 the other bees are apparently in- 

 active. 



After what has been said, I would 

 not have it umlerstood that I have any 

 the less regard for the Italians than 

 before ; but. on the contrary, all things 

 considered, I think they possess many 

 qualities farsui)erior to other races of 

 bees, and will probably always retain 

 the front rank. 



My object in writing this is not to 

 give the Holy-Lands undue praise, to 

 the exclusion of the Italians, but to 

 bring forth a few of the good qualities 

 which are justly their due. 1 do not 

 deny, that the Holy-Lands have a few 

 bad features ; but these, I think, have 

 been fully discussed before. 



Medina, O. 



Home Farm. 



Progress of Apiculture in 30 Years. 



L. F. ABBOTT. 



During the last thirty years great 

 discoveries have been made in the 

 natural history and general manage- 

 ment of bees. And while the habits 

 and instincts of the honey bee are the 

 same to-day as thousands of years 

 ago, the methods employed to develop 

 and utilize their value and enable the 

 bee-keeper to prosecute his business 

 with intelligent oversight have been 

 numerous and very valuable, because 

 mainly practical in their application 

 to the end sought, namely, the im- 

 provement of the stock ; to acquire a 

 knowledge of the habits of the bee ; 

 better to utilize their labor, hence 

 greater profits ; the latter mainly the 

 greater desideratum of the Yankee 

 mind. 



The invention of the movable-comb 

 frame liive introduced by Mr. Lang- 

 stroth about is")0, opened up a wide 

 field of study ; in fact it was tlie in- 

 vention of the age as regards intelli- 

 gent bee-keeping, and upon it has 

 hinged most of the progress that has 

 been made since. By its use we were 

 enabled to go inside the hive and 

 prove those things at which natural- 

 ists had hinted. It enabled us to prac- 

 tice artificial iiiultiplicationof swarms, 

 or prevent natural swarming when 

 desirable. That bees, deprived in any 

 way of their queen, had the means to 

 rear another one, had long been 

 known, but till now the knowledge 



was of but little practical value. 

 Now we are enabled to rear queens at 

 will ; to become acquainted with their 

 good or bad qualities and to breed and 

 perpetuate the one or discard the 

 other ; and also if another race of 

 bees is thought to be superior to the 

 ones we are breeding, the movable- 

 frame enables us to introduce foreign 

 stock without loss. 



Science has also demonstrated that 

 to elaborate and build comb causes 

 bees much labor, and that it is at the 

 expense of a large quantity of honey. 

 Take an ordinary bee-hive of 2,000 

 cubic inches capacity and to fill it 

 with nice new combs requires labor 

 suflicient to bring in thirty pounds of 

 honey, and the elaboration of wax to 

 form material for the building of the 

 combs requires thirty pounds more. 

 VVe find that sixty pounds at least of 

 honey has been the cost of filling each 

 hive. Enterprising bee-keepers .sought 

 to obviate in some measure this out- 

 lay, and the result has been the honey 

 extractor whereby the newly closed 

 cells are uncapped and the frames 

 with combs attached are taken from 

 the hive, the bees brushed off and then 

 placed in the machine and rapidly re- 

 volved, emptying the honey from the 

 cells and then the combs replaced in 

 the hive to be refilled and the process 

 repeated when advisable. 



Twenty years ago, had some timid 

 apiarist ventured to suggest the possi- 

 bility of making artificial comb which 

 the bees would readily accept and 

 utilize the same as their own, he 

 would have been a fit subject for a 

 lunatic asylum ; but nearly as long 

 ago as that the embryonian idea took 

 root in the brain of the late Samuel 

 Wagner, and the result has been the 

 production of foundation comb that 

 can be attached to the frame and 

 placed within the hive and as readily 

 used by the bees for all purposes as 

 their own. 



These are some of the wonderful 

 results that have accrued by the ap- 

 plication of certain principles in ac- 

 cordance with the no less wonderful 

 instincts and habits of the honey-bee. 

 But while the results of the new 

 light that has dawned upon the bee- 

 keeper's pathway has been to lead to 

 grand achievements in summer man- 

 agement of the apiary, the successful 

 wintering of bees has not yet come to 

 be demonstrated by any set rules how- 

 ever carefully observed. Compara- 

 tively speaking, it is easy to success- 

 fully manage the apiary during the 

 warm months, for success hinges very 

 much upon whether the season is 

 auspicious for honey gathering ; but 

 during the winter and spring the bee- 

 keeper often finds all liis wisdom at 

 fault. There are a few rules it is well 

 to observe, and these when put in 

 practical use are as near right as any 

 vie have tried. To be brief, for this 

 article has already exceeded its proper 

 limits, let us observe : 



1. Bees in the movable-frame hive 

 are not iu their normal condition ; 

 hence, some means should be adopted 

 to prevent a low temperature within 

 the hive. Such condition is best 

 afforiled by wintering in a dry cellar. 



2. The larger the mass of bees con- 



