THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



707 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Does the (Jueen Lead the Swarm ?— 



The Bntish Bee Journal remarks as 

 follows on this subject, correctly con- 

 cluding that she does not : 



There is an impression prevailing 

 among the uninitiated that the queen 

 of a hive leads off the swarm, but this 

 is by no means the case with first is- 

 sues, for, as a rule, the queen does not 

 come forth from the hive until the 

 greater part of the bees are on tlie 

 wing. Another erroneous idea in ex- 

 istence is that the queen bee is the 

 first to alight upon a branch or a bush, 

 and that the bees congregate about 

 her, but the reverse of this is the fact. 

 When a swarm begins to issue, if the 

 bee-keeper will place himself on the 

 shady side of the hive and watch the 

 stream of bees which pour forth like 

 an army through a gateway, he may 

 see the queen come out, and, if in- 

 clined to prove our assertions, he may 

 capture and cage her, and put her in 

 his pocket while he watches the pro- 

 ceedings of the bees. When the 

 throng is circling in the air he may 

 imagine that the bees are searching 

 for her, and will perhaps conclude 

 that as they cannot tind her, they w.ill 

 return at once to the hive; but no, 

 they will lirst congregate near a con- 

 venient tree or bush, and make a great 

 noise sutiicient to attract the attention 

 of her majesty, if she were abroad, 

 and they will alight and form a clus- 

 ter, and wait for some minutes to give 

 her an opportunity of joining them. 

 If now she be taken to them, she will 

 join the mass and all will be well ; if 

 not, the bees after a short time will 

 disperse and return to the hive. Now 

 this kind of experiment has been so 

 often proved that it may be taken for 

 granted when a swarm of bees has 

 alighted, and afterwards returned to 

 the hive, that the queen was not able 

 to join them, or she would assuredly 

 have done so. 



Enormous Honey Yields.— The Bee- 

 Keepers'' Magazine, for November, con- 

 tains the following enormous yields 

 of honey from one colony of bees dur- 

 ing the past summer : 



Mr. Ira Yager, Vice President of 

 the New Jersey and Eastern Bee- 

 Keepers' Association has taken 496 

 pounds of nice honey from a single 

 colony of bees. If any other Jersey- 

 man has ever beaten this, let him re- 

 port at once. Mr. Y. has 132 colonies. 

 He reports the season as poor. 



Mr. B. F. Carroll, of whom so mucli 

 has been said in the bee papers, has at 

 last accounts reached the enormous 

 and unparalleled yield of 800 pounds 

 of nice honey from one colony, and 

 the end is not yet. Texas is the ban- 

 ner State and Mr. Carroll now wears 

 the belt. Who dare prophesy that 1,- 



000 pounds will not yet be taken from 

 single colonies when the cultivation 

 of honey crops shall be fairly inaugur- 

 ated y 



Since writing the above regarding 

 Mr. Carroll's wearing the belt, the fol- 

 lowing has come to hand. I)r. Far- 

 ley, of Raleigh. Navarro Co., Texas, 

 has a colony of bees which has sent 

 out ten swarms, i*nd from these and 

 the old colony he has taken about 1,- 

 200 pounds of comb and extracted 

 honey. Now. reckoning this honey at 

 only ten cents per pound, and the new 

 colonies [from this one hive) at only $3 

 each, and we have $1-50 as the product 

 of one colony in one season, which is 

 32.50 better than friend Carroll has 

 done, and he sold his honey at 15 cents 

 per pound, all but 100 pounds which 

 brought 12f cents per pound. There- 

 port comes backed up by good author- 

 ity, and if not disproved, it entitles 

 the Dr. to the '' belt." 



Honey Harvest Abnudant.— The Ce- 

 dar Rapids, Iowa, /Standard in an 

 article on keeping bees, says : 



The honey crop of this year exhibits 

 the general affluence ; it is abundant 

 and very good. Clover, buckwheat, 

 tulip blossoms, horsemint, goldenrod, 

 Spanish needles, and other producers 

 of nectar, have borne an unusual sup- 

 ply of sweets, and the bees have faith- 

 fully gathered it and stored it in the 

 hives provided by man for their ac- 

 commodation and spoliation. At the 

 recent Convention of the North 

 American Bee-Keepers' Society, at 

 Cincinnati, it was stated that in 1870 

 only about 81,000,000 was invested in 

 the pursuit, but in 1S79 the prolits of 

 it were estimated at $16,000,000— show- 

 ing that the delightful and profitable 

 business of bee-keeping is beginning 

 to attract the attention it so richly 

 deserves. 



Prepare for Winter.— Mrs. L. Har- 

 rison, in the Prairie Farmer, gives the 

 following advice, including her plan 

 for preparing bees for winter : 



The Good Book says, " look well to 

 thy flocks and thy herds," and I sup- 

 pose that the bees were such tiny folks 

 that they were forgotten then, as they 

 are now, by most farmers, except when 

 they happen to think that there might 

 be some honey in the hives, or they 

 make an uproar by swarming. 



Although the fall has been so lovely, 

 warm and balmy, day after day, there 

 may be cold, driving storms and bliz- 

 zards before flowers bloom again, and 

 we should be prepared for their recep- 

 tion. ]5ees never freeze to death— O, 

 no ! they are dead before they reach 

 the freezing point. And they are not 

 a bit like fish, for they cannot live in 

 the water. Therefore they should 

 have a good roof over their heads ; a 

 leaky roof has caused the death of 

 many a fine colony of bees. The se- 

 vere winter of 1880-81 caused such 

 havoc among our bees, that we hesi- 

 tate to give directions for others to 

 follow. That season, with few excep- 

 tions, they flew on the first of March 

 but many of them died by spring- 



dwindling before flowers bloomed. 

 They were in tight, closely-jointed 

 hives, well painted, and not a leaky 

 roof among them, and the bees cov- 

 ered with chaff cushions. 



Perhaps they were coddled too much. 

 In the spring we purchased a black 

 colony of bees, in a Langstroth hive, 

 made by a saw and hatchet carpenter, 

 with such loose joints that the bees 

 are always trying to enter them when 

 honey is scarce. This colony, the 

 owner said. "he didn't care whether 

 it lived or died," and took no care of 

 it whatever; and yet in the spring it 

 was boiling over with bees, and was a 

 bonanza to us in strengthening up our 

 weak colonies. 



Many instances similar to the fore- 

 going show that bees can endure cold, 

 but that impure air is fatal to them. 



How to protect our bees so that they 

 will keep dry, have pure air and no 

 cold draughts through the cluster, 

 seems to be the desideratum for suc- 

 cessful wintering. Old settlers tell 

 us that when they dwelt in log cabins, 

 with their great fire-places and roar- 

 ing chimneys, their families were 

 healthier than they were after they 

 built comfortable houses; and that 

 their fowls, roosting in trees, and bees 

 in log gums which sometimes cracked 

 from top to bottom, lived through it 

 and never had cholera. What are we 

 going to do about it y Go back to log 

 houses and gumsV Heaven forbid I 

 But we are going to have pure air and 

 keep comfortable at the same time. 



Some of our readers may like to 

 know how we are fixing up our bees 

 for w-inter. On part of our bees we 

 place Hill's device, which is similar to 

 this : If a keg hoop was cut into 

 four pieces, and a strip nailed to the 

 middle of each, so that they would be 

 three inches apart, it would form a 

 hollow under which the bees can 

 cluster, and pass readily from frame 

 to frame. On this we spread new 

 muslin, and it reaches over the frames 

 far enough so that when the cap is put 

 on, the bees are securely fastened be- 

 low. We have not devices enough for 

 all, and on the remainder we place 

 four corn cobs, which we think will 

 answer the purpose as well. Our bees 

 are in the eight frame Langstroth 

 hives, and we have made a tall hive of 

 a few of them by putting four frames 

 in the upper hive or cap, right over the 

 four m the lower story. These frames 

 are in the center of the hive, and we 

 put chaff or dry leaves each side We 

 leave the entrance open and the same 

 size as in the summer. Chaff cushions 

 four or five inches in thickness are 

 put in the cap over the bees, and com- 

 plete the outfit for every hive An 

 abundance of fresh air is given above 

 the cushions by raising the covers It 

 would be better to bore holes in' the 

 cap at each end, under the projection 

 of the roof. 



m" Articles for publication must be 

 written on a separate piece of paper 

 from items of business. 



©• When changing a postoffice ad- 

 dress, ruention the old as well as the 

 new address. 



