THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



759 



of goods, are its producers. The hue 

 and cry about ghicose in honey, bene- 

 fits local bee-keepers, as those desiring 

 pure honey purchase of those known 

 to be its producers. 

 Peoria, 111. 



Translated from Bienenfreund by A. R. Kohnke. 



Duties of Bee-Keepers in the Spring. 



HERR HENNING. 



As suggestions for spring work will 

 be in order during the winter, I will 

 attempt to give a few. 



As soon as the weather becomes 

 sufficiently warm to permit an exami- 

 nation of the colonies, the apiarist 

 .should do so, to ascertain if the bees 

 have iileiity of stores ; and, if not, 

 they should be fed abundantly, but 

 very carefully, so as not to disturb the 

 bees too much. Water for the bees 

 should be put near the bees in a shel- 

 tered place. Queenless colonies should 

 be re-queened, if they *tre strong 

 enough ; if not, they should be united 

 with other weak colonies. 



Re-queening, in early spring, should 

 be done by furnishing such colony a 

 fertile queen ; never have them rear 

 one themselves. Keep the bees warm. 

 Contract the brood-nest and add 

 fraujes, one every week or ten days; 

 hiter ill spring, wlien young bees be- 

 gin to hatch, additional frames may 

 be added more frequently, and stimu- 

 lative feeding commenced. For the 

 latter purpose I use the following com- 

 position : 1 pound of sugar, 3 ounces 

 of water, ,'3" ounce of starch, 7 grains 

 albumen (dried), 7 grains phosphate of 

 lime, 7 grains carbonate of lime, 7 

 grains salicylic acid. 



Dissolve the sugar in the amount of 

 water given, and boil to a thick syrup. 

 Have the other ingredients very tinely 

 powdered and well mixed ; add them, 

 stirring continually, so as to well in- 

 incoiporate them in the solution of 

 sugar. Tlie sugar should be of the 

 very best, not showing a bluish cast, 

 which would indicate artificial color- 

 ing. The starch should also be pure- 

 odorless and tasteless. All the ingre- 

 dients can be obtained in a good drug 

 store, with, perhaps, the exception of 

 sugar. If you cannot get the albumen 

 {white of eggs) there, you may pre- 

 pare it vourself by spreading it thinly 

 on window glass, and drying it in a 

 warm temperature, not higher than 

 135- F. After it bus thoroughly dried 

 it maybe scratched olf.and by the aid 

 of a druggist's mortar, converted into 

 a flue powder. 



After having stirred in all the in- 

 gredients, let it boil 3 or 4 minutes, 

 pour it into frames wliich fit the hives, 

 lay your frame on an even smooth 

 board and see that no sugar runs out. 

 In order to better prevent running, a 

 piece of paper, larger than the frame 

 should be pasted on the one side of 

 the same, liending the edges and past- 

 ing them also to the diifeient bars of 

 the frame ; then lay the frame on the 

 board, with the paper next to it, and 

 cast your cake. 



After it has cooled it will stay in the 

 frame and should be hung in the hive 

 as near tlie brood-nest as convenient. 



the paper on the off-side. If the col- 

 ony has but little honey, two such 

 frames should be given, one on each 

 side of the brood-nest ; but, if there is 

 plenty of honey, one will be sulKcient 

 to enable the "bees to raise brood and 

 bees enough to crowd the hive when 

 the honey season arrives ; to accom- 

 plish this, such frames must be given 

 from 4 to 6 weeks before the bees are 

 wanted to gather the honey when the 

 wave strikes your locality. 

 Erfurt, Germany. 



For tho American Bee JoumaL 



New Plan for Introducing ({iieens, etc. 



E. n. THURSTON, M. D. 



The Bee Journal is a regular and 

 most welcome visitor; it make its ap- 

 pearance atmyofliceevery Wednesday 

 almost as regular as the day itself, and 

 is always tilled with the most inter- 

 esting and valuable information on 

 apiculture of any publication I have 

 ever read. 



Allow me, Mr. Editor, to relate 

 briefly a few experiments and give 

 some thoughts on the introduction 

 of queens. As I do not wish to con- 

 sume much of your valuable space, I 

 will touch lightly upon ventilation and 

 wintering at present, but perhaps at 

 some future time may give more upon 

 these subjects. It has been said 

 " Modern bee-keeping is very modern 

 indeed,'" and it is well said ; with so 

 many practical and scientific investi- 

 gators, liow could it be otherwise ';' 



My attention was attracted by an 

 article in the Bee Journal for Oct. 

 18, page 6(il, by Prof. S. J. Robbins, 

 on the "Use of Onions when Uniting 

 Bees." 



A few days after reading the article 

 I transferred a colony of bees from a 

 box to a frame hive. I had a few bees 

 with a queen in a Langslroth observa- 

 tory hive; not caring to winter them 

 alone, and, wanting the combs for my 

 new colony as well as the bees, I con- 

 cluded to try the onions while uniting 

 the bees. 



I placed some onions in the observa- 

 tory hive and in my new one ; left 

 them for 24 hours ; I then removed the 

 bees and combs and placed them in 

 the new hive; there did not at the 

 time appear to be any disturbance ; 

 tliey seemed to get along nicely, but 

 on the next day I found my experi- 

 ment liad resulted in the death of all 

 the bees from the observatory hive. 

 I do not consider this a fair trial of the 

 use of onions, and shall some time try 

 it again. 



Prof. R. spoke of using the onions 

 for introducing queens, upon tlie the- 

 ory of their clianging the scent of the 

 bees ; this gave me a new idea. The 

 thought occurred to me that if onion 

 would do so well why would not some 

 article having a stronger odor do bet- 

 ter";' Asafetida suggested itself ; also 

 a new method of introducing queens 

 by the use of asafetida water, thrown 

 oh the (lueen and bees by a hand atom- 

 izer ; the queen being let loose on the 

 combs, among the bees; at the same 

 time spraying among them quite 

 thoroughly. 



Here was a chance for experiment ; 

 and all that was lacking was the fact 

 that 1 had no colony to put my queen 

 in. My friend and neighbor S. N. 

 Replogle, who by the way is one of our 

 best and most successful bee-keepers, 

 a man of much experience and a care- 

 ful observer, and practical in every 

 respect, informed me that he was in 

 need of a queen for a queenless colony 

 that had been queenless for two 

 months. I made known to him my 

 plan of introducing, and told him I 

 would give hiin the queen if he would 

 try the experiment, to which he read- 

 ily assented. 



"I prepared the water by using half 

 a draclim of tincture of asafetida to 2 

 ounces of water ; gave him a hand 

 atomizer and he proceeded as follows : 

 he sprayed the bees in the liive through 

 the entrance; the hive was then 

 opened and the bees sprayed again; 

 the queen in the cage was now sprayed 

 and a center frame taken out, put up 

 in a convenient place, the bees on it 

 thoroughly sprayed and the queen 

 turned loose among them ; at the same 

 time spraying the bees aiid queen 

 lightly and watching her movements 

 closely. He said she, as well as the 

 bees, were considerably excited at first, 

 but no attack was made upon her. 

 After about five minutes the excite- 

 ment passed off and they became quiet. 

 He then sprayed the frame, bees, and 

 also the bees in the hive and the frame 

 was returned to the hive which was at 

 once closed and remained so until the 

 next day, when he opened it to see 

 what the results had been. He found 

 that all was peace and harmony ; the 

 queen liad commenced laying and all 

 hands were at work. 



Mr. R. informed me that this colony 

 had refused three queens, and that 

 about three weeks before trying this 

 experiment he had given them a frame 

 of brood, that they had attempted to 

 rear a queen, but as he thought, had 

 failed ; but about a week after intro- 

 ducing my queen, he found her all 

 right, but, to his astonishment, he also 

 found a small, runty queen, with no 

 Winers, in with her ; and he is now 

 satisfied that she was in the hive when 

 he introduced my queen, and that she 

 was tliere when he attempted to intro- 

 duce the last one of the three before 

 mentioned. 



I do not claim anything wonderful 

 for this method, nor do I know whether 

 it is new or not, but I think it an 

 experiment worth trying, and I would 

 like to hear of some one else trying it. 



Asafetida issomewhat of a disinfect- 

 ant, and I think it would not be a bad 

 plan to spray all colonies occasionally 

 with the water. 



I have consumed more space already 

 than I had intended, but with your 

 liermission, Mr. Editor, I will add a 

 lew words touching ventilation and 

 wintering. 



The use of the enameled sheet I con- 

 sider one of the very convenient thing, 

 but my impression was when I first 

 saw it spoken of, that it would not 

 permit tlie escape of the breath of the 

 bees, and would retain too much of 

 the animal heat; that the cold air on 

 the outside would condense the heat, 

 causing too much moisture in the hive. 



