THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



533 



Tor ZTie American Bee Journal. 



Sending ftueens by Mail. 



G. JI. DOOLITTLE. 



Having had considerable experience 

 in sending bees by niail. and liaving 

 conducted some experiments relative 

 to the food necessary, and the tem- 

 perature best for bees in eonlinement, 

 I thought a few items relative to the 

 matter might be of interest to the 

 readers of the Bee Journal. Prior 

 to 1880 the sending of queens by mail 

 was a mere lottery, inasmuch as the 

 chances were nearly as favorable for 

 the losing of the queen thus sent as 

 they were for her safe arrival, and 

 especially if the distance vvas great 

 enough to keep the bees confined to 

 the cage a week or more. 



During the above named year I ex- 

 perimented with several kinds of 

 cages, provisioned with different 

 kinds of food, and kept them in ray 

 shop for a period of 21 days. In each 

 of these cages was placed a queen and 

 10 bees, and once or twice every day I 

 threw the cages about the shop soas 

 to give the bees something of the 

 rough usage they would ^et in the 

 mails. Those living the longest, or 

 21 days, had honey in the comb for 

 food, but as this was not allowable in 

 the mails, I dare not use it. The next 

 best was a cage containing a candy 

 made of pulverized sugar and honey ; 

 but as I did not know how to keep 

 this in the cage, as Mr. I. R. Good 

 afterwards invented, I was driven to 

 accept the next best thing, which was 

 cream candy. If this was made just 

 right, I had good success in keeping 

 all the bees alive from 10 to U days ; 

 but if too hard or too soft. I lost 

 heavily in the mails, and could not 

 keep the bees but a few days in the 

 shop. Thns my experiments were 

 anything but satisfactory with what 

 was allowable in the mails. 



The next season I began experi- 

 menting to ascertain the age the bees 

 should be to best withstand a journey 

 wlien confined to a diet of cream 

 candy. Several cages were used, and 

 I found that if the young liees from 

 3 to 5 days old were taken just as they 

 had filled them.selves with honey, tliey 

 would live in the shop from 1.5 to 18 

 days, but a conflneme)it of % that 

 time in the mail baa; would generally 

 result in their death. However, as a 

 whole. I was quite successful during 

 1881 and 1882, losing only about 1 

 queen out of every 2-5 sent. " 



In the fall of 1882, I commenced to 

 use the cage and candy as used by 

 Mr. Good at tliat time"; but in 1883 1 

 used tlie candy as I had made it in 

 1880, using pulverized sugar in place 

 of granulated, as it made less litter 

 in the mail bags. During the year 

 1883 I lost but about 4 queens out of 

 some 300 sent in the mails, some of 

 which were 14 to 16 davs enroute. 



Those which died were tlie ones that 

 went to tlie warmest points, and 

 wliich were subjected to tlie greatest 

 heat. The past spring I went to ex- 

 perimenting regarding the proper 

 degree of heat in which caged bees 

 would live the longest, and although 

 this matter of heat and cold may not 

 be controllable where bees are ship- 

 ped by mail, still the matter is not 

 without interest, and we can, to a 

 certain extent, modify it by the venti- 

 lation of our I'uges. 



When putting my depopulated and 

 empty hives out of the bee-cellar, 

 after the loss I told you of in the Ueb 

 JouRN.\r>, I found several hives with 

 so few bees in them that I knew they 

 could not pull through to settled warm 

 weather ; and having promised several 

 queens to diflferent parties, I thought 

 that if I could save the queens from 

 these depopulated colonies, that I 

 could use tiiem to take the place of 

 those sent from full colonies. Accord- 

 ingly I began to look about for a place 

 to keep them. I placed a thermome- 

 ter on the mantletree near tlie pipe 

 from a coal-stove which was kept 

 burniufj night and day, when I soon 

 ascertained that the temperature 

 gave an average of 87^, going as low 

 as 75^, and getting as high as 94". 

 Cages were prepared the same as for 

 shipping queens, and the queen and 

 10 bees were placed therein, when 

 they were placed on the shelf. The 

 warmth soon made them happy, and 

 a joyful hum, as I supposed, was to 

 be heard nearly all the while night 

 and day. At the end of 3 days, the 

 first bee died, and soon others fol- 

 lowed till at the end of 5 days all 

 were dead except the queens and a 

 bee or two with eacli. 



Supposing that the lives of these 

 bees were necessarily shortened on 

 account of their conflnement in the 

 cellar during tlie winter, I thought 

 nothing of their dying thus soon ; but 

 when I found that young bees which 

 were now introduced into tlie cages 

 lived scarcely as long as the first had, 

 I began to wonder at it. iVfter again 

 putting a new lot of young bees into 

 the cages, I placed them to the farther 

 end of the shelf, where the tempera- 

 ture was not far from 80^, when I 

 found that this lot lived on an average 

 about 7 days, when I again had to 

 renew the bees. 



Just before this I had placed the 

 thermometer in one of the drawers of 

 my secretary, which stood the farthest 

 from the stove, of anything in tlie 

 room, where I found that the highest 

 point there reached was 73^^, and the 

 lowest was •55^\ I now placed the re- 

 i^jlenished cages in this drawer, and 

 much to my surprise not a single bee 

 had died after they had been there 18 

 days ; and when at 24 days I used the 

 queen, nearly iU of the bees were still 

 alive. 



It might be interesting to tell in 

 detail how long these queens were in 

 getting to laying after introducing ; 

 how some laid sparingly and others 

 did well for a little time; how they 

 gradually failed, etc., etc., but it 

 would make this article too long, as 

 I well as being foreign to the subject. 

 Suffice it to say that all are now dead, 



thus showing that such long confine- 

 ment is injurious to any queen. 



In the drawer, whenever the mer- 

 cury went below or/' (which was more 

 than '.^ of the time), 1 found the bees 

 in a sort of stupor, all clustered close 

 about the (jueen ; while if it went 

 above 70S I found them restless and 

 humming as they did on the shelf. I 

 believe, could I tiave kept them at an 

 even temperature of (MP to 65°, they 

 would have lived two months. 



From the above we get a clue to 

 the reason why bees and queens live in 

 the mails so luuch better in moderate 

 weather than they do in excessive 

 hot weather. It is now a wonder to 

 me that bees stand it as well as they 

 do in the mails, when the mail-bag is 

 often left for an hour or more in the 

 hot sun, which must heat the con- 

 tents to a pitch almost beyond the 

 limit of insect life. I now ventilate 

 my cages according to my best judg- 

 ment, and so far have not lost a single 

 queen, this season, in shipping more 

 than I had last year at this tiuie. 

 During our late, cold, July weather I 

 sent one queen to Texas without any 

 ventilation except what got in througli 

 whole paper and wood, and although 

 they were 9 days enroute, still every 

 bee went through alive. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Reversible Frames Again. 



J. E. POND, JR. 



Mr. H. Davies says that he does not 

 quite understand why I am favoring 

 reversible frames in the Kansas Bee- 

 Keeper, and opposing them in the 

 Bee Journal. I will endeavor to 

 explain mv position : 



The editorial note to which Mr. D. 

 refers, was written early this season, 

 and before I had perfected the tests 

 which I had begun last year. I admit 

 that I was a " little too previous " in 

 favoring them as I did in the Kansas 

 Bee-Keeper, but my experiments of 

 last year, which were on only one or 

 two "frames in a hive, worked so well, 

 and I found, also, that reversing the 

 sections caused them to be filled out 

 so neatly, that I advised their use. 



My experiments of this season vv-ith 

 a full set of frames in a hive, " do not 

 pail out quite so well ;" in fact they 

 prove to me, that while the desired 

 object can be accomplished with 

 them, viz : the getting of frames com- 

 pletelv filled out with comb, still the 

 labor "and troulile is so much greater, 

 than to accomplish the same thing by 

 rising the extractor, that I now advise 

 against them ; at least I advise be- 

 ginners to " go slow " before making 

 the changes necessary for their 

 adoption. 



I have already written an article 

 for the Kitnsas Bee-Keeper, explaining 

 my change of base, which will appear 

 soon. I, like all others, am liable to 

 make mistakes ; but unlike some 

 others, I am always ready to " own 

 up and acknowledge the corn," when 

 I find that I am mistaken. I was at 

 first verv enthusiastic in this " re- 

 versible "frame " matter, and made 



