THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



191 



doubled in the shape of an eaves- 

 trough, and solder the edges to tlie 

 boiler, just low enough to let the 

 frames down below the top of the 

 boiler. Then place the boiler on the 

 stove and put in about 2 inches of 

 water ; make a hot tire and commence 

 to nncap the honey ; as fast as un- 

 capped, set the frames into the boiler. 

 When it is full, the first frames will be 

 ready for extracting. If the honey 

 should be very cold or frozen, or the 

 honey is very hard, it may need to be 

 set into the boiler the second time. 

 With this boiler I can extract nearly 

 as fast as when the honey is liquid. 

 I use the boiler to carry the frames 

 in ; in the summer, to store frames 

 in ; also, in case of emergency, it 

 comes handy to store unripe honey 

 in. The boiler should be made of 

 galvanized iron, so that it will be 

 strong to handle. 

 Gazenovia, N. Y., March 31, 1883. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



How to Introduce ftueens. 



A. R. KOHNKE. 



Onion ! Asafetida ! ! Whew ! Next 

 comes stale eggs. I wonder that the 

 bees did not leave their master and go 

 to the woods where they had, at least, 

 pure air, if nothing else. When I 

 read the above suggestions in the 

 Journal, I intended to give the rem- 

 edy I have used for several years, with 

 perfect success, but other business 

 preventing until I got the latest batch 

 of German papers, in one of which 

 {Deutsher Bienenfreund), is described a 

 method by a German bee-keeper, Mr. 

 Scheuerle, identical to my own, of 

 which I give a condensed translation : 



" After having lost and sacrificed 

 many a nice and valuable queen, in 

 order to discover a safe method of 

 introducing them, I have, at last, hit 

 upon a plan which has proven en- 

 tirely successful. In order that a 

 colony may accept a strange queen, 

 five conditions must be fulfilled: 1. 

 The colony must be queenless, nor 

 should there be any queen-cells with 

 brood or even eggs in them. 2. The 

 new queen and the queenless colony 

 must have the same scent. 3. The 

 colony must be confused or bewild- 

 ered. 4. All bees must be present at 

 the operation. 5. The colony, with 

 the introduced queen, must be kept 

 in a dark place, say 24 hours. 



" Some may think that the fulfill- 

 ment of these conditions are very 

 troublesome, which, in fact, is not the 

 case. In order that you may not be 

 detained, get everything you may 

 need ready before hand. You will 

 need the following : 1. Essence or 

 extract of balm (Melissa officinalis), a 

 small quantity to be had at the drug- 

 gists. 2. A piece of woolen cloth, the 

 size of a hand, and a small piece of 

 cotton cloth, as also a strong quilt. 3. 

 A tumbler. 4. A small piece of comb 

 honey, but having no running honey 

 about it. -5. A room with one window, 

 which may be darkened. 



" If you get the queen sent fi-om a 

 distance, she and the accompanying 

 bees should be liberated in a warm 



room, to void themselves ; if the room 

 isnotwarm enough,itmustbe madeso. 

 "Now, suppose the shipper of the 

 queen has sent you a notice of having 

 mailed or shipped by express the 

 queen you have intended to give to a 

 certain colony, you will know about 

 what day to expect her arrival. The 

 evening before, when all the bees are 

 home, take that colony into the room 

 spoken of above, and see that no bee 

 belonging to the colony leaves or flies 

 off. Having received your queen and 

 given her and the accompanying bees 

 a flight, in another room, always 

 keeping an eye on her, catch her 

 again and put her with some of her 

 companions under a tumbler, then 

 take a piece of cotton cloth, put some 

 of the extract of balm on it, and wipe 

 the inside of a tumbler with it. Now 

 take the bit of honey comb ; put the 

 queen and some few of her bees with 

 her under the wiped tumbler, and let 

 them remain there for sometime, or 

 rather until you are ready to intro- 

 duce her. If the colony, which is to 

 receive the new queen, has an old 

 one, that one should be taken away 

 about noon, on the same day you wish 

 to introduce another ; but as soon as 

 you get the colony into the room, 

 moisten the piece of woolen cloth with 

 essence of balm, and push it into the 

 entrance of the hive, which is kept in 

 the darkened room. If you get the 

 new queen early in the morning, and, 

 without delay, exposed her to the es- 

 sence of balm, she will have acquired 

 the scent by evening, otherwise she 

 must remain under the tumbler till 

 the next day. 



" In order to better find the old 

 queen, and also to confuse the bees, 

 transfer the bees, comb and all, to 

 another hive, looking carefully over 

 each comb, as you remove it from the 

 old hive, until you have found the old 

 queen, which must be caught and 

 caged, and then finish transferring 

 the bees to another hive ; the bees re- 

 maining in the old hive must be 

 brushed out before the entrance of 

 their new hive, and when they are 

 seen to move in, the new queen is 

 also put before the entrance, and will 

 go in w'ith the rest. Having done 

 this with open shutters, and as near 

 the window as possible, darken the 

 room as soon as you see the queen 

 enter the hive, to cause all the bees 

 flying about the window to join the 

 colony and let them stay there 24 

 hours, after which you may put them 

 on their stand in the apiary. 



'■ To re-queen queenless colonies, 

 the apiarist must take such precau- 

 tion as will suggest themselves, viz. : 

 There should not be left any queen- 

 cells in the hive, nor should there be a 

 laying worker, which might cause 

 trouble. 



" The main principle is that the 

 colony and new queen have the same 

 scent, hence the perfume must be 

 taken from one, and the same bottle 

 for both. And to have something 

 agreeable to the bees, is certainly 

 preferable ; hence, the odor of balm is 

 better adopted to this purpose than 

 anything else, for balm and a queen- 

 bee have both the same name in the 

 Greek language, viz.: Melissa; and 



this, perhaps, on account of both hav- 

 ing the same odor." 



REjrARKS BY Translator: — 

 Three years ago last summer, while 

 making new colonies by dividing, I 

 got two queens into one hive, getting 

 an old queen by accident, or rather 

 oversight, into a nucleus which I 

 strengthened with some frames of 

 brood and bees, spraying them with 

 water of balm, as also the bees and 

 laying young queen introduced into 

 the nucleus. Both were laying the 

 next day, when I discovered my old 

 colony acting queenless. 



Youugstown, O. 



For ttie American IWe JournaL 



Eucalyptus for Honey in Australia. 



A. VERGE. 



In a late number of the Bee Jour- 

 nal, a bee-keeper, somewhere in 

 California, reported a quantity of his 

 honey crop to be derived from eu- 

 calyptus. It was a pleasant surprise 

 to me to hear that one of our Austra- 

 lian trees had been recognized as valua- 

 ble in that respect, in a country pro- 

 ducing so many plants and trees of 

 world-wide reputation ; and though 

 I do not suppose it will anywhere be 

 found to yield such returns as are re- 

 ported to be derivable from basswood, 

 yet all its varieties will be found to be 

 good honey producers, and valuable 

 beside on account of the durability of 

 their wood, which is especially well 

 suited for the purpose of fencing, 

 wharf piles, railway sleepers, etc., etc. 



They will not, I think, flower much 

 before the tenth year, but considering 

 how very serviceable such wood will 

 be, there is no tree, in my opinion, 

 more deserving of being extensively 

 cultivated, especially out in the prairie 

 regions. 



For both purposes, probably the 

 best varieties are iroubark (E. panicu 

 lata) ; red or large leafed ironbark (E. 

 siderophloia) ; ur silver-leafed iron- 

 hark (E. melanophloia) ; bloodwood 

 (E. corymbosa); stringy-bark (E. ob- 

 liqua) ; blackbutt (E. popularis) ; and 

 a species hereabouts called box, but 

 the title of which I am ignorant of. 

 It is the most, in fact the only, orna- 

 mental one of all, and is a flue shade 

 tree, being frequently planted around 

 Sydney in ornamental grounds ; its 

 timber, however, is not durable, being 

 liable to dry rot. Blackbutt, again, 

 does not grow beyond a few miles 

 from the sea coast. 



The honey .secreted in the flowers 

 of these trees has a fine flavor, though 

 it is strong. There are still other 

 varieties of the tribe indigenous to 

 western Australia and south Aus- 

 tralia, but I know nothing of their 

 qualities. Here in latitude 31 - south, 

 they do not all bloom at or near the 

 same time of year ; ironbark and 

 tallow-wood (another variety) begin in 

 October, while bloodwood blooms 

 from January to March, and near the 

 sea coast where the frost is less severe, 

 the country there being more thickly 

 timbered, and consequently warmer. 

 They begin a month earUer, and con- 

 tinue nearly a month later in flower. 



