466 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



well taken care of, and placed upon 

 the market when there is a demand 

 at a remunerative price, and not be- 

 fore. There is one other point ; before 

 honey is shipped away to a large city, 

 the home market should be well sup- 

 plied. Supply the home market first j 

 and if tliere is any leftover, there will 

 be time to sell it at some distant mar- 

 ket. One who has never tried it will 

 be surprised at the quantity of honey 

 that can be sold in a home market, 

 especially when an energetic man 

 goes at it in the right manner. Each 

 grocer should be furnished with a 

 neat stand for extracted honey ; also 

 a case, with glass front, for comb 

 honey ; and unless sold outriglit to 

 the grocer, he should be instructed 

 to sell the honey at a certain price. 



As I rear queens, I do not have a 

 great deal of honey. I have at pres- 

 ent taken off about 3,000 pounds, but 

 have not sold more than 100 pounds. 

 I have been too busy to even get it 

 crated, or to put the extracted into 

 pails, but there is time enough yet for 

 that, as October is the best month in 

 which to sell honey. Before selling 

 my honey, I sliall probably exhibit it, 

 together with numerous other bee- 

 keeping articles, at the State Fair at 

 Detroit. 



For some reason, some colonies at 

 this season of the year are found 

 queenless. Perhaps the large number 

 of eggs laid during the busy season is 

 so great a tax upon the vitality of old 

 queens that they die, and then the 

 young queen that the bees afterwards 

 rear is lost in mating. Of all the 

 methods that I have tried for intro- 

 ducing queens that have been long 

 out of the hive, I have found none 

 better than the following : 



Make a cage of wire cloth by rolling 

 a pieces or 4 inches square around a 

 round stick ?^ of an inch in diameter. 

 One edge of the cloth should be un- 

 raveled a few wires, and the long ends 

 of tlie wires tlius left sticking out can 

 be thrust through the meshes of the 

 opposite edge, then bent over or 

 " clinched." The cage when linished 

 is limply a wire cloth tube 4 inches 

 long and % of an inch in diameter. 

 One end can be closed by jiineliing it 

 together. The cage in wliicli the 

 queen has been shipped, should be 

 opened in a close room before a win- 

 dow, the queen alone caught and 

 placed in the wire cloth cage, and the 

 cage closed by squeezing tlie end to- 

 gether. Then by moving the frames 

 slightly ajiart the cage can be slipped 

 down between two of them and held 

 in place by pressing the combs against 

 it. For fear the bees might neglect 

 to feed the queen it is better that the 

 cage be placed against sealed honey. 

 In from 24 to 48 hours it is usually 

 safe to liberate the queen. The dis- 

 position of the bees towards tlie queen 

 is the only guide as to when it is safe 

 to release her. It they are " balling " 

 the cage — clinging to "it like burdocks 

 — they would kill the queen ; if they 

 are walking about over the cage in 

 their usual unconcerned manner, they 

 will usually accept the queen, and the 

 cage can be opened by pressing one 

 end in the opposite direction from 

 that by which it was closed. After 



opening the cage the hive should be 

 closed at once, and not opened or the 

 bees disturbed again for 5 or 6 days. 

 Opening the hives before the queen 

 has entirely recovered from her cap- 

 tivity, and been completely accepted 

 as sovereign of the hive often leads to 

 her destruction. 



Colonies that are to be united should 

 be united now. Remove the least 

 desirable queen, and in two days take 

 the combs containing the brood of 

 both colonies and put them together 

 with the adhering bees, in one hive, 

 and place it upon the stand occupied 

 by the colony having the queen. 



At this season of the year robber 

 bees are often troublesome ; hence 

 caution should be used, and no temp- 

 tations, in the shape of exposed sweets 

 or queenless or weak colonies, should 

 be placed in their way. When robbing 

 is once started, it is difticult of control. 

 Once more I would urge ii|)on bee- 

 keepers the importance of experiment- 

 ing in regard to wintering. Extract 

 the honey from a few colonies, and 

 feed them a syrup made from granu- 

 lated sugar, in the proportion of one 

 quart of hot water to 4 pounds of 

 sugar. The syrup should be fed dur- 

 ing the latter "part of September. 



Rogersville, Mich. 



For tlie American Bee JournaL 



Appearances Are Often Deceptive. 



W. H. STEWART. 



A truth, often apparent to the ob- 

 serving bee-keeper, is, " we know not 

 what a day may bring fortli." If we 

 could have known that the cold, wet 

 spring of 1882 was a true index to the 

 latter part of the season, we would 

 have concluded that it were better to 

 let the bees go, and get out of the 

 business, as best we could ; but we 

 have all learned that there are " ups " 

 as well as " downs" in life. Thus it 

 is, that, during tlie storm " hope sees 

 a star," as I have stated in my report 

 for 1882. The season of 1882, after 

 June 10, was very good, and we made 

 the bees pay tolerably well. 



The spring of 1883 (in Wisconsin) 

 was more promising ; we had to feed 

 but little, iiees obtained plenty of 

 pollen and nearly as much honey as 

 they needed, up to June 8, and then 

 came white clover bloom, and we took 

 about 2,.500 lbs. of white clover sur- 

 plus. In the spring of 1882 we did not 

 get .50 lbs. of surplus white clover 

 honey. 



July 13 (tliis season) basswood began 

 to open its bloom, with which it was lit- 

 erally loaded. Reports were made 

 from" many parts of the country, giving 

 great honey yields, and. as the organ 

 of hope is ever flattering us, by pre- 

 senting the brightest and most pleas- 

 ing side of every question, how natural 

 it was for us all to conclude that the 

 land was sown to " (low with milk and 

 honey " (or at least with honey). 



But how about the "immense crop?" 

 When basswood began to bloom, dark 

 clouds, somewhat larger than a man's 

 hand, made their appearance, and 

 thunder and lightning, rain and wind 

 was the order of both day and night ' 



during basswood bloom. Our bees 

 only had half a day of favorable 

 weather for gathering basswood honey. 



On July 12, we had run all our sur- 

 plus combs through the extractor, and 

 had our sleeves rolled up, ready to 

 take about 6,000 lbs. of basswood 

 honey in, "out of the wet;" but we 

 failed, and the wet came out ahead. 



July 20. we opened our hives to look 

 for a little basswood honey ; we did 

 not expect much, but we found scarce 

 anything in the supers, except mad, 

 ugly bees. 



Now, two weeks later, nothing seems 

 to be going on with the bees, except 

 trying to force their way into every 

 door and window, to get at the honey 

 that is being handled, and doing their 

 best to to rob each other of stores. 



Again the great thunder storm has 

 brought chilling winds and stormy in- 

 dications of frost. If this state of 

 things continues, we will have to feed 

 most of our white clover honey back, 

 for winter stores. 



Orion, Wis., Aug. 4, 1883. 



For the Amertcan Bee Journal. 



A New Bee Enemy. 



PROF. A. J. COOK. 



The figure we here present ij of a 

 curious bee-killer received from J.D. 

 Enas, Napa, Cal. Mr. Enas says it 

 goes into the hives and destroys the 

 bees. 



This strange animal is related to 

 the spiders, and more nearly to that 

 group of the spiders containing the 



Bee-Kilkr. 



scorpion and grand-father-gray-beard. 

 The name of the family is Solpulgidse, 

 and they are unique in the possession 

 of very curious jaws. These have 

 two toothed fingers, the lower one of 

 which is movable. On the front mar- 

 gin of the head, which seems small 

 when compared with the enormous 

 jaws, are the small rounded eyes. The 

 jaws move side-wise, while the 

 toothed lingers move up and down. 

 There are eight legs as with all 

 spiders, though the anterior ones 

 have no claws. 



Tlie sitecies sent by Mr. Enas is 

 possibly Datames Californicus, Simon, 

 though this one does not quite agree 

 with the description given by the late 

 Mr. Putnam in his most admirable 

 monograph of the Solpulgidfe of 

 America. It is nearly one inch (23 

 TO m) long. The head is brown, with 



