THE AMERICAJS BEE JOURNAL. 



663 



least ordinary ability as a bee-keeper, 

 and have decided that I must have 

 some other pursuit to connect with 

 bee-keeping, what shall it be ?" with 

 mv present knowledge I should reply, 

 "Keep poultry." But I would not 

 have any hens sitting in swarming 

 time, nor, indeed, with flocks of little 

 chicks wandering about, trying to lose 

 themselves in the wet grass. I have 

 studied some little about it, and taken 

 some observations ; and I think the 

 whole business of poultry-raising 

 might be done almost entirely when 

 bees require little attention. 



Mind you, I do not say it is best to 

 combine at all ; but if combining is 

 done, the merits of poultry-keeping 

 deserve consideration. 



Marengo, 5 His. 



For the American Bee JoomoL 



Tlie Fecundation of Queens. 



ARAD C. BALCH. 



On page 567 is an article by Mr. N. 

 W. McLain, on the fecundation of 

 queens, which 1 have read with a 

 great deal of interest, as he is the first 

 man I have heard of that has sus- 

 tained me in the discovery which I 

 made 15 or 20 years ago, and have 

 practiced more or less ever since. I 

 have practiced principally on queens 

 that had defective wings, and could 

 never fly to meet the drones on the 

 wing. 1 have siven the manner of 

 working, several times, in the Michi- 

 gan State Bee-Keepers' conventions. 



I have always found more trouble 

 with drones than queens. I avoid 

 that in a measure by catching drones 

 as they come back to the hive atter 

 having their flight. I insert the sex 

 organ of the male into the queen be- 

 tween the first and second rings of 

 the abdomen on the underside of the 

 queen. It is done in my fingers by 

 forcing the queen's abdomen back, 

 by pressing on it with the drone until 

 the rings open, and then by pressing 

 the drone, his sex organ will come 

 out, and if held properly, the work is 

 done. The queen will frequently draw 

 the dead drone (if at once put on a 

 comb) all over it, until some worker 

 pulls it away. 



If by any chance I do not succeed 

 with the first drone, I do not try 

 again that day ; for if I use two 

 drones, unless I cage the queen, they 

 are almost sure to ball and kill her. 

 Query : Is not one reason why so 

 many queens are lost on their wed- 

 ding trip, because a queen has met 

 more than one drone '{ 



I should think, from Mr. Otis N. 

 Baldwin's description, that he holds 

 them the same as I have done, but I 

 am not sure. I succeeded in fertiliz- 

 ing my first queen after she had met 

 the drones, that had hatched by the 

 hundreds ; it was at a time when Eev. 

 L. L. Langstroth was selling queens 

 at $10 each, and was one reared from 

 a queen bought of him. I mated her 

 with a pure Italian drone, and her 

 bees were pure, which was a rare 

 thing at first, as there were so many 

 blacks in the country.and few Italians. 



Kalamazoo. 9 Mich 



Country Gentleman. 



A Plea for f Me Frames, 



GEO. A. STOCKWELL. 



A light harvest demonstrates the 

 value or convenience of the wide 

 frame for surplus honey. In a good 

 season the bees may fill every box in 

 the 24 or 28 box crate. They may till 

 more than one, and the crates, thus 

 filled, may be sent to market undis- 

 turbed. This is the theory of it, and 

 a special crate is made for the pur- 

 pose. But the practice is different. 

 In sending honey to market the bee- 

 keeper aims to make an attractive 

 package, if he wishes to sell twice in 

 the same place. Therefore, he will 

 not send a crate of honey to market 

 without first removing some of the 

 propolis, for several reasons, viz : 

 First, the consumer of honey, or 

 buyer, knows nothing about propolis, 

 and may think that it is in the honey 

 as well as in the crate ; second, the 

 boxes covered with propolis in warm 

 weather cannot be handled without 

 soiling the hands, and any bee-keeper 

 knows that " several washings " are 

 required to remove it ; and, third, 

 honey thus sent is uncleanly in ap- 

 pearance. 



TIERING UP. 



]^o honey ought to be sent to mar- 

 ket in crates used on the hives, and 

 probably very little is so sent. 

 Another reason for using crates is 

 that they can be tiered up. Opinions 

 differ as to tiering up. The advanced 

 bee-keeper takes off the honey as 

 soon as capped, or as soon as all or 

 nearly all the sections in the case are 

 capped, and does not leave "com- 

 pleted " honey to serve as a door-mat 

 or a highway to an upper crate. It 

 will become soiled. 



Honey should be taken from the 

 hive as soon after it is capped as pos- 

 sible. At all events, no bee-keeper 

 wishes his honey mixed. He cannot 

 prevent the mingling of different 

 kinds to a certain extent, but he may 

 have the early honey, unmixed with 

 midsummer honey, and the latter free 

 from fall honey. 



If honey is left in the hive, some 

 sections will have dark honey on one 

 side and light on the other. A sec- 

 tion taken from a hive about Aug. 1, 

 bad on one side half of the honey 

 dark, almost black (probably chestnut 

 honey), and the rest of that side white. 

 Certainly, we do not want apple- 

 bloom or raspberry honey mixed with 

 chestnut or buckwheat honey. There- 

 fore, honey should be removed three 

 times in a season, if notoftener. 



UTILITY OF WIDE FRASIES. 



The utility of the wide frames is 

 shown here. Suppose on the first of 

 August it is desired to remove the 

 surplus honey of a hive. There are 

 eight sections in the centre capped 

 and ready for market, and as many 

 more are uncapped, or partly capped. 

 The crate itself is glued fast, what- 

 ever the arrangement may be. Of 

 course it can be removed, but it were 

 better not to disturb it. If the crate 



should be removed, it must be taken 

 into a room, for one cannot work long 

 over a crate of honey in the open 

 apiary. If we do, there will be no 

 honey left for the bee-keeper. 



The section boxes, also, are held 

 fast by propolis, and it is almost im- 

 possible to remove the sections as 

 quickly as the case demands, without 

 breaking one of them, or an adjoining 

 section. If, however, the wide frames 

 are used, holding either four or eight 

 boxes, each frame may be pried off in 

 an instant, the bees shaken off, the 

 completed sections pushed out, and 

 fresh boxes inserted. The uncapped, 

 or partly capped sections, are brought 

 together over the centre of the hive, 

 and the new boxes placed outside of 

 them. 



Another advantage is that only one 

 frame is exposed at a time. After one 

 is taken out, cover the hive with the 

 usual cover, if convenient to handle, 

 or have a sheet ready to draw over the 

 hive when the frame is taken out. 



There are many unfilled crates this 

 season, and many with no more in 

 them than when put on. Everywhere 

 the crop is light, and the bees appear 

 to have so little to do that they can 

 give their whole attention to assisting 

 the bee-keeper in removing a little 

 honey. In an apiary of 20 colonies, 

 and in one of 12, it has been almost 

 impossible to open a hive without 

 starting a bee-fight, and bee-and-man 

 fight, for they fall upon the operator 

 without mercy. 



Providence. i5 R- 1- 



For tlie American Bee Jonma) 



The Season in Central Illinois, 



GEO. F. ROBBINS. 



Fourteen days ago a week of rain 

 commenced, which may, perhaps, be 

 said to have ended -our long drouth, 

 which, in this immediate region, has 

 lasted since June 10, and in some 

 parts near here, a great deal longer 

 than that. Grass, which has been 

 dried up since early in July, is now 

 growing nicely. But a frost a few 

 days before the rains commenced, 

 nipped the honey-plants, so that bees 

 have not gathered anything for over 

 tv.'o weeks. 



We had about ten days of good 

 honey-weather in the first half of 

 June, with perhaps ten days more 

 during which bees gathered any sur- 

 plus at all. I took off about 725 

 pounds of comb honey, and extracted 

 some 375 pounds— just one-fourth of 

 a fair crop from 56 colonies of bees, 

 less than 50 of them good ones. My 

 bees managed to live and breed 

 through the summer. 



Usually the stubble fields grow con- 

 siderable crops of heart's-ease, but 

 that source of honey was this year a 

 total failure. Goldenrod, asters and 

 Spanish-needle were numerous, but 

 yielded very little. I have never yet 

 had so little honey in my hives at the 

 close of the season as now. Yet with 

 what they have of clover honey in 

 their combs, and what they gathered 

 from late flowers (which I am work- 



