THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



741 



bad been queenless at least 48 hours 

 previous. 



Tbis was exactly my experience 

 until I invented the " queen-cell pro- 

 tectors" which I use. With these 

 I succeed in getting nearly every 

 queen accepted (which is in the cell 

 at the time that it and the protector is 

 placed in the nucleus), for the "pro- 

 tector " prevents the bees from de- 

 stroying the cell by gnawing into the 

 side of it. I really wish that queen- 

 cells could be introduced safely to a 

 colony 12 hours after a laying queen is 

 removed, for it would save much 

 valuable time and a good deal of ex- 

 tra work. 



mTRODUCING VIRGIN QUEENS. 



Then again, I And this statement in 

 print, and coming from quite a large 

 bee-keeper, and one who should know 

 what he was saying : " If the queens 

 have hatched on your hands, and you 

 have been fortunate to have saved 

 them, all you need to do is to simply 

 let one run in at the entrance of the 

 hive. The bees will not barm or 

 molest her in the least." I would give 

 $100 in a minute to know that this 

 was a fact, and that such a thing 

 could be done by the average bee- 

 keeper. Hundreds of us know that 

 this is not truth in their cases. 



After years of careful trial of all 

 the known plans for introducing 

 virgin queens, I must say that all 

 have so virtually failed that they in 

 no way can be called a success, unless 

 the colony or nucleus has been queen- 

 less from 3 to 5 days. By a continual 

 smoking of the bees, and almost 

 drowning them with sweetened 

 scented water, I have succeeded in 

 getting a few accepted immediately 

 after removing the reigning queen ; 

 but this is not at all practical when 

 working 50 to 100 nuclei. 



QUEENS FLYING WHEN FIRST LEAV- 

 ING THE CELL. 



I also notice these words in one of 

 our bee-papers : " The Syrians 

 (queens) are more hardy and strong 

 upon emerging from the cell than are 

 those of the Italians. I have repeat- 

 edly seen them take wing when first 

 escaping from the cell." So have I, 

 not only Syrian queens, but Cyprian, 

 Italian, black and Oarniolan; but be 

 it understood that no queen of any 

 race ever so flew at maturity. Why 

 queens are thus able to fly is because 

 they are kept in the cells after ma- 

 turity, and ted by the bees till several 

 hours old, ranging from 8 to 24 or 

 more hours ; for a young queen can 

 no more fly at maturity than can a 

 worker. Any one running a lamp or 

 other queen nursery cannot help ad- 

 mitting the truth of this, after seeing 

 the white, weak things that all queens 

 are if not kept from emerging from 

 the cells by the bees at the queens' 

 maturity. * 



When any man says that he has 

 seen a queen fly from a cell kept in a 

 nursery for 24 hours previous to her 

 emerging, I will admit that I am 

 wrong. Experiment more closely, 

 brethren, and we shall have less to 

 retract. 



Borodino,© N. Y. 



Ohio Poultry Joarnal. 



Some Things Not to Belieye. 



H. D. COX. 



Some things we need not believe. 

 If you see an advertisement agreeing 

 for two red stamps to tell you all 

 about bee-keeping, and how to make 

 twenty-five dollars per colony out of 

 your bees, don't believe it. 



Another thing you should see before 

 you believe, that bees gather and 

 store great quantities of honey from 

 red clover. I have had bees for many 

 years, and always saw them on red 

 clover when they could get nothing 

 else to work on, and would seem to 

 be very busy, but would gather very 

 little honey. I once had the satisfac- 

 tion of getting some pure red clover 

 honey. In a dearth of honey from 

 other flowers they were working 

 strong on the bloom of the seed-crop 

 of red clover ; the flelds were just 

 humming with bees. I put a strong 

 swarm on clean, empty combs, and 

 succeeded in extracting a little from 

 them. It was thin, of a dark red 

 color, and had a clover taste, but I 

 thought it was not good honey. 



Another thing : Be slow to believe 

 when somebody tells you it is all 

 " luck " with bees. Luck has nothing 

 to do with them. You manage the 

 bees by knowledge and practice; 

 Providence gives the weather ; and 

 the bees will gather the honey for you. 



Pleasant Hill,*o Ohio. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



Results oftlie Season ofl88]. 



.TOS. M. HAMBAUQH. 



Owing to a severe sickness during 

 the fall of 1886, at the time my bees 

 should have been prepared for their 

 winter quarters, ana having no trusty 

 person that I could employ, I was 

 compelled to let my bees remain upon 

 the summer stands without protection, 

 and consequently I lost quite heavily 

 at my home apriary ; about 12 per cent, 

 of them died before spring, while out 

 of the 49 colonies at my Vandeventer 

 apiary, 46 came through in good con- 

 dition. The cause of the latter com- 

 ing through so much better, is owing 

 to the bees being upon larger frames 

 and in larger hives ; the hives being 

 of the Quinby [a la Dadant) pattern. 



I find that where bees are to be 

 wintered on the summer stands, they 

 invariably come through the winter 

 stronger in numbers, build up quicker 

 in the spring, and are in better con- 

 dition to receive the harvest than the 

 bees in smaller hives. This conclu- 

 sion is based upon four years of actual 

 test and experience, and I know 

 whereby I speak. 



After all losses of winter, spring 

 dwindling, etc., my home apiary con- 

 sisted of 73 colonies, and many of 

 them weak and in poor condition to 

 make a summer's harvest. Owing to 

 my bees being badly intermixed 

 with natives, I made no efforts to 

 dispose of queens, but made special 



efforts to weed out as many of the old 

 undesirable ones as possible, and 

 with this end in view, I got 15 early 

 queens from the South, and every 

 few weeks I purchased queens from 

 reliable breeders, and with what I 

 reared and successfully introduced,! 

 now have queen-bees and workers as 

 good as the best in the country. In 

 this work, I have had my share of 

 tribulations, for along with the ab- 

 sence pf nectar in the bloom, causing 

 more or less demoralization, comes 

 the extra care and pains to success- 

 fully supersede queens ; and taking 

 the season through, it has been the 

 worst season I ever knew to keep all 

 colonies queened ; for io spite of all 

 care and attention, it seemed that the 

 bees put the blame of the poor season 

 on their queens, and were bent on 

 putting them out of the way. 



I transferred 19 native colonies 

 from box-hives into Dadant hive8,and 

 added them to my Vandeventer api- 

 ary, making 65 colonies of bees in all. 



Clover commenced to bloom on 

 May 6, and by May 20 the hills and 

 valleys were white, but there seemed 

 to be an entire absence of honey in 

 the bloom ; in fact many colonies 

 were in a starving condition, and I 

 know of several colonies in the 

 neighborhood that left their hives in 

 demoralization during the heighth of 

 the clover bloom. 



Basswood (or linden) yielded a 

 scant harvest, but as my home api- 

 ary is not in a linden region, I got 

 but little benefit from this source ; 

 but the bees at the Vandeventer api- 

 ary gathered enough to bridge them 

 over the long drouth, which has been 

 without a parallel in the history of 

 this section of the country. Brood- 

 rearing ceased to a great extent, and 

 when the Spanish-needle bloom came, 

 many colonies had dwindled, until 

 they were in poor condition to receive 

 the harvest. About Aug. 15 I pur- 

 chased the apiarian outfit and bees 

 belonging to W. J. CuUinan, of Mt. 

 Sterling, Ills., consisting of 22 colo- 

 nies, mostly hybrids. These I have 

 added to my home apiary, making 95 

 colonies in all. 



Spanish-needle commenced to bloom 

 about Aug. 15, and never did I see 

 honey come in faster than it did from 

 this source ; and had the strength of 

 the colonies been as great as it 

 was on June 1, would have obtained 

 several thousand pounds of honey, 

 whereas, after making all colonies 

 even with ample stores for their lopg 

 rest, I got 1,2-50 pounds of as fine 

 Cereopsis honey as I ever saw. This 

 amount seems very small, for so many 

 colonies, but considering the season, 

 I certainly have no reason to complain. 



While this season has been the 

 most disastrous ever known here, for 

 the production of honey, it has not 

 been without its benefits, if we un- 

 derstand how to utilize them. It. has 

 been a remarkably good year to de- 

 velop the superior points in bees, 

 weed out old, worthless and objec- 

 tionable queens, clean up all the old 

 stock of honey, study the ins and outs 

 of the pursuit, read up, and more ac- 

 curately lay plans for the future. 



Spring,KD Ills., Nov. 10, 1887. 



