AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



165 



queen, Two or three days later I looked 

 again without success, but noticed drones 

 and workers hatching in the same patch. 

 The queen was still laying, and I saw 3 

 or 4 eggs in a cell, on the outside of the 

 brood. A short time after, I again 

 looked and this time found the queen. 

 She was coal-black, with no sign of 

 yellow, and, thinking she was worthless, 

 I killed her. Six days afterwards, when 

 I went to double-up this colony with 

 another, I found sealed brood, with 3 or 

 4 queen cells on each side, which, when 

 hatched, turned out to be very good 

 queens and workers. This queen had been 

 laying for two months after the other 

 queens had stopped. She had undoubtedly 

 become fertilized some time in October, 

 as the queens hatched on the last day of 

 November. Noble Shaw. 



Milton, Ills. 



Poor Stores. 



I am a beginner, with a small apiary. 

 In preparing my bees for winter quarters 

 I found one colony was dead, with plenty 

 of honey. They were crowded between a 

 few empty frames. I noticed pools of 

 honey (or sweet water) under one full 

 frame, at the opposite side of the 

 chamber from the dead bees. " AVhat 

 was the cause ?" J. H. Anderson. 



Montrose, Colo., Jan. 1, 1891. 



[The sweet water probably became 

 sour, after standing, and that was the 

 cause of the death of the bees. — Ed.] 



Packages for Extracted-Honey. 



I notice considerable discussion, in 

 bee-periodicals, about the 60-pound tin 

 cans for extracted-honey. My observa- 

 tions are that they are not the best, for 

 they are very tender, and easily made to 

 leak, especially if out of the cases, and 

 nails are so apt to be driven into them 

 through the cases. They are too frail, 

 and not solid enough for the weight put 

 into them. When they are leaking, it is 

 difficult to tell where the leak is, and 

 you cannot stop it without the tinsmith. 

 The small kegs, holding from 75 to 150 

 pounds each, are the cheapest and most 

 sensible packages for extracted-honey, 

 for if they are leaking, the hoops can be 

 driven up to tighten them. Another ob- 

 jectionable feature in the tins, is that 

 buyers get the impression that all the 

 honey in those cans is California honey, 

 and are more or less prejudiced. What 

 do other dealers say ? H. R. Weight. 



Albany, N. Y. 



Wants two Volumes a Year. 



There is certainly no reader of the Bee 

 Journal, who will not heartily congratu- 

 late its editor upon the great improve- 

 ment he has effected in its change of 

 form. You may remember that when its 

 former square form was adopted, I 

 objected on the ground that it would not 

 be uniform with the preceding volumes. 

 Now that it has returned to its former 

 desirable shape as to convenience, and 

 as it were for a text-book of reference, 

 and as a guide in the furtherance of 

 apiarian pursuits, I cannot see what 

 further we could ask to make it "just 

 the book that we want." Think of 

 1,664 pages for the year and all for 

 $1.00 ; why ! it almost takes the breath 

 away ! Will not the volume be immense ! 

 How would it do to have two volumes 

 (with two indexs) in the year, as for 

 instance the way Oleanings is published? 

 Wm. S. Barclay. 



Beaver, Pa., Jan. 15, 1891. 



[We had thought of making two 

 volumes in the year, and may do so yet, 

 giving an Index every 6 months. Over 

 800 pages will be quite large enough for 

 a volume, and there will be two such in 

 a year. 



The reason for changing to a larger 

 size of page, 10 years ago, was that 

 presses were not then available, large 

 enough to print the whole 32 pages 

 all at once, and we could not then quite 

 afford the extra expense of printing two 

 forms every week. Now, there are 

 several of such large printing-presses in 

 this city, and hence the enlargement to 

 32 pages every week was possible. 



The enlargement will even now cost 

 $1,000 a year more than the former 

 size, but our readers have the advantage 

 free. — Ed.] 



Successful Bee-Keeping in Iowa. 



In the Spring of 1887 I bought one 

 colony of black bees in a box hive, for 

 which I paid $5.00. This was the 

 beginning of my experience with bees. 

 This colony increased to 5 by natural 

 swarming, which were hived in boxes like 

 the first colony. During the Summer, 

 the moths destroyed 1 colony, or nearly 

 so, and I distributed what remained of it 

 among the others in the Fall, leaving me 

 4 colonies which I wintered in the cellar. 

 During the next Summer, I transferred 



