THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



m 



the ground color, there is decidedly a ringed 

 appearance. 



Carniolans are prolific, gentle, hardy, ex- 

 cellent comb builders, and gather but little 

 propolis. With me they do not swarm so 

 much as the Italians. 



As honey gatherers they are unsurpassed. 

 They get up early and go to bed late, and 

 noon finds them hard at work. They will 

 work in cooler weather than other bees will. 

 I have kept the Italians in the same apiary 

 with the Carniolans, and the latter were al- 

 ways the first in the sections ; and were the 

 ones that stored the most honey — sometimes 

 double what the Italians did. 



If there is any one race of bees that I con- 

 sider perfect, it is the Carniolan. 



Belle Vernon, Ohio. May 10, 1890. 



The foregoing is the very-much-boiled- 

 down gist of an article that has been on 

 hand some time. 



Our experience, at present, (July 2) does 

 not enable us to say anything in regard to 

 the honey gathering qualities of the Carni- 

 olans ; as the intense heat, or something, 

 has so affected the honey secretion that the 

 bees ai"e getting but little more than a liv- 

 ing. 



On a card written .June 26, Mr. S. A. 

 Shuck, of Liverpool, 111., says: "Bees are 

 swarming at a great rate ; and I want no 

 more Carniolan blood in mine. They will 

 neither work in the sections nor stay in the 

 extracting supers long enough to accom- 

 plish anything." 



Bee-Escapes— Now They "Work, Now They 

 Don't— They Probably Will in the End. 



(Jfr S MENTIONED in the last issue, we 

 a ' have on hand quite a batch of cor- 

 respondence relating to bee escapes, 

 and we think best to give it all at one time 

 and in one place, that the different views 

 may be the more readily compared. 



DowAGiAo, Mich. 

 Fbiend H.— May 24, 1890. 



In response to your favor 

 of the 23rd I will say that the " Rambler's " 

 experience with bee escapes is exactly what 

 anybody is liable to meet under adverse out- 

 side conditions. There are times when the 

 bees are in such a condition that they will 

 not go down ; that is, scarcely any of them. 

 1 don't know why, as my boys have usedthe 

 bee escapes, what have been used in my 

 yard, and I have not been there, but I know 

 that such is the fact. I am compelled to 

 leave it a mystery to you, as regards all the 

 reasons,, as I don't know. You will be com- 

 pelled to do the same, so far as my aid can 

 go, as, just at present, Willie is not here, nor 

 any of the rest of them who used the bee 

 escapes. James Heddon. 



Dayton, Illinois. 



Friend H.— May 29, 1890. 



I have been away from 



home for several days, and very busy since 



my return ; hence the delay in answering 



your letter. 



I have used the bee escapes with perfect 

 success during the height of the season. In 

 fact, the only trouble I had with them was 

 after the weather became cool in the fall. 

 Truly, there were a few cases, only a small 

 per cent., however, where all the bees would 

 not leave ; but all would be practically free 

 of bees. Perhaps the following might be 

 inserted in my article. 



The bee escape has proved itself both a 

 comfort and a convenience of the first order, 

 as, by its use, supers can be practically freed 

 of bees without smoking, shaking or brush- 

 ing. Of the few who have tried it, some did 

 not succeeded very well. When the weather 

 is warm, and the hive and super crowded 

 with bees, we ought not to expect the bees 

 to leave the super and go down into the al- 

 ready over-crowded brood chamber. Some 

 room and some inducement must be pro- 

 vided in the shape of an empty super be- 

 low the one to be removed. 



In 1888 I had good success with the escape, 

 when contracting for winter, by putting the 

 lower section of a Heddon hive above the 

 other, with an escape between. Last year, 

 probably because I waited too long, nearly 

 every trial of this resulted in failure. 



I think, at times, when bees are not in- 

 clined to leave the supers readily, the hori- 

 zontal escapes will not work nearly as well 

 as the vertical cones. 



There is one disadvantage in using the 

 escapes with extracting supers, and that is 

 that when they are left on over night, which 

 would be the usual way, the honey some- 

 times V^ecomes too cool to extract well. 



J, A. Green. 



Milan, Illinois. 



Friend H.— May 25, 1890. 



Your valued letter, with a 

 clipping from "Rambler's" article is re- 

 ceived. I am not surprised at the conclu- 

 sion reached by " Rambler ; it is about my 

 own experience. 



The horizontal escape was invented by me 

 after cool weather had commenced, and I 

 scarcely had a chance to test it fully. It 

 worked very well then, and I knew I had 

 struck a good thing. After that we began to 

 make improvements, as you will remember, 

 but, unfortunately, as we could make no 

 tests, we progressed in the wrong direction. 

 Since the bees have become strong again, 

 and the weather warm, I have made many 

 tests with my own, the Reese, Porter, Wright 

 and other patterns, and I must conclude 

 that none of them will prove satisfactory. 



In making these experiments, however, I 

 made a discovery, and noiv have an escape 

 that cleans out a whole hive full of bees in 

 two or three hours. I have done this a num- 

 ber of times in all ways possible, at this time, 



I have now sent this device to California, 

 to be tested in actual use. As soon as fully 

 tested it will be made known. 



