304 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



that but few queens will be mismated — per- 

 haps none. 



When the honey harvest is well under way 

 I would remove the queens from two pop- 

 ulous colonies. In about three days I would 

 place a nice, clean, dry, worker comb, not 

 more than a year or two old, in the center 

 of each of my colonies containing the Ital- 

 ian queens. About the time that all of the 

 brood is sealed in the colonies deprived of 

 their queens, the eggs will just be hatching 

 in the combs given to the Italian queens. I 

 would then cut out all of the queen cells that 

 had been built in the queenless colonies, 

 giving the combs of just hatching larvfe. 

 Cutting a few holes in the comb just where 

 the larvaB are beginning to hatch will greatly 

 increase the number of cells built. Two or 

 three days before the queens were ready to 

 hatch I would start as many nuclei as there 

 were cells. This I would do by taking a sin- 

 gle comb of bees and brood from a colony 

 and placing it in a hive close by the side of 

 the hive from which it was taken, and by the 

 side of the comb I would place an empty 

 comb. The next day I would cut out the 

 cells and give them to the nuclei, giving the 

 queenless colonies another comb of eggs 

 from which to build another batch of cells 

 with which I would start more nuclei. If I 

 found it necessary to start more cells I 

 should give the cell-building colonies more 

 bees by shaking them from the combs of 

 other colonies, or else by taking a queen 

 from a swarm and dividing the bees between 

 the two colonies. When these Italian cells 

 are the right age, any colony that swarms 

 can have its cells cut out, and an Italian cell 

 given it, which will settle the matter for 

 that colony. 



By this management I should expect that 

 the end of the harvest would find me with a 

 few Italian queens already introduced, as 

 just explained, and by the side of each col- 

 ony not thus furnished with a queen would 

 be a nucleus containing a laying Italian 

 queen. I would then remove the black 

 queens, leave the colonies queenless until 

 they had sealed over some queen cells, when 

 I would cut out the cells and introduce the 

 Italian queens by simply lifting the combs, 

 bees, and queen from each nucleus and setj 

 ting them into the queenless hive. Possibly 

 the precaution of leaving the bees queenless 

 so long is not needed, but it is a sure thing. 

 I should be glad of criticisms and sugges- 

 tions upon the above. 



EXXRKCXeO. 



Irregular Advertising. 



The Review has had considerable to say 

 in regard to advertising, more, perhaps, than 

 some of its readers may have thought profit- 

 able. If there are any such they should re- 

 member that it is the advertiser that allows 

 them to get the Review for $1.00 instead of 

 twice that sum. If advertising proves prof- 

 itable to the advertiser he stays with the 

 journal, and what helps a journal is of ad- 

 vantage to its readers. If there is any one 

 thing that is more calculated to bring dissat- 

 isfaction all round, than for a new adver- 

 tiser to insert his ad. just once as a trial, I 

 would like to know what it is. These 

 thoughts are brought to my mind by the fol- 

 lowing from Gleanings. 



" There has been a good deal written in 

 regard to advertising, but I think there is 

 one point which has not as yet been fully 

 emphasized ; viz., that the advertiser must 

 not be disappointed, nor blame any one, if 

 he gets no return from one insertion of an 

 advertisement, especially if he is a new man. 

 We will say that Mr. A, for instance, orders 

 one insertion of an advertisement, offering 

 queens. He is a new man, and is apt to ex- 

 pect that, within four or live days after the 

 appearance of his card, he will get a large 

 number of responses , but he forgets that 

 Mr. B., a well-known queen breeder, ofifers 

 queens just as cheap, just as good, and is 

 known to be reliable. It is the most natural 

 thing in the world for bee-keepers to buy of 

 those who are well known. I do not mean 

 to discourage one-insertion advertisements, 

 but usually they do not pay unless some 

 special inducement is offered in the way of 

 extra quality, extra low price, or something 

 novel, that everybody wants to see and get. 

 But even then a plurality of insertions is far 

 more liable to get better returns for the 

 money invested." 



Don't Allow the Snow to Drift Oyer the 

 Hives and Remain All Winter. 

 Almost every winter some one asks if there 

 is any objection to allowing the hives to be- 

 come covered with snow and remain so dur- 

 ing the winter. Here is Mr. Doolittle's re- 

 ply to the question as it appeared in a late 

 number of Gleanings. 



" The plan of having a shelter over the en- 

 trance of each hive, and letting shelter and 

 hive drift over, I have tried several times ; 

 but with me it is not a success. Several of 

 our best apiarists claim that this plan is a 

 success with them, and advise the wintering 

 of bees in this way ; but I have yet to see the 

 colony of bees, over which the snow has been 



