414 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



December 



queens being black are troublesome 

 to find, and the frequent handling 

 and periods of queenlessness develop 

 an acute crossness of temper. 



To this must be added their suscep- 

 tibility to the Isle of Wight disease. 



Dutch colonies are generally used 

 for starting the caps, because more 

 can be given at one time and the 

 larva; are lavishly fed. 



Our cups are very slight and each 

 one is attached to a cork, which con- 

 nects it with the carrier, or cell-bar. 



In this way they are easily han- 

 dled, and the corks, when spoiled by 

 the bees, can be cheaply replaced 

 from time to time. For transferring 

 the grubs nothing more elaborate is 

 used than a common broad writing 

 nib in its holder, or a quill writing 

 pen is equally as handy. 



A portion of an ordinary hive from 

 which the queen is excluded by 

 means of a queen-excluding dummy 

 makes the best means for preserving 

 the cells from the time they have 

 been sealed over till nuclei are ready 

 to receive them ten days after 

 grafting. 



Figure 1 is intended to show the 

 construction of a simple type of hive 

 for two nuclei. 



Each division holds five or six 

 combs, and both entrances face the 

 same direction. 



A stock with sufficient bees to 

 cover 8 combs is used to populate 

 two boxes at the commencement of 

 the season. 



The combs are gently lifted in — 

 four into each division — and covered 

 down with quilts. The portion with- 

 out a fertile queen is given a ripe 

 cell, and as soon as the existing 

 queen has been removed a cell is in- 

 serted in its protector. 



When the nuclei remain in the 

 same position as the old colony there 

 is no loss of flying bees, but after be- 

 ing given a week to become estab- 

 lished they can be moved with but 

 little loss. 



Each nucleus properly cared for is 

 capable of giving two fertile queens 

 per month for the breeding season of 

 June, July and August. In some late 

 seasons mating results are quite good 

 through September, when the month 

 is warm and sunny; until lack of 

 drones and the chill oncoming au- 

 tumn brings operations to a close. 



The time of cheap queens appears 

 now to have gone by, since with bet- 

 ter systems of harvesting honey it is 

 the productiveness of a queen and 

 not so much her cost that is taken 

 into account. 



Twelve years ago the bulk of 

 queens were marketed under $1.25 

 each, but of late years parallel with 

 the development of more approved 

 methods and the production of a bet- 

 ter class of queens has naturally 

 come the higher price. 



The call for queens is heaviest dur- 

 ing July and August, as those bee- 

 keepers who make a practice of in- 

 creasing stock or requeening yearly 

 do so at this period — especially in the 

 northern part of our country where 

 heather abounds, and the practice is 

 of giving a new queen to build up 

 colonies prior to the late heather 

 flow on the moors. 



Reverting to nuclei management 

 the disadvantage of having weak lots 

 before winter is overcome in the fol- 

 lowing manner: 



Assuming an apiary to consist of 

 20 full colonies and 40 nuclei on five 

 standard combs each, half of the 

 queens from the poorest colonies are 

 removed. 



Twenty queens taken from the nu- 

 clei are introduced in their place, and 

 each pair of nuclei are united to- 

 gether in one hive to form a strong 

 colony. 



In concluding, I might add that be- 

 tween combs of yellow sainfoin 

 honey in the Cotswold apiaries are 

 hibernating prettily marked bees; the 

 progeny of queens from far-off 

 Texas. 



They are golden bees of B. M. Car- 

 away's strain and even in this war- 

 time most of the cages with their liv- 

 ing contents traversed the distance in 

 safety. 



Cheltenham, England. 



Reminiscences of Canadian Bee- 

 keeping 



By J. R. Black 



MY memory of beekeeping and 

 beekeepers in Canada goes 

 back a generation, for it 

 was at the beginning of the 80's, in 

 the last century, I began to keep 

 bees. When I left the university, in 

 1875, I had a nervous breakdown 

 which disturbed me chiefly in the 

 prevention of sleep. When the 

 medicine man had diagnosed my case 

 he said, to my surprise, "Keep bees." 

 I asked him, "Why?" He answered, 

 "Keeping bees will take you out of 

 your study, away from your books 

 and give you a sun bath. For it is 

 only when the sun is shining that 

 you can handle them. And, besides, 

 you will be so interested in them 

 that you will forget your books, and 

 the result will be favorable to your 

 getting sleep." In a few days the 

 doctor came with a colony from his 

 own apiary and I made a beginning 

 in beekeeping. 



Forty years ago the late D. A. 

 Jones was easily the most prominent 

 apiarist in Canada. Jones was in 

 Canada what Quinby and Langstroth 

 were in their day in the United 

 States. Not that Jones had anything 

 like the inventiveness characteristic 

 of the two Americans just named, for 

 in the line of invention he left noth- 

 ing perpetuating his memory. It 

 is true he invented a hive having a 

 frame 14 inches deep and about 10 

 inches wide, and later a hive called 

 the "combination," the frame of 

 which was simply the deep frame of 

 the first turned on its side. Both of 

 these hives attained a considerable 

 degree of popularity, but for years 

 now they have been back numbers. 

 Jones also devised an uncapping 

 knife which is still on the market 

 and widely used. But if he didn't in- 

 vent, he "boosted." His first big 

 sensation was in a widely heralded 

 75,000 pounds of honey from Canada 

 thistles. This was certainly a proud 

 day for the much-despised thistle; 

 but, alas! for the reputation result- 

 ing to the farmers of Beeton, the lo- 

 cality of the apiary where Jones' 

 bees did such a fine piece of work. 

 This result for a time furnished 

 Jones with a text from which he un- 

 dertook to urge on audiences, large 

 and small, the importance of keeping 

 bees to collect the honey not only 

 from thistles, but from clover, bass- 

 wood, buckwheat and the numerous 

 wild flowers abounding in many sec- 

 tions of the country. The thing 

 caught fire. The people were stirred 

 deeply on the question of _ keeping 

 bees, with such large possibilities as 

 Jones was able to picture with the 

 intake from thistles always, of 

 course, in the background. For the 

 in i few years the demand for bees 

 far exceeded the supply. Indeed, the 



