1878. 



GLEA2^LNGS LN BEE CULTURE. 



I am a young hand in the bee business, but start- 

 ed last season with 2 colonies, rather weak. They 

 did well, and I extracted S'™ gallons of fine honey 

 (618 lbs.) and increased to 5 good colonies. 



Friendsville, Tenn. S. L. Greer. 



MOVING BEES SHORT DISTANCES. 



In Oct., I fed up a weak and late swarm with 

 sugar syrup. They had a young queen of my own 

 raising,' with some Italian blood. She is large, but 

 as black as jet. They had no poll»n, but I put a 

 chaff cushion on top and put them in the cellar. 

 They ate but little all winter, and when I moved 

 them here, the first of March, not an egg was to be 

 seen, until about the 10th day after moving. They 

 had not a quart of bees, but with a division board 

 and .5 combs, they are doing finely. Writers may 

 say all they can, but give me chaff. Your head is 

 level on chaff. This may throw some light on the 

 length of life of the bee. 



I moved here, with my .55 colonies of bees, in the 

 warm days of the first of March, three-fourths of a 

 mile, in a spring wagon. As soon as I set a load 

 down, I opened the hive and jarred it. They buzzed 

 and whizzed around, but marked their new locality. 

 I don't think a single bee went back. By pursuing 

 this course, I think they may be moved any short 

 distance, without loss of bees, but the day must be 

 warm enough for them to fly. M. L. Williams. 



Vancebarg, Ky., April 8th, 1878. 



The plan you give, of alarming the bees 

 just before letting theni out, after moving 

 them short distances, willsometimesanswer. 

 but not always. Perhaps the difference is in 

 the different traits and dispositions exhib- 

 itetl bv different colonies. 



FILLING COMBS FOR FEEDING. 



I have no fault to find with the division boards, 

 nor can I see hut that you have give me my money's 

 worth. I could not have had the hives as well built 

 here. The one valuable feature is that everything 

 is made to fit, which can not, or will not, be done by 

 a mechanic who is not a bee man. I have a new 

 patent for feeding bees: §100.CMI for farm right. 

 Take the comb baskets you sent, fill nearly full with 

 syrup, set in the combs, and return the filled combs 

 to the hive, and the agony is over. The top of one 

 chaff hive was broken in the transit; the shipment, 

 on the whole, came through in very good shape. I 

 am now ready for "beesness," and will not have to 

 blow somebody up, to get whatever one wants at 

 swarming time. Chas. J. Quinby. 



White Plains, N. Y., March 9th, 1878. 



Friend Q.. you see. sent his order to us 

 sometime in the winter, and therefore had 

 all he needed long before they were wanted. 

 We gave him a special discount for the order, 

 when our hands were many of them idle, 

 and you can see how he has "been the gainer 

 by it. 1 am sorry to dispel any of his fond 

 illusions on the' feeding arrangement, but 

 about two years ago when my wife and I 

 were on our way to meeting one Sabbath 

 morning, the following might have been 

 overheard : 



••Qh Susan I I have just thought of a feed- 

 er that will be ahead of anything ever before 

 invented, and will, I verily believe, work a 

 complete "revolution in bee culture." " 



"What, and on Sunday':' it surely will not 

 work."' 



"O. but it cannot help working, for it is 

 just to dip the combs into a boiler full of 

 syrup, and tlien hang them in the liive. I 

 didii t try to invent it on Sunday, it just 

 came of itself.^ 



"Well, you just wait and see." 



I did wait and see. although I was almost 

 indignant, liecause she would not immedi- 

 ately admit itsjn-eat value to "ctuning gen- 

 erations." M^u I tried it Monday morn- 

 ing. I foxuid that the honey or syrup would 



not get in the cells much better than it would 

 "get out." without an extractor, and so it 

 was abandoned. Friend Quinby "s tranquili- 

 ty Avith all of his supplies ready at hand, 

 contrasts pretty strongly with the' friend who 

 AATites below, who. it seems, has had some 

 real genuine experience in waiting and 

 watching, although we can now find no trace 

 of an order for fdn. at all. 



For lack of the fdn. I ordered, I have had to spend 

 hours killing drones, and hunting up and fitting in 

 odd pieces of worker comb, where I cut out drone 

 comb, (that seems to be the only kind my bees will 

 build now) and I have haunted the express and 

 freight offices till they consider me a nuisance, and 

 call out, "XothingI" before I get fairlv in-doors. 



Decatur, 111., May 6th. "78. L. R. S. Allen. 



SPOTTED queens AND CANDY CAGES. 



I have raised 7 queens from an imported mother, 

 and they all have two small black spots on their 

 backs. I have two other queens raised from a home 

 bred mother, which have no spots, and are yellow- 

 er than those from the imported mother. Which 

 are the purer? these with i he spots, or those with- 

 out':' 



I have 8 stands of bees, all Italians: .3 are in the 

 Simplicity hives, and the rest in American hives. 

 I like the Simplicity the best. The frames which 

 you sent for D. G. Hister and mjself are at hand, 

 and are satisfactory. 



I received the queen cages, but would rather 

 have them larger. I have put six black and hybrid 

 queens in them, and they all died. I am afraid to 

 send queens away in them. I think the candy is 

 too hard. I have one larger size, in which I kept a 

 queen 3 weeks. D. K. Knoll. 



Boundary City, Ind., May 4th, 1878. 



Many of the imported, and daughters of 

 the imported queens show these black spots, 

 and they have been called a sign of purity ; 

 but I opine that the color of the queens has 

 but little to do with their purity, or value 

 either. If the bees are well marked and 

 good workers. I think that is enough. We. 

 too. have had some trouble with the small 

 cages, this spring, although they worked 

 well last fall. Perhaps the candy'has hard- 

 ened, so that it is not as readily taken by the 

 bees. We have tried moistening it with 

 honey, with good success. A new lot. that 

 will soon be out. will have the candy macle 

 of honey, tloiu'. and sugar, and the cage will 

 be made considerably larger : although it is 

 quite a ditticult matter to make them much 

 larger, and still retain the price at cc. We 

 use the 10c cages, for all our imported queens, 

 and I believe we have never had a loss re- 

 l)orted. where they were used as yet. 



Goods for last order to hand, and all in. except 2 

 porticoes which I ordered or intended to order: 

 only 3 came. However, let that go for the present, 

 as I see I was mistaken in the price. I have sent 

 you, perhaps, a dozen orders, and nothing has come 

 up wrong yet. Other bee men make mistakes 

 sometimes, tnit always correct thf ni, unless I except 

 Mitchell, and he will promise every time, but then 

 he has so much business that he forgets it, you 

 know(?). Screw drivers came to band; were very 

 nice, but had found wife's before they came. Bee's 

 are working in earnest on white clover, poplnr, &c., 

 which have been flowering for 2 or 3 weeks. We do 

 not have as much clover here as y< u do n( rth, I 

 suppose from what you all say of it. It setnisto be 

 increasing and spreading here. I think the reason, 

 or at least one reason, of its scarcity here is the fact 

 that we have no stock laws, and our hogs and cows 

 oat and trample it down. We know nothing of 

 basswood here, but it -grows in Tenn. and other 

 states of the South, where it is known as lynn. 

 We have two kinds of trees here which we 

 call poplar: one has but little sap or white 

 wood on it, while the bulk of the tree is 

 a beautiful yellow wood much prized by the 



