1S78 



GLEAKENGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



325 



useful to a verdant young g<?ntleman ou the wrong 

 side of sixty. Perhaps, the "A B C" would suit my 

 ag-e. Precociousness was never charged against me 

 as a fault. T. N. Lyne. 



P. S.— I see f rora Gleanings, that you are down 

 on patent hives. Has Barnes' patent ever crossed 

 you? If it has, say if it will do. T. N. L. 



Ferguson's Station, Ky., Sept. 6th, '78. 



I really can not tell, my friend, from your 

 statement of the case, whether you have a 

 qneen or not, but fear not. Give the swarm 

 some brood from another colony, and if they 

 start no new queen cells, your queen is 

 probably there. Your hive may answer very 

 well, even if it is a j^atented one. 



Your letter has taught me a lesson, which 

 is, that, if I am going to have customers for 

 queens who ai-e so very new to the business 

 as you seem to be, it Avill be well t^o send 

 printed "directions" with each cage. It 

 has be«n done, and here is a copy of it ; so 

 you see your letter has probably done so Hie 

 good. 



DIRECTIONS FOR CARING FOR, AND INTRO- 

 DUCING QUEENS. 



When you receive a queen and bees, see that there 

 is candy "in the cnge, and water in the little vial. If 

 either of these should be out-, you might give them 

 a little honey if it is handy. Do not, under any cir- 

 cumstances, get the bees or queen daubed, for that 

 will be sure to kill them. 



Although queens can be kept in these cages for 

 several weeks, if supplied with sugar, water, and 

 fresh bees as often as those with her die of old age, 

 and kept in a warm room during cool weather, still 

 I would advise introducing them to a full hive as 

 soon as practicable after they are received. To do 

 this, you are to hunt out and remove the queen 

 from the hive, then place the cage on top of the 

 frames, with the wire cloth next the bees. The old 

 queen had better be kept in a similar cage, until you 

 are sure the new one is s;\fely laj-ing, so that you 

 may put her back in case any trouble happens -to | 

 the new one. Leave the cage over the frames, as a | 

 rule, for 4« houi-s. After you have had practice, j 

 you can introduce a queen in one day, or even in an | 

 hour, to some stocks. When you release the queen, i 

 always have smoke of some kind handy ; a smoker j 

 is the best thing. If the bees are densely clustered 

 over the cage, making a hissing noise, do not at- 

 tempt t-o let the queen out. If they are behaving ! 

 about as usual, feeding the queen thi-ough the mesh- : 

 OS of the cage, etc., you can usually let her out with- 

 out anj' danger. Lift the cage from the frames, and I 

 gently brush off all the bees sticking to the outside; j 

 have your smoker in hand, and do not have any dis- i 

 puting in i-earard to who is "'bossing the job." Now | 

 push back the t,lide, and let the queen crawl out \ 

 among the bees on the top of the frames. If she ! 

 and the bees don't go out, blow a little smoke 

 through the wire cloth. If they treat her well, all 

 right; but have your smoker ready, and do not let 

 them sting her, under any circumstances. There is 

 no danger, if you are ready with the smoke. If she i 

 is allowed to rnn down between the combs without \ 

 trouble, or molestation, you may close the hive, and I 

 leave them about 15 or '2ti minutes; then i-emove a 

 frame, and look her up; if hostile, you will find her i 

 iu a ball of bees, perhaps on the bottom board. Do i 

 not be alai-med, but got out the ball, drive the bees 

 off with smoke, put her back in the cage, and try 

 again next day; and so on, until she is allowed to go 

 about without hindi'ance. Sometimes, she will be 

 found all right after 15 minutes or a half hour, but 

 will be balled 4 or 5 hours afterward. I would look 

 two or three times, after lotting out any queen that 

 I wished to be sui-e of. It is never safe' to omit this. 

 Sometimes, it will take a week or 10 days, to get a 

 queen introduced, and we find about one colony in 

 a hundred, that will not i-eceive a queen at all. In 

 such a case, we try- her in another hive. 



If you do as I have told you, you need almost nev- 

 er have a queen killed. There is no process in the 

 world, that is absolutely sure, vmless you watch 

 them afterward as I have directed. The queen, af- 

 ter a .iourney, almost always looks dark and small, 

 but after she gets to laying, ^7hich will bo from 10 or 

 12 hours to 3 or 4 days, you will hardly recognize her 



as the same insect. As all our queens are daughters 

 of imiKjrted queens, they are seldom verv yellow, 

 but I can send you yellow queens if vou wish, reared 

 from other stock. If your queen should be dead 

 when received, please state all the circ-umstancos, 

 that we may know how to remedy the difficulty in 

 future. Rearing and shipping queens at a low price 

 has been a favorite hobby with me for years, and I 

 am very anxious to please all my customers. If 

 you succeed with your queens, I shall be very glad 

 to hear of it, and if you do not succeed, I shall be 

 glad to hear of it, too, if I can in anv way help you. 

 Thanks for your patronage, and best" wishes for 

 J-our success. Good day. 



From your old friend, 



NOVICE. 



— — «^«^*«s» 



REFOKT FUG."!! IVIICHSGAN. 



STAKE the liberty of writing you a few Unas 

 concerning my success in bee culture during '77 

 -^and'7S. In the fall of '76, I put It c )loaies of 

 black bees in a shed with double walls, and facing 

 the east, so that the bees could tly out at pleasure. 

 They came out every sunshiny dav, and bv the 1st 

 of April '77, 1 had only 3 swarms alive, andthe l^^t of 

 May, they were all dead, although they had plenty 

 of honey. 



I c )uld not get along without bees very well, and 

 as I had heard much about Italians, 1 sent to you 

 for one colony, which arrived in good order, and 

 gave one excellent swarm, the :2oth of June. 



I also got one colony of W. Porter, of Northville, 

 Mich., which gave one swarm on the 25th, one on 

 the 26th, and one on the 27th of June. What was 

 the cause of their swarming on three successire 

 days ? 



They all got their winter supplies. Four of them 

 were put into chaff hives that I got of you; t\rx) 

 were in what is called the "protective" hive, and 1 

 put inches of chaff around them, in a box. All 

 wintered well. About the 20th of April, I com- 

 menced feeding coffee A sugar for brood rearing. 

 Hurrah for the chaff hives, candy, slates, and feed- 

 ing coffee A sugar for brood rearing! All these 

 must be used, if anybody wants early and strong 

 swarms, such as I got. Let all bee-keepers notice 

 what I am going to tell you. 



May 1st, '78, about 10 A. M., came out my first 

 swarm; May 6th, the next first swarm; May Uth, 

 the third first swarm. After this, a few came out 

 everyday. All other bee-keepers around here com- 

 plained that they were getting no swarms. The 

 swarms that came out the 1st and 6th each gave me 

 3 young swarms; the one on the 14th gave 2. The 

 old stocks gave, some 1, some 2, and some 3, youn^ 

 swarms. 



I have one particularly good stock; it gave mo 3 

 swarms last year, and this year has sent out 4 

 swarms. From the 1st young swarm this year, I got 

 3 others, and from the 2d, one other, so that this one 

 colonj^ has given 8 swarms, and I took f ixjm it aUo 

 25 lbs. of cap honey. How is that? If any of yoa 

 Ohio bee-keepers can beat that, let them say so. 



So my report to date is 28 young swarms from 

 old colonies, making 34 in all, and about .50 lbs. of 

 Ciip and section honey. They are all ready for wio- 

 ter. In the spring, I will tell you how many I gat 

 through alive. 



I would like to know the reason why a good many 

 of my young queens are large and dark; the youn^ 

 bees look like black bees. The old queens are yel- 

 low Italians. What is the cause and the remedy? 



My success in bee culture is the result of using' 

 comb fdn. O. Kleinow. 



Detroit, Mich., Sept, 3, 1878. 



The colony that swarmed on 3 successive 

 days, I think, must have had their queen re- 

 placed, and therefore the 3 swarms wera, 

 virtually, all after swarms, with virgin 

 queens. Your increase was certainly re- 

 markable, and I guess we shall have to as- 

 cribe it to the excellent care and good judg- 

 ment you have showai in the use of all mod- 

 em appliances. I think it only accidental 

 that your young queens are dark ; the seo- 

 ond generation from Italy, is almost always 

 lighter in color. If the "workers are d-ark. 

 the queens must have mated with black 

 drones iu yoiu" vicinity. 



