Chapter I: Part 1

AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL.

EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL WAGNER, WASHINGTON, D. C.

AT TWO DOLLARS PER ANNUM, PAYABLE IN ADVANCE.

VOL. VI. NOVEMBER, 1870. No. 5.

[For the American Bee Journal.]

Cure of Foulbrood.

Mr. EDITOR:--I promised, (vol. V., page 187,) to report how my refrigerator wintered its colony. The frames were covered with a piece of old carpeting, and the whole space outside the inner hive packed with straw and shavings. This spring it was in splendid condition, and it was found necessary to remove brood and cut out queen cells as early as the 20th of May; and, for this locality, the surplus would have been large, if I had not been obliged to break up the colony on account of _foulbrood_.

You can imagine my disappointment when my apiarian friend, Mr. Sweet of West Mansfield, pointed out to me this loathsome disease in my choicest Italian colony, early in June, when up to that time I had supposed that everything was prosperous with my twelve colonies. After a thorough examination I found six hives more or less affected, and according to high authority, should be condemned to death. The other six appeared free from disease at this time, although three more subsequently became diseased.

This is my second summer of bee-keeping, and all the duties pertaining to an apiary were entered into with the enthusiasm, and shall I confess it, the ignorance and carelessness of a novice. Yes, ignorance and culpable carelessness, for in gathering empty combs from various quarters, the disease was introduced and spread among my pets. One hive, in particular, of empty comb had the peculiar odor, perforated cells, and brown viscid fluid, with which I have since become so familiar this summer; and it seems unaccountable to me, how any person with the Bee Journal wide open and Quinby’s instructions before him, could be so careless as to give such combs to his bees.

But such was the fact, and foulbrood spreading right and left. What shall be done to get rid of it? Shall Quinby be followed, purify the hive and honey by scalding, and treat the colony as a new swarm; or shall the heroic treatment of Alley be adopted; bury or burn bees and hive, combs and all? The latter has sent me some fine queens; but the former has always given reliable advice, and I shall follow his instructions with two colonies which are past all cure, and reserve the others for treatment, hoping that I may find some cure, or at least palliative for the disease, and add my mite of experience, and, perhaps, useful knowledge to our Bee Journal.

Accordingly, June 8th, the combs of the two condemned colonies were melted into wax, the honey drained over and scalded, and the bees, after a confinement of forty hours, were treated like new swarms; and now, September 18th, are perfectly healthy and in fine condition for winter.

I will not occupy your valuable space with all the details of my experiments and fights (which lasted through three months) with the trials of doses of different strengths and kinds, with old comb and new, with young queens and old ones, and with no queen at all, and how, in doing this, I was obliged to keep up the strength of the colony for fear of robbers and of spreading the disease to my neighbors. Suffice it to say, that after two months I had made no apparent headway, although still determined to “fight it out on this line, if it took all summer” and my last hive. In fact, I devoted my apiary to the study of this disease, and, perhaps, death.

Starting with, and holding to the theory that foulbrood is contagious only by the diffusion of living germs of feeble vitality, (and I was strengthened in my conjecture in microscopical examinations, by finding the dead larvæ filled with nucleated cells,) I determined to try those remedies which have the power of destroying the vitality of these destructive germs, these living organisms. And no remedies seemed to me more potent than carbolic acid and hyposulphite of soda. At first I used both, making one application of each, with an interval of one day, and with apparent benefit. But, attributing the improvement to the more powerful of the two, I abandoned the hyposulphite and used the carbolic acid alone, and I was so infatuated with the idea of its superiority, that I did not give it up until three of the four hives had become so hopelessly diseased, that the combs were destroyed and the colonies treated to new combs (as it was late in the season,) and freely fed with sugar and water. These are now in good condition for winter.

The fourth hive was carried a mile away, the queen caged, and the colony strengthened with a medium sized second swarm. After all the brood, which was advanced, had left the cells, I transferred the colony to a clean hive; thoroughly sulphured the old hive with burning sulphur, and stored it away in a safe place for future experiments. I now thought my apiary free from the pest; but on thoroughly examining the whole, three new cases of foulbrood were found--one very badly affected, and two slightly so, with perhaps twenty to forty cells diseased and perforated.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by Samuel
Wagner, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

This was about the 1st of August, and again hyposulphite of soda was selected for the trial; and from the first application I have had the disease under control. Three days ago I examined the three colonies thoroughly, and found no new cells diseased in the two which had been the least affected; and in the almost hopelessly diseased one (as much diseased, in fact, as any of those that I destroyed,) an entire brood had been raised, with not over fifty or sixty diseased and perforated cells with dead larvæ remaining, most on one comb, and nearly all the cells contained a new supply of eggs; this colony is certainly convalescent, and I think now, from the recent and second application of the hyposulphite of soda, is entirely cured. Still, I should not be surprised to find two or three, or even more, perforated cells after this second crop of brood has hatched, as the whole hive, honey, and comb, had been for so long a time so thoroughly saturated with the disease, and at least two-thirds of the cells had, before the _medicine_ was used, been filled with putrid larvæ. If so, I shall treat it to a third dose.

Now, Mr. Editor, as it is frequently of as much practical importance to tell how to administer a remedy, as it is to know its name, I will ask your indulgence a little longer, hoping that others may improve upon my remedy or at least test it, if they are so unfortunately ignorant and careless as I was, in bringing “the wolf home to the fold.”

The solution of hyposulphite of soda which I used, was one ounce to half a pint of rain water. With this I thoroughly washed out every diseased cell with an atomizer, after opening the cap; also spraying over the whole of the combs and the inside of the hive. The instrument I use is a spray producer, invented by Dr. Bigelow of Boston, and sold by Codman & Shurtleff of that city. There are two small metallic tubes, a few inches long, soldered together; and by placing the point of exit of the spray at the lower part of the cell, the whole of the contents of the cell is instantly blown out upon the metallic tubes. With a very little practice there is no necessity for polluting the comb with the putrid matter. Place the comb perfectly upright or a little leaned towards you, and there is no difficulty; yet, if a drop should happen to run down the comb, it would do no harm, but had better be carefully absorbed with a piece of old dry cotton cloth. I quite frequently do this with the bees on the comb, as it does them no harm, to say the least, to get well covered with the vapor.

It is not at all injurious to the larvæ, after they are two or three days old, though it may be before that time, as I have noticed that after using the hyposulphite where there are eggs and very young larvæ, the next day the cells are perfectly clean.

There are many interesting points which have come up during my summer’s fight, which I would speak of; but I have already gone beyond all reasonable bounds in this communication.

EDWARD P. ABBE.

_New Bedford, Mass._, Sept. 18, 1870.

[Translated from the Bienenzeitung,
For the American Bee Journal.]

Queen Breeding.

To obtain not only purely fertilized queens, but fine, bright yellow ones, I have for some years proceeded thus:

As all Italian queens do not produce equally fine drones, I mark those stocks in the course of the summer which contain queens producing the choicest of these. Then, in the following spring, when I desire to have a plentiful supply of prime Italian drones early, and before common drones make their appearance in neighboring apiaries, insert in the hives thus selected and marked, combs of worker brood taken from other colonies. I do this in order to make those colonies very populous, so as to induce drone-egg-laying; for a queen will always be disposed to commence doing so, if she is in a strong colony well supplied with honey, or is well fed. As soon as I find that those colonies are becoming populous under this management, I insert some empty drone comb in the centre of the brooding space. These the queen, stimulated by liberal feeding, will speedily supply with eggs; and when the drone brood so produced is nearly mature, I subdivide these combs and insert pieces in nuclei previously furnished with young bees, worker brood, and eggs, taken from the colonies containing the choice queens from which I design to breed, and which are known to produce the largest, most active, and best marked workers.

As the drones form the brood thus introduced mature several days sooner, than the young queens bred in the same nuclei, there is a strong probability that the latter will be fertilized by them and consequently produce fully marked choice progeny, as it is certain that queens will almost invariably be fertilized early if they and the drones are bred in the same hive or nucleus, since that secures the simultaneous flight of both and obviates the necessity of a wide range in their excursions. I adopt this process also, because if the Italian drones of the colonies, which contain the young queens, are poorly marked and dark yellow in color, we cannot reasonably look for bright and handsomely marked progeny.

At about ten o’clock in the morning of a calm, clear day, when the young queen is at least two days old, I feed the bees of the nucleus with diluted honey. Drones and queens will then almost invariably issue at the same time, and before common drones from other colonies or neighboring apiaries are on the wing. Thus both disappointment and delay are in a great measure precluded. I do not stimulate the bees of the nucleus by feeding either on the first or the second day after a young queen has left her cell, because she is then yet too feeble to make an excursion with safety. But I have frequently succeeded in having fertilization effected on the third or fourth day, in favorable weather, when the nucleus thus stimulated contained both drones and queen; and in many cases the queens began to lay on the third or fourth day thereafter. In this way, I not only obtain many (I do not say all) purely fertilized queens; but also very superior ones, large, vigorous, and prolific, producing both workers and drones well marked and brightly colored.

I do not indeed claim that this process gives us absolute certainty, but only a very great probability, that the queens we rear will be purely fertilized. Other bee-keepers too, who employed it long before the Kœhler method was promulgated, regard it as furnishing the most likely means of assuring success. Thus, for instance, the President of the Bee-keeper’s Union of Moravia, Dr. Ziwanski, who is not a blind imitator of others, but a careful and indefatigable inquirer, never recommending aught for adoption till he has himself tested it with success, found my method worthy of adoption five years ago already, for his annual report for 1865 contains the following passage:--

“I made five nuclei this year, with fresh brood from pure original Italians. When fitting them up, I recollected a suggestion of the Rev. Mr. Stahala, and inserted both drone and worker brood in four of them, omitting the drone brood in the fifth. The queens of the first four mentioned were purely fertilized, while the one in the fifth nucleus mated with a common drone. This result induces me to invite your attention to the fact, for it is reasonable to presume that queens making their excursions will be more likely to mate with drones from their own hives flying simultaneously, than with drones from other and distant hives. The queen usually makes such excursions only at periods when drones are flying, and there is then generally great commotion in the hive, as though there was much eagerness to get abroad and enjoy the genial air. Still, too much must not be expected from this suggestion and its adoption. It is not supposed that any preliminary arrangements or appointments are made by drones or queens, before the excursion is undertaken; but merely that there is a much greater probability that parties flying at the same time and necessarily in close proximity, will mate, than those starting from remoter points. Hence since it can do no possible harm to supply our nuclei with drone and drone-brood in this manner, the plan should by no means be disregarded when preparing to Italianize an apiary.”

By means of this process, having selection to a great degree in my power, I frequently obtain queens nearly entirely yellow, having black only at the extremity of the abdomen. I have procured queens for breeding from both Dzierzon and Mona. The young queens breed from Dzierzon’s stock were at first handsomer than those bred from Mona’s. But in later years, since using the method I now recommend, I obtain equally fine queens from the latter’s stock. The drones from Mona’s queens were, from the start yellower than those from Dzierzon’s, which were only faintly tinged with yellow on the sides, and had dark orange bands. Observing this, I then took worker brood and queen cells from the Dzierzon’s queens, with drones and drone-brood from the Mona queens, to furnish the same nucleus, and thus obtained regularly very handsome queens, bright workers, and very fine drones.

J. STAHALA, _Pastor_.

_Dolein, near Olmutz_, Feb. 5., 1870.

[For the American Bee Journal.]

Purity of Italian Queens.

Your correspondent, E. L. Briggs, in the August number of the Journal, has stirred up the bee-keepers a little; and for fear they will not discuss the point which most interests me, I drop you a line, hoping that those who have had more experience may be able to settle the question.

It is a fact which I think no one will deny, that it would be for the interest of every one selling queens, to send only such as are purely fertilized. It being as easy to rear queens from pure eggs as from any other, we may look to some other cause than selfishness or cheapness of the price for the difficulty. I have managed my apiary under the impression that the Dzierzon theory is correct, that the drones from a pure queen which had mated with a black drone, were pure.

I have failed in keeping my stock pure enough to breed from; and in my opinion, other bee-keepers who have reared queens in the same way, are as badly off as myself. If we wish to improve the Italian bee, we may do so by selecting the best of its race, both male and female, to breed from; not by crossing with the black bee. The type of the Italian bee should be so fixed, that the bees all show the same marking. We may fix the type of any admixture of the German and Italian bees, so that they will have similar markings. The crossing has been so recent in many cases, that there is no uniformity of color. Breeders of choice stock look as much to the quality and purity of the male as the female parent. It is my present belief that bees are as much subject to the rule, as the animal creation are.

I look for higher results than any yet attained, when we control (as we soon shall) the mating of our queens; and the low priced ones have given me the most satisfaction so far.

L. C. WHITING.

_East Saginaw, Mich._

[For the American Bee Journal.]

Italian Queens.

MR. EDITOR:--Since so much has been said of late about Italian queens, (especially cheap ones,) I feel it my duty, in justice to Mr. Alley, to say, that I purchased one of his $2.50 queens last June and have bred sixteen queens from her, besides a host of drones and workers; and the facts are, first, her progeny are all three-banded; second, she is the most prolific queen in my apiary; third, her workers are very industrious; fourth and last, I am not at all out of patience because she cost me only $2.50. Five dollars will not buy her to-day; and if I have the good luck to keep her till next June (supposing she is young, as claimed by Mr. Alley), I shall not want to part with her for two fives. All who have seen her and her workers, pronounce them beauties; and Italian bees are nothing new in these parts.

JAMES HEDDON.

_Dowagiac, Mich._, Sept., 1870.

[For the American Bee Journal.]

Novice.

Mr. EDITOR:--Sometime ago, in one of our articles, we mentioned that we considered the “Apiary” department in the “_Rural New Yorker_” of more real worth than some of the periodicals specially devoted to bees.

We had then seen about half a dozen of the “Rurals” that contained some very good articles, from the pens of intelligent bee-keepers who were well up to the times. Since then, however, we have seen so much else there so greatly behind the times, that we must think our decision then a little hasty. For instance last week a bee-keeper takes the trouble to inform the public that “hives should be moved in the night _when the bees are all in_, for he had just moved some in the day time and a large number that were out, never found their hive on their return. So take notice everybody, always move your bees at night!” As this was given as a piece of valuable information, we looked in vain for some note from the editors, cautioning their readers against falling into the same error, and pointing it out. And then we wondered if the editors knew any better, or anything about bees at all, for many of their articles seem to imply that they are uninformed and publish anything they come across, indiscriminately, truth and error, without note or comment.

The editor of the Apiculturist thought it the height of absurdity because we seemed to consider him in any way responsible for what his correspondent wrote. We certainly _were_ so innocent as to suppose that an editor _knew_ what he was going to publish, and that should a correspondent send him an article containing a very gross error, calculated to lead beginners astray, he would tell such correspondent his mistake, without using his article; or if it contained something else good and valuable, and he decided to publish it, he would kindly mention the mistake or error, in a little note somewhere, and give his readers confidence by letting them know that some one _was_ “running the machine” “somewhere.”

There are a large number of good farmers who refuse to read agricultural papers, because they say, and with considerable reason, that more than half that is written is “impracticable nonsense.” We believe the American Agriculturist and the American Bee Journal are at least two noble exceptions. None of their readers can fail to know that each of those papers is _edited_ by some one who is fully posted, and is _at home_ too _every time_.

The Apiculturist intimates that we think no one else has a right to _start_ a bee journal. So far from that we would be glad to subscribe this minute for half a dozen more; if they were in charge of competent men and had the broad platform before them that our own Journal has--namely, the advancement of bee culture for the nation at large.

We should have replied to the Apiculturist before, but he “called names,” and when we were a small boy we used to make it a principle that when our comrades called us names, we “wouldn’t play any more,” and we feel just so still.

We, too, Mr. Editor, noticed the mention in the “Scientific American,” of the chicken roost bee arrangement to stop moths, and felt pained to think that anything, so far behind the times, should be found in that paper. Then, again, we noticed shortly after where they advised a correspondent to _chop_ up his combs and strain the honey out, and mentioned too that it _was said_ that the outside combs contained the nicest honey! Have Munn & Co., too, been sleeping in Rip Van Winkle style, or do they think us Bee Journal people not to be depended on?

We have had many letters from highly intelligent people, even professors in colleges, asking about the melextractor and inquiring whether there was no serious objection to such unnatural treatment of bees?

“Unnatural treatment,” indeed! About the 25th of last June, a farmer called on us to know where he could sell his honey best. On asking him how he had got it so early, he coolly informed us that he had _taken it up_, as _it seemed full_! But how about the brood? He didn’t know what we meant by brood, but had thrown away the young bees and did not think that they were of any use! Murdered thousands of young innocents before the end of June! Of course such treatment is perfectly _natural_ and right. He didn’t get much for his honey.

Mr. Editor, we are getting hoarse in trying to explain, and all we tell inquirers now is to get the “_American Bee Journal_.” Yet many, many times they can’t afford it, and many more times don’t get time to read it. Yet the same persons will say--“Why, Novice, your forty-six hives of bees have been worth more to you than any hundred acre farm in Medina county,” and go home quite excited.

We have had a few weeks’ drouth, the first this season, and it soon stopped the honey from autumnal wild flowers.

Since Mr. Tillinghast suggested our being called “Expert” (or some such foolishness), we think we could hardly be honest without confessing some of our work this fall. For instance, we removed queen from No. 23, August 9th, and ten days after cut out thirty-two (32) queen cells. We have mentioned before that we tried hatching some of them in cages, and the rest were put in hives from which we had removed hybrid queens. We were such an _expert_ at the business that we hatched about one-half the thirty-two, and after they were hatched, we _bungled_ the life out of _every one_--some by artificial fertilization experiments; and the rest wouldn’t lay and finally died their “own selves.”

Well, (we have considerable patience,) we tried again; removed queen from No. 16, August 28, and cut out twenty-one (21) cells ten days after. Of these we _did_ raise five laying queens; and most of the other cells were destroyed by laying them on the top of the frames when the weather was too cool. In fact we have had more cells destroyed this fall than ever before, and only saved five by inserting them carefully in place of one _cut out_. Now, Mr. Editor, we should have felt somewhat better at this result, had we not discovered that the original queen removed from No. 16 had been killed, and only a miserable, small, black queen reared in her place. She was put in a hive in which we had a caged, unfertile queen, and we neglected to look whether they had raised any more. _Inexcusable carelessness_, we call it.

To shorten the matter, we sent Mr. Grimm fifty dollars on Monday morning, and received twenty-five nice queens (or a part of them at least) on Saturday afternoon. Is not that pretty prompt?

Now, Mr. Editor, we are going to take this queen raising business up next spring just where we left off; and if we can’t do better, and at least raise enough for our own apiary, we shall call ourself something worse than

NOVICE.

_October 10, 1870._

[For the American Bee Journal.]

Natural, prolific, and hardy Queens.

PART 3.

Answer to Charles Dadant and Willard J. Davis, in September number of the American Bee Journal, pages 60 and 61.

To commence with Mr. Dadant. He says, first, that “we are all disposed to regard our own ideas as indisputable.”

_Answer._ Prove all things; then hold fast to the true. Do not condemn before trial. I have been several years experimenting and am satisfied with my method, as a means of procuring natural, prolific, hardy and long-lived queens--far, far ahead of any yet given to the public. It having relieved me from the disappointment and losses heretofore experienced in artificial swarming, with forced or artificial queens, I have freely given my mode to the public, for adoption or rejection, as they see fit. Those who are _set_ in their way, are under no obligation to either adopt or even try my mode; but there are those who are not satisfied with their present light, and who will be benefited by the knowledge of an improved process, and to them my communications are addressed.

He says, second, that I “condemn all artificially raised queens.”

_Answer._ I do: as against nature, reason, and common sense. I see a difference in a provision of nature, by means of which a swarm, accidentally deprived of its queen, can temporarily replace her, till one can be raised in a more natural way, and the way men in their _wisdom_ are running the race out. You yourself prove my position by almost every line of your article, if you would only place your trials, troubles, vexations, and losses to their right account--_forced or artificially raised queens_. New brood may seemingly save you for a time; but when all breeders have the _cholorosis_ stamped on the product of their apiaries, like will beget like.

He says, in the third place--“why does friend Price imagine that artificial queens are not as good as natural ones?”

_Answer._ Because convinced by years of experiment and careful comparison (not hard to see, I assure you) of natural with forced queens raised by the means you have mentioned in your article, and by others not mentioned. Even now I am trying the experiment of raising forced queens from the brood of a pure Italian queen received last spring from a celebrated breeder. But so far I have only succeeded in raising cripples, drone layers, and non-egg-hatching queens. Most of them _play out_ before commencing to lay; yet I have raised them from the egg--not one of them hatching before the sixteenth day.

He says, fourth, after giving away or getting queens from the egg, “I guess this method is as good as, and more simple than, that of friend Price.”

_Answer._ You would go through every motion that I do, and get two or three queens, worthless in comparison with natural ones; while I would secure from ten to sixty natural ones. If you followed your own method, you would have to divide almost every hive in your apiary, if you got through swarming in any season; while by my method[1] one hive would furnish all the natural queen cells that would be wanted in the largest apiary in the time of natural swarming.

He says, fifth, “a queen hatched from grubs three or four days old is just as good as any.”

_Answer._ To sell!

Sixth, he says, “many bee-keepers find the half-blood Italian bees are better than pure ones”--his reason being that in and in breeding is broken up.

_Answer._ Those that receive them, let them swarm naturally; thus the forcing is at an end, and nature again asserts her superiority.

He says, seventh, “In good seasons the queens raised in small nuclei are as good as those raised in full stocks.”

_Answer._ He admits that they cannot at all times raise good ones. He had better have attributed it to the lack of a natural instinct to raise good ones. A swarm on the eve of swarming, broken up into nuclei, would probably raise pretty fair queens--say half as good as natural ones. As well might you hire a rough wood chopper or ditcher to make a watch, as to set a nucleus of bees not having the swarming instinct, to raise a first rate chronometer balanced queen.

Mr. W. J. Davis says that he does not know what effect my Revolvable, Reversible, Double-cased, Sectional Bee-hive may have had on the tender life of a young queen, _forced or artificial_.

As I have only used my old Langstroth hives for nuclei; _my_ hive has of course not had any influence on them, for good or evil. But my twenty young natural queens, raised by my method, are without exception hardy, prolific, and have every promise of being long-lived. Had they been forced queens two-thirds of them would have been played out before this time. They are as prolific as any of my old “natural” queens which I bought of those who practice natural swarming only. My R. R. D. C. S. B. Hive has a good effect on the life of natural queens; and as Mr. Dadant says his bees in my hive have done better than in any other, and he has of several patents, and as he says he has only raised forced queens, my R. R. D. C. S. Bee-hive most probably saved him.

_Secondly_, after reading all his conditions of age, weather, season, stock, nuclei, time, and egg, that have to be consulted to insure a good queen by the forcing process, I have an idea that his queens are natural ones. Do you not bring your bees up to swarming and then secure their cells Gallup fashion? Gallup calls such natural queens. I should. Otherwise why not have good queens from March to October?

_Thirdly_, Mr. Davis says that “if Mr. Price _or any other_ man will, upon examination, decide correctly, by size or fertility (amount of brood), which are of the former and which are of the latter class, he may pick out ten as large and yellow queens as he _ever saw_, and I will make him a present of the same.”

_Answer._ I have only one artificial queen laying, my pure _prolific_ Italian. I will guarantee any of my black, “young or old,” or other natural queens, to fill five frames with brood quicker than she can fill one; and if you, or “any other man,” cannot see any difference between my forced queens[2] and my natural ones, you must be deficient in the organs of size and weight, and would not be able to tell a Shetland pony from an elephant.

JOHN M. PRICE.

_Buffalo Grove, Iowa._

[For the American Bee Journal.]

Introducing Queens.

Dr. H. C. Barnard in the June number of the A. B. Journal, gave directions for introducing queens by fumigating with tobacco smoke. I had introduced them by means of the queen cage, and sprinkling them with sweetened water scented with the essence of peppermint. But as this seemed to be a better plan, I thought I would try it. I caged the queen to be introduced, and followed his directions to the letter, but what do you think I had? A laying queen in twelve hours? Nay, verily, but a dead queen, and half the bees dead and driven from the hive. Now, Mr. Editor, I think a great deal of my bees, and when, in opening a hive, I carelessly kill one, I am always sorry; but then to see them slaughtered by wholesale, was very cruel to say the least. All the next day, whenever I passed that way, the well bees were driving off those that were crippled or had lost the use of their legs or wings. Besides this, while they were in no condition to repel an attack, the robber bees came in for a share, and I came very near losing them. They were not so drunk but that most of them could crawl round, and only a few of them fell to the bottom of the hive.--Dr. Barnard said, “if they all fell to the bottom it would do no harm.” Now what was the cause of this failure? I could not have smoked them too much, according to his instructions, for nearly all of them could crawl round, when I first opened the hive to let the smoke out; yet it destroyed fully half of them. I do not write this by way of fault-finding, but so that nobody as green as I was, should undertake the same process, and have a like failure.

G. M. DOOLITTLE.

_Borodino, N. Y._, Sept., 1870.

[For the American Bee Journal.]

The Looking-Glass Once More.

MR. EDITOR:--I cannot think, as Mr. Nesbit does on pages 80, 81 of the last number of the Journal, that either one of his suppositions in regard to the old woman’s bees, would do to rely upon. It is not at all likely that a queen so defective as to be unable to fly a distance of two hundred and fifty yards, would ever have been found where this one was.--And as to there being two or more young queens with the swarm, that may be true; but that they went with that swarm in sufficient numbers to divide them on the apple tree, is positively an erroneous idea. The swarm was followed from the apple tree on which a portion of them was first discovered, to the one on which they clustered last, and they did not seek a place so hidden from view as to make it difficult even for me to see that they selected a bare limb on which to settle. They were hived without difficulty, but proved to be bent on pitching their tent in some other section, by leaving the old box hive unobserved the next day.

As to the “knot” theory, I have nothing more to say--than that, if tried right, it will prove equally true with the _inverted glass theory_. But as to the looking-glass having nothing to do with stopping a decamping swarm of bees, it is a grand mistake. In conclusion, I append a portion of two letters which are before me, showing that I am not the only man that places some confidence in a good thing.

“BELLEFONTAINE, _Ohio, June 25_.

“At the time of swarming, I never allow noise of any kind, and have never had a swarm that did not settle. If the apiarian sees his bees rise high and act as though they were going to leave, the reflection of a mirror thrown in among them, is the most efficient means that I know of to make them alight.”

“WINCHESTER, _Ohio, June 21_.

“If the apiarian finds that they will not settle, all that is necessary is for him to take a looking-glass and place it in such a position that it will reflect the rays of the sun among the bees, and they will generally settle immediately.”

I write for the American Bee Journal for a purpose different from the object of a teacher, and when I appear as such, will be willing to wear a garb that will not fit _Ignoramus_. But, at the same time, if anything from me serves the purpose of teaching, it will be all right with your brother in bee-culture best known as

IGNORAMUS.

_Sawyersville, N. C._, Oct. 1, 1870.

[For the American Bee Journal.]

More About the Looking-Glass.

I see on pages 34 and 35, Vol. VI of the A. B. Journal, that Mr. H. Nesbit seems to doubt the efficacy of the looking-glass for stopping a swarm of bees. I would like to tell him an instance, and see if he doubts longer. A near neighbor of mine was at work for me one day, when his wife called him, for the bees were swarming. We went to his house and the bees were just clustering on a tree near by. He got a hive and was going to hive them, when they started to go off. He took a large looking-glass and ran to get up with them, for by this time they had got fifteen or twenty rods from where they had clustered. He reflected the rays of the sun upon them, and they soon began to think of lighting. As there were no trees near by, they began to cluster on his hat; and he, being somewhat afraid of bees, made good time for the house, I assure you. They then settled on a post in the fence near by, and were hived. In about an hour they concluded to try for the woods again; but the looking-glass brought them down once more, and they were hived a second time. In two hours after they started the third time. It being cloudy at the time, they made their escape, as the looking-glass would not work without the sun. Now, was the queen tired or defective, or was it the looking-glass that proved efficient? There were several persons, nearly a mile distant, who saw the reflected rays of the sun, their attention being called from their work by the brightness of the reflection. I am inclined to think it was the looking-glass, instead of the queen being tired or defective. I have since tried it, and never failed to stop a swarm when the sun shone.

G. M. DOOLITTLE.

_Borodino, N. Y._, Sept. 13, 1870.

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Pösel says that if a colony has suffered from hunger for twenty-four hours, the fertility of the queen will be greatly impaired, and never be recovered.

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All futures are possible to Young Samson. The lion in his path he throttles, turning his carcass into a bee-hive.

[For the American Bee Journal.]

The Hive Question.

This question has again been revived for discussion in the Journal, and several of our patentees and vendors have made pretty free use of its columns for “blowing” their particular inventions and wares. Prominent among them is Mr. J. H. Thomas; and as I have had some experience with his hive, I wish to have my say about it in particular, and other hives in general. Mr. T. has gotten up a neat and substantial hive, and has admirably adapted the use of frames to the old form of the common box-hive--tall in proportion to its length and breadth. The frames are fixed in their relation to each other, but are as easily moved laterally, when desired, as the frames of any other hive. As there are only eight frames, they can be taken out and examined, when looking for queens, &c., quicker than can be done with hives containing a greater number of frames, and this seems to be considered by some as of great importance. But I do not consider facilities for looking up queens, the most important requisite of a good hive; and I find in the fact of its having so few frames a very serious objection. In order to have the proper number of square inches of comb in a few frames, they have to be made comparatively large, which is the case with these. The frames are so large that, in very hot weather, when the hive is exposed to the sun, and the combs are full of honey, they break down and fall out of the frames, making a very undesirable muss in the hive. I have had this to happen repeatedly, even in his “double wall self protecting hive,” so called, with all the ventilation that could be given it. By the way, he has lately made a change in the ventilation, by enlarging the entrance (an improvement) and by closing the inch and hole covered with wire cloth, in the bottom board, and making another in the back and about an inch above the bottom board. I do not know which is according to “scientific principles,” and whether an improvement or not. It is true this breaking down of combs might be prevented by shading the hive; but the “best hive in America” ought not to require this, as we do not always want our hives shaded. There are several other minor objections to Mr. T.’s hives, but a still more important one will be mentioned presently.

Five years ago Mr. T.’s hive might have been considered a very good one, but “the world moves,” and no single department has made greater strides of progress in the last ten years than apiculture. His, and all similar hives, lack one important feature to make it adapted to the present wants of all progressive bee-keepers. No hive should now claim perfection without being easily provided with extra frames for surplus honey to be used in the honey extractor, and these frames should be of the same size as those in the body of the hive. It should be well adapted to the use of the division board, with room at side or ends for surplus frames, or be easily and conveniently converted into a two-story hive, with frames in the upper story the same size as below.--Tall hives with large frames are not well adapted to this purpose. The two-story Langstroth works well. Mr. Gallup’s and Mr. Truesdell’s style of hives can be easily arranged with additional frames at each end, or on top, or both. Now, I do not say that any and every hive thus arranged is perfect, but that no hive should lay claim to being the most perfect hive made, without being adapted to such an arrangement; for it is important to give for the breeding capacity of the queen, and to furnish a sufficient amount of empty combs for the accumulated workers, and thereby obtain the greatest yield of honey with the extractor, or without it.

Besides “puffs” of particular hives, we have numerous articles on general principles to be observed in their construction--some approving and some condemning the shallow form of the Langstroth hive. In the August number, Mr. J. W. Seay pitches into the shallow hives on general principles and preconceived theories. Now, theories do well enough for fine talk, and are good when substantiated by facts. But facts are the things for the practical man, and one fact is worth a dozen theories. Mr. S.’s theory and deductions therefrom, in regard to the production of early brood, I do not find confirmed in my experience and observation; and the facts of the case warrant a very different conclusion. A tall hive is thought best for wintering out doors, for we know the bees will place their stores above them when there is room. We know, also, that they do not cluster on the honey, but below it, and the heat from them ascends and makes their stores more accessible in cold weather. But how is it with the breeding early in the season? Mr. S. says, “the bees in order to hatch brood as the weather becomes warm in the spring, will cluster at the larvæ end of said combs, &c. Now what he means by the “larvæ” end of the comb, I do not exactly know. If he intends to say that they cluster at the bottom of the brood comb, so that the heat will ascend and warm up the upper part of the brood comb for the extension of brood, facts do not warrant the assertion; for it is well known that bees do not commence breeding at the lower end of the comb, except in a very rare case, when they have had the hive full of honey and have consumed none or only very little during the winter. As a general thing, they commence breeding near the centre, and frequently in the upper part of the hive. I have known them, in the Thomas’ hive, to commence breeding within two inches of the top bar, with plenty of honey at the sides. Now, when breeding is commenced near the top, the extension of brood in a tall hive must be chiefly downward--away from the heat generated in the cluster, instead of towards it. And for this reason, as the warmth of the cluster will be diffused laterally more readily than it will extend downwards, more rapid breeding will be induced in the shallow hive than in the deep one. This accords exactly with the facts of the case. If Mr. S. only means that the bees cluster on the larvæ and around it, he is correct; but this does not alter the conclusion. In stating that the bees will cluster and commence breeding in one end of the low hives, leaving the other end empty and cold, Mr. S. does not fairly state the case. They generally cluster near the centre of the hive, and the heat will radiate towards both ends.

But, we have had enough of theory. How stand the facts? I have had Mr. Thomas’ hive--one of the best of the tall ones, and the Langstroth hive, side by side, for several years. Last winter I prepared eight of each kind for wintering on their summer stands, somewhat similar to the plan recommended by Mr. Langstroth. In the latter part of the winter one colony in a Langstroth hive was lost, not from any fault of the hive, but from my carelessness. At the opening of the spring, a thorough examination was made of each hive, with the following comparison: _First_--loss of honey was about alike in each kind; some of each had nearly exhausted their stores, while others of each kind had more than enough, so that when equalized all had plenty. _Second_--loss of bees: In the Langstroth hives this was light. In four of them a spoonful of dead bees could not be found. The other three had a few dead bees. In one of the Thomas’ hives no dead bees were found. In two others not a great many, but more than in the worst of the Langstroth hives. The other five had a great many dead bees. The colonies were much reduced--one to a mere handful, with frames and hive badly soiled with their discharges, had to unite it with another hive. The T. hive that had no dead bees, was in a fence corner, nearly buried in snow all winter. _Third_--mould on combs. In all the Thomas’ hives there was more or less mould, except one. No mould in any of the Langstroth hives. _Fourth_--quantity of brood. _Decidedly the most in the Langstroth hives, at the time of the examination, and it increased faster, and they swarmed earlier than the tall hives._ My first swarms came from the flat hives every season. It may be said that the colonies in the flat hives, having lost only few bees in the winter, were stronger and would generate heat and naturally increase faster, and swarm earlier from this cause. I grant it; but one of the tall hives lost no bees, and was very strong, and yet did not breed as rapidly as the other.--I make this statement without favor or partiality. I expected a different result. I have no hives--patented or unpatented, no territory, or interest in any patent, to sell.

I have made a hive on the plan of Mr. Gallup and Mr. Truesdell; which I believe possesses many advantages, and is capable of being used more ways, with the same size frame for all the different styles, than any hive I have seen described. The brood apartment is the plain box of Mr. Gallup--eleven inches wide, fourteen inches deep, eighteen inches long, or as much longer as may be desired. The frames are hung across the narrow way. I have given greater depth and less width than my model, because I wanted to winter out-doors, and because I wanted to use the same frames-in a non-swarmer, with two tiers of boxes at sides. We can use this hive--1st. as a simple frame hive, with large room on top for surplus boxes.--2d. By extending the length to any desired number of frames, frames for surplus honey may be put in each end, for emptying with the extractor.--3d. It can be easily made a two-story hive, with frames in the upper story the same size as in the lower one.--4th. By having movable side-boards, it may be made a non-swarmer on Mr. Quinby’s and Mr. Alley’s principle, and piles of honey boxes may be put on the sides and top. I have one made this way with thirteen frames, sixteen five pound boxes form the sides, and three twelve pound boxes on top, all enclosed in a suitable case. This is made somewhat like Mr. Alley’s hive; but I think is better than his. To avoid one extreme--the flat form, he has gone to the other, and has his hive too tall and too narrow. From all that I have read from our best German and American writers on the subject, I think I have hit the “golden mean” of width and depth. The great beauty of it is that the same frame can be used in all the different styles; and that we may have a variety of hives with but one size of frame.

I call this hive, with its non-swarming and box arrangement, the “QUINQUEPLEXAL-DUPLEX-COMBINATION-NON-PATENTED-SUPERFLUOUS-HONEY-PRODUCING-HIVE.” It is said “there is nothing in a name,” but if I could only get friend Price’s “_Reversible-Revolvable_” attachment, with the privilege of adding the name, there would be considerable improvement in adopting this compellation for the modified arrangement.

THADDEUS SMITH.

_Pelee Island, Ontario_, Sept. 10, 1870.

[For the American Bee Journal.]

The Thomas Hive.

Mr. EDITOR:--I wish, with your permission, to correct some few errors which have appeared in the Journal with regard to the Thomas hive in Canada.

Mr. J. H. Thomas, in the July number of the Journal, says--“It is the principal hive in use in Canada.” Again, in the correspondence of the Bee Journal, September No., page 71, Mr. H. Lipset says--“The Thomas hive is all the go in Ontario.” How is it that men will make such extravagant statements? Now for a few facts, as the bee-men say.

One of my neighbors, an intelligent and scientific bee-keeper, having been bred to the business, received a hive from Mr. Thomas, and after giving it four or five years’ trial, says he would not use the hives if he could get them for nothing.

A Mr. Conger, of this county, whose son was an agent for the Thomas hive, told me lately that he had thrown the Thomas hive aside, in favor of a hive similar to Langstroth’s shallow form.

Mr. Walter Taylor, of Fitzroy Harbor, Ontario, formerly an agent for the Thomas hive, wrote me last winter that he would get his bees out of the Thomas hive as soon as possible, as he had found the shallow Langstroth hive was “just the thing.”

I know of no person, making bee-keeping a “business,” who uses the Thomas hive. After all, the Canadian bee-keepers ought to feel proud of having a man among them who has produced the “best bee hive in America.” Where are Dr. Conklin, D. L. Adair, and J. M. Price with his revolvable, reversible--and so on to the end of the chapter? Echo answers--nowhere!

This has been a good year for bees in this part of Ontario. Yet a man living five miles from here, and using the Thomas hive, says it has been a very bad season.

I commenced in the spring with forty-five hives, several of them being very weak from want of honey. I now have eighty-seven good stocks and sixteen hundred (1600) pounds of box honey, besides about ten frames full. Two stocks that did not swarm produced eighty-five (85) pounds each, of box honey. My first swarm of the season, which came off June 13th and was put in an empty hive, stored sixty-six (66) pounds of honey in boxes, besides losing a frame of honey which melted down with the extreme heat which prevailed this summer.

The foregoing, of course, does not come up to the big stories we read in the Journal; but it is very good for this section of Ontario, and pays very well.