Part 5

Mr. Green informed us that they were still at work on it, the day before, at seven o’clock in the evening. It was amusing to see them gather pollen from it while on the wing, the stamens extending so far out that they could not reach them after alighting on the flower.

The plant was growing on a rather light soil, not highly manured, and stood from two to three feet high, branching out in all directions. Planted in the spring, it comes into blossom soon after the white clover disappears and continues until killed by the frost. If planted in the fall, as Mr. G. says it can be, it would blossom much earlier. I think this is the best plant to cultivate for bees, as it fills a vacancy, (in this locality) between the white clover and the fall flower.

Alsike clover I have raised, commencing in 1860; and find that, on my soil, bees prefer it to white clover. But as it begins and ends blossoming at the same time with white clover, it is not of so much value for bees, as it would be if it came a month or so later.

As the seed of the Rocky Mountain bee plant is valuable for poultry, and probably for swine and other farm stock, when made into meal, it would perhaps pay to raise it for the seed alone.

CALVIN ROGERS.

_West Newbury, Mass._, Sept. 12, 1870.

[For the American Bee Journal.]

Silk Weed or Milk Weed.

Well, Mr. Editor, I saw in the Bee Journal for July something concerning the injuriousness of the silk weed or milk weed. After reading the article it struck me that there was some of this weed in the vicinity of my apiary, and next day set about to search for it. On going out west, on the low ground on the prairie, I found ten flowering stems of this weed, and seven of the ten had bees fastened on them. Some of these bees were dead, and some still living, though they could not leave the flowers, being fastened in them by their hind legs. The bees seemed to have been gathering honey.

Last Monday, as I was going to a neighbor’s, I saw one of these flowers, three quarters of a mile from my home. I stopped to see if I could find any bees on it, and found an Italian just alive. I am glad there are not many of this species of plants in this neighborhood.

R. MILLER.

_Rochelle, Ills._

[For the American Bee Journal.]

Honey Dew.

MR. EDITOR:--I have at last caught the chaps that rain down what is called honey-dew. In localities where the common willow grows, I found the most. On the Missouri river bottom, which is literally covered with willows, I find in June and July they are covered with small insects, which at a certain age get wings and fly off in large swarms, going for miles. Sometimes they will stop in the air, over some trees, and fly around in a circle for an hour. If you get them between your eye and the sun, you will see them discharging the so-called honey-dew. They will stop in one place, the same as gnats or mosquitoes, which you have often seen about as high as a man’s head.

Now, if any person really wants to test the correctness of this, let him go to a willow grove and he will find those insects (or willow lice) just before sun-down; and getting the willows between him and the sun, he will see them rising from every part of the tree, in small squads, and collecting till they form a large swarm. Then they will be seen discharging continually a fluid which resembles a fine sprinkle of rain. I have often seen those same insects discharging a fluid on a limb, where they were hatching; and then saw large ants, wasps, and yellow jackets working on it. And I often wondered how it got on the very tops of the trees, where no insects were to be found. I think this observation will settle the matter about the origin of honey-dew.

Bees have done very poorly here until now. The golden rod is in full bloom, and the bees are doing well.

H. FAUL.

_Council Bluffs_, Sept. 6, 1870.

[For the American Bee Journal.]

Caution.

MR. EDITOR:--Through the columns of your indispensable Journal, allow me to say to my brother bee-keepers, and “all whom it may concern,” have nothing to do with a hive called the “Multilocular Protoplastic Protean Hive,” though it is no doubt superior to any or all you have in use. Let us not step upward only one step at a time to the use of this hitherto excelsior hive; but let us take at least two steps at once, to that hive and those new principles that “beat” _all_. Yes, all the long and toilsome labor of a Huber and a Dzierzon is totally eclipsed; and entirely snuffed out are such lights as Langstroth, Gallup, Quinby, Wagner, and many others, who formerly shone so brightly as “instructors.” Your theories, gentlemen, are forever “cast in endless shade.” The great revolution of nature that moves all things, has thrown before my vision this wonderful apistical domicile. I have scanned it closely, and now let me say to you, Rev. L. L. Langstroth, talk no more of laterally movable frames, since this great hive has “a place for every frame, and every frame in its place.” And you, “far-famed Gallup,” say no more of division boards and economy of heat. ’Tis useless, as these frames are made extra large, and small frames for surplus set in the top of the large ones, which space is left in free communication with the brooding apartment, till again filled with surplus. Speak not, Mr. Wagner, of compactness of form, as this marvellous habitation stands erect, human like. And now the sturdy German (Dzierzon) must yield the palm and transfer it over into Indianapolis, (Ind.) the centre of bee-gravity--the place where one hundred colonies are made from one in a single season! Can we not plainly see the dawning of a day when “the land shall flow with honey,” and each and every individual will supply himself freely with this “sweetest of all sweets,” and the apiarian turn his attention elsewhere for a livelihood?

JAMES HEDDON.

_Dowagiac, Michigan._

[For the American Bee Journal.]

Correction Requested.

MR. EDITOR:--My attention has been called to an alleged error of statement in my article on page 72, Vol. VI., of the Bee Journal, wherein I say, “Mr. Langstroth was among the first to introduce to the notice of the bee-keepers of America the invaluable honey extractor.” Now I claim that the statement is strictly true. Mr. Langstroth was _among_ the first to introduce the honey extractor to the notice of the bee-keepers of this country, taking upon himself the responsibility of manufacturing from a bare description, and extensively advertising the machines for sale; thus risking pecuniary loss in case it should prove unpopular, before any other person in this country, except the editor of the American Bee Journal, spent a single dollar upon them.

Still, in order to give every man due credit for any assistance given to bee culture, I will here, with pleasure, state a fact in this connection that had escaped my recollection at time of writing the previous article, namely, that the first _mention_ of the machine of Von Hruschka in the English language was made in the American Bee Gazette,[4] page 85, September No., 1866, edited by Rev. E. Van Slyke, in an article translated from the German, by the editor. And to this article, Mr. Langstroth was most probably indebted for his first idea of the honey extractor, as Mr. Van Slyke writes me as follows--“Mr. Langstroth himself, who visited me at my office the very next month after the publication, spoke in terms of the highest enthusiasm of the article, and said that from my description as published he was about to construct a machine for honey extraction.” &c.

R. BICKFORD.

_Seneca Falls, N. Y._, Oct. 5, 1870.

[For the American Bee Journal.]

Why are Two Queens Sometimes Found in One Hive?

MR. EDITOR:--Mr. A. Green, in the October number of the Journal, gives an account of finding two queens in one hive. Other correspondents have also given us their knowledge of similar facts; but none have, I think, given us any reasons for such exceptions.

Last fall I bought an Italian queen from a reliable breeder. She came recommended as A No. 1. I received her on the 8th of September. All the workers sent with her were dead, except two; and she was herself so benumbed by cold that I had quite a time of it bringing her back to vitality. Finally I succeeded in getting her quite lively, and introduced her to a tolerably weak swarm. On the 10th of October finely marked Italians were flying in front of the hive. I spared no pains in wintering. (I winter out-of-doors.) In April she had filled three cards of brood. I then gave her a card of drone-comb. She would not look at it, and I moved it back and put in its place a card of worker-comb, which she filled with eggs almost instanter. I then put the drone-comb in the middle of the cluster, and got about fifty drones. Of course I was stimulating, and kept plenty of honey in the hive. I put in other worker-comb, but she refused to lay any more. I then took out a frame to start a nucleus, and in about a week after, when examining the old stock, I found queen cells started and the old queen on the comb, apparently all right. In due course a young queen was hatched, and after destroying the queen-cells, she remained with the old queen ten days before she was fertilized, and at least a week after she was laying. At the end of three weeks the old queen was gone.

Now, what does this prove? Simply that the queen was chilled in coming by mail, which interfered with her prolificness, rendering her supersedure a necessity for the future welfare of the colony. She was tolerated in the hive by the new queen and bees, having lost that distinct individuality peculiar to the queen bee, and consequently become to them (the workers and young queen) no more than a common bee. I cannot help but conclude that when such exceptions occur, the course relatively is the same.

FREDERICK CRATHORNE.

_Bethlehem, Iowa_, Oct. 9, 1870.

* * * * *

It cannot be too deeply impressed on the mind of the bee-keeper, that a small colony should be confined to a small space, if we wish the bees to work with the greatest energy, and offer the stoutest resistance to their numerous enemies. Bees do most unquestionably “abhor a vacuum,” if it is one which they can neither fill, warm, nor defend. Let the prudent bee-master keep his stocks strong, and they will do more to defend themselves against all intruders, than he can possibly do for them, even though he spend his whole time in watching and assisting them.--_Langstroth._

[For the American Bee Journal.]

The Coming Convention.

Mr. EDITOR:--We would like to attend the prospective convention of bee-keepers, which is to assemble the coming fall or winter, and to take by the hand some of the many correspondents we have followed through the columns of your Journal, and hear their opinions by the word of mouth, but we must forego that pleasure at present. We are poor and have not straightened up yet the ravages of war. We are rebuilding as fast as our means will admit, and hope in a few years more to see our once desert looking country “blossom as the rose.” We have lost our substance, the toil of years, and in bee parlance, though driven out and robbed of comb and honey, are allowed to return in a bad season, to recuperate.

When these bee conventions become yearly in our country, (and I hope they will,) we will be sure to attend, if within the range of our flight. We would be delighted to see the different specimens of honey and bees which should be in attendance, and ahead of anything to see except the phiz of Novice, Gallup, Grimm, and their ilk, side by side the different hives in working order. A great majority of the hives with movable frames are patented, many are not, and we would like to see them on exhibition, opened, and the points of excellence each contains, shown. We don’t mean the sub-venders of different patents, who are travelling over the country, and attend at the different fall fairs, who never kept or owned a hive of bees, know nothing of the nature and habit of the insects, and who move up to you and talk as learnedly on the bee as Langstroth or Dzierzon could; but men of experience and veracity, who have tried and used for several seasons the hive on exhibition, through poor as well as rich harvests; and hives of different forms and capacity, which you could criticise, and the good qualities, or the real or imaginary defects of which a man might point out, without danger of being called a mutton-head and ignoramus. There are several different patents in our country, and if they are not thrown over the fence the first season, they are sure to go the way of all trash the second. Some unfortunate purchasers try to get their money back by transforming the hives into troughs to feed the cow in; others convert them into boxes for hen-nests. In many of these cases, however, it is through the ignorance of the keepers that they do not succeed.

One year ago, Esq. Boring, a Justice of the Peace from one of our rural districts, thought to outstrip his neighbors in honey and bee-keeping, and ordered a hive with which you could control swarming, catch the drones, keep out moths, and the Lord only knows what its owner didn’t claim for it. Draw out the chamber, take out honey enough for supper, and replace the drawer, and all is right, nice, and snug! I believe they call it the Buck-eye, patented by Mitchell. Esq. Boring was eager to have bees in, and couldn’t wait for a natural swarm, but drove in a fine stock. He was so well pleased with it and its workings, that he Buck-eyed his whole apiary; and upon inquiry a few days since, he informed me that he would lose nearly all his bees. The first time he drew out the chamber everything worked fine. The second time it was rather tight and glued up. A month after that he thought it would take a small yoke of steers to pull out the chamber of frames, and during the summer nearly the whole fell a prey to the moth-miller. However, he should not condemn the hive after this slight trial. It has been an unusually poor season, and none but the strongest stocks stored any surplus.

W. P. HENDERSON.

_Murfreesboro, Penna._, Oct. 6, 1870.

[For the American Bee Journal.]

The Queen Nursery.

Under the above heading, Mr. Gallup, in the Journal for October, gives his experience with the queen nursery, which, with him, appears to be a perfect success. I wish to give my experience, and ask Mr. Gallup and others why it is so different from his.

I made fifty cages 1½ × 1¾ × 1¾ inches, four sides of very thin wood, and one side covered with wire gauze, and the other with a piece of glass slipped in grooves in the two wooden sides, so as to be moved up or down for a door. In each of these cages I placed a piece of honey in comb (unsealed), with the cells in natural position; and then placed the cages in frames, on slots inserted across them, so as to hold three tiers of six each, or eighteen to a frame. I then took out two centre frames from good, strong hives, and put one of these frames containing cages in their place. Some very strong colonies, some were medium. To some I gave upward ventilation, by leaving off the honey boxes and raising the cap. On others I left the honey boxes. I then awaited the result. Some queens hatched in fourteen days from starting the cell; some in sixteen days; two or three in twenty-four days; and some _never_ hatched.

Many of the young queens died in the cages in from twelve to twenty-four hours after hatching; very few lived to be five days old--the time given by many writers for them to mate with the drones; only six or seven out of about one hundred lived two weeks. The queens, when first hatched, were put in fertilizing cages such as described by N. C. Mitchell, but _never_ were fertilized.

Now Mr. Editor, will Mr. Gallup or some one else tell me why my experience differs so widely from that of Mr. G.?

Sister cells, cut from the same comb as some of those that were put in the cages, hatched in from fourteen to sixteen days, were duly fertilized, and are now alive and well. Hence it could not be any defect in the stocks they were raised from. In some of the cages, I put two or three workers, to feed the young queens; but still the latter would die, and leave the workers to eat the honey left in the cages.

If queens require any other food than honey, why did not the bees give it to them through the wire gauze on which they clustered in great numbers? Some of the cages were put in colonies that had fertile queens at liberty, but most of them were put in queenless hives.

The cells were mostly put in on the ninth day from starting the cell.

I shall be pleased to see replies to this in the next number of AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL.

H. NESBIT.

_Cynthiana, Ky._

[For The American Bee Journal.]

Do the Right!

Friend Bickford, I wish to shake your honest fist!

Your matter is _sound_, your argument JUST!!

To render substantial aid to our “venerable Tutor” is an imperative duty. Let us see to it then, _at once_, and

DO THE RIGHT!

I don’t feel at liberty to enlarge on the subject, being “only an Englishman.”

WALTER HEWSON.

_Wickham-breaux, Kent, England_, Sept. 28, 1870.

[For the American Bee Journal.]

The African Honey Tree.--Inquiry.

In the “_Poultry Bulletin_,” J. M. Wade, of Philadelphia, writes--“A man, I can hardly say _gentleman_, came into the store yesterday, with seventy-one humming birds, which he had shot the day before in his own yard. He said some years ago he brought a honey tree from Africa, and thousands of humming birds would come to it in one day. Where did so many come from?”

As it may be in the interest of bee culture to know what can be learned about the honey tree of Africa, will some one who is informed give the readers of the AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL his knowledge of it? stating its growth, whether bees visit it, its uses, whether it is hardy, length of time in flower, in what month and at what age it blooms, and how it is propagated?

E. PARMLY.

_New York._

* * * * *

Early in October, I examine carefully all my hives, to see that they are in suitable condition for wintering. If any need feeding, they are fed at this time. If any have too much vacant room, I partition off that part of the hive which they do not need. I always expect to find some brood in every healthy hive at this time, and if in any I find none, and ascertain that it is queenless, I either at once break it up, or if it is strong in numbers, supply it with a queen, by adding to it some feebler stock. If bees, however, are properly attended to, at the season when their young queens are impregnated, a queenless colony will seldom be found in the fall.

LANGSTROTH.

THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL.

Washington, Nov., 1870.

👉 The residence of the Rev. Mr. Semlitsch is not at Gratz, in Styria, as, in consequence of a slight omission, was erroneously stated in our last issue; but at Strasgang _near_ Gratz.

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The attention of those who are unfortunately suffering from the prevalence of foul-brood in their apiaries, will doubtless be arrested by the communication, in this number of the Journal, from Dr. ABBE, of New Bedford (Mass.), announcing that he has succeeded in curing that disease, as it existed in several of his colonies; and that an efficient and easily applicable remedy has at length been devised for the dreaded and devastating evil. Dr. ABBE deserves the cordial thanks of bee-keepers, both in this country and abroad, for so generously and promptly making known his remedy and the mode of administering it.

* * * * *

Last fall we suggested to those who found it necessary to supply their bees with winter food to add a portion of glycerine to sugar syrup or dissolved candy, to prevent crystillization; and we learn that it was advantageously used. We have since learned that gum tragacanth is now employed for the same purpose, by some of the German bee-keepers. This gum, dissolved in water, forms a thick mucilage, which may not mingle so readily with the food as glycerine does; and the latter is hence a more manageable and probably cheaper article, especially as it forms besides an excellent spring stimulant, though still too high-priced to be freely used.

* * * * *

A bee-keeping friend has procured for us a quantity of seed of the Partridge Pea (_Cassia chamæcrysta_) mentioned by one of our western correspondents, (Mr. Ingels, of Oskaloosa, Iowa,) as an excellent honey plant. It was in bloom here from the middle of July to the middle of October, and frequented by that bees, in crowds, all the time.

This plant is usually classed among weeds, and where it occurs, is regarded by some as one of the _pests_ of the farm; but as it is an annual, it ought not to be difficult to get rid of it by proper management, when its presence is undesirable. Blooming during the interval between spring and fall pasturage, it constitutes an important resource for bees, here and in other districts, at a period when the native vegetation fails to furnish supplies.

In the third volume of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Dr. Greenfield of Virginia speaks of the Partridge Pea as furnishing means to recruit worn-out lands, by its decomposition in the soil when plowed under. It was, we understand, originally introduced for that purpose, in the District of Columbia, by the Hon. Benjamin Stoddert, while Secretary of the Navy; and it would probably answer well as a substitute for red clover, where from poverty of soil, the latter could not yet be grown.

We hope to be able to make satisfactory arrangements for the distribution of the seed among bee-keepers desiring to make trial of the plant, and if successful, will state particulars in our next.

* * * * *

We learn from Mr. Adam Grimm, of Jefferson (Wis.,) that his crop of surplus honey, this year, is over 15,000 lbs., and that he “could take at least 10,000 lbs. more from his hives, and still leave the stocks heavy enough to winter well.” Such a result as this must be calculated to unsettle the notions of those who “have kept bees many years, and _know_ there is nothing to be made by it!”

* * * * *

We intended to give a brief history of the opposition to the meeting of the National Convention of Bee-keepers at Indianapolis, showing when and where it originated, and what were the obvious motives and objects of those most active in the business. But as it appears to be a “fixed fact” now that the Convention will be held at the time and placed designated, we shall save ourselves the trouble of hunting up musty records in the limbs of things forgotten.

* * * * *

👉 Since the above was put in type we have learned incidentally that it was resolved at Utica by the N. E. Bee-keepers Association to hold another Convention elsewhere, though particulars have not reached us. We sincerely regret this proceeding on various accounts.

CORRESPONDENCE OF THE BEE JOURNAL.