ABOUT BEES.
“I love bees, because they make honey; but I do not love them sometimes, because they sting me, and that I do not like, though I like their honey. I have felt a sting from a honey bee, and I never want to have one again, for I know how it feels. It smarts well, indeed it does. A bee is like a little girl, because it does good when it wants to, and when it does not it will sting you. Now, scholars, I will just tell you not to ’flict a bee, if you don’t want it to sting you. It is like a girl, for if you ’flict her, she will be unkind to you, and you must not ’flict her. This is all I have to write about the bee.”—C.
The Journal as a welcome visitor arrives while we are engaged writing this communication; and the pages tell of great and precious treasures. As time passes on we hope to be able to write of more bountiful harvests. We have in anticipation the simon pure Italian Bee, to take the place of our blacks and hybrids; and extended fields of Alsike clover, instead of the antiquated red. In that day of bounty and beauty, we shall hope to write temptingly to our worthy editor.
Respectfully,
H. C. Blinn.
Shaker Village, N. H., Aug. 1870.
[For the American Bee Journal.]
Natural, Prolific, Hardy Queens.
PART 2.
(Continued from July Number, page 11.)
In early spring, or at any time desirable, proceed to stimulate a selected colony with liquid feed. “Warm syrup or strained honey, is the best for the purpose;” placing alternately empty combs or combs full of brood, from other hives, until your hive is full; or by the removal of one or more colonies, on each side of the selected one, the worker bees from one or more hives, can be thrown into the selected hive, and so stimulate the swarming fever or impulse. Proceed now as recommended in the July number, page 11, when the bees will commence building queen cells. The bee-keeper will thus secure from ten to sixty queen cells per week. During my experiments, each weekly robbing only stimulated the bees to greater exertions to secure a queen. Proceed thus until the desired number of queen cells are secured, or the bees swarm. If they should swarm before a sufficient number of queen cell’s are secured, and it is desirable to still breed from the same queen, secure her and introduce her to a colony that has not swarmed, and proceed as before. Or, better still, introduce her to a colony making preparations to swarm. Before introducing her, destroy all queen cells that have eggs or larva in them; then cell building will proceed as before. A swarm under the swarming impulse will communicate it to a strange queen introduced to them; or a queen under the swarming impulse, “and not satisfied,” will communicate it to any populous colony to which she may be introduced.
John M. Price.
Buffalo Grove, Iowa.
[For the American Bee Journal.]