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A Reversible Extractor.-R. F. Holtermann, of Brantford, Ont., has sent an engraving and the following description of the new "Goold Reversible Honey-Extractor:"

The engraving herewith illustrates a reversible honey-extractor made and patented by E. L. Goold & Co., of Brantford, Ont. It can be made either as a two-frame or four-frame machine. For a two-frame Langstroth a can 23% inches in diameter is required; for a four-frame the diameter must be 27 inches. The baskets are reversed by

tried by some customers and myself in the apiary last year, and several changes have been made since its first invention.

The machine took the first prize at the Toronto Industrial Exhibition last Fall, for the best and most practical invention not heretofore shown at that exhibition. There were five inventions competing.

Preparing for the Harvest. -One secret of success in securing comb-honey is to have the brood-combs all occupied with brood before the honey harvest opens, so that when the harvest

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means of a positive lever motion. levers radiating from the center shaft I work in a slot in the bottom of the comb pockets.

Reversing the crank reverses the center shaft, which in turn revolves the levers a little way, and thus causes the pockets to be swung around.

Unlike the Stanley extractor, when one pocket reverses, all must reverse. This is a great advantage.

The extractor has been in the hands of Goold & Co. for over a year, their object being to thoroughly perfect it before giving it to the public. It was carefully

commences the bees are obliged to put the honey in the sections.

If we use a small brood-chamber, it will be seen that the brood comes clear to the tops of the frames or hive, and consequently very close to the sections, hence the bees readily enter the sections, while with a large brood-chamber the bees store the comb the queen does not occupy, with honey at the beginning of harvest, so that the sections are excluded from the brood by several inches of sealed honey, and they do not readily fill them, or refuse to go in at all.-O. J. Farmer.

A Little Girl's Wishes.

E. BENTLEY.

I wish I were as busy

As the cunning little bee;

I wish I were a sparrow brown,
To fly from bush to tree.

I wish I were the sunlight,
To sparkle every day;
I wish I were the the roses,
So fragrant, bright and gay.
I wish I were the silver moon
That's gleaming up on high;
I wish I were the tiny stars-
Those flowers of the sky.

Queries and Replies.

How Bees Carry Propolis.

QUERY 812.-1. Do bees carry propolis on their legs as they do pollen? 2. If not, how do they carry it?-W.

1. Yes.-A. J. COOK.
1. Yes.-J. A. GREEN.
1. Yes.-C. C. MILLER.
1. Yes.-R. L. TAYLOR.
1. Yes.-H. D. CUTTING.
1. Yes.-DADANT & SON.
1. Yes.-S. I. FREEBORN.
1. Yes.-JAMES HEDDON.
1. Yes.-J. P. H. BROWN.

1. Yes.-G. M. DOOLITTLE.

1. Yes, just the same.-MRS. J. N. HEATER.

1 and 2. I do not know.-J. M. HAMBAUGH.

1. They do, and in no other way.-M. MAHIN.

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1. Not quite the same way, and I almost wish they did not carry propolis at all.-A. B. MASON.

1. Yes. 2. No other way, only in the pollen baskets. She might carry it in her mouth or fore-paws, if she thought about it.-MRS. JENNIE ATCHLEY.

1. I have never noticed this matter at all, but have always assumed they did; and can only ask, myself, "If not, how do they carry it ?”—J. E. POND.

1. Yes. The Cyprian bees, I had some years since, were seen to gather vermillion paint, that was partially dried, and pack it on their legs as they do pollen.-G. L. TINKER.

1. Yes. I have often seen them collecting propolis from old discarded beequilts, and from hives that had been occupied by bees, and I have seen them packing it in pellets on their legs, just like they load up with pollen. When their load is completed, their appearance is exactly the same as that of other workers loaded with dark-colored pollen. -G. W. DEMAREE.

Yes. THE EDITOR.

Convention Notices.

UTAH.-The Utah Bee-Keepers' Association will hold its annual convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, on April 7, 1899.

JOHN C. SWANER, Sec. Salt Lake City, Utah.

COLORADO.-The Spring meeting of the Colorado State Bee-Keepers' Association will be held in Golden, Colo., on April 21, 1892. E. B. PORTER, Pres. H. KNIGHT, Sec., Littleton, Colo.

ILLINOIS.-The Spring meeting of the Northern Illinois Bee-Keepers' Association will be held at O. Taylor's, at Harlem. Ill., on May 17, 1892. All are cordially invited.

Cherry Valley, Ill. D. A. FULLER, Sec. TEXAS.-The 14th annual meeting of the Texas State Bee-Keepers' Association will be held at Greenville, Hunt Co., Tex., on Wednesday and Thursday, April 6 and 7, 1892. All interested are invited. A. H. JONES, Sec. Golden, Wood Co., Tex.

PENNSYLVANIA.-The tenth semi-annual meeting of the Susquehanna Co. Bee-Keepers' Association will be held at Bullard's Hotel in Brooklyn, Pa., on Thursday, May 5, 1892, at 10 a.m. All are cordially invited.

Harford, Pa. H. M. SEELEY, Sec. MISSOURI.-The 6th semi-annual convention of the Missouri State Bee-Keepers' Association will be held at Perrle Spring, Warrensburg, Mo., on April 7 and 8, 1892, in the parlors of the Minnewawa Hotel-the finest hotel at one of the grandest summer resorts in the State. A good room has been secured for exhibits. A rate of $1.00 per day is promised by the proprietor of the hotel, to all bee-keepers attending. An interesting programme is being prepared. W. S. DORN BLASER, Sec. Higginsville, Mo.

Topics of Interest.

Shipping Queen-Bees by Mail.

G. M. DOOLITTLE.

No one can go back over the past decade, and especially over the past quarter of a century, without noting the great strides our pursuit, bee-keeping, has made. It would be very interesting to dwell on many of the features covered by this advance, but as this would take many articles, I only propose at this time to speak of the progress made in sending queen-bees by mail.

Those familiar with the pages of the AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL during the immediate past, know that the honor of sending the first queen by mail belongs to Mr. C. J. Robinson, as per his statements alluded to. The first queen was sent only a few hundred miles; this distance not being encumbered by any of the slow, tedious stage routes which have to be encountered when sending queens into some of the newer portions of our country.

To have a queen reach her destination alive, where she travels over only a few hundred miles, on our fastest railroad trains, is a very different thing from what it is to place a queen in a customer's hands who lives thousands of miles away, where the last part of the route has to be taken in a stage coach; or, worse still, where the queen is allowed to stay in a mail bag, which is left for hours in the sun of some tropical clime.

I commenced to send queens by mail when the only food known or used was honey in the comb. Later, honey in a sponge was used, but the sending of queens in the mails, with honey as food, as then used, became a nuisance to those handling the mails, in that it was liable to daub much of the contents of the mail-bag in which such food and queens went.

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with powdered sugar stirred and kneaded into it, until a stiff dough is formed, which proves to be all that is required in the shape of food. This food required a remodeling of shipping cages, and they have grown from the old, rough cage, made by nailing up pieces of sections, to the handsome cages on the Benton principles, of the present, with their different compartments, and many little windows and doors for ventilation.

With the former cages and food, I succeeded in sending queens to all near and direct points, with a loss of only about 5 per cent. ; but when it came to sending queens to Texas, California, Oregon and such distant States, my loss would be fully one-half of all queens sent out. These losses were hard to be reconciled to, and many a time have I resolved that I would send no more queens to such remote parts and guarantee safe arrival.

Skipping the intervening years, with all their minutia of detail, I will say that in shipping queens, last year was a decided success with me, where the queens were not destined beyond the bounds of North America. I have sent queens to the Northwest Territory and Florida, and to Quebec, Nova Scotia and to Texas, with a loss not to exceed one per cent.; while the loss has not been greater than 25 per cent. in sending them to the British Isles and the West Indies.

Some of the older readers of the BEE JOURNAL will doubtless remember that some ten or twelve years ago I was the first one to successfully mail queens to Scotland, and from the report which I gave of this successful mailing, came an order from New Zealand for queens by mail, to that place at that time.

This I tried, and actually succeeded in getting one queen over there alive, although she only lived a few minutes after the cage was opened. This queen was only 37 days en route, owing to my starting her at just the right time to take an out-going steamer without delay. Not knowing the dates on which the steamers sailed, the next one sent was 72 days en route, when, of course, everything was dead, and I became discouraged, giving up the project until the past season. The food used with these queens was honey in the comb.

Last season I mailed 15 queens to Australia, from 11 of which reports have been received. Of this number 7 reached there alive. One of the 7 was very weak when she arrived, and although she lived for nearly two weeks, she never laid an egg. The other 6 are

reported to be doing finely, and their daughters are reported as "filling their brood-frames from side to side and from top to bottom, leaving only a small margin of about a half-inch for honey along the top-bars of the frames."

In the light of the past, it seems little less than a miracle, that six out of eleven queens should prove valuable after traveling, in round numbers, more than 10,000 miles; the larger part of this route being through the tropical region, where the heat must be very hard to bear, confined for weeks at a time in mail-bags without opening.

While I say "little less than a miracle," yet as we look over the past and see how, step by step, we have acquired this, we can only see in it the outgrowth of the persistence and energy of our American people, who leave no stone unturned to secure the success of the thing desired.

It would seem that there is no limit to the possibilities of the future, still I am not yet ready to indorse the idea expressed by some, that queens can be successfully sent around the world. There is a limit to the life of the worker bee, and I find by comparing the reports from those receiving these shipments of queens to Australia, that it is very evident that the queen does not live long after all the workers die, and also that the life of the worker bee, while in a shipping cage, is limited to about 40 days.

Borodino, N. Y.

Some of My Experiences.

M. B. NICHOLS.

I notice there has been of late some discussion in regard to the desirable qualities of the different strains of bees, especially of the black and Italian races, and some are inclined to rather ridicule Mr. Ellingwood when defending the black race. Now, I do not profess to be a scientific bee-keeper, nor to be able to solve all of the knotty problems that arise in its connection, and in this article I only wish to present a few facts rather than draw any conclusions. But whatever I do, I want to use that amount of intelligence necessary to success.

Four years ago I purchased 2 colonies of black bees. I bought "Langstroth's Revised;" subscribed for the AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, also the Apiculturist, and am now taking the American Bee-Keeper. My bees have done fairly well. I have

managed them so they have not swarmed excessively, and one year ago found me with 15 colonies, all but 2 in fine condition, which the past season produced for me 800 pounds of white honey; 300 pounds of comb, and 500 pounds of extracted, which is a good yield for this section any year, and much larger than any one else got here.

I also had 19 colonies in prime condition as to strength and stores, excepting about 4, which I fed early (syrup from granulated sugar) until they had plenty. All went into Winter on the summer stands-on Dec. 29; all had a splendid flight, and there has not been 24 hours since, when the thermometer was below zero, neither has there been a time when they could fly until Feb. 24 and 25, when they were out again, only being closed in about eight weeks.

Now I find 5 colonies of dead bees-3 colonies being pure Italians (all I had), 1 colony hybrids, and 1 black. The 3 colonies of Italians, and the blacks, were in hives exactly alike, and all were on stores of the very best of honey, except one colony of Italians, which I fed about 8 pounds of syrup.

They were all in telescope hives, with a frame over the top to give a chance to pass over the top-bars, covered with burlap, and the space over that stuffed with excelsior.

On examination on Feb. 25, I found the black colony had starved to death. I had miscalculated as to their amount of stores. The 3 colonies of Italians had each from 15 to 20 pounds of sealed honey (basswood and clover), except one which I fed syrup, and that was sealed. Every comb in hives was dry, with not a sign of mold or moisture in any; and, what is more, every frame contained some honey, not one being empty.

These 3 colonies of Italians all had young queens, which I had purchased last Summer.

The colony of hybrids were in a hive constructed differently, and died with 30 pounds of first-class honey over them, while I have 2 colonies of blacks in similar hives that are in fine condition at this writing, as are all, including one colony of dark Carniolans, the queen of which I purchased two years ago.

Now the question arises, why should I lose all of those Italians, while my black bees are wintering finely under exactly like circumstances, and situated the same in every respect-all being in hives alike except those mentioned, and receiving the same care in every way?

I will say before I close, the entrance to all hives are left open their entire

length, and all have been kept from snow and ice. I leave the conclusions to be drawn from the facts, to the wise men of the profession.

Hall's Corners, N. Y.

Bee-Hives and Wintering.

D. CHALMERS.

Mr. President and Fellow Bee-Keepers: -In presenting an essay on this subject, it is not my intention to try to determine any particular style of hives, but I will dwell more particularly on the requisites in and about a properly constructed beedomicile.

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The first thing then to be considered is the capacity of a hive. It is very generally conceded that that has been carefully tested and properly demonstrated years ago, by such men Father Langstroth, the lamented Moses Quinby and others, when they placed the area of the brood-chamber at about 2,000 cubic inches. This estimate, however, allowed the bees passage-ways between the ends of the frames and the interior of the hive-a feature which weighs heavily against open-end frames.

Take, for instance, a hive with closedend frames, which will give you as much comb space as an open-end frame would do, and what do we find? We find that a hive 12 inches wide, and 12 inches deep, made for the former, would not require to be as large by fully 100 cubic inches as a hive made for the latter.

Although I do not use closed-end frames myself, yet I have a strong inclination to believe that better results could be obtained from them than from open-end frames.

Those blank 100 cubic inches before specified, may well be classed among the leakages of the hive, and who can dispute the fact that the greater the leakages the more will breeding be retarded? In the use of open-end frames, the loss in this way will be less in a long frame than a short one. But another evil here comes up, that is, the sagging of such when filled, if not made of heavier material, and if sagging takes place, you all know that passage-ways under the frames will be contracted, while those above will be widened-the latter evil inducing the bees to build comb just where not wanted, while in the former the comb frames will be glued down solid.

To my mind, a hive of proportionate dimensions would be 13% inches long,

by 12% inches wide, and 12 inches deep. This gives a hive containing 2,000 cubic inches; but a shorter hive by 4 of an inch to suit closed-end frames with equal comb space, gives us a hive which we might term "Anno Domini 1892," as that is the number of cubic inches it would contain.

But while many besides myself favor a hive of this description, others again advocate a much longer, and considerably shallower hive. However, we should all aim at getting a hive of just the right capacity, and, taking it for granted that the previous figures are correct, or nearly so, for a hive for breeding and wintering purposes, yet we have to admit that there is not room enough in it for a strong colony of bees during the honey harvest.

We then have to resort to "tiering up," as bee-men term it, or, in other words, place another hive above, or a case of sections. This is where we get our surplus. The former is used if we purpose extracting, but if honey is wanted in the comb, then the latter is more convenient. In either case, the top of the lower frames must be at some distance from the bottom of the upper frames, or sections, otherwise the bees would glue the one to the other.

We should aim, too, at bringing such parts of the interior as closely together as circumstances will permit. Whereever passage-ways must of necessity be left between any two parts of a hive, they should not be less than 4 of an inch, nor exceed 5/16 in depth, or we should have to contend with evils before pictured. Such passage-ways we term "bee-spaces Between the lower and upper frames or supers, we find a double and sometimes triple bee-space.

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The apiarist has had to do battle in trying to confine the queen or motherbee to the brood-chamber, and yet allow the honey-gatherers to pass to the combs above. This fight, however, has been reduced to a mere minimum since Mr. D. A. Jones, of Beeton, Ont., applied zinc so accurately punched with oblong holes, that the queen is put at defiance, her shoulder being of somewhat larger proportions than that of the workers.

The use of this zinc over the broodchamber is wherein it becomes necessary to have a double bee-space, and any contrivance there which causes the queen to halt, is termed an "excluder."

During the past Summer I devised a method of using this zinc, which I consider the most practical form yet introduced, which is to cut it into narrow strips not exceeding four inches, and

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