ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



107 



come the short methods in bee culture 

 all the way through. 



We want to get rid of partly filled 

 sections quickly. I am inventing, what 

 time I have. I cannot be long at it. — 

 Take a partly filled section, run it 

 through a crank and it presses the w-ax 

 out at one end and the honey below; a 

 good deal like the fruit presses. That 

 is another thing I think ought to coma 

 in the line of future bee-keeping — get 

 rid of those sections. 



In addition to that, we want a smoker 

 that is just right; the smoker is an im- 

 portant item. Mr. Bingham made a 

 good smoker that has not been im- 

 proved on very much, if any. I sug- 

 gested to him a few years ago to put 

 the cover inside; I suggested a high 

 top, but Mr. Bingham was getting too 

 old for active work and thought he 

 would not do it. I suggested to make 

 the top 5 or 6 inches higher with a hole 

 inside. I don't use the fuel that a 

 good many do. I use very coarse saw- 

 dust, and over that I take a wad of 

 green grass and put up in top, and the 

 smoke is just as cool as water in Octo- 

 ber, and no sparks fly out. I might 

 talk a long while about short cuts in 

 bee culture. 



Introduction of Queens. 



While it is easier to introduce 

 queens in summer, we do not want 

 to interfere with the honey flow. It 

 is best to introduce queens after the 

 honey season is over, and the method 

 known as caging is the best. Leave 

 them in 48 hours and let them gnaw 

 their way out then. The best of all 

 is to wait until it freezes up and take 

 the queen away before it freezes up. 



With my non-swarming method I 

 rear an extra queen and I get queens 

 enough purely mated to weed out all 

 the mis-mated and poor ones; every 

 year I have six or seven more than I 

 needed. 



When a colony swarms every bee is 

 impressed with the idea of swarming. 

 When you look in the sides of the hive 

 through the glass and see them an 

 hour before swarming, you will see 

 them begin to move in great circles, 

 arid they must be a unit to do that. 

 You don't see one but that is disturbed 

 ■by the prospective movement in the 

 new home. 



There are a lot of details of queen 

 rearing that could be gone into. I 

 was in hopes this season would be a 

 ■good one. I will give it a test in the 



1915 season, hoping we may have a 

 good honey flow. 



The alternate thawing and freezing 

 was the undoing of 1914. 



There may be some other things that 

 will suggest themselves, but the future 

 of bee-keeping depends upon three 

 things: Control of swarming; the 

 control of mating of queens; a suffi- 

 cient number of queens and selected 

 ones that wall maintain an Italian 

 apiary in its purity. I have seen a 

 good many bee-keepers who pretend 

 to have an Italian apiary but they are 

 more hybrids than pure. 



Pres. Kannenberg — I think Mr. 

 Aspinwall has good ideas. Does any 

 one else want to ask questions? I 

 believe he would be walling to answer 

 them. 



Mr. Miller — I would like to ask Mr. 

 Aspinwall if he thinks the bee-keeping 

 industry will be in the hands of a 

 monopoly so that the business will be 

 conducted by large companies? 



Mr. Aspinwall — It may in some lo- 

 calities; I hardly think it will for the 

 reason that the pasturage cannot be 

 confined to small areas. Where it is 

 controlled by a combination, it would 

 be too widely located, I think. I 

 rather think that bee-keepers should 

 be associated with one or two more 

 bee-keepers conducting large apiaries 

 in their immediate localities; there 

 would be great advantages in that re- 

 spect. What is a man going to do 

 when he gets old unless he has a 

 partnership— a company will move 

 along just the same when I am -gone 

 but my bee yard will not unless I am 

 associated with some one else and for 

 that reason I believe bee-keeping 

 should be in the hands of a co-part- 

 nership. 



Mr. John Klein^What can there be 

 done to exterminate lice from bees? 



Pres. Kannenberg — Has any one had 

 experience with lice on bees? 



Mr. Aspinwall — I never had any. The 

 secret of preventing that, from w-hat I 

 have learned in reference to the bee 

 lice, is to keep the bottom boards as 

 clean as possible. The rough bottom 

 board W-ouId favor their production 

 and increase, and the cleaner you can 

 keep the bottom board where all filth 

 is dropped and carried down, the bet-, 

 ter it will be. For a bottom board un- 

 der such circumstances, I would sug- 

 gest a glass one on the top of . the 

 wood, such as many of our tables in 

 many dining halls have today. I 



