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Y Entered at the Post-Office at Chicaffo as Second-Class Mail-Matter. 



QEORQE W. YORK, Editor. 



CHICAGO, ILL, JAN. 21, 1904. 



Vol, XLIV— No. 3. 



( 



Editorial Comments 





Out of the Honey and Bee Supply Business- 



It seems that a good many ot our readers either have forgotten it, 

 or else did not notice the announcement made in these columns, that on 

 Oct. 1, 1903, we severed all our connection with the honey and bee- 

 supply business; also beeswax. We are now devoting our whole time 

 to the American Bee Journal, and find plenty to do, we can assure you. 



For anything wanted aside from the American Bee .Journal and 

 bee-books, we respectfully refer our subscribers to the advertisements 

 to be found in these columns. We believe every one of our adver- 

 tisers is entirely reliable. If we did not feel so we would not adver- 

 tise for them, as we are more than ever against all kinds of frauds and 

 crooked dealing of every kind. Kindly patronize our advertisers, and 

 when writing any of them, if you will also say you saw their advertise- 

 ment in the American Bee Journal, it will be greatly appreciated. 



Lectures on Bee-Keeping at Farmers' Institutes. 



When work of this kind is done, why is not some one engaged for 

 it who is an up-to-date bee-keeper? In the report of the New Jersey 

 State Board of Agriculture appears a lecture given before that body, 

 which lecture had been given at' the various institutes throughout the 

 State. Here are some expressions used in the lecture: 



■'The average life of a working bee is about five weeks." 



"They have a queen-bee, and she rules them all, and as she moves 



majestically from cell to cell, is followed by a retinue of attendants 



who fulfill her every wish." 



" A bee's bite injects into the system formic acid." 



" Comb honey has one advantage over strained honey." 



This lecture was delivered by Mr. D. Everitt Lyon, Ph.D., and 

 some reporter or printer may have been responsible for saying " five 

 weeks " instead of " six weeks," and " bite " instead of " sting;" but 

 any up-to-date bee-keeper, even though untitled, ought to know bet- 

 ter than to say " strained " instead of " extracted," and to talk about 

 the queen ruling all, aad being '' followed by a retinue of attendants 

 who fulfill her every wish." 



Grading Honey by Quality. 



Why is it that in most, if not all. the attempts at making rules for 

 grading honey the matter of quality has been left unmentioned? It is 

 of vastly more consequence that honey should be of the best quality 

 than that it should have two cells less or more unsealed, or two cells 

 more or less travel-stained; then why not make quality instead of 

 looks the leading item in grading? Is it possible that until now no 

 one has ever thought about it? Hardly. 



Well, shall the rules be amended so as to make quality stand first? 

 Tery many will probably reply at once in the afflrmative, but when 

 asked how it shall be done, the reply will not be so prompt. The spe- 

 cific gravity has something to do with quality, and that can be meas- 

 ured in extracted honey, but not easily in comb honey. Besides, very 

 heavy honey may be ot very poor flavor. How are you going to meas- 

 ure flavor? What shall be the standard? 



In defense of the Washington rules, and, indeed, perhaps of all 



other rules, it may be said that although no mention is made of quality, 

 the matter is not utterly ignored, for " the honey is to be classified 

 according to color, using the terras white, amber, and dark, and the 

 color generally tells sometliiiij/ about the quality. 



It is easy to shy stones at the rules. Let the next one who does it 

 please tell us /ww the amended rules should read. 



Some Big Crops of Honey. 



Some enormous crops of honey are reported as having been har- 

 vested by members of the National Association, although only part are 

 reported. One is somewhat at a loss to know how to compare these, 

 for some of the big crops are partly or wholly of comb honey, and 

 plainly a thousand pounds of comb honey is worth more than an equal 

 amount of extracted. Perhaps it is not out of the way to say that 1000 

 pounds of comb is equivalent to 1500 pounds of extracted. Figuring 

 on this basis, and reducing the comb honey to terms of extracted, the 

 crops reported that equal or exceed 50,000 pounds are as follows: 



J. F. Crowder, Cal.. 

 N. E. France, Wis.. 

 W.L.Coggshall.N.Y. 

 J. F. Mcfntyre, Cal. 

 Jos. Moffatt, Cal . . . 

 J.C.Stanley^t Son. Ill 

 T. F. Arundell, Cal. 

 Wm. Rohrig, Ariz. . 



51,800 

 54.000 

 57,500 

 00,000 

 60,000 

 00,000 

 64.000 

 T2,000 



Emerson Bros., Cal. S0,00O 



W. D. Moffatt, Cal, 80,000 

 W.T.Richardson, Cal 84,000 



L. E. Mercer, Cal... 100,000 



M. A. Gill. Colo.... 112,500 



H. H. Hyde. Tex... 122,500 



M.H.Mendelson,Cal. 123,000 



W. H. Pain, Haw.Is. 300,000 



There is some room for believing that one of the ciphers should be 

 erased from the last number, for K00,000 pounds of honey from 300 

 colonies hardly comes within the range of probability. Omitting that 

 name, we still have 15 bee-keepers securing the equivalent of 1,181,300 

 pounds of extracted honey, or an average of 78,753 pounds each. 



Doubling Shaken Swarms. 



M. A. Gill reports in Gleanings in Bee-Culture that he uses two 

 colonies of bees to make a shaken swarm, using only starters in the 

 brood-frames, and that these mammoth swarms build 95 percent of 

 their combs with worker-cells. 



Sheet-Lead for Hive-Covers. 



This is suggested by A. H. Wilkes in the British Bee Journal. In- 

 formation is lacking as to cost and durability— two important factors. 

 He says : 



"May I suggest thin, or laminated (technical term) rolled sheet- 

 lead of the strength necessary to weigh one pound for one square 

 yard? It can be quickly and easily fixed on any shaped hive-root, and 

 is absolutely weather-proof so long as the surface is not pierced. 

 Sheet-lead in this form can be had of any plumber. It only needs to 

 cut the lead of such size as to allow plenty of length to overlap on all 

 sides, and if secured with a copper lack here and there, it will carry 

 off rain effectively." 



Why Do Bees Build Drone-Comb ? 



Some discussion on this point is occurring in Gleanings in Bee- 

 Culture. M. A. Gill thinks the bees do not prefer to store honey in 

 drone-comb, but when they build drone-comb it is because they desire 

 to rear drones. He cites as proof the bees building drone-comb in odd 

 corners busily until a swarm is shaken, when they will build only 

 worker-comb. M. W. Shepherd says that when a heavy honey-flow is 

 on, "if there is any comb to be built, it will be store or drone comb, no 

 matter whether you use light, medium, or heavy brood foundation;" 



