72 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Jan. 28, 1904. 



do to forget how full — chock-full — the world is of folks who 

 in dealing- with a subject in which they are professionally 

 interested, are continually selling a horse to themselves. 

 Page 787. 



"guards" or "sentinels" of the hive. 



Yes, the Britisher is clearly wrong in calling the pro- 

 fessional guards at the door " scouts ;" but he's right about 

 there being such a class. Our English cousins rather de- 

 light in getting different terms from those we use. (Or is 

 it we that delight in rejecting terms they have previously 

 established ?) At any rate, sometimes they beat us badly ; 

 but this time they missed it. "Guards " and "sentinels" 

 are better terms than "pickets," because pickets in war are 

 usually stationed off at a distance, as these are not. While 

 the bee that follows us around endlessly may be a degen- 

 erated guard, I almost incline to doubt it — a degenerated 

 robber, more like. Page 787. 



MORE GENERATIONS, MORE PROGRESS. 



Half-sister to your fortieth grandmother, eh ? Mr. Crum 

 certainly gets the "go ahead " part of the old maxim to a 

 remarkable degree, but the "be sure you're right" part 

 seems to be endangered a little. Still, I think his theory of 

 the more generations the more progress, a hopeful one to 

 operate on. If it should be that a certain look of the queen 

 goes with a certain quality of the worker progeny, the api- 

 arist may " catch on '" and be guided by that. Page 788. 



THOSE BDLK-COMB HONEY-FOLKS. 



So the bulk-comb folks think they are going to make 

 their boom run clear across the country. Well, let 'em try 

 it ; variety is the spice of life ;. only let 'em refrain from 

 cultivating , suspicion, and continually whispering that, 

 "This is the'^sure way to have genuine honey." Suggestive 

 that no one who gave up sections has gone back to them — 

 but perhaps time enough has not elapsed yet. You remem- 

 ber it took quite a few years for the bicycle boom to " catch 

 cold." Interesting to see that the trade has mostly come 

 down from the biggest cans to small sizes. Well, Homer, 

 if you make section honey "almost disappear," the sad 

 trouble of basswood lumber being all used up will be much 

 mitigated, won't it ? We can hope to teach folks to like 

 candied extracted honey ; but I don't believe we can ever 

 make them admire nice comb, uncandied itself, but stuck 

 together with candied stuff — and first we know some of the 

 boys will be putting in part glucose ! We must scratch, 

 and dig, and bark some more till we conquer the problem of 

 a non-granulating sort of extracted. 



[ Our Bee-KeepinS Sisters J 



Conducted by Emma M. Wilson. Marengo, 111. 



Hep Bees Did Very Well. 



My bees did very well this year, considering the time I 

 had to care for them. I had 9 colonies last spring. I in- 

 creased to 18 colonies, and took off 1600 pounds of No. 1 

 white comb honey. I have sold it nearly all at IS and 16 

 cents a pound. Mrs. M. Thompson. 



Kane Co., 111., Dec. 1. 



That is a fine report. At IS cents per pound your honey 

 brought you $26.66 per colony, to say nothing of the in- 

 crease. I think it is almost a slander on your bees to say 

 they did very well. I should call that excellent work. 



A Swarming- Time With Swarms. 



I thought I would let you know what the bees did the 

 past summer. I got from 1 to 3>2 24-pound cases from each 

 colony. They swarmed, and swarmed, and swarmed, until 

 I did not know what to do with them. As I had no more 

 empty hives I doubled them up. Several of the new swarms 

 swarmed. I left the old colonies by the side of the new 

 until the seventh day, then moved them away, then had 

 after-swarms ; 2 left for the woods. I did not lose any 

 prime swarms, as I keep my queen's wings clipped. 



I love the bees, and love to work with them. I long to 



hear their hum again. I do not spend all of my time with 

 the bees, as I have other work. This has been a severe win- 

 ter so far. It has been from 15 to 20 degrees below zero for 

 several days ; sleighing is good. The bees have not had a 

 flight since Nov. IS. 



I winter my bees on the summer stands without any 

 protection, packed with leaves on top. I have had fair suc- 

 cess wintering this way, when they have plenty of stores. 



My honey is all sold, and has been for some time. I got 

 from 12,'2 to 16 cents per pound. I sold some of it in the 

 home market, but the most of it at the house. I could sell 

 more if I had it. 



The most I know about bees I have learned from the 

 American Bee Journal. Mrs. L. Mack. 



St. Joseph Co., Mich., Jan. 6. 



Our blessings often come in disguise, so perhaps you 

 did not realize what a blessing it was that yon did not have 

 any more hives, and were thus obliged to double up. It is 

 not so much the number of colonies that counts, as the 

 number of bees in a colony. Good, strong colonies are the 

 ones that winter best, and give us the honey. 



Sometimes the bees seem to go crazy, and swarm, and 

 swarm, until there is scarcely anything left of them. In 

 such cases it is best to double up until you have colonies of 

 sufficient strength. 



A Pastoral Occupation. 



As Arcadia would have been imperfect without the 

 sweet pipings of Pan, so pastoral life would be incomplete 

 without the hum of bees. To those who love country life, 

 and the care of bees, how fondly upon the heart fall these 

 lines from Rogers : — 



" Mine be a cot beside the hill ; 



A bee-hive's hum shall sooth my ear; 

 A willowy brools that turns a mill 



With many a fall shall linger near." 



But if this idyllic life be denied to one who loves it, yet 

 a taste of its sweetness may be within reach, for even a 

 small garden, if adorned with trees and flowers, and pictur- 

 esquely set with bee-hives, has a savor of rusticity. 



Like Goldsmith's Mr. Hardcastle, who seized every 

 opportunity to talk about the Duke of Marlborough and 

 Prince Eugene, so the enthusiastic bee-keeper is always 

 fond of talking about bees. 



Certainly, bees are a most fascinating subject, and one 

 no more wearies of seeing them enact their same little 

 drama, year after year, than one does of seeing, times with- 

 out number, the unfolding of old, familiar flowers. Then, 

 too, the many unsolved mysteries of a bee's life give addi- 

 tional fascination, of course, to the study of apiculture, 

 while as regards robber-bees, the deeds of these invaders 

 and of the defenders, are certainly quite as romantic and 

 thrilling as any exploit of feudal times. But the culmina- 

 tion of tragedy is reached when we read of how, in the 

 tropics, ants and wasps sometimes invade hives, kill the 

 workers, and carry off the queen, much in the same manner 

 I fancy, that the Romans must have carried off Thusnelda. 

 What compassion one feels for the fate of those poor little 

 honey-makers and their queen ! 



Good tenants deserve good landlords, but bees, as well 

 as people, sometimes pay a very high rent for a very poor 

 house. How more worthy of stings than honey is that 

 landlord who gives his bees a miserable home, and how his 

 conscience, at least, must sting him, if in spite of all their 

 disadvantages, his little tenants pay him a surplus far ex- 

 ceeding their rent ! 



I once visited an apiary which reminded me of the 

 wretched tenement houses found in large cities. Every 

 hive was so weather-beaten and old, that some of them 

 were seemingly falling to pieces. One of them had even 

 no alighting-board. 



Another apiary which I beheld, had a hive festooned 

 with spider-webs in every available place, while on the 

 side of one of the hives, a large body of ants were sealing 

 the wall. The owner of these hovels informed me that he 

 had lately hived a swarm in a hive containing dead bees 

 and rubbish, which he had found no time to clean, but that 

 his swarm was now engaged in cleaning out their dwelling. 

 In fact, he gave but little attention to bees, he said, which, 

 indeed, an observer of his apiary could readily believe. 

 What a sin to give these industrious little insects such habi- 

 tations I What marvel that they did not all take wing and 

 find homes in the friendly hollow of trees I 



There is a tradition that ants dislike salt, but I have 



