

Ealered at the Post-OfBce at Chicago as Second-Class Mail-Matter. 



OEORQE W. YORK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL, FEB. 11, 1904, 



Vol. XLIV— Na 6, 



c 



Editorial Comments 





Four-Piece Sections PrefeFPed by Some- 



The following paragraph appears in Gleanings in Bee-Culture of 

 recent date : 



" It begins to apear that there are many friends of the four-piece 

 section. It is argued that the extra time and cost of putting them 

 together does not cut very much figure, because they can be put up 

 by cheap help during the winter. The main argument in their f:ivor 

 seems to be that they will stay where they are put — that is, when 

 pushed into a square position they will not try to assume the diamond 

 shape." 



Of course, this does not ignore the main argument for superseding 

 one-piece with four-piece sections, if such superseding takes place, 

 and that is the increasing cost of one-piece sections because of the 

 increasing scarcity of timber from which one-piece sections can be 

 made. It is just possible that if four-piece sections are as easily 

 obtained as one-piece, and at the same price, a large number may be 

 found who prefer the four-piece. While it may be true that four- 

 piece sections have been thrown out of the catalogs because of the 

 smaller demand for them, it may also be true that a good many have 

 been to a degree forced to adopt the one-piece because the four-piece 

 were not quoted. 



Destroying Ants Around Hives. 



Mr. H. Potter, in the British Bee Journal, gives his method of 

 getting rid of ants, as follows : 



" I mixed some bee-candy with arsenic, and put it under the hive, 

 placing a piece of perforated zinc over the candy, and a small bo.x over 

 all, to make sure that the bees could not get at it. The effect was sur- 

 prising! On the first day the candy was black with ants; second day, 

 only two or three to be seen ; third day, ants all gone ! I have had no 

 more trouble with them this season. Ants eat their dead, and there- 

 fore a wholesale poisoning had been set up by them devouring their 

 dead comrades." 



Drones as Gatherers— Can It Be ? 



A writer in Wegweiser reporied that he had seen drones working 

 on llowers. The editor doubted. Afterward Editor Freyhoff saw the 

 same thing with his own eyes. There was no mistake; a drone was 

 working on the flowers, head down, scraping with his legs like a pol- 

 len-gathering worker, and pollen was on his legs. 



Is it possible that drones are yet to mend their idle ways! 



More Colonies Rather Than More Worlc. 



In place of spreading brood and stimulative feeding in spring to 

 increase the number of bees, E. D. Townsend says in the Bee-Keepers' 

 Review, that it is better to have a few more colonies and avoid the 

 extra work. The point is worth considering. 



Solar Wax-Extractor— Get a Big One. 



The editor of the Australian Bee-Bulletin thus advises : 



" If you get a solar extractor get a big one. Less than three fi et 



by two, and six or seven inches deep, is foolishness. Wedon'lfctU 



them; we give our experience." 



Transmission of Traits in Bees. 



That interesting writer, Dr. A. W. Smyth, says in the Irish Bee 

 Journal : 



How is it possible for the queen to transmit instincts acquired by 

 the worker-bees, unless they are in some way transmitted to her by 

 the workers? There is but one way in which this can be done. 



Worker-bees occasionally beget drones, and these drones transmit 

 the instincts of the worker-bees through the queen. The intelligence 

 of the worker-bees would be of limited use if there were no means of 

 transmitting it from one generation to another. This means of trans- 

 mission is acquired by laying workers, whereby the drones, so pro- 

 duced, become the means of communicating an hereditary instinct 

 through the queen-mother. 



If this be true, some of us are badly out of the way who think 

 laying workers an unmixed evil, only to be suppressed under all cir- 

 cumstances. But it will take considerable proof to make it generally 

 believed that the drones of laying workers are at all necessary in the 

 matter of transmitting traits. Indeed, Dr. Smyth himself says: 



" That the arguments briefly stated in this article are suggestive 

 and not conclusive, the writer is well aware." 



So we are likely to go on suppressing laying workers as so many 



Barrels or Cans for Honey in America. 



" In America honey is kept mostly in barrels," says Praktischer 

 Wegweiser. If our good German friends were to see the piles of tin 

 cans that are used here for honey they might change their minds. We 

 should say that at least three-fourths of ail the extracted honey mar- 

 keted In this country is put up in tin cans. 



The Would-Be Inventors of Beedom. 



A leading writer of sacred writ once said, " Of the making of 

 books there is no end." Almost the same thing can Ije said of the 

 making of new hives. It is getting to be almost a fad in these days 

 for certain bee-keepers to have a hive of their own. Of course, each 

 new hive gotten up (by them) is far superior to any other, no matter 

 whether it is half so good as some that have been thoroughly tried by 

 the majority of bee-keepers! The strange part of it all is, that the 

 would-be inventors of these new fads in hives are so queer as to think 

 that bee-papers ought to devote half of their space to pushing the sale 

 of these new creations. Yes, certain of them have gone so far as to 

 order their bee-papers discontinued because the editors did not see it 

 their duty to insist upon the bee-keeping public using their new hives. 

 No doubt the discontinuers thought they would kill the bee-papers if 

 they stopped subscribing for them. But they might be surprised if 

 they knew the papers they discontinued were having more readers all 

 the time. 



What surprises us, is that the wise inventors of new hives and 

 other apiarian fixtures do not use the advertising columns of the bee- 

 papers. It they wish to make any money out of any of their inven- 

 tions, they should be willing to pay for the space used in the bee- 

 papers to tell bee-keepers about the good points in the things they 

 have for sale. We have had sufficient experience to know that a bee- 

 paper is far from being a charitable institution. We have yet to find 

 any bee-paper publisher who is able to be a philanthropist. Of 

 course, we know that most of them are generously inclined, and doubt- 

 less do their share when it comes to helping a worthy cause, but just 

 why they should be expected to run their papers for the benefit of cer- 

 tain would-be inventors and their fads we have never been able to dis- 



