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QEORQE W. YORK, Editor. 



CHICAGO, ILL, FEB. 25, 1904, 



Vol. XLIV— No, 8, 





Editorial Comments 



) 



Another Double Number. 



Here we are with another double number of the old American Bee 

 Journal. We just had to do it. The report of the last Chicago- 

 Northwestern convention is a long one. But we have evidence that it 

 is appreciated by many of our readers. We have quite a good deal of 

 most excellent reading matter on hand that we hope to reach very 

 soon. We are doing the best we can to get caught up with it. 



Improved Queens— Improved Bee-Keeping. 



Some one has well said : " Tell me what you are doing to improve 

 your queens, and I will tell you what you are doing to improve your 

 bee-keeping." 



A Severe Winter In the North. 



Whatever may be the weather for the rest of the winter, over a 

 large scope of territory in the North the cold has been so long and so 

 continuous as to awaken grave fears for the outcome of colonies of 

 bees wintered outdoors. Very strong colonies well protected may 

 suffer little, but those that do not come up to the mark in strength, 

 especially if poorly protected, will many of them succumb, and those 

 that remain will have a tough pull to get into any sort of working 

 order by the time of harvest. 



The most that the bee-keeper can now do is to possess his soul in 

 patience — perhaps, rather, in impatience — and hope that ver^' soon 

 there may come a day warm enough for a flight; but it may do some 

 good for him to set his teeth together a little more firmly than ever 

 before, and make a very strong resolve that hereafter he will not he 

 caught with any but very strong colonies for winter, protected to the 

 best of his ability . Some may think it wise to resort to cellar-winter- 

 ing, in that border-line where it is hard to decide whether out or in- 

 door wintering is best. 



Wind the Bees Worst Enemy. 



Dobbratz, in Praktischer Wegweiser, pronounces it the wind, and 

 urges strongly the providing of proper windbreaks by fences or 

 hedj;es, especially evergreen hedges. 



Sweet Clover Bacteria for Alfalfa. 



According to the National Stockman, the Agricultural Experiment 

 Station of Illinois has determined that it is not necessary to obtain soil 

 from alfalfa regions with which to inoculate the soil in the East. It 

 was a matter of rejoicing to learn that alfalfa could be successfully 

 grown on Eastern soil at no greater expense than the procuring of a 

 small quantity of properly infected soil from some alfalfa-growing re- 

 gion. Fifty or 100 pounds of such soil scattered over an acre of 

 ground would serve to supply it with the necessary bacteria, and with 

 a small start the thing could be continued indeflnitely. Now, even the 

 email trouble of sending off for the necessary bit of infected soil as a 

 start is to be saved, if there be no mistake in the case. All that is 

 necessary is to find a spot where sweet clover flourishes — where abun- 



dant nodules are found on the roots — and a small quantity of this soil 

 can be taken to inoculate the soil where alfalfa is to be grown. 



For many farmers east of the Mississippi success in growing 

 alfalfa will be a great thing. For bee-keepers it will have little inter- 

 est unless alfalfa yields honey, and a number where alfalfa has been 

 grown east of the Mississippi have reported utter failure in that re- 

 gard. A few, however, have reported success, and if a single man has 

 succeeded in getting crops of honey from alfalfa in a region where it 

 is in general a failure, there is ground for belief that when the right 

 conditions of soil are attained others may have equal success. So let 

 us hope. 



Falling Competition. 



Here are some words wisely said by the Bee-Keepers' Review, the 

 pity of it being that the very ones who need them most will never see 

 them : 



Failing competition is the worst competition that a man can have. 

 A merchant may be able to withstand the competition of a successful 

 competitor, but the competitor who fails in business, and his goods 

 are sold at a sherifl's sale — that is the kind of competition that cuts 

 the ground from under a competitor. Bee-keepers have that kind of 

 competition to contend with in the shape of the fanner with a few 

 colonies of bees, who takes his honey to marivet and sells it for what 

 he can get. Some have said: "You must be a poor bee-keeper it you 

 can't produce honey as cheaply as the farmer bee-keeper." Let the 

 farmer bee-keeper try to make his living producing honey in this way, 

 and marketing it in this manner, and see how he will come out. The 

 facts of the case are, that his honey costs him more than he sells it 

 for, only he doesn't know it. It is competition of the failing kind. 



A Bacillus Gaytoni. 



A new disease is under discussion in foreign bee-journals as pro- 

 duced by Bacillus Gaytoni. Bacillus Gaytoni is nothing more nor less 

 than the microbe of liee-paralysis, according to Cheshire. 



Extracting and Marketing Unripe Honey. 



One of the things — in many cases it may be said the thing — that 

 has done more than all else to injure the sale of e.vtracted honey, is the 

 putting upon the market honey that is not well ripened. Such honey 

 does not improve in quality after it leaves the hands of the producer; 

 generally, if not always, it deteriorates, sometimes so much that the 

 producer would not recognize it as the honey he extracted. It be- 

 comes thin, inclined to sour, with a llavor so vile that it is not fit to 

 put on the table. If the one who puts such honey on the market were 

 the only one affected by it, it would be less matter. But the whole 

 market is to some extent affected. The consumer who gets a sample 

 of such honej' is easily persuaded to believe that it is no longer possi- 

 ble to get honey that is pure, or if he believes it pure he concludes 

 that he is not fond of honey, and does not care for more. 



What are the inducements to extracting unripe honey? One is, 

 that it saves labor to extract before the honey is sealed. But the mere 

 saving of the labor of uncapping would be but a small inducement 

 were it not for the other and greater inducement of the larger quan- 

 tity. To get just a little more honey by extracting before uncapping, 

 some are willing to spoil the future chances of themselves and others 

 for the sake of the present gain. 



Now comes Editor Hill, of the American Bee-Keeper, backed by 

 no less an authority than the veteran O. O. Poppleton, saying that 

 there is iwthini/ gained in quautiln by extracting Ijefore ripening. 

 Ninety percent of the total evaporation occurs during the first night in 



