June 16, 1904. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



425 



the remaining space of the brood-chamber with frames of 

 empty comb or full sheets of foundation, and place a super 

 with sections on top. No queen-cell should be left in the 

 old hive. 



Now, a day or two after, or as soon as the brood in the 

 old hive is all capped, place this chamber on top of the new 

 hive with a bee-escape between it and the super. After the 

 bees are all out of the upper chamber, it and the escape may 

 be removed. It is always well to have a few bait-sections 

 in the super. 



With me this is only theory at present. What do you 

 think of it ? What suggestions do you offer, especially 

 about the arrangement of the new brood-chamber ? 



Tell the sisters that the Porter bee-escape is one of the 

 best things to have about the apiary. AunTik Bbe. 



Northwest Kansas, May 24. 



A serious objection to your plan is that when you move 

 the colony to a new location there is no understanding on 

 the part of the field-bees that any change has been made, 

 and for the next two or three days, when they return from 

 the fields with their loads of nectar, instead of going to the 

 hive where you want them, they will go straight to the old 

 stand where they have been accustomed to go. So although 

 you may prevent swarming you will also prevent all storing 

 in supers until a new force of gatherers comes on the field. 



There are other objections, but this one is enough. 



The Wife of the Bee-Keeping BFother. 



A word needs to be said not exactly to the bee-keeping 

 sister so much as to the wife of the bee-keeping brother. 



You are very much interested, no doubt, in your hus- 

 band's work. You are anxious that he shall make a success 

 of bee-keeping. You are quite willing to help him with the 

 extracting, or with taking care of the wax, etc., but to go 

 into the apiary and do the actual handling of the bees, that's 

 a different matter. If you knew what a stimulus it would 

 be to your husband thus to have your co-operation in his 

 work, to have some one that was thoroughly interested — 

 some one that he could intelligently talk things over with — 

 you would probably make a desperate efi'ort to overcome all 

 obstacles that stand in the way. Remember the proverb : 

 " Sharing joys doubles them ; sharing sorrows halves them." 



If the wife is familiar with the work of the apiary, she 

 is able to take her husband's place in case of emergency 

 caused by accident, sickness, etc. And you may not realize 

 what a blessing it is that you are able to do it until the need 

 for it comes. It is not easy to get a suitable person to take 

 charge of an apiary on short notice, if, indeed, it is at all 

 possible, and if you can take charge of the apiary yourself 

 you are independent. 



Often in case of the husband's death the wife has been 

 compelled to dispose of her bees for a mere song, because 

 she did not know anything about them — could not tell the 

 least thing about them, whether the colonies were weak or 

 strong, or what they ought to be sold for. 



A lady came to me this spring saying that she had had 

 23 colonies of bees left on her hands, and she did not know 

 the least thing about them. She wanted to sell them, and 

 she had no idea whether to ask SO cents a colony for them 

 or $10. They were in the cellar, and she did not know 

 whether they were dead or alive, whether they were Italians 

 or hybrids, or how to go to work to get rid of them. 



Now, suppose the wife left in a similar position knows 

 how to care for bees, instead of selling she might make 

 quite a competency from them, or if she prefers to sell she 

 could at least care for them until she could sell to advan- 

 tage, and not be obliged to hustle them off for what she 

 could get for them. 



Honey as a Health-Food is the name of a 16- 

 page leaflet (3J^x6 inches) which is designed to help in- 

 crease the demand and sale of honey. The first part is 

 devoted to a consideration of " Honey as Food," written 

 by Dr. C. C. Miller. The last part contains "Honey-Cook- 

 ing Recipes" and "Remedies Using Honey." It should be 

 widely circulated by every one who has honey for sale. It 

 is almost certain to make good customers for honey. We 

 know, for we have used it ourselves. 



Prices, prepaid — Sample copy free ; 10 for 20 cts. : 25 

 for 40 cts.; SO for 70 cts.; 100 for $1.25; 250 for $2.25; lO 

 for $4.00; 1000 for $7.50. Your business card printed f. -e 

 at the bottom of the front page, on all orders for Id > jr 

 more copies. Send all orders to the Bee Journal ofl&ce 



c 



Nasty's Afterthoughts 



The " Old Reliable " seen through New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. Hasty, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, Ohio. 





m'kvoy's beautifui, apiary. 



Say, that's a beautiful apiary of McEvoy's on the front 

 of April 28 ! But to accord with the ancient saw about the 

 shoemaker's wife and the blacksmith's mare, there ought 

 to be lots of foul brood in it. 



lOBLOTS OF HONEY. 



Yes, a man will manage to think he is sending a fine 

 lot of honey when it is higglety-pigglety to the last degree, 

 and some of it candied in the comb. I can make a worse 

 confession for myself. Once on a time I thought I was 

 sending to town a fine lot of honey. It was in milk-pans — 

 combs cut from box-hive brood-chambers. Two-thirds of 

 the cells had pollen in the bottom and honey on top. The 

 grocer who took it also thought it a fine lot of honey. And 

 he seemed to incline to think with me, that the customers 

 were unreasonable when they "kicked" on it. They were 

 so squeamish as to remark that they didn't like so much 

 "gum." Page 307. 



LONG WINTER CONFINEMENT OF BEES. 



John H. Clasen, page 315, furnishes what we can use as 

 the " record " on long time without a flight — that is, we 

 can use it until the next fellow " breaks the record." Three 

 consecutive years. Number of colonies, 10, 18 and 18. Days 

 without a flight 117, 122 and 102. One colony in no condi- 

 tion to winter ; others all did well, except that two perished 

 during the extreme 122 days of confinement. 



CHUNK HONEY FROM A HOUSE-SIDE. 



Quite a lot of chunk honey to capture at one time is the 

 30234 pounds which H. Gilbert took from the walls of his 

 house. Almost a pity that so great an establishment must 

 be broken up. Hardly practical, I suppose, to extract the 

 honey by whirling house and all. Page 324. 



THAT ST. LOUIS APIARIAN APPOINTMENT. 



So the management at St. Louis think that Apiculture 

 is something to be given away as a mere bonbon to whom- 

 ever it seems nice to make a place for. Ask 'em whether 

 they expect Mining and Medicine and Newspaperdom and 

 Electricity to stand that sort of thing— superintendence by 

 persons almost totally unknown to the craft. Apparently 

 boodle was not the only evil thing with which the air of St. 

 Louis got tainted. Page 324. 



APIARIAN NEGLECT SOMETIMES MORE PROFITABLE. 



So E. D. Townsend wonders what he has been at these 

 years to put so much work on so few bees. Recently with 

 four visits a year he has run an apiary SO miles distant and 

 averaged 600 dollars a year in extracted honey. This is a 

 kind of evidence not easy to argue against. What if a lot 

 of swarms do go to the woods ? What if some inevitably 

 neglected things do cost honey and money ? What if some- 

 body's steady work in spring could give things quite a 

 boost 7 The footing up, and the " lump in a fellow's side ' 

 at Christmastide, bid us to forget all that. We have been 

 in the way of thinking (at least teaching) that bees don't 

 bear neglect worth a cent. Plainly that's not the only 

 thing to be said. Sometimes bees do bear lots of neglect, 

 and bear it well. I can contribute another note to the same 

 chord. My one big apiary of bees right at home bears great 

 and frequent neglect, not for profit's sake, but to humor an 

 invalid's chronic worthlessness. They bear it well, and 

 bring me in some returns every year as they did aforetime. 

 (In 24 years I haven't met a year without some surplus.) 

 Page 326. 



PRIORITY RIGHT IN BEE-LOCATIONS. 



I'm going to stand right square by my guns where L. 

 V. Ricketts trains his battery on me about location-crowd- 

 ers. I most freely grant him that there are many compli- 

 cations—some of which make things tolerable which at first 

 view seemed to be wrong. I can tell him once more (if it 

 will do any good) that nobody proposes to prevent land- 

 owners from keeping a few bees if they want to— or to call 

 them names for doing so. Also, no amount of bees com- 



