THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



19 



on looking^ ahead, I can see that con- 

 ditions here, may be such that I shall 

 have to adopt a similar plan. 



As you ask for criticisms, I shall 

 take the liberty' of referring' to what I 

 think is one weak point, namely, that 

 third visit "when the flow has been 

 on hvo or three zveeks.'^ Yes, verily, 

 you will find that some colonies have 

 far outstripped others, and tor the sim- 

 ple reason — assuming- that your bees 

 are anything near like mine— that a 

 larg^e proportion have taken the swarm- 

 inj,r fever, swarmed and returned two 

 or three times, the queen has been 

 lost or killed, and a young queen has 

 hatched and they have swarmed and 

 taken to the woods. But, even if you 

 arrive before any swarms have gone, 

 nearly two weeks have been practically 

 lost by those preparing" to swarm, 

 whereas if you had been on hand to 

 shake them upon six empty combs, or 

 wired foundation or starters, they 

 would have gone right to work and but 

 little time would have been lost — or do 

 as I did last summer with pre-eminent 

 success, cut out all cells and replace 

 the super. 



You ask "Shall I use queen ex- 

 cluders?" Yes, by all means, if con- 

 ditions there are the same as here. 

 There is foul brood in this neighbor- 

 hood and a few cells in my ozvti yard, 

 therefore, no queen must get above in 

 the supers. But, even if there were no 

 foul brood, I should not want my beau- 

 tiful white super-combs which have 

 been built from full sheets of founda- 

 tion in wired frames, marred b}' the 

 presence of the queen. 



I am anxious, however, that the plan 

 which 3'ou have outlined shall prove a 

 success, for, in that case, I shall want 

 your breed of bees, and shall wish as far 

 as possible to adopt every detail of 

 your management. 



I greatly admire your courage in thus 

 starting out again so extensively in the 

 bee business, zvith the weight of the 

 " Review " on your shoulders, but as for 

 youv judgment — well, we shall see. 



Wishing j'ou a happy New Year I am 

 Yours very truly, 



Alpine McGregor. 



Friend McGregor, I expect that there 

 will occasionally a swarm abscond 

 where the apiarv' is left entirely alone 

 most of the time, but, if I have half a 

 dozen apiaries, and lose ii few swarms 

 from each, I will make more monej'^ 



than I would with only one apiary 

 from which I lost no swarms because I 

 watched it constantly. I know some 

 will say that the swarms lost at each 

 yard would pay for a man's wages 

 during the swarming season. I don't 

 believe it, if the management is what it 

 ought to be, but I expect to have more 

 positive knowledge on this ver3' impor- 

 tant point. 



OUT-APIARIICS VKKSUS LARGE COLONIKS 

 AND ONR LARGE APIARY. 



BiRNAMWOOD, Wis , Dec. 26, 1905. 

 My Dear Mr. Hutchinson— 



I see by the last Review that you are 

 still enthusiastic over the subject of 

 out-apiaries, and I hope that you will 

 be able to meet in some degree your 

 golden anticipations. My own exper- 

 iences in 1904 was disappointing, for if 

 I had left all the bees in one yard, I 

 should have gotten a larger crop at 

 much less cost. Out-apiaries figure 

 out beautifully on paper, but in this 

 locality, the man who leaves swarming 

 out of his calculations is going to get 

 LP>FT. Of course, the bees can be 

 kept so light that they will not swarm 

 — nor anything else that is of any con- 

 sequence, but when the colonies are 

 run on the high pressure plan — regular 

 fohn D. Rockefeller colonies — it needs a 

 man in charge who knows what to do 

 — and does it at the right time in the 

 right way. I shall watch your experi- 

 ments with interest, for you have been 

 so enthusiastic in this matter that I 

 have been anxious to see 3'ou try the 

 thing. One of the things that has 

 been brought home to me with pile- 

 driver force a good many times — both 

 in bees and medicine — is the difference 

 between theory and practice. I have 

 naturally a very fecund imagination, 

 and it has been easy for me to figure 

 out a beautiful method of procedure, 

 which, sometimes, has been an elabo- 

 rate failure because of idios^'ncracy — 

 that is the word we medical men use to 

 disguise our ignorance of the cause of 

 particular conditions. 



Here is an apicultural problem for 

 you: If it takes E. \V. Alexander, his 

 son Frank, and two other expert assist- 

 ants — the quartette being kept on the 

 jump the whole of the time— to handle 

 one apiary of 750 colonies, (see Glean- 

 ings, last issue, p. 1321), how many 

 out-apiaries can one man handle sue- 



