250 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



April 18, 1901. 



\ ^ The Afterthought. ^ | 



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

 By E. E. HASTY, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, O. 



SWARMING ON TEN FRAMES. 



It is rather a surprising result to find more colonies on 

 ten frames swarming than of those on eight frames ; but I do 

 not wish to cast any discredit on the experiment. Mr. Daven- 

 port does not claim it as a rule, to be found good in all years 

 and all locations. The rationale of it seems to be that some- 

 times two more frames lead to an increase of population with- 

 out which swarming would not have occurred. Page 150. 



ME.iSURING BEES' TONGUES. 



AVise chap of beedom, don't you know you can not meas- 

 ure a man's tongue — not to mention the other half of animate 

 nature, to which the bee belongs "? A tongue is a thing with 

 great capacity for rubbering 'round. Best understood not by 

 what it measures, but by what it does. Thus we reflect on the 

 words of Adrian Getaz, page l.'iO. Indeed \t does seem to 

 call for some explanation, how all the other members of the 

 bee seem to be so uniform, and tongues alone reported with 

 such variation. I can very heartily second the suggestion 

 that all measurements of a surgical character should be 

 regarded as tentative to a certain extent — useful and desirable, 

 but not to be regarded as final, till confirmed by live bees of 

 the same colony taking actual sweet out of an actual cavity. 

 Something better than the ojd inclined plane and wire screen 

 ought to heave in sight, to keep pace with the Twentieth Cen- 

 tury. Too much depends upon keeping it level, and too many 

 bees have to work at it, and «ork at it too long. Who'll give 

 us a bunch of glass clover-tubes — or put two rectangular 

 slips of glass together a twentieth of an inch apart holding 

 honey between ? The idea of the latter is that bees will 

 cjuickly take the sweet out from all the edges as deep as they 

 can reach, and leave things so as to be clearly measurable. 



THREE " AFTERTHINKLETS." 



A new edible for bees — and prohibition States — "cold 

 water soust." Page 152. 



Pretty bad score for house-apiary, 1 6 queens lost out of 

 26, and that in spite of vertical painting in strong colors. 

 Page 153. 



How about the bee-man who would fain exhibit to a won- 

 dering world 30,000 pounds of snowy sections from posies 

 not in bloom yet? Counting unhatcht chickens hardly 

 " in it." Page 164. 



A VERMONT COUNTY VS. CAI.IFORNI.^. 



And SO in Vermont one county produces 34 of all the 

 State product, and one forty -fourth as much as California pro- 

 duces. How much better to fish in a little brook where there 

 are some fish than in a big, landscape-adorning river where 

 there are next to none ! Page 153. 



ANOTHER .4.FTBRTH0UGHT TRIPLET. 



Archer L. White's experiment indicates that the solar gets 

 less than a third of the wax from old comb, in fact less than 

 a third of what can be got by a better process. Page 

 159. 



Two chestnuts sometimes better than one. When you 

 trot out that aged honeymoon-honeycomb conundrum tell 'em 

 also that the man who isn't sold for once in his life is sold for 

 his whole life. Page 153. 



'Spects the Vermonters mist it a little on the comb-build- 

 ing question. Presumably the fresh nectar from the fields is 

 at least a little better for comb-building than it can ever be 

 again after it is sealed once. Page 153. 



THREE QUEENS NEAR EACH OTUKR. 



That three young queens should remain near each other 

 some time without coming to a fight I do not consider so very 

 strange. Perhaps they were cold. And I gness B. Ginner's 

 <!uart of bees (or the remnant of them) did not consiiler 

 themselves a colony at all— only as individuals, there because 

 they knew not what else to do with themselves — and so paid 

 no attention to the queens whatever. Page 156. 



CLIPPING SLIGHTLY FOB NEAR-BY MATING. 



I had supposed that clipping a young queen's wing 

 slightly, to prevent her flying away so far to mate, was to 



some extent practical. Mr. J. M. Rankin's experience of 64 

 failures out of 65 is rather in the nature of an extinguisher 

 on that way of conti'olling mating. Page 165. 



SCORING THE SCORE CARD. 



The score card on page 166 affords abundance to think of 

 and talk about. I'd Carrie Nation the "honey-wine" the 

 first thing. 'Spects there is no such thing. All wines from 

 fruit-juices. Name "honey-wine" would be used to cover 

 vile inventions a grade below hard cider, and on a par with 

 the barbarous drinks of the Philippines. They call their 

 pizen-juice wine (vino.) If we must get drunk let's get 

 drunk on something orthodox. 



There seems to be an oversight in giving the single-case 

 display the same pointing as the general di.^play. We read, 

 "Variety 5." This is all right for the general display ; but 

 it is not at all desirable that a twelve-section case should con- 

 tain twelve kinds of honey. Let "Variety " in that place be 

 changed for " Uniformity," unless something more important 

 is thought of. 



I suppose " Purity " in the beeswax class means freedom 

 from dirt. Any impurity of the adulteration sort ought to 

 disqualify altogether. Might not a less ambiguous word than 

 purity be found ? 



I doubt the propriety of putting in the style of observa- 

 tory hive as a minor item toward a premium on a colony of 

 bees. Let any style that shows the interiorwell suffice ; and 

 then let observatory hives have a premium all to themselves, 

 if desirable. 



"Quietness of bees " is a point so important that we dis- 

 like to discard it ; yet at a fair, it is a very tough thing to 

 judge with any sort of justice. One lot will be tolerably 

 quiet, and another lot running wildly, fropi causes not much 

 connected with the normal manners of the bees at home in 

 the apiary. 



Personally, I should prefer to vice-versa the figures in 

 " Quality 26, Attractiveness 50;" but perhaps the brethren 

 will like it as well just as it is. 



\ Questions and Answers. | 



5iX5rwTrT'ri'rwTrT!r>?''fr>rT'r>'eT'r>'r>?rfri'rT^ 



CONDUCTED BY 



UTI. O. O. M.lI^T.ER. Mareago, 122. 



(The Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal office, or to Dr. Miller 



direct, when he will answer them here. Please do not ask the 



Doctor to send answers by mail. — Editor. 1 



Swarming Management. 



I have two colonies of bees that are very strong at this 

 time, but I would like to increase only to three colonies the 

 coming season. As I know that both will swarm, and that 

 early, what do you think of this way of handling them ? 

 Say if No. 1 swarms, hive the swarm, then remove No. 2 

 to a new stand and set the swarm on the old stand of No. 2. 



1 think if this is done in the middle of the day, when a 

 great many field-bees of No. 2 are out, they will return to 

 the old place and enter and help the new swarm by this, 

 and will reduce the colony of No. 2, and will this not pre- 

 vent the swarming of No. 2? Pknn. 



Answer — It may prevent the swarming of No. 2, but 

 not certainly. It will certainly make the swarming of No. 



2 later, if it does not prevent it. 



Italianizing— Other Questions. 



1. Would it be profitable to Italianize, where there are 

 black bees within half a mile of my apiary 7 



2. Would you advise the use of full sheets of founda- 

 tion ? 



3. Is light-brood foundation as good as the medium to 

 use on wired frames ? 



4. Is the Simplicity hive as good as the dovetailed, in 

 the production of comb honey ? 



5. Would you advise larger than an eight-frame hive 

 for comb honey ? 



6. Would you advise the use of an observatory hive ? 



