450 



AMERICAN BEE jOURNAL 



July IS, 1901. 



PCBLISHED 



GEORGE W. YORK S COMPANY 



144 & 146 E rie St., Chicago, 111. 



Entered at the Post-Offlce at Chicago as Second- 

 Class Mail-Matter. 



EDITORIAL STAFF. 



George W. York, - - Editor-in-Chief. 



Prof. A. J. Cook, ) i^a«ois. 



IMPORTANT NOTICES. 



The Subscription Price of this Journal 

 is $1.00 a year, in the United States, Can- 

 ada, and Mexico ; all other countries in the 

 Postal Union, 50 cents a j-ear extra for post- 

 age. Sample cop3' free. 



The Wrapper-Label Date of this paper 

 indicates the end of the month to which 

 your subscription is paid. For instance, 

 "decOl" on your label shows that it is 

 paid to the end of December, 1901. 



Subscription Receipts. — We do not send 

 a receipt for money sent us to pa.v subscrip- 

 tion, but change the date on your wrapper- 

 label, which shows you that the money has 

 been received and duly credited. 



Advertising Rates will be given upon ap- 

 plication. 



National Bee Keepers' Association 



OBJECTS: 

 To promote and protect the interests of its 

 members. 

 To prevent the adulteration of honey. 

 To prosecute dishonest honey-dealers. 



BOARD OF DIRECTORS. 



Thos. G. Newm.-in, 

 g. m. doolittle, 

 W. F. Marks, 



E. WhiTCO! 



W. Z. HuTC 

 A. I. Root, 

 E. T. Abbott, 

 P. H. Elwood, 

 E. R. Root, 



NSON, 



J. M. Hambaugh, 

 C. p. Dadant, 

 Dr. C. C. Miller. 



EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 

 Ernest R. Root, President. 

 R. C. AiKlN, Vice-President. 

 Dr. a. B. Mason, Secretary, Toledo, Ohio. 



Eugene Secor, General Manager and Treas- 

 urer, Forest City, Iowa. 



Membership Dues, $1.00 a year. 



U;^" If more convenient. Dues may be sent 

 to the office of the American Bee Journal, 

 when they will be forwarded to Mr. Secor, 

 who will mail individual receipts. 



A Celluloid Queen-Button is a very 

 pretty thing for a bee-keejjer or honey-seller 

 to wear on his coat-lapel. It often serves to in- 

 troduce the subject of honey, 

 and frequently leads to a 

 sale. 



Note.— One reader writes: 

 " I have every reason to be- 

 lieve that it would be a very 

 good idea for every bee-keeper 

 to wear one [of the buttons! 

 as it will cause people to ask 

 questions about the busy bee, and many a con- 

 versation thus started would wind up with the 

 sale of more or less honey; at any rate it would 

 give the bee-keeper a superior opportunity to 

 enlighten many a person in regard to honey 

 and bees.** 



The picture shown herewith is a reproduc- 

 tion of a motto queen-button that we are fur- 

 nishing to bee-keepers. It has a pin on the 

 underside to fasten it. 



Price, by mail, 6 cents; two for 10 cents; 

 or 6 for 25 cents. Send all orders to the office 

 of the American Bee Journal. 



\ Weekly Budget. I 



■• Mt Wife came pretty near calling nie 

 honey last night." 



• Yes. She called me beeswax.' 



Dr. C. C. Miller, of McHenry Co.. 111., 

 wrote us July 10 : 



•■ 102 degrees in the shade to-day. I don't 

 remember a day so hot before. Neither do I 

 remember so dry* a summer before. Much of 

 the grass looKs as dead as in winter. A very 

 blue time for bee-keepers.'' 



The ArsTRALiAX Bee-Keepers' Review 

 is the latestjcandidate for the favor of bee- 

 keepers. Pity that a journal so neatly gotten 

 up could not have had a name all its own, 

 without the danger of its getting mixed up 

 with a very excellent bee-paper put)lished on 

 this side of the globe. 



Mr. J. T. Haikstox, of Cherokee Natioiij 

 Ind. Ter., wrote us July 9, as follows: 



'• We are having the most disastrous drouth 

 and hot weather ever experienced here. Corn 

 and hay are beyond help, bees are doing 

 nothing, so no surplus honey. 



•■ I was waylaid and shot April 12. my 

 thigh being broken, and also badly cut. I am 

 crippled for life. Six weeks later my little 

 girl, Jennie, had her hand crushed in a feed- 

 mill. It had to be amputated. 



•• I have 175 colonies of bees." 



Surely. Mr. Hairston has more than his 

 share of troubles. All our readers will sym- 

 pathize with him in his many misfortunes. 



Mr. George B. Whitcomb's home apiary 

 is shown on page 455. It will be observed 

 that he has both the unpainted and the 

 painted hives, preferring the former in that 

 excessively wet climate. The stands used for 

 them are the best kind for there, and he 

 thinks the advice given that person in 

 Multnomah County was poor, when he was 

 told that hives on the ground or near it, and 

 covered with isnow, were all right. Mr. W. 

 has seen the snow so full of water there that 

 it would fill the hives and drown the bees. In 

 fact, a neighbor bee-keeper, Mr. Christensen, 

 lost 40 odd colonies just that way. Also an 

 observatory hive containing one comb would 

 not work there, as the nights are too cool at 

 any time of the year. 



Mr. Whitcomb had just bought the apiary 

 of Simon A. Nickerson, situated in Linn 

 County, and spent a few days in knocking 

 out the swarming-fever ; he believed he had 

 succeeded completely. Mr. Nickerson is one 

 of the old subscribers to the American Bee 

 Journal, and has been counted one of the 

 best I bee-keepers in,Oregon in his time, but he 

 has been rapidly failing for the past two 

 years, until now his lower limbs are com- 

 pletely paralyzed, and he is bedfast, being 

 able to move only the upper part of his body, 

 with a cord suspended from the ceiling, to 

 which a handle is fastened. This is sad in- 

 deed. 



Inilooking over Mr. Nickerson's apiary, Mr. 

 Whitcomb can see the history of bee-keeping 



for a number of years past. The majority of 

 his colonies were in modern dovetailed hives 

 of the 8-frame and dummy-board pattern, but 

 a few were in the old 10-frame chamfered- 

 edge A. I. Root pattern of 15 years ago, of 

 which there are 30 or more neatly piled up 

 along the fence. 



The solar waX'Cxtractor is there, and so is 

 the Porter bee-escape ; the Alley queen and 

 drone trap, and numerous other things have 

 been tried, but the best thing Mr. W. has seen 

 for real, downright good service is a pair of 

 frame-tongs. They are like pliers, made just 

 wide enough when open to slip over the top- 

 bar and hold it firmly between two lugs (one 

 in each jaw) that are pressed into the wood 

 when closed ; while one of the jaws is longer 

 than the other, so as to be used in prying 

 apart supers, hive-covers, etc. In fact, he 

 thinks it is the best tool for handling cross 

 bees 'that he ever saw, as with it he can 

 manipulate the frames with one hand while 

 keeping the smoker in the other. 



Mr. a. I. Root is in danger of making 

 trouble for the government. He is not en- 

 tirely satisfied with its course in the liquor 

 problem, and he thinks the Agricultural 

 Department might issue a bulletin about 

 tobacco just as well as about beans, sugar, 

 eggs, etc., giving its value as an article of 

 steady consumption. He says in Gleanings in 

 Bee-Culture : 



I wish I had influence enough with the 

 Agricultural Department at Washington to 

 induce it to publish a bulletin with a heading 

 something like this: 



" Tobacco, and its General Effect on the 

 Human Family. Should its Cultivation and 

 Dissemination be Encouraged or Discour- 

 aged ?" 



Then I should like to have a closing chapter 

 something like this : 



'• The Effect of Tobacco on Children and 

 Young People. Should its Use be Prohibited 

 to those under a certain Age ; If fo, what Age? 

 Also a Consideration of the Cigarette Habit." 



Robert W. Pollet, of Middlesex Co. 

 Mass., writing us June 10, said: 



" I have successfully transferred, united, 

 Italianized, and fed up weak colonies all from 

 items taken from the American Bee Journal, 

 besides wintering bees safely: and, in fact, 

 all the good I know about bees I have studied 

 out of that paper. It is needless to add that 

 I am very much pleased with it." 



Mr. E. E. Hasty, of Lucas Co.. Ohio, wrote 

 us July 5, as follows : 



'•I didn't think, with such bad wintering 

 and bad spring, that such a rush of swarms — 

 the greatest for some years — would ensue. I 

 thought there would be almost no swarming 

 at all. That's the way when we, keep bees. 

 The unexpected happens." 



Queen-Clipping 

 Device Free..,. 



The MoNBTTB Queen-Clippiiijf 

 Device is a fine thing- for use in 

 catching- and clipping- Queens 

 wing-s. We mail it for 25 cents; 

 or will send it FREE as a pre- 

 mium for sending us ONE NEW 

 subscriber to the Bee Journal for 

 a. year at $1.00; or for $1.10 we will 

 mail the Bee Journal one yeai 

 and the Clipping- Device. Address, 



OEORQE W. YORK & COMPANY, 



Chicago, IlL 



