Aug. 8, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



501 



'•The breeder who sells an untested iiiother of long--reach stock 



sells her tor just what shi- is Unfortunatelj', the biiyinj'- of 



(lueens, even from the best of breeders, is something of a loliery; 

 but if one will pay enoug-h, and get tested stock, he then has some 

 reasonable assurance of getting what he orders. The A. I. Root Co. 

 will, if desired, sell tested queens whose bees will have a tongue-reach 

 of a certain specified length— the longer the reach, the higher the 

 price, of course ; and I have no doubt that other breeders will do the 

 same, providing that they learn how to measure the bees' tongues, or 

 get some one who knows how to do it for them. We will undertake 

 to measure the tongues of any bees of our subscribers for ten cents 

 per cage of one dozen bees.'' 



It seems strange that Dr. Miller, or even E. R. Root 

 (who wrote that editorial), can see anything but a semi- 

 advertisement in it, especially as immediately on the eve 

 of this editorial, advertisements of the A. I. Root Co. 

 appeared quoting queens at $10, $15 and $25, according to 

 guaranteed tongue-reach, and thus writing editorials which 

 can be read either as the " calling of a halt " or as an 

 advertisement, is what I called " rubbish," in my article. I 

 do not like to see the reading colums of any paper thus 

 prostituted, and so " spoke right out in meeting " about 

 the matter. If. in any of these matters, I was too caustic, 

 or did not use becoming language. I am sorry, for I do not 

 wish unnecessarily to wound or offend. 



Then Dr. Miller and W. Z. Hutchinson call my atten- 

 tion to the fact that they both "called a halt," the Doctor 

 in " Stray Straws," and Mr. H. in the Review, which is 

 right. But when they come to know that my article was 

 written the first half of April, and that neither April ISth 

 Gleanings nor the April Review reached this post-office till 

 April 20, or later, it will be seen that I had seen neither of 

 these at the time of writing my article. 



Mr. Root seems to think that I am " way off " in think- 

 ing that any "fad" has been the means of wasting 

 " thousands of dollars." Has he forgotten, or has he never 

 read in back volumes of Gleanings, how a top-bar made of 

 J's lumber and sawed only '4 inch thick was pushed ? and 

 how folded-tin bars were, later on, placed between top and 

 bottom bars, in the center, to keep it from sagging? And 

 when thousands and millions of these frames were in use, 

 because Gleanings pushed this thin, narrow top-bar. he 

 "wondered how bee-keepers ever tolerated such a nuisance (?) 

 and told of the awful job it was to pry off upper stories and 

 supers from them 1 Then Gleanings swung around to the 

 other extreme and pushed a top-bar as much too thick (in 

 my opinion) as the other was too thin. And all this time 

 Doolittle was using a top-bar one and one-sixteenth wide by 

 five-sixteenths thick for the Gallup frame, and the same 

 width by seven-sixteenths thick for the Langstroth, and I 

 so use them to-day, and so advocate, and have advocated for 

 the past 30 years, notwithstandihg Mr. Root's thinking that 

 I have changed my views on the subject. And would not 

 the using of millions of such "tolerated nuisances," and 

 the changing over to a thicker nuisance (to say nothing of 

 the vexation resulting from using such), cost up into the 

 thousands of dollars ? 



Again, Mr. Root seems to think that I have been the 

 chief promoter of "the rage for Golden Italians," but not he, 

 nor any one else, can find where I ever advertised them, by 

 circular or in any bee-paper ; and unless I am greatly mis- 

 taken (I have not time to look the matter up now), he can- 

 not find a single word in print, coming from my pen, where 

 I have even mentioned them during the past five years. I 

 once gave what I considered their origin, and once set 

 right some mistakes regarding them, but no one can truth- 

 fully accuse me of "pushing" them. If I had desired to do 

 so. the editorial colums of the Progressive Bee-Keeper have 

 been open to me during the last five years. 



I may be wrong, but it seems to me that there is a vast 

 difference between a contributor or an advertiser " having 

 his say " in a paper, and the editor of the same paper, by 

 foot-notes and editorials, pushing the same thing. With 

 the former, there are other contributors and other adver- 

 tisers to offset the first, but with the latter the editor stands 

 supreme, and can, if he chooses, turn the current of 

 thought in the direction he wishes, without any one eflectu- 

 ally to gainsay in the matter. 



In conclusion, I wish to say that I am not opposed to 

 long-tongued bees, long-winged bees, or bees having large 

 honey-sacs, etc., but I am opposed to the pushing of any of 

 these in a sort of one-sided way, without at the same time 

 trying to draw out the truth in the matter by giving the 

 contrary side an equal chance. 'Tis time enough to push 

 things after they are kticnvn to be right, and, to my mind, 

 a thing should never be pushed by the editor ox publisher of 

 a paper until it is so known. Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



Continued fr 



No. 10. 



Practical Lessons for Beginners in Bee- 

 Culture. 



BY J. D. GEHRING. 



NO drone-brood was found on any but the third and the 

 fifth frames. When Mr. Bond inquired why there was 

 none on the frame between these two, nor on the 

 frames on the outside of the brood-nest, I reminded him of 

 what I had previously told him about giving a new swarm a 

 few frames without full sheets of foundation, for reasons 

 also then stated. 



"This frame to which you direct my special attention," 

 I explained, " serves, better than any other in the hive 

 could, as an illustration of the way my theory works, as 

 applied to the drone question in bee-keeping. 



" You see, here," I continued, as I took the frame in my 

 hand, "how bees will sometimes take advantage of oppor- 

 tunities in their efforts to outwit the intermeddler. and to 

 carry out their intuitive perception of the fitness of things 

 in their household management. Had I given them a frame 

 containing a full sheet of comb foundation, in place of 

 this with a starter only two inches in width, they couldn't 

 have made any drone-comb in it. They can not convert 

 comb foundation into drone-comb — at any rate they have 

 never been known to do it. 



" Well, here is the explanation, Mr. Bond : When I 

 hived that swarm I put only these two frames having start- 

 ers in them into the hive — near the center. Four of the 

 other ten had full sheets of foundation, and four were 

 newly finished comb — not a drone-cell in any of them — 

 taken from another hive, all nearly solid with ripe brood. 

 So, you see, this colony had no chance fo build drone-comb 

 on any of the frames except these two ; and here they tried 

 to make up for it by using nearly the whole space of the 

 frames, below the starters, for that purpose." 



" But I don't understand." remarked Mr. Bond, quizzi- 

 cally, "why you allowed them to rear drones on these two 

 frames when you could have prevented it, just as well as 

 not. Didn't you say that you didn't want any drones 

 here?" 



" Perhaps I did say that," I replied, " and I confess 

 that the whole matter has a queer look — must have to you. 

 But the contradictions all disappear when I say : I forgot 

 about those two frames, otherwise I would have exchanged 

 them for drone-proof frames before the bees had time to 

 build the drone-comb. It is true that I don't want these 

 drones ; neither do I want any more to hatch out in my 

 apiary this summer. There are plenty on hand now to 

 answer the only practical purpose that a sensible bee-keeper 

 rears drones for. 



"But, let me tell you, Mr. Bond, the regulating or 

 controlling of the drone-business in an apiary of even 20 or 

 30 colonies, is, I believe, the most difficult task a bee-keeper 

 can put upon his business program. It demands eternal 

 vigilance to make the problem a success. It's a light 

 against nature, and therefore against many obstacles ; 

 some of them unknown until learned by experience, and 

 nearly all of them hard to overcome. 



"One of the most serious of the obstacles has just 

 been pointed out by intimation when I said I forgot about 

 these two frames. If every bee-keeper who tries to climb 

 to the top of the business had a good, reliable memory, 

 instead of a first-class forgettery, that alone would go half 

 way, at least, toward success in the matter of regulating 

 the production of drones by the bees." 



"But I don't understand." remarked Mr. Bond, "why 

 you should go to so much trouble to prevent drone-increase 

 if, as you say, all the harm drones do is, that they eat 

 honey and don't work." 



"Mr. Bond," I replied, impressively, "it is honey I 

 keep bees for. As far as drones are a help to me in getting 

 the largest possible yield each year, I tolerate them, and 

 don't interfere with the bees in their efforts to produce 

 them. But when I know that my bees are rearing more 

 drones than are needed for the only legitimate purpose, I 

 am disposed to interfere, because I know that the honey 

 eaten by useless drones is lost property. Besides, all the 

 drones in a hive that are not reallj' needed are a nuisance, 

 because they are in the way of the workers during busy 

 limes." 



" But," queried Mr. iiond, mischievously, "if bees have 

 intuitive sense — as you have been trying to convince me — 

 how can you make out that they don't know, intuitively, 

 how many drones they really ought to have ?" 



" Mr. Bond," I replied, " bees have intuitive sense 



