584 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Sept. 12 1901. 



enough of the upper part to make a snug fit in the frame. 

 If, however, there is drone-comb at the lower part and none 

 above, of course you will discard the lower part. 



3. There is as much danger of robbing at three rod^ 

 apart as three feet. 



S. It will need great care, especially if done late this 

 season. If the hives stand close together the danger will 

 be less. 



5. Don't try to unite and transfer at one operation two 

 colonies that are a considerable distance apart. Get them 

 located together first. 



6. Your idea is all right, only moving at night will not 

 be any different from moving in daytime. You can't fool 

 the bees by that trick. But you may shut up at night the 

 hive to be moved, keeping it shut up for 24 hours (look out 

 you don't smother them I, then move them to the new place 

 at once, or any time within the 24 hours, and pound on the 

 hive so as to stir them up thoroughly before opening. 



7. It is never too late to build comb if it is needed, and 

 the reason your bees build none is without doubt because 

 they need none. Even if you take a comb right out of the 

 middle of the brood-nest, the vacancy will be allowed to 

 remain if they have so much room elsewhere that they are 

 not desirous of more. 



8. No, in rare cases where there is special reason for it, 

 the}' may build comb in winter. 



9. Almost any time at your own convenience. If you 

 use strings the bees will remove it themselves, although it 

 will be a help to them if you find it convenient to remove 

 it. If you use fine wire, it will do no harm if you leave it 

 for weeks, so you can remove it any time you happen to 

 have the hive open. Either wire or strings may be removed 

 just as soon as the bees have fastened the combs in the 

 frames just a little. In the working season, this will be in 

 a day or two. It is a good plan to look at the work in a day 

 or two, for sometimes the combs will not be located cen- 

 trally in the frames, and you can easily crowd into place 

 before thej' are too firmly fastened in. 



10. Yes, and no. The part of the comb that is used for 

 brood-rearing will be about the same when turned upside 

 down, but the deep cells in the upper part of the frame 

 that may have been used for storing honey will be found to 

 slant so much that the downward slant will be objection- 

 able when reversed. It will also give the bees some trouble 

 to cut down these deep cells to the proper depth for brood- 

 rearing. So it will be well to try to keep the combs right 

 side up, but if it makes much inconvenience to do so put 

 them in any way that comes hand}-. 



11. As already mentioned, if you shut up the bees for 

 24 hours it will greatly help to make them stay in the new 

 place. If the bees are made queenless a day or two before 

 moving, they will stay better in the new place. When the 

 change is made, make the old spot look as unlike home as 

 possible by taking away the stand, and perhaps making 

 other changes. Or, you may do nearly the reverse of this. 

 Leave on the old stand a hive with a frame of comb in it 

 for any returning bees to cluster on, and in the evening 

 return them to the new place. You will not need to repeat 

 this many evenings. 



"The Hum of the Bees in the Apple-Tree Bloom " is 

 the name of the finest bee-keeper's song — words by Hon. 

 Eugene Secor and music by Dr. C. C. Miller. This is 

 thought by some to be the best bee-song yet written by Mr. 

 Secor and Dr. Miller. It is, indeed, a " hummer." We can 

 furnish a single copy of it postpaid, for 10 cents, or 3 copies 

 for 25-cents. Or, we will mail a half-dozen copies of it for 

 sending us one new yearly subscription to the American 

 Bee Journal at SI. 00. 



Please send us Names of Bee-Keepers who do not now 



get the American Bee Journal, and we will send them sam- 

 ple copies. Then you can very likely afterward get their 

 subscriptions, for which work we offer valuable premiums 

 in nearly every number of this journal. You can aid much 

 by sending in the names and addresses when writing us on 

 other matters. 



Queenle Jeanette is the title of a pretty song in sheet 

 music size, written by J. C. Wallenmeyer, a musical bee- 

 keeper. The regular price is 40 cents, but to close out the 

 copies we have left, we will mail them at 20 cents each, as 

 long as they last. 



^ The Afterthought. % 



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

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



TRYING TO CORRECT POPULAR TERMINOLOGY. 



No. Prof. Cook, it's entirely a waste of energy to try to 

 make the general pubiic quit saying '• worms" and " bugs " 

 for larvie and beetles. To give up the effort is the only sen- 

 sible thing that can be done — excepting of course in distinctly 

 scientific papers. The people have won a great many such 

 fights with specialists — the betting on their side 100 to 1. 

 The people love short, smoothly-sounding words ; and 

 " larvte" is " out of court" to begin with, by its un-English 

 look and sound. Worse than all, many folks take a revengeful 

 delight in using words that they know scientists " froth at the 

 mouth" about, to pay them up for the jaw-crackers they have 

 made us, and which we all have to mouth because there is no 

 alternative word. Deep and penitential reform will have to 

 begin with the Solons themselves before the people will seri- 

 ously lhi?ik of reforming. Page 470. . 



MOVING BEES TO BUCKWHEAT FIELDS. 



F. Greiner has a decided " method " in getting bees to the 

 buckwheat fields. One would be tempted to thin'K it would 

 run'olT the track at the same point, and be less satisfactory 

 than the old " just move 'em " method ; but his assurance that 

 he finds it an improvement, and can recommend it to others, 

 should go a good way. (Forced swarms carried on empty 

 combs, reuniting later or not reuniting later according to cir- 

 cumstances, and according to one's desires in regard to 

 increase.) Page 484. 



HIGH VALUE OF QUEERS DEPENDS ON THE OWNER. 



As to the $200 queen racket, I guess I won't say much — 

 just stand by and laugh. yes, there's one thing I will say. 

 The real cash value of an extra queen depends most of all on 

 who has her. Page 484. 



THE BLACK BEE AND CAREFUL BREEDING. 



Black bee never coddled, and fussed with, and " bred" as 

 the Italian bee has been. You're right about that, Mr. Thad- 

 deus Smith. If somebody would breed out their miserable 

 habit of running down and dropping in little bunches from 

 the comb, the black bee would be an admirable and desirable 

 variety. "Spects the real gains of bee-breeding are mostly in 

 the future (if anywhere), and may be the black bee will get 

 an even chance yet. Page 486. 



BEES TOO LONG QUEENLESS. 



So the circumstances may be such that bees left too long 

 ([ueenless before giving a cell get so excited and lunatic on the 

 subject that they will all take their young queens and go when 

 said queens do emerge. We will do well to make a note of it. 

 I doubt somewhat whether they waited for wedding-tlight. as 

 Dr. Miller suggests. I may be quite wrong; and anyway 

 that is not important. Page 488. 



MULBERRY HONEY. 



Fruit honey has a dreadful reputation for killing bees in 

 winter ; nevertheless a fruit 87 percent sugars, and affect- 

 ing the human palate as a pure sweet, may deserve further 

 trial. Would have to go it pretty strong in raising mulberries 

 else the birds would harvest them for you. Say, try them in 

 Southern California, where there is no wintering problem 

 except to ward off starvation. Destroy the brush surround- 

 ing the bee-ranch and cover the hillside with mulberry bushes. 

 Then when a famine year comes tell the bees to go. harvest tor 

 themselves. Page 493. 



SOME "hot" POETRY' REVIEWED. 



If it were a youth publishing a poem for the first time I'd 

 have mercy, but (having a little of the David and Goliath 

 spirit) I'm going to go for Eugene Secor as he stands on page 

 514. 



" And flowers to yield the dainty drop 



Which heat and drouth have caused to dry up." 



That is not doggerel; it's prose. The writer should have 

 taken timely warning from the fate of Stenog, whose sin was 

 smaller than this one. Usually false rhyme and lame metre 

 and reckless changes of form go in company with emptiness 



