41st YEAR. 



CHICAGO, ILL, OCTOBER 3, 190L 



No, 40. 



I ^ Editorial- ^ I 



A Bee Keepers' Paradise is what 

 Editor Root calls Uvalde Co., Tex., with some 

 other counties in that State and New Mexico. 

 But after having' raised the expectations of 

 prospecting bee-keepers to the highest notch, 

 he lets them drop with a dull thud by saying 

 that Uvalde county is "fearfully overstocked." 



The Buffalo Convention Report we 



expect to begin publishing soon. There were 

 no papers read except at the joint meeting of 

 the poniologists and bee-keepers on the last 

 evening. So, practically, the whole of the re- 

 port will be discussions of questions. This 

 should make it very interesting reading. 



Hive-Covers. — Saw-kerfs on the underside 

 of hive-covers have been successfully used to 

 prevent warping, but Editor Root says that 

 after a thorough trial of such covers they 

 have been abandoned, because in dry climates 

 these saw-cuts favor checking and splitting 

 entirely too much. Even in northern Ohio 

 they give a good deal of trouble. 



Meed of Laws on Bee-Diseases. — On 



page B31, Hon. J. M. Hambaugh, bee-inspec- 

 tor for San Diego Co., Calif., offers some 

 highly important suggestions that should 

 have earnest consideration. 



The careful, up-to-date bee-keeper deserves 

 to be fully protected from his careless, slip- 

 shod neighbors whose bees are more likely to 

 contract deadly disease, and when once con- 

 tracted is harbored and permitted to contami- 

 nate surrounding healthy apiaries. Surely, 

 there should be stringent laws in every State 

 to compel every bee-keeper to aid in the dis- 

 covery of bee-diseases, and when found aid in 

 its complete eradication. This is as much in 

 the interest of infected apiaries as healthy 

 ones. 



Mr. Hambaugh also calls attention to the 

 necessity of issuing a certiBcate from a law- 

 fully appointed inspector, showing the 

 healthy condition of every colony proposed 

 to be removed from one locality to another. 

 This certainly would be a wise provision. It 

 would help in many instances, no doubt, to 

 prevent carrying contagion from place to 

 place. 



Mr. J. M. Rankin, Michigan's alert inspec- 

 tor, has just had an experience in the direc- 

 tion indicated. He examined a lot of hives, 

 combs, etc.. belonging to a bee-keeper at 



Evart, Mich., and finding ample evidences of 

 foul brood, he oflicially ordered the bee- 

 keeper to destroy the disease-infected combs, 

 etc. Instead of obeying the officer of the 

 law, he loaded the stuff on a ear and shipped 

 it to Clyde, 111., near Chicago, where it will 

 likely become a menace to the healthy api- 

 aries in that locality. 



Now, if Illinois had a good foul brood law, 

 and an efficient inspector, this ease would be 

 followed up, and finally be gotten rid of. 



But what kind of a bee-keeper is the man 

 that would ship bee-disease from one State 

 into another, instead of destroying it, espe- 

 cially when ordered to do so by one whose 

 duty and authority it is to clean up such dis- 

 ease before it is spread any further ? The 

 offending bee-keeper deserves the severest 

 condemnation possible by his fellows, and 

 also the complete destruction of his whole 

 apiary if even the slightest trace of foul brood 

 is found therein. Any man who would so 

 wantonly convey disease from place to place, 

 rather than obey a wholesome law, should be 

 held up to the scorn of all good bee-keepers 

 and citizens, and be made to feel to the fullest 

 extent possible the result of such wilful dis- 

 obedience. 



We hope that there may be sufficient agita- 

 tion to secure the much-needed laws In all 

 the States for the protection of bees from 

 contagious diseases. In view of the good 

 work already done by the few State, county 

 and province inspectors of apiaries, it would 

 seem that every State would be able to secure 

 at least one inspector by the passage of a 

 suitable law. 



about 145 sections, the highest average he has 

 had except in IST". It would be just like 

 him to say that he now places a higher value 

 on long tongues than he did. 



The Hive-Tool that suits best at Medina 

 is a putty-knife, says the editor of Gleanings 

 in Bee-Culture, while Dr. Miller says the 

 Muench tool is away ahead of any other tool 

 he has ever tried. Its broad semi-circular 

 blade is easily wedged in under cover or 

 super without marring the wood, and the 

 other end is so constructed that a slight twist 

 forces the frames apart with the exertion of 

 very little strength. 



^ 



Red Clover Honey. — A conversation is 

 reported in (ileanings in Bee-Culture which 

 is supposedly based on fact, from which it 

 appears that a neighbor of G. M. Doolittle's, 

 living two miles distant, finds red clover per- 

 fecting its bloom for the first time in I.t or 20 

 years, and his black bees are not to be seen on 

 it at all, while Mr. Doolittle's yellow beesare 

 just swarming on it. From some colonies 

 Mr. Doolittle took as high as 80 one-pound 

 sections of red-clover honey, while the aver- 

 age yield was not far from 65 sections. The 

 linden came, and made the total average from 

 colonies not interfencl with by queen-rearing 



A Special Encouragement in Queen- 

 Rearing lies close neighbor to the discour- 

 aging fact that we have little or no control of 

 the drones. In order to stimulate to greater 

 effort, it may be well to bring out with some 

 minuteness wherein this encouragement lies. 

 While it is true that drones from neighbor- 

 ing apiaries may meet our young queens, yet 

 where one has a hundred colonies or more, 

 especially if neighboring bees be few, the pre- 

 dominance in numbers of the drones in the 

 home apiary makes the chance fair for some 

 degree of safety from outside interference. 



Let us suppose that we are so situated that 

 outside interference of drones need not be 

 taken into account. Suppose, too, that after 

 close watch and careful record we have found 

 one queen whose workers show marked supe- 

 riority as honey-gatherers. All the better if 

 the queen be of such age that such superiority 

 has been shown in two or more years. The 

 parents of this queen have had characteristics 

 that made such a combination as to result in 

 an offspring superior to either of the parents. 

 Let us call the drone father of our present 

 queen Dl, the queen mother Ql, and desig- 

 nate their drone and queen offspring respec- 

 tively as D2 and Q3. From our superior 

 queen, Q2, will be reared the present season 

 drones and queens that we will call D3 and 

 y3, and it will not be a difficult matter before 

 the close of the season to have a Q3 queen in 

 every colony in the apiary. Next season will 

 then open with an apiary headed by tJ3 

 queens, whose workers will be from fathers 

 that vary from each other, hence the workers 

 will be of varying value, none of them per- 

 haps coming up to the mark of the workers 

 of Q2, but taking the apiary as a whole there 

 will be a noticeable improvement. 



Now as to the rearing of queens next sea- 

 son. If our superior queen, Q2, is still liv- 

 ing, and we are willing to take the risks of 

 inbreeding, we may rear queens from her, or 

 we may obtain a good queen of unrelated blood 

 from elsewhere. In either case, the drones 

 that meet our youug queens will be the same, 

 the sons of the (^3 queeus, and may properly 

 be called D4. Kight in the character of these 

 Dt drones lies our special encouragement. As 

 parthenogenesis prevails among bees, these 

 drones will not be of the same blood as the 

 i|ueen and worker progeny of their mother, 

 but will be of the same blood as the Q3 queens 

 themselves, and consequently of the same 

 blood as the worker progeny of our superior 

 i|ueen (^2. Whatever superiority may have 



