American Hee Journal 



February. ISIS 



great help in the apiary, condemned 

 others that were not so perfect. He 

 thought that a good wire imbedder 

 (electrical) was a good thing. He gave 

 the practice of having extracted honey 

 tanlvs in a room below the extracting 

 room (basement) a "black eye," said 

 honey should be pumped up and stored 

 In the attic where it was dry and 

 warm. He mentioned a new bee candy 

 which was suitable for wintering bees 

 and shipping bees without combs. The 

 formula of the candy was as follows: 

 7 pounds granulated sugar, 1% pounds 

 liquid glucose, li/i pint water, % tea- 

 spoon cream tartar. Let come to a 

 boiling heat of 238 degrees P, mixture 

 to be worked on a slab. 



Objections were raised by bee-keep 

 ers to the use of glucose in the candy. 

 Naples, N. Y. 



^♦^ 



Big Horn Basin of Wyoming 



BY B. F. SMITH, JR. 



Upon request, I am going to tell 

 what I know of this locality. Not both 

 sides of it however, but just the bright 

 side. What I might consider the dark 

 side, no doubt a great many readers of 

 the "Old Reliable " might consider the 

 bright. 



The spring of 1911, April 26, we 

 landed in Cowley with a car of house- 

 hold goods and 17 colonies of bees. 

 We were one week on the road, travel- 

 ing 1110 miles from eastern Nebraska. 

 The bees were very weak, but we com- 

 menced feeding, and all of them re- 

 sponded nicely and were in good shape 

 when the honey-llovv started. The flow 

 continued until some time in Septem- 

 ber, and we harvested .32.50 pounds of 

 honey, and made three divisions and 

 no swarms. The bees were wintered 

 in chaff hives, and all but six came 

 through nicely. Three smothered by 

 chewing a hole in a sawdust cushion, 

 and the sawdust blocked the entrance. 

 Two starved to death, and one died 

 without any apparent reason. This left 

 14, to which were added by purchase 18 

 colonies in 8-frame hives. The colo- 

 nies purchased were in movable-frame 

 hives, but combs were built on starters, 

 and looked as if they had not been 

 moved for several years. 



June 10, 1912, we placed all the brood 

 with the exception of one comb in 

 each colony over an excluder. Fifty 

 Italian queens arrived June 18; 50 

 divisions were made June 19, and on 

 June 20 all the brood in the original 32 

 colonies was again placed over ex- 

 cluders. Fifty more queens arrived 

 June 29, and another .50 divisions were 

 made June 29. The first divisions were 

 given two combs of brood and one of 

 honey, as the flow did not start until 

 June 21. The bees built up very rap- 

 idly, and the last of July we commenced 

 to extract from the original stock. Of 

 the 100 divisions made more than 90 of 

 them were successful. But 2 or 3 

 queens were missing upon examination 

 .5 days after making the divisions. 

 About Aug. 10, it became apparent 



that the first divisions were getting 

 crowded. We had to send a hurry-up 

 order for supplies, and extract one or 

 two combs from the brood-nest. We 

 ordered .50 full-depth bodies, and gave 

 all of them full sheets of foundation, 

 but even this was not enough. We went 

 to the wood-pile and put in use some 

 200 frames that we had thrown away. 

 We used starters in these, as we ex- 

 pected to discard them again. We 

 helped the weak ones, and gave the 

 strong foundation to draw out. It 

 looked as though we would soon be 

 short of room again, but the last of 

 August we had some cool weather and 

 the storing stopped. 



We have for our summer's work 140 

 colonies which we expect to winter on 

 the summer stands. They are all in 

 good shape except .5, which we were 

 re-queening just as the cold weather 

 started, and do not think the queens 



ever mated. Ordinarily we have the 

 finest weather up to Thanksgiving, but 

 this year it has been cold and raw a 

 great share of the time. We have saved 

 about 200 combs for feed, and our crop 

 is about 7<iO0 pounds of extracted honey 

 and 200 pounds of corob. The flow is 

 without a break from June until frost, 

 and even after frost the bees gather on 

 nice days until we get a very hard 

 freeze. Bees can be bought here for 

 $•5.00 in home-made hives, and should 

 pay for themselves the first year, be- 

 sides providing a new colony. 



Our honey-producing plants are 

 sweet clover, alfalfa, buffalo-berry, wild 

 currant and gooseberry, and some years 

 the wild licorice is an abundant yielder. 

 The honey, when produced in new 

 combs, is very clear and heavy, and we 

 think it is the z>(ry best honey on the 

 market. 



Cowley, Wyo. 



"Grease-Weed and a S16.30 Apiary. : 

 An apiary of 140 colonies, situated in an irrigated district of Wyoming. The natural growth 



from a Sin.So investment. Thirty-two colonies, spring of lii:. increased to no. 



Bees in Switzerland 



BY ADRIAN GETAZ. 



The information given by Mr. Wid- 

 mer, page 345 of the December num- 

 ber of this magazine, concerning Swiss 

 bee-keeping is very interesting and 

 correct. There is however there, as 

 well as here, quite a difference in locali- 

 ties. Dr. Miller and others have also 

 noted some difference between the 

 Swiss methods of bee-keeping and 

 ours. These raise naturally some im- 

 portant questions. 



ITALIANS VERSUS BLACKS. 



Not only in Switzerland, but also in 

 some other parts of Europe, the gen- 

 eral opinion is that, taken altogether, 

 the black bees are better than the Ital- 

 ians. I think that is an error, and the 

 apparent inferiority is due to the con- 

 ditions in which they were placed. 



In the first place, the prolificness of 

 a queen is very often -injured by trans- 



portation through the mail, and the 

 entire race is blamed merely because 

 of an accidental circumstance. Then 

 there is the question of mating. 

 Throughout the whole of Europe the 

 apiaries are small, numerous, and very 

 close together compared to America. 

 Furthermore, the majority of hives are 

 skeps or box-hives, in which drones 

 are reared in immense quantities; the 

 "advanced bee-keepers " destroy their 

 drones as much as possible, not want- 

 ing any " useless consumers." There- 

 suit is what should be expected. 

 The queens reared, mate -\-ith common 

 drones of the neighborhood, and in a 

 few years all traces of Italian blood 

 disappear. 



The third objection has been made 

 here as well as there, very often. The 

 Italian bees swarm too much, or rear 

 brood at the wrong time, or something 

 like that. This instead of an objection 

 is an indication of the superiority of 

 the Italian bees, and of the inferioritj- 

 not onlv of the black bees, but of the 



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Semi for Annual Catnlos which « ill tell I 

 yon who is yonr nearest n is tril» liter. I 

 <;. B. l-ewis Coniiinnv. AVatertown. >> is. I 



